teh TODDtastic webLog-a-majig

I was browsing through my old posts… when I came across this post from over a year ago.

It was interesting to see what I was planning and hoping for back then. Interestingly enough, even over a year ago, my idea of my next system was not too unlike what I’m still picturing. Avoiding the fact that I will probably not have the budget to build one this summer, either… if I were to do such, the specs lined up in the linked post, are not too far from what I would build these days.

Core i7 is here now, so in terms of server chips… we can now get 6 cores on a chip, 12 cores in a dual socket system. While this type of build may not be within my future budget, 8 cores on one chip should be once Intel releases 8-core Core i7 chips. Triple channel RAM is here… so the projection on that front for 12GB of RAM was not bad, and is still perfectly reasonable for todays systems.

I was hoping my idea of a really great system would have changed more substantially by now… but it hasn’t. This makes me wonder if the technology has not improved significantly enough in a year (possibly due to the economy?) or if perhaps I was just looking far advanced of a possible system at that time. Maybe it’s a mix of both.

With that said, I have to say that pretty much any system you can build for $500-1000 these days is definitely plenty powerful for most people, as in… I think technology is finally starting to really be great in all price ranges.

http://www.macworld.com/article/139333/2009/03/ipod_shuffle_design.html

Apple definitely went to far with this revision of the iPod shuffle. The thing has no buttons at all. They are built into the headphones. So when you loose the headphones, you have to buy special headphones with the controls built in (I’m assuming other companies will develop headphones with controls built in… and charge a premium for them). But the part that will surprise people… is that Apple will still sell the darned thing better than any other companies’ superior MP3 player just because it has the name Apple on it.

Terrible, Apple. Terrible. But please… keep it up. Without Steve around you’re bound to fail anyways.

To me it seems like they do. Especially after the release of the new 15″ MacBook Pro.

And now they just released the new 17″ MacBook Pro onto the heap of ’shit professionals don’t want.’

For starters, they are now CHARGING for the Matte screen that used to be a default on these devices! We’ve gone from “Check out out shinny shit at the same price!” to “We like our shinny shit, so we’ll charge you more to have the superior shit because it isn’t as shinny.” Oh well, it’s not that big a deal at only $50.

I guess at least they offer it on the 17″… because the 15″ is still left hanging with a shitty screen. I can’t believe they even had the balls to offer it on the 17″ and not the 15″! That seriously takes some balls! I couldn’t do it if my life depended on it! Professionals prefer accurate screens, believe it or not! And they do not want lighting conditions reflecting back at them!

But that’s fine… Because professionals always want to carry around a 17″ laptop… or do they?

Moving on… the battery really bothers me. Yeah, yeah, they last upto 8 hours (in reality probably only 5-6hrs and only for the first year) and that’s just fine. However… did they just make it non-user-replaceable!??!?!?!?!? On a $3000 laptop!?!?! Are you fucking kidding?!!?! Seriously. I know people that are still carrying around G4 PowerBooks… and I’m sure they’ve had a few batteries. They do not want to be taking it in to a local Apple store and paying someone to replace it for them.

Also, from what I could tell from the pictures shown… the bottom is “sealed” off. I saw no hatch for hard drive or memory replacement. I will not go raging about that until I hear it confirmed that these parts are not supposed to be [easily] user replaceable, but from the looks of it, it seems like they don’t want you opening it yourself… A huge step back for a professional laptop.

(And as a side note on that… if the RAM isn’t user upgradable… no one in their right mind is going to pay $1200 for 8GB of RAM. Is Apple crazy?!)

All-in-all… I really think these recent Pro laptops from Apple are huge leaps backwards when they are supposedly aimed at professionals. It really seems like they are more influenced by the normal consumers than the professionals. Why can’t Apple keep the MacBooks separate from the MacBook Pros? The only practical differences now are the screen size and firewire on the Pros. They even run the same damn chipsets. I really would expect more distinction for a Pro laptop other than size of the Screen and cost.

Apple is really screwing the professionals now. Here is to me not buying another Apple laptop ever again (unless they turn this terrible behavior around). ::clink::

For those that want it… 4.7.0.83 has been leaked for the Storm.  People are reporting a lot of great improvements with this leaked update. Improvements to the camera speed and accelerometer is apparently even faster.

Personally, I will wait for an official release to install. Reading through the forums, I found that works at Verizon mention that there is supposed to be an official update released Tuesday night. So, it definitely isn’t much of a wait.

I will report on my experiences once the official release is out.

Update (12-27-08): Still no official release. But 4.7.0.85 has been leaked.

Upfront, let me say that I am pleased with my decision to get this phone. Also, let me say that after my initial reaction, I was quite critical of the phone overall. So since I recommend it in the end, I can honestly say that it is not nearly as bad as many reviews say.

It takes some getting used to, but once you are used to it, there is no major problem with it. Remember that a lot of reviewers only spend a few days with the phone and that a lot of users may have been turned off by it after seeing it in the store (like I was initially).

I will break this down into sections. If you’d like me to comment more in a particular section or add yet another section, please let me know.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night I read up on the Blackberry OS and found some reasons for the terrible lag I experienced when I looked at the phone yesterday. People suggest the lag could be due to having a bunch of programs running in the background.

So I made another trip the the local Verizon Store… and went to play with the Blackbrry Storm again. I went to the “switch programs” thing and found a ton of thing running because all people do is play with every little thing on the phone. I killed of a bunch of them… and I have to say, the lag was less terrible. I could push the Blackberry Button and the menu would fade onto the screen very quickly (which was not so when I first looked at it).

I also had time to check out the camera….. which was of great quality.

I spent more time with the keyboard… which I really think I can get used to, especially the SureType style when it’s in Portrait.

So, I think I’m going to get it. Maybe. Still have to think about it.

Update: I ordered it. Due to high demend, tho… it may not be shipped until Dec. 15th. But that’s ok, I can wait.

So… let me just start off by saying I was extremely excited about this phone ever since I heard about it. The only thing I was unsure about before I clicked order was the touch screen typing deal. So that is what I went into the Verizon Store to check out… other than that…. I was completely sold. And I was perfectly willing to say forget it if I thought the typing interface was bad.

Well… I soon found out there was more I should look at.

Holy shit this phone really sucked.

I was at the Verizon Store for a good 45 minutes checking out the Storm… and other phones. I bounced between other Blackberries and smartphones… just to confirm that smart phones aren’t as bad as the Blackberry Storm.

Again… I was very excited for this phone… and I was quickly turned off upon finally playing with it.

The typing was actually not too bad. It wasn’t perfect… but neither was my typing on the Curve. So I attribute that to the fact that I’ve simply never owned a smart phone. It did feel limiting in terms of speed, so… take that review with a grain of salt.

I continued to play around with it… and I quickly concluded that the interface sucks. The lag on this device was so bad… I wasn’t sure if I had clicked what I wanted to click, clicked the wrong thing, or if the phone had simply crashed. A good 5 seconds later… you get your answer… which was often that you had clicked the wrong thing. That really kills the experience with this phone.

Since I had never owned a Blackberry and never really used one, I went and played with the Curve and the World Edition Blackberries. The interfaces on those phones was just fine.

So… take this mini-review as an initial reaction to the phone… I will try to go back at some point and see if a second chance will make up for it. But for now… I don’t want this phone anymore.