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The iPhone 3G proves that there is no economic downturn

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$4 gas (in the northeast, anyway), bank collapses, sluggish economic growth, pundits predicting recessions, bear markets, $140 oil, $900 gold, rampant foreclosures, and a plummeting dollar!

Oh my.

But for those of you quaking at the specter of Depression, or waiting in line at a California bank to retrieve your hard-earned cash (where you are reading this post on your 3G-enabled mobile device, natch), or those who are convinced that their money is surely safer in a mason jar under the mattress than an FDIC-insured institution, let me offer these comforting statistics:

Don’t read this as an indictment of the people who stood in line. I’ll happily admit I know these wait times because, in my desperate need to 3G-ify myself, I made no fewer than five calls to various Apple stores over the weekend, even stopping by one on the way to the beach on Sunday to see whether their line was less than ten hours – it was, at a mere four, but they had capped the line because lucky Mr. Minute 240 represented the last phone they had in stock.

Folks, there is nothing to worry about. Our gadget-driven economy has never been stronger. As long as we fanboys can find both the scratch and the time, including taking a day off from work(!), to queue up by the sweaty thousands for a shot at the latest shiny bauble (OK, mobile communications device with blazing fast TM internet access, location-awareness, and a shiny, shiny interface), we can find a way to ensure tha the American economy remains a juggernaut. Jeremy posited that Apple is really the only company that can do hype right, but I don’t think he’s taken it far enough. Buttressed by Jobs-obsessed tech acolytes like you and me, the company has the ability to single-handledly (multi-touchedly?) drive the consumer engine of this great nation until our worries of collapsing mortgage giants and $100 fill-ups are things that we tell to our kids via a Sling application running on the latest 5G Apple iBrain.

But first things first: can someone give me a ride to the Apple store? I’m kinda short on gas money these days.

Sprint Mogul Review

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The HTC Mogul is a smartphone available on the Sprint network, which runs Windows Mobile 6 Professional. It is equipped will a full QWERTY slide-out keyboard, and a QVGA (240×320) touchscreen. The Mogul I’m using for review has the newest ROM upgrade which unlocked the GPS chip, and the EV-DO Rev-A data connection.
To get the new ROM update for your Mogul go here.

Listed are the rest of the phone’s important specs (taken from phonescoop.com)

Weight 5.8 oz
Dimensions 4.33″ x 2.32″ x 0.73″
Check out this iPhone vs Mogul size comparison
at sizeasy.
Battery Talk – 5.4 hours max. (324 minutes)
Standby – 340 hours max. (14.2 days)
Processor 400 MHz
Memory RAM – 64 MB
Storage – 162 MB
Connectivity Bluetooth – Supported Profiles: HFP, HSP, OPP, A2DP, AVRC, HID, PAN, SAP version 2.0
Wi-Fi – 802.11 b,g
Memory Card Slot Type microSD (TransFlash)
Camera Resolution 2+ megapixel

Like all other WM devices this phone works best with the Microsoft Exchange server. It flawlessly integrates all your information over the air, without needing to connect to any computer, ever. It can receive emails the instant they are in your inbox, add dates and times of accepted calendar invites directly into your calendar app, and sync your contact and task listings. Users who are looking to get these tasks done quickly and effectively are the ones looking into the HTC Mogul. This device is very powerful but it isn’t for everyone, below are my opinions which should help you decide whether this smartphone is right for you.

Hardware–
The Mogul is a very tactile phone. It has 5 programmable hardware buttons, a 5-way directional pad, 2 hardware softkeys, a call and end button, a start button, 2 “OK” buttons, a navigational dial, a full QWERTY slide out keyboard, and a hardware WiFi on/off switch. The device feels like a rather good size for my hand. It couldn’t hurt if it was a little bit thinner, but it doesn’t feel overwhelmingly thick. The phone feels very sturdy, but it is a little on the heavy side. This might be a problem for someone with children that like to use their phone every once in a while. My other concern about the physical hardware is the super flimsily battery cover.

One of the best features of the hardware is its slide out keyboard. It has a spring loaded action, which causes it to snap open and closed, making a solid clicking sound. The keys themselves are spaced out very well and give good feedback when typing. There are also 2 indicator lights, located at the top, that illuminate when the caps or the function locks are activated. This is a cool feature that makes typing on this device, that much easier.

