Pre-review of WP7 on HTC HD7

While I had been thinking I would wait for the next generation iPad to appear I changed my mind and decided to take the dive into the smart phone pool now.

I've used and absolutely love Sandi's iPhone 4. It's a fantastic little device that I really cannot stoop to calling a "phone." It does just about anything and everything. But I have to be different and since I have become enamoured with Windows 7 I decided to take an alternate path. I purchased my HD7 running Windows Phone 7 OS and am waiting for it to arrive.

Anxious to know if I made the right decision (oh, I read a lot of reviews and opinion pieces on the web) I visited the T-Mobile store in town today to try out an HD7. The phone in stock was dead (battery that is) so he had to remove it from the security lock and plug it into an outlet at the side of the store. After a minute the phone would start and it booted into the familiar (well, at least familiar in the sense that I have seen pictures of it all over the internet) start screen. I grabbed the phone from him and started playing.

The interface was smooth. It flowed nicely and I could navigate it with some confidence (it is pretty basic, fairly intuitive). I didn't get much time with it, but I played with the on-screen keyboard and fired up an application or two and found the whole experience satisfying.

More to come when my phone arrives.

IE 9 (vs Chromium)

With the second release of IE 9 BETA I decided to make it my primary web browser. IE 9 offers good performance, low memory usage, HTML5 compatibility and hardware acceleration.

But how does it really stack up? My previous primary browser was Chromium 9 with hardware acceleration turned on. Chromium is the "beta" version of Chrome (and Chrome in general has been my primary browser for a few years now, since it came out).

IE 9 really is fast, compared to all previous IE versions, and it does actually render very nicely. IE (and Firefox for that matter) does tend to apply antialiasing a little too thickly and sometimes text can appear fuzzy, whereas in Chrome it is always crisp. But other than that it looks great; pages format well, fonts render well, etc.

IE comes with a new Javascript engine that touts it's speed and while it IS quick, I've found a few problems with it that cause me to, on occasion revert to Chrome/Chromium for a moment. I wouldn't make a big deal about it but, truthfully, Chromium feels "finished" in comparison. But that is probably because the Javascript engine in Chromium is actually quite mature.

Other than those few, minor quibbles, IE has performed quite well and does not feel like its ancestors in any way. It works with MOST online applications and it feels pretty snappy. I will continue to use it and perhaps in a release or two review it, maybe compare it to Chrome.

Panic and relief

I was reading an article about a game (Bioshock Infinite) when I noticed my arm... it had white hairs in it. I freaked out and ran to Sandi "Oh no! My arm hairs are turning white!" She pitied me but then straightened me out: Those aren't your hairs. Those are Cookie's hairs.

Whew! I had been playing with my dog and her hairs were all mixed in with mine.

Ha ha. The joke is on me.

So a month ago I started having problems with my [old] PC. It was overheating, specifically the graphics card. The NVidia 470 had performed flawlessly up to that point and all of a sudden, at IDLE it was running at 79 C.

I was baffled, I tried cleaning it out; I took it apart and reseated the heat sink (scraped off the old paste and applied arctic silver), etc. Nothing worked. When I played games it got up to 100 C!!

So I decided, alright, I'll install MSI Afterburner and apply a custom fan plan (basically the thing was whistling along at about 60% to 70% to keep the temps at a reasonable value). This has been a great machine and has served me well, so I wiped it clean and reinstalled Windows 7 planning to give it to my son... and wouldn't you know it: The card was idling at 41 C. It had to be some kind of driver issue? I don't know. But now the machine is running great. I am updating Windows... perhaps if it starts overheating again I can roll back the updates to determine what caused the problem.

Anyway, Isaac is getting a smoking machine. Here are the relevant specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
8 GB RAM @ 1066
NVidia 470

I think Anabelle will get the Aluminum iMac and I'll maybe sell her G5 iMac on Craigslist or something.

Apple support gets worse by the year.

For some reason, iTunes things the address I am entering for my credit card is not valid.

It hasn't changed for 5 years. My credit card information (number, etc.) has not changed for as long.

So I call Apple only to find out they NO LONGER OFFER PHONE SUPPORT FOR ACCOUNT ISSUES.

This is all very disappointing. Anyway, I submitted my email to them via the provided form and hope to hear back from them within the stated 48 hours.

Can't we all just get along?

I've been in a sort of on-going conversation in (of all places) a tech forum about the disrespect paid to Americans (or anyone).

It started with a post about the FM radio chip issue (if you are not aware, a couple organizations are lobbying to have legislation passed to have FM chips put in cell phones - sort of). The editor (one of a few, and a European one) tends toward the dramatic and in this case had to slam "Americans" for being panic-prone. But not in such kind words.

I protested in response and it began like this:

Why do non-Americans find it necessary to comment (and not generally favorably) on purely American issues? (Surely you don't believe this issue will somehow affect Europe?)

Yeah I know, our government has its nose in everyone's business (which I don't agree with and vote against accordingly during elections). So that makes it O.K. to make glib comments about Americans in general?

(I vote Libertarian, btw, and fully buy into Teddy Roosevelt's "walk softly and carry a big stick" idea. Our focus needs to be internal, not external).

The responses I got back (mostly from people from the Netherlands for some reason) were along the lines of "because Americans are always commenting unfavorably about Europeans!"

Really? There have been no (zero) posts by the American editors with inserted slander against any European country or person. None. Yet this is not the first time such posts have come from the European sector. I pointed this out. The response was "that's because your media never reports on European affairs and ours (European media) is constantly shoving American issues in our faces and paint Americans as "ignorant hicks."

Lovely. Really. So that means you should carry that tradition on by barraging Americans with insults at every opportunity?

I then proceeded to point out that the PEOPLE here are no different from the PEOPLE there. Sure there are some cultural differences but we all get up, brush our teeth, kiss our kids, go to work, come home and eat, hang with our families then go to bed. In other words we are all human, no one better than the next.

What I don't get is where these people are coming from. A new generation in Europe? I worked with Europeans (specifically Irish, French and German) for several years while at DEC. They were wonderful (the people I worked with). One even invited us to stay at his house if we ever planned on vacationing in France. So what is changing? Why the hate? Why do they despise a group of people... can they not separate our gov't from us? I don't know. I guess I don't really care except that it causes me to lose respect for THEM if they cannot see through all the rhetoric in the news and from politicians and roll individuals up into their opinions based on such tripe.

Just a poem I wrote awhile back...

Dusty

I put on my sin, a dirty old coat
Comfortable, well-worn skin;
Everything is spotty today,
The world through scratched lenses
Moves in and out of focus.

That hard drive head crash wail
Assails my ears and
Discernment rails my fear
Toward the inevitable
Clear thought:

I am desert dusty,
Wrinkle-filled,
Crusty, lusty, musty -
Unwashed and unwashable
But for the bathing
Sin scathing light
Of truth.