Archive
Time for a Breather
So I finally finished this exhausting school year, and I’m seriously relieved. I’ve officially accrued all the grades that will actually initially be on my medical school application later this summer, so now all I really need to worry about is actually getting that done.
I’m home right now, and I noticed that instead of the crappy 4:3 monitor my mom had hooked up to the old Mac Mini before, we now have a gorgeous Aluminum Apple 23″ Cinema Display (a few generations old). I have the wonderful 27″ Apple Thunderbolt Display back at school, but this thing just makes me wonder why they ever changed the design. The brushed aluminum framing the matte screen just screams professionalism a lot more than the glossy, black-bordered “pretty” ATD. Anyway, I of course hooked up the display to my 11″ MacBook Air (currently my only computer) and it’s working pretty well!
A New Beginning?
So after a rather long, unannounced hiatus, I’ve decided I’m going to try and start blogging again. I may have brought up last year that I planned on expanding into a new blog, with less of a focus on tech, and more of a broad overview, but I’ve decided to simply do that within this current blog. I mean, how many people will actually care eh? Haha. I’ll probably start mixing in stuff about my life pretty abruptly, and I won’t really take any time to fill in any background info. Hopefully the few who do read won’t really care. I don’t care. This blog is for me anyway.
Anyway, I’d first like to apologize for not posting much last semester. School was absolute hell. Four jobs along with twenty academic units almost killed me. Physically. Seriously. This semester won’t really be any easier (fewer academic units, but still four jobs, three of which will likely take more time). I still have Quantitative Physiology, which, incidentally, is already becoming a huge pain in my ass. I already have an annoying lab assignment to finish, but thankfully it isn’t due for about a week. As of now, I’m just really thankful that the semester hasn’t really picked up just yet. I’m still burned out from last semester despite having winter break to recuperate, and although I’ve only been back for maybe four days, I feel like I’ve been chugging along for a month now. I’m tired. Luckily, I have my wonderful girlfriend keeping me company, and I can take my temporarily free evenings to relax and (re)watch Breaking Bad with her (awesome show by the way).
Speaking of Breaking Bad: I caught up this winter break, and I can agree with all the critics; Breaking Bad really is one of the greatest TV shows of all time. The acting, writing, and filming are all superb, and the ending of season 4 seriously left me salivating for more. I figured since my girlfriend hadn’t watched it yet, this should be our next endeavor. Just for reference, my girlfriend and I have watched (and kept up with) Scrubs (twice), Supernatural, How I Met Your Mother, and will soon be there with Breaking Bad as well. I also watch Dexter myself. I will be talking about these TV shows every once in a while.
Some interesting stuff. I’ve been eyeing a SATA III 256 GB SSD now (to replace the 128 GB Toshiba that came stock with my MBP), and over break, after a good two-three weeks of just eyeballing Slickdeals, I was down to two choices: a Crucial M4, or a Samsung 830. I ended up picking up a “like-new” Crucial M4 off of a seller on Amazon. The drive was still in its anti-static packaging, the seller had merely taken it out of the box, which he incidentally didn’t have either. Who cares. I got the drive for about $310 (including shipping), which put the drive at $1.21/GB. In contrast, the cheapest Samsung 830 I’ve seen is about $370 (ignoring the Microcenter price error a couple months back at $229), or about $1.45/GB. Either way, both drives seem fairly reliable, with the M4 having a longer track record. Note: at the time of my ordering the drive, the 5200 hour bug was already patched with the 0309 firmware. The Samsung 830 seems to bench a little bit better than the M4, likely due to the Samsung Toggle Mode NAND, but in real-world use, I wouldn’t see any noticeable difference.
