The Autumn Film giving away their music during March 2013

The Autumn Film is giving away their music for the month of March, along with the Hymns albums from another of their musical projects. If you haven't heard them before, you have no excuse now, so get to downloading. If you are familiar with them, I guess you are as excited as I am.  :) I already own all but one of The Autumn Film albums that are free for download, so I am downloading that and the Page CXVI stuff, which I was not familiar with before this announcement. What I have heard so far is just as good as I'd hoped it would be. Here is the official announcement from the band, and below that, I have written a short piece explaining how I discovered them and what their music has meant to me:

"After seven years of crafting music as The Autumn Film and Page CXVI, Reid Phillips, Latifah Phillips, and Dann Stockton are giving away their catalog for the entire month of March. Eleven albums, seventy-four songs, two bands. Think of it as a Jubilee. Think of it as a sweet springtime gift. Think of it as something to share with everyone you know.

Starting Friday, March 1st, all of the albums from both bands will be available to download for free at http://pagecxvi.com/jubilee, and we would love your help with spreading the word."

Note: the giveaway is from SoundCloud and the site makes you wait 5 minutes between each album download, so start with "The Ship and the Sea," then "8 Track Tape," then get everything else while you listen to those. Also, while they are giving this away to build brand recognition, I'm sure they would appreciate some donations for all this stuff if you have some cash to spare.

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Over the last few years, I realized I had managed to lose the habit of keeping up with the new music scene. Around the same time, I was introduced to thesixtyone.com, which is a great site to discover new music, especially independent bands. For a year or more, I had a pretty good habit of using that site for at least a few hours per week. It was there that I first heard The Autumn Film. The song was "Mended," and, from the first line of lyrics, I was hooked. As the song was nearing the end, I clicked the band's name to go see their library of songs posted on thesixtyone. I ended up listening to all of them several times through before going to their site and buying "The Ship and the Sea." They had some free downloads on their site, so I got all those while I was there too.

I listened to them a lot over the course of the next few weeks, especially "The Ship and the Sea." As usually happens these days, though, I got behind on podcasts and stopped listening to music for a good long while. When I finally did find some time between podcasts, I found myself going back to The Autumn Film more than any of my other favorite music. Little did I know at the time just how important this band would be for me.

A while back, I had hit a rough patch emotionally, really struggling to get through some dark and trying times. Whenever this happens in my life, music is always my refuge. Well, this time, I had The Autumn Film waiting for me. The song "Mended" was a real lifeline for me. There was one day where I listened to that on repeat for at least half the day. And, as I sang along, the words were helping me deal with my struggles, but they also became my prayer at a time when I couldn't find the words to pray, begging God... "Don't give up on me now, this can all be mended." I really feel like that song saved me from giving in to despair at a time when I could barely see the light.

Then "8 Track Tape" and the Coldplay covers were released, and they quickly became household favorites. And again, they came to the rescue at another difficult time. When our youngest child, Rose, was born, she had a lot of issues with her stomach and digestion. She would scream a lot. Walking around lightly bouncing her helped, but never quite made her comfortable enough to settle down completely. This went on for months, and we were really getting to the end of our ropes. Finally, I decided to try playing some music to see if that would help. I tried various things I thought would be soothing, including some of the favorite albums from when the other kids were infants. They weren't working. Then I played "8 Track Tape." During the first track, it didn't seem to be having any more effect than the other music, but when "Love is an Avalanche" came on, Rose immediately started to calm down. By the end of the song, she had stopped crying. By the end of the track after that, she was almost asleep. I thought nothing of it at the time, but the next day, it worked again. The day after that, it worked again... and it kept working. Apparently, Rose's favorite song was "Love is an Avalanche." The funny part is that it is upbeat and fun, not soothing and calming. But it kept working, and it became a priceless jewel in our lives at the time, because we finally had a way to calm her down.

For these two songs, I am forever indebted to the members of The Autumn Film. I hope to be able to see them live someday soon so I can thank them in person. I have always appreciated music where you can feel the emotion being poured into it by the artists, and this music was clearly a work of love for them. I am grateful to have discovered it. It has been a great reminder to me of the power and value of good music... at a time in my life where it is easy to just get caught up in the emotionless world of technology work and forget that there is more to life than logic.