The one down side about having a slide out keyboard and no keypad on the face of the device is that it is extremely difficult to type with one hand. There is an onscreen keyboard that lets a user do so, but the keyboard that comes standard is so small you end up hitting the wrong letter half the time. There are 3rd party onscreen keyboards, but each of them has its own flaws and they don’t seamlessly integrate with every application. For those of you that text and drive, this phone isn’t for you. (disclaimer: don’t text and drive, it is very dangerous to take your eyes of the road for extended periods of time.)

OS-
Windows Mobile 6 Professional is overwhelmingly decent right out of the box. It is a multi-tasking OS, meaning more than one application can run at a time. Due to only 64MB of RAM, the OS tends to lag a little between clicks and app changes. When a user is done with an application, they need to be sure they hit the “X”, to close the app, or else it will stay open and drain memory resources. This is a change that was added with the newest ROM update. On some occasions the phone requires a reboot, in order to function at normal speeds again. These lag and speed issues are ones that a user must learn to live with, or else they will find themselves looking to get a different phone, fast.

User Interface-
The user interface for WM6 is out dated; it takes its design cues from Windows XP. While one can accomplish all of the same tasks on its default setting, WM6 doesn’t start to shine until you step into the realm of customizing it and making it your own. Here are some before and after shots of my home screen.

Default HTC Mogul Home Screen Custom HTC Mogul Home Screen
Mogul Default Home Screen Mogul Custom Home Screen

As you can see on the left I have the default home screen with some basic information that a user needs. On the right is my customized home screen with a nice big clock along with email, text message, and missed call buttons. Below that are 3 big tabs that give me access to, this home screen, a weather screen, and a quick launch screen with shortcuts to 9 most used programs. Since the Mogul has 5 programmable hardware buttons, with this home screen plug-in, once my phone is turned on and unlocked, I am no more than 2 click away from 20 different programs. Which makes navigating much faster than the default home screen.

This home screen plug-in was actually taken from the HTC Touch and adapted to work on other HTC WM6 smartphones. A web community called XDA-Developers, made this and other HTC apps conversions possible.

The home screen is only the beginning of the modification I have made to my WM6 Mogul UI. I installed threaded text messaging, an iPhone-like contacts app, a new skin for the phone screen, a new system font, a single click app that changes my phone from ring to vibrate, and an HTC on screen keyboard. The great thing about WM6 on an HTC smartphone, is that with the xda-developers community and other sites like it, there are endless possibilities of the looks and applications you can add to your smartphone.

Must have app-
The absolute best application that every owner needs to add to this phone is Google Maps. Since it has a GPS chip you can use the app to find your current location, which takes about 10-15 sec. Once it has that, you can search your area for whatever business or address you are looking for. If you like, you can then get directions from your current GPS location to the location you just searched for. With this app it’s truly amazing how fast you can find places and get directions from your current location.

Highlights-
-The full QWERTY slide out keyboard, gives users a rather quick and easy way to type on this device. The downfall is the lack of a quality onscreen keyboard for the times that a user would want to use one hand to type.

-Over the air syncing makes this phone a much needed tool for user working at a business with the Microsoft Exchange server.

-This phone begs to be customized, therefore if a user doesn’t have the time or skill to do so, their user experience won’t be at its optimal level.

-The ability to multi-task on this phone lets user accomplish multiple things at a time. The downfall is that its RAM is limited and causes the phone to lag when too many things are running.

-Google Maps with the updated ROM that unlocks the GPS chip, makes this phone a valuable tool for traveling business users.

Final thoughts-
Overall I think that the HTC Mogul is a great smartphone with tremendous power. This device is perfect for business users that do a decent amount of traveling. The Mogul is also a good fit for users that enjoy tweaking out their phones and spending time to customize them. Casual and beginner smartphone users, might find this phone a little too overwhelming.

Hopefully I have given you enough information for you to decide whether or not this smartphone could be the right smartphone for you. If you still need more information, I recommend, like I do with every smartphone, try it out before you commit to purchasing it. Since every service provider has a 30 day return policy, anyone can sign up for a new phone, return it within the 30 days, and only pay for the service used in that time period. This will help you know for sure you like the phone before you port your phone number and/or get locked into a 2 year agreement.

Quicken Online makes it easy to track your finances, at a price

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Intuit’s Quicken Online purports to offer a simple, all-in-one control panel that lets you easily monitor and manage your monthly finances. For the basics, it succeeds, but users who need complete control may find themselves wanting more, especially for $2.99 per month.