Aaaanyway, I picked up the drive yesterday (finally), after the drive was actually delivered on Tuesday. Thank the campus mailroom for being super bogged down with students rushing in and ordering textbooks. The drive had 0009 firmware, so the first thing I did was burn the firmware ISO to a CD and update the drive. This obviously involved a little hackery, as I had to take out my OptiBay to put the ODD back in (Macs won’t boot from external optical disc drives). After the firmware was updated, I put the 160 GB Intel X25-M into the OptiBay, and the M4 into the regular bay (which has SATA III). The rest was a breeze (well.. it all was), with a quick ~20 minute OS X installation, then approximately ~1 hour of me clean installing my software. Yeah, I skipped out on the Time Machine restore, since I figured it was time for clean system, after having tested many beta Lion builds on the previous drive. As of now, the M4 has been running great, so that’s that. I’ll update later if anything comes up. I’m not really seeing any performance difference, but I also have yet to do any large transfers. No beach balls at all, though, which I would see maybe once a day on the Toshiba.
Over Winter Break, I also beat The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, the former of which sparked interest in the latter. I’m currently playing Phantom Hourglass (if I can find time to play during the school year), and I do still need to get to numerous other games backed up in my Steam account (Arkham City, LIMBO, Crysis, and plenty more…). I also bought Rayman Origins for $20 (actually $10, considering I paid $10 for a $20 TRU voucher, which I used for the game) over break, and only managed to play it for about 10 minutes.
This post is starting to sound a little stupid, but really, I haven’t posted for approximately 3 months. I have so much backed up stuff in my mind. I’ll stop for now, but I’ll eventually spit out whatever I feel necessary. With this blog kind of changing its tone, I will still keep reviews and tech tips fairly separate from the more personal posts. Hopefully, it won’t be too messy.
A Book and Some New Toys
Soon after Steve Jobs’s death, I went ahead and ordered a copy of his biography. I spent some time deciding which electronic version I wanted (Kindle vs. iBooks), but I ultimately realized that I could just go ahead and buy the hard copy, thus avoiding any syncing issues entirely. This book would be worth owning on paper anyway.
So I actually received the book two days ago, and having only read a couple chapters in, I can say that the book is great. I won’t bore you with any details since I suspect anyone reading this blog will probably read that book anyway. Furthermore, other tech blogs have been incessantly posting tidbits from the book, behavior I find incredibly annoying since most people want to read those tidbits for themselves. It’s not even tech news!
The other day, an interesting deal popped up on SlickDeals. Verizon had two iPhone 4/4S bundles listed in their online store as free. I quickly jumped and ordered 3 of each (the maximum allowed amount). That was last Sunday. On Thursday, my order status never updated, so I called in and asked. I kept getting vague answers about how I’d be getting an email with more details on my order on Friday, but my order would be processed by then. On Friday, lo and behold, I get a cancellation email with an offer for 30% off. Psh. Not cool. Anyway, I called in to complain, and insisted that my order should be fulfilled. I get some attitude from the first CS rep, suggesting that since I was not a Verizon customer, I could only get the 30% off offer as a courtesy. Discrimination eh? Escalation! I pointed out that I’d talked to non-Verizon customers who successfully had their orders pushed through by calling in (SDers). At first the supervisor tries to deny that and suggest that the other person might have just taken the 30% discount. I insisted that that was not the case. After 20 minutes of arguing, I successfully got one of each package pushed through, again “as a courtesy.” Yeah, 3 of each was probably a little bit excessive hahaha. Anyway, along with my book the other day, my package came. For a little bit of my time, I got a free Power and Protection Package, and a Premium Brand Package. The P&P Package had a case + belt clip, a car charger, and some screen protectors. The PB Package was the real winner. It included a Jawbone Icon, an Incase case (with a little stand), and another set of screen protectors. Cool! What I’ve learned from this experience: Verizon’s customer service isn’t really that great unless you pull a little bit of arm twisting; companies are usually on the hook for pricing errors, unless they want to lose customers. I know I sound like a bit of a jerk for all this, but the person I spoke with on Thursday actually promised to process my order.
My Apologies
So my workload really ramped up after my last posts, and I haven’t been able to deliver what I’d originally promised. I’ll probably be making a couple posts over the next day or two to try to cover some lost ground.
iPhone
The iPhone event a couple weeks ago brought the iPhone 4S (“nothing more” than a spec-bumped iPhone 4). I, along with most people, pretty much expected this news – it really follows Apple’s pattern of small updates. The 4S features an A5 processor, a much better camera, and possibly most important to most people, Siri.
