Thank god I am a Mac user. Why? Read.

So I was given a computer to fix by a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a zoo keeper’s personal bee keeper’s gardener, or something like that. Anyway, the reasons cited for needing repair included running slow, and possibly a virus had worked its way into the users well-secured system.

So I got the system, fired it up, and instantly noticed there was no AV software running. Secure? Ha. Heck, there was no anti-spyware software either, a defrag had never been done and updates hadn’t been installed since Service Pack 3. It was still using IE6, and when I fired IE 6 up, I was in for a surprise.

Feel free to take a peek at the larger image. Their IE was a toolbar heaven. It almost seems like the user just googled the word Toolbar and click every hit that came up. I mean come on, how am I supposed to work with someone like this? To top it off, they said they LIKED the toolbars. What did I do? I gave them the system back and said “I usually just fix Mac’s, try the Geek Squad.” Seriously, I cannot bother trying to ‘fix’ a system that has never had AV software on it, doesn’t have updates installed, and has more tools than the Digg offices… er… toolbars.

It is situations like this that make me thank myself more and more for switching to Mac. So many PC users are just dumb like this. Mac has ‘them’ too, but far less.

This is quite possibly one of the best YouTube video’s I have seen in a long time. Its so true, and I do the exact same thing.

I refuse to use a microphone when playing on XBox Live unless I can confirm that the people in-game with me are above (or at least sound like they are above) the age of 18. Why? Because hearing the shrill voice of a 14 year old while trying to immerse myself in a game like Call of Duty: World at War is nearly impossible. I sit down after a long day of classes and work hoping to hop into a game and take out a few people, but instead I have to deal with hearing children yack their high-pitched, unintelligent mumbo-jumbo into the microphone making me want to quit.

More after the jump.

Who can we blame? Well I suggest we start with the parents. Why? Because they are likely the ones supplying their angel of a kid with the game to begin with, as well as providing the kid with their credit card to pay for XBox live. I mean come on parents, have you even looked at the box for Call of Duty? It screams “do NOT buy for my 14 year old son!”, yet somehow the kids always end up with these games. Lets take a look at the game case shall we:

I tried to highlight the reasons why kids shouldn’t have this game. Fire, guns, bombs, death, etc. However none of that tells the parent “hm, maybe I shouldn’t buy this.” So next we have the blatant rating:

Anyone with eyes can see that it is for ages 17+. Yet that still doesn’t push parents away from buying these games. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with a parent getting a shooting game for their kid, as long as they are mature enough to handle it, and that is one of the major issues. Listening to the way these kids talk on the microphones its obvious they are NOT mature enough to handle it.

XBox Live can be a hostile place. When the mature players (17+) get into it, swear words and racist slurs fill the audio channels. Who is on the receiving end of this? Well mature players like myself, and then young kids. So, we have these young kids that sound like girls hearing profane things being shouted and decide to themselves that they want to join in on the swearing bonanza. Sadly, that just makes it worse because its funny to hear an adult curse when they die in a game, but its sad, annoying, and frustrating to hear Johnny Mc-14-Year-Old curse in a game. The ONLY time it is funny hearing a kid swear in a game is when you can hear his mom in the background yelling “Johnny Allen McYoungster, what did I hear you say???!?” lol, kids.

It basically just boils down to immersion, which is destroyed by the sound of a pre-pubescent kid. How do we solve this problem? Simple, require the damn XBox Live customer to enter their CORRECT age when registering, and use a voice sample to verify their age. Then Microsoft could develop one of two things:

1. In-Game filters that allow the users to select which age groups they are willing to game with. That way those of us who are older than young can play with our own kind, and kids can play with their own annoying-ass people
2. Develop a voice analysis system. What will it do? It will constantly scan the voice of the player, and if it reaches a certain pitch that only children and not-straight adult males can hit it perma-mutes their microphone. Then it will randomly sample the sound every month to see if their voice has changed and if it has, reactivate their microphone

Why do this? To eliminate the children ruining my gaming experience, and the experience of others by annoying the hell out of everyone playing the game. Not to mention the fact that children are likely always in game with me causes me to sensor what I am saying, which I shouldn’t have to do.

People, Microsoft, this is the only way.

This is a never ending debate. Which is better, Mac or PC? Which is better, OS X or Windows? The answer is: both. It all boils down to personal experiences. Care to guess what side of the fence I am on? I will give you a hint: Mac/OS X. I will give you an outline of why I have decided this to help paint a picture of where I am today.

