Logbook: Reviews
Phone Fun MMXXIV – thank you sprint….(nexus S 4g)
After Much Dealings with replacing my phone more times than the amount of explosions in a Michael bay movie, Sprint has worked with me and I have gotten away from HTC..
After going back and forth with the executive customer care since my phones kept having issues. they offered to restart my contract and pick up a phone at new contract cost, which was alot better than returning phone after phone. I tried to get a brand new EVO in hope of getting a phone without issue.
It just seems sprints flagship phones from the refurbished end are TERRIBLE.
From the B spot to random reboots and bad sound…
I wondered if HTC’s release products are the same – there is no way quality control should of ever let these phones back on the market. A refurbished phone is like a repaired car, It should look and act like NEW..
Anyways I am fully done with HTC.. the only way I’d use one is if one was given to me…
well, This time i’ve gone with a Samsung… though, The second phone problem going back to Phone fun 3 was a samsung. This time I’ve gone with a Samsung Nexus s 4g
Now in previous post I’ve had my “Requirements for my phone”.
- to make calls –
- The Phone is configurable
- good battery life
- add/make ringtones
- Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
- Durable
Basically The nexus S is as follows.
- This phone makes calls and does it well with one small stipulation.. in some areas the antenna for the phone is lacking.
- Configuration on most android phones is your mileage may vary.. but this phone you can configure it pretty much ANY way you please… rooting is fairly simple. reflashing is simple.
- This point Really needs a to be explained, since any smart phone will not hold a candle to a “dumb” phone , On average a smart phone lasts about 1 day on a decent charge. The EVO on average would require charging after about 18hours. The nexus easily passes the 1 day marker and most days it gets close to 2 days before requiring to be charged.
- on android phones this is a dead simple process.
- Android Market has all kinds of applications- but, Its now not cost … but moreover privacy with apps now.
- While this phone feels very light its fairly durable. the EVO in comparison weighs alot more.
So far this phone has served me extremely well .. and hopefully (knock on wood a tree or something) I will not have any issues with this.
Im leaving this post fairly short.
Hopefully I will not have to go back to this post and make phonefun MMMXXXVI
Mini review: Racing games (agravations in racing games)
As a Semi fan of racing games I tend to pick up a racing game or a kart game now and than. I used to pick up every need for speed game in the past but as the quality of the programming slipped into oblivion I stopped picking up those games. Need for speed was fun in the terms of you could Race your cars around Smash things and generally just play the way you wanted .. After hot pursuit 1 they tended to close alot of doors with the game. Gone was Car editing and adding your own cars. Things really went downhill with Porsche unleashed. Signs of bad programing and shoddy programing were starting to appear than in hot pursuit 2 it seems EA just gave up the ship and decided that shit was good enough to send out, Sure it looked like a Need for speed game but it stunk badly in ways that just piss people off to no end.
My thing with racing games is if the AI is good the game is good, with poor AI the game severely takes a hit. the AI in Hot Pursuit 2 was an abortion. The developers seemed to never thought through the whole process and shortcutted the AI massively in some areas. Since the game had stats at the end of each race it showed how poorly the AI was done. If you raced as an Enzo Ferrari you’d thing you’d leave a ford Fiesta in the next area code, not so much, there was a chance that fiesta would win against you – since the game once the opponent got off the mini-map would engage nothing short of the enterprises transporter and rubber band to just outside of the mini-map. At the end of the race it would create some pretty funny statistics such as.
Enzo: top speed 202MPH – Average speed 168 MPH
Fiesta: top speed 72MPH – Average speed 142MPH
WTF? Not only has that car just broken laws of physics but it manages to do something impossible unless the car managed to actually teleport to another dimension and have Time/space/speed laws revoked, If you did not run the perfect race it would also give the computer opponent A chance to win since the AI was magically rubberbanded to behind you. Using that kind of trick in programming a racing sim should be a HUGE NO NO. Even though that the need for speed series borders on not being a racing sim these days, More over it plays like a quarter eater you find at an arcade.
You don’t need a game that has shortcomings that affect the outcome of the game due to poor programming versus the outcome based on your driving. with the advent of consoles I know programmers are under pressure to port games to each system as fast as they can but the quality takes a tremendous hit. The console specific games tend not to suffer as much as games that are whored around. Most Mario karts always have a sound racing game, Gran Turismo has a sound racing game. Even Test Drive unlimited had a sound racing game since it was based around the PC than ported down to the console level, there is one exception that should be noted- burnout paradise was a “racing” game that was on every system just about without much problems but they thought round some of the issues and made the game based on fun.
As more companies take to the “Open World” concept of racing it comes to mind that the open world needs to be open. With burn-out paradise the openness just was not there, Test drive unlimited had a extremely open world but a poorly implemented system where aggravation would set in trying to find your friends in the game even though you were actually on top of there car but due to the server running multiple sessions you’d spend 20minutes trying to get into the same play area.
