• It’s an Apple product, and these days, buying anything from Apple seems to mean you’re surrendering your ability to think independently about the true quality and value of a product.
• There’s absolutely nothing I can do on an iPad that I can’t do on my laptop.
• You need one hand to hold the darn thing if you’re using it in a place without tables.  So, that means in the great majority of instances that I’d use an iPad, I would only be able to use it with one hand.  That strikes me as really, really annoying.
• There’s absolutely nothing I can do on an iPad that I can’t do on my laptop.
• It doesn’t seem to me that an iPad is nearly as versatile as a laptop because you’re forced to work in Apple’s walled-off-garden OS.  I don’t want my productivity to be limited by whether some developer happens to have created an app that I need.
• There’s absolutely nothing I can do on an iPad that I can’t do on my laptop.  Seriously, I’m not trying to be cute about this (well, maybe I am a little bit) but as I see it, the iPad simply cannot be as revolutionary as the iPhone because, unlike the iPhone, it’s really not changing mobile computing in a groundbreaking way.  There may be a very narrow niche for the iPad to fill, but really the most it brings is a fresh look to mobile computing, and functionally it doesn’t supplant laptops.

So, there you have it.  Like all of Apple’s products, it looks nice, and it has interesting uses.  But so far, I’ve only seen one of these in the wild, so maybe the masses are agreeing with me.

I like thin laptops and all, but this is crazy!

UPDATE: Whoa.

Windows 7

A couple weeks ago, I let my curiosity get the better of me, and I decided to install the Windows 7 Release Candidate to see what sorts of new bells and whistles Microsoft was cooking up in the latest upgrade to Windows Vista incarnation of Windows. I like to proudly declare that I largely skipped over the bumbling comedy of errors that is Windows Vista (with one tiny exceptions, see below on that) and I figured it was time to re-familiarize myself with modern Windows. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

But before we get to that, I have to briefly recount the process I went through to get this sucker working. In an abundance of caution, I decided I would install it on my old computer that has been gathering dust in a closet somewhere. So, I hooked up the computer, downloaded and burned the Windows 7 iso, and went to boot ‘er up.

“Cannot boot from CD – Code: 5″

Huh? I proceeded to go through a litany of possible fixes; using different DVD drives; burning onto DVD+DL discs in case the older DVD drive didn’t recognize DVD-R discs; updating and changing BIOS settings, all to no avail. Finally, after lots of Googling, I came to the conclusion that the motherboard in my old computer was not compatible with/couldn’t recognize the boot image in the Windows 7 iso. So, I made a new one! The process was pretty involved, but, with a little help from the internet, I found a boot image I knew my motherboard was compatible with, and used imgBurn to make a new iso with the compatible boot image and burned that iso to a DVD. Finally, Windows 7 was booting up.

After installing Windows 7 (which went quite quickly, compared to XP) I realized how out of date my old computer has become. Windows 7 was running, but in less than desirable fashion. So, I switched course. With help from a cnet video, I created a new partition on my abundantly-proportioned desktop hard drive, and installed Windows 7. And, I’m happy to say, I didn’t have to create any new bootable DVDs.

After using Windows 7 for several weeks now, I’m rather impressed with it. In contrast to the mess of Windows Vista, I feel like Windows 7 is a more streamlined user experience. I like the new Devices menu where I can see and change settings for all the peripherals and components attached to my computer (although my ifp-790 didn’t show up there – instead, it showed up as a new mass storage device, but I guess its supposed to do that with the firmware I have loaded on it). Although I am a big fan of each application getting its own Window on the taskbar (and I hated Windows XP’s option to group similar Windows together to minimize taskbar clutter), I have to say I’m very impressed with Windows 7′s taskbar organization. Even though there is grouping, I don’t feel like I have to click through multiple Windows before I can get to the one I want – probably because of Aero peek. I also like the option to create libraries to organize files more efficiently. Also, I’ll say that the Aero effects are nice, but, in the final calculation, are immaterial for me.

So, all that convinced me that it was time to take the plunge and update Windows XP. I purchased the highly-discounted upgrade to Windows 7 Professional (figured it’d be prudent to have XP mode, just in case…) from Newegg last week, and will anxiously await October!

Acer Aspire Timeline 4810

I’m writing this blog on a brand new Acer Aspire Timeline 4810. At the very reasonable price of $599, 8 hrs of battery life, 4.2 lbs, and an internal optical drive, this was an offer I just couldn’t refuse. It’s basically the 2009-version of my old Gateway 200ARC. Hands down, the biggest selling point for me on this laptop was the battery life. I was barely getting 1 hour of battery life on my previous laptop, which was just a joke. Now, I’m basking in endlessly flowing waters of energy and battery life. It’s glorious.

On the whole I’m thrilled with the new laptop, but there are a few gripes I have. First, I have to endure Windows Vista until October (fortunately it qualifies for a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it’s released, so there’s a silver lining there). Also, the button to turn the wireless adapter on/off is a little… weird… it’s not exactly a button you can press, it’s more like a touchpad and it’s not terribly responsive, and the only way I can make it work consistently is to run my finger over it back and forth. Not a big deal though.

