Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Griffin Reflect & iPod Touch: Match Made in Heaven

So last month I got the 8GB iPod Touch as a gift. It's taken me awhile to get used to the interface (my previous player was the bite-size iPod Nano 2nd Gen), but once you get the hang of it, it's awesome. I like the built-in Wi-Fi, I like the screen (I've seen a few videos on it already), and I like all the apps it comes with — weather, calendar, photos, etc. What I absolutely hate is the back of it. You just look at the thing and it's covered in smudges and fingerprints. So I got the Griffin Reflect case over the wkd. I did my research and it's supposed to be the best case out there. I'd have to agree with that, except it was a major pain applying that thin, protective film onto my iPod's screen. Took me 30 minutes (I'm very meticulous about things like that so I had to reapply it a buncha times). So far so good tho.

(photo via porklechon's Flickr)

Amazon's SMS Store: Nice Try, Guys

So this weekend I played around with Amazon's new TextBuyIt service. The concept is pretty cool, I think. So let's say you're at a store and you spot something you wanna buy. A DVD maybe. Text the UPC code or the name of the DVD to 262966 (AMAZON) and they text you back with the Amazon price for that same item. If it's cheaper at Amazon and you wanna buy it, just text back and they'll call you to confirm your order. In theory it's cool, but I had a few nitpicks with it. 1)You still have to pay s&h, 2)Amazon doesn't always have the lowest price, and my biggest nitpick 3)if you do buy it via SMS at Amazon, you then gotta way for them to ship it to you. There's a more detailed feature of it coming up soon on dealnews, but that's essentially my beef with it.

Friday, April 4, 2008

I Hate Vista: Reason #999

I don't care what MS says, in my eyes Vista is the biggest failure of an OS I have ever seen. I hate it. I despise it. In fact, when friends / relatives ask me for recommendations, I always point them to machines not running Vista.

So reason #999 why I hate Vista — load times. It takes forever to load things. And it's constantly downloading updates and asking me for permission. Yeah, I know, I can disable the updates, but still. It should not take me 5 seconds to open a folder or 5 minutes to shutdown my PC.

Creative Gigaworks T40: Best Budget Speakers You'll Find

When it comes to computer speakers — I tend to be a Logitech fan boy. My first pair of speakers (I don't count the ugly boxes that came bundled with my Gateway as real speakers) were the Logitech Z-560s — a 4.1 setup. I loved them. At the time I was a casual PC gamer and had a modest amount of music on my PC and these were the "it" speakers. Then when the Xbox first debuted, I got the Z-680s (which I currently have set up at my parents') to accompany my console. Again, they rocked. But I needed a new pair of speakers for my PC. So I got the Creative Gigaworks S750 — a 7.1 system. I don't know what possessed me to go 7.1. There were cables everywhere, it was crazy. Sound-wise they were ok, I wasn't too impressed. I missed my Logitechs.

In between I tried systems from Klipsch, Altec Lansing, and even Bose (the Companion 5s are ridiculously overpriced, but sound pretty sharp), but I would always come back to Logitech. Today I'm crushing on the new Creative Gigaworks T40s (sorry, Logitech). It's a two speaker system (no subwoofer). Instead you got a built-in BasXPort on both satellites to handle bass (you can see it in the pic up top). They sound amazing. I have them hooked up to my Mac in my bedroom, and believe me the BasXPort gives these speakers more than enough oomph. I've mainly used them with DVDs and music and I'm very impressed.  The best part is they're only $120. I think that's an awesome deal for anyone looking for a solid pair of speakers. Like I said, I usually go with Logitech for speakers, but the T40s have swayed me to Creative.