May 31
One day in the world and the Palm Foleo is already drawing heat. The first one is from Wired’s Gadget Lab guy, Rob Beschizza. He does list what he believes are seven alternatives to the new Foleo, and there are some cool devices on that list. However, he badly misrepresents the Foleo by describing it as such,”…no hard drive, a new operating system, and a reliance on your phone’s connectivity.” It doesn’t need a hard drive, Linux is hardly a new OS, and it has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which means it is NOT dependent on your Treo to connect.
What Beschizza failed to mention, whether on purpose or not, was that while the device only sports 256MBs of RAM it also sports a CF card slot to which a minimum of 2GB can be attached, and likely much more. Rob also neglects to note that the Foleo features Opera 9, a very, very powerful web browser. While its not FireFox grade, its far better than Internet Exploder. Let’s not sell the Foleo short before it even hits the street, and besides, Rob’s alternatives are more than US$1,000 and most are over US$2,000. The Foleo will street at US$600.
written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: Opinion
May 30
It looks like I might have been wrong about Palm being dead and all. Hmm. Why would I change my mind? I’m sure you’ll hear about it sooner or later, but they have just announce their new Foleo Mobile Companion. This laptop-like Linux powered device is just kick ass! Go take a look. I won’t expect you back any time soon, but in case you want some details before leaving the confines of COT for a few hours, here they are:
The unit weighs 2.4 pounds, sports a 10″ display which can run in 1024×600 and 1024×768 resolutions, it has 256MBs of RAM, likely runs some kind of ARM-based processor, has SD and CF slots for memory expansion, and has a copy of Opera 9 built in. I’ll say one thing for Opera, they’re really kicking ass and taking names (installed in loads of mobiles, Nokia’s 770 and n800, and now the Foleo).
Pricing is set at US$599 and you can get a $100 rebate if you buy early. They will start to be available in early summer, so get your pocket books ready. I can’t imagine any real reasons why you wouldn’t want this thing.
written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: Cool Tools, Damn Fine Idea!, Opinion
May 25
No. That’s not a barb directed at Mr. McGuiness. I simply wanted you to understand up front that the person I’m going to complain about here is a man and not a woman. I’d also like to point out that even if it was a woman, I’d still complain.
Laurie apparently thinks Apple’s line of world famous, award winning, powerful computers (some of which are used to make some of the fastest super computers in the world) are silly and pointless. To make his point he has produced four ad spots which mock Apple’s famous Mac & PC ads, only here the PC is the winner and the Mac is a loser.
Its sad, really, because in order to make his point he has to lie by omission. He suggests that Mac users don’t share, alluding to the Microsoft Zune’s Wi-Fi sharing capability. He also suggests that Mac users are drugged up, alcoholic, ne’er do wells who are late and can’t pay their bills. He also suggests that Mac users stay and home and make movies or create web sites for their cats with their buddies while Windows users hang out with fantastically beautiful women.
Not one of these videos is funny, insightful, or illuminating. In fact, its clear that Laurie is, indeed, a hater of Macs, and clearly doesn’t like Mac users either. Maybe Laurie doesn’t know that most musicians are Mac users. A lot of people in the film and television industries are Mac users. I know first hand that scads of people in advertising are Mac users. Even Al Gore is a Mac user.
So, who’s the loser now? I don’t know. Maybe the guy who feels so insecure that he has to take dodgey, questionable, anger-filled stabs in the dark at an ad series not only recognized as tops in advertising, but has also proven to drive sales at Apple Stores. Laurie advertises himself as a copywriter. Maybe he should use a Mac and he wouldn’t be so angry any more.
written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: Mac Musings, Opinion
May 16
So, my wife is reading Mark Gibb’s latest column to me about some new Google customized homepage thing called PageFlakes. What a stupid name, I think to myself. Mark says that it does everything that Google’s does and way, way more. The way he worded it made it sound like the service replaces Google. Yeah. Whatever, I say. Boy, was I wrong!
PageFlakes is the ROCKINGEST custom hompage service you have ever seen. Seriously. You must check it out. Once you do you will be stuck. I don’t know how they’re going to pay for it (there are no ads at all on the site) and I have no idea what their business model is (maybe they don’t have one), but it just kills, man. It just kills!
Signing up takes two seconds because you can either customize it without having to get an account (cookies, of course) or you can take the extra 15 seconds to actually sign up. Either way you can choose what goes on the pages, where it goes, and how it works. There is some work they need to do, like making the PageFlakes browser a global option and not just per Flake, but it still takes the cake, the cart it was wheeled in on, the van that brought the cart with the cake, and the pastry chef who made it!
written by Tyler Regas \\ tags: Cool Tools
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