Originally I was going to say something about one racing game but i changed my mind to a critique rather than a one game review.
The state of gaming.
Ever had one of those days where you look at something and say hmm. Well, I’ve been doing that for about a few months. For awhile Now I’ve been wanting to spread out my gaming more than just between the WII and the PC. Both platforms in my opinion are suffering from bad development and bad companies. Well, After long thought and wondering if I’d be better off with a Bluray Drive for my PC or Some other upgrade I finally decided against both and went with the black sheep of the decisions.
Phone Fun IV: A New hope.
In our last episode of phone fun I had got an HTC TOUCH , Well…… That didn’t work out so well. Exactly 360 or so days the HTC touch Starting having issues with the screen and Calls. Now, from trials and tribulations with sprint I learned the last thing you want to do is call *2 on your phone. Doing that is like crank calling the deathstar while its in orbit around your planet. Sprint Over the phone support basically told me I had to buy a new phone. Which I don’t have money I can magically pull out of my ass. So I did the next best thing, I headed down to a sprint corporate store. Since I pay my phone bill locally by walking into these stores I figured I’d get a better idea of what to do. After a short talk they sent us down to Boxboro Massachusetts. They have a repair depot up that way, anyways after a 30minute drive and a 30 minute wait they told me the phone was shot(radio was damaged). After a short wait they sent me on the way with another HTC Touch(#2), After getting that home with-in a few hours the audio on that phone sounded like a cat barfing in your ear. Called *2 and sprint offered to send out yet another HTC touch(#3). They shipped it overnight which was very nice and it arrived on monday.
I had that phone no more than 48hours when the phone would just lock and gave a screen of death, Now I am fairly careful with phones and use screen protectors and such. After wasting 3 of them I was not exactly happy. That Phone went back to sprint. To make a long story short, I’ve gone through alot of HTC touches and as Far as my last post about this phone in 2008 . How does the phone rate up?
A bit of a learning curve which kind of surprized me but none the less I like it so far. As far as my requirements for a phone
Requirements for a Phone
- to make calls
- The Phone is configurable
- good battery life
- add/make ringtones
- Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
- Durable
Well… After a year with one phone and 1 to 2 months on 4 others.
1 The phone defiantly passes on. For a refurbished HTC-Touch that is debatable.
2. Again you can’t knock the touch on this, its extremely configurable once you figure out the interface.
3. battery life… That is actually pretty good. Although using the GPS Or other intensive options I would recommend a car-charger.
4. You can make ringtones till you puke with this thing rather than jumping through hoops trying to convert soundfiles into strange formats.
5. As Far as applications go, you can find most of the common apps you need on the phone although I’d recommend downloading Google maps. With enough looking you can find pretty much any app you want for the phone but, this is where i’d give the Iphone or palm pre a small advantage with an “app store” for centralized buying of applications although the Iphone is more like Locked into the app store which I believe you can not install any 3rd party apps w/o jailbreaking the phone.
6. Lastly durability I seriously question, as the phone did make it One year. as Far as the refurbished HTC-Touches.. Those sucked ass.. there’s not enough swears in the English language to say what shit the HTC Touch Refurbs are. I may of run into a bad line of them but that is hard to believe that i’d of gone through that many phones.
as far as my current phone, Sprint has offered me a HTC Diamond, Again i leave this post open till the next time I come back to phones.
As far as sprint is concerned – It seems they are OK as far as support as long as you get the right person.
I’ve quit smoking* (part I)
Since Feb 8th I’ve not actually smoked one cigarette. Although, I digress to say that I’ve not quit cold turkey. I’ve done cold turkey quits twice in my life and people say I become Hulk angry when I do. My Cousin had bought in e-cigarette which i was highly skeptical about when I had first seen him with it but, after 1 month it passed what I had called the Timmy test.
At the beginning of the month i had purchased an E-cigarette after watching my cousin and friend use one with no issues with leaving the conventional cigarette behind. when I had received ordered this it was actually February 1st, little did I know I’d end up in the perfect storm of clusterfuck. When I had ordered from Volcano there shipping department had moved so my order was delayed, not only that there shipping computers had crashed. Usually USPS tracking takes a few days to update- You can often receive packages while tracking says otherwise. After stalking the mailman for a week – I started to email support for volcano, to which they will actually find time in there day to reply to you, well to find out my package was like alice in wonderland. Figuring i was in for the long haul I had made a second order. which in the end that was the best thing i could of done with out realizing it.