Ah, the younger years

I started off a PC guy I suppose. I was born in 1988, and the first computer I can remember was my dad’s Samsung 386 laptop. It had a monochrome screen, no hard drive, a 3.5″ floppy drive, and ran Commander Keen like a charm. I just recently disposed of that system. From when I was 10 to my early teen years, it made a great machine to test my BASIC (GW-BASIC, QBASIC) programs I was writing.

My first desktop system was a Packard Bell. 15″ CRT display @ 1024×768, 75MHz Pentium, 8MB integrated memory, and a 800MB hard drive running Windows 95. I did a lot of my computer learning on this system which included tinkering with hardware, learning to install programs, using Office 95, and doing programming with GW-BASIC and QBASIC. My next few computers were also PC’s, a Compaq Desktop (450MHz Windows 95), and a HP Desktop (667MHz, Windows ME). By 9th grade I was building computers every year or so. They were obviously PC’s as you don’t build Macs.

Between then and 2006 I owned a few more systems like a few iBooks (only owned for a few months), custom built PC’s, and a Compaq v2000 laptop.

Fast forward to 2006

I graduated high school in 2006, and was getting ready to go to college. My major was Computer Science and I wanted a laptop. I went on Dell.com, priced out and ordered a Inspiron E1505 laptop. Specs: 1.6GHz Centrino Duo, 80GB HD, 256MB GeForce Go7XXX, 1GB RAM, 15″ Screen @ 1280×800, DVD Burner, and a 3 year warranty. Cost: $1700. I got the system, and was happy with it.

By second semester (2007) it was already having issues. First, a hard drive died. Dell came and replaced that for me. Then the display went out. Dell came and replaced that. Then my speakers went out. Dell came and replaced that. By then I was just sick of this system. It was in great shape, and all issues were fixed. I started the search for a buyer. By mid way through my Sophomore year I found a buyer (after much searching). I got $650 for it, and that included a iPaq PDA ($125 value) so really I got ~$525 for the laptop. Great… I lost $1175 on that deal. PC’s have wonderful resale value don’t they? /end_sarcasm

I then purchased a white Macbook (2.2GHz C2D, 3GB RAM, 120GB HD, DVD-Burner) with OS X Tiger on it. I loved it right away. I was enjoying OS X from the beginning. OS X Leopard was released, and I paid $70 to get the retail discs. I then started to love OS X even more, it was great. The Macbook gave me no frills and worked wonderfully.

More… MORE POWER!

I reached a point where I wanted some more power. I already had a powerful desktop, but my plan was to sell my desktop and just have a laptop that can ‘do it all’. So, I sold my Macbook for around $950. I paid $1150 for it, so I lost $200 total. Not bad! I then went off to go buy a Macbook Pro. It ran me $1750, tax free. Specs: 2.4GHz Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, 200GB HD, DVD-Burner, 15″ Display @ 1440×900. I have upgraded the RAM to 4GB, and the hard drive from 200GB to 500GB.

Am I happy with this system? Absolutely. It has everything I wanted from a laptop, and more. What do I like about it? Well first, OS X. It is a great OS, and I prefer it over Windows any day. Second, the hardware is no-frills. Nothing has died on it yet, no warranty work has had to be done yet. It looks great (Aluminum is a nice look for a laptop), the backlit keyboard is very nice, the large trackpad is a breeze to use, and its a sturdy, thin machine. Also the display is gorgeous, pumping out 1440×900, and it is super bright. My Dell was plastic, thick, the screen became loose after 6 months (I’m sure you have all seen laptops with loose screens), and gave me issues. They cost the same price, but hands down I prefer the Macbook Pro.

OS X has a lot to do with it

The operating system plays a major role in my love of Mac’s. It looks a lot more modern in comparison to Windows XP, it runs a lot better than Windows Vista and XP, the file structure has some resemblance of Linux (I do like Linux). Finder beats Explorer hands down for me, and the Dock is a lot more convenient in comparison to the Start menu.\

Application installation is in most cases a lot easier than on Windows. Just having to drag an application anywhere to install it is simple. Want to uninstall? Drag to the trash can. Sick of how Windows application menu’s are always different, and can at times be cumbersome? OS X has the menu bar in the same place, always. OS X applications are consistent, and I like that.

My job indirectly taught me to dislike Windows PC’s

For about the last year I have worked for my colleges Technology Department. My job responsibilities involve server administration (1 windows server, 5 linux servers), web development, database management, application development, and system maintenance when needed (other people usually cover this). I cannot even count how many PC’s we have serviced in the year since I have worked there. The number is upsetting. Countless cases of viruses (more recently, the Anti-Virus 2009 virus), hardware failures, OS crashes, and more. We have had to warranty an absolutely insane amount of defective PC hardware, and I have reinstalled Windows XP so many times I can do it with my eyes closed by now.