I’d originally not planned on getting a 4S at all (none of the features except the bumped camera really enticed me, and I’d have to pay mid-contract pricing). But, thanks to my wonderful mother, who had an upgrade available and could really care less about a new phone, I am now on a new white 16 GB iPhone 4S. I will be sending my older black 32 GB iPhone 4 back to her soon, not because these were the “terms” of some trade, but because at the very least, I want to be able to iMessage and FaceTime my mother with the new toy she gave me.
I don’t have an unboxing gallery for this guy since the packaging is basically the same as the iPhone 4. Nothing has changed, really. It still comes with the same accessories and the box is largely the same except for a new iCloud logo on the bottom. I admit, I played with Siri quite a bit on first use, and it is amusing. Utility-wise, though, she really doesn’t do all that much (that you can’t do faster by hand) unless you’re driving. Siri really shines when you’re driving and need to make calls or respond to text messages. Using my trusty Klipsch S4i’s, I was able to EASILY make several phone calls and respond to 3-4 texts within a short 20 minute drive, all without distracting myself from the road whatsoever. Having Siri is really just like having that assistant sit next to you and make those phone calls and text messages for you. My opinion on Siri is that for now, it’s nothing more than voice dialing on steroids. Many of its features are cool, but not quite necessary in life. Two or three years down the road, though, when it becomes more developed, Siri will definitely become a staple of iPhones, and the major differentiator from the other OSes. As a side-note, since Siri is in beta, I am holding out hope that it gets brought to the A4 iOS devices once it becomes a release build. From the hackers, Siri clearly doesn’t NEED the A5 to run. The iPhone 4S still has the same 512 MB of RAM as well.
I played with the camera a little bit too. Saint Louis has really been pretty rainy and gloomy for the last couple days, and I really haven’t had much time to take nice pictures. The only changes really noticeable in everyday application are that the photos obviously come out in a much higher resolution and size, and the file sizes increase as well. Furthermore, thanks to the zippier A5 chip in these phones alongside this pumped up camera, the battery life seems to have taken bit of a hit. I don’t really remember the battery life of my iPhone 4 on iOS4 since I’ve been on iOS5 all summer, but I’ve typically used about 10-20% more per day on my 4S than on the 4. It’s not a dramatic difference, since I charge nightly anyway (with the monthly discharge of course), so it doesn’t bother me much.
Some other points of interest: that rumored yellowing screen on the new phones doesn’t seem to be an issue for my girlfriend’s or my new 4S. I would also like to point out that the speakers seem to be quite a bit louder – sitting in my room alone I can easily be satisfied playing music at about 25% volume. I’d say that’s pretty impressive. Obviously, they’re still phone speakers and do sound a bit tingy, but hey, I’m impressed with what I’ve got now.
As I mentioned earlier, I have been on iOS5 for a while now, so I’ve had plenty of time to mess with the new features. I have been using iCloud with my Macs to sync calendars, contacts, notes, etc, and the synergy is really great. I love that I no longer need to worry about not having bookmarks in sync between my two machines, and it’s really like leaving off exactly where I was when I move between my MBP, my MBA, and my iPhone. Also, since I’ve only had 200 text messages a month since I even got a texting plan, I’ve had to rely on Google Voice, Textfree, etc for the longest time. Thanks to iMessage, I might be able to just switch over to the native messaging app entirely, since all of those 3rd-party free texting apps just suck. They crash all the time, and it’s irritating having to go into two different apps to text different people. Give it a year or two, I think the carriers are going to have to rethink their texting plan charges, since iMessage, BBM, GV (each for their respective platforms) are going to start gaining momentum. There really is no reason to have to pay $20 a month for unlimited texting when the user is already paying for data.
All in all, my verdict on the 4S is fairly positive. While I would still make the same choice as before in not buying the 4S unless I had a very easy way of getting one (thanks Mom), for those still using models older than the 3GS should definitely upgrade. iPhone 4 users will mostly see very little reason to shell out the cash, though, and should wait for the next big revision. I think Apple is finally getting it’s rhythm down on iPhone revisions and the carrier contracts: those who upgrade on the big revision should upgrade at the next big revision in two years. Likewise, those who buy the “S” model of each iPhone, should wait for the next “S” model, presumably also two years away. The iPhone 4S is a great phone, and for those who have an easy path to upgrade should definitely jump. For those that have a more difficult time upgrading can hold out, since the 4S still isn’t THAT big of a change.
