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iPhone 4G impression

Matthew — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:02:18 +0000

I’m pretty late to the party, but the iPhone 4G has officially been announce. It offers many upgrades over the previous generation of iPhone, as well as advantages over the competition. It’s alredy been posted numerous times each and every feature, so I’m not going to reiterate each of them.

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.

Just started playing God of War 3

Matthew — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:02:11 +0000

I’m reluctant to allow myself to get too much into this game. I love the God of War series, and it has always delivered a satisfying experience. I’m mainly concerned with how games like this affect my life. So to alleviate these concerns, I’m setting some rules:

I will not play anytime before 10pm.
I will not play beyond 2am.
I will not play for more than two hours per day.
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.

Why I will not be getting an iPad

Matthew — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 10:35:44 +0000

Menstrual pad jokes aside, I was thoroughly disappointed of Apple’s long awaited tablet PC announcement. I can see what they were going for in the iPad, and it all seems like a great idea, but there’s simply nothing that I need it for that isn’t already fulfilled by another device. A portable, touchscreen based, web browsing device with the backing of a huge app store is great, and I’d love to have one of these if it would simply fit into my pocket so that I could take it anywhere with me… oh wait, that’s right, I already have one of those. Now, I don’t want to attack the Apple brand, there are a lot of things about them that I do not like, but I can always count on them to deliver a great user experience in their devices, and Apple products always look sexy. I’m just finding it difficult to see what I can do with an iPad. It’s not quite a full-fledged computer, but it’s a bit more than an iPhone, and yet loses the portable edge that the iPhone has to offer over netbooks.

Another similar product that might be worthwhile to check out once it hits the market is the JooJoo formerly known as the CrunchPad before Fusion Garage walked away with the product and left TechCrunch out of the equation. The benefit being, that it’s Linux-based, and is likely to be more useful than the iPad. The JooJoo claims full HD support, and is capable of streaming from websites like Hulu. It appears to be just as slim as the iPad, with a larger screen, albeit less memory, but unlike the iPad it’ll likely have an expansion slot. Also unlike the iPad, the JooJoo will have a built-in camera!

I’ll buy the first tablet that has a hybrid OLED/E-Ink capacitive touch screen, internal flash memory, expansion slot, built in HD video camera, with 3g (or 4g) data, and built on an open platform. I’m hoping that Google decides to enter this market, and that they get it right.

Jailbroke my iPod Touch

Matthew — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:09:53 +0000

I cannot begin to describe how infinitely useful the iPod touch is after being jailbroken. It’s the type of thing where, until you’ve done it, you have no idea what you’re missing out on. I couldn’t imagine using my iPod touch without the customizations I have tweaked.

First and foremost, my number one recommendation is Winterboard, which quite simply an app to change the theme. There are countless resources for pre-built themes or for the artsy you can make your own.

Beyond the visual customizations, there are a few apps that simply make the OS more useful and organized.

SBSettings adds a slide in UI that can be activated by sliding your finger across the top of the screen from anywhere. It gives you quick access to turn on/off settings like bluetooth, wifi, 3g, and others to save on battery life. There are also addons for more functionality like managing resources and enabling SSH access to your device.

Backgrounder and Kirikae work together to add the ability to multitask apps as well as quickly/conveniently switch between different apps simply by double-pressing the home button.

I have apps installed to enable downloading of any file type in Safari, and one to download YouTube videos for offline viewing.

Lastly I have emulators installed for all of my classic gaming needs from NES to PSX.

There are a whole lot more apps that would be more useful to iPhone owners that tweak SMS/MMS capabilities, and one that enables WiFi tethering. I’m still pretty new to this whole thing, but thus far I think JB Apps pretty much adds all the functionality that I had always wanted my iTouch to have.

For iPhone 3.0 users the easiest way to jailbreak is using blackra1n. The process takes under a minute, and is as simple as plugging in your device and hitting a button!

Enjoying my nexus one.

Matthew — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:27:04 +0000

Awhile back I purchased an HTC Hero. It was my first Android handst, and I was thoroughly satisfied by the Android experience. Inevitably, I ended up returning the phone, for several reasons:
1) The Hero’s SenseUI was custom built on top of Android. There was no set date that the Hero would be getting OS updates (like Android 2.0). Until recently, neither HTC nor Sprint would say whether or not they would be pushing the update at all.
2) It was a very solid phone and fluid user experience, but the internally, the phone was running last-gen hardware. It’s not that big of a deal, but I want to be able to purchase something top of the line that will be sufficient for most of the 2-year contract period.

With that being said, here are what I believe to be the main advantages of the N1. It is running the latest version of Android of any phone on the market (Android 2.1). The hardware is the best of it’s kind on the market (snapdragon).

The touchscreen is slightly larger than the iPhone, and it’s still a very slim phone. It has one of the best cameras of cell phones (5 megapixel), and out of the box supports standard things like picture messaging, copy+paste, stereo bluetooth, gps, and video which first gen iPhone users can’t even do. The GPS Navigation software is standard on Android phones, unlike the iPhone whose software for turn-by-turn is added to monthly service or the TomTom software’s initial costs are about $100.

Overall, I think that the N1 is the first all-around Android phone that rivals side-by-side any other smartphone out right now. The only Android disadvantage is the lack of quality apps, which should hopefully change over time, remember, the iPhone has a headstart by a few years.

Dragon Age has taken over my life.

Matthew — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:47:32 +0000

As I had posted last month, I built my first computer from scratch. So far it has performed exceptionally well for media playback. As soon as I had all of my media players configured and codecs installed, my computer handled 1080P HD Playback flawlessly. The next phase of my testing was to determine the gaming capabilities of a relatively current game.

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.

Fired up this baby for the first time.

Matthew — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:22:25 +0000

I’m loving it! Fired up my HTPC for the first time, so far I have already installed Windows 7, the hardware drivers, and some updates, now to get it all setup for playing movies.

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.

Progress made, but not quite done yet.

Matthew — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:52:43 +0000

I have everything now except for the optical drive and the RAM. The project is almost complete, and I can’t wait to fire this baby up. I hope everything starts off without a hitch, but I have this weird feeling that I’m going to face some obstacle.

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…

Building my first “from-scratch” computer.

Matthew — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:26:43 +0000

So I finally decided to fund my first, fully from scratch, computer. This project is particularly special, because I’m specifically building an HTPC.

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!

Tried to breathe new life into an old toy.

Matthew — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:08:11 +0000

I was one of the early adopters of the EeePC. After having read about this little device I knew that I would have to get one. When it was finally made available I snatched one of the earliest models, the EeePC 700 (2G Surf). It came equipped with Xandros Linux, but that was not suitable for my needs so I quickly installed an nlited XP, and it served me well for many months.

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.