But our Mac’s are ticking like clocks. We got some Macbook Pro’s for select faculty members, and they are loving them. We use a PowerMac G5 as one of our servers, and it runs better than all our other servers (Debian for PPC is on it). We have a G4 Mac Mini that works great, and recently I got a old Power Mac G3 from work (purchased in 1999) that still has 100% functioning parts. Heck, I use it as my primary desktop at home now.

And yet some of the PC’s we have had for only a few months have faulty hardware. What makes this worse is many of our systems are Gateways, and if you have been following tech news you know that Gateway went bust. So, we have tons of systems with warranties that we are unable to even claim. Cool huh?

I really enjoy OS X applications

OS X has a great set of applications I use every day. I wont talk much about them but I will list my favorite apps:

• Safari – web browser
• Coda – editor
• XCode – programming IDE
• NetBeans – programming IDE
• Eclipse – programming IDE
• Microsoft Word 2008
• iChat
• Aperture – photo editing
• iPhoto
• Mail
• Photoshop
• Terminal
• Handbrake – video conversion
• iTunes

There are more, but those are what I use on a daily/weekly basis off the top of my head.

So I have my Mac, and I am happy

I have my Mac, and I am happy. Whenever a faculty member needs their USB drive scanned for viruses, they come to me so I can use my Mac to do it. I have had the same Leopard install since I got the laptop, and I haven’t had to reinstall yet (like I would with Windows XP). If I need Windows for something, I just fire-up Bootcamp, Virtual Box, or VMWare-Fusion. It works great. It does what I need it to do, and it does so in a way that satisfies my computing needs.

I tried to paint a picture of why Mac’s are best for me, and why I decided on them after years as a PC guy. Basically it boils down to a few major factors:

• Leopard suits my needs better than Windows
• Comparable hardware costs for better quality systems
• Great set of applications that serve me every day, most are free
• More aesthetically pleasing than PC hardware

A while back I wrote a review of the iPhone 2G (EDGE/Original) shortly after I decided to sell it. The timing of my review fell shortly after the App Store was released, even though I had it jailbroken and had many apps on it before the APP Store. My main reasons for selling it included its buggy App install, cumbersome text input via the touch screen, and no backgrounding. And I was happy with my MotoQ (Windows Mobile) device for a while, but grew out of it.

So, around christmas time I decided to get yet another iPhone. This time I got the 3G phone. The major draws of this was first the 3G speeds (even though where I attend college they only have EDGE, but will be getting 3G soon), GPS integration, and expansion of the App store. Am I happy now? Yeah, I am happier than I was with my original phone but still not 100% happy. What will make me love this phone completely? 3.0, however I will touch on that later.

Bigger App Store = Better App Store
The app store now has more applications than it did when I got rid of my 2G iPhone. The growth of the store was a major deciding factor in the purchase of a 3G iPhone. The social applications are by far my favorite, including Facebook, tweetie (twitter), Twitxr, Palringo (Instant Messaging), Colloquy (IRC), WordPress, etc. I feel that is really where the iPhone shines, as it makes it very easy to connect with other people no matter where you are.

Plus, there is a seemingly endless supply of games, and other time killers available for free or a low cost, something that is not matched on any other device.

Now that you don’t have it, you miss it
I ran into this feeling after I sold my 2G. Once I got rid of my iPhone, I started to miss it. Sounds dumb to say I took a phone for granted, but I did. The iPhone was a bigger part of my daily routine than I gave it credit for. I used it for web browsing a lot, getting directions, and chatting. Yeah, the MotoQ could do all those things, but the interface was a lot more ‘out dated’ looking than the iPhone counterparts. The tight integration the iPhone has with its apps (mainly Mail, Maps, Safari) makes the experience a lot better than having to install Google Maps java app on the MotoQ. Now that I have a 3G iPhone, I once again am able to do the things I missed from my 2G, and a lot more, plus I have a new level of appreciation for the device.

No backgrounding? The iPhone isn’t for me then!
I love staying signed into AIM. I enjoy allowing anyone to send me messages at any time, and the fact that the iPhone couldn’t background was (what I thought) a killing point for me. I didn’t understand the reasoning behind not allowing it, and that annoyed me. Fast-forward to my 3G iPhone. I jailbroke it, and installed a ‘hacked’ application that allowed me to background applications, and I thought it would be sweet. Was it? No. Absolutely not, unless you love charging your phone mid-day. Backgrounding = battery killer.

iPhone OS v3.0 – A cure to my final complaints
I am a member of the iPhone developer program, so I was able to get my eager hands on the beta of the 3.0 OS. I have it installed on my 3G, and love it. However, because I am bound by an NDA, I will not discuss anything that was not said by Apple publicly.

