iWhatever!
Is anybody else completely sick of iPhone news? You all know I am as much an Apple Fan Boy as the next guy, but seriously. I am less than impressed with the iPhone. I think Apple screwed up majorly going with Cingular. And I think they are trying their hardest to make it as hard as possible for current Cingular customers(which I am not) to get an iPhone. Unlike every other Apple product, this product seems to have a goal of obtaining more Cingular customers.
Here are some of the things that support my argument.
You can not use a current Cingular phone plan, even if you have a data plan. You HAVE to get an ‘iPhone Plan.’ Unless you qualify for a new 2 year contract, you can not change to this plan and get an iPhone.
You can’t use an iPhone(to it’s full potential at least) if you are a corporate customer.
You can’t keep your old phone number. iTunes activation assigns you a new one.
You can’t use another AT&T SIM Card. Only the one that comes with the iPhone.
And I won’t even get into all the technological downfalls of the iPhone on the Cingular Network. If Apple/Cingular didn’t make it such a pain in the ass for me to get one, I would probably have one right now. I have always wanted a device that put the internet at my finger tips every where I go. But for now, Apple, you can keep your damned iPhone.
Check it out …
Trying out Matthew’s new style for k2. It looks a bit different that his screenshots, but I assume that is because I am on a slightly older version of k2. I plan on upgrading k2 and wordpress in the very near future. What you think of the style? Make sure you give Matthew his props if you like it =)
Personal Finance Tool
There is a new personal finance tool that is currently in a private beta called Mint. From what I have read on their website and from other people, it appears to be a product that will be easy to use, and more importantly easy to get the younger generation to actually manage their money well(something I have a huge problem with). Once the beta opens up and I get an account, I will use the shit out of it and post a thorough review for you guys. Click below to check out their website.
Lucida Grande On Windows!!
I don’t know about you, but I love the Lucida Grande font from Apple. As far as I have been able to tell it has never been available for windows. Well, today that all ends. Today Apple released Safari for windows. If you install it, it comes with Lucida Grande for Safari. If you navigate to Program Files -> Safari -> Safari.resources there are lucida grande.ttf and lucida grand bold.ttf files, drag to windows font manager in control panel, reload firefox/explorer and enjoy the beautiful fonts!
What I’ve Been Doing Lately
I recently started playing around with flash drives and portable applications and I found several different solutions for carrying your desktop around in your pocket/backpack/wallet/on your lanyard/etc. Me being me, I just had to try them all to see which one I liked best. I could go with the first one, and it could work, but the other one could work way better! So here is what I found …
U3
– U3 is a new flash drive technology that basically tricks the computer into thinking it is a cd drive so that it can run autorun.inf files. The ‘intended’ purpose for this is to run the U3 Launcher, which is basically a fancied up launcher for portable apps. I picked up a Sandisk 1GB Cruzer Titanium from staples for $20 to mess around with it, and I got to say I am very disappointed. Apparently there are two version of the u3 launcer, 1.2 and 1.4. My drive came with 1.2, which found out after plugging into my computer, does not like Vista, will not run on Vista, and as far as I can tell can’t ever be used as a U3 compatible drive again after being plugged into a Vista machine. I love the flash drive though, I think I am actually going to upgrade to a 4gig one once I settle on a portable application solution. Would also give me a second chance to try out U3.
Ceedo
– Ceedo is an installable version of U3 with pretty much the same suite of applications available for it’s ‘launcher’ with one notable difference, it costs money beyond the cost of the drive. It does have two things going for it though. It loads much faster than U3(and it also does so automagically) compared to my friends 2GB U3 enabled drive. It also has an additional $20 add on called Argo that will essentially let you install any application(non msi I found out) from a regular download executable and it will ‘portable-ize’ it and place it in your Ceedo environment. It didn’t work with the one application I wanted it to because of the applications licensing, so that kinda throws it out the window for me. But both Ceedo and Argo come with a trial period.
PStart
– Another launcher I found is called PStart, not as fancy as the previous two but free, and oh so simple to use. It is just a customizable launch pad for all your portable apps on your thumb drive. No real operating environment to speak of as the other two have, and no library of applications built in. But with the portable application listing you should be able to find anything you need.
If anyone knows of any other alternatives that I did not find, leave a comment and let me know. Like I said, I like to try it all before I settle on a decision.