So, do yourself a favor and check them out. I can't promise you will love them as much as I do because every soul resonates to a different tune, but I do know that if you do end up loving them as much as I do, that will mean we are kindred spirits.  :)  They have earned a place in my very short list of musicians that I always keep tabs on to see what they are up to, when they have new music, and where they will be playing live... alongside Jars of Clay, Marc Cohn, and Mike Oldfield. Not bad company for an independent band.

And, Reid, Latifah, and Dann... if you happen to read this... thanks for baring your souls through music. You have a great gift, and you never know who will be touched by your work. Keep up the good work as long as you can, and may God bless all your endeavors.

Peace,
Todd Russell
March 2, 2013, 3:40am (yes, helping them spread the word meant enough to me to stay up this crazy late)

Motorola Photon 4G for Sprint Review

I just posted a pretty extensive review of the Motorola Photon 4G over at gdgt:


http://gdgt.com/motorola/photon-4g/reviews/f44/


To summarize, this phone feels like the future.  Go check out the full review and feel free to join the community over there if you like discussing gadgets.

The Diamond Mako - A love story in five acts

Act 1: Love at first sight

In thinking about my answer to "What are your favorite gadgets on your gdgt lists and why?", I had so many thoughts about the device at the top of my list that I decided to make it a full-blown blog post.  If I seem to ramble, I apologize in advance, but this is meant to be an ode to the one device that I loved more than a person should ever love inanimate objects. (feel free to skip to the "Epilogue" if you want a short summary)

I remember the day I first saw it. I was on my way out of Circuit City and made my customary pass by the last row of the computer section, where they kept the hot items to make them more visible. When I got to the last item, I stopped dead in my tracks.  I couldn't believe my eyes... a folding device, with a full keyboard, that would fit in a pocket.  I slowly moved up to it, glancing at the product placard on the way... Diamond Mako.  How had I not heard of this before?  I immediately started operating the touch screen and found the interface to be completely obvious and familiar.  I opened the word processor and was delighted to find that it was a fairly competent piece of software.  I started testing out the keyboard and found that I could type perfectly well in the word processor with it... not as fast as a real keyboard, but fast enough to do real writing, especially after a little practice.

This was like a revelation.  I had been trying to finish my book about my journey to Ireland for years, and found that I could never stay on task when trying to write at home.  Much like in college, I did my best writing at a coffee shop, away from the distractions of my daily life.  I immediately began to have visions of finishing my book in the local coffee shop and beginning my next project.  I couldn't justify the cost of a laptop at this point and none of the PDA type devices I had looked at before really intrigued me.  I needed something mobile desperately, though.

The only problem was the cost... $299.99 is nothing to sneeze at even now, and it felt like a lot more back in 2001.  Yes, it was a lot cheaper than a laptop, but still expensive in relation to my budget at the time.  I left the store without it, of course, but I couldn't stop thinking about the possibilities for the next several days.  After discussing it with my wife, I started saving money and managed to scrape enough together after a few weeks.  While I was saving, though, I started doing some research online and discovered that the Diamond Mako was an American repackaging of the Psion Revo Plus.  I started bookmarking pages of programs I planned to install when I purchased it.  Of course, this was building up quite a bit of anticipation in me and I was hoping I would not be disappointed when I finally got it home.

Phase 2: To know the Mako is to love the Mako

The day finally arrived and I rushed home with my prize.  I read through the manual while it was charging and installed the sync software on my PC, checking out the options to convert documents from the device over to Word format on the PC.  I was stoked.

When the charging was through, I sat down and started writing the next section of my book.  This was going to work.  I then started entering my calendar into the calendar program on the Mako and setting alarms.  I was thrilled to discover that the alarm would ring indefinitely until you told it to stop, even if it killed the battery in the process.  I needed this to keep me on task.  Over the course of the next few months, the calendar feature proved itself to be an even more valuable feature to me than the word processor, as this was a very busy and stressful time in my life.  The calendar program worked exactly the way I think and made the Mako worth its weight in gold to me.  I have never found another calendar program that I like as much or that is as useful to me.  Everything I have used since feels like a clunky collection of half-solutions to produce the same results I got in one simple place on my Mako.

