Technically Speaking

Touch me, feel me!

Still playing with my new iPod Touch and finding out it's little tricks and the neat things it can do. Other than loading up with my music collection and downloading various games and applications (Jailbroken? I'm not telling you!), I've been surfing the 'net, checking out YouTube and navigating around the World, I've also been looking at all the accessories available. I found a nice acrylic case for the thing but found that I'm useless at placing a screen protector - where does the damn dust and grit come from? I needed some cheap headphones and found Radio Shack just right for that simple thing. I was looking at the various external speaker solutions, but didn't really need another boombox, just a simple and inexpensive solution would do.

Good old RedFlagDeals.com and Walmart came to the rescue with this little beauty. For the money, I am quite impressed. The simple benefits of ultra portable and requiring no batteries or power cables are perfect when teamed with the portability of the iPod. The sound quality? Well, it's not what you would call great, but it's quite adequate and actually reasonable considering the size and price. There is a stereo version available, but I don't think that it would be worth the $60 that is being asked for it. The only downside to having this iPod to play with is that my aging eyes have a hard time coping with the small screen and sometime they just go completely out of focus - or is it the booze?

How could I be so wrong?

If you read a recent post, you will see that I thought that the new MacBook Pro hype was over and done with. Boy, was I ever wrong! A couple of days later, my young lad motored off to the Apple store and returned hours later with a shiny new 13" MacBook Pro. Being a canny shopper; he bought it as an educational purchase and saved $100 and got a 'free' iPod (horrible mail in rebate). He has since spent all his waking hours playing with his new toy and installing sundry applications and Windows 7 via 'Boot Camp'. I must admit, it is a really nice looking item and is one of the best looking laptops I have seen. The screen is very good and the 'chiclet' keyboard is real easy to work with - reminds me a bit of the old Sinclair I used to have. He's not too happy with OS X, but I'm sure he will soon get used to it. The only issue so far, is the trick needed to integrate it into our wireless network - Windows Vista is a real pain in the nether regions when it comes to networking.

The REALLY good thing about his moving into the Mac world is what happened for Father's Day. I got a nice 8GB iPod Touch to play with. What a good kid! I'm only just getting used to it and still finding out the cool things it can do, so I'll have to get back to you on how it goes.

He IS Watching you

Good old Big Brother - he's alive and kicking well after 1984 has receded into the dim past. Our wonderful government has decided, in it's wisdom, to insinuate itself even more deeply into our daily lives. The recent tabling of a bill to force ISP's to give personal information to the authorities and to allow the police to monitor internet communications will mean that no ones information or communications will be safe. There is also a provision to use tracking devices that are now part of our cell 'phones and cars to keep a wary eye on us. Now, it's easy to say that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about. What a a pile of horse dung! Everyone, and I mean everyone, has something to hide in one way or another. This is just a way of our police wanting to see what we are all doing and to hell with our privacy or basic human rights. If you believe the government, we are beset by terrorists, pedophiles and other unsavory characters such as illegal file downloaders at every turn and we must be protected from ourselves. Nonsense, I say. Fight this bill!

On another note; notice how little information has been seen on our news channels regarding the row in the UK over MP's expense claims. I think our own politicians are a little worried that they could (and should) be under the same scrutiny. My opinion? Of course they should. The addition of a weblink to see exactly what MP's have been claiming is now available in Britain and is quite illuminating. I think it's time we did the same here - we have had too many stories over the years about our public officials and their spurious claims. Time to shine a spotlight on the whole pack of them and see what scurries out. I feel that our politicians (our employees) are running scared and they should be. Big Brother should be watching you instead.

Style or substance?

