A few years ago I was very skeptical about everything that Apple was doing and as every hard-core Windows Developer, I was banning all that is coming from Mr. Jobs’ vision. Well being so brand blind turned out to be a very silly thing.
iGot an iPhone
I got the iPhone 3G, which I wrote about in my previous blogs. At the begging of course I was pointing out EVERY SINGLE LITTLE flaw that I have found in the device and its OS. I am not sure if I bought the device because I liked it or mostly because I wanted to point out to all Apple lovers, how stupid they are and how evil Apple is. (Now, when I write this, I realize that I sound just like an UNIX junkie, talking about Microsoft. Not good !)
Well, at least that’s how I was thinking at that time. But the smart people learn from their mistakes and always drag them to the surface, while the stupid people keep doing the same mistake over and over again. I am not known as a person who generally likes to be proven wrong, but it happens.
As it turned out, I loved the iPhone. Yes, there, I’ve said it ! (maybe this is the place where an angry mob of Microsoft developers is gathering outside my house with torches and spikes). The device was really easy to use and despite the obvious limitations that everyone’s bragging about, it turned out to be a great smartphone. It is able to do almost 98% of the stuff that I want to do with my smartphone. The other 2% are really negligible.
So this is where I started getting more and more interested in Apple’s stuff.
There comes the iPad
Again, when the iPad came out, I was like: “What ?!? Are those Apple guys crazy ? This is the most stupid device I have ever seen. This will NEVER become something big !”…
Well, I guess I was stupid. Yes, I have made the same false statement that I have made with the iPhone. A few months ago I got my hands on an iPad 2. In a matter of days this neat thing became my way of living. Now I NEVER go ANYWHERE without my iPad. I have everything there ! My e-mail, GPS, photos, movies, music, awesome games, notes, remote desktop software, books, just everything. There are very few things that the iPad cannot do and I really don’t miss them. (Bluetooth transfers and file management are the two that come of the top of my head)
To be honest I got it jailbroken. This pretty much gave the additional push with some software and features which are (still) not available on the stock ROM (not jailbroken) version.
The almighty iMac
After my experience with the iPhone and iPad, getting an Apple Computer was kinda the next logical step. Also I got so much into iOS, that I thought it might be a cool and productive thing to try developing for iOS. And here I am, getting an 27” iMac to replace my Toshiba Qosmio. I have had the iMac for a few days now and so far the first impression is as with the iPhone and iPad – awesome !
I can’t wait to get my Lion free upgrade code so I can get XCode and start developments tests with the iOS. Expect more blog posts on the topic in the near future.
Final thoughts
I am really not saying that Windows is a bad OS and that we should all buy Apple’s stuff, don’t get me wrong. One of the main reasons I agreed on switching to iMac is that it completely supports installations of Windows as a secondary bootable OS. I will not give up on Windows and definitely I will not give up on .NET and Silverlight. All I want to achieve here is broaden my horizons.
Nevertheless, the iMac and Mac OS are just great and I plan to keep up with them in the future, also.
About 1 week ago I got a iPad 2. At the moment I am writing that blog post from the iPad itself. Boy, is that awesome ! I really recommend it to everyone ! Expect a more deep review in the next days. Since I have it, I carry it around always and I can always write blogpost easily, read mail, chat, etc. COOL !!!
In the past few weeks I have been surfing the web looking for the ultimate notebook that will satisfy my needs as a gamer and developer, but let’s not forget also as a buyer who has to pay
How did I came to that idea ? Well, I have thrown away my desktop pc about 1 month ago. It was old, almost ancient. I have had it for almost 6 years already, so I came to the conclusion that is time to let it go. So I started thinking, if I should buy a new desktop pc. I really wanted something on which I can freely play games like Crysis and Mafia II. So I started digging. But I decided that I will look for some BIG notebook, instead of a desktop PC.
Why ? Well, because I already have a pretty 10” ASUS which I can carry around when I just need some PC and I can use the massive notebook to work, play and watch Full HD movies, but also be able to carry it around when I need it.
AlienWare m17x
At first my attention landed on the EXCEPTIONAL AlienWare m17x.
Man this is some bad-ass machine. I thought I have found my notebook, BUT… when I saw the price starting at 5500 leva, I have quickly cooled off. Even tough I wanted such a monster, I really could not afford it.