Next, I found myself loading up text files of things on my reading list, which allowed me to start getting reading done that I had been putting off.  Being able to pull the Mako out of my pocket any time I had 10 minutes to spare and pick up where I left off was like adding another hour to my day.  Granted, we have better dedicated reader programs now than we did then, but it worked, and it changed my vision of what a portable device should be.

The pinnacle of my Mako days was when I finished the first draft of my book, at long long last, while riding on a train returning home from Christmas vacation up north.  The Mako had accomplished its goal admirably and helped me to complete my long-procrastinated work.  I could have kissed it that day.

Act 3: Infidelity

About this time, another thing was happening in my tech world.  I had discovered the Mac by using one at work and began longing for an end to the misery of dealing with Windows 98.  I had reached a point where I hated Windows and couldn't wait for the day I shut that machine down one last time.  Through some video work I was able to do, I finally managed to buy my first Mac.  All was well with the world... almost.  Only after the Mac was in my possession did I bother to look for Mac options for syncing up my Mako.  It was not pretty.  There were two Java-based projects I found, but neither was complete or bug-free, and I only managed to get one of the options to even pretend to work.  This was a huge blow to morale.  It meant that I had to fire up my Windows machine, the one I wanted to get rid of, every time I needed to sync my Mako or move files on or off.

This got to be irritating enough that I started looking for Mako replacements that would work with the Mac.  At the time, that meant Palm Pilots.  That was all that would work very well.  The more I looked at Palm devices and portable keyboards, the more I tried to convince myself that they would be better in the long run.  Deep down, though, I felt that I couldn't really forsake my beloved Mako... or could I?

Then fate happened.  My Mako developed the dreaded rechargeable battery death problem.  It would no longer charge properly and I couldn't get it to run on battery.  I was sad, but, at the same time, I was hopeful that my extended warranty might get me a new Palm device since the Mako had been discontinued for a while.  After sending it off and waiting for weeks, I finally got the call from the warranty company that I would receive a full credit of the original purchase price since they could not fix it.  Now that the deal was done, I got excited about a new Mac-friendly device and used my credit to buy a Palm m125.

Act 4: Regret

It didn't take long for the excitement to fade.  In fact, I felt sick to my stomach within minutes of seeing the ridiculous Palm Desktop sync software at work.  How much more convoluted could they have made it if they tried?  The Palm's address book and calendar felt like pathetic Fisher Price "My First PDA" garbage after using the Psion software.  Not having a physical keyboard began to grate on me within days.  And writing while on the go?  Forget about it.  The only thing this was very good at was keeping a shopping list.  I felt duped, then angry, then depressed.

I very quickly began to regret my decision to send in my Mako.  I wished that I had kept it and tried to find a way to replace the battery myself.  It took me a few weeks to get over this feeling and just accept my fate.  I made due with the Palm as best as I could, but I never liked it.

Act 5: Nostalgia

To this day, I have never found a portable device that I have loved the way I loved that Mako.  Losing my Mako sent me on a perpetual quest, like seeking the Holy Grail, that I am still longing to complete.  I have since tried the Sharp Zaurus 5500SL, which I liked in many ways, the Psion Series 5, which couldn't compete in terms of pocketability and reliability due to the AA batteries, and several modern phones including the original iPhone, the Nokia e71x, the Samsung Moment, and the HTC EVO.  None have inspired in me the love and appreciation I had for the Mako.

Granted, my attempt to use a Psion Series 5 after years away from the Psion software showed me that we had come a long way since the days of the Mako in terms of software, but it did not quench my nostalgia completely.  The Mako had the perfect form factor for the tasks I used it for, and none of my devices since have given me such a perfect balance of size, shape, weight, battery life, and keyboard.  I have been watching the gadget world closely for a modern Revo-inspired device, but every close contender falls short in one way or another.  So my nostalgia remains, possibly to never be satisfied.  Perhaps one day this nostalgia will inspire me to give up the search and take matters into my own hands by learning enough electrical engineering to build a replacement myself.  Rest assured, though, any company that builds a device that can truly replace the Mako in my heart will be the recipient of my undying affection.

