One word is enough to make many kids at my school quake with fear. Just one word, that’s all that is needed.
Midyears.
The midyear exams are this week at my school, 3 days of tests in everything we’ve learned so far this year. At least the scheduling allows me to leave school at 10:00 on Thursday, and not have to get to school until 10:00 on Friday, but 4 hours of tests each day is pretty extreme I think.
Well, it’s been a while since I posted anything. Last time I talked about the iPhone, and how awesome it is. Well, now I’m going to do a (sadly) negative post about the same phone. It has to be done.
So, the downsides of the iPhone. First of all, the keyboard. All the people (very few, but still some people) who used the iPhone said that the on-screen keyboard was tricky to use, and a bit unresponsive. I think Apple would have been better off putting a slide-out keyboard on it, because despite the fact that you cannot change the functions of hardware-based buttons, you can pretty much assume things that need a keyboard will be ok using that keyboard.
Next, the screen. That thing’s going to get scratched.
The back. It’s part white, part black, all wierd-looking.
The camera: 2 megapixels. This isn’t horrible, but it’s not very good for a smartphone camera.
And of course, the price. $499 or $599 for the phone, but if you add on the voice and data plans you’ve spent over $1000 in the first year. While this is average for a smartphone, and this phone is (despite its faults above) much better than an average smartphone, it’s still extremely pricey.
Oh well, I wasn’t planning on getting one anyway.
Well, new iPod/gadget from Apple Inc. (no longer Apple Computer Inc.) is here (or actually, it’s been announced. It’ll be here in June), and it’s called the iPhone. The name is a bit deceiving, since it’s really a lot more than just a phone, it even tops most of the smartphones out there (think Blackberry, Treo, etc.).
So, the features. It is a phone, yes. It lets you make calls at the touch of a button (a virtual button, the thing is like one giant touchscreen), and access your “visual voicemail”- a list of the missed calls with voicemail messages attached. That way you don’t have to listen to all the previous saved messages to get the one you want, just scroll until you find it. It also lets you access your e-mail (via any IMAP or POP3 e-mail service), send SMS text messages, and all that jazz that phones do. It also has a 2 megapixel (better than the built-in iSight and most other webcams, also currently the highest megapixel count in a cameraphone) camera in the back.
Aside from the standard phone features, the iPhone acts as a full-screen iPod as well. It allows you to scroll through the menus of artists, albums, songs, etc. by “flicking” the screen up, as if you were dragging it. One tap, and the song starts playing, with standard iPod UI. It shows the album art, as well as all the other album art you have, and lets you flip through the art like in iTunes 7. If you turn it on its side, the picture on the screen rotates to landscape view. Video? It does that. It shows video in landscape mode by default, on its 3.5″ 340×480 screen.
The iPhone does internet, too. It comes with both WiFi and EDGE (so you can connect to the internet anywhere you get phone coverage, basically), as well as Bluetooth compatibility for the new wireless headphones (mad ugly, in my opinion) that come with it. The iPhone has its own version of Safari built into it, and supports syncing of your bookmarks from a Mac or PC.
It comes in both 4gb (at the standard inflated Mac price of $499) and 8gb (again, $599) models, and should be released this June.
Welcome, everyone, to the new home of A Series of Tubes. I’d like to explain in greater detail the reasons for my move here, if I may. And of course I may, you’re a captive audience. Hooray!
I feel that I’ve outgrown what the hosted WordPress service has to offer. The fact that you cannot use plugins (especially Captcha!) or themes (other than the 30 or so they provide) annoyed me when I first started using WP, and the fact that you cannot even modify the themes they provide to suit your needs was even more annoying.
So, I moved here. Yay.
My blog as it exists here has (as of just a moment ago) gotten a total of 6,666 unique views. How awesome!
I came across this quote on Uru Obsession, and the original poster found it on eBay, I think. The first few lines are so true:
I used to think of myself as immune to addiction. I’ve never been ensnared by alcohol or drugs, never run up huge credit-card balances with compulsive shopping, never smoked — I don’t even gamble. Watching various friends battle their own habits, I’ve occasionally envied them the drama of it all, but mostly I’ve felt a little (well, maybe more than a little) superior.
That was before I found Myst…
I’ve recently realized just how obsessed I am with the Myst series. I really am obsessed. I spend most of my free time on Uru Obsession, I have a massive collection of Myst games and collectible items, I even have two original concept sketches from Myst.
In a discussion I was having with a friend of mine two days ago, I mentioned how much more obsessed with the series I was than him (however, we met on UO, so we both must be pretty obsessed) and he said “yeah, I’m not as obsessed as you are. I get bored the third time through the games”. This made me stop and realize the extent of my obsession.
Am I sorry? Do I wish I wasn’t obsessed/addicted?
Hell no.