What’s your problem? I use four different sites to manage my finances online: one for my brokerage accounts, another for my 401(k), one for my credit cards, and yet another for my checking and savings accounts. Because 90% of my online financial activities requires nothing more than a quick balance check and a look at recent transactions, I’m on the hunt for an easy, secure application that I can use to aggregate the information without having to hop from site to site to site. I’d also love integrated budgeting features, so that I can compare my spending vs. personal goals.

Enter Intuit’s Quicken Online, which I first came across through Lifehacker’s personal finance tips (full disclosure: I have nothing to do with Lifehacker). The promise was there – a simple, one-stop interface that lets you easily monitor all of your financial accounts, and a breakdown of your expenditures in a monkey-couldn’t-get-confused-by-it pie chart. I’d used Intuit’s online TurboTax for years to handle my tax returns, so Quicken Online also offered something that is an absolute must for any type of bank account aggregator: security that I can trust (I hope).

As the video on the Quicken Online site promises, setup was a snap. Sign up for the 30-day free trial ($2.99 per month after that), enter your bank names and login information, and the application automatically retrieves the last 90 days’ worth of transactions. Once all your data is available, you’re presented with the home dashboard, which features the most basic look at your finances: three boxes representing your income, your expenditures, and the differential:

spending snapshot - I overspent.
Confirmation of my profligate spending, complete with pastel Web 2.0 gradients. We’re off to a good start.

The dashboard also provides a quick look at all your account balances, broken out by bank, and a customizable list of bill alerts, which sends a “pay your bills” reminder to either an email address or mobile device via SMS.

The site features two other main categories: My Accounts, which lets you add, remove, and otherwise manage your account settings (which we will totally ignore for now), and Track Spending, which is where you’ll spend most of your time.

Track Spending offers the aforementioned pie chart, which breaks your spending down into both pre-assigned and user-created categories (such as rent, travel, paycheck, etc.). You can also view all the transactions that contribute to each category.

pie chart example.
The pie chart breaks down your expenses by type…

selecting travel transactions.
And the menus allow you to drill down in each category…

transaction breakdown.
Which lets you see how you spent your money. By the way, if you’re ever at the Atlantis, try the Leap of Faith water slide. Just trust me on this.

Quicken tries to automatically assign your imported transactions to one of its pre-defined categories and, for the most part, it does a good job. It did initially list a number of transactions as undefined, such as my monthly rent payment, but you can easily reassign those wayward expenditures and deposits to their proper categories.

The one big gotcha I noticed with the initial setup is that Quicken Online, in Costanza-like fashion, double dips expenses – it interpreted both the purchases I put on my credit card and the payments that I made from my bank to my credit card companies as expenses, so it looked like I had spent twice what I had actually paid. The fix involved a transaction type called “Transfer Out,” which you use to classify a payment that shouldn’t count towards your total expenditures. Fixing the double dip was the most difficult part of setting up the account, and it took a total of about five minutes.

Since setup, managing the application has required very little maintenance – switch a random uncategorized transaction here and there, make sure that my bank’s web site allows Quicken to refresh account balances, and that’s it. I can say with some reliability how much I’m spending on what, and whether or not I’m hitting that magic threshold of living within my means.

For support, users have access to the Quicken Online blog and User Community forums. The blog is updated regularly, but the forums tend to be filled with unanswered questions, and aren’t much use. You can also contact Intuit support directly.

Sounds like the perfect solution! So far, so good. But Quicken Online isn’t perfect. As an anal control freak, one of the biggest problems I had with the service is that you can’t split transactions; that is, designate multiple purposes for a single expense. For people with mortgages, who need to differentiate interest from capital for tax purposes, or for people who just want to say “I split that $100 ATM withdrawal among dinner, drinks and White Castle at 3 AM,” this lack of functionality could be a deal breaker.

For $2.99/month, I also would have liked even rudimentary budgeting features, such as alerts when my monthly spending in a specific category reaches a pre-determined limit. These shortcomings are especially problematic for Intuit because competitor mint.com offers split transactions, comparable security and, most importantly for many people who are looking for a cheap budget/finance tool, the service is free (although it is ad-supported, which Quicken is not).

So what’s the bottom line? Quicken Online does what it says it does: it presents you with an easy-to-read view of your financial transactions. Setup is easy, maintenance isn’t a problem, and if all you want to do is get the bottom line, Quicken Online does it. The only reason I have a hard time recommending it is the price: even at $2.99/month, the service is overpriced for what it does.