E-cigarettes are a different experience of sorts but it keeps the feeling the same so to speak. When you have smoked for a long time and a lot of people that fail quitting end up smoking again because of the fact they try to treat the chemical end of smoking without treating the mental end of smoking. If you have smoked and you have quit you’d know what i speak of. if you quit its best to find a bic pen or some other object in your hand to emulate that cigarette or you will be beyond hulk angry and quite possibly rip some walls out.
I’ve put the title as “i’ve quit smoking*” but I used the barry bonds method of scoring here Notice the *. Because to a point i am still getting some level of nicotine, but No fire ,no combustion, no dirty ashtrays , No butts. I am quite happy with this E-cigarette after a rough start from the company I bought it from.
bing? bing.. Its just uhh.. yeah..
Microsoft has been flapping there PR mouth over there new search engine bing. After the failed livesearch and another companies shit fest of a search engine. It seems like Microsoft has learned a thing or two about search engines but, not much. It was more like “lets just rip off another popular search engine. ” Microsoft has been smearing there new Bing.com everywhere, Hulu is running ads , likely there is ads on TV . but, it appears that bing will be not ignored like cuil was, Microsoft will likely force bing down our throats every way possible. Just to give an idea how microsoft will pull is.
- Windows update will force some update as “critical” to internet explorer forcing bing to the front
- Update MSN clients to have bing built in
- Windows 7 will likely have it forced on the desktop
- Come out with some goofy firefox plugin (maybe already done mystery plugin for firefox had come out *cute stealth install too*)
hemantm writes “A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser.”
Looking into the name bing the first definition that comes up on dictionary.com is
bing
As funny as that is , Bing is almost an identical ripoff of Google.
here’s the same same search in google .
the result pages look almost EXACTLY the same. Microsoft has made an attempt to make a search engine but, its a blatant ripoff of Google. Playing around with Bing it seems alright but, again looking at the search engine there’s no fucking difference. The supposed Smart search engine that bing is just tries to give you the same results. Yes there are features in this search engine but Google already does 99.99% of bings search results.
Do we need another Google? NO, if Microsoft actually made something unique it would be one thing, At least cuil made an attempt at being unique. In order to do something better with the search engine Microsoft should try something different than work from there with a dynamic interface that takes opinions from users.
But my vote on this search engine is no , its a shamefully blatent ripoff of google. Its insulting, microsoft has billions of dollars yet they can’t come up with there own search engine?
Chuck Keep it on the air!
I don’t watch too much TV but, the one show I have been following is Chuck . At first I watched a few episodes but, the series proceeded I really began to like the show. The show has a serious but not to serious side and plot that you can follow without having to watch the whole series. After a two season run the fate of the show is up in the air.
the amount of meta-humor in the show is halarious, In Chuck versus Santa Claus Big mikes cousin is Al powell , to movie buffs that would be none other than Al Powell from die hard.
another episode mades a reference in one of chucks flashes to the “great outdoors” with the ol 96’er
With the show in the great unknown of being canceled out not , I really hope they keep the show on the air , this show is too good to be canceled.
Logitech MX 1100 (review)
After dealing with so many logitech G7’s , I’d finally given up on them as logitech has sent me a Logitech MX1100.
After almost a month of using this mouse its a fairly good mouse , it has more buttons than you know what to do with (10 buttons). The most noticable thing is the grip on the mouse it forms to your hand fairly well compaired to the g7 , A handshake would best explain it as it conforms to your hand.
As for mouse speeds its right up there with the G7, Maybe a tiny bit slower but barely noticable. My only peeve with the mouse is when you use the mouse from an idle state after leaving the mouse for awhile and you first move it after an extended period of time its slow to come alive, its like you shake it awake literly. but, after that the mouse works extremely well.
For now I’ll give this mouse a thumbs up but we will see down the road if the mouse will follow the same path as the G7 …
A year with with my Wii………..and let the puns begin!
This month is comming up on me having the Wii console for 1 year.. How has the Wii stood up as time has progressed? After owning the wii this long, there have been a few thoughts i’ve had as far as how the system has matured, Honestly the system is still good but still needs to grow up a bit.
I Do Still pay with the wii, but Not nearly as often as I used to due to the fact of a lack of games with depth to them, Some games do come out with depth but, the issue is quantity. The fact that developers have shunned the Wii kind of makes for an interesting senario. Sure its taken the market by storm but, im seeing where the Wii’s weakness is, theres just not the title market out there. Forevery good game for the system theres a SHITLOAD of vomitware for the system and it shows, Goto gamestop and look on there used shelves and you will see TONS of craptastic games.