So, in summary:

Windows 7: good. New laptop: good. Windows Vista: bad. Free upgrade to Windows 7: good. Battery life: good. Sending SMS text in gmail: missing.

That’s all, folks!

Computer Problems

A few days ago, I had a bad computer day. After getting home from work last Friday, I started going through my usual checklist of post-work items, including turning on my desktop computer. I went back to my bedroom to change, opened up the shades around my place, and went through the mail. About 15 minutes later, I came back to my computer and noticed that the monitor was still blank. Perplexed, I checked the power button to see if it was illuminated, which it was. And yet, nothing was happening. Very odd. I restarted the computer. Nothing. I did it again. Again, nothing. At this point, I started to get a bit annoyed. I checked the cords in the back. Nothing out of the ordinary. I cycled the computer again. This time, the progress bar on the BIOS screen loaded about half way, and then froze. Now I was getting worried. I tried opening up the DVD drive, which worked well enough. What the hell was causing this? I must’ve cycled at least three more times, all to no avail. So, by now I’m pretty pissed, and wishing I backed up my hard drive more frequently. But, there was still one thing left to try. I grabbed a screwdriver, unscrewed the side panel on my computer, and proceeded to, again, check power cords to make sure everything was securely fastened. After that, I tried one last time – and it worked. So, I guess that means, somehow, something had worked itself lose? You’ll often see instruction and troubleshooting manuals telling folks to make sure that all the connections are secure and what not, but this was the first time I actually experienced (apparently) a lose cord. I never did narrow it down to the specific cord that was causing the problem, but I’m guessing the SATA cord connecting my hard drive to the motherboard worked itself lose somehow. In any event, I fixed it, I’m very proud to say! This can be a lesson to folks who are afraid to rummage around inside their computers; it’s really not that big a deal, and it apparently can solve problems!

Alas, that was not to be the end of my computer troubles for the day. Later that evening, I went to use my laptop. After Windows loaded, the hard drive apparently decided to stop working and turned off, causing my laptop to freeze. Okay. I cycled the laptop and it seemed to be working. However, a few minutes later, the hard drive again shut off, but this time, it sounded like the read/write head stopped, um, doing its thing, while the platters continued to spin, causing a very… interesting (and frankly disturbing) sound. Again, I was forced to cycle the laptop, but now, as a result of all these fun and games, Windows XP will no longer load. It starts loading, but at some point hits a snag, and then simply reboots, over, and over, and over again. So, it’s in an endless cycle now. Great. I hate endless cycles. “There is the theory of the moebius . . . where time becomes a loop.”

Of course, having not learned my lesson from my recent desktop fiasco, I hadn’t backed anything up recently, and I was forced to buy an IDE adapter for the hard drive in my laptop that will enable me to hook it up to my desktop so that I can hopefully pull the files off of it. I’m not quite sure if the hard drive itself is completely dead or if it’s just the boot sector and operating system files, but I’ve had many a hard drive crash in the past where the hard drive made all sorts of strange noises, but I was nevertheless able to pull my files off. I’m keeping my fingers crossed! (And yes, I’ve since backed up the crucial files on my desktop computer… third time’s the charm).

The silver lining here is that I finally have a good reason to buy a new laptop. Generally, my philosophy on new purchases like this is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” so I guess this means I finally get to give in to the upgrade bug. I’m 99% certain I’ll be purchasing the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T, which is Acer’s new glorious ultraportable, long-battery life notebook line. Apparently, this laptop delivers 8+ hours of batter time (which has happily been independently verified) which is a huge selling point for me, because I have been putting up with dreadful battery life (1 hour!) on my current laptop for 5 years now. This Acer also looks incredibly awesome because it’s basically the same weight and dimensions as my current laptop (very thin and light) and comes with an internal optical drive. So, basically, it’s everything that I’ve been looking for in a laptop – and it’s only $899 to boot!

New Music

Lately, I’ve been finding that I have a developing taste for trailer music. You know, the really cool, always epic sounding, incredibly moving and emotional music you hear when you’re watching a move trailer. I’m still getting the low down on this genre, but apparently it looks like there are just a handful of groups that compose and offer exclusively this type of music to music supervisors or editors and do not generally make their works available commercially. There are some exceptions though, notably Immediate Music which has released at least one commercial album (under the name “The Immediate”) and licensed the songs on that album to groups that do things like add vocals to them and the such. Another “group” whose music tends to get picked up a lot by TV/Film soundtracks is ES Posthumus. SoundtrackNet is a good resource for folks who are intrigued by the music they heard during a trailer and want to learn its source.

The reason I’m mentioning this is that I was completely blown away by the music from the third Star Trek trailer and just today discovered that it was by one of these TV/Film/Trailer soundtrack groups. If you haven’t heard it, you should give it a spin, it’ll knock your socks off. As you’ll see if you click on the link, the Star Trek trailer music was done by a “group” called Two Steps From Hell, which has quite a few CDs with some pretty amazing songs (none of which are commercialy available, sadly). Anyway, for more info, including a link to what appears to be a blog post by the geniuses from TSFH themselves, check out this link.

