pres.umptuo.us

A couple of fun things I wanted to discuss.

Google launched Google Voice Local Search. I gave it a test run just to see how well it works, and the voice recognition is pretty sweet. I haven’t tested it extensively to see if it can narrow down a coffee shop in a zip code or anything like that, since so far it only asks for city and state. It’s got potential, though.

Farecast is a cool new airfare site that will tell you when to buy tickets. Technically they’re not really new, but I believe when they launched they only supported a few airports, and now it’s over 75. I haven’t had to fly anywhere myself, but it seems like a good site to keep around.

Apple announced their Mac Pro computer now comes with two four-core processors, making it an eight core machine. I affectionately refer to it as “The Ocho.”

I’ve begun season three of BSG, and it is awesome. Unfortunately, since the season’s already over, I’m aware of two spoilers that happen during this season and I’m kinda sad/angry. Now I just want to hurry through this season and get it over with before I’m spoiled any more.

Iowa was awesome this year. I started on my novel, and despite the fact that I’ve only added a paragraph to it since I’ve been back, it’s really gotten the thoughts and ideas flowing. I’m trying hard to sit down for at least an hour a day and write, and if not write then do nothing else but think of the story.

Why don’t we tip flight attendants? We tip people who serve us our food in restaurants and people who park our cars (I could go into a long rant about how lazy we must be to have someone else park our Mercedes for us, but I think that says it all), so why not the flight attendants? I dare say the flight attendant has to do way more work than the average waiter does.

I read through David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” while in Iowa and waiting at airports. I’ve found myself emulating his style in my writing. He’s so smooth and flowy with his writing. Really funny stuff too. Some of it didn’t do it for me, but most of the time he was on the money.

I’ve been using WriteRoom to write my novel, and highly recommend it for anyone else who has problems concentrating. Plus it looks damn cool to be working on an all black screen with green text on it. Makes me look like some hardcore writer dude.

My desktop machine has died on me for no reason at all. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s the power supply or the motherboard. Either way, I imagine it could be a blessing in surprise disguise since I no longer have access to Warcraft 3 (Damn that footmen frenzy is addicting) or my music. More time to write write write!

I hate buying first-generation products because they’re bound to be full of kinks and bugs. Regardless of the prestige of the company or their track record of reliability, there’s always problems because of rushed schedules to meet deadlines.

But I had to get the new Apple MacBook. Probably more “want” than “had”, but you know how consumerism works. I read everything I could about the MacBook and lurked the Apple forums to see what problems the it had, which included a whine, a moo, and a sizzle. That kind of sounds like the process a cow goes through to become my delicious steak.

I went with the 2.0 Ghz White model, cause only suckers pay for black paint, although I admit the black one looks sweet. So far I’m really liking it, much more than I liked my PowerBook. The 13.3″ screen is the perfect size for a laptop, and the machine is pretty damn quick for just general chatting/surfing/writing purposes. I haven’t tried any games on it, although Quinn and Lemonade Stand work just fine =P

I readily recommend to everyone who’s looking for a laptop to get the MacBook. With the ability now to dual-boot into Windows (which I’ve yet to do myself), and being competitively priced with comparable PC models, I really wouldn’t see a reason not to get one. Although I highly suggest waiting for the second generation to come out, and maybe then they’ll have fixed all the kinks. Plus this thing runs ridiculously hot. I don’t care what anyone says, 80 degrees celsius is not “normal”.

To help pay for my MacBook (which, by the way, I call a MacLop, cause it sounds cooler), I remembered that the Coinstar machines will take change and dispense as an Amazon gift certificate with no fees at all. So I took the accumulated buckets of coins in my room and was surprised to find I had $307.46 in change. The breakdown:

2 dollars
429 quarters
1583 dimes
782 nickels
81 pennies

The funny part is while I was dumping coins into the machine, a girl was next to me making copies. When she finished she placed a leftover nickel on the Coinstar machine for me and just smiled.

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to sell my (very lightly) used PowerBook and trade up to the new MacBook.