Competitors offer everything that Quicken Online does, plus personal budgeting features (a feature that Quicken’s blog claims is coming soon), and it’s free. Quicken Online is better than manually updating a spreadsheet to track your spending, and easier than using the full offline version of Quicken, but if all you’re looking for is something to give you a quick overview of your finances, and maybe some basic planning functions, you might be just as satisfied somewhere that doesn’t ding you with a monthly fee.

Six things you should know about Grand Theft Auto IV before you commit to a work week’s worth of gaming

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The epic stories of early reviews of Grand Theft Auto IV are already legend: stalwart game reviewers, shipped to hotels in undisclosed locations, are given nearly a week of time with the most hotly anticipated title of the year. They spend dozens of sleepless hours inflicting upon themselves the sins of protagonist Niko Bellic and the depraved Liberty City.

When they emerge, tired and unwashed, and with a nagging feeling that their next ride is only a broken window and a couple of twisted wires away, they rush to compile glowing homilies to their week-long captor. The results, Legions of perfect scores, could fuel a multi-year study on Stockholm Syndrome. Were the scores on metacritic posted in the same way that the Boston Red Sox use to update their scoreboard at Fenway Park, we’d be suffering a national shortage of green placards that read “100 OUT OF 100!”*

GTA IV Fenway Scoreboard
“These scores – you make them good, OK?”
(Source materials from mlb.com and gamespot)

To their credit, and I speak as a veteran with 28 hours of play time and a 42% completion rate, the glowing reviews aren’t just hyperbole. Grand Theft Auto IV presents by far the most immersive environment ever rendered in a video game. There are few other gaming experiences that I can recall that had characters this well-written, a story this clever, and an option to just putz around that, in many cases, is a lot more fun than the actual storyline.

For those who haven’t made the purchase, it’s natural to be skeptical of the unprecedented outpouring of love for GTA IV. There’s good reason for it, because as great as Grand Theft Auto IV can be, there are plenty of things that players, sucked in by the lure of the golden reviews, should know before hopping off the boat with Niko. Disclaimer: these should not be considered reasons NOT to buy the game, but just a friendly “heads-up” to my fellow gamers who may not quite know what they’re getting into. Minor, non-story related spoilers abound:

  • Do you have a fear of commitment? There’s a geek syndrome that I call “Mulderscullyphobia,” the fear of getting trapped by the latest X-Files-ripoff TV series. The new show usually features a massive conspiracy/mystery that you KNOW you’ll have to follow every episode, whether the show runs for one season or ten, because once you start, you NEED to find out what happens. GTA IV inspires similar fear. Even though most reviewers say the game will take 40 hours, plan on a lot longer, especially if you’re new to the series. At four hours a night (you don’t have a job or family, right?), you’ll be in for at least two solid weeks of playing. And trust me, you’ll be stuck – this game is the epitome of “just one more mission, and then I’ll come to bed.”

    • Happy Family
    Daddy, please don’t play the hooker game again tonight!
    (Source materials from www.azmortgageguru.com)

  • The immersive, expansive world is not immediately all available: Like with most GTA games, the most tantalizing locations are initially out of reach – all the bridges heading west are barricaded and protected by the Liberty City PD. I tried to run the barricade, and they called out the Special Forces. I tried to sneak through (hint: get your car on the El train track), and they called in Special Forces. I even tried to swim across the equivalent of the East River, and they called the Coast Guard to take me out. You’ll be able to cross eventually, but not until you put in 13 – 14 hours.
  • You’re going to spend a lot of time getting places: It’s Grand Theft Auto, and it follows the standard Grand Theft Auto scheme: get a mission, drive across the map to the mission, fail mission, retry mission. After the sixth time around, you’ll manage to succeed, and then drive all the way back to where you started. Even with a built-in GPS map, it gets very tedious very quickly.
  • But what about my needs?: Your virtual criminal buddies are all like insecure high school girls: pay them enough attention, and they’ll love you. Turn down requests to play darts a couple of times, and all of a sudden you’re out of the club. And since it’s in your best interest to keep them happy, you get to spend plenty of time with awkward bowling, darts, and pool simulators. And that doesn’t even include managing your in-game love life, which requires constant calls, dates, and wardrobe changes (my real life significant other’s favorite part of the game, incidentally). Nothing gets you in the gangster mood quite like choosing between the Russian hat and the Army hat.