Spring Cleaning
Things may start to appear a bit wonky over the next week or two, I am cleaning up the site and also completely restructuring how I maintain the site.
TMNT
As a product of the late 80′s and early 90′s, I grew up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I watched that cartoon every day, had all the toys, and was quoted on tape saying that I wanted to be a ninja turtle when I grew up. I remember when I saw the first TMNT movie. It was one of my best movie going experiences. This may be partly due to my youth, innocence, and ignorance … but I loved that movie.
That being said I was very skeptical of the new movie. I have not seen one episode of the new cartoon, and have no desire to do so. None the less, I was very bored this afternoon and so I ventured to the theatre to see what was playing. There was nothing I wanted to see, so I decided to go see TMNT out of boredom.
I wouldn’t say I loved the movie, my main complaint is that it was about 70-80 minutes long. I did enjoy it though, and will probably ‘obtain’ a copy once it comes out on DVD. It has a lot of the emotion and darkness of the first movie. Not as much obviously, as it is animated, but it still hit the spot. It had much better fight scenes/action sequences as there are certain things you just can’t do while in an animatronic suit.
The story line was a little more bland than the first two, but on par with the third. I won’t give any spoilers, but it wasn’t anything like what you would have seen in the original cartoon/movies. I did like the fact that they continued with the same story line. There were obscure references to the original movies and villains. They even left the movie open for a sequel involving enemies of the past.
Overall I liked the movie, it was not as bad as the third TMNT movie. I don’t know if it was worth the price of a movie ticket, maybe a daytime showing. But in retrospect I should have waited for the DVD, but I am satisfied with it.
Le Sigh
So I will not be moving into that apartment for various reasons I wont voice on such a public forum. Needless to say I am upset about it, and am back at square one. I hate hate hate looking for a place to live in this city. There are so many crappy places to live and so few good places. By the time I find them, they are taken. Hopefully I can beat that this time. I found a service called ZapTXT which will forward updates to an RSS feed to my cell phone via SMS. I set it up to forward a couple location specific search feeds from craigslist. Cross your fingers!
Casa De Pablo
I went out today and signed all the paperwork for my new apartment! I am finally going to have a place of my own for the first time, no room mates! w00t! I happened to get lucky enough to find the one apartment complex in the entire desert that is completely covered in greenery and it makes me very happy. The place is fairly big for a one bedroom at 750 square feet and it looks gorgeous. Has a huge patio, is on the first floor, and has exposed brick walls in the bedroom! Now I just have to figure out where the small fortune that I am trading to Ikea for furniture is going to come from. Here is the floor plan …
The image kind of sucks, but the place is amazing. I will take real pictures of the place once I move in(April 30th!!!).
Also my friend Jospo is now writing a blog hosted right here by me, it is http://jospo.com … you should check it out, he is way more artsy and creative than me, and actually has things to say sometimes.
Random Shite
So I got 30Boxes and Google Calendar sending mobile notifications to my new Helio phone(more on that in a bit). I really want to start getting organized with all the crap I do, and I want to be very mobile about it. I have run into a few problems. My phone can only sync with outlook(*shudder*) and I can’t even get that working. I would also like to be able to send a text to a calendar service to enter an item, as opposed to doing it online. Mobile notifications are great, I don’t think I could do without them, but entering items via SMS I think is a very important feature most of them have left out. Does anyone of a good calendaring service that supports that? I have only seen 30Boxes and Google Calendar, and while both are great, I would love to find something with that feature.
I got a new phone! That’s right, it’s a Helio Drift. I absolutely love it. It has aGPS, google maps, bluetooth, very customizable. The volume is a little low, the IM client sucks, and it’s PIM features and bluetooth are rather crippled. Overall as far as phone offerings go I like this one the best. I am still going to get the new Ocean as soon as it comes out! Hopefully those 3 cons will be fixed with the Ocean, I would also love to see better Mac compatibility, but I’m not holding my breath.
I signed up with ViRB and really like it as a social networking app. Still needs to mature a little bit, but thus far it doesn’t have all the downfalls that other social networking apps have. It does currently have the small user base as it’s new, but I think that will change, and hopefully it will draw a mature web savvy audience. Add me if you got an account, or if you need an invite let me know.
I am going to try and install Mac OSX86 on my new Dell, if anyone has any experience or advice with this, I would appreciate it =) Vista is a pain in my arse!
