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Blackberry

written by owen, published 2010-Jan-28, comment

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I'm looking for a smart phone but the BB has too much of a stigma behind it. It screams; "I'm just like every other elitist blackberry user", plus I hate the verdana font on a phone. I have nothing against BB users and their annoying tweets but I got a chance to use it during a meeting I had recently.

The tracking wheel has a kinda greasy feel to me and all the face buttons have little "give". The keyboard is ok, and I could get used to it but the phone still feels "locked in". Its seems to be more of a portable text messaging thing than a productivity device. You ever wonder why millions of people are tweeting nonsense on the internet? it is because there is nothing better to do on the phone but writing small paragraphs of nonsense.

From my previous cellphone, which I must note is a totally retarded Motorolla L6. Although my old phone does what it is suppose to do and is rediculously slim, there is no good way to export the data or do anything with it besides making calls, viewing small webpages and sending SMS text messages. Which was not a problem at the time but this time around when I'm spending (aka wasting) my money on a electronic device, I would rather get more out of my device than the regular, everyday trappings - I want it to rock my world. And also I want the data I put into the phone to last beyond the current iteration of the phone. I'm not entering all those birthdays into the calender again for the millionth time, only to have a new fangled device come out 2 days later which is incompatible with my old data. The data is either incompatible or "trapped" in the device for some strange reason.

Fast forward to today's new cellphones now allow you to connect to the "cloud" and upload all your data to Google or where ever. This is all well and good but the problem I have with this is that without a dataplan or persistent wifi connection you phone is basically useless. Not being connected to the cloud you are like a man trapped on a deserted island. I'd like to know that I can still use my phone if I'm not paying 30 USD a month for a data plan. I want a mini computer in my hand, not a slave terminal running gmail.

Back on topic though the BB seems to do what it does well, I can browse most text sites without much lag, use a limited list of applications and change the wallpaper and ringtone - thats pretty much it. Oh and add calender entries.

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Gods Child commented: omigosh, the cloud. anyway, um, do you really do that much on your phone? I mean 30/mo extra is a lot. ... read 10 more

Digital 3D review

written by owen, published 2009-Dec-19, comment

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I was pretty stolid to it at first. From the outset it seemed like another gimick (widescreen) by the movie theaters trying to trick people in to coming to see thier over priced, poorly thoughtout, crappy regurgitated movies. I don't even understand why the movie tickets cost more - especially when you can't even keep the glasses and it requires no additional hardware for them to make a 3d movie.

However Digital 3D is something you definately need to see at least once. Does it make the movie anybetter? I would say mostly, no. Titanic would be not better a movie similarly a car would be no more sincere if it had popups figures.

At certain points it really does make the image more spectacular, especially when there are particles in front of the screen or when there is sort of transparent hologram. For other 90% of the time the 3D effects were just an annoying distraction that I was forcing my eyes to watch. Forcing them to constantly re-adjust as if I was watching a yo-yo go up and down at very close range, trying to guess when its going to stop. Whenever anything in 3D suddenly moved it would "ghost" like crazy, almost like my brain was droping frames, trying to keep up with what was going on. At certain points I would remove the glasses to relieve my eyes from the constant torture of trying to find something to focus on.

You get accustomed to it eventually and by 10 minutes into the movie you will have seen every trick in the 3D book. You should definitely see the movie Avatar. As for the future of Digital 3D? I don't know, I hear they are coming out with 3D compatible Tvs. I don't see why really, unless they want to blind everybody in the world.

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Shopping Carts Suck

written by owen, published 2009-May-30, comment

I go to the supermarket alot, mostly because I only buy just the amount of things that I can survive on for like two weeks or so. I am not one of those people who keeps a long line of people waiting because they have bought so much stuff they could feed a small army or a very fat man. When these shopping cart people aren;t holding up the line, they are blocking up the isles and doubling parking their shopping karts. And if that isn't bad enough after you finally get what you want, you reach the cashier and guess who pops in front of you? Yup a shopping cart full of cheese tricks and a million other items. omfg. And to top it all off the first 2 credit cards that are used by the shopping cart fool are expired. How many credit cards can one person have?

Not only do they look silly but they are ignorant to the fact that pushing a shopping cart is not a form of exercise. Only reason I see you should be using a shopping cart is if you are; buying bags of feed or bulk sugar, carrying a small child that has the tendency to throw stuff, buying a cake or food for a party.

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Tami commented: And what would i do with my 2 months grocery shopping items? I don't need any extra muscles. ... read more

It started to smoke and then it died

written by owen, published 2009-Jan-29, comment

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I should have known that eventually the tons of dust that had accumulated over the years would have gotten the better of my 6 year old Dell computer. Either that or the rampant power fluctuations that are a result of the evil washing machine and evil refrigerator who have be conspiring to steal my attention for years. I brought it to work and they said that an irreplaceable chip on the motherboard had picked up a smoking habit and that even rehab could not be its saving grace. It was lost.

I could always get the motherboard replaced but it really doesn't make any sense to hack back together the computer's soul. The computer by todays standards is HUGE and had never failed to take a RAM or hard drive or disk upgrade that I thrust into its innards. Which maybe be difficult if not near impossible with today's micro compact computers. I've never been one to tinker with computer hardware in either case as you may have guessed from the obvious fact that I bought a DELL. But she took it well and we had some good times.

Back in the day it was a 1300 USD, 1.6 ghz, 256 mb of RAM - beast of a machine. Right about the time cream colored computers were going out of style. Black plastic sex. Now I'm having difficulty figuring out what to do with its rotting skull and bones. Oh cruel, cruel world.

It will probably be another month or so before I get a replacement. Another DELL of course and probably the abomination that is VISTA. Pity I can't wait until windows 7 comes out ( whatever good that'll do ). I could always start playing video games on the Wii again. Beyond Good and Evil is still yet unfinished - at least I have that.

So whenever your getting you next drink on, have one for the lost ones.

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tristan commented: Get an iMac? It solves the Windows problem. ... read 14 more

Tourism Sites on the net that I like

written by owen, published 2008-Nov-18, comment

Now that we at JTB have gone off somewhere(maybe to return again) I can voice my disgust at the recent redesign of VisitJamaica.com website without the fear of being fired or black listed. Now its not that the new website is bad, its just that it is a mere shadow of the previous website. And I'm not envious at the millions of dollars spent on it. I can imagine the tons of hours that were spent on that flash intro thing but not so much on the dept of the content of the website - I am by no means a "designer". But anyway I went off on a search for similar sites that I liked, a sorta faux internet vacation. If you want to go on your own internet vacation do a web search for "tourism site". I bring to you;

New Zealand - The best thing about this site is probably the movie in the heading (welcome to the youngest country on earth).

Bahamas - Now they may have more islands than us and more colors to choose from but you really only need one good island. no true?

Nassau Paradise Island - somehow related to the bahamas site. Oh yes its another island.

Hawaii - nice video stories

Maine - autumn?

Thailand - sometimes a busy site design is necessary shows that tings a gowan.

Singapore - white on red

Nova Scotia - Big pictures

Germany - white on gray. busy but at the same time clean. multi-lingual

Auckland - city of sails

Observations

I seemed to have liked a high percentage of websites with white backgrounds. High Quality Video also seem to add a extra something if it done well. And yes I would visit a country solely on its website as long as they speeck some English and are not currently being invaded by a foriegn country. With Japan being the exception because I need to be lost in translation.

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