Zii Coming To Phones? Next ZEN to Get Social Networking?
Rumormongering forthcoming: While it’s almost assured that there will be a Zii inside a Creative player by the end of the calendar year, Creative has always strayed away from venturing into the phone market. Change may be in the air, however, as a survey from the Zii team today asked a peculiar question- Are you using a Smartphone, 3.5G phone, Blackberry or Pushmail service? A followup question asked what features you use most on your phone, and it listed some pretty standard smartphone features like email and web browsing. It’s interesting that they would ask this, as Creative hasn’t touched the mobile phone market, and their wifi implementation on the ZEN X-Fi came off as half baked at best. It could also just be an innocent question to gauge the demographics of interested users, or it could signal a new direction for the new ZiiLabs with Creative. Either way, it caught my eye. This survey was sent to anyone and everyone who signed up for the Zii newsletters.
Finish reading at the Creative blog.
Vincent Bach Stradivarius 36B Trombone w/ F Trigger Review
Editor’s Note: And now something a bit off the beaten path for technology, here’s Kelvin with a review of his new trombone!
The Time: 11:43 PM
This review was long overdue, but I decided that I would, for the benefit of all the readers out there, thoroughly test this intermediate level tenor trombone to further enhance the relevance and accuracy of this review. (Thats a lie. I’ve been buried to the solar plex in Music History for the exam I took last Friday) I must thank the staff at the Coquitlam branch of Tom Lee in my area for such quick service back in the day. No, they did not pay me to say that. My trombone arrived in two weeks of the order.
Note: This is my third trombone, and my first trigger trombone. Ignore the bias. Please.
Apple Not Liking Them Apple Bottom Jeans? Or Boots With The Fur?
This has been something that I’ve been wondering about for a while now. The song Low by Flo Rida isn’t amazing, but it’s in lot’s of people’s music libraries. Including mine.
I originally thought it was a firmware issue. I was partially correct, I guess. On firmware 1.1.4/1.1.5 for my iPod Touch, the song would skip after about 16 seconds. On the newest, 2.2.1, the song seems to keep playing but skips randomly, reliving the good old memories of skipping CD players…
Now, there seems to be problems playing this song on an iPod. Do a Google Search yourself. There doesn’t seem to be an official explanation or workaround from Apple, but there are a few suggestions from people online, such as…
- convert song to AAC
- burn to CD and re-rip
- don’t listen to this song
I haven’t tried any of the above, but I’m more curious to know why this happens. The song plays fine on the computers. Is it a grudge against Flo Rida? Is it because there’s the word “Apple” in the song? You decide.
Top 3 Jaunty Jackalope New Features
It’s that time of the year again, when we are treated to the latest Ubuntu release. As per usual you have all the latest Gnome packages and little tweaks here and there, but here are the 3 features I am most looking forward to.
1. New Notifications
Ubuntu now has a new notification system. you know, that thing that tells you when you are low on battery, change volume etc.
Facebook App Review: Attack!
The Time: 3:53AM GMT-8 Pacific Standard Time
Location: Undisclosed
Supplies and gear sitrep:
- 1 Laptop
- 1 black cloth
- 2 bottles of water
- 1 loaf of pre-sliced white bread
- 1 chair
- 1 table
Status Report: Currently playing “Attack!” on Facebook.
The Point:
Attack! on Facebook is basically an online “Risk” type game. Fans and lovers of the Milton Bradley board game will love this, for Attack! creates a sense of cleaniness on tables, desks, floors, and other furniture around the house. And also, your little plastic soldiers won’t get sucked up by the vaccumn that your parents/guardians/girlfriend(s)/boyfriend(s)/spouse spontaneously decides to employ to get rid of “dust” in your immediate vicinity.
Though this game is Facebook based, it exceeds my standards of an online “flash” type game. I dont think its coded in flash though, but anyways this game contains many noob advanced user features such as the amazingly innovative “Map Switch” setting. This is built into the in-game combat display, enabling posers battlefield strategists to switch between “normal”, “old map”, or “radar” displays.
Return to Firefox
In the constant see-saw of technology, I found myself using Google Chrome as my primary web browser after having used Firefox for a couple of years (and previous to that, the venerable Internet Explorer). In using Chrome, I loved the speed and the simplicity, but after a few months of usage, I found there were a few issues that were starting to get in the way of the experience. First off, there were a few basic things, such as the lack of form autofill. This is one glaring oversight, and one that perfectly exhibits Google rushing to put out a “1.0” product (considering Chrome was in beta for like 3 seconds).
Even beyond the basics, there were sites that were not compatible with Chrome. The biggest impact initially was in the way of rich text editors on sites being disabled by default or having quirky behavior. This I could live with. Later on, I ran into my biggest issue, which was in the form of NetFlix and sites such as Fox.com.
