Happy
birthday to my good friend MARK who is now 14!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!
Created just for you by me. Any jokes made by this card are copyrighted material. Any attempt at plagiarism will result in a punishment as best seen fit to the amount of plagiarism used. If only one word is used then there will only be a fine of 2 million dollars. As more words are used the fine will be increased. If more than five words are used then corporal punishment may be used. After ten plagiarism offenses then your life is void and will quickly and without warning be eradicated. Also if a gift is not brought or is not of enough significance the recipient has the right to scream and cry at unimaginable volumes resulting in extensive ear damage. He may also beat you with a large fiber glass and attempt to shove you in an industrialized freezer to preserve you for future generations. If at any time during the celebration you anger Mark then you will be allowed a 0.0000000000000000024800000000000996237588564821 second head start before he does the aforementioned items (see subject of "bad presents.") When at the celebration all members must say the word moose every time they talk. The first offense to this rule you will be given a warning. Any offense after the first will result in the immediate removal of your shoes without a defined return date. Please abide by all rules mentioned here and any other ridiculous rules made up during the celebration. Failure to do so will result in extremely long periods of Mark looking uber sad thusly giving you uber amounts of guilt. Remember to have uber fun at Mark's birthday celebration and remember to always brush your teeth before bed for when you are sleeping is when germs and bacteria are most likely to grow at night. 11 out of 10 dentists recommend using UBER brand Uber Toothpaste to stop this hideous affliction. (p.s. presents can be substituted with lunchmeats. Remember though that this is only considered a temporary replacement and an actual present is expected.) THANK YOU!
Beautiful Katamari, as far as we know it, is not coming to the Wii. Bandai-Namco’s site has been on and off again with a listing for the Wii version, but as of right now it is a no-go. We’ve been put through the ringer with this game for a long time now, starting many months ago via a GameFly listing.
Now we have the latest bit, but it actually comes
from a source at Bandai-Namco…Beautiful Katamari
director Jun Morikaw. While
1up
doesn’t get into specifics, they do say that Mr.
Morikaw hints that Katamari will make an appearance
on Wii.
Not a GameFly listing, not a messageboard post, and
not an accidental inclusion on the Bandai-Namco site.
This is the first real chance we have at Katamari on
the Wii, and things are looking good.
Yeah,
we know we're a little late with this one, but we see
the iPod touch
as a
pretty major turning point for Apple's iPod line;
when it was announced,
we finally thought we'd found an iPod we could really
get behind. For years technology enthusiasts pondered
the possibility of an Apple-made widescreen,
WiFi-enabled portable media device, and they finally
did just that -- even throwing in a few things that,
prior to the iPhone, we might not have expected, like
a full-fledged web browser, internet video player
(YouTube), multi-touch interface, etc. But after
playing with the touch for a few days, it's become
pretty clear that Steve was right when he declared
that the iPhone is still the best iPod. Read on to
find out why.
Late last year. iPods had fallen into a rut: the
features were stale, the form factor of the flagship
device basically stopped progressing, and it started
to seem like Apple didn't care or understand where
portable media players were headed -- or at least
didn't seem to realize what such devices were capable
of. So it came as no surprise that as soon as the
iPhone was announced, people began demanding that
same device, sans phone. And why not? Not
everyone
hates
their cellphone, or wants to switch to AT&T, or
lives in America (or select countries in Europe) --
and from a media player standpoint, the iPhone made
the iPod technologically respectable again. Only a
handful of other devices, like the
Archos
604 WiFi, come equipped with
that specific bundle of features (web browser,
touchscreen, and WiFi).
Fortunately for that
rather sizable group of potential buyers waiting for
the phoneless iPhone, it was clear that Apple had
invested an enormous amount of effort (and money)
into creating its mobile OS X platform, and that all
those development bucks weren't going to live on in
only one product -- especially not a device that is
ultimately beholden to deals with cellphone carriers.
So the iPhone without the phone -- the WiFi-enabled
widescreen iPod -- finally started to seem more like
an eventuality than some distant hope. When it was
announced a couple of weeks ago, the surprise was
less that Apple had been working on this device after
all, and more the myriad iPhone features unexpectedly
absent. We'll get to that shortly.