    • Roman and Niko
    No darts? How about pool? Bowling? What about a strip club? Why won’t you LOVE me?
    (Source materials from amazon.com)

  • Didn’t I just do this mission?: Kill drug dealers/mobsters/bikers in a shootout that becomes disgustingly easy when you find somewhere to take cover. Chase someone in a car (or motorcycle), and shoot him. Perform a coup de grâce on a major mob boss. Lather, rinse, repeat.
  • How am I supposed to finish the game when I can both watch TV and surf the internet in the freaking game?: I was even clicking on links in the spam, for God’s sake.

If you haven’t bought Grand Theft Auto IV, and think that you can handle the time commitment and repetition, then it offers the best action and story combo since Bioshock. Just don’t be blinded by the brilliant gleam of all those perfect 100s – you’re going to have to work to get everything the game has to offer.

*For those that notice, yes, I know that metacritic adjusts everyone’s score to a scale that tops out 100, even if the reviewing site only rates on a scale of 1 – 10 or 1 – 5.

Editor’s Note: this is written by Dan Rubin, one of LIVEdigitally’s new reviewers.  I’ll have a “welcome” post up soon enough, but in case you miss that one, welcome Dan!!

Spotplex – A different kind of Site Voting

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A new site called Spotplex launched recently and it has a different way to find highly rated sites different than the way Digg does. Instead of having users rate your site like Digg does, your site is rated by how many views a certain page or post receives. The more views the higher rated your page or post receives. This is done by the webmaster putting a small java script in the page and whenever it is viewed it gets counted by Spotplex.

The results on their site look similar to Digg, showing very popular content, latest content, or by tags or publisher.
The first thing that comes to mind is how they are going to handle the possibility for abuse or mislabeling. Hopefully they have thought this through carefully and have devised some ways to handle it. They also do not have a place to comment on the post, like Digg does To comment you would have to go to the original site and page. This is great for the original site because it forces people to go back to the originating site to make comments. Not too great for the user, most like to comment directly at the post, like Digg does.

They are taking only 1,000 blogs right now, and is still in Beta. I can definetly see a problem with the loading speed of the site. They will need to fix this right away if people are going to stick around and they are going to grow. They also have several different ways sites can create widgets or embed code into their own page to show specific posts based upon a selected criteria. They also have added RSS feeds to the site. But, again the feed is very slow to load.

Australia's Broadband Drought……. Caused by?

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So the broadband problem in Australia is “getting worse”, according to a propaganda message by Telstra yesterday at their Back Telstra – Campaign Don’t-Hate-Us campaign. Which I definitely agree, that our broadband adoption rates are falling that behind of even emerging countries, yet alone against the developed ones.

Now We’re Talking

Some key points to note in the meeting were:

– They said: We’re not a monopoly in the market. I point out:(Telstra has 65% market share)

– They said: There are several hundred service providers in the market I say:( (Yes, and Telstra leases lines to 98% of them)

– They said: Talks regarding broadband de-monopolisation broke down because of the regulators I say:( (Well obviously because you didn’t want to let go of your market share!)

Then he went on whinging about how Australia needs to adopt broadband faster and no one’s doing anything about it. As you can clearly see, if you were the Monopoly, you have to make the first move and stop blame shifting it on everyone else.

And what’s worse! This happened: Telstra Raises Prices- AGAIN

I’m amazed at the irony where a service provider who owns the copper lines, can also compete in the market where they provide products to resellers, and then compete against them. It surely doesn’t separate Telstra’s power to, “Hey! Let’s screw everyone and raise the cost of our Leased Lines so that we can compete”. And they go ahead and compete against these resellers by selling broadband, fixed line services and mobile services.

Well then, if Telstra had a mum, she’d cane him for this nonsense.

Nokia N80 – For the Power User

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Overall

Moving from a Nokia 9500 to a Nokia N80 was as a tough choice.

The Nokia 9500 packed everything I ever wanted from a mobile office, with Fax, E-mail, programmable OS, Word processing/Spreadsheet, Calendar and PC suite, through either Bluetooth, Infra Red or WiFi connection. Heck, you could probably even use it to control a guided missle.

So what else could Nokia pack into their phones, in this day and age?…… Absolutely Nothing, you think?

But then they realised, “Hey! Let’s have all the above features, and more! Into a smaller device.”

The Nokia N80 comes with pretty much every function the Nokia 9500 had, Smaller Form Factor – Full QWERTY Keyboard = N80.

What’s in the Box?

From an Australian stock box kit comes the phone, battery, CD, manuals, stereo headphones, DKU-2 sync cable, charger and 32 MB MiniSD card.

Appearance?

