Recent Posts

301

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 19, 2010, 01:46 PM »

...
Yup - I can confirm that this is true (I've done it!). My issue is having to have iTuness installed at all. Of course, they could very well have tamed the beast, but when I ran it before it installed several services that I could not get rid of, including an Outlook add-in. Hence my irrational loathing of it.

-Darwin (November 18, 2010, 10:53 PM)

BTW, you may disable/re-enable any Office add-in easily with the right Nirsoft tool (www.nirsoft.net).

-MerleOne (November 19, 2010, 01:57 AM)

Yeah, I've used Nirsoft products in the past -very helpful. Really, however, my iTunes-phobia is possibly out of date. I had it installed a month ago while I played with an iPod Touch and everything seemed fine. I decided to return the Touch and uninstall iTunes before I had a chance to monitor what was installed with iTunes. Certainly, I noticed no performance issues with iTunes installed. My dislike of iTunes stems from running it under XP several years ago and being unable to stop services and remove the Outlook add-in I mentioned above. I did not try any Nirsoft solutions but I tired everything else! Hopefully, iTunes is more considerate these days?

302

Living Room / Re: Getting an HTC Desire HD -- Android Phone

« Last post by Darwin on November 19, 2010, 01:42 PM »

Well, I've been silent about this since I got the phone (while I got over my disappointment!), but to my utter dismay (and completely counter-intuitively) Windows Phone 7 does not currently sync with Outlook. WTF?! The iPod 4 that I had did this effortlessly! Anyway, I have doubts that this ability will ever come to WP 7 as I suspect that the point is to lock the user into the Live Cloud. I say this because to sync my Outlook calendar and contacts with the phone I simply copied everything into their counterparts in my Hotmail account (from within Outlook) using the Outlooik Connector. Of course, this means that in addition to being locked into using Zune one must have a Hotmail/Live/MSN e-mail account to sync Outlook. It's pretty simple and works like a charm BUT it means that I have to remember to update the Hotmail calendar and address book, not the default Outlook ones (as I had never used the Hotmail calendar before they are now mirrored, so this isn't too bad. Contacts are more problematic). If I could remove the default Outlook caledar, or set the Hotmail calendar as default, this wouldn't be a problem. It's more a niggle, but an annoying one. Anyway, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and an update will change this... but I'm not holding my breath. BOTOM LINE: I think it's crazy that Apple can sync directly with Outlook but MS can't (well, won't). What's galling is that the promo shots of the start panel clearly show an "Outlook" tile with several messages waiting to be viewed. The decision to remove it must have been quite late in the development cycle.

Multi-tasking is supposed to be coming, but I haven't noticed its absence yet. The app store (Marketplace) is growing every day and there is already far more "stuff" therein than I need or care about. E-mail support is excellent. All e-mail accounts are accessed using the same app but each gets its own tile, which makes keeping it all separate a breeze. I suspect, thought, that heavy users might resent not being able to view all e-mail from all accounts in one place. Hasn't been an issue for me yet, though

Overall, after a week, I'm very happy with the WP7 device. I suspect that I would have been equally happy with any of the alternatives, though. Time will tell...

303

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 19, 2010, 01:24 AM »

I supect that image is intended to emphasise it's a stereo player...

-Target (November 18, 2010, 05:32 PM)

Stereo! Get it? Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 

Target - the price around here at the moment is $129 CDN. The $89 deal was a few weeks back and I keep wondering if I shouldn't have jumped at it. FWIW the $129 offer is available here. However, it looks to me like you can do better at Amazon.com ($119 US).

304

Living Room / Re: Getting an HTC Desire HD -- Android Phone

« Last post by Darwin on November 19, 2010, 01:10 AM »

Funny actually, I've not used an iPhone that much, and then only the 3GS, not v4 yet, but I really don't find it to be that wonderfully intuitive or well designed (UI-wise). But clearly I'm in the minority - although my iPhone-owning friend agrees with me, hmm.