At first I thought it might be to my advantage to keep a slow machine, because then it might force me to use it for only writing (which it hasn’t). But at a cost of only $300-400, I could upgrade to a new machine that is far better than my current one.

So the auction is listed on eBay and ends this Sunday, and I’m just here shamelessly trying to promote the auction. If anyone’s interested in just outright buying it, I’m open to offers.

I’m also selling this wonderful Cryptex I won through the Da Vinci Code Quest on Google. It’s actually a nice piece and of much higher quality than I expected, but not something I imagine myself wanting in the future, so I figure I might as well sell it now while the market’s high. Again, if anyone’s interested just drop me a line.

And thus ends my shameless promotion. Next time I’ll be posting my Amazon wishlist on here and promising topless photos for anyone who buys me something on my list =P

• MacBook. I can’t believe they’re asking $200 more for the black.

  Tuesday May 16, 2006

• Apple - Boot Camp. Apple is officially supporting a dual install of Windows XP on Intel Macs. It’s all over now.

  Wednesday April 5, 2006

• Mac Setup and more.

  Friday January 20, 2006

After much speculation and anticipation, Google Talk has been released. I’m finding it to be a very natural extension of Gmail, with the built-in email button and how a gmail account doubles as a Google Talk account. The interface has some nifty features — Click the titlebar of a chat to “windowshade” it; If another window is active and a IM arrives, it automatically displays in the bottom right like a notification. Windows dock together as well, although tabbing might work better.

It’ll be interesting to see how this fares against AIM and MSN Messenger.

Oh Apple, why can’t you just make a regular mouse? The 360-degree scrollwheel I like (although the contact point seems a bit tiny), but what’s with all this touch sensitive stuff? People need feedback when they click. And the giant top of the mouse being one big button doesn’t and never did work.

The first thing people do when they get a Mac is throw away the mouse and buy themselves a better one. Give up on your unusable single-click mouse, Apple.

As my coworker says, next down the line is going to be an Apple keyboard missing the “P” and “R” keys, cause you just don’t need them. Want to type a “P”? Hold down option and press “L”.

I neglected to mention in my laptop post that I placed an order for the 12″ Powerbook through Amazon in early April. However, it had an expected ship date of May 19th, so I figured I had a lot of time to still shop around.

Then late last week it decides to ship a whole month early. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I was sort of hoping on that month to research laptops even more.

Here I am now, blogging on the Powerbook for the first time. It’s great. I haven’t actually gotten to any writing yet, but so far I’m not regretting it. OS X is a blast to play with. I’ve never been a big fan of trackpads, but luckily OS X offers tons of keyboard shortcuts and Quicksilver is easing things quite a bit. And this is one sweet keyboard to type on.

I’m sure more thoughts will come along as I get more opportunities to fiddle with the laptop. I’m loving it for now though.

I can’t recall ever being this indecisive. Picking a college was a snap. New car? Nothing a day of test driving didn’t solve. Job opportunities ended up being fairly straightforward. Choosing the right laptop though, this has become an ongoing project for nearly a month now.

For a while now I’ve been whining about how sitting at the same desk all the time to write has become rather uninspiring. I’m bound to my computer because I’m more of a typist than I am a writer — thoughts flow out a lot quicker on a keyboard for me, but I admit I have to use the notebook just cause it’ll rack my brain in a different manner. Getting a laptop seemed the obvious answer.

My Needs: A full-size keyboard so I don’t get frustrated with hitting the wrong keys; Decent battery life, at least 3 hours; Lightweight, probably 5 lbs. max; Compact size, anything under 13″ will do; Stylish (Let me indulge myself).

At first I was gunning right for the cheapest and best value - The Dell 700m. A gorgeous 12″ screen, 4.6 lbs, and with the right coupons it could be had for around $1000. But then I found out the keyboard wasn’t full-sized, and after playing with similar keyboards at Fry’s, I knew it was going to bug me at one point or another with all the typing I’d be doing. Add to the fact that the 700m gets lousy battery life on it’s standard battery, requiring an extended battery that sticks out the back of the laptop quite a bit.

