Keep dreaming, Gates

Let’s face it, no matter how awesome Windows Phone 7 is, there’s no way that it’s immediately going to make the iPhone and Blackberry obsolete. Why then did the eggheads at Microsoft throw a funeral for these phones? Not a mock funeral with engineers high-fiving each other and saying things like, “You’re going down, dude!” but an actual black-wearing, hearse-having parade. I have seen delusion, and it is not pretty.

Luckier than I knew

I’d like to thank Apple’s overloaded web site and AT&T Premier for preventing me from ordering an iPhone 4 last week. I was initially pretty bummed out, especially when I learned how long I’d have to wait to get a phone if I ordered online any day after June 15 (and AT&T isn’t taking new orders until June 29), but now I’m feeling pretty okay about “missing out.”

A lot of iPhone 4 owners have experienced a loss of signal or dropped calls when they hold their phones in the left hands. I’m left-handed. This means that I generally hold things in my left hand. It seems that using this phone would not go well for me.

Steve Jobs is all over this one, promising that Apple will do everything they can to fix this problem ASAP. Just kidding. Actually, he’s telling people that it’s not an issue, or maybe it’s not much of an issue, or that they just shouldn’t hold the phone that way. Because now there’s an Apple-endorsed way to hold a cell phone? Madness! Real Steve Jobs is starting to sound more and more like Fake Steve Jobs.

If there was a Webby for best art accompanying blog posts, Engadget would have to win it:

Finally, here’s Apple’s official response:

Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.

iPhone scoop

If you, like me, are considering purchasing a new iPhone, here are some of your best bets for preordering (keep an eye on the Engadget updates). I haven’t 100% decided for sure that I’m getting one. I may switch to Android. All I know is that I hate hate hate my Touch Pro 2 (but that’s more WinMo’s fault than HTC’s), and am sick of installing ROM after ROM to barely approximate what Android and iPhones do with much greater ease.

How much do I love tech stuff?

I’m at home with a blistering headache (fully dressed, because I still almost dragged myself to work), and I’m glued to Engadget’s liveblogging of the Apple event where they just introduced the iPad. Damn you, Steve Jobs!!

Also, lol at the name iPad!

(image ripped off from Jezebel)

Stupid Apple

Oh Apple, why must you break my heart? As anybody who has ever seen me with my laptop knows, I am in lurve with my MacBook. It’s pretty, it’s cool, it’s fast, and it has opened up a different world of computing. My geeky soul finds this deeply satisfying. So why did Apple have to go and release pretty much MY computer with an updated screen, built-in card reader, and lower price? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

That is so not cool. Right now, I’m weighing my options. Should I make a fuss with Apple? I do enjoy my computer, and I just bought the MacUpdate bundle, so for the last day I’ve been playing around with Parallels 4 and Windows 7. (As an aside, I cannot say enough good things about this bundle. Even if the rest of the apps sucked, which they don’t, Parallels 4 would make the whole thing worthwhile, as it retails for $79.99 and the bundle was only $49.99.) It’s been nice to use my multitouch gestures on the Windows platform, or switch back and forth between Leopard and Windows 7.

But why in the name of all that is holy did Apple have to do this to me? Couldn’t they have waited at least one year? I’m finding it different to read the reactions on Engadget and Gizmodo. The commenters at the former seem more down on Apple, while people more fanboyish seem to frequent the latter.

Really, I was looking forward to today’s announcements because I thought they were going to announce a new iPhone. They did, the iPhone 3GS, and it’s totally underwhelming. It’s faster, but it still lacks a camera, AT&T is being slow to add MMS support, and they’ve said nothing about officially sanctioned tethering, even though other international iPhone carriers are supporting it immediately. Wake me when the HTC Touch Pro 2 is released. Also of interest is the announcement that Snow Leopard will be available starting in September, and that the upgrade will cost only $29.

This is why I have three browsers

I was thinking of Neil LaBute the other day, and then last night I saw a poster for Reasons to be Pretty, his new play. I was like, SCORE! The poster had the following URL on it: http://www.doesthisplaymakemelookfat.com. I went to the web site today using Firefox, which I recently made my default browser. The site opened, but I saw nothing. I tried it in Safari, and behold, the nothingness became stuff. So now I know more about the play, which is something (I guess).