Media
Thankfully, as far
as media playback goes, all the best stuff from the
iPhone made the cut in the touch. It shares the same
audio, video, and photo apps as the iPhone, which is
a good thing since we still love the new Apple mobile
media interface every bit as much as we did when we
first reviewed the iPhone. The iTunes WiFi Music
Store works exactly as
advertised; search is fast, sampling tracks and
downloads are easy, and syncing tracks back to your
host computer is effortless. Apple really nailed
this. To date, most over the air music downloads on a
portable media devices have been tedious, if not
completely impractical.
Also unchanged are our primary complaints about that
very media playback, the same complaints we've had
about the iPod for years: we don't like managing our
media through iTunes, and we don't like being limited
only to those few codecs Apple supports (AAC, MP3,
H.264, and MPEG-4). In fact, if Apple gave us greater
codec support (or even just the option to add
additional codecs ourselves) and mass storage support
for drag and drop while adding media, we'd probably
be able to overlook the other, smaller things that
ail us about iPods.
Software
Since
the touch is an iPhone at its heart --
really
--
comparisons on the software end of business were
immediate and inevitable. We're going to assume
you're at least casually familiar with the touch's
progenitor, but if you didn't read over our
iPhone
review or haven't much used
one yourself, we're happy to say the touch remains a
rock solid device on the software end. We experienced
far fewer crashes now than we did with the v1.0
iPhone firmware; the rest of the interface is just as
responsive and reliable.
Apple
has also since made a number of improvements to the
touch which have yet to carry over to the iPhone.
(We're expecting the iPhone to be brought to parity
with the touch in its next firmware
update, due in the next
week or so.) One major annoyance, about which we took
umbrage in our iPhone review, is that periods are
unnecessarily difficult to type. No longer: the touch
takes the BlackBerry approach, where pressing the
space bar twice types a period automatically. This is
a godsend.
Also
improved: many of the clicks, chirps, and other
system sounds have been tweaked, most often with the
result of being slightly less grating than the noises
of the iPhone. And, of course, the addition of
international support in menus and keyboards means
you don't have to be a US American to use the thing.
But it isn't what's on
the
touch that caused us to sit up and take notice so
much as what's not
on it.
The iPhone's suite of apps set certain expectations
for what the touch should include. Granted, we
understand why the iPhone's mobile email app was
omitted from the touch. While we still would have
liked to have the option to email over WiFi, its
intended purpose is as a portable media player, not a
mobile communicator, so we can follow that line of
thought. But why leave out its notes, weather,
stocks, and Google maps apps? We know the portable
doesn't include the same constant connectivity as the
iPhone has with EDGE, but it's not like downloading
music over the iTunes WiFi Music Store is a practical
application in ways that checking for weather, or
jotting down a quick note are not. The touch is still
a connected portable device, after all, and what we
see is Apple mimicking the limited feature set of the
old, stale iPod line instead of fully realizing the
touch's potential.
And
let's not forget the touch calendar controversy. Why
allow users to indulge in some PIM basics, like
editing and creating new contacts, while not others,
like editing or adding new calendar appointments?
When we confirmed that Apple
had indeed dropped calendar editing
from the
touch, we were floored. Not even because it's that
essential a function, but because we can't possibly
fathom why anyone in Cupertino thought to take
something of value, however small, away from for no
apparent reason.
For a company that continually emphasizes its
software as being the core of what drives great
consumer electronics, we just can't understand why
Apple chose curb the touch's capabilities right at
the outset.
Hardware
With
the touch, Apple's hardware is, as usual, striking
when compared with many of its competitors. Ever so
slightly wider (about 1mm) and significantly thinner
(8mm, which is no small feat) than the iPhone, the
touch has far harder, sharper edges on its facade,
and a sloping, almost difficult to grip rear. It even
manages to leverage that space with a large enough
battery to put out more than its advertised 5 hours
of video playback -- we got about 5.5 - 6+ hours. But
despite its impressive thinness, after the last few
months of using the far more functional iPhone, the
touch left us in want. It may be the ideal size for a
device of this kind, but it omits many of the simple
hardware niceties we've grown used to in the iPhone.
Hardware volume controls were highest on the list of
things we miss. We could just as easily live without
a mute switch on a media player, but losing the hard
volume buttons is rather disappointing. Granted,
Apple has made it easier to get to the media controls
and volume when the device is in sleep mode; just
press the home button three times (once to wake, two
more times to bring up media controls without
unlocking it). But what's wrong with a real volume
switch, too? With no hardware controls, doing
something as frequent and essential as changing the
volume necessitates removing the device from your
pocket. Furthermore, without hard volume buttons, you
can't adjust the volume at all while playing music in
landscape (i.e. Cover Flow mode). This is pretty
basic stuff that drives us up the wall.