As usual, Apple has released details on its new, re-branded and updated products. They all look very pretty and I'm sure will look good on your desk or in your hands....but, do you buy them for their specifications or for that indefinable 'look'? My son (Mr. iPhone) and I spent an hour or so looking at all the shiny newness and came away with our own thoughts and comments. The hype would have him running out for a new MacBook Pro right then and there replacing his venerable Dell XPS from three years ago. However, upon reflection and a smart slap 'upside the head', he realized that the idea didn't really hold up well. The equivalent Dell based laptop to the new Mac was $100 cheaper with double the RAM, double the harddrive and slightly faster. The thing is, that Macs look so damn good and peer pressure has a huge say in what young and 'professional' people buy. It always amazes me that Apple is still around considering the cost of their products compared to other companies products.

I must say though, that the iPhone still amazes me with it's versatility and is a true world class product and a 'must have' accessory - I think Palm is done - even the Pre will not save them. The lure of the new iPhone 3GS is not enough for my lad to want to replace his current model. Yes, the new one is faster and will have some neat features, but the extra cost is not worth it at the moment. For new iPhone owners though, it will be quite something. For those that think I 'hate' Apple, be aware that it's just not so. I think that the design and usability of Macs allied with a clever and fairly user friendly interface is something special - but, it's those prices! So, as the title says, do you go for style or substance?

No response

The biggest electronics game convention (E3) is under way and although there have been some amazing games announced, I'll leave our friend Tyler Ohlew to deal with all that shiny goodness. What I want to look at is what all the clever new advances in control and manipulation may offer us 'normal' folks. Before I do, let me just comment of the content of the show and some of the thoughts I've come away with. Firstly, Sony just don't 'get' it do they. Releasing a new PSP with a smaller screen, no UMD and for more money than the current unit is not going to win you many fans. Sounds just like our car manufacturers - they won't wake up until it's crunch time and even then maybe not. Secondly, the new game trailers all look spectacular - as they are supposed to - but is the gameplay there? You can have the most amazing looking product in the game world, but if the game itself is rubbish - who cares. The original Wolfenstein 3D is still one of the most playable games out there even though the graphics are horrible compared to the cinematic wonders of E3. The real 'meat' of the show (other than the Beatles) was the introduction of Microsoft's Natal project and Sony's rather more Wii-like controller. The idea of controlling on-screen functions using only your body motions and facial expressions is mind blowing stuff itself and the stage demonstration was quite something. My opinion is that, until there is tactile feedback, it's just a clever gimmick. The idea of using air to create pressure feedback is already in development and may result in interesting results. Maybe the full body immersion suit is next. The sci-fi wonder of Star Trek's holodeck is certainly not that far away in science fact. It seems to me that technology is advancing quicker than society. Who amongst you has one room in their house dedicated to gaming and has the space for you to flail about waving your arms and kicking out in all directions? It will take a few years until houses can be built to fully use all of the coming wonders of game and virtual reality interation.

On the fence

With all the news surrounding the Palm Pre (maybe Palm's last gasp) and the new iPhone, I've been consumed with one question. Should I or shouldn't I? It's Windows 7 that has got me in a whirl. It's been sitting here on my desktop ready to install for a couple of weeks now but I haven't got up enough courage to actually install it. My son has been running it on a laptop for a while and, so far, has had no issues or concerns with his other applications and games. I suppose I should just 'bite the bullet' and go ahead - damn the torpedoes! The trouble is that I so much 'stuff' installed on multiple hard drives that it will take forever to sort out. I even have one drive partitioned so that I could install Vista as a dual boot system when I still had Windows XP as my primary OS - man, that seems like ages ago. Maybe I'll use our new 1.5TB external drive to copy to and then just transfer back when I've reformatted and partitioned my drives. I'm just not looking forward to all the time and nonsense required - I'm just lazy I guess (down at the back there!). I suppose it's like anything that needs change; it's hard to take a step into the unknown. I think, however, that this is the week - I'll just have to make the effort and move into the 21st Century at last. Wish me luck.

