In which, JR describes the technology-related things infesting his mind as of late.

The blogosphere (did I really just use that word?) is all abuzz and atwitter about the iPhone. I must say, I was drooling when I saw the MacWorld Expo liveblogging going on yesterday at engadget. I’ve been watching the world of PDA phones and smartphones very closely for the last month or so, in anticipation of buying a big new expensive and complicated phone so I can chat and look up random shit on wikipedia from anywhere! Anyway, here are the iPhone specs:

• Screen size: 3.5 inches
• Screen resolution: 320 by 480 at 160 ppi
• Input method: Multi-touch
• Operating system: OS X
• Storage: 4GB or 8GB
• GSM: Quad-band (MHz: 850, 900, 1800, 1900)
• Wireless data: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) + EDGE + Bluetooth 2.0
• Camera: 2.0 megapixels
• Battery: Up to 5 hours Talk / Video / Browsing, Up to 16 hours Audio playback
• Dimensions: 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches / 115 x 61 x 11.6mm
• Weight: 4.8 ounces / 135 grams

Those of you who know me know that I am no fan of macs. I have nothing against the OS. From what I’ve seen of it, it’s actually quite good. I take issue with the assertion that because very few viruses, spyware and so forth are targeting OS X, since it has a much lower marketshare, that the OS itself is somehow more secure, but that has more to do with idiotic zealots and fanboys than the OS itself.

My problem with Apple products is the exorbitant cost of their hardware. In virtually every case, a similar x86 machine can be built for much, much less money. People are willing to pay, though, because owning a mac is some kind of cult status symbol. It’s all very trendy and hip.

Since Apple decided to move from PowerPC chips to Intel chips, though, things have changed. The OSx86 project has made major strides in producing OS X installation disks that work on generic PCs, although the hardware has to be fairly new for there to be any hope. This, combined with the impressive Parallels program, makes dual booting windows XP and OS X on your custom built PC an attractive prospect, and I plan to get that going as soon as I have some free time. Not having access to Safari has been a major hinderance for me as a web developer.

As for the iPhone, I sincerely doubt that I’ll be buying one. First, it’s crazy expensive. $499 for the low-end model, WITH a 2 year contract? Second, it’s only being sold through Cingular, and I’m with Verizon. If I were going to switch providers, it would NOT be Cingular. They are notorious for bad coverage and service, and they don’t have a proper 3G network. That doesn’t really make sense to me, considering how bandwidth-intensive the iPhone looks to be. I realize it has built-in wireless support, but hotspots are not so ubiquitous as to make broadband cellphone service a moot issue. Third, it’s crazy expensive.

I’ve been looking at the forthcoming HTC XV6800 and the Samsung i760. I’ve also looked at the Treo 700 (p and w), and the upcoming Treo 700wx. Of all of these, the HTC XV6800 is the most attractive. It seems to have everything I would want from a PDA phone: large touch screen, wifi, full qwerty keyboard, fastish processor… It’s a bit bulky, but that’s to be expected. It runs Windows Mobile 5, so it’s pretty expandable. Verizon has yet to even announce the damn thing, though. The i760 looks pretty sweet, as well. I have not yet made up my mind, and it’s going to be a tough decision.

I upgraded my computer last weekend. That might not be the right way to say it; I bought a new computer last weekend. Here are the specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
• ASUS P5N-E
• CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB)
• ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink
• XFX PVT71GUQL3 GeForce 7900GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
• Thermaltake SHARK VA7000BWA Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower
• PowerTek 750W F5-Series ATX12V 750W Power Supply

I also picked up some Arctic Silver and another 250 gig Western Digital SATA hard drive. The case is kind of ugly, but I needed something with lots of room for hard drives. I’ve got Windows XP 64-bit running on it now, and the performance is outstanding. I’ve been playing Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion for the past few days at 1280×1024 with 2x antialiasing enabled and all the settings on high, and it’s smooth as hell. I can’t wait for Spore to come out. I’m also going to pick up an Acer 22″ widescreen LCD monitor on Friday.

I’ll be giving away my old system to my mom. It’s not a bad system at all: 2.53ghz Pentium 4, 1gig of ram, Geforce 5600 with, I believe, 256megs of ram onboard, 18gig SCSI-3 hard drive, and I think there’s an Audigy 2 sound card in there. She’ll also get my old wireless keyboard and mouse, and my 22″ CRT monitor. I just need to clean it up a bit and reinstall windows, and it’ll be good to go.

I had my first Wii experience the other day.

This is my Mii. I think it suits me perfectly.

We played some Wii Sports at Jady’s house on Sunday, and I must have one. As Jady mentioned in the comments of a previous post, owning a Wii is a pretty good way to trick yourself into exercising. I know that playing a little Wii Boxing would certainly do the trick for me. The problem is finding one… They are still in high demand, despite having sold over 3 million units already. I’m afraid that it’ll be a couple more months before I’ll be able to get my hands on one.

Meanwhile, the PS3 sits abandoned on store shelves, unloved and unwanted. Ha.

In programming news, I have aquired yet more books on the Ruby language. I am enticed by Ruby and Python, but I have neither the time nore the desire to throw myself into them. There’s just too much to do to devote hours each day to learning a new language and becoming proficient in it, and I’m mired in old Perl projects that I do not have time to port.

Finally, I noticed a few weird spam comments in my spam filter for this site:

Sten3860 | 23728@23728.xx | http://stupid.spammer.url/ | IP: 218.xxx.xxx.xxx

I’ve just been staying at home waiting for something to happen, but I don’t care. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about. I can’t be bothered with anything recently.

Jan 10, 3:18 AM

Sten42578 | 54680@54680.xx | http://stupid.spammer.url/ | IP: 60.xxx.xxx.xxx

I just don’t have much to say these days, but so it goes. Today was a total loss. I guess it doesn’t bother me.

Jan 7, 7:58 PM

Sten64244 | 50326@50326.xx | http://stupid.spammer.url/ | IP: 124.xxx.xxx.xxx

I’ve more or less been doing nothing worth mentioning, but eh. My life’s been really bland today. I don’t care. I’ve just been letting everything happen without me these days. That’s how it is.

Jan 6, 7:12 AM

I think it’s hilarious that my bouts of depression have now flowed over and infected even the spam I get. Wow. It’s like some kind of super power.

Now I’ll just list shit that I wish I had: plasma TV, high def projector, xbox 360, a laptop, a PSP, a nintendo DS, a TiVo, a working wireless network in my house, a wireless adapter for the original xbox, a modded PS2, a more reliable networked storage solution, a few 500gig SATA drives, a working IDE add-on controller.