iPad, iPhone, iLost the plot...
With rumours of an iPad mini in full circulation I am going to safely assume that Apple's potential new bottom end device will not be as cheap as it's main competitors. We're looking at a device that will no doubt be missing a retina display, be made from cheaper components (well, duh!) and may have potential issues scaling and optimising apps and games that are built for the current size iPad screens not to mention those that are optimised fully to take advantage of the beautifully crisp retina display on the new iPad. How will it cope downscaling resolutions?
A 7inch iPad has great potential to compete well against the awesome kindle fire and the array of other smaller form factor Android tabs kicking around. The main problem with the Android devices is that there are so many with different specs, resolutions etc etc. Some things aren't compatible, there are 4 major versions (give or take a fair few that aren't "legit") running on an array of great and not so great devices so this leads to some things not working on the shiny new Arnova or Asus you just picked up so you can play Angry Birds on the shitter. This is where Apple have it nailed. Their iOS devices are pretty much only available in three flavours. iPad, iPod and iPhone. The 7" model will no doubt be compatible but I can't help but reference the scaling issues I found (And the borders) with the iPhone 5. The new form factor might mean losing out on some of the better games out there.
What's the trade off with the "Cheap" slate?
There has to be a catch.
As soon as I get my hands on one I'm going to throw Infinity Blade at it and see if it crys!
Monday, 8 October 2012
Wednesday, 27 June 2012
YO!
I've spent most of the week in the company of a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook and I must say I was impressed with the power of such a small Air rip off machine. Packing a 1.7GhZ i7 it does NOT lack grunt but I feel the whole affair was let down by the way Dell have pretty much locked this down to x64. In our work environment we don't really deal with 64-bit Windows much so we generally go with the safe option and bung on Professional X86.
RAM is more than enough for general users although for a pre-loaded 64bit OS I would have thought Dell would shove 8GB in there, well, for the price anyway. These little monsters aren't exactly fuckin' cheap.
Still cheaper than a Mac, granted, but I love my little fruity buddy.
I'm constantly impressed with the SSD performance though, it's nippy as fuck. Doesn't like the Dell STD SSD drivers when clean installing windows to obliterate Dell's shitty bloatware and useless partitions.
Honestly, Dell, Just put a fuckin' disk in the box. It takes less time and you have happy customers.
The dude on the phone when I asked for the correct drivers. What a waste of space. I gave up and fixed it myself ;).
He was DEFINITELY not giving me the helpings.
All this aside we've managed to successfully install and image this machine. At least that's what we thought before we TRIED to image it. 2x USB with only 1 of them being USB 2 and therefore comlpliant with my devices and no NIC.
Tried imaging using WIFI, no. EXT drive? NO Can't power EXT drive AND DVD / USB Memstick.
If they had a PXE compliant NIC I'd be bumming them to high heaven. Reality is, if you're going to order machines for an enterprise environment this is NOT the machine to go for.
No NIC = No deal. It's just a waste of your IT department's time. Trust me, I've wasted ages on this.
Overall, decent machines. Get them for home use, personal use. Don't push for one at work. Your IT department will NOT thank you.
As usual,
I've said too much, they're on to me. Silence!
Peace,
Smurf.
I've spent most of the week in the company of a Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook and I must say I was impressed with the power of such a small Air rip off machine. Packing a 1.7GhZ i7 it does NOT lack grunt but I feel the whole affair was let down by the way Dell have pretty much locked this down to x64. In our work environment we don't really deal with 64-bit Windows much so we generally go with the safe option and bung on Professional X86.
RAM is more than enough for general users although for a pre-loaded 64bit OS I would have thought Dell would shove 8GB in there, well, for the price anyway. These little monsters aren't exactly fuckin' cheap.
Still cheaper than a Mac, granted, but I love my little fruity buddy.
I'm constantly impressed with the SSD performance though, it's nippy as fuck. Doesn't like the Dell STD SSD drivers when clean installing windows to obliterate Dell's shitty bloatware and useless partitions.
Honestly, Dell, Just put a fuckin' disk in the box. It takes less time and you have happy customers.
The dude on the phone when I asked for the correct drivers. What a waste of space. I gave up and fixed it myself ;).
He was DEFINITELY not giving me the helpings.
All this aside we've managed to successfully install and image this machine. At least that's what we thought before we TRIED to image it. 2x USB with only 1 of them being USB 2 and therefore comlpliant with my devices and no NIC.
Tried imaging using WIFI, no. EXT drive? NO Can't power EXT drive AND DVD / USB Memstick.
If they had a PXE compliant NIC I'd be bumming them to high heaven. Reality is, if you're going to order machines for an enterprise environment this is NOT the machine to go for.
No NIC = No deal. It's just a waste of your IT department's time. Trust me, I've wasted ages on this.
Overall, decent machines. Get them for home use, personal use. Don't push for one at work. Your IT department will NOT thank you.
As usual,
I've said too much, they're on to me. Silence!
Peace,
Smurf.
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Apple manages to fuck up UK Siri
Hola Boys and Girls,
I just read this article on the Reg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/02/asa_ruling_siri_uk/
Are you fucking kidding me? Not owning an iPhone 4s I haven't really done much research into SIRI but I know enough. I must say I'm not a fan but I mean, come on!
Not only is this a massive oversight on Apple's part it's also incredibly insensitive to the global iPhone user base having something they can only use a portion of features on. I'm now officially happy to not own an iPhone 4s.
It seems that Apple have shrugged this off though which is nice of them. What they should be doing is working tirelessly to update SIRI's database to include local information for every country where the iPhone is sold.
