Confrontation Hands-On Preview

Engaging tactical RPGs are a dime a dozen this generation. Especially so when it comes to ones set in a fantasy realm rich in lore. Now lore is something of an attraction for me, and Confrontation looks quite promising. Developed by Cyanide Studio and based on the miniature role-playing board game of the same name from the now defunct Rackham Entertainment, Confrontation seems to be a pretty nice blend of active time action and deep tactical role-playing mechanics, complete with a rich and fantastic lore to back the setting up.

Confrontation is set in the fantasy universe of Aarklash. Consumed by Rag'norok, the realm is split into four factions: the Griffin, Scorpion, Wolf and the Jackal, with the Griffin and Scorpion waging war against each other for decades since Rag'norok's prologue. Players take on the role of a group of elite warriors from among the Griffin, who are sent behind enemy lines to put a stop to the Scorpion's evil plans.

Taking control of my newfound party, it was a relatively simple affair navigating the labyrinthian battlefields. Controls are similar to most games that fall under the same genre. You can click on a character to select him or her, or drag your mouse over your party to select all, or certain units. Right-clicking will send them to the desired location or target.

Enemy units populate each map and encounters are an interesting mix of real-time and good old pause-and-play action. Fogs of war will shroud the map in darkness, only revealing the surrounding area around your party, making exploration a tricky affair. That said, exploration is rewarded.Grey Pneumatic is a world supplier of impactsockets for the heavy duty, When you encounter an enemy party, pre-empting them is a generally sound strategy. However, get too close and they'll quickly pre-empt you.

The pause-and-play combat system allows queuing of attacks, spells and whatnot. It's as simple as holding doGOpromos offers a wide selection of promotional items and personalized gifts.wn spacebar. Doing so brings up a command menu where you can quickly select your unit and queue up your commands. Each party member has their own unique class spells and stringing them together is a pretty exciting affair. It's also worth noting that timing these combos can make all the difference in a desperate battle for survival. It's satisfying to say the least to witness a pre-emptive stun from Zelia, while a simultaneous buff from Darius boosts your party's survivability, followed by attack buffs and long ranged focus attacks from Lothaire and Lanwys.

Paying attention to what's going on with the enemy party is just as important as planning and timing your own attacks. Enemy units that are about to attack are surrounded by colour-coded auras. Red auras signify high damage spells, while green auras spell annoying healing moves. Take note of these and you can easily negate the enemy's next move. Anticipation and counter-attacking the enemy's moves are part-and-parcel of Confrontation's tactical edge.Welcome to the Lilla beddinges google satellite map! That said, it means that you're in for a very slow-paced experience. It's like chess. You know, with spells and blood.

The battle system also comes with a relatively simple, if a little uninspired, character progression system where you can invest points to upgrade attributes, skills, equipment and armour. Uninspired may sound disappointing, but what's there works well and makes sense. The flexibility and customization was a nice surprise too. Characters are equipped with two weapon sets and can switch between them on-the-fly. So not only are you able to upgrade character attributes and skills, but weapon and armour proficiency as well.

I mentioned earlier that exploration is rewarded. You will be able to upgrade to higher tiered weapons and armour passives by scavenging the battlefield for shiny magic glyphs. These passive abilities come in quite handy and benefits your characters with party-wide buffs, be they armour, accuracy, magic, or attack buffs. Unlike most role-playing systems that accommodate freedom over choice,This page provides information about 'werkzeugbaus; Confrontation's ability trees are just that, trees that branch into two paths where choosing one passive within a level tier will forfeit the other. It may put off the more contemporary role-playing fans, but it's nice to see Cyanide stick to their guns.Welcome to the Lilla beddinges google satellite map!

Donor In Historic Hand Transplant Revealed

A New Hampshire woman who made the heartbreaking decision to donate her husband's hands and other organs, is identifying him publicly for the first time, four months after his hands were successfully transplanted onto Richard Mangino, 65, of Revere.

The October operation at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital was the first successful double hand transplant ever done in New England.

Mangino, a married father of three grown sons and grandfather to two boys, lost all four limbs a decade earlier when sepsis, a dangerous infection, ravaged his body. The sepsis was the result of a misdiagnosed kidney stone.

Mangino's story has been widely reported,Hobby Silicone for mold making moldmaking , but the donor's widow, Jodi Lloyd, has not spoken publicly until now.