So I continue searching and finally I got it. It is the Toshiba Qosmio X500-126 !
It is also a serious notebook. The Qosmio is part of the gaming line notebooks by Toshiba. And it is HUGE
Toshiba Qosmio X500-126
It is 18.4” wide. Very big, nice Full HD screen. The beast is powered by Intel i7 (720QM) processor with normal speed of 1.60 GHz, but as most modern notebooks it jumps to 2.80 GHz on TURBO mode, or in other words, when you need it. It has 8GB of RAM, which is quite enough, but you definitely need a x64 bit operation system, because the 32bit one supports only 3GB max RAM. The video is NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M, giving the enormous 1GB of dedicated memory. The other specifications are pretty standard, but you can see them all here.
And I got all of this for 3300 leva. Definitely it is not cheap ! But it is worth every penny !
So I got it, and started playing. The experience is just UNIQUE ! The games are smooth, the display is great the sound is astonishing (with the Harman Kardon speakers) ! The keyboard is back-lid, which is GREAT for gaming in the dark !
The only problem I have so far is finding a suitable backpack in which to carry it around, but I will find some
Today Sofia was totally blocked by snow ! I was forced to use alternative transportation to get to work and I was 3 hours late. This was so, because I was unable to get my car out of the garage. When I was little I was always wondering why my parents hate the snow and the winter. I was asking myself: “How can they not love the pretty white snow ?”.
Well…when I grew up and started driving and going to work, I quickly realized why they hate it. Now I also hate it and I just want it to be over AT ONCE !
In the last 4 days I have attended a seminar in Chiflika. This is a small village near Troyan, Bulgaria. The seminar was about my major degree in Management. I have met a lot of interesting, nice people and I have attended a lot of very productive and interesting lectures. I learned how to study better, how to understand who I am and how do I think, why do I think in this way. I am very exalted because I think that this was the most appropriate thing I needed at this moment. Going to change myself, starting Monday. I seriously think that this will be life changing commitment for me. So many things became clear and so many things got different view and different meaning. I hope I can change myself for good and became more productive and positive.
Best regards to all the lecturers and all my colleagues. We have a lot work to do and I am looking forward to it !
Hey guys. I didn’t publish anything for quite a long time now. Since my last post was about Michael Jackson, don’t think I spent all this time busy with grief. I was really sad about him passing away, but this is not why I haven’t posted anything since. I was just a little bit busy with work. After that I went on a vacation for 2 weeks and now I am back. Expect my next article very soon. As a matter of fact, I am already working on it.
About a week ago Apple announced the new iPhone 3G S. Everybody was buzzling about it for months. Sneak peeks, spy photos, assumptions, but nothing. Apple is one of the manufacturers that does remarkable efforts to keep their new products a secret until release. I don’t know how they manage to do it, but they do.
So the new iPhone was announced and everybody jumped 3 meters above the ground. Everybody are excited and fascinated. But is it worth it ?
To be honest I was little disappointed. As I wrote a few months ago, when I bought my iPhone I was really sceptic about it and it surprised me. Now that I love my iPhone, I was expecting that the new one will fix all of the bad things that new old one had and it will make it the ultimate device, but it didn’t.
Let’s go through the new features:
Up to 2x faster
Of course better speed is always a good direction a device could go into, but I really find it kinda useless. You don’t improve the one thing you are best at. It just doesn’t make sense. As I said in my previous post about iPhone, it is the fastest device I know. The Windows Mobile and Symbian ones, are just no match for the iPhone speed. And what did Apple think ? “We should make this device faster, just because we can, not because it is needed”. Good feature, but senseless.
Can record and edit Video
Nice feature, which was a MAJOR drawback in the old versions of iPhone, but this is not really device dependent. It is a feature represented by the new iPhone OS 3.0. So if you have an iPhone 3G, when you upgrade, you will have that feature. Great, but you can have it on the old one also.
3MP Camera
Compared to the old one (2MP) it is not such a breakthrough. 3MP cameras are WAY old now. The latest Nokia, SonyEricsson and Samsung phones have 8MP cameras. My opinion is that if they didn’t spend so much effort on the fastest processor, but instead they had put in at least 5MP camera, this would have been much better.