Epilogue

I think the reason the Psion Revo / Revo Plus / Diamond Mako was such a winner is that it was designed and built by a company who saw a problem and wanted to provide a solid solution, believing they would be rewarded by those who would buy it, love it, and promote it.  As we know, those kinds of aspirations don't always work out in the marketplace.  The best products often fail to be the winners in their categories, losing to the "good enough" alternatives.

The Mako really felt like it was designed to solve a problem, and, for me, it did so perfectly, inspiring the most devoted affection I have ever held towards a gadget.  Most modern devices feel like they are designed less to be a solution to specific problems, and more like they are built to be just good enough and flashy enough to get people to buy them so the company responsible can use the device as an ad platform, content sales mechanism, or multimedia ecosystem lock-in.  Some might argue that I am too cynical in this opinion, but I would only challenge them to show me some examples of modern portable gadgets that really do address specific, and possibly niche, sets of needs.  Sharp may be the only company with any shred of that attitude left, but they seem to have lost their will to soldier on.  I thought I had found my answer in their IS01, but it hasn't gotten any attention and seems to be too under-powered to really handle the demands that Android will make of the hardware going forward.  If I find one cheap enough, I may give it a shot, but its cost in comparison to other modern gadgets that fill similar needs makes it hard to justify.

If any of you Psion hardware designers are out there and listening, please know that there are still those of us who would love a modern Revo running Android, with a small high-res screen.  If you can wade through the present climate of ecosystem lock-in that threatens to kill problem-solving innovation, it's not too late to come out of retirement and fill that Revo-sized hole in our hearts.

Todd Russell

June 16, 2011

Review: Arcade Fire

There was once a time when people would ask me what new music I had been listening to. This was because I was known among family and friends to have a knack for discovering music that they would like. I finally reached a point, though, where I stopped keeping up with new music. In the midst of a drought of decent music, I went back into the catalogs of the bands I already liked and found enough music that I no longer needed new music. And this is my excuse for being late to the parade on hearing of Arcade Fire.


I heard them mentioned by someone I know recently, then they did the crazy HTML 5 web music video with Google, then a friend mentioned how much he liked them. I thought the song in the video was not bad, so I decided to check them out. I headed to grooveshark.com and searched for them, then started picking songs from the list to listen to.


The first song I listened to was "Wake Up". It reminded me right off the bat of the band Plankeye. It wasn't a bad song, but as the song progressed, I realized I'd rather be listening to Plankeye.


The second song I chose was "No Cars Go". It was different. I appreciated their attempt to use odd instruments and samples throughout. It sort of reminded me of Jars of Clay and their use of interesting sounds and instruments. The rhythm reminded me a little of old school Sixpence None the Richer. As the song progressed, though, I realized I'd rather be listening to Jars or Sixpence.


The third song was "My Heart is an Apple". Not bad. It reminded me, though, of Death Cab for Cutie, and maybe a little Waterdeep, possibly with a dash of Blind Melon thrown in... or maybe Belly. And again, as the song progressed, I realized I'd rather be listening to Death Cab or Waterdeep.


Last up was "Rebellion (Lies)". Even though there is not a direct correlation, it reminded me of old school Peter Gabriel, and a touch of Death Cab... and maybe a heavy dose of Coldplay on the repetitive instrument loops. You guessed it... as I listened, I realized I'd rather be listening to Peter, Death Cab, or Coldplay.


So, the music isn't bad, and I do appreciate the fact that they are different from a lot of other mainstream bands, but different has been done before and by bands with more musical talent than these folks have. If the music just keeps reminding me of other bands, why not listen to those bands instead? I hope none of my Arcade Fire lovin' friends take this as a dis to them. In a world without all these other bands, I'd probably be just as stoked as they are. From what I heard, though, I'd rather spend my precious music listening minutes in the week on other music I like better.