She told NewsCenter 5's Liz Brunner she is adjusting to her new dual role, as both mother and father to their two young sons.

"I'm going to be OK. I'm a survivor," Lloyd told Brunner. "But the children, Carson's only five and Cullen's 11. It really saddens me that they're going to grow up without their dad."

Transplant Donor Revealed Her husband, Steven, was just 43, when without warning last October, he suffered a massive brain bleed.

"We woke up Saturday morning, everything was fine, the kids were playing the Wii in the living room and we were in the bathroom and he grabbed his head and said 'something's not right.' That was the last thing he said to me."

He was rushed to the closest hospital, then transferred to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, where doctors ran medical tests and determined there was little hope.

Surgery, doctors told Jodi Lloyd, would not help her husband's chance of survival. He died two days later, one day after his 44th birthday.

"When they told me, I just couldn't, I couldn't believe it, and I just kept saying, 'Can't you fix him? Can't you fix him?'" she said.

Lloyd said she and her husband had never discussed organ donation during their 23-year relationship. Her husband was not an organ donor.My favourite city councillor,You can find best mouldengineeringsolution china manufacturers from here!

"Even though he and I didn't discuss it, I knew he would be fine about it," she said,Grey Pneumatic is a world supplier of impactsockets for the heavy duty, "Because he helped everybody. He was an incredible person. He was so giving and so helpful to so many people."

She made the decision to donate her husband's lungs, kidney, liver and skin.

Steven's heart was not viable for transplantation.

Then employees at the New England Organ Bank approached Jodi with a surprising request, would she consider donating her husband's hands and forearms?

"When I got the call from the organ bank about hands, I was taken aback.You can find best china electronicplasticmoulds manufacturers from here! I didn't even know they did hand transplants,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings?" she said.

She said she thought about the request for a day and consulted Steven's parents, ultimately agreeing to the request.

"He was so talented with his hands. I thought you know, why not? I made the decision to donate the rest of his organs, why not donate his hands?"

Valentine's Day is for lovers... of chocolate

Debbie Kingsbury sifted through her well-organized assortment of chocolate candy molds – letters, pops and holiday themes – and selected one to make a heart-shaped box. Her wheels were turning as she thought about ways to use it – a way to make someone's Valentine's Day extra special. The mold is similar, she said, to one that she once used to create a specially-ordered chocolate jewelry box for a gentleman in which to present a diamond engagement ring.

Kingsbury, the owner of Debbie's Specialty Cakes, runs a cozy bakery - fully-licensed and certified – that is attached to her home in Union. She is well known for her artfully-designed cakes,Soma cubepuzzle Muscle Tissue Relaxants Before proselytizing any of the plans, which she has been making for 30 years, but Kingsbury is also trying to become as well-known for her specialized chocolates. She hosts open houses at Easter and Christmas to display and sell her confections.

“Not very many people, I feel,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? know that I do this,” said Kingsbury, who explained that she is trying to expand her market. “I don't know how to reach people.”

Her boxed confections come in a variety of types, including sugar-free, turtles and chocolate-covered cherries. “Turtles were very big this last Christmas,” said Kingsbury.

The work station was scattered with individual chocolate edibles: chocolate-covered, crispy-rice hearts; chocolate-covered pretzels; cute candy frogs (a.k.a. “Herbie's Toadies and Midnight Croakies”); and solid chocolate hearts. The chocolate possibilities seemed endless as she demonstrated some of the other ingredients she uses. Fondant, caramel, toffee, malt, nuts, cookies, glitters, sprinkles and a hand-crafted touch make each and every chocolate unique and personal.

Using her creativity, 25 years of chocolate experience and her stock of ingredients, Kingsbury is something like a mad-scientist, cottage-industrialist who is constantly creating and defining her chocolates. “This is where we melt the chocolate down,” said Kingsbury, as she opened the door to an antique oven - as if opening the lid of a treasure chest. “This oven is at a constant 100 degrees.”

It was filled with bowls and containers of white, milk and semi-sweet chocolate. It was a chocolate-lover's dream come true. “The chocolate that we use is a gourmet chocolate,This is our brand new chickencoop we made.” said Kingsbury,Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? who explained that she periodically travels to a bakery supplier located in Providence, R.I., to purchase chocolate and other ingredients in bulk. “I buy it in 25-pound boxes,You can find best china electronicplasticmoulds manufacturers from here!” said Kingsbury, which she said is the amount she would use for a Valentine's Day open house. By comparison, a Christmas open house would require 100 pounds of chocolate; Easter, 150 pounds.

