-
-
Search
Archives for Product and Service Reviews
Does Numbers Make Charts Like This?
I’m in the process of upgrading my first-generation Core Duo Macbook, which is getting a little long-in-the-tooth. So this afternoon I visited Apple.com and I took a little time to review the specs of the newly released models.
I eventually came across the following bar chart, which is accessible as a pop-up from this page. It compares my current notebook (coincidentally) with the one I intend to purchase.
At first glance, it was obvious that something wasn’t quite right. The percentages listed inside the blue bars don’t even remotely correspond to the visual length of those bars relative to the baseline bar at the bottom. It isn’t even close.
I took a screenshot and did some measuring in Photoshop with the ruler tool. The baseline bar is 216 pixels wide. The bars above it are 357, 362, 382, and 417 pixels wide, respectively. That would yield rounded percentages of 65%, 68%, 77%, and 93%.
I assume the numbers are correct and Apple is just being deceptive to make the performance gains look more impressive. In any case, who wants to join a class-action suit?
Get the Best Price on Full-Versions of CS3
If you need a full version of one of the Premium collections of Adobe Creative Suite 3, you can save over 12% by taking advantage of an irregularity in the pricing of currently available editions and upgrade versions.
Mac Upgrades
CS3 Web Premium: Instead of buying a full-version of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium (Mac) for $1,582.99, you can buy a full-version copy of Macromedia Studio 8 for $909.99 and a Mac upgrade license of CS3 Web Premium for $493.99. Total Savings: $179.01 (or 11.3% off)
CS3 Design Premium: Instead of buying a full-version license of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Design Premium (Mac) for $1,780.99, you can buy a full-version copy of Macromedia Studio 8 for $909.99 and a Mac upgrade license of CS3 Design Premium for $592.99. Total Savings: $278.01 (or 15.6% off)
PC Upgrades
CS3 Web Premium: Instead of buying a full-version of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium (PC) for $1,581.99, you can buy a full-version copy of Macromedia Studio 8 for $909.99 and a PC upgrade license to CS3 Web Premium for $492.99. Total Savings: $179.01 (or 11.3% off)
CS3 Design Premium: Instead of buying a full-version license of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Design Premium (PC) for $1,780.99, you can buy a full-version copy of Macromedia Studio 8 for $909.99 and a PC upgrade license of CS3 Design Premium for $589.99. Total Savings: $281.01 (or 15.7% off)
Yes, those are affiliate links, but I’m saving you money, so who cares?
Audiophile on the Cheap, Part II
In the previous post I neglected to mention that I also use an Apple Airport Express to losslessly stream audio to a downstairs radio over an 80211g network. The radio in question is a Tivoli Audio Model Two, an excellent value for the money–and it’s sexy and retro to boot.
Audiophile on the Cheap, Part I
Most of my music listening takes place in front of my computer while I’m working. I’ve put a great deal of care into selecting equipment to enhance the experience. I’m actually quite pleased with my current listening rig. I currently have an M-Audio Firewire Solo recording interface between my computer and my monitors. I connect the balanced outputs on the interface to a pair of independently-powered KRK Rokit 5 reference monitors. For headphone listening, I plug a pair of Grado SR-60 cans directly into the Firewire audio interface. The Grados are an amazing value, if a tad on the uncomfortable side.
All my CDs have been ripped and encoded with the Apple Lossless codec. I manage my music library with iTunes and I listen to everything flat (with no equalization).
Twisted Sister sounds better than ever.
TiVoToLie
When a company tries to sell me a product by lying about their plans for interoperability, I consider their DRM fair game.
Look no further than TiVo’s FAQ for their new TivoToGo™ offering:
Are TiVoToGo™ transfers available for Apple Macintosh computers? At this time TiVoToGo transfers are not available for Apple Macintosh computers. TiVo is working hard to enable TiVoToGo features available on TiVo Desktop for Mac. We are currently working on ways to enable playback on Apple Macintosh computers. We will let our customers know in our newsletter as soon as this feature is available. If you do not already subscribe to the newsletter, you can go here to do so.