If I am missing something, I am willing to be proven wrong. I did consider while listening to these songs that they could be the kind of band you have to listen to several times to really "get". This has happened to me a number of times throughout the past, to the point that I now consider that while going into a first listen. I can now, usually, spot that effect on the first listen and realize that if I listened a few more times it would grow on me. The second listen through these songs for this post didn't convince me of that being a probability in this case.


My final analysis... if they are on, I won't turn to something else, but if I am in a specific music mood, there are other bands that nail my specific moods much more precisely. If you like any of the bands mentioned above, though, at least listen to them.

Pre-Review: The Facebook movie

"Pre-review?  Don't you mean preview?", you ask.  No, I am very deliberate in my choice of words whenever I write, and even more so when I choose words that aren't really words.  By pre-review, I mean that I will review the upcoming Facebook movie, "The Social Network", before it comes out.  To answer your question... no, I haven't seen a pre-release copy.  Nor have I read the script.  What am I, Creskin the Time-Travelling Magician?  Not exactly.  Although I like to think of myself as "often prescient", I'm not even relying on those skills for this review.  Pure logic will suffice.


Before you get too irritated with my banter, I suppose an explanation is in order.  In regards to "The Social Network", I have no more direct knowledge than any of you readers have at the time of this posting, which amounts to having viewed the movie trailer.  From that trailer, however, it is pretty clear that "The Social Network" follows closely to the book, "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook".  And that is where my pre-review is coming from... sorta.


I listened to the audiobook version of "The Accidental Billionaires" about a year ago, and watching the trailer for the new movie incited flashbacks to listening to the book.  If you are starting to think it sounds interesting to read a book about how Facebook was founded, let me assure you that doing so would be one of the worst mistakes you would ever make.  Perhaps you think that sounds a little exaggerated, but it is rather difficult for me to put into words the pain, sorrow, and misery you will feel while reading (or listening).  The thing is, though, these are not feelings that will be created in you by a gripping tale that makes you identify with characters who are experiencing sadness or loss.  Nor will these feelings be created by entering in to the events of a great modern tragedy.  No, these feelings will be created by what must be the most sophomoric writing I have ever had the displeasure to experience.


I literally hated this book.  There were times when I actually yelled out loud in my car at the author for his pathetic attempt to describe scenes that "might have happened".  The level of writing made me feel as if I were grading papers for a 9th grade English class and stumbled through the manuscript of a teenage boy who has just "discovered" that his calling in life is to become the next great author.  Ugggggggh.  The dialog was often ridiculous.  His filling in the gaps in the story by pondering what "might have happened" as Mark went from one screw-up to the next annoyed me so badly that I wanted to throw the iPod out the window of my car and drive back and forth over it to make sure those bits would never be transferred to another storage device again.  The over-abundance of adjectives and needless words drug the story out at least an additional hour or two in total.  The whole experience was almost as pleasant as being kicked repeatedly between the legs by a giant, red, Bozo the Clown shoe.  Incidentally, the last time I felt that my intelligence was so insulted was probably the last time I watched Bozo the Clown on cable tv in the eighties.


"So why did you listen?", you ask.  Believe me, I asked myself that same question every time I pressed play.  I felt I needed to know the story, though, so that I could better understand the motives behind the constant abuses of private information being added to Facebook as "features".  I was pretty sure I already knew the reasons, and this would be a good way for me to confirm or deny my suspicions.  In the end, it did confirm for me what I believed... that Mark Zuckerberg has no concept of the rights or concerns of others... that he is either autistic or has narcissistic disorder (or even a little of both).  The story clearly showed this to be a fairly accurate read.  It was good for me to know this so that I would be reminded to be very judicious about what personal info I let out into Facebook, even through such features as the supposedly-private messages.


I have heard a lot of comments about this book and it appears to be the general consensus that it is roughly historically accurate.  By extension, I will assume that the movie will be as well.  The trailer seemed to connect with a lot of the scenes from the book.