As she spoke, Kingsbury transferred milk chocolate into the heart-box mold. She then spooned milk and white chocolate into elegant, heart-shaped lollipop molds. Once set, she carefully popped them out of the molds, and hand-decorated each one, using iridescent powders until the edibles resembled porcelain keepsakes.

“I like to create, I like pretty things,” said Kingsbury. “I like to make something attractive.”

From cute to glamorous, whimsical to traditional, each chocolate that Kingsbury creates is individually-decorated and specially-packaged. She takes special orders and works with customers to create personalized confections and cakes.

Kingsbury said that customers who call, leave a message and request a chocolate order by Feb. 12 may still obtain candies in time for Valentine's Day. She also said that she will lease cake pans to customers who would like to create their own cakes, but who do not want to buy a specialty cake pan.

Cardboard piles up outside Glen Rock Recycling Center

A sizeable heap of post-holiday cardboard and miscellaneous paper debris was dumped on the ground at the borough Recycling Center last Saturday by residents unaware it was closed at noon that day.

The residents were evidently surprised to learn of the shortened hours, despite two borough website notifications in December, and the apparent posting of a sign at the center's entrance that either blew away or was torn off. The curtailed schedule for the two days had not been included in the printed borough calendar for 2011.

As of Monday, the pile of cardboard, wrapping paper and other debris had been cleaned up by borough workers.

Residents of Doremus Avenue, across from the center, said they saw people entering the facility and,Credit Card Processing and merchantaccount. in the absence of personnel, dumping debris on the ground. After police were notified of what was happening, an officer remained at the entrance, explaining to arriving residents that the center had been closed early as scheduled, as part of the New Year's weekend.

Later in the day, local residents said they saw some people tossing items over the locked gate and leaving.

Councilwoman and Public Works Chair Mary Jane Surrago said that notice of the noon closings on both Dec. 24 and Dec.Provides custom and promotionalusbs flash drive memory. 31 had been posted a week before Christmas. A follow-up notice, reiterating the 8 a.m. to noon hours on Dec.The tmj is a small joint located in front of the ear where the skull and lower jaw meet. 31, went up on the website on Tuesday, Dec.Choose from our large selection of cableties, 27.

"There was also a sign posted at the center to notify residents that it was closed," said Surrago. "Whether it was ripped off or blown off we don't know.EvoEnergy is a leading installer of solarpanels for homeowners and businesses across the UK.

"We also have to remember that the borough arranged for an extra cardboard pickup on the Wednesday after Christmas and many, many residents took advantage of it," she said. "We did this for the convenience of our residents."

One Doremus Avenue homeowner who observed the activity at the center that day noted that she and her husband were aware beforehand that the center's hours would be abbreviated, and expressed concern that residents would dump loose debris on the ground, even out of frustration.

"Our concern is that people were just dumping cardboard on the ground," said resident Cathie Enright. "At one point they were going in behind the gate, but after police relocked it, people just threw their things over the gate, or just left it on the side of the driveway.

"What they fail to realize is that it (debris) blows about with the wind, and at times ends up in our yard or in people's bushes across the street, and it is an eyesore," Enright said.

She added that this past Monday evening, a pizza box left at the center by "some teenagers walking through there" wound up in her driveway. "When the center is open, that cardboard would be crushed," she said. "I really don't believe the intent of the people who put that there was for me to have to deal with it. But they really need to stop dumping when the center is closed - that's all we are asking."

Enright said that she and her husband were aware that Recycling Center hours would be abbreviated on both Saturdays, and that the information was posted on the borough website.

"Maybe the people don't check the website, but it was a holiday weekend so I expected hours to be shortened," she said. "The residents apparently feel it should have been open, but the workers need to have holiday time off just like the rest of us."

Surrago called the situation "another reminder for our staff to keep communication with our residents in the forefront of their minds as they do their daily jobs."

She referred to the council's ongoing effort to broaden its portfolio of communication tools to get information to residents and promote improved dialogue. In addition to website content upgrades, Council President Pamela Biggs spearheaded a recent drive to capture residents' email addresses, for the purpose of "blast" email and text notifications when called for.

"Posting to the website is good, but we also have to keep thinking of the other resources that are available to us to communicate with residents," Surrago said.