The N80 from the overall shell, isn’t housed by a cheap plasticky feel, however is anodized at the front in either Silver or Black (I actually wanted the Black version, but due to a mix up from a reseller I ended up with a Telstra branded Silver one.) The silver looks good, but I recommend you becareful and stay away from any “Service Provider Branded” Firmware-d phone.

From an overall form factor perspective, the slider design isn’t a bad idea as a clamshell would make it look fat and clunky. The keypad is awesomely gripped for fast smsing traction. The chrome inserts definately give a needed accent to the keypad area. The High Resolution screen is amazing, it is bright and vibrant and reasonably sized.

Top slide consists of 8 buttons in total, a center navigation key, 2 selection keys, a call and end key, quick message settings, menu, a cool fast access menu and clear.

The terminals on the bottom are exposed like the 8 series phones, and power is now changed to a very thin connection rather than the standard nokia fat power plug. However a converter is given to use backward-compatible with old nokia chargers.

Features?

There are two cameras, a 3 Megapixel with flash and auto censor on the rear, and a 3G video call camera on the front. You can access both cameras through the Camera function. This is the cool part, when you hold down the “Snap” button on the side of the camera, it turns the phone into camera mode, where you then hold the camera sideways as you would for an actual camera.

Quality of images at 3MP are O.K in bright conditions, in a dark Macro environment the flash distorts the image, nothing very friendly for a non-camera person. There is a delay writing to both Phone memory and Card memory, and is noticeable. This problem will lead to a blurred image if you don’t hold the camera in position for a few seconds after taking the shot.

Although the S60 platform is more complex and feature rich, Nokia still managed to keep navigation intuitive. The only downside I feel that Symbian needs to work on, in both their S80 and S60 platforms together with Nokia is to reduce the processing and execution times. There’s an annoyingly noticeable delay when accessing functions and scrolling around the phone.

The phone does take a MiniSD card which slides conspicuously onto the left hand side of the phone.

Battery life isn’t Nokia-Tastic, it would last just about a day with full use. I.e MSN permanantly on, Light – Medium SMSes and calls during the day. Recommend that you charge your phone whenever you can. The battery on the 9500 lasted 1 Week with constant use.

Connectivity?

Connectivity wise, Wifi, IR and Bluetooth are easy to use and stable with no real need to upgrade anything to cure any connection issues that some phones have had. This phone is also HSPDA compatible on a 3G network for fast internet surfing.

Fun Stuff?

Nokia themes for the S60 are available for free around the web,with Pay Per Theme from Nokia also available. There’s a built in music player and a radio player. “Snakes” Game has been redefined by a new 3D view and soduku is also thrown in to exercise your logic.

Pc Suite

Personally I synchronize my contacts and calendar with Lotus Notes on my N80. Everything operates automatically, correctly and trouble free even in a bluetooth connection. The only thing I couldn’t sync with the N80 is emails in both Lotus and Outlook, where previously the 9500 could handle it.

Who is it for?

As it is only my opinion, I would categorise this phone for Tech Heads and mobile warriors. It’s a bit too fragile for a young Teen, and a bit too feature rich for a user who wants a simple phone. It does look professional, and it has enough functions to keep you going whilst away from the terminal.

Hold on to your popcorn

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First, thanks to Jeremy for inviting me to join his blog and be one of his “friends” musing on consumer technology. I have started my own blog but we both thought it would be fun to combine a few things. Here is my first post….

Recently at the Barrett-Jackson auto auction in Scottsdale, Arizona I had the chance to test and talk to the folks at Custom Theater Solutions. They are the creators of a new and impressive custom motion seating design. After testing their new setup, all I can say is
spill your popcorn

Their motion seating puts you into the movie like never before! After sitting in their seats I expected clunky movements, a little vibration and swaying. What I got was full action movements, smooth, fast and completely natural. There are not many things that can impress me this much, to actually make me grin like a child, but this was definitely one of those times. We were watching scenes from Terminator 3. Every movement, vibration, explosion you feel. Camera zooms in, you zoom in, vehicle accelerates and you feel as is you are too. But it’s not just all about the action scenes, you feel it when the camera zooms in, pans, or just sit there quietly during slow scenes.

How do they do it?
They don’t use hydraulics or bulky mechanisms, they use metal actuators. These actuators are fast and strong.
They can give you up to 2Gs of acceleration! They simply hook up the actuators to their seats and using a pivot point they can give you complete pitch, roll and yaw.

How do they tell the actuators what to do?
My first guess was from the audio portion of the movie, boy was I wrong.