Soon
Today is the highly anticipated Apple iPhone event. I’m not really expecting all that much, as the most likely release is going to be a spec-bumped iPhone 4 with cool voice-command features. There are still rumors flying around of a redesigned iPhone 5 coming up, but I just really don’t see it happening on this release.
Either way, I will be making another post later about the event, as well as the Apple Thunderbolt Display review.
That Time of Year
Well, we’re into September, so it’s time to start speculating about what Apple has up its sleeve this Fall. We’ve been seeing a good deal of leaked “iPhone 4S” pictures, including logic board and front panel leaks. Most of the actually leaked material looks just like the current iPhone 4. The exception, of course, is the fact that a bunch of cases have come out from China depicting a completely different design for the speculated “iPhone 5.” Personally, I’d just like OS X 10.7.2, iOS5, and iCloud to just launch already, and the only thing really holding them back is that Apple needs to push out their next round of hardware before they’ll finally release the software.
I don’t expect iPods to get much this year, and last thing: where the hell are the SB Mac Pros!?
Customer Service
My luck has been pretty good as of late. A couple nights ago I was just walking across campus and gosh-darnit, there, lying on the ground was a nice pair of black Klipsch image s4i’s. My girlfriend was just looking into getting a new pair of earbuds! Well, they had rubber tips already, and I didn’t really want to stick used earbud tips in either of our ears, so I started looking into new tips.
Google. Google. Google. Comply Foam caught my eye (LOTS of forums rave about these tips for Klipsch buds), so I figured I’d look into getting some. Until today, I’ve never used foam earbud tips so I had absolutely no clue about sizing, comfort, durability, etc. I saw a 3-pack on Amazon for about $15, so I really didn’t feel like spending that much on essentially an experiment, especially if I didn’t even know they would fit. Here’s where the fun came in. I dug around, and apparently, Comply Foam has a fairly good reputation for doing social stuff on Facebook (giving out free tips, earbuds, etc), so I figured, why not? I emailed them and flat out asked for a free sample. They probably wouldn’t even respond to me (as most companies typically don’t).
Monday: A kind Mr. Nate Knox in the customer service department of Comply Foam emailed me back. He asked for an address and a pack of T-100’s was heading my way. Ok, to be honest, at this point, I thought I might’ve emailed a fake address, got tricked into some phishing scam. I gave them one of my secondary email addresses and my school mailing address, so it wasn’t really THAT big a deal, even if I did start getting a shitton of spam. No big deal.
Today I get a package at the mailroom. There, in a normal medium yellow envelope was a 3-pack (different sizes) of Comply Foam T-100s.
At this point I guess I’ll cut the dramatization short, because there really wasn’t anything else too exciting. I popped the small size tips on my s4i’s, and I basically had an orgasm in my ear. I had to get to class (where I am now – yes, I really should be paying attention), and I just really, really didn’t want to take the earbuds out. The foam is REEEEAAALLY comfortable, and the sound with them is just amazing. I thought my Klipsch’s were awesome with the included rubber tips. Well, they’re not. I will definitely be buying a pack or two more of the T-100s (replacements, for my gf, etc), because they’re just incredible.
Thank you so much, Nate. You’ve shown me amazing customer service, and I’m very happy to have contacted you.
Finally, maybe? Some news..