U.S. solar companies urge SolarWorld drop China case

"The severe tariffs SolarWorld seeks would have a very damaging effect on the solar industry in the United States and would fundamentally undermine many years of effort by all of us who care about the future of solar power," the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) said in a letter to SolarWorld President Gordon Brinser.

"In simple dollar terms, your petition threatens the planned installation of solar electric power systems in the amount of $11 billion in 2012 and the potential installation of $60 billion currently in the total pipeline," the group said in the letter signed by CASE President Jigar Shah.

Shah, who founded the solar services company SunEdison, argued that a 40 percent drop in solar panel prices between 2006 and 2011 has helped spur an eight-fold increase in demand for solar energy over the same period.

"By asking government to interfere and artificially increase the price (equivalent to putting on a high tax) will only hinder the deployment, cost thousands of jobs, reduce our energy security and further negatively impact an already shaky economy," Shah said in the letter.

Brinser, in an emailed statement, dismissed the letter "as inappropriate bluster from Jigar Shah, who speaks on behalf of the Chinese manufacturers. Mr. Shah and these Chinese manufactures are well aware that their illegal trade practices are harming the U.S. economy and causing thousands of good manufacturing jobs to be lost."

CASE said its 145 member companies employ over 14,000 solar professionals across every major region and in more than two dozen states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, North Carolina, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

In a separate interview, Kevin Lapidus, a senior vice president at SunEdison, said CASE was also beginning an effort to persuade the Obama administration the best way to resolve the case was through a negotiated solution with China.

He drew a comparison with a dispute between the United States and Canada over softwood lumber. In that case, U.S. industry also alleged unfair trade practices and the two governments eventually negotiated a deal to govern trade in the sector.

SolarWorld is the U.S. arm of SolarWorld AG, one of Germany's largest solar products manufacturer. It accuses its Chinese competitors of receiving illegal government subsidies and selling in the United States at unfairly low prices.The temporomandibular joint is the joint of the jaw and is frequently referred to as tmj.

Along with six other U.S. solar energy companies who have chosen to remain anonymous, SolarWorld filed a case in October asking the U.Examining the options for UK webmasters looking for third partymerchantaccount for credit card processing.S. Commerce Department to set duties of more than 100 percent on Chinese-made solar cells and panels.

Brinser said his coalition was supported by more than 150 associate members from 14 states employing over 11,000 workers.Database of chinaceramictile Manufacturers,

The U.S. International Trade Commission voted 6-0 this month to allow the case to proceed and for the Commerce Department to announce preliminary duties early next year.

It would be extraordinary for SolarWorld to withdraw its petition having cleared that early hurdle.

But CASE, which includes many companies that install solar panels and have benefited from a 40-percent drop in prices over the past five years, argued it would be in the best interest of the overall U.S. solar industry for SolarWorld to do that.Shop our quality wallmirrorshopping selection and save up to 30%!

"CASE's membership is representative of 97-98 percent of America's solar industry, as the large majority of all U.S. solar industry jobs are downstream of solar panel manufacturing in project development, logistics, construction and installation," the group said.The Zentai Project is a group of people who go out in public wearing zentai suits,

The coalition also warned that imposing duties on solar products from China could ignite a trade war.

Training Center’s Pier 3 to undergo $2M in repairs

Coast Guard Training Center Cape May is undergoing a major pier-side rehabilitation project to better support the Coast Guard’s aging legacy ships moored here.

Training Center Cape May serves as the homeport to Coast Guard Cutter Vigorous and Coast Guard Cutter Dependable providing critical logistical and support services in order to keep the aging ships deployed. The $2.28 million rehabilitation project will improve the stability and infrastructure at Pier 3 where the two ships are currently moored and serviced.

“We strive to provide the highest level of support to our tenant commands to ensure they have the resources they need to successfully execute their mission,” said Capt.This page describes the term usbmemorydrive flash drive and lists other pages on the Web where you can find additional information. Bill Kelly, commanding officer of Training Center Cape May.

Both the Vigorous and the Dependable are critical to the Coast Guard’s myriad of missions.We are porcelaintiles specialists and are passionate about our product - the most durable, Medium endurance cutters like the Vigorous and Dependable are built for multi-week offshore patrols including operations requiring enhanced communications,There are 19 polishedtiles available, and helicopter and pursuit boat operations, which provide a key capability for homeland security operations at sea.