The seats, mounted on a platform with all the electronics inside the platform are programmed with something called, ‘motion codes’. “When you need motion codes for the latest DVD, you connect a special set-top box to your internet connection and also to your DVD player. All your motion codes will be downloaded automatically as soon as they come out. Keep in mind that the motion codes aren’t part of the actual DVD, so it doesn’t matter if your movie is rented, store bought or downloaded from the internet. The system will automatically find the specific motion code for that movie and cue it up in real time. There are already over 600-plus movie motion codes available, with more than five new movies coded every week. The CTS system also has an alternate audio feedback mode for video games and TV shows.

They also can hook the actuators to almost any seating setup. Want your whole couch to move, no problem. One, two, three or four theater seats, no problem. This makes the system very versatile.

All in all I give this system a wow factor of 10.
Pros and Cons

  • Pros

    • Less expensive than other systems on the market. A three seat system is around $17,000.
    Very versatile, can be made to fit any home theater environment.
    If local they can bring their special built demo trailer directly to your home to test.
    Wow your friends factor of 10.

  • Cons

    • Have to download the motion code before watching latest released movies, or check if availble before you purchase the movie.
    It’s almost too much. After watching for awhile, it’s so intense you need a break.
    Doesn’t work with regular TV… Yet.

    Wii + Turkey

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    This Thanksgiving was a little different from usual, not only because I wasn’t at home, but because it included some Wii action!! The boy and I headed over to his friend’s house to do the turkey thing, and what sweet diversion should he provide us with while the bird finished cooking, but a pair of Wiimotes and his system all ready to go.

    Ladies and gentlemen, the draw of the Mii channel is inescapable. The urge to create a pile of horrific little monsters is irresistible. Making yourself, sure, just a minute, but making Martians? That is the true work of art. Then, after viewing Missing in Action en español, we were inspired to create the perfect Chuck Norris. Yes, celebrities are obviously common fodder for the Mii machine. I’ve seen several versions of Jesus already, as well as a couple Michael Jacksons. The version of Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV seen here was done with Joystiq’s mock-up Mii generator.

    But wait, this is a video game system, right? There must be like, games or something, right? Right! Twilight Princess, you can almost take for granted, at least if you’re a Zelda fan. On this particular Wii outing we had on hand a copy of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. By this time we had been joined by a couple others, and proceeded to have a 4 way mini-game battle.

    This is where my reservations start to come back out. I want a Wii, I really do, but I’m still a little shaky on the motion sensor controls. The more I see, the more at ease I become, and maybe there is just a bit of a learning curve. I’ve heard that Twilight Princess plays wonderfully and there is no reason to go back to a GameCube pad, but other games I’m not so sure about yet. For instance, here we were motoring around in hovercrafts, flying through the air, running, throwing darts, all with the sincerest of physical effort. Either that or we were hovering straight into the wall, falling out the air, slowing to a crawl, missing the board completely, and cursing the controls the whole time. Or if we weren’t cursing them we were wondering why we were doing it at all. Well, to look silly and laugh at each other, of course! Dying was frustrating, but at least everyone thought it was silly. I’m worried that more game will be less like Twilight Princess and more like this, games where the controls aren’t so great, but it’s still fun with friends and you can just laugh at how bad you are. As the console ages, people will get the hang of what works and what doesn’t , so things should turn out ok.

    This isn’t to say that there is no precision involved right now. The dart game is a pretty good example. Obviously you have to be aiming at the TV (I.e. the motion sensing strip, which is somewhere around there) and to help you do that (so your dart appears on screen) they’ve engineered a box into the air so when you move too far out of range you’ll feel it and come back. That really does work for the most part. That said, just aiming inside the box won’t get you points. You still have to throw the thing, and I was really bad at that.

    Funny thing: after all that, I think my favorite part of the gaming portion of the evening was spent on Bomberman 3 for the Turbografx-16 downloaded via the Virtual Console. We had all four remotes plus a GameCube controller plugged in for a five-player destruct-o-thon. Yay, retro! I think we played a three-to-win match on every map.

    Ultimately, I think my advice would be to get a Wii, get Zelda, figure out which mini-game collection sounds the most fun to you, and grab that, as well. Have fun, and then while waiting for the next must-have game, settle into the Virtual Console and enjoy!

    I did, in fact.

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    Vote, that is. Spent last night making some last minutes notes, finishing off my research. I felt very prepared. Went in with my list of choices, stood in line for far longer than need be, and did the deed.