But David Courtney, TiVo’s CFO, is quoted in yestarday’s Daily Pennsylvanian in direct contradiction to the claim that TiVo is “working hard” on future interoperability:
“We haven’t committed to any plans [for integration] to it because of the cost,” Courtney said.
He added that being able to watch media on Apple computers using TiVo seems unlikely “unless we find a way to record it under the current platform, and I don’t think that will happen in the next few years.”
I hope the CFO just doesn’t know what’s going on in some developer’s cube, because if they’re going to lie to me, I’m just going to start firing up GraphEdit.
They Just Can’t Win
You almost have to feel sorry for the folks over at Napster these days. Here’s the buzz on their Super Bowl commercial:
A Bud Light commercial featuring a pilot jumping out of skydiving plane in pursuit of a six-pack of the beer was the survey’s top-rated commercial; Napster’s lone Super Bowl entry, a spot comparing its service to iTunes, was the lowest-rated.
In their defense, Napster has a valid point. For quite a few people, a subscription-based service makes sense. The problem for Napster is interoperability with the iPod, which levels the competition in current market penetration. That could change, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be running a subscription-based download service right now.
Creative CEO Slams iPod Shuffle
A fair point regarding Apple’s new iPod Shuffle, from Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo, as reported on Engadget:
We’re expecting a good fight but they’re coming out with something that’s five generations older. It’s our first generation MuVo One product feature, without display, just have a (shuffle feature). We had that–that’s a four-year-old product. So I think the whole industry will just laugh at it, because the flash people–it’s worse than the cheapest Chinese player. Even the cheap, cheap Chinese brand today has display and has FM. They don’t have this kind of thing, and they expect to come out with a fight; I think it’s a non-starter to begin with.
Irrespective, I still think Apple is going to stomp the competition with this one. People aren’t buying MP3 players based on features.
I Love the Java Jive and It Loves Me
My better half really went all-out this Christmas and bought me a Nespresso C190 espresso machine.
A few thoughts:
- The proprietary capsule system ensures that you won’t screw up the crema by not grounding or tamping the coffee properly. To put it simply, the machine is idiot-proof.
- It’s shockingly easy to clean. You basically flip a lever after making an espresso and the used capsule falls back into a chute in the neck of the machine. You just need to empty the used capsules when the reservoir gets filled.
- I was initially concerned about limiting myself to the coffee offerings of a single vendor (Nestle). After ordering seven different varieties of capsules, I’m now perfectly comfortable with the breadth of my options. The online ordering is relatively painless, and they ship quickly.
Google Desktop
Google’s new desktop search is the most amazing thing I’ve seen this year, with the possible exception of that picture of the monkey walking fully upright on two legs.
I hope Apple’s forthcoming Spotlight software can hold its own.
My Wrists Thank You
About four months ago I broke down and picked up a Kinesis Advantage keyboard because a constant tightness had developed in my wrists from spending so much time in front of my workstation.
It has really made a difference for me. It minimizes uncomfortable reaching and it keeps my hands in a comfortable resting position while I type. I haven’t bothered learning to use the advanced macro features yet but they look very interesting.
This one has been worth every penny of the seemingly ridiculous price.
Way Too X-Treme
My wife returned from Safeway today bearing X-TREME JELL-O® Pudding Sticks.
I now want to personally track down the marketing executive with the $1400-a-day cocaine habit who conceived of pocket-sized pudding tubes so I can pin a medal on his chest. This is exactly the kind of shit we should be using to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
I’ll Wait for the Second ‘Rev’
I currently use several large external firewire drives as the primary component in my office backup system. The solution is far from ideal. They are relatively heavy and they can be a pain in the ass to schlep offsite, which is unavoidable.
I’ve explored my alternatives, but there always seems to be a problem:
- Tape sucks. I don’t want to wait 20 minutes to retrieve a file in a pinch.
- Magneto-Optical sucks. The drives are too expensive and the capacity is too limited.
- Recordable DVD sucks. The media is too fragile and the capacity is too limited for my needs.
And so I was rather excited when I first read about Iomega’s new 35GB removable media REV drives a few months ago. The media is essentially a hard drive platter in a sealed cartridge and the drive unit contains the heads.
Unfortunately, the reviews are a little mixed. The cost seems a little too high. Why pay $1.71/GB for media when external firewire and USB 2.0 drives–which don’t even require a separate drive unit–are available for $1.10/GB.