For example, the crew of the Cutter Vigorous, which has been on patrol since Oct. 28, has already saved three lives and aided the interdiction and repatriation of 172 Haitian migrants. The Dependable crew has been on the frontlines of the Coast Guard’s marine fisheries mission and has conducted more than 280 fisheries boardings in the Northern Atlantic in 2011, which protects critical living marine resources and ensures the safety of life at sea.

However, both Vigorous and Dependable are part of the Reliance Class of Coast Guard cutters that were commissioned in the late 1960s. Because they are aging platforms, the cutters require more maintenance and logistical support to meet the demands of frontline operations.

The Vigorous most recently underwent a major dockside availability at Training Center Cape May to repair several of the ship’s engineering components.Most people get their information on how to loseweightfastonsale from TV. The Dependable is scheduled to undergo an extensive dockside availability in the summer to repair numerous auxiliary systems aboard the ship.

Pier 3 at Training Center Cape May is a critical component of those repair processes providing a stable and reliable work platform for the crews to maintain their legacy assets. The rehabilitation project will encase several piles, which are the foundation of the pier, in concrete. This concrete casing will reverse damage done by marine life that has bored into the wooden piles at the waterline.Serving Australia with a large range of decorative wallmirrorshop in our Sydney store. Several steel piles will also be installed in the pier in order to reinforce mooring points for the ships.

Rehabilitation to Pier 3 is aimed at providing a more stable mooring platform for these cutters conduct maintenance and repairs. The current piles that sustain the mooring load of the 210-foot cutters are too eroded to repair, so they are being replaced with steel piles.

The pier is currently eroding and failing at several of the critical mooring points, which puts the cutters at risk of breaking free of its mooring.

The current fleet of Coast Guard cutters is from 30 to 45 years old, constituting one of the oldest fleets in the world while being one of the busiest, suffering equipment failures that impact, on a regular basis, our ability to do the job America requires.

The next set of piles will be driven after Cutter Vigorous heads out on patrol. The scheduled completion date for these repairs is June.

Little by little, rural Mercedes family pushes ahead

Light cracks through the walls of the Arguelles family home.

It’s cold tonight. Real cold. Colder than it has been in months.This is interesting cubepuzzle and logical game. Cold enough to see your breath inside.

Virginio Arguelles sits at the table beside his wife, Betzabel.There are 19 polishedtiles available, Both don sweatshirts and stocking caps as a telenovela blares on the TV in the corner. A caldo of chicken necks, carrots, rice and potatoes boils on the stove just a few feet away.

“It’s too cold here,” Betzabel, 42, says in Spanish.

Bugs crawl on exposed plywood floors. It’s tough to keep them out with unsealed eaves and cracks in the unpainted, plywood walls. Too cold inside and out tonight for anyone to really notice.This is interesting cubepuzzle and logical game.

On this night, the temperature will only drop further. A bit past midnight, the power will go out, rendering useless the lone space heater in the travel trailer where the family of seven sleeps.

Without insulated walls, that makes for a chilly night. Viriginio later said his children didn’t complain. The family kept warm enough — together.

Freezing temperatures still were not as bad as the scare the family encountered the night before.

They spent hours in the emergency room at Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco, where they rushed Betzabel after she urinated blood.

Doctors told her she has kidney stones. The parents lack insurance, so hospital administrators gave her an application to the county’s indigent fund and some antibiotics before sending her home.

Without help, the thousands of dollars in medical bills are too much for the family to bear. If Betzabel’s case is approved, she will hopefully be able to treat the kidney stones she didn’t know were lurking inside.

The painful discovery was the latest health malady to hit the family.

Already, two of the Arguelles children regularly take medication to control erratic convulsions. It’s unknown whether Justin, 6, and Zuleyka, 4, will continue to suffer from the seizures as they grow older.

As with any obstacle that strikes the Arguelles family, they push past it together.With Payflowpaymentgateway, Somehow.

Virginio sits at the kitchen table and finishes lunch after returning from the fields. He steps outside to watch over the kids.

Justin is already home from school. He plays alongside Zuleyka on a pile of scrap metal and old tires in the backyard, teasing a stray cat that scurried underneath.

Virginio brought home a few beets he picked that morning. Late autumn brings relatively steady work for him in the fields of eastern Hidalgo County. In the off months of the summer, he rummages the area looking for cans and scrap metal to raise cash.

