Here’s is what I like:

• That screen is beautiful.  It packs four times the pixels as the previous iPhone, and has the highest resolution of any mobile device in existence.
• That slim, shiny case with chrome edges, both stylish and practical.  Supposedly the edge is a new, revolutionary anntena that boosts signal for wifi, gps, and cellular data.  The glass exterior looks like clear crystal and is more durable than plastic.

Besides the hardware improvements iOS4 offers some significant software improvements that any iPhone 3G/3GS and iTouch 3G user will also be able to take advantage of:

• Multitasking… finally!
• App Folders

I didn’t mention FaceTime, the video chat feature, on purpose.  It just doesn’t really excite me.  They built it on an open-standard, but one that no one else is using.  Why not Skype?  Implementation aside, video chat has never taken off because nobody wants to use it.  Then again, who knows, maybe the iPhone is what VideoChat needs to be taken on by the masses.

1. I will not play anytime before 10pm.
2. I will not play beyond 2am.
3. I will not play for more than two hours per day.
4. I will not play for more than two consecutive days in a row.

In the past I have neglected my social life to play games for however long it took for me to finish a game.  I would stay up all night until day, and lose human contact for extended periods of time.  It has been awhile since I have divulged into a game; the last games I played were Infamous and Dragon Age, and, for awhile, I was addicted to them like crack.  Not this time game… not this time.

I purchased Dragon Age about a month ago.  I won’t go into too much detail about the game itself, but it’s a great game.  Initially I setup the game on it’s highest settings which would be 1080P resolution, high texture, anti-aliasing, and high graphics.  The game was playable, but it lagged quite a bit which was a major pain.  Inevitably I gradually lowered the settings to see how much my system could handle where I could play the game comfortably.  I’ve lowered the resolution to 720P, textures to low, anti-aliasing off, and graphics details to low.

Overall, I’m a bit disappointed in how poorly my system handles games, but at the same time I’m not surprised.  Nowhere has atom/ion been advertised as a gaming processor.  So I still say my system does well in what it was intended to do, which was be my HTPC.  It functions perfectly running Windows Media Center, and I can still game at low settings if I choose.

Still, I might have my family inherit this computer once I start my next build sometime next year.  I’m looking to go Quad Core i7 this time around.

This is a thing of beauty.  The performance is amazing, and it makes almost no sound at all.  I can’t wait to test out it’s gaming capabilities even though that’s not going to be a major focus of this build.  Mostly I’m going to use this for HD playback.

Once I get everything setup I’ll post pictures of the build and specifics on the hardware and software.

So far, everything together, the case is really cramped. Everything just barely fits, I hope the optical drive doesn’t add too much to that…

I made a list of features that I wanted it to have:

• Supports 1080p without any lag since it will be connected to my big screen LCD TV.
• Able to play games relatively well.
• Needs to be small (mini-ITX)
• Consumes very low power since I will have it on all the time.
• Generates very little heat (which is pretty much the same as low power)

Based on all of this, I ended up choosing the following hardware:

• Zotac Motherboard, Atom330 Processor, and Nvidia Ion GPU
• 4GB RAM 800 Mhz – Corsair
• 1TB HDD – Western Digital
• USB TV Tuner
• Thermaltake Mini-ITX HTPC Case

It will be running Windows 7, and it’s primary function will be Windows Media Center; however, I will also use it as my primary computer in my room.  I already have a wireless keyboard and mouse that I will continue to use with it, and I’ll use my ipod touch as a wireless media remote.

So far I have received the Motherboard, TV Tuner and RAM, and I’m expecting the HDD tomorrow and the case next week sometimes.  More on this after it all comes together!

Almost two years have gone by, and my first EeePC had been long forgotten, boxed away in my room.  I have since replaced it with a newer, more powerful netbook the 1005HA seashell.  Upon discovering this lost treasure, I decided to try to make some use of it.

My plan was to do some of the popular mods to it.  I wanted to dismantle the case, put on a touchscreen, remove the keyboard, and create a new case to have a super-portable windows tablet.

I first found out that the thing wouldn’t even boot into windows.  After years of being out of commission, I assumed some of the solid state memory was damaged.  Unfortunately, I was unable to install any operating system on it.  I lost my old nlited XP, so I made a new one, and it went through the installation process, but it wouldn’t start up at all.

So, I gave up on windows entirely, and decided to look at some of the other options available.  After all, there are numerous operating systems freely available specifically for netbooks.  One at a time, I tried each of them, and every single one failed at some point, whether in the installation process, or in startup.  Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Moblin, eeeXubuntu, even the original Xandros OS, nothing worked.

I sadly concede defeat in trying to restore my good ole’ Eee.  It is now officially being retired to the gadget graveyard.

So I’ve narrowed it down to several phones either available now or coming soon.

First, there’s the HTC Hero which runs on the Android OS.  It’s an excellent device in a very clean, solid shell.  It has a custom UI called the HTC Sense which enables multiple screens running widgets that give you a fully-customizable phone experience and quick access to all of the phone’s features.  The phone features the robust Android Market with hundreds of applications to download.  Finally, it’s built on an open platform backed by my favorite company, Google.

It’s definitely a formidable choice of smartphone, but it’s not without it’s flaws.  In reviews it has been said that the interface tends to lag or feel choppy at some points, this is probably attributed to a few things: it’s a multitasking device so apps can run in the background taking up resources, software issues (that can be fixed in updates), and it has a slower processor than some of the competitors.  While it has tons of applications, development from big name companies tends to be slow or non-existent.  Most of the phone’s applications from from indie-developers.  The app market is unrestricted so a good amount of the applications are crap.