Next I found out that Amazon had specials going on with the 12″ Powerbook, bringing the price to $1350 after a $150 mail-in rebate. With no tax and no shipping, $1350 sounded really good for an Apple Powerbook. It had all the features I was looking for, but $1350 was a bit more than I was hoping to spend.

After going through a fiasco involving a Powerbook available for $999 that I missed out on and a dream where the Amazon Powerbook was no longer available for $1350 (It still is until April 26), I vowed I would put the order in. And then I meet the Fujitsu S6231.

Amanda (who incidentally cracked her LCD screen the day after she introduced me to it) brought up the Fujitsu. 13″ LCD (A great compromise between the 12″ and 14″, if only more laptops used a 13″ LCD), full-size keys, and weighing slightly over 4 lbs. with the sweet option of taking out the cd-rom drive to drop the weight down to under 4 lbs. or popping in an extra battery to get a whopping 8 hour battery life out of the laptop. The lowest price I could find was at Newegg at $1299 + tax bringing it to around $1410.

I headed back to Fry’s, this time to check out the Fujitsu and the Powerbook. Both were excellent, but having a little Apple with OS X to play with greatly appealed to me over having another PC which offered nothing new. Powerbook set, I place my order in, and unfortunately they’re backordered and I won’t get it until the middle of May.

The story should end there. It doesn’t, though. Cause I’m indecisive. I took a trip to the Apple store yesterday with Tim and Nathan (after going to Santa Anita to check out the 700m at the closes Dell Retail Kiosk thingy) and scoped out the iBooks and Powerbooks.

I’m now at a standstill between buying the 12″ iBook, upgrading the ram to 768 and installing a bigger and faster hard drive, coming to an estimated total of $1150, a whole $200 less than the Powerbook. Potentially it could be faster than the stock 12″ Powerbook, but the general look, weight and size difference, and extra options of the Powerbook has me swayed.

There’s even more speculation now that the Apple laptops are all a bit outdated with the G4 chip when the G5 laptops should be hitting soon, so a purchase now would most likely be one of the last gen G4 laptops. Perhaps waiting for the G5 laptops would be best and just buying a junker laptop until then?

As you can tell, there’s a lot to ponder here as I’ve been heavily researching laptops for almost a month now.

Now some links for any other people looking into laptops:
NotebookReview.com. The forums are rather handy, although the administrators are all pretty biased towards the Fujitsus (for good reason).
MacNN. Again, check the forums out for any iBook or Powerbook information.
Notebook Forums. The reviews here are good as they’re all user reviewed.

And finally, for any other PC users interested in entering the Mac world, three great articles on switching:
Tao of Mac / How To Switch To The Mac.
AnandTech: A Month with a Mac: A Die-Hard PC User’s Perspective.
AnandTech - A Month with a Mac - Part II: The Mobile Experience.

Sony’s supposed ipod-killer, the Network Walkman NW-HD1, has been reviewed, and apparently it’s not quite the ipod-killer it was made out to be. On paper it looks great: Smaller in size and longer battery life. But according to the review, there’s one thing that’s really holding it back: Sony’s horrible interface for the player as well as the software, and Sony’s own music format, ATRAC3.

As further detailed in the review, Sony’s player does not play MP3s. And no, you aren’t allowed to question why. It’s the exact same reason why all of Sony’s digital cameras only use their magic memorystick technology: to lock you into their proprietary licensing.

This is the sole reason why I hate Sony and all of their fancy little gadgets so much. Everyone out there agrees on a universal technology to build off of, but Sony for one reason or another wants to go ahead and make their own, and then push it on their customers just to get more of their money. It’s a ridiculous notion that keeps holding them back from getting a good hold on the market. Look at the PS2: it uses DVD technology and as such has done a real good job. But the Minidisc format on the other hand has almost died out here in America, yet they keep pushing it.

This goes back to why I usually refuse to buy anything Sony, be it their headphones or their VAIO computers (which are really really cool looking, but the fact that they’re Sony drives me away). Apple gave up on this proprietary thing a long time ago and embraced the world; Sony should step up and do the same thing.