Tag Archives: ipod

microsoft//ipod

2 Replies

Microsoft’s planning on a new music player. It’s not too surprising since Apple has already been pretty strong in this field. Perhaps this is when the real competition for portable digital media players arrive. Apple holds like 70% of the market I think, please correct me if I’m wrong. Microsoft currently holds 0% of course.

Would Microsoft be able to win this game with their cash? Or would they just an embarassing defeat in this one. They’ve got the big bucks and the technology to build an above average player. Now it’s just about the -luck- design.

*Microsoft’s iPod killer to provide free versions of all your iTunes tracks*

To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you’ve already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They’ll scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it’ll be worth it to converts.

read more | digg story

ipod//nano

14 Replies

This is the new Apple iPod nano.

The new Apple iPod nano.

(The new Apple iPod nano.)

It is just too pretty. It’s the best looking music player in my opinion. I never liked the Apple iPod and thought the iPod mini looks rather boring. As for iPod suffle, I found it disgusting. I hate the iPod suffle, it’s a piece of useless crap. This iPod nano is just too pretty to ignore.

It’s just too pretty. So small. So slim. So elegant. So aesthically pleasing.

linux//talk

On Monday, I actually went for a Linux talk. I do not use Linux. I don’t really know what that is for. I don’t think it’s for the desktop. I know it’s more for the servers.

But anyway, I went to check out the seminar. Just for fun. [And for the Apple iPod Suffle that I could stand a chance of winning - I didn't win.]

It is my first Linux seminar. I just went there so that I can understand more about Linux. I have been hearing a lot about Linux, I got to know what the whole thing is about.

It says the topics include:

* Linux is Better For Business!
* Tools to Develop New Applications on Linux
* Tools to Support Linux Based Team Development

Great. I am interested in the application development part of Linux. That would be interesting for me. So I went there. It’s quite packed. Jakob Carstensen and Siva Anne speaks in the seminar, I don’t know who they are but they’re people from IBM.

Yup – IBM. The whole Linux seminar is essentially a _IBM-has-Linux-solutions-so-please-buy-our-development-tools_ talk.

Well, it’s part of some IBM Technology Submit. The seminar is okay. Not fantastic, just okay. I find biotechnology talks more exciting at times. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know what Siva Anne is refering to sometimes. At the end of the submit, I stil have no idea what Eclipse is. To me, it seemed like a class library like Java. It gives a common interface much like windows forms. And at the same time it seemed to be an integrated development environment or an extension of some sort. I am totally confused.

The seminar consists of:

* 15% for pro-Linux education
* 25% of the time talking about IBM commitment and involvement in Linux and the open-source community
* 40% of the time goes to introducing the products that IBM offers for Linux
* 10% for giving away free gifts that I didn’t get
* the rest are strictly for Microsoft jokes – I mean – what is a Linux seminar without Microsoft jokes!

At the end of the seminar, I understand IBM offers products for Linux which is great – Rational, Tivoli, WebSphere, Lotus etc.. I don’t understand Rational at all. They went through the entire presentation (in a Windows machine) about this Rational application development tool without seeing a damn screenshot. What the fuck is IBM thinking!

They introduce Linux, that’s great. And so I wonder – how does Linux look like. And both fellows are using a Windows machine. I don’t get to see Linux. I don’t get to see Rational. Not even a single screenshot available – just a bunch of penguin pictures.

image//within

1 Reply

I’ve been watching quite a few movies recently. First, there was Van Helsing with my cousin, Jonathan. Then there was Troy with Benedict and Cui Xia. And there was The Day After Tomorrow with my girlfriend two days before yesterday. Today, I went to Suntec City (local mall) to catch Harry Potter riding on his broomstick with my younger brother, my aunt and my uncle.

I can’t say I am fully blown by the effects of the movie. It does showcase some interesting effects, I especially enjoyed the bus ride that Harry Potter rid on. It’s much more enjoyable than the one I ride to Suntec City on.

After the movie, we split and I proceeded to meet my mother at City Hall train station. Our destination? Nope, it’s not Hogwarts. I can’t possibly be going Hogwarts all the times. -yawn- I went to Singapore Expo. Unlike Hogwarts, where the wizards and likes gather, Singapore Expo has a PC Show where the geeks and likes gather.

It’s a long ride, it never felt more boring, even with my mother in the train. I wished I had a train conductor like Harry’s bus conductor, my ride would be much exciting (and dangerous). But screw Potter. The highlight of my day is the PC Show 2004.

The PC Show is filled with people both young and old. In Singapore, PC Show is very much a family affair somehow because you can see a few father walking enthusiastically from one end to the other while his wife tagged along carrying a kid.

However, seeing these family outing aren’t the strangest sight of them all. The strangest is seeing a Mac in the PC Show! Maybe Apple made a mistake and joined the wrong show. They should have been in The Heeren (another local mall with HMV) promoting iPod and iTunes. But today they’re at the PC Show promoting the same thing plus some other software. So much for PC Show.

Since Apple is there marketing Macs, you can’t blame Microsoft marketing Xbox-es and local telecommunication giant – SingTel – trying to get people to sign up 1,500 Kbps ASDL connection services. Xbox is going at a super low price there, SingTel is offering that 1,500 service at the cost of their 512-equivalent service too! You people might want to head down and join the squeeze next morning.

What I am really interested is none of the above I mentioned, not even Harry Potter. I am interested in a digital camera. I walked around watching one after another digital camera from Sony badly overcharged and finally settled on a Konica Minolta one.

Why Konica Minolta? Well, my mother thinks the salesperson is the friendliest of them all and she’s paying for half of the camera. Indeed he is the friendliest and my father ought not to know about this. Actually only reason that my mother found him friendliest is because none of the other spoke Mandarin, the language that my mother loved (and only understand).

We took an-hour train ride home. Felt tired, so much that I never intended to switch on the computer if not for typing this post and spending 2 hours exploring the digital camera. And because I spend 2 hours playing around with my new friend, I have to make a post on 1:10 a.m.. What the hell, I will have to post with a date that’s one day after. If only I had Hermione’s Time-turner (just a less fancy name for a time-traveling device).. Hey, I do have. [The time of post has been changed to 11:10 p.m. from 1:10 a.m., i.e. 2 hours back.]