I’m convinced I’m just lazy. The semester has been looking busy, but not THAT busy. I’m pretty sure I COULD have found some time to make a post in the last couple weeks, but I guess I just didn’t feel up to it. Anyhow, at some point in the near future, I’m planning to migrate this blog over to a more universal one, so I won’t feel entirely obligated to post only about tech stuff. Every once in a while, I do feel like posting about my life outside of my toys, but the blog is called “Tech Junkie Review.” Maybe the transition will be motivation to post more, maybe…
Ok let’s get to some actual content. Not all that much has really happened in the last couple weeks. We do have a good amount of Apple gossip, but gossip is gossip. The way I see it, Jobs stepping down won’t make any difference in the way Apple works, considering the man has been silently looming instead of actively managing for months now. Cook will do just fine. iPhone 5 rumors are really ramping up, with VERY mixed information: some say it’ll only be a “4S” with a mere spec bump and improved antenna. Others seem to be incredibly convinced that the iPhone 5 will have the teardrop shape, a giant screen, and a different home button. I know a lot of people who are waiting for the thing, but I probably won’t be picking one up myself, unless AT&T really entices me with the full discount in contract renewal pricing. More than likely, I’ll be waiting for the first LTE iPhone, at which time I will buy one unlocked (so I can use it in Asia or Europe, maybe…). I have been eyeing a Thunderbolt Display since they were announced too, but I’m not sure I want to spend the grand on a display just yet. My primary use would be the docking capabilities and cable simplicity, and of course movies, but Belkin now has that Thunderbolt dock on the horizon, which could save me a bit of money. I don’t really NEED the big-ass display either. I’d just really, really like one. It’s pretty.
I hadn’t looked at any Microsoft news until two nights ago, when the Windows 8 Developer Preview was released. I was incredibly surprised there were no strings attached to the DL: no developer fee, no NDA, nothing. Just go to the page, click the download, and there you have an ISO of a slick new OS. Apple might want to learn from this.
After a good day of deliberation and forum-trawling, I decided to Boot Camp my fairly new MBA and give it a shot. Most threads said that it installed fairly easily, and the drivers worked for the most part. Several posters went as far to say that the OS was incredibly polished for a developer preview. Ehh… It took me all of 15 minutes of usage before I deleted the partition. I was incredibly impressed by the install itself (took about 10 minutes total), but shit, in the 15 minutes I actually used the OS, 5 minutes were on restarting the machine because it’d become completely unresponsive. I couldn’t get the drivers to install at all, and frankly, the Metro UI is an ugly piece of crap. It’s kind of like Lion’s Launchpad (which also kind of sucks), but uglier, and less thought out. On tablets, hell yes. It has that touchscreen mentality to it. Using a mouse with Metro is incredibly weird, and really just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’m reaching that point in life when I’m supposed to start feeling old due to the “hip,” new technology. Probably not…
I did disable Metro (lots of quick instructions online for that), but at that point, the OS kinda just looked like Windows 7 except a little bit slicker, and while it worked, much, much quicker. It’s definitely a zippy OS, and it really feels like Microsoft’s Snow Leopard. Once it gets a little bit more polished, and the Boot Camp drivers start to work (not likely until the official release comes out), it’ll definitely be a pretty awesome OS to use (especially with that spiffy, native EFI support).
I realize I sound like I don’t really like Lion right now, and I guess that’s not fully true. But, the Wi-Fi bugs with Lion have irritated me to no end for the last few weeks. I work IT, the school uses WPA2-enterprise. When hundreds of freshmen arrive with their brand-spanking new Macs (all with Lion), and the Wi-Fi doesn’t work, people get pissed. Then there’s the loss of Samba (breaking our network printing system), which just leads to a whole different set of nightmares. I’ve been testing 10.7.2 also, and obviously Samba’s not back, and the Wi-Fi problems don’t seem to be fixed. There it goes again. I just lost my connection. Whoa, a self-assigned IP error. Haven’t seen one of those myself since 10.6.6.
Inertia
I should really get my shit together. I keep telling myself I’m going to post more, but then I get lazy. This summer is really not going like I planned at all… I haven’t gotten any tech projects going, and I definitely haven’t been studying enough. Either way, it’s July 4th, and I figure I owe it to myself to take some time and make a post.
I’ve been on the Lion GM for a while, and I gotta say, I’m very happy with how it’s working. I hope iCloud comes out of beta soon as well, but I really can’t complain about how it’s working (pretty great). Lion itself is incredibly stable (I really have yet to find a problem with it), and despite it not really having all that many “revolutionary” updates, I really appreciate the under-the-hood changes, as well as the really nice UI overhaul. Lion is like the Snow Leopard to Snow Leopard, if you know what I mean.
