6 posts tagged “technology”
Second post for the month of May and I am NOT DONE with my MacBook Pro, just yet. If I could write about the recent general elections for three posts long, I could probably write ten posts just on my MacBook Pro. It's better than young freckled Caucasian school boys, the colour green, Henrik Preutz's designs for IKEA, Tunku Abdul Rahman [not really]..... the only thing that's better than a MacBook Pro is [are] two MacBook Pros.
I have my Stickies open all the time to write in whatever I feel about my MBP since day one. This is the first essay:
First of all I would like to apologise to myself for not beginning my ownership of a MacBook Pro with an unboxing ceremony. I know it is the most crucial moment in an MBP's life, but it was spoilt by my own ignorance. You see, I thought that there would be a lengthy process of installing Mac OS X, like how it was when I got my Glaucon Fortran. I was too afraid to do it by myself [a regret] so I decided to unbox it half-heartedly at the store.
My mind was really furious, Q saying, "What the hell are you doing? Why are you introducing the MBP to the world in a lifeless shop like this? Shouldn't you and only you be the one to greet it in your own room? You'll lose the factory-fresh scent, you won't have the right to cut the sticker that seals the non-weave envelope which holds the MBP, you'll have other people's fingerprints on everything....." but A was in charge at that time. "I can always pretend that it didn't happen and stage a second unboxing ceremony in my room later". Q shouted, "It wouldn't be the same!!!" but its mouth was quickly duct taped.
So I let that store guy unravel my gift. I got to open the lid and press the power button, and soon, a pleasant montage of the word 'welcome' flew by in all sorts of languages. When it ended, I immediately ask the store guy if it is possible to start all over again. He blankly said, "No, it only comes by once. Another way to see the 'welcome thing' is when you reformat the whole machine and that would take a very long time". I stare at the space between a display of iPod accessories and me, with the duct tape on Q's mouth peeling off, hearing it go, "You suck at life". Almost immediately, A went, "I'll make sure I have my own private unboxing ceremony the next time I get a Mac".
After that, there was no fun at all. I registered my details and saw the first glimpse of my desktop. Then, it went back to its packaging. This was nothing like December 2004. The man [named Hisyam, if I remember] who sold a 15-inch PowerBook G4 to me delivered to my house and helped me installed the OS and we had a Q & A session. At that time, the price of that said notebook was at least RM 2 000 more expensive than the cheapest MBP model today. Not including the price of an Adobe CS software, adding a thousand plus Ringgit. When I received it, I felt that life was unbelievable. I waited for this machine for a year, and even hung PowerBook G4 pamphlets all over my bookshelf to welcome this machine. I named it Glaucon Fortran.
But on Sunday the 13th of April, 2008, I felt nearly nothing. It is like... you know, life goes on. It's just a Mac. I'm going to use it to play music, store digital images, write notes on Stickies, proof-reading my VOX posts, watch DVDs in very rare cases... the things I can do on my iMac. So the latest mystery in my life would be: where's the excitement?
Though, figuring out that mystery is pointless, so I started to have fun with my MBP.
Speaking of 'pointless' and 'fun', the first thing I thought of downloading is MacSaber. Finally! I heard of this hilarious application around the time when the earliest MBP [or was it the latest version of the PowerBook] models are equipped with Sudden Motion Sensor technology [it works to protect the hard disk from getting damaged from falls and knocks]. Some person developed MacSaber, which works with that technology, so that those with nothing better to do are able to have a lightsaber fight by swinging their MBPs around, creating the crazy hums, clashes and 'wwweeuunnggg!!!' sounds a lightsaber would make. This was very very fun and entertaining for the first 2 minutes, before I realised that I am putting my MBP in danger, and it gets boring when I have no one to play it with.
I installed iWork '08 with ease and thought, "I can now make slideshows..... I mean Keynotes, that look better than anyone else's in the world". Then I downloaded Firefox, because I can't accept Safari just yet. I tried out iPhoto by importing some pictures of my latest I Got Shot post and snickered to the coolness of 'pinching', 'sweeping' and other finger movements that my Multi Touch trackpad can detect. After that, I made my first VOX post on the MBP.
Now, march on to Part III!
My MacBook Pro is very photogenic. Here are some vanity shots of my favourite object in the world.
More pictures and text in next post.
Mac fans, you know what will happen tonight [or this morning, depending on where you reside]. Somewhere in San Francisco, Steve Jobs and his friends will be introducing several new things like... I'm not sure what they will be this time, but the most anticipated announcement shall be the release of the so-called MacBook Air [which I will own by the middle of this year (I hope!)].
When will it happen? The time is 9 a.m. PST [plus sixteen/fifteen hours for those in GMT+8]. That should be around midnight. Where to check it out? Naturally, everyone will be hanging out at macrumorslive for almost real-time updates [pictures included, I believe]. Be sure to have the Apple site open, too, and refresh it once in a while to confirm that the existence of this 'MacBook Air' is real.