    I’m not sure how it’s been going other places, but they didn’t seem too organized at my site. I felt bad for the workers because it really wasn’t their fault. They had four machines, but only two of them were operating. In addition, the magnetic electronic whatever-the-heck card they had us sliding to access the ballot went a little fritzy sometimes. It would say that people’s numbers had already been used, which makes no sense.

    To me, it is no mystery that people don’t vote. Not only do they have to THINK, but they have to take the time, deal with the lines and the problems with the machinery, and our incentive? A cute little “I voted” sticker, and I wonder if some people even get THAT! I’m taking a class right now on constitution reform and one of the issues is elections and voting. Does anyone have any ideas? We’re considering a national holiday for voting (so people don’t have to skip work), possible tax benefits, etc. Let me know what you think!

    My disturbing lack of cellphone

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    Well, ok, it’s still HERE, but it’s lying inert over there in the jumble of crud cluttering my desk. Sadly, it ran out of batteries this morning. Now, of course, under normal circumstances something so trivial would be no roadblock; plug it in, let it suck up some electric love for a bit, and all is well. Unfortunately my charger is in San Francisco where I forgot it over the weekend and I can’t seem to find anyone on campus with a compatible one for me to borrow.
    You silly old Nokia phone, you. Why aren’t you a Razr or an LG? Then there would be plenty of hip and trendy chargers just waiting to zip you up!!

    Now, now, don’t get me wrong. I love my phone and it has served me well. It’s just frustrating when people say, “Oh, my MOM has that kind, or at least she did. I bet she still has the charger…[in LA.]” NO MY PHONE DOESN’T TAKE PICTURES SORRY! I have a digicam for that. Ah well…

    The thing that really gets me is how lonely and disconnected I feel. And how frustrating it is! I think to myself, “Oh I should really call the health center to cancel that appointment,” but OH–not happening. I think to myself, “Hmm, maybe I will call so ‘n so to see if they want to hit the dining hall with me,” but OH again–so not happening. I can’t call my mom, or my boyfriend, or anyone. It’s the only phone I’ve got.

    Surprisingly, even though I can e-mail all of those people perfectly well, I still have this feeling that the world is not right. There’s just some function lacking in my life if my cell’s screen is dead. I’ll continue to ask around for a charger, but if all else fails I’ll have mine back by Saturday at the latest. Just feels like so far away…

    The Transition to Blogger in Beta

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    Not long ago I started noticing the option to log in to the new Beta version of Blogger. At first I was unsettled because when I did, none of my blogs were actually…there. However, my fears were assuaged when I was told that this is just the beta process and that eventually my blogs and I would be invited to switch over.

    Now that time has come! As of yesterday I changed over, so I can take advantage of all the new features and upgraded bits. My regular blog hasn’t really changed much yet, but I made a test blog which you can refer to as you continue reading.

    For starters, there is no more publishing screen with that slowly increasing percentage that FINALLY reaches 100. The new process is called “dynamic serving” and is much quicker. Instead of html pages that just sit around until you post or whatnot, they are created for readers straight from the database every time. The database can apparently be updated much faster. To me, making pages from scratch every time SOUNDS like it would take longer than just updating the html. In practice, however, it’s easy to see that this is not the case. It is indeed noticablely speedier. Just goes to show that I am no techie!

    It is also a lot easier to customize the layout. In fact, their new system is CALLED “Layouts.” The idea here is that rather than having to mess with html to create things like a link list or a place for a picture to go, etc, you can use the new customization tools. It really is a lot simpler; I’m pretty sure anyone could get the hang of it right away. Your template, instead of being a big scrolly window of html, is now just a box with other boxes arranged inside. You can drag the boxes around to put them where you like or add more boxes. For instance, you can put your link list at the bottom after your entries, your “About me” section at the top, and add other features such as lists of favorite things (or random things…) anywhere you want. No more worrying about code, unless you’re just that advanced and really want to, in which case there is that option as well.

    Another nifty editing trick is that if you are suddenly struck with the urge to add a new movie to your list of favorites, you can just click on the handy wrench-and-screwdriver icon next to the list on your blog page when you’re logged in. This will bring up the box just like it would if you were working on it in your template. There is also a little pencil icon next to the permalinks for more immediate post-publication fixes.

    So far, all these features (and more, such as Live Journal-esque privacy management) have me pretty impressed with the improvements. The people at Blogger are committed to an ongoing update process, so we can all look forward to further tweaks and additions.