Over the past several weeks, I have taken to watching more and more video content on my PC or notebook. In particular, NetFlix (now that I have an unlimited streaming package), as well as sites such as Fox.com or ABC.com (for catching missed TV episodes). I love this option, but none of these work with Google Chrome. And I don’t like switching between browsers for specific purposes; I put up with that during the early days of Firefox and I don’t care for it.
After some research and thought, I decided to go back to Firefox, but this time using the latest beta build (at the time, it was 3.1 Beta 2). The new beta includes a Javascript engine that is supposed to rival Chrome’s. In short, it is supposed to be very fast for web page rendering. I installed the beta but uninstalled the add-ons. While I like extensions, I found I didn’t miss them as much with Chrome, and I figured that having less extensions installed would translate into better performance. I went back and installed Firefox 3.1 beta 2, and decided to live with it.
And, as of now, I’m back to using Firefox regularly.
I have to admit, I’m impressed with the quality of the betas (I’m now on beta 3). They have been running smoothly, with no crashes and fast performance. This is far cry from the betas of versions 2.0 and 3.0. I am running a few extensions- the ones that happen to give me the missing functionality from Chrome (but that’s a topic for a future post). There are benchmarks out there that will state Chrome is still faster than Firefox 3.1, but from what I’ve seen, the margin is small, and I don’t notice it on my dual-core machines. To boot, I have the ability to easily view videos on sites that I could not previously.
Chrome will undoubtedly improve, but Google is taking their time with the beta for version 2, and companies are taking their time in making sites Chrome compatible. Considering the web browser is one of the key, central components of computing today, I prefer to have a seamless experience, something Chrome was able to do for the most part. But the areas it lacked wound up being deal breakers. So, for now at least, I am back in the Firefox fold.
Perhaps I’ll try Opera next, though I doubt it. 
GAMEKISS Brings Back Freestyle Street Basketball
Ah, Freestyle Street Basketball. You left me last year, leaving me bewildered and stricken with sadness. The sport I loved, the game I loved, both wrenched out of my hands as Sierra closed it down.
Behold GAMEKISS. Freestyle Street Basketball is back! The previous client won’t work, so you would need to download the new client, which is about 600MB. Now I don’t know if it was just their servers that day, or my internet, but doing an ordinary download gave me speeds of 17.1 kb/s. That’s pathetic. HOWEVER, with the help of friendly Firefox add-on DownThemAll (Download Manager), I had 10 segments burning up the track as I finished the download in less than the “About 3 days remaining” time from before.
What’s different about the game? Well, not much actually. You can now also level up by finishing missions that also help you train, and there are Episodes which follows a storyline. The servers seem to be more steady now, not as much lag as before. The controls have stayed the same, basically.
So what are you waiting for? Download it here NOW!
Creative Vado HD Reviewed!
Creative’s been long known for its superb audio products, ranging from the still relevant SoundBlaster PC sound cards to the venerable and powerful ZEN line of digital media devices. The first evidence of life in the visual department over at Creative came with the introduction of the Zen Vision:M. Anyone who has spent time with the best device to come out of Creative’s facilities knows that the video quality was absolutely superb. The widescreen Vision:W, which I still use daily, was also amazing. Now, however, Creative adds to the mix a rather different device: one that comes in soley to capture life- this version in stunning high definition. Before you begin this review, let me preface it by saying this: I have not played with, tested, or otherwise touched a Flip camera, a Kodak Zi6, or any other competitor in this sector, so don’t ask. There are plenty of other, wealthier people who have done so- you can use the tubes and Google to find them. But I suspect that very few other people who are in the market for this type of device have very little background with a competitor’s product, and thus will be with me as a ‘virgin buyer’ of pocket video cams. All videos embedded currently have the YouTube HD embed hack enabled, so all videos should playback in HD by default. For full size videos, click through the videos to their YouTube page.
Continue reading for the ten page review.
EFF: Hypocrisy Fresh in Cupertino
Despite the market’s move away from DRM laden digital audio, Apple is adding DRM to their hardware. The new iPod Shuffle unleashed earlier this week will require consumers to use Apple’s horrible white earbuds until a third party makes another compatible set. However, according to iLounge, those third party headsets will require a proprietary chip from Apple to work with the device. I have my own negative opinions on the new Shuffle that many others across the net share, but it seems the company is really looking out for itself, rather than the consumer and third party “Made for iPod” makers during these tough economic times.
Source [EFF]
Google Joins EU Crusade Against Microsoft
Google has added its name to the list of browser makers fighting Microsoft. They join Mozilla and Opera on the case. Google has a lot more money than both the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software RSA combined, meaning that the EU now has a level competitor. Despite Chrome’s relatively low adoption rate, Google contends that packaging Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system is anticompetitive. I personally think this whole lawsuit, and the vendetta the European Union has against Microsoft, is complete nonsense. Also, it makes me wonder- if they aren’t allowed to bundle a free browser with their operating system, how will the common person be able to browse the internet to get a different one on a fresh install?
Source [Reuters]