Update: MacBook Air is for real.
Initial responses, first impressions and comments [so far]:
• How the hell is it so confoundingly thin?! Will it crack easily?
• Glossy screen? Not my cup of tea. Glare is rarely my cup of tea.
• Where are the speakers? No speaker at all? It says in the Tech Specs page that there is a built-in mono speaker, but where is it located? Could the little holes beside the iSight serve as the speaker and the microphone?
• No optical drive. OK, great, I rarely stick in CDs into my computer. This won't do well in Malaysia because we don't have an iTunes store, so we can't buy any music and download / rent movies. And even if we did have an iTunes store, it would take hours to download a movie, thanks to the amazing broadband speed we have.
• About the whole 'access another Mac or PC wirelessly / install a programme from it' feature. That's only possible when both computers have wireless capabilities, right? Like which regular desktop PC have a built-in wireless card?!
Conclusion: It's a beautiful machine, more soft curves, or should I say, slopes. In my opinion, its future might be like the Titanium PowerBook because the design will be more polished eg. the keys will be in silver colour, improved hinges. Will I get it? No, not really. It's more of a want than a need. A MacBook Pro is better for me because I still need the ports and optical drive.
A little odd note: I've noticed that the PC guy from the Apple ads have slimmed down [judging by the latest ads], just like a MacBook Air. Nevertheless, I am amazed by both of them.
And just to add a little relevant additive to this post, check out this visual commentary based on observations of an amazing illustrator called Peter Arkle [his latest design for graniph is high on my wishlist, currently].
Not to forget, my visit to the alleged three-storey Apple store in Lot 10 [it's just two-storey; the third level empty]. Machines wasn't quite open yet, but I think by the time this post is published, they have sold dozens of Nanos and some Mac Pros.
OK. One thing I don't fancy at all. Why are they using the Arial typeface for the shop's name?! Machines have been using the standard Myriad for the rest of their stores. I hope that these are just a stand-in while the Myriad ones are still in the making.
Another sad sight. Why are the 'i's capitalised?!
Now that Machines will be the most-visited shop in Lot 10 [its entrance is right after the mall's entrance], they should keep their visitors in the store for as long as possible by not having the WiFi turned off or Safari on block.
Crepes, it's nearly the end of the month and I've only got eight posts? I must do something about this!
So now I'll write what happened last week, without dates and days in German. I'm not going to stick to the usual 'Week in review' formula. I'm just going to post pictures of what happened through the past week.
On last week's Thursday, we had our last Anime & Manga class. It was also the last day KidChan will ever be in PJCAD and we had a presentation of our final project [which didn't go well for me]. Later in the afternoon, for Khairul's class, we had to draw our classmates who were lit up by a single bulb.
And as usual, Khairul picked out the drawings "which had potential" and commented at the drawings by those who "needed to work on it more".
And you probably know that on that night, I went to Laundry for the first time.
My father came back from his Jakarta trip on Saturday with the hair iron I ordered, and a box full of Krispy Kremes. And for the whole weekend, I ate nothing but diabetic-unfriendly doughnuts.
Soon Monday came, which was the day of the official launch of Adobe Creative Suite 3, in Shangri-La Hotel, KL. I took the Monorail to Bukit Nanas [which holds a very nice memory to me when I successfully stalked Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park, back in 2003] and walked to the hotel. The launch was held at the grand ballroom, where a bunch of companies had booths set up, promoting the CS3, HP printers and of course, Apple computers. I examined the 24-inch iMac and didn't remember it was this huge! I could probably fit through it!
We had a man called Tim Cole talking about the new features of InDesign, which was all so awesome. What I've remembered is that in CS3, InDesign has "pretty little pictures" in substitute of vertically-laid text for its... er, menu thingie which sticks on the right side of the display; new and improved Find & Change which lets you work up a bunch of equations-looking commands that chooses the object / text format you want, precisely [very very awe-inducing]; wonderful drag-and-drop feature which lets you grab a bunch of objects and laying them within a specific area which just a click of a mouse [no more dragging your objects to one side and moving them into an area, one by one]; and many many more features which are mostly useless to me but very handy for you.
There were cookies, marshmallows, tarts, tea and coffee served, which are not really appetising, but to me, drinking tea off a cup in a hotel ballroom feels so cosy.
One of my favourite features of CS3 is that, THEY HAVE THESE NEW SWEET-ELITE DOCK ICONS, made to look like elements from the periodic table. Naturally, my favourite icon is the Illustrator, which has half of my name on it [and now, my user pic].
I left after I thought I had enough [now a regret; I left before Illustrator, Photoshop and Dreamweaver was presented] and took the Monorail back to KL Sentral. Riding it in the middle of a weekday lets me find less people in the train, and it's also the time when tourist-couples decide to roam about the city.