-JavaJones (November 19, 2010, 12:55 AM)

Nope, well, if you are I'm in the minority with you! I have stated before that I actually purchased an iPod Touch 4th Gen and returned it and that I've spent a few sessions in stores playing with the iPhone 4 (as it happens, I was doing so today - student of mine works in a cell phone store). I also have several friends with iPhone 3Gs and have played with their phones a fair bit as well. Overall, I don't find the OS particularly intuitive, either. I really don't like all the app icons, it's visually stunning until you try to use it, and then it's just BUSY.

305

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 18, 2010, 10:53 PM »

Yeah, that's the Nano, though. It's only the Touch and the iPhone that lock the user into iTunes...

-Darwin (November 17, 2010, 10:55 PM)

I did some more research into this and it seems that, if you want to use SharePod with an iPhone or iPod Touch, you need to have iTunes installed but it does not need to be running whilst using SharePod to transfer files.  If I ever get access to an iPhone or Touch, I'll test it out.

-skwire (November 18, 2010, 10:14 AM)

Yup - I can confirm that this is true (I've done it!). My issue is having to have iTuness installed at all. Of course, they could very well have tamed the beast, but when I ran it before it installed several services that I could not get rid of, including an Outlook add-in. Hence my irrational loathing of it.

306

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 10:55 PM »

Not as far as I know.  I use it for my daughter's Nano and I don't have iTunes installed.

-skwire (November 17, 2010, 10:18 PM)

Yeah, that's the Nano, though. It's only the Touch and the iPhone that lock the user into iTunes...

307

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 10:09 PM »

It is, but it isn't... You HAVE to have iTunes to transfer music to and from an iPod Touch or an iPhone.

-Darwin (November 17, 2010, 06:23 PM)

No, you don't.  SharePod supports iPhones and the iPod Touch.

-skwire (November 17, 2010, 09:20 PM)

Sorry - I didn't complete that thought: my understanding is that you have to have iTunes installed to be able to use Sharepod, no?

308

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 06:23 PM »

My daughter has an iPod Nano and we've NEVER used iTunes so I don't think this "iTunes lock-in" issue is much of an issue at all.

-skwire (November 17, 2010, 03:40 PM)

It is, but it isn't... You HAVE to have iTunes to transfer music to and from an iPod Touch or an iPhone. Howver, the Nano and the Classic are recognized as thumbdrives. Thanks for reminding us of that (I had forgotten - again because of my focus on the Touch  ).

FWIW the model quoted is listed at $250 here

-Target (November 17, 2010, 05:45 PM)

Holy Carp! I can get it here (the Canadian sticks) for $89.99 on sale - it' s regular $129. That's outrageous 

309

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 12:15 PM »

I usually miss these milestones, but had to edit this one and noticed the post count:

310

Living Room / Re: Hold on!! Superboy badge?!

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 12:11 PM »

hehehehe  

it wasn't meant as any insult to you, was just a fun little joke and skwire and i wanted to see how long it took you to notice it  

-mouser (November 15, 2010, 09:38 AM)

That's hilarious (even if it was at Superboyac's expense)  

311

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 12:09 PM »

Yup... that Sony is one of the players I fiddled around with. VERY nice 

312

General Software Discussion / Re: Process Explorer 14

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 11:00 AM »

I just tried it and went back to the old version. When I close the window of v14, the process keeps running on the background and I need to manually kill it using the regular windows explorer. (Using 64-bit Windows 7 here.) My older version doesn't have that problem.

-worstje (November 17, 2010, 06:25 AM)

I'm on Win 7 64 bit as well and PE 14 closes fine here from the "X" on the upper right of the window...

313

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 17, 2010, 09:03 AM »

Sorry, Target - I managed to read "Touch" after iPod in your subject line, so was thinking of alternatives to it in feature set.

Other than the iTunes lock-in, I can't think of a reason not to go iPod... unless you are concerned about audio formats, as Renegade pointed out.

Having said that, there are alternatives out there. Archos has a line of media player only products that are cheaper than iPods - my sons each have one and I am impressed by the sound quality. One son has an Archos 43 Vision and the other a 3CAM Vision. The 43 seems to sound a bit better but the 3CAM is otherwise superior in terms of its touchscreen (both are non-capacative but the 3CAM Vision performs almost as well as one), video playback quality and portability. Both connect to your PC as USB drives. They support FLAC, OGG, and WMA amongst others. I know that I sound like I'm on an Archos kick, but they're what I have the most recent experience with.