New boss, same as the old boss

Now this idea takes me back to the bad old days of DOS and its native inability to multitask. These were the days of Leisure Suit Larry and playing the hottest new games (Wolfenstein or F19 anyone) and hoping that the boss wasn't looking your way. If you were unlucky enough to see 'the man' coming your way, you would just press the 'boss' key and an innocuous Lotus spreadsheet appeared like lightning (well fairly quickly) and your secret was safe. Of course, if you were asked to explain your pretty new spreadsheet you were sunk - happy times. It seems that the idea of the 'boss key' has not gone away and now you can get this wonderful and inconspicuous item for you protection. Really discreet, isn't it? I suppose you could hide it under your desk and hit it with your knee when needed. Of course, it's only a toy - with multitasking you can move or hide anything with a click of the mouse or a quick keyboard command. Certainly, in a business environment, the ability to hide non-work related activities becomes a major part of some workers daily life and, in the home, keeps their significant other unaware of their browsing activities. In my opinion, anyone who gets caught at work doing the wrong thing on their PC deserves to be at least admonished if not punished for being a twit.

Much more of the same

It's been a rather strange time in the electronic world. Nothing much has jumped out and made us go 'wow' or even say 'neat'. We have seen the introduction of newer or ungraded netbooks, 'phones and cameras along with minor releases of new 'toys' for the geekkind to fawn over. Even the wider pre-release of Windows 7 hasn't caused much of a ripple. The regular announcement (or so it seems) of electric cars that will be gracing our streets has become almost commonplace and I guess by now you know my views. The plug-in electric vehicle is useless outside of a small downtown area and the real deal is to go to the fuel-cell. The DSLR's next 'big thing' is high quality video, but the issues with continuous auto-focussing and battery life is still the major hurdle. The netbook world is still one of many brands but almost all following the same tried and tested configurations - you can almost tell the specifications with your eyes closed. Would I like one? Sure, as a gift - I'm not spending my money. Could it be that we are getting jaded with all of the sameness out there. It's always been a world of competition, but no one seems to want to get out in front of the herd and be noticed. Please guys, don't let this turn into a bland, beige world. Death by boredom is a cruel way to go.

You're so big!

Now don't get all excited there - I'm talking hard drives here. Or maybe you get excited about that - strange people out there. We decided (my son decided) that we needed even more storage space for 'stuff'. We have three internal and one external drive for the 'beast' downstairs and three drives (one external) for our laptops giving us about 11/2 TB of storage - but that's not enough!! So off to Future Shop for a new external drive - this one. I just think that it's amazing that you can now get this amount of storage in one box for 'silly money' and it's just 'plug and play'. Now, at least for a while, storage is not an issue and we can carry on with our lives. I recall (yes, I'm old) when the first 1GB drives from Fujitsu arrived at just under $1000 a pop and we were amazed at the huge storage space we had to play with - happy days. However, I noticed something with the price now. When my son picked this up on Wednesday it was retailing for $199 - now it's $30 more. You don't think they upped the price for the 10% preferred customer sale on Monday? No, I can't believe that. Would retailers do that?

Over and over again

If you bought a product and it failed and was replaced five times (four times in two years) you would be a little miffed. That is exactly the situation with my son's XBox 360. The infamous RROD (red ring of death) stuck again the other day. Thank goodness he is still covered under the extended three year warranty and will cost him nothing to replace. Considering that the damn thing just sits on his desk and isn't abused, I cannot understand why it should fail like this AGAIN! This situation does however pose the question: what the heck does Microsoft think it's doing? It strikes me that the huge ammout of returns on this product must indicate a real and permanent issue with design, R&D and product development. Wasn't this product tested before release? If this was any other product, people would not buy it and the company would have to produce a superior product. I think that because the unit is purchased just for the games available rather that the particular 'pleasure' of having an XBox 360 in the house that purchasers are willing to put up with this nonsense. Maybe because of this there is no pressure on Microsoft to do better. Hey! If people buy a obviously flawed product and there are no law suits pending, why change? We consumers can be real idiots sometime - myself included.