On Tuesday, my class had a new class and a new lecturer, teaching us how to dance. Do you find it odd that we students have to learn how to dance? Many of us didn't like the idea because we had to twirl and leap and crawl on the floor of a dusty badminton court, but I find it good for my health [since that I don't exercise].
The following day, we learned all about portrait photography and had this... er, foil-looking thing projecting light to whatever we were photographing [in this case, our classmates]. After that we had a wonderful experience in the dark room, where Mr. Low showed us how a roll of film morphs into a brilliant monotone negative. We may print the pictures in our next class [judging by the negatives, the pictures will come out to be very beautiful].
On Thursday, after Khairul's class [which ended earlier than usual], I drove to Plaza Damas [now Hartamas shopping centre, where the parking lot signages are a crappier version of the ones at IKEA] to check out what I'll end up with. I discovered that a lot has change, with the appearance of posh boutiques, art galleries, vintage shops and yuppie-friendly restaurants. Four years ago, it was just a mamak place and not much else.
I came across this health care centre and saw a very nice chair which reminded me of an IKEA side table which has unscrewable plastic legs. Do you know what it's called?
After a good roam, I went back on the road and drove to Dataran Hamodal, which is in the area of factories in Section 13 for the Times / Guardian warehouse sale. It's a perfect place for impulsive shopping, because everything is cheaper. In the Guardian section, one can get face masks, makeup, toiletries and snacks [one that nearly tempted me was a crate of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for only RM 8].
At the Times section, you get to pick out a bunch of lovely but outdated books for cheap. I saw this Japanese architecture book that might have cost RM 150 seven years ago, but now it's sold for RM 50. Other books on sale are a bunch of... stuff I don't read, like the kind with no pictures. There were loads of children's books, recipe books and loads more. Although, I bought nothing because I spent my last RM 2 on fuel.
Now it's Friday, which is the third last day of the month. I still lack 6 posts; I'm not sure how to fill them up, unless I answer a bunch of pathetic QotDs. I'll find a way!
First of all:
- Asia 2008
Ridiculous. By then all the technology here will be generations ahead of the iPhone.
Alright, so the design is kind of.... different. I would imagine the... thing... black panel thing would be white like the rest of the computers. If it was in white then perhaps it won't look too phone-y and has a more dominant Apple look?
I don't understand these Americans and how the telecommunication systems work. Here in Malaysia, people buy a phone, any kind they want, and they can also choose which service provider they want to use. They'd register for a number, then pop in the SIM card which comes with their registeration into their phones and it's ready for use. In this case, some company called Cingular are 'hosting' the iPhone. What if someone hates Cingular for their crappy coverage [for example] and wants to register under a different service provider? How discriminating! Kind of elitist too, as if they are saying "We are Cingular, and to use your excessively cool iPhone, you have no choice but to register under us,". FLARGH!
But that shouldn't be a problem for me because I've already got my own kind, which is to wait until next year to get that precious iPhone.
Since that this is the first time ever the Mac OS is installed onto a cell phone, will it be prone to viruses?
And that thing looks like it's going to shatter [or at least crack, or the VERY least, scratched] if it's dropped. And this also reminds me of the time when the slimmy-slim iPod Nano first came out. Some of the early buyers complained that the little device cracked while it's sitting in their tight jeans' pocket. Do you think this will happen for the iPhone, since that it's less than... hm 11.6mm thin? That's thinner than a cracker right?
If I ever manage to own this iPhone, I'd also buy a pair of gloves and put them on for each time I use it. Or maybe a good cleaning cloth to keep it it mint condition. Or even better, get a casing!
What else is there to be analysed, hmm...
I'm not the kind who's very particular about cell phone trends. But I predict, by mid 2007, I will own a better phone [with Bluetooth, megapixeled camera, photo-posting capabilities, web browser, mp3 player, 3G-enabled.... hmm what else?], a MacBook Pro [by now it should have Leopard], a good iPod speaker.... All of that can easily cost me RM 13 000+. For now, let it be a wishlist.
I've been browsing through phone brand sites, and found two candidates - The multi-tasking but low-reputationed Sony Ericsson K800i and the seriously pleasant-looking but satisfactory-functioning MOTORIZR.
The Motorola site however, was semi-pathetic. It was some site with linkless Flash animation, and a sad-looking specifications sheet. I think the only thing that's making me want this phone is that it just looks cool =(
Of course I need to test-drive it first. But it is most likely that I will be choosing the K800i [by looking at what I just wrote].
How about an equally-cool accessory to go with it? Phone calls are more fun when you have the hulger. Oh yeah. Imagine how disastrously and intriguingly cool I can be walking around while talking on one of those pieces of art [especially with the Bluetooth model]. Expensive as fuck, though.