Also
missing -- and missed: an external speaker. Yeah, we
know not every media player has one, and it probably
would have added some bulk to a device so slim as the
touch. But sharing samples of songs, a bit of video,
or -- duh -- YouTube now instantly necessitates
friends adventurous enough to use your funky
headphones each taking a turn watching Chocolate Rain
or the Hipster Olympics. We know in the long run it's
a relatively minor thing, but it's still
disappointing.
But
that's not all. While we appreciate the aesthetic
sacrifice Apple made in in adding a proper WiFi
antenna to the touch, the odd, asymmetric black
corner on the rear looks off and misplaced. We wish
Apple have just placed the antenna behind the touch's
face, or possibly along the top or bottom of the
unit, where its sleep / wake button or headphone jack
is. It's a relatively minor aesthetic nitpick, we
know, but Apple obviously holds its hardware design
in the highest regard, and to us the antenna seems
uncharacteristically out of place for an iPod product
too pristine to even have hardware volume controls.
Then there's the matter of the display. Ours happened
to be one of the "small number" of
touch units with the faulty
screens.
It's difficult to capture in a photograph or even
explain in text (so far the best shots we've seen
came from Apple-Touch),
but the result is dark shades -- especially black
tones -- look almost inverted. At very least it's
distracting, and at worst it makes some darker video
almost unwatchable. We hope Apple gets these units
fixed on the double, because for us this janky screen
teeters on the edge of a return-your-unit-forever
dealbreaker.
And
then, finally, there's the shiny chrome back side,
which is just as easy as ever to keep pristine and
unmarred, provided you store your iPod in a vacuum or
cover it in armor. We still don't get this. Yes,
people like shiny gadgets, but the glee of that first
five seconds of ooh
pretty hardly outweighs the
lifetime of fingerprints and scratches that the
iPod's rear mirror finish accumulates. We thought
Apple had learned its lesson when it gave the iPhone
a matte aluminum back side. Guess not. We can't be
alone in thinking chrome doesn't patina like an old
pair of jeans. To us it just seems to look worse with
time.
Wrap-up
It's hard to argue that there isn't beauty in
simplicity, especially when it comes to consumer
electronics. But there's such thing as
too
simple
-- and sometimes too simple can turn into crippled.
Most of our complaints about the touch have to do
with what it lacks -- not in general, but when
compared its big brother, the iPhone. Had the iPod
touch come out first, the lack of a hardware volume
switch, integrated speaker, and all those apps might
have been perfectly passable, but now the
expectations have been set, and we can't see how
taking things away from users can possibly add value.
Everyone in this industry is trying to give their
customers more, but with the iPod touch Apple gave
its customers less
in what
should have been the best iPhone alternative on the
market. This time around, in Apple's obsession to
edit, they managed to leave some of the best stuff on
the cutting room floor.
 |
Not what I would expect from a series like this... three pages can be found on the Artemis Fowl website, www.artemisfowl.com. |
 |
A family in Loveland, Colorado took their dog
in to see the vet after it had started coughing
up blood, which according to several popular
veterinary web sites is a pretty bad sign. An
X-ray revealed a large mass in the dog's stomach,
which the family assumed was an old TV remote
they'd been letting the pet chew on. Questionable
taste in dog toys aside, the vet induced vomiting
and bits of an old TV remote did come out, but
only bits. There was something else in there...
"The Vet started massaging the dogs belly and it just came flying out of the dog," said Marie Becknell. I knew what it was right away by the color and shape of it. It was my son's video game remote. The dog had swallowed the boy's Nintendo Wii remote controller. This dog had swallowed an entire Wiimote. I know what you're probably thinking. "Wow, that's a pretty talented dog. Can I have its phone number?" No, that's sick, and besides dogs can't talk on the phone. I've tried. Probably just swallow the damn thing. |
Image by Patrick Yan
David Lanham is one of the most popular Mac designers today, best known for his icons and illustrations on his website, his two themes Amora and Somatic, and the designs for sites My Dream App and MacThemes 2.0 (along with Renato Valdés Olmos). He currently works at the Iconfactory, creating freeware icons as well as commercial designs for clients like MacPractice, Sybase and Microsoft Xbox 360. Austin Heller and Sam Gwilym of MacThemes sat down with David to get a closer look at his life as a designer, his thoughts on desktops, and his opinions on Aqua and other themes.
