Apple Can Do No Wrong

I was reading the review of Tiger on OSnews when I read this:

So while Apple's appropriation of ideas from the shareware sphere might be bad news for those developers, overall it's a big plus for Mac users. And while I'm personally sympathetic for their plight, I don't fault Apple for doing it. They have to get cool new features from somewhere.

This is obviously the Apple-can-do-no-wrong attitude of many Apple fans. Apple stealing ideas from third party developers? Nah! it is for the good of all mac users and remember it is not stealing, it is merely appreciation and flattery. You see, only Microsoft is capable of stealing ideas because they are evil. Apple can do no wrong. Long live Apple! meehhh meeeeehhh.

Dell vs Apple

I remember Steve Jobs proclaiming loudly in one of his keynote speeches that Apple's Cinema display uses the best LCD and that the rest of the PC world uses rejects from their factories. I also remembered my friend telling me that crazy remarks like this will one day come back to bite them in their collective butts.

Anandtech did a Dell vs Apple LCD comparison recently and not only did they discover that both unit uses the same LCD OEM but the part numbers are identical. Go here to read the full review but the short version is that Dell's monitor appears to display colors more accurately and has more features than Apple's. Dell's monitor also has greater pivotal flexibility. Of course Apple's legendary product design is unchallenged but when I have to pay almost twice as much for packaging, cable management and a logo, the choice is obvious. And with recent reports of abysmal manufacturing quality from Apple's factories and sub-standard customer service, I think it is really easy to pick a winner.

Random Cat Watching

Saw these on one of Neowin's pages. Awww so cute.

CNET Looks At The O2 Mini

Cnet has a video showing a MS representative discussing about my fave O2 mini, or in this case it is called the imate JAM. I think the rep did a bad job of selling the mini's features. How about showing off the in-built phone pad for easy messaging, the T9 predictive phone book, the tonnes of softwares that you can use with the mini and while he is at it why not show a full length movie playing on windows media player 10. I think people should stop looking at the mini as a phone, it is a very powerful multi media communication device and no rep should present anything less. One interesting point is that he added wifi to the feature set. That is misrepresentation. the mini doesn't have wifi outta the box. Yes it supports wifi with add-on card but it doesn't have wifi. Someone should fire that rep.

TAK Pushpins

This falls under the why-the-heck-didn't-I-think-of-this category. If you are sick of your pin-up notes rotating on the pin and eventually tearing, this is a solution for you. It even has a small slot in the middle to allow for cables and strings. This design is so elegant and simple that I just wonder why it took us so long to come up with it.

Longhorn 5048 Screen Shots

The pre-beta Longhorn build 5048 is here! Lotsa screenshots at Winbeta.org (score 1 for winbeta over neowin). Nothing much to say except that this is work in progress and anyone who is even a half decent tech enthusiast will hold off any MS bashing until at least beta 2 is out the door. I see lotsa interesting potential though.

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil

Doom3 is a gorgeous game. The realistic shadows and bump-mapping give the game great atmosphere and let the gamer immerse completely in the virtual environment. I am currently playing Resurrection of Evil; an add-on to the original doom3 released last year. There is no change to the game play; it basically a very straight forward and linear run and shoot FPS. There are some really interesting new weapons though. A powerful double barrel shotgun, a zero-point energy grabber and a strange looking artifact that opened a portal to hell and started this whole mess. The artifact also absorbs life forces from your fallen brethrens and in return gives you powers like bullet time and berserk. If you have played half-life 2 you will no doubt find the grabber familiar. But unlike HL2 grabber, which helps to integrate the amazing hl2 physics engine into the gameplay and story, RoE's grabber focuses more on combat. It allows you to snatch fire balls from the demons and let you throw back at them. I was sick of dodging those fireballs in doom3 and now finally I can do something about it and allow those pesky demons to get a taste of their own medicine. Some may complain that RoE doesn't really bring anything new to the table in terms of graphics and gameplay but this was meant to be an expansion pack to extend the doom3 universe and I think it has done well in that aspect.

Grrrr part2

I don't know why I keep getting clueless clients...Just got a call from one asking me to help him troubleshoot a monitor problem. He complained that the light on the monitor keeps blinking and the monitor stays blank even when the PC has successfully booted up. I then suggested that he swap monitor to rule out monitor failure and he protested. "But if I change the monitor, all my shortcuts will be lost!" he said. It took me seconds to realise that he was talking about those shortcuts he placed on his desktop. Took me another couple of minutes to assure him that the monitor is only a display device and that his shortcuts are quite safe. Grrr

VPA Compact Mini

Meet the O2 mini's (Qtek in this photo) not so identical twin. Looks like the Mini is smaller than the new VPA Compact Mini. The casing on the VPA is slightly darker though. Picture from PocketPCThoughts.

Macromedia to Merge with Adobe

This is big news. I am sure many in the graphic industry didn't see this coming either. How this will affect both Adobe and Macromedia line of products is anybody's guess. But I do hope this could mean better integration than the demise of products from any side. As a graphic and web designer, I have been using both Adobe and Macromedia suites and had hope for the longest time to see better integration and workflow optimisation. This is an exciting opportunity to create a uber production suite and if Adobe plays its cards well, it may well be the next Microsoft.

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