Fuck you, Siri, Fuck you.
Smurf!
I just read this article on the Reg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/02/asa_ruling_siri_uk/
Are you fucking kidding me? Not owning an iPhone 4s I haven't really done much research into SIRI but I know enough. I must say I'm not a fan but I mean, come on!
Not only is this a massive oversight on Apple's part it's also incredibly insensitive to the global iPhone user base having something they can only use a portion of features on. I'm now officially happy to not own an iPhone 4s.
It seems that Apple have shrugged this off though which is nice of them. What they should be doing is working tirelessly to update SIRI's database to include local information for every country where the iPhone is sold.
Fuck you, Siri, Fuck you.
Smurf!
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
It's a Pirate's life!
So...
The Pirate Bay has vowed to go underground due to the internet blocking threat that faces them and many other file sharing sites.
I can't say i'm surprised.
Basically the High court has ruled that they "Facilitate copyright infringement".
In true elite fashion they have spat in the face of this ruling and decided to fight the power! Well, Fuck it, i'm on board!
I don't know how many of you remember that last year there was a massive rant from the "Creative industries" about having ISPs here in the UK to block sites such as the Pirate Bay and Torrent Reactor etc.
Their motivation behind this was nothing more than a move to, obviously, stop people trading music, video and games for free.
Now, I support file sharing in all it's forms because of three simple factors:
With or without piracy video games, music and DVDs/Blu rays have pretty much been the same prices across the board meaning that it's blatant money grabbing due to the fact that they COULD be much cheaper.
Digital downloads are far too expensive in my book.
File sharing creates fan bases! Remember trading tapes when you were a kid? well our kids will share MP3s of their favourite bands and create fans!
DRM - DRM sucks, no doubt about that! I don't need to sit here and write about how blatantly fucked in the head DRM is.
Ok, that was 4 reasons..
Anyway, since 2003 the Pirate Bay has managed to stay alive despite being taken to court more times than a surgeon who likes to take extra organs from inside his patients to build lamps n shit.
It's no real shock to learn that they're not giving up.
Remember, kids:
Pirate Bay DOES NOT HOST ILLEGAL FILES just allows people to access materials that are copyrighted.
So, for that they basically encourage us to download this material thus infringing copyright and various content and intellectual property laws...
otherwise known as "Metallica don't get another 2 million dollars this year" or "JAYZ Doesn't get a fancy new house to not live in".
Nevermind, they'll serve Magnets soon so we're all good.
GOOGLE:
The government want to basically block searches from engines to this sort of thing. Isn't that taking away the freedom of the internet?
FUCK THIS NOISE! SUPPORT THE PIRATE BAY!!!!!
STAY LEET!
The Pirate Bay has vowed to go underground due to the internet blocking threat that faces them and many other file sharing sites.
I can't say i'm surprised.
Basically the High court has ruled that they "Facilitate copyright infringement".
In true elite fashion they have spat in the face of this ruling and decided to fight the power! Well, Fuck it, i'm on board!
I don't know how many of you remember that last year there was a massive rant from the "Creative industries" about having ISPs here in the UK to block sites such as the Pirate Bay and Torrent Reactor etc.
Their motivation behind this was nothing more than a move to, obviously, stop people trading music, video and games for free.
Now, I support file sharing in all it's forms because of three simple factors:
With or without piracy video games, music and DVDs/Blu rays have pretty much been the same prices across the board meaning that it's blatant money grabbing due to the fact that they COULD be much cheaper.
Digital downloads are far too expensive in my book.
File sharing creates fan bases! Remember trading tapes when you were a kid? well our kids will share MP3s of their favourite bands and create fans!
DRM - DRM sucks, no doubt about that! I don't need to sit here and write about how blatantly fucked in the head DRM is.
Ok, that was 4 reasons..
Anyway, since 2003 the Pirate Bay has managed to stay alive despite being taken to court more times than a surgeon who likes to take extra organs from inside his patients to build lamps n shit.
It's no real shock to learn that they're not giving up.
Remember, kids:
Pirate Bay DOES NOT HOST ILLEGAL FILES just allows people to access materials that are copyrighted.
So, for that they basically encourage us to download this material thus infringing copyright and various content and intellectual property laws...
otherwise known as "Metallica don't get another 2 million dollars this year" or "JAYZ Doesn't get a fancy new house to not live in".
Nevermind, they'll serve Magnets soon so we're all good.
GOOGLE:
The government want to basically block searches from engines to this sort of thing. Isn't that taking away the freedom of the internet?
FUCK THIS NOISE! SUPPORT THE PIRATE BAY!!!!!
STAY LEET!
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Track one: Introduction and Background
The background is irrelevant to the majority of people that might actually read this but I thought i'd tell you a little bit about who I am before I share my opinions.
I wouldn't say I'm popular, socially relevant or special but I have recently thought that I should start this blog to extend to you my thoughts and musings on technology, music, the universe and you know, all that other shit that just doesn't actually matter but that deserves a place on the internet.
I created a facebook page about a year ago called Fix Your Own Damn Computer. This blog will serve as an extension of that very page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fix-your-own-damn-computer/110533568981890
Next time,
Something relevant.
Smurf!
I wouldn't say I'm popular, socially relevant or special but I have recently thought that I should start this blog to extend to you my thoughts and musings on technology, music, the universe and you know, all that other shit that just doesn't actually matter but that deserves a place on the internet.
I created a facebook page about a year ago called Fix Your Own Damn Computer. This blog will serve as an extension of that very page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fix-your-own-damn-computer/110533568981890
Next time,
Something relevant.
Smurf!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)