After watching the trailer, it is pretty clear to me that watching this movie will be every bit as painful as reading (or listening to) the book.  The dialog will be terrible.  The acting will be laughable.  The script will be disjunct and fail to tell a deeper story beyond simply retelling what happened on a surface level.  On top of that, people with moral sensibilities will be routinely scandalized by the events and their portrayal.  There will be almost nothing redeemable about this movie... with one exception.  Like the book, it will probably at least give you a poorly rendered portrait of Mark Zuckerberg, the self-centered social misfit who is dealing in the private info of millions of average people.


For that alone, I will recommend that everyone who uses Facebook see this movie.  Yes, I know I just trashed the movie and assured you that it will be the most painful experience of movie-going you are likely to ever experience.  However, if you want to continue to use Facebook, you should know who you are trusting your info to.  I would like to hope that you will walk out of the theatre a little scared, even.





If you would rather not spend $9 at the theatre to see this atrocity to mankind, just wait for it to hit DVD.  I am pretty sure that, within a month or two of its release, it will be in the $1.99 bin of your local Wal Mart.  You can buy a copy, watch it, then smash it into tiny pieces and throw it away.  At least that way, you can feel like your participation in this travesty brought some good to humanity by reducing the watchable copies in existence.  Or, just watch it on hulu.com for free when the studio gives up on trying to market it and just settles for the advertising money.


Though your time will have been wasted whichever route you take, at least you will have reason to think twice about every click you make on Facebook from that point on... and that can only make the world a better place.


Todd Russell
August 26, 2010

Review: Why I love my Acer Aspire One

[Update: Since writing this review, I have been using Ubuntu Linux Netbook Edition on it and have found it to be even more useful, although with reduced battery life.  Aside from the minor issues of the right SD card slot not working, and the machine locking up if I attempt to sleep it with an SD card in the left slot it works great and I still love it.  With Ubuntu, it has improved in almost every area mentioned below and I have also added 1GB of RAM, which allows me to boost performance a little by not using swap.]

There are other reviews of the Aspire One out there, so I won't treat this as a basic review, but will focus specifically on how well it works for the way I intend to use it.  Let's start on the positive side.

Size: Well, this size is about as perfect as it could be without some irredeemable compromises for a machine to do real work on.  It is not quite small enough to fit in a cargo pocket, but I can accept that now that I have had it for over a week.  It is small enough that I have been able to carry it around without a laptop bag.  I even discovered that it fits perfectly into the glove compartment in my car.  At just over 2 pounds, carrying it in hand is actually preferable to having a bag slinging around at my side.  The footprint of it is small enough that I am able to set it up next to my MacBook Pro at work on the edge of the desk, or in front of my monitor at home.  When it is closed up, it can be set darn near anywhere until its next use.  And yes, it passes the "use in the bathroom" test.  While it would seem nice to be even a tad smaller, now that I have used it, I realize that getting any smaller would make it so much less useful than it is because the keyboard is awesome.  I am able to type at nearly full speed on this keyboard because it is just big enough to not throw me off.

Keyboard: Speaking of the keyboard, the action on the keys is great and the keyboard is mounted firmly, giving it a good, solid feel as opposed to the squishy feel that people complain of on the other brands' netbooks.  The biggest advantage, though, is that it has a REAL right Shift key, making the typing at near full speed possible.  The little Shift key on the other brands just doesn't cut it for real typing from what I hear.  Arrow key placement is also very good, and the inclusion of the F keys makes it possible to have easy sleep, mute, and monitor toggling.  Lastly, the Home key in place of the Windows key is very useful since Acer programmed it to hide all windows and take you to the desktop.  I also discovered that the keyboard has a good design for resilience when a friend knocked over his coffee nearby, sending several splashes of coffee onto the keyboard.  With a napkin, I soaked up as much as I could, then let it sit overnight before restoring power to it.  All the keys are working fine.

