So apparently Apple made this thing called AppleTV. I was reading about it over at stevenf’s site. So, for $299 you get a thing with a pithy 40GB of disk to play videos and music on your home TV or theatre. So… you can pay that much or you can get an xbox, run XBMC, and keep $150… OK OK so the Apple thing is wireless and has HDMI. But still, 40GB does not seem like a lot of space. And XBMC is damn easy to use.
Moving from Pad 2 to Pad 3…Well, I recently decided to move off of my Pepper Pad 2 onto the Pad 3 that my wife is no longer using. Problem is, there’s a few things that I really like about the older model that I’ll miss.
The screen size, for one. 800×600 has become 800×480. It’s amazing the difference 120 pixels makes. I’ve been running the pp3 in full-screen browsing mode and making a lot of use of the switch-tab keyboard shortcuts. I just wish that there was some kind of visual feedback that told me the title of the tab when I switch to it, and that there was a keypad shortcut to view the bookmarks for the tab.
The screen quality is another thing. The PP2’s screen seems to have a higher (colour temperature)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Temperature] than the new model. Also the brightness settings on the Pad 3 are like staring into the sun: I always keep it on the lowest setting.
Politicking
Well, the computers have spoken, so I guess I’d better write something here.
The Canadian federal budget came down yesterday, and it appears that political parties can be bought after all. I’m looking at you, Bloc Quebècois. When one party is so single-minded and can be bought for a price — while ignoring the lack of any real action on environmental policy, long-term transportation strategies, and the First Nations — the federal system fails miserably.
The budget throws tax cuts at the middle class (myself included) essentially to distract them from the lack of attention to the above three national crises. It’s a classic distraction worthy of a magic act. It makes me fucking sick.
I’m still practicing my Xs though.
Striking a chordA few of my more recent posts have been getting more attention than the others and seem to have struck a chord with some fellow ‘net denziens.
I am not alone in my hatred of iTunes. I’m still not using it and am happy. However my wife just got a brand-new MacBook and it seems that she’ll be forced back into using it. Is there no simple drag-and-drop alternative for OS X? She’s been using Anapod Explorer happily, and I guess I’ll get her to use their CopyGear software to get her music library started so iTunes doesn’t delete everything when it detects her iPod. I’ve been happily using gtkpod for months now too.
I’m also not the only one getting damn dead-air phone calls from (416) 364-1111. People all across Canada have been getting annoyed. Some people are indicating that this is Rogers marketing to their customers – if so, they’re doing a shitty job at it.
The “wow” is… never!So, Windows 7.0 — I mean, Vista is out. Pardon me if I’m not excited, but it does seem like no one really cares. What is strange is how so many big software companies didn’t make their software compatible by the time it went gold. MS was giving away free betas for crying out loud, should I have sent my copy to Apple so they could fix iTunes in advance?
Once I’d read about the crappy licensing terms and the DRM that was going to be crammed down users throats, I knew that this was the end of the line for my Windows drive. Our response to Vista? Well, Sandy just got a new shiny MacBook to replace her PC, and I’ll be rebuilding my PC to be a Kubuntu workstation. Suddenly UNIX-ike OSes don’t seem so dead after all.
Work == South Park?I just felt the need to file a workorder timecard with the subject line “respect my authoritah”