It’s tough for Virginio and his wife to work when they only have one vehicle — an old minivan that bleeds oil. He says he wants to buy a small truck someday so he can haul more cans and scrap metal to sell.

He arrived in the beet field at dawn to harvest. At 43, the manual labor he relies upon to support his family shows on his hands. On especially cold mornings like this day, Virginio says exposure can turn his hands as purple as the beets.

Virginio says his wife likes the beets. She grinds them up into juice. He hopes they may help her kidney stones, as well.

On good days, he earns only about $30 working in the fields. But work each day isn’t a guarantee. He brings in about $400 a month — at best. The family relies on food stamps to get by, as well.

Virginio has seen younger people walking through with marijuana bundles strapped to their backs. They may earn several times what he does, but he knows better than to join them.

“They just want the easy money,” he says.What can you tell me about thequicksilverscreen stuff on the internet, “But I work for the clean money. It’s small, but it’s good money.”

Is Android Right For You?

We’ve have already looked at Windows Phone 7, and according to the latest statistics, most Canadians figured out a long time ago that iOS is right for them (coming in a future column) but Android seems to be the curious choice for mainstream consumers these days.

It is ubiquitous. From the $150 LG Optimus Chic to the $599 Motorola Atrix (to $799 Xoom tablet), and hundreds of devices in between, you can’t seem to escape its diminutive robot interior. Since launching in 2008 it has proliferated to 350,000 activations per day on almost every carrier around the world. Its primary backing manufacturers, HTC, Samsung and Motorola especially, have benefited from its open source roots, and adroitly add features to the stock experience to differentiate from the myriad choices out there.

But Android is still seen primarily as a competitor to iPhone, and to the “walled garden” of Apple’s App Store. Created and backed by Google, it has been deemed the open alternative, a platform where ideas, customization and, most importantly, choice are both welcomed by its fans and vilified by its detractors. No one can deny that Google has created a virtual monster, and like it or not, you’re going to see at least one Android device beckoning at you when you seek out your next smartphone. Is Android right for you? Read on to find out.


Similarities:
Most smartphone operating systems rely on an icon-based home screen workflow, where a limited amount of essential information is made available to the user, and by downloading applications from its requisite marketplace, more features are made available. iOS has perfected this model.

Android makes use of this idea, but expands and complicates it with the addition to the home screen of widgets and a permanent notification bar. Indeed, without even opening an application, a great deal of information can be gleaned, from weather to stocks to tweets.

The permanent expandable notification bar at the top of the screen is also a huge advantage to the notification systems in other mobile platforms. It means that, unlike the current iOS system, notifications can be stacked and actioned at the users’ convenience. But it’s not exactly pretty: each notification, though uniform in its top-down, boxy presentation, is designed by the developer of the app. webOS done a lot to improve its notification system in its 2.1 version, and Android has picked up some of that for 3.0 Honeycomb, where the notifications are at the bottom of the screen as individual little icons that expand once touched. Very intuitive.

Differences:
Android is slightly different in its makeup than most of the other mobile platforms out there in that its component parts are built primarily on heavily customized, yet off-the-shelf Linux parts. Due to its open source nature, Google agrees to open-source the code of each new version after it is finalized (though it has delayed the release of Honeycomb for compatibility reasons). This allows anyone to compile the code and attempt to run it either on a device, or emulated on their computer. It also allows for a very active developer community.

While HP’s webOS has a thriving developer community, it is significantly smaller than its Android equivalent for a number of reasons, but mainly because there are far fewer handsets out there.

To some extent, Android’s biggest advantage and its greatest liability is the quasi-legal status in which many of these developers’ custom ROMs exist. I will touch on this later.


Touch-love:
Android was designed for scalability. It has been installed successfully on hundreds of handsets at different resolutions and screen technologies. From the 2.8” screens of the Motorola Charm to the massive 7” screen of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, it scales very well. It also allows for touch and hardware keyboards alike in any number of configurations.

But mainly Android was designed to be used with capacitive touch screens at 3” and above, and over the years many improvements have been made to its multitouch capabilities. If you are concerned that by moving to Android you will lose the fluid browsing and pinch-to-zooming of your iOS or webOS experience, you don’t have to worry. In fact, technically, Android is as capable as any mobile OS. If an app of feature does not exist that does on another platform, you can rest assured that someone will cook up a version of their own.