Trackpad: I thought the trackpad would be a complaint since the buttons are on either side, but the more I use it, the better I like it.  I will admit that the buttons are stiff and loud (which is embarrassing when you try to sneak in a refresh of Gmail while sitting in a meeting).  This actually caused me to reconsider trackpad tapping.  For the record, I have always hated trackpad tapping due to the inevitable accidental clicks.  So, I have always turned it off on any trackpad I was going to use for any period of time beyond helping someone with their new machine.  I turned it back on, though, and adjusted the timing a little with the settings slider, and now it is perfect.  No accidental clicks yet, and this has enabled silent use of the trackpad in meetings.  Bonus.  After using it for a week, the surface began to smooth a little and the feel is great now.  There is also a handy slider to change trackpad sensitivity, which allowed me to get it just right for my fingers.

Screen: The screen seems to use led backlighting since it has a slight blue tint to it and because if I thump the side of the screen, I do not see the waver that is normal with standard backlighting.  This is good, if so, as that means longer life and lower power drain.  The vertical viewing angle on this is roughly equivalent to most other laptop screens, but the horizontal viewing angle is amazing at almost 180 degrees.  The horizontal viewing angle is one of the best, if not the best, I've ever seen.

Hibernate: Hibernate actually works!  Still not as good as a Mac, but better than what I expected based on my experience with PC laptops in general and linux laptops in particular.  It takes about 15 seconds from hitting the power button to the point it is scanning for wifi signals again.  Not bad.  I carry it around everywhere in hibernate, just like I have always done with my Macs.

Wifi: Works great and has a good network connection manager that does a good job of switching to new networks when availability changes.  It is miles better than what I have experienced from linux wifi in the past.  There is one caveat mentioned below in the cons.

Speed: Despite the limited 512 RAM and slow SSD drive, the thing is surprisingly fast for most tasks.  Opera browsing and OpenOffice loading blow the doors off my old G4 Powerbook.  I really did not expect it to be as fast as it is.  I am happy with the speed and may not even bother with the RAM upgrade.

Linpus Linux: While it can be a little restricting to an advanced user, I am finding myself resisting the temptation to switch the desktop to advanced mode.  I am enjoying the simplified GUI as it makes it quicker to launch apps than a typical menu-driven desktop environment.  Besides, one of the reasons for getting this was to advertise it to friends and family who I am trying to convince to stop using Windows.  Having a simple GUI is a nice way to grab their interest.  I think both Microsoft and Apple underestimate the demand for a truly simple to use computer.  This is getting really close.

Battery: I am pleasantly surprised to find the battery lasting between 2.5 and 3 hours, which is what I had hoped for but not expected.  This is a 2200maH battery, so when I get the 5500maH, that should equate to roughly 7 hours of battery.  I have waited for that day for too many years.  Now, if Acer would get off their butts and release the darn thing instead of just talking about it.  With the retired 2200 as a backup, I'll be able to get roughly 10 hours of mobility.  Awesome.

Speakers: Wow... no way no how did I expect something this small to have speakers that are as loud as these.  They sound pretty decent too, considering the size.  Perfect for pandora.com.

LVM card slot: The left SD card slot on the machine can be pooled together with the internal storage to create a bigger "drive".  Not sure if I will use it, but the idea is pretty cool.

Fun: With all these factors combined, the machine becomes fun to use... almost addictive.  I find myself wanting to carry it around with me everywhere and doing more reading than normal just to have the excuse to use it.  It's been a while since I could say that about a machine.

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Cons
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Balance: Not a major con, but it can be a little back heavy if the screen is tilted too far.  This is ONLY an issue when using it propped on a leg or in a hand.  As long as it is on a flat surface, tilting the screen all the way back does not cause the machine to become unbalanced.

Wifi crashes: Sometimes, after waking from hibernate, the wifi driver will crash, preventing connections to wifi.  A reboot, which only takes about 60 seconds, will fix it, but the quicker fix is to simply turn off the wifi card using the physical switch on the front-right of the machine, then turning it back on.

Updating: After running my first Live Update of the system, the Network Manager lost all my saved networks that I had recreated.  It's not a huge ordeal for me to recreate them, but it makes me wonder what else got set back to default without my noticing.  Speaking of defaults, I have found that some GUI tweaks, like adding a location to the left sidebar in the file manager, disappear after a reboot with a return to the factory default setting.  There