I sold my 11″ MBA a week and a half ago in anticipation of an impending spec bump. When I bought the machine, I told myself it was just for portability, and I really wouldn’t need to be doing any spec chasing. Well, I’m not too good at resisting that kind of temptation. Considering I was able to sell the machine at about 85% of my original cost, I’m pretty happy. I’m actually very much looking forward to this boost in performance, since I’d been totally maxing out the 1.4 GHz CPU as well as the 4 GB of RAM. Hopefully, Apple will give us some more upgrade options on the 11″ this round.
Rumors on 9to5 Mac and Apple Insider this morning suggest that Apple might even ditch the blade SSDs in favor of some ONFI 3.0 tech. Essentially, it’s one more step to killing off user upgradeability. What this entails, essentially, is NAND flash soldered directly onto the motherboard, allowing speeds of up to 400 Mbps. While I really hate the idea of not being able to put in my own SSD, I really can’t complain about 400 Mbps on such a small machine. Though I have my doubts (mainly that Samsung isn’t quite on board with this tech yet, and Samsung is one of Apple’s main suppliers of flash memory; and that Apple JUST introduced the blade mSATA SSDs a couple of months ago), I can’t say this wouldn’t be an unwelcome addition that would make the snappy machines even more snappy. Thunderbolt is really just icing on the cake. My next big purchase is likely going to be some sort of external display (a 25″ HDTV as a monitor is really starting to look like crap next to a 17″ MBP). If Apple can deliver a new 27″ LED Cinema Display using Thunderbolt (a minor, but worthwhile upgrade), I might be picking one up. Sure, Thunderbolt peripherals are expensive, but I can’t help but imagine the possibility of using the Thunderbolt port to power the USB/Firewire hub that the displays carry. Granted, price will still be a major consideration, but the thought of a set of machines working in perfect synergy seriously appeals to me.
Well then..
So Monday’s event came, and despite the lack of any new hardware, I was pretty impressed. So Apple definitely pulled another “you did it first, but we do it better” ploys with all the new iOS5 features (especially notifications), but honestly, who gives a shit? At the current point in the game, if (and only if) Apple delivers on all of those iOS5 features, iOS5 will have ALL of the features of most mobile OSes, and iOS5 will be doing it in a cleaner, better way. I know very well that I look like the biggest fanboy in the world right now, but I can’t help but feel that most people out there feel the same way. Just looking at some of the features, iMessage seems to stand out quite a bit. I’m still a little skeptical on whether or not the carriers will allow it, but we’ll see. The feature would effectively make all iOS to iOS texting free. That RIDICULOUSLY overpriced $20 a month for unlimited texting will be a thing of the past. But we’ll see.. iCloud is definitely a marvel, though much of its appeal lies in the fact that it is FREE. All that seamless integration (hopefully Apple doesn’t pull another MobileMe debacle) for free. iCloud effectively draws in the iOS Windows users, since OS X will be that much more appealing with this sort of synergy.
What’s there to say about Lion? Well, anybody reading this blog has probably seen the keynote, or at least the highlights. I won’t bore you with those details. I’m currently downloading DP4, and hopefully, all those bugs are nicely ironed out. This should be fun!
Last on my list of things to talk about. Gaming. Sony delivered with some interesting stuff on Monday, I have to admit. Though after the whole PSN scandal, and Sony’s seeming lack of reliability, I still can’t say I would bite on a PS3. Nintendo’s presentation intrigued me, especially with that slick-looking tablet controller. While Apple’s AirPlay is generally about putting your media and games onto the TV, Wii U stresses multiplayer, by streaming the content from the TV onto the controller. I’m not sure how well gaming will really work on this system (they didn’t give much of a real demo), but it’s definitely interesting. More concerning to me is the cost. Let’s assume that the Wii U system itself costs the same as the Wii originally did: $250. Factor in Nintendo’s recent trends of upping prices, and the original cost of Wii controllers, the Wii U is looking to be a pricey commitment. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if those controller tablets ended up costing $100 a piece. Only time will tell, and I have been a loyal Nintendo follower for years, but if Nintendo can’t keep up that reputation of delivering innovation for less, they may be on a slow road to death.
Tech Junkie Review 