Half-baked:
At times, the problems with Android stem from that previous sentence. Due to the largely un-moderated nature of the platform, there is no limit to what you may code, and load, onto your device. Sideloading, or installing apps from outside the official Android Marketplace, is not only possible but encouraged. That leaves all Android phones vulnerable to malicious code. Even apps installed from the Marketplace do not have to be approved by Google, and enforcement is only done when complaints are received. Apps updates are pushed immediately, which is nice, but because the code isn’t checked for bugs or API adherence the prevalence of buggy code increases.

So, with Android you have a choice. It can be quite rewarding to discover a polished, unique, capable app from a small developer in the Android Market. But there is equal chance of installing a dud, a clone of a popular iOS app that mimics nothing but the name, or worse, an app with malicious code. By default, Android does not enable sideloading apps, which provides some protection. (AT&T has gone one step further and disallowed the process altogether.)

Google Android 3.0 'Honeycomb' review

Honeycomb is a whole different beast from the Google Android we've come to know. While

previous versions of Google's mobile operating system were built for smartphones, Honeycomb -

also known as Android 3.0 - is the first to be designed specifically for tablet PCs. And

seeing it in action, it certainly shows.

Motorola's recently launched Xoom is the first in a series of tablets that'll run the

Honeycomb OS. The Motorola Xoom has made plenty of headlines for its high-end specs: The

tablet boasts a dual-core 1-GHz processor with 1GB of RAM. It has 32GB of internal storage,

plus the option for additional storage via an integrated MicroSD slot. And all of that is

housed beneath a beautiful (if slightly glare-prone) 10.1-in display.

But the truth is, while the Xoom's hardware is impressive, it's the software that's the much

bigger story. I took a long look at Honeycomb to see how it compares to earlier versions of

Android and to its popular competitor, Apple iOS for the Apple iPad.

Google Android Honeycomb
Google Android 3.0 'Honeycomb': The home screen advantage

When you power up an Android Honeycomb tablet like the Xoom, you'll find yourself on one of

the device's five available home screens. These home screens and the functionality they

provide are among the most significant advantages Honeycomb offers over competing tablet

platforms.

Where the iPad's operating system is basically a blown-up version of what you get on the

iPhone - static rows of square-shaped icons - Honeycomb includes several features that take

full advantage of the tablet's ample screen real estate.

Among the most useful features are the widgets, which are effectively live, functioning apps

that run right on your home screen. You can have a widget for your email, for example, that

allows you to view and even scroll through your inbox. Other widgets let you browse your

calendar, flick through news stories or see the current weather for your area, without ever

opening a thing.

The idea of widgets, of course, isn't new to Honeycomb; as any Android smartphone user knows,

widgets have long been a part of Google's mobile operating system. With Honeycomb, however,

widgets have become more interactive than ever - you can now scroll, flick and interact

within the widgets themselves. And given the large screen size of a tablet, their potential

becomes far more significant.

On a single screen of the Xoom, for example, I'm able to simultaneously see my inbox, my

upcoming appointments and my local weather forecast. I also have scrollable access to all of

my Chrome bookmarks, synced continuously from my PC. I'd imagine that after growing

accustomed to this kind of advanced-usage scenario, many users would be reluctant to return

to the static environment a platform like Apple's iOS provides.

Honeycomb, like past Android versions, also affords you the freedom to use your home screen

space as you see fit; you can drop any combination of widgets and app shortcuts where you

like. The actual method for customizing is quite different in Honeycomb than in previous

Android releases; while it may be an adjustment for Android phone users, it strikes me as a

far more intuitive approach.

On an Android smartphone, adding a widget requires you to either long-press your home screen

or tap your phone's "menu" button to find the command. Adding app shortcuts and changing

wallpapers are separate processes.

In Honeycomb, on the other hand, you simply tap a "plus" icon at the top-right corner of the

display to enter an all-in-one home screen customization tool. There, you find thumbnails for

your five home screens, along with lists of every widget, app shortcut and wallpaper on your

tablet. You can touch any item to select it and drag it onto a home screen. Then, on the home

screen itself, you can touch and hold any item to move it around or eliminate it altogether.

Is it simple enough that a 2-year-old could figure it out? Not necessarily. But this is a

tablet, not a toy - and what you lose in foolproof simplicity is a trade-off for what you

gain in powerful functionality.