Of course, no new music entry would be complete without the obligatory sample! Here’s an incredibly moving sample of “Orchard of Mines” by Globus, which is also Immediate Music’s “Serenata Immortale” but with vocals. For a full version, with video, of this song, just visit Globus’s website… which kind of makes my posting a sample of the song on my blog pointless… but whatever.

I’m still a geek

Remember a while back I declared I was going to switch my default search engine in Firefox to Microsoft Live? Well, with the launch of Bing, I’m giving Microsoft another shot to woo me. It’s hard to shake that feeling that a search on Bing may not be giving me as good results as I’d get on Google, but, change is good. We’ll see if it can hold my interest. I do like that it gives you less search results rather than 12+ pages like Google does. Makes me feel as though the results I’m seeing really are the best ones. Here’s hoping for competition in internet search!

But that’s not all. I also recently discovered Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha bills itself as a “computational knowledge engine.” Basically, it’s a search engine that answers factual queries you give it. So, for example, you could type “sunset Tahiti July 3 1922″ to see when the sun set in Tahiti on July 3 1922 (7:34pm Pacific!) or “Star Trek The Motion Picture gross” to see TMP’s total box office revenue. It’s pretty impressive, and fun to type in random queries to see the nuggets of knowledge it can spit back at you. Of course, as its name implies, it’s only in the Alpha stage, so we can probably expect a lot more from Wolfram Alpha in the coming months.

Finally, I’ll finish on some neato Google stuff (which feels kind of anticlimactic and.. almost lame, but oh well). I was able to make Gmail a lot cooler by adding labels and filters to my messages. Google, you see, is apparently quite opposed to folders (you can’t even create folders and sub albums in Picasa web albums) and thinks it’s much more efficient and better for people to use labels, tags, and other sorts of meta data to sort and organize data, rather than through a more traditional folder/hierarchical structure. I’m sure this sentiment is related to their anti-Microsoft mantra, but they may be on to something. However, it’s completely the opposite of how I’ve been organizing on Windows for decades, so it’s a little difficult to get used to. Nonetheless, I’m giving it a shot, and I’ll admit my inbox is feeling a little more organized — or at least, I have a better sense of how and where to access certain messages. Another nifty thing I’ve been exploring in Google is multiple inboxes, which you can access in the Labs tab under settings. Multiple inboxes is actually somewhat of a misleading name. Basically, it allows you to display multiple search results in your inbox. For example, you could, as I am currently doing, configure multiple inboxes to display your sent mail folder and starred messages to the right of your inbox. The sky’s the limit with this – you just have to input the search in the settings tab. It’s pretty convenient, and I like being able to see my inbox and sent mail folders at the same time. I think there is a way to truly display multiple inboxes (i.e., inboxes from different e-mail accounts) but I think this requires a separate add-on.

Finally, there’s Google Wave, which I just learned about today. I’m intrigued, although letting people see you editing an e-mail message in real time seems a bit intrusive, don’t you think?

That’s all, folks!

My laptop is fixed. It’s as good as new, and ready to rock. Not only did I get the hinges fixed, I also had the keyboard swapped out (some of those keys were barely hanging on) and had one of the battery clips fixed.

Sweeeeeeet.

Shortly before I left for the Dominican Republic, the other hinge on my laptop went south, which means both hinges are now broken, forcing me to literally hold in place my laptop’s LCD when I’m using it. Not fun.

It’s time for a new laptop.

As I was researching laptops yesterday, I learned that there are rumors swirling on the Internets that Dell is slated to release a new ultraportable laptop to compete with the MacBook Air. There are a lot of articles about this strewn about, like this one, or this one, to name just a couple. Very intriguing. Although I don’t think any specs have been confirmed yet, thanks to a mishap–or viral advertising campaign by Dell–some Google-cached pages from Dell’s website suggest that it will have a 13″ LCD. And it may even be lighter than the MacBook Air (which is pretty darn light). This site even seems to confirm the Adamo’s weight, but it’s probably just speculation at this point. In any event, if those predictions are true, I have to say that I’m very, very interested in this laptop.

I’ve been hooked on the thin-and-light/ultraportable category of laptops for some time now. In fact, I like to tell myself that my current laptop, a Gateway 200ARC, was sort of a pioneer in the thin-and-light category. It weighs only 4.5 lbs and is one-inch thick, which is pretty much the dictionary definition of a thin and light. What’s interesting is that this laptop was released back in 2004, long before thin and light really ever became a category. Nowadays, you can scarcely find a serious laptop manufacturer that doesn’t have its own thin and light or ultraportable line. If the Adamo turns out to be a stinker, I may just consider getting the hinges repaired and getting a few more years out of my Gateway.

So, to sum up, while I was determined to purchase a new laptop before I fly back to Seattle on Sunday, the rumors about the Adamo, plus some less-than-stellar reviews about the Latitude E4300, which I was seriously considering, have made me hold off on purchasing a new laptop… for now. Just have to keep the wallet closed until mid January, when Dell (hopefully) introduces Adamo to the world at CES 2009.