Superboyac likes the Sony Walkmans. I don't know which model he uses at the moment, but here in Canada there are a couple of lines available (E and S) and they are very competitively priced and have a nice feel to them (played with a couple in the store). 

Finally, I've never seen one in the wild, but Cowon players are very highly rated.

314

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Darwin on November 16, 2010, 11:42 PM »

I'd seriously hold out until the Archos 43 Internet Tablet becomes more widely available, if only to give one a whirl and compare it to the iPod. I had an iPod for about 24 hours but couldn't stand the iTunes lock-in and returned it (thought the hardware was nice, though. Didn't keep it long enough to form much of an opinion about the GUI/Software). Now that I think about it, isn't the ZuneHD available where you are? Or the X series of Sony Walkmans?

315

Living Room / Re: Why Apple's Distortion Field Works

« Last post by Darwin on November 16, 2010, 05:27 PM »

Thanks, Renegade 

316

Living Room / Re: Why Apple's Distortion Field Works

« Last post by Darwin on November 16, 2010, 09:17 AM »

OK - I have an account. Not happy, though - some blogger is already using Darwin as a username and another is using my default alternative, which is Huxley 

317

Living Room / Re: Why Apple's Distortion Field Works

« Last post by Darwin on November 16, 2010, 08:04 AM »

Hi Renegade - I'm in as well 

318

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Darwin on November 15, 2010, 10:25 PM »

Right - he's on my list (sigh! it's growing)...

319

Living Room / Re: Why Apple's Distortion Field Works

« Last post by Darwin on November 15, 2010, 08:46 PM »

Good one, Deozaan 

I liked "iPride 3g SUX!, iPride 4g = BETTER!"

Pretty funny...

320

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Darwin on November 15, 2010, 06:29 PM »

I MUST read "The Ring of Solomon"

-Darwin (November 14, 2010, 04:54 PM)

Don't overlook Heroes of the Valley either 

-rjbull (November 15, 2010, 03:24 PM)

Doh! That looks good as well! Thanks for pointing that one out, too 

321

Living Room / Re: Why Apple's Distortion Field Works

« Last post by Darwin on November 15, 2010, 03:22 PM »

I'm with Stoic Joker on this one - I'll help where needed. I like kewlaid.net... Nice! I agree that something more subtle might be better WRT the domain name. If you go too outrageous and angry you might not get the level of outside participation that you want...

322

General Software Discussion / Re: Slash your windows boot time

« Last post by Darwin on November 14, 2010, 04:57 PM »

I'm running Process Lasso myself - does it really speed up boot time? I can't say I've noticed (though I'm with MrCrispy - I don't really care anymore) any difference and I can't find any settings for it within the program.

323

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Darwin on November 14, 2010, 04:54 PM »

I read the Bartimaeus trilogy earlier this year - loved it! Therefore, I MUST read "The Ring of Solomon" - thanks for the pointer, I would not have known that it is out otherwise.

"Feed" was published about 8 years ago and "worked" for me because even after such a brief time it seems prescient...

324

Living Room / Re: Too Stupid to Own a Computer

« Last post by Darwin on November 14, 2010, 09:54 AM »

"(They) were bringing over $400 million," Bedi said, "and for this, they were very concerned because taxes had not been paid on this money for 60 years."

Okay so he didn't go to the cops because of the tax evasion issue - Not quite the most innocent of "victims" is he?

-Stoic Joker (November 14, 2010, 09:28 AM)

Still doesn't (quite) explain why he agreed to pay these jokers $160,000 a month...
Actually, now that I've had a cup of coffee and am thinking more clearly, this smacks of blackmail.

325

Living Room / Re: Too Stupid to Own a Computer

« Last post by Darwin on November 14, 2010, 08:41 AM »

Bizarre... After reading the article I'm more mystified than ever! What a mess...