I’m not going to touch this until they get the media under $1.00/GB.
More Power
Over the holiday I came across an amazing deal on a couple of Hitachi Deskstar hard drives so I decided to upgrade my TiVo’s capacity.
Weaknees sells brilliantly engineered plastic brackets that allow you to mount two drives inside your TiVo. Their premium kits even include all the hardware and cabling you’ll need for the upgrade.
The process was pretty simple and my TiVo now has twice the original capacity. A few things you might want to bear in mind, should you attempt the upgrade yourself.
- Do not use BlessTiVo to format the new drive. Use MFSTool 2.0 instead.
- Use this wizard to get detailed upgrade instructions for your model.
- You do want to make a backup of the TiVo software. Trust me on this.
No More Chin-Cam
MacMice is now selling after-market plastic mounts for Apple’s new iSight camera.
The mounts that are included with the iSight blow. I don’t want adhesive on the back of my display. It’s beyond all cognition that someone could have possibly thought adhesive mounts would be a good solution.
I think I’ll get the shelf mount.
Amazon’s Lost The Midas Touch
I’m usually amazed by Amazon’s uncanny ability to make recommendations by comparing my previous online purchases to the purchases of others.
On one level it makes me feel a bit less unique as a person to know just how similar my preferences are to those of the unwashed masses. I tolerate this feeling because I know that Amazon has proven to be a true friend, thoughtfully recommending books and music I often end up enjoying immeasurably.
My only real complaint is with regard to Amazon’s “Gold Box Offers” promotion. The site says that the offers “are assigned based on the stores in which you’ve previously shopped.”
I have never purchased any hardware or garden products from Amazon, yet my Gold Box consistently contains such items. Today I received offers for the following:
- Lifetime Folding Picnic Table for 4, Bronze/Sage
- Lafuma RSX La Napoule Recliner Lounge, Black
- Omni-Swings ‘N Things 537 Brazilian Amazona
- Lentek PC02G PestContro Deluxe
- Weitech 0675 Mole and Gopher Repeller
If I had purchased any pest-control products in the past, I might understand why my Gold Box contained two such products today.
I would expect such a highly-marketed promotion to be better targeted.
Once again Google has amazed
Once again Google has amazed me. Today they launched Google Catalogs, which allows you to search through print catalogs and see detailed pictures of products. The archive is more extensive than one might imagine, and the most impressive feature is probably the systems ability to show you where on a given page image the search terms appeared. I’m not even going to speculate on how this might work on the backend.
New Minidisc
Got a new MiniDisc player for a client project. It’s a Sony MZ-G750. It’s currently the only model on the market with a built in AM/FM tuner (which I think is built into the remote and not the unit itself?). I was very frustrated with it this afternoon, until I broke down and actually paged through the manual.
Sometimes I just feel like a jackass.
Audible.com is finally back online. They’ve been down since last Tuesday, which they claimed was due to power outages from the WTC/Pentagon crashes. I was afraid they suspended operations because they needed more VC.
Bush was an idiot to use the word “crusade” the other day. It was a surprisingly effective way to piss off the world’s 2 billion peaceful Muslims.
Stops Bouncing
Looks like they’re shutting down the Ricochet network today. Apparently Metricom couldn’t find any takers.
This time I’ll look on the bright side: at least I didn’t get stuck with an overpriced piece of useless hardware (I bailed on my Ricochet almost 2 years ago).
There was an almost mystical element to wireless Internet access in late 1996. It was invaluable in college for three reasons:
- At $250 a year it was no more expensive than a second phone line.
- You could leave it on all the time at no additional cost.
- Our campus had no network in the residence halls.
At times like this I feel sorry for Paul Allen…wait a minute?
Paypal
Paypal is freaking awesome. I just sold somebody my old amplifier on ebay and they were able to pay me instantly with their credit card. Click on the link below and we’ll both get $5.00 free in a paypal account. This is not a scam. Trust me ;-)
Better than Cliff’s
I just discovered audible.com. I always thought books on tape were for losers but lately I just can’t handle staring at a page of text after a full day in front of a computer monitor.