As far as price has gone, The wii is not the lowest man on the ladder due to the x-box 360’s agressive pricecuts but in the long run the Wii is cheaper due to the online component being cheaper (Free). The Wii’s online component severely is lacking still due to lack of interaction in games, If you play Mario Kart Wii , Theres just no feeling to it due to the lack of interaction between players. Sure you can see the asshat that just knocked you off the track as you swear your brains out at the screen but, does the person on the other side of the connection know your mad …. NO. They did add keyboard support awhile back but, its so unused the most it maybe used for is to put in a creditcard number for more Wii Points, Nintendo could highly benifit from at least adding chatroom or some other way to talk to players while using the system.
The system has been pretty faithful to me with one exception of having the send in the wii to Nintendo for service. But The repairs were extremely quick and had the system back within the span of one week.
While the Wii’s gaming library has some good games that come out every few months, I’ve never really been stuck in a situation of a choice to make over one game to another. Nintendo’s first party titles are pretty much unmatched in terms of gaming on the system theres a few noted exceptions such as Raving Rabbids, No More Heroes, Final Fantasy Fables, and Starwars the force unleashed but, The lack of quality 3rd party titles I think is my biggest mark against the system.
Given that fall us upon us maybe we will see the Wii mature a bit or maybe we will see the Wii not Mature. I said wii huh-huh-huh…
Phone fun III: there is No spoon edition…
After all the fun with the two Samsung phones that had battery life shorter than a 1meter marathon and several billion calls to sprint, to which they were very helpful about my problems and have been overall very good to me. The problem I Have is due to where i bought the phone .. radio shack it makes dealing with sprint a little bit crazy, Since the phone was purchased at radioshack sprint doesnt deal with the phone till its 30 days old, and as far as choice of phones at radioshack your fairly limited to what you can pick unless you know what your doing. Also dealing with sprint because of having previously swapped my phone, which the last call to sprint helped me the greatest in not getting stuck with a phone that was like trying to power your house with a AA battery.
At Radioshack you will spend a little less to ALOT less on the phone, but as I said before its very slim pickings, they will generally have 5 or so phones to choose from in a store. After dealing with the 2 samsungs , I decided to take a more detailed online search for phones. Looking at the radioshack website shows alot more phones than are instore, but if you look carefully it doesn’t have the little warning of “you have to online only sucker.” 
But, I did notice something, Different radioshacks Stock different items. So i went around to a few different radioshacks, and the radioshack closest to me which is at a mall thats not a mall anymore, its what malls look like when they die, there was a phone that caught my interest. The HTC touch , compairing it feature-wise to the M520 they were very alike in features, the only thing missing was the GPS feature (so I thought). I had also looked at the samsung instinct, but the killing factor to that phone was the fact i’d have to change my plan massively in order to get it and paying 25$ more a month for the same features i get now doesnt really float my boat. I did not want a crackberry because the stupid services you have to get. For me to get an instinct I’d have to get an “everything” plan, which is already close to what i have now, I have data , text and unlimited data for 45$ a month. the cheapest “Everything plan sprint has is 69$ a month….. Do not want… Anyways.
I Wondered if this would be a nightmare returning the phone because I was told you are allowed only so many swaps, So I made sure and called up sprint customer service (*2 on sprint phones) and explained my plight, To which I got a very understanding person on the phone and they put me on hold a bit and than sent me to there hardware tech support, I explained my very issue with the phone and told them where i purchased the phone and they said that it was “ok to bring the phone back to the retail store and they would mark the information in the computer so i’d have no problems returning the phone”. I brought the phone to the first radioshack and explained what i was told and that i had seen a phone in a different radioshack that had my interest.
The HTC touch is an interesting phone,
A bit of a learning curve which kind of surprized me but none the less I like it so far. As far as my requirements for a phone
Requirements for a Phone
- to make calls
- The Phone is configurable
- good battery life
- add/make ringtones
- Applications that don’t cost a years pay for a small 3rd world country
- Durable
It Definanatly meets #1 , as far as numbers 2,4,5,6 it seems to exceed that greatly, Number 3 though will be the test, i’ve only owned the phone for 3 days. but, a sign of hope was when i got the phone i never charged the battery and it lasted 3 days. As far as the learning curve on the phone, which logic wise you’d think it would be just something you could just pick up the phone and use. with the HTC touch there are 2 buttons and an omnidirecitonal button, if you make a call you need to pay attention to the touch screen at first because if you just assume where buttons are you are going to end up making a mistake. About the GPS with the phone, the phone at it default settings from the store does not have a GPS, but if you update your phone with the most current ROM file from HTC You will have GPS enabled minding this is sprint only. software installation is fairly simple and does not take alot of time, phone updates are also fairly easy with one drawback, if you update and dont have anything to backup your phone numbers be prepaired to write down all the numbers on your phone or you will loose them. the touch interface is intuitive , but sometimes it gets in the way. as far as tweaking the phone there are many many things you can do to the phone due to the fact its windows mobile 6.1. I think another few weeks with this phone should tell the tale of this phone..