Category: Tech

My wife and I had to finally lay our aging Wintel box to rest about a month ago. I’ve had that machine since 1999, and I have to say it served it’s purpose phenomenally. It was only the last 3 or 4 months where it gave us any trouble at all. I had to reinstall Windows 3 different times. After the 3rd time, I decided it was time to finally make the move to a Mac.

It took us awhile to finally decide which Mac we wanted to buy. In the end, we decided to go with the Mac mini 1.42 Ghz G4. Luckily they had just been “updated”, so we got the Airport and Bluetooth built-in. It was a real hard decision on whether to get the mini or the iMac G5.

I like the power and specs of the iMac, but I didn’t want to get locked into having the screen and machine all-in-one. Plus, the G5 processor has a bit of reduced life expectancy with Apple’s current move towards an all Intel based product line. I know it will take a few years for the transition to be complete, but I’ll be able to make the move to the Intel line of Macs sooner since I bought a mini.

All in all, the Mac mini is a wonderful machine. I would’ve loved to purchase a Dual G5 Power Mac, but for the size, the mini can’t be beat. Out of the box if provides enough juice for most of your basic computing tasks, Internet browsing, email, or word processing. It’s not going to blow you away. I am planning on upgrading the RAM to 1 GB and adding a 7200 RPM Hard Drive. Both of those additions should boost the performance of this machine by about 40%. I am also going to ad an internal DVD burner. I could’ve paid $100 at the start, but I would’ve been stuck with a 4x burner.Installing it myself nets me a 8x burner. That’s worth it in my book.

Mac mini 1.42 Ghz: 8.75/10

This rumor is all the rage at the moment. I’m intrigued by the possibility though. If anyone can pull off the online distribution model with a slick player, it’s Apple. They dominate the online music business, and everyone knows that the iPod is the be all, end all when it comes to portable music players.

If this rumor turns out to be true in the next couple of months, I’ll be first in line to buy one of these devices. I don’t want to miss out on this. I waited too long to get into the iPod game, and I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. I’ve been looking into a portable video player, but nothing has caught my eye just yet.

Hopefully Apple will work out the DRM so it’s not so terrible. It would be nice to have no DRM, but that shit a’int gonna happen. We have to take the good with the bad. I just hope Apple is smart enough to let people play any kind of compatible video on this sucker. It would be nice if they partnered up with TiVo to allow TiVo to Go files on the vPod.

I have a feeling this is Apple’s next step. Why would iTunes support video playback and RSS feeds from video blogs? Plus, the market for portable video players is wide open. Whenever Apple brings a product into this segment, average consumers will start to buy in to this lifestyle change.

After using and abusing my wonderful Sony EricssonT68i for 2 years, it was time for an upgrade. I looked at quite a few different options during my search. I knew I wanted a phone with a bit more functionality than the T68i, and to do so meant looking at Smartphones. There were 3 models I considered: Sony Ericsson P910a, Palm Treo 650 and the Audiovox SMT5600.

All three of these offered advantages and disadvantages I needed to consider before dropping up to $600 for an unlocked phone. I did a fair bit of research into the features of each of these phones at HowardForums, MoDaCo.com, Engadget, TreoCentral and MyTreo.net.

In the end I wound up purchasing the Audiovox SMT5600. I’m sure some of you out there are thinking “Ugh, Audiovox!”, but this isn’t the typical POS giveaway phone Audiovox produces for Sprint or Verizon. This phone is actually made by a company called HTC and it is known as the SPV C500 over in Europe and the UK.

The main reason I went for this phone is for the portability factor. Both the Treo and the P910a seemed a little too bulky. The SMT5600 is the smallest smartphone on the market. Plus, there is an active online community for this phone which helps troubleshoot problems and mod this baby.

It’s been about 3 months since I started using my SMT5600, and I’m impressed with everything it can do. I started my own moblog, check my email on the go, look up driving directions while we’re traveling down the highway and much, much more. I have a feeling that these types of features are going to become standard on mobile phones in a few years. Most people here in the States don’t care about these types of things, but people will flock to it once this tech becomes easier to use.

Audiovox SMT5600: 9/10

I’ve been having a few issues with posts not working 100% correct with my new blog, so I did a little research. I found this post via Technorati today. Hopefully this will take care of the quirks in my new system for editing my blog. We shall see.

Update: Replacing these two files seems to fix my problems. If you’re using MarsEdit or ecto, follow the instructions on the post above to work out the kinks.

I have a feeling that these types of devices are going to become much more common. The bad thing about this type of tech is obese and overweight people will begin to use this a crutch. Instead of changing their diet or eating habits, they’ll just opt for surgery or an implant instead.

(Via Boing Boing.)