Now that Apple’s iPad is officially a hit, all the computer makers (and computer makers Wanna-Be’s) woke up and are planning to Flood the market with Tablets. Most will try to rush something out for this holiday season, even half-baked, so around Black Friday and shortly thereafter expect to see them Everywhere!
So it’s not 2012 yet, but this one looks to be very significant date. Although, I guess we didn’t all focus ourselves on 09/09/09 as much last year. So today I am trying to reflect on our collective thoughts, as species. Naturally the first place I go for that is Google Trends. This shows the hottest Searches right now, and as we all know, this (and the Twitterverse) is really best real-time representation as to what is on our minds. So I started off with Google Trends.
This isn’t any news to anyone, it is just something that was proclaimed long ago and yet books are refusing to die. What inspired me is the fact that I am at Barnes and Nobles now, looking at giant Nook display right at the entrance.
Yesterday IE 9 Beta landed on the web. It’s a major rework of the most popular browser, with support for fancy new features (like HTML 5 and CSS 3) and Hardware Video acceleration. I of course installed it right away, and then was even more ecstatic when I saw in my Google Reader feed that Adobe (Finally!!!) released 64 Bit version of their ubiquitous Flash Player.
The Apps Store is all the rage nowadays and everyone says how “Apple Invented this Revolutionary Concept”. As I recall – Windows had a Marketplace for Apps and Accessories going way back…
I recently signed up for Napster, and so far it’s a pleasant experience. The price proposition convinced me – unlimited music streaming to your computer AND you can purchase Un-protected (DRM Free) songs for keeps. When you buy 3 months at a time, it comes out to $5 per months which gives you 5 songs and Unlimited streaming of their huge library, whole month.
Ok, here’s the summary: Wow!!
Overall I really love it so far, and although I experienced the famous disappearing bars issue first hand, I am really not concerned. One negative so far I noticed is the camera. There are comparisons to other smartphone cameras that say iPhone 4 is better, so maybe I just expected too much… Here’s best shot I managed today, judge for yourself (click for original). This one was outside, but inside photos not as nice, even with flash…
Yep, my iPhone 4 arrived via FedEx today and so far all I did was Shamelessly Fondle It all over. It is in the long process of synching with iTunes, and filling it up with Apps and Stuff.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled (aka: nonexistent) blogging to bring you this special message. I raved about Mass Effect 2 in the past, it’s a Movie gone Game, or Game gone Movie, either way makes for amazing Sci-Fi experience. I also love Steam, with their sensible license allowing you to install the game you purchase on your PC and on your Laptop, and play on either one, depending on what you happen to be on at the time.
Adobe Flash Platform got some bad press lately, and its exclusion from iPad is a major slap in the face to Adobe by Steve Jobs himself. Even though millions of sites out there (including this one) use Flash to liven up things and provide extra interactivity, Apple is willing to leave users to stare at Big Empty Boxes on iPad, rather than add Flash support.
I have been working this weekend (not enough of it, granted) on organizing and preparing our household 2009 taxes for filing. There is plenty of time before April 15th deadline in United States, but I like to have breathing room as this process always takes way longer than one expects (and hopes). I have been self-filing via software for many years now, and this year again opted for H&R Block software for Home and Business, which is newly renamed TaxCut software from prior years.
So, we picked up this nice HP Photosmart Plus All-in-one. I can’t speak to the printer quality much, only time will tell, but I can report my initial observations around setup process:
I was holding out to play Mass Effect one for the longest time, until I finally picked it up via Steam a month or so ago. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Classic Sci-Fi adventure game with artful combat system. Story line was short, but interesting. Yes, I did get to famous sex scene, and found it to be very tasteful, much more so than one may see on occasion on broadcast TV.
So, I am one of many now looking forward to upcoming release of Mass Effect 2. This recently released sneak peak of voices and stars behind Mass Effect 2 shows you how much of a movie-like production it has become. In my mind, the fact that you get to play main character inside this vast universe of stars (pun intended) is a grand bonus that soon will be a must for most people:
What started as a simple upgrade of my daughter’s video card, turned into afternoon of sheer terror. I don’t really know if it’s nVidia to blame, or some incompetence of EA developers, but result is tragic just the same.
It was really straight forward to setup side-by-side Windows 7 and Vista on the same computer, simply put them on separate hard-drives (either physical or separate partitions). Installation was no troubles, and I was happily booting between them back and forth as needed, until I hit a snag last night, MAJOR SNAG!!!
As you may have heard from me in the past, I was very impressed with Beta and RC version of Win 7, so I was among the many people preordering a copy when special $50 offer was available for a limited time. In fact, local MicroCenter store offered $40 preorder option at the time, so I jumped onboard. I also decided to use this opportunity to migrate to 64 Bit and fully utilize my 4Gb memory (which I think I will upgrade to 6 GB or more in the future).
I am excited, awestruck, humbled and overall happy and serene, all at once! What brought on these emotions is my first interaction with newest version of Google’s amazing Picasa product. But of course, it’s years of photos in my collection that bring on these wonderful memories, and combined with amazing new technology to present and organize them, is where Picasa really shines.