Then I wanted to try out Safari 4 beta, to see whether it can live up to the claims made by Apple. The download page on the Apple web site didn’t work for me in Firefox (0 for 2 today) or Safari (1 for 2), but it did work in Opera 10 alpha, which I think is odd. I just finished the install and am about to restart, and once I’ve messed around with it for a bit, I’ll post my impressions. I guess, actually, that I should go get Firefox 3.1 beta 2 while I’m at it.

There goes that

I deleted the Windows 7 partition on my Macbook because I found it annoying and almost never actually used it. Plus, it slowed my boot time to an unmanageable minute, from a previous low of about 12-15 seconds. Unacceptable. I thought that it would be kind of a tedious process, but the whole thing took about 10 seconds in Boot Camp. I continue to be astounded by this operating system. I still have Windows 7 on my Gateway, and plan to play around with it some more this weekend, as I have been quite remiss. Even the new, shiny beta operating system doesn’t really make me want to use the older computer that much…

And now that I found boxee, and can watch my Netflix instant access content on the Macbook, the other computer is even less useful to me.

Windows 7? On my PC? It’s less likely than you think!

Because it was so easy to put Windows 7 on my MacBook, I was sure that it would be at least as simple to do so on my Gateway pc. I mean, Gateways are native Microsoft environments, so what could possibly be so difficult, right? WRONG. It turns out that Vista sucks every bit as much as you may have heard, and so, instead of being able to partition my hard drive and make space for Windows 7, I have just spent large chunks of the last three days figuring out how to partition my hard drive. I had 113 GB of free space on the drive, and Vista said that a grand total of 98 MB of that was available to be partitioned.

So what was the problem? Vista has built-in software to do partition drives, but the way that it stores system files means that all my free space is basically worthless. Vista’s default storage area for system files is at the very end of the hard drive, which means that you can’t lop off any part of the drive until you’ve moved those system files further in. It’s not hard to fix, but you can’t do it with tools provided within Vista.

Here’s the tutorial that I used to figure out what to do. Some notes: I used PerfectDisk2008 with no problem (there are many versions of PerfectDisk to choose from when you get to that web site). When you’ve finished the regular defrags, choose the System Files option in PerfectDisk. This will require a restart of your system, but took less than 5 minutes on my system. I went from seeing 3 GB of space (after I deleted my pagefile) to over 100 GB.

I’m having some of the same trackpad issues with Windows 7 on my MacBook that others have had, which is one of the reasons I wanted to try Windows 7 on my pc laptop. I’ll use it for a couple of days and then give my thoughts on both experiences.

Gone over to the dark side

Did I tell y’all that I bought a Mac the other day? No, of course not, because I haven’t really been updating the way I should. Moving on…I have wanted an Apple forever, but couldn’t justify buying one. Well, that’s all changed. I saw the new generation of MacBooks, and just knew that I had to have one. They’re so pretty, and so well-constructed. How can you not love a computer that is made out of a solid block of aluminum? Not possible, my friend.

I ordered the 2.4GHz MacBook on Monday morning while processing loans (much to the amazement of my coworker, who does not understand my compartmentalization skills at all), and added a printer, along with a larger hard drive. The printer wasn’t something that I actually needed (and neither was the computer, obviously), but there was a rebate of $100, and it seemed silly not to get something that I would have to buy in a few months anyway when I finally move into my own apartment. The very very very nice guy from the Apple call center (what up, Arnie???) told me that I could process the rebate as soon as I got the printer by going to apple.com/promo, filling out the form, and entering the serial number from the box. Except: wrong!

I really needn’t have waited at all, because the form did not require any information that I didn’t know already when I placed my order. The whole thing took like 37 seconds, and 25 of those were spent entering my name and address. I didn’t even need to put in the serial number, which means I lugged this ridiculously light box to my room for no freaking reason at all, except to admire my adorable, wireless printer (which my dad is already lusting after). Even if the delay had been necessary, it wouldn’t have been very long, as the printer arrived the next day (the computer is coming from Shanghai, so I won’t see that baby until Monday morning). I know it’s a cult, but glory be, I am happy to have finally joined the ranks of blithely dismissive Apple fangirls who simply do not understand why Windows users put up with all the hassle. Thanks, Apple!!