Backgrounding
Apple decided to address backgrounding by finally integrating push notification. They still do not allow backgrounding of apps (which they claim kills battery, and I can confirm that), however they are allowing applications to get notifications pushed to them from a server which is a close second to backgrounding. With this, you can still get an AIM message while the app isn’t running for example. I am very excited for this.

Landscape SMS with Messages app
Apple is going to allow you to text message, write notes, and use all other Apple apps in landscape mode. This means you can turn your phone on its side and get the longer keyboard, which makes texting easier (for me anyway). This is a major, MAJOR plus for me as when my phone was jailbroken I was using iRealSMS to text which did a similar thing.

MMS integrated with Messages
3.0 will allow you to finally send MMS (aka Picture Mail) to people. This is a major plus for me as well. While in the past I would just email pictures, this is a better solution.

Copy and paste
Finally, the 3.0 will allow you to copy and paste. I have never used this on any phone, but now that the feature is there I am sure it will be used.

There are plenty of other reasons I am looking forward to 3.0, but these are the main things.

So yeah….
If you can’t tell, I am very pleased with my iPhone 3G, and am loving the phone once again. While the beta I have on my iPhone of 3.0 has its problems, it looks absolutely promising. Apple keeps pushing the iPhone in a better direction, and the phone continues to evolve into a more exciting product. I highly recommend this phone to anyone in the market trying to find a new device, and with the release time of Summer 2009 for 3.0, now is a fine time to buy the phone.

Yes, since March 2008 I had been a member of the elite “I own an iPhone” club. That is until I sold my iPhone this August, for $350, only losing $50 after owning it for just over 5 months. What phone do I own now? A Motorola Q9h (AT&T), and yes it is in fact a Windows Mobile Smartphone. This is quite a reversal of phones. Going from an Apple iPhone to a Windows smartphone. I will explain why I made the switch, and give you some insight if you too are deciding between similar phones.

First off I will tell you that I have a Macbook Pro, and a desktop that runs Windows XP and Ubuntu. So, I am neither a Apple, Linux, or Microsoft loyalist. I love my MBP, and OS X. I have no problem with Apple products. I also don’t mind Microsoft and Windows XP, as it does what I need it to do (Call of Duty 4). Thus, I have no bias. I use both Apple and Microsoft products, and enjoy both to some extent.

When I first got my iPhone, I really thought it was cool because of the fact that it simply was an iPhone. I wasn’t amazed by the touch screen, interface, and all of that stuff because I already owned a iPod Touch which is essentially the same thing minus the phone. It was simply cool to have, its phone and SMS functionality (and by that I mean chat-styled text messaging) worked great, and I was happy with it. Fast forward to a about 3 hours after I first opened the phone. I was paranoid about breaking the phone now. The thought of having it in my pockets all day, bumping up against desks and tables when I walked by them, etc made me worry about breaking the device, and the fact that the screen feels like glass makes it seem insanely fragile. Thus, I got a case for it, however it didn’t cover the screen so I was still worried about breaking it. Case in point, it seems just far too fragile for a phone.

Around that time, I also grew sick of the touch-screen typing. That was, and still is my major gripe about the phone. Not having physical buttons to type was such an annoyance, it was the major driving force to me selling the phone. I simply couldn’t type that well. If I was trying to walk and type, what I was saying was riddled with spelling mistakes and errors. To Apple’s credit, 70% of those spelling mistakes (from pressing the wrong button on the screen) were automatically corrected. But that means 30% of the time I looked like an idiot when sending messages. Yes, it was my fault for typing things wrong. But in all honesty, the touch screen typing is just not very intuitive. It seemed cumbersome and just too difficult to use.

Then we get to the fact that the iPhone is more of a computer than it is a phone. This is especially true after 2.0 came out. Whats wrong with that? Well, computers lock up. Thats common knowledge. However, my iPhone seemed to lock up and the wrong times. Every now and then, someone would call me when my phone was just in my pocket. I would grab the phone, and it would instruct me to slide my finger to answer the call. I do that, and guess what happens? It locks up. Freezes. The phone keeps ringing, but it does not respond to input. The fix? Forcing a reboot. Arg, that is annoying to say the least. Then comes the time to boot, which is fairly long for a phone. It takes too long for the phone to start up and be functional again. But thats understandable, since after all its a hand held computer.