The Palm Pre is a work of art.  It’s a beautiful device that runs very smoothly, and is about to launch it’s own “App Catalog”.  It has a full qwerty keyboard, a touchscreen, and touch sensitive gestures in the bottom portion of the screen.  The biggest feature for the Pre is Palm’s new WebOS which is a multitasking OS that puts every application on “cards” that you can scroll through from the main screen.  Cards can be maximized to full-screen to give you full access to all of it’s functions, but they will also continue to run when you zoom out.

In my opinion, it didn’t gain as much popularity as it deserved for what an elegant and fully-featured phone it is.  Part of the problem is that it didn’t launch with Applications (current Pre owners have to hack their device to install applications).  The iPhone was able to get away from this at launch, but app support is pretty much the most important feature for any smartphone.  It has a lot of potential which will only be realized once we see more and more official apps gain entry into Palm’s catalog.

My last (but certainly not least) smartphone consideration is the new Blackberry Bold 9700 (formerly the Onyx).  It has everything that every other blackberry offers, but features significant hardware upgrades that sets it apart from it’s siblings.  It’s the first all-in-one classic Blackberry, and by that I mean it has 3G data speeds, Wifi, GPS, a nice camera, media playback, and blackberry’s new touchpad that replaces the trackball.  To top all that off, it’s all encased in the smallest form-factor classic blackberry yet, in a clean slim shell.  Of course, as far as software goes, it lives up to every pro and con of the Blackberry OS.  It multi-tasks, no other phone can rival it’s messaging capabilities, addons integrate very well with the core system like Facebook and Google Voice, and it has great support from a lot of companies.

The Blackberry started out as a business-only phone, and it’s only recently that RIM have shifted focus to average consumers.  They have added features to appeal to the non-business crowd, and it’s much better than it used to be, but it still has the feeling of a work-phone.  Blackberry’s competitors’ phones just seem more fun, and just as capable.

So which one will it be then?  I’m still not sure, but what it all comes down to is what I mainly want to use it for.

The Blackberry would be my best choice if I’m using it for email, chat, and other messaging service (twitter, facebook, this blog).  It’s great for keeping in touch in the most possible ways, and I like how contacts can be linked to their online accounts once the apps are installed.

The Palm Pre is the most visually appealing for both hardware and software.  It’s a sexy phone, and it looks like it’s very fun to use.  It’s has a lot of functionality out of the box, and hopefully has the possibility for extended functionality in the future.

The Android is the most customizable and extensible.  It’s the definitive computer geek phone, and it the most similar to a desktop computer than other smartphones.

Out of all the options, I think Facebook comes the closest to what I want.  It is useful for bringing together content from other sites (Youtube, Flickr, any site that implements “Share This”), but it really needs two-way syncing to make it the “one-stop-shop” social network.  They shouldn’t be afraid to embrace collaborating with the competition like Twitter, Google or MySpace.  The fact is, both Twitter and MySpace provide open APIs which Facebook could work with to pull and submit content from them.

Another missing feature are multiple options for single sign-on.  The concept of single sign-on is great, and I like that fact that several websites provide the ability for me to login with my Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts.  For it to really work, they should be inter-operable with each other as well.  I should be able to login to my Facebook with Twitter or Google, and the same goes for them.

Finally, I’d like a social network to seamlessly sync my media from other websites.  I use YouTube to host videos and Flickr to host my photographs, because in my opinion they’re the best options for videos and pictures.  I think Facebook should display my Flickr photos alongside my Facebook hosted photos (without me having to upload them again), and my YouTube videos as well.  This would be better for them anyway since they wouldn’t even have to host the files.  There are options for displaying my Flickr photos in my profile, but they stand out, in a box, on my profile.  This might be asking for too much, but it would also be nice for them to sync photos I upload to Facebook with my Flickr account.

As useful as Facebook is to me, I still need to visit other social networking websites.  I believe, that the three improvements I listed would truly make Facebook the only social network I’d ever have to visit.  I love surfing the web, and discovering new content, but this is the exception because they all seem to serve the exact same purpose, and I pretty much do the exact same thing on several of them only because different friends on each.  That, and because I’m addicted to them.

When twitter first came out I, like many others, criticized it for being a blogging service that encourages people to write about every minute of their boring lives. I was reluctant, at first, to even try Twitter out, having heard all the jokes about people’s ridiculous “bathroom tweets.” You know what I’m talking about. But, as Twitter continued to gain popularity and internet buzz, I had to know what the big fucking deal was. So, for the past month, I have tweeted, followed, and retweeted, and here’s my story.

At first, I only followed people I knew, and I tried to keep my self-narrative life story tweets to a minimum. I didn’t see how tweeting and following accounts differed from Facebook status updates, and, if that’s all you use Twitter for it really isn’t different.

The next step was to follow some of the popular accounts on Twitter which, at the time of this posting, Aston Kutcher maintains one of the most popular accounts accounts. I’m not a huge fan of the actor, but his online presence is outstanding. He is very involved in social networking, and being mentioned by him online is probably worth more than months of Google Advertising. He has a large, loyal following, and his Twitter account is simply a medium he uses to communicate his opinions and interests to the millions of Twitter accounts that follow him. He’ll post websites, news articles, youtube videos, pictures, and much more. This is when I realized it, that Twitter to me is the “What comes next” after RSS feeds. This was new to me, but was also mentioned in a Techcrunch article: Rest in Peace, RSS.

I found that all of the feeds that I subscribe to in Reader have a Twitter counterpart. I followed all of my favorite websites, and even found some new ones that I liked. The great thing about Twitter is, I still never miss an article, but I also cut out all the crap. Micro-blogging is a great service when paired with traditional blogging. It is now possible to, more efficiently, read through countless articles, and read into the ones that I find interesting. I basically get to read a summary of every article before I decide whether I care to dig deeper or not.

Rest in Peace, RSS, you served me well, but you no longer serve a purpose in my life.