Voice Control
Great feature ! I have similar one on my current iPhone using third-party software (Vlingo) and it is just awesome ! I hope this is an OS feature, not device dependent, but I will know more when I install the upgrade tomorrow morning (this is the release date of iPhone OS 3.0 – 17.06.2009). I will write an article about the 3.0 OS also later on.
Built-in Compass
Another good feature. Not vital, but interesting. The main purpose of this one is to help you navigate by showing you exactly in which direction you are looking at. I have worked with a lot of different GPS systems, including Toyota Land Cruiser’s one, which has a built-in compass. YES, it is nice, but NO, as I said, it is not vital. More of a add-on than a needed feature.
Cut, Copy and Paste
FINALLY ! This is the MOST annoying feature that the old iPhone has. The lack of cut, copy and paste. It is normal that all of the users have been wining about that one. Absolutely vital future, but also not device depended. You can get it with OS 3.0
MMS Support
Another feature which was strangely missing from the old iPhones. But it is not a mystery. The lack of MMS support and Bluetooth transfer is a following of the WAR that Apple has been leading against Piracy. Little extreme, but understandable. This one is also coming with OS 3.0
Overall Search
The ability to search the whole content of an iPhone from one place. Nice feature, coming with OS 3.0.
Internet Connection Sharing
A feature which was present in all the other mobile phones since the past 10 years is finally coming to the iPhone. Not something that everybody will want or use, but it is nice to have. Because despite the fact that the iPhone is a great Internet communication device, it just cannot do it all. Not sure if it is OS or device dependent.
Voice Memos
Not something remarkable. Tons of free third party applications support that in the old iPhone.
Others
There are also some other minor updates which I won’t cover there. If you want to learn about them, just visit Apple’s website.
Conclusion
So keeping in mind all the new features, is it worth throwing away your old iPhone and buying the new one ? Well it is generally your choice. There is no right answer. I can give you much better opinion after I play around with OS 3.0 a little bit. If the new OS covers the new things nicely, then switching is really not necessary, but time will tell.
I am not getting ANY feedback on my articles. No comments, mails, nothing. This can lead to two conclusions. Either the articles are boring and useless, therefore nobody bothers to read them and comment on them, or I am the only one who is reading this blog.
Today I stumbled upon a problem with my printer at home. I have HP LaserJet 1020. Very nice and productive home printer. The problem was the following:
I have a Windows XP desktop PC, to which the printer is connected and shared. My girlfriend’s PC is running Windows Vista and my Notebook is running Windows 7 (quite a diversity, I know). It turned out that I cannot install the printer on the Vista and 7. Every time I attended to, my spooler service crashed and that led to an error and abort of the installation. After a little bit of “Google research” I found out this great article by a guy named “inanis”. Here is the link.
I will also explain the steps that “inanis” gave:
• NOTE: Do this on the machine connected to the printer.
• Run gpedit.msc
• Go to “Local Computer Policies\Administrative Templates\Printers”
◦ Set the setting “Allow print spooler to accept client connections” to “Enabled”
• Go to “User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Printers\”
◦ Set the setting “Point and Print Restrictions” to “Disabled”
• Close the Group Policy Editor
• Go into the Printers and Faxes control panel, right click on the printer and hit properties.
• Click the “Ports” tab
• Uncheck “Enable Bidirectional Printing”
• Close the Printer panels/windows
• Run a command line, type in “gpupdate /force”, and hit enter
I got the iPhone 3G, which I wrote about in my previous blogs. At the begging of course I was pointing out EVERY SINGLE LITTLE flaw that I have found in the device and its OS. I am not sure if I bought the device because I liked it or mostly because I wanted to point out to all Apple lovers, how stupid they are and how evil Apple is. (Now, when I write this, I realize that I sound just like an UNIX junkie, talking about Microsoft. Not good !)
Again, when the iPad came out, I was like: “What ?!? Are those Apple guys crazy ? This is the most stupid device I have ever seen. This will NEVER become something big !”…
Yes, I have made the same false statement that I have made with the iPhone. A few months ago I got my hands on an iPad 2. In a matter of days this neat thing became my way of living. Now I NEVER go ANYWHERE without my iPad. I have everything there ! My e-mail, GPS, photos, movies, music, awesome games, notes, remote desktop software, books, just everything. There are very few things that the iPad cannot do and I really don’t miss them. (Bluetooth transfers and file management are the two that come of the top of my head)