The App-Store was one item I was waiting for before telling myself that the iPhone wasn’t right for me. When it came out, I installed some applications, and noticed a trend. More often than not, I would select an application to download and install, but for some reason it would freeze at the “Installing” operation. I then needed to force a phone reboot, which left a dummy icon on my desktop for the application… that did nothing. I couldn’t remove it either. I could however install the application AGAIN, reboot the phone, and then the dummy dead icon would go away. Annoying, again.

And the final annoyance was the fact that my phone would turn itself on ALL THE TIME. I would shut it off to save battery, and 3 hours later when I go to turn it back on I discover it took the liberty of turning itself on at some point. This was particularly annoying when I went camping and was trying to save battery since I had no way to charge the phone. I shut it off at night, woke up in the morning, and the phone was ON! Battery in the “Less than 20% Remaining” area. And its not just my phone because my iPod Touch does this as well. So frustrating.

I ran into a slew of other issues that I don’t care to even get into right now. Basically I spent $400 for a phone that I didn’t think was worth the price.

To summarize, my dislikes were:
- The fact the phone seemed so fragile (and AT&T insurance wouldn’t cover it)
- Touch-based text input was cumbersome and just a PITA
- Locking up when trying to answer calls
- Applications not installing properly and leaving dead, dummy icons on my phone
- Long boot times
- Mind of its own, turning itself on

However it wasn’t all bad. There were some high points:
+ People often said to me “Lucky! You have an iPhone!”
+ I had an iPhone
+ I got a majority of my money back when I sold it (-$50)
+ I was able to discover touch-screen phones are not all that and a bag of chips
+ It was cool and fun for about the first 3 hours
+ It had a secure reset option that I used before selling it

So now I have a Windows Mobile (v6.1) device. I always used to look at them and say “Ew, gross”. However I have since changed my tune. While Windows Mobile is clunky at times, the Moto Q(9h) is implemented in such a way that it works smoothly with what I want to do.

Pros to the Moto Q(9h) and Windows Mobile v6.1:
+ Text messaging with the buttons is very easy, and Windows Mobile 6.1 has chat-style messaging like the iPhone so in my book that is a major plus.
+ I can run AIM, Live Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger in the background.
+ The Opera Mobile web browser is nice, however Safari for iPhone wins.
+ I can download MP3′s from the web on Opera mobile and use them as ringtones or add them to the Windows Media Player library.
+ Accepts MicroSD cards for storage
+ Email abilities (iPhone wins here because Mail for the iPhone is very nice)
+ Insurance on the phone (major, major plus)
+ Only cost me $60 for the phone after Business discount

Cons:
- Windows mobile can get slow with background apps
- No quick button to turn on Vibrate/Silent mode
- Not a status symbol (but people still like my Q)
- Anti-Windows people no longer speak to me

Not only do I get a lot of spam during the day, I have now started to get spam from the future! Damn spammers.

Many Universities, workplaces, etc are starting to take action against the use of torrent files. You can always change ports so port blocking is a worthless use of network time. However, places have started to restrict the ability to download files ending in the .torrent extension. This complicates things immensely.

Take for example a situation I encountered. On the Ubuntu 7.10 release date it was nearly impossible to find a server to download the ISO from as they were all getting hammered with requests. The solution many servers displayed was ‘download via a torrent’. When I tried that on my university network, I encountered the problem, I couldn’t download the .torrent file. This was annoying, as the University states that using the network to download and seed legal torrents is allowed. How did I get passed this? Using a simple php script I coded up, that can be found at http://steve.blogme.us/bypass.php

The script simply takes the URL to the .torrent file, saves it on the local server as a text file, and allows you to then download it, then all you need to do is change the extension to .torrent and load it up in the torrent client. It is that simple, and it works! Enjoy.

I got the 8GB iPod Touch for Christmas, and started playing around with it. As it is out-of-the-box, there are some fun things to do but overall it isn’t that exciting. Luckily the iPod can be ‘jailbroken’ to make it more exciting. Here are some screens of my iPod touch:

So whats so good about jailbreaking an iPod Touch?
By following a few steps (that take around 20 minutes) you can install an application on your iPod that allows you to browse various software sources and install applications, completely free of charge. I have installed some apps like Mail, Google Maps, SSH, Terminal, Apollo Instant Messenger (AIM, etc), and a few more that allow you to customize the UI.

If you want to do this to your iPod, follow the very simple directions at this site.

When at the gas station earlier today, this is what I saw on the gas station TV-screen at a near-by pump (sorry for the blurry picture, I wasn’t very close to the pump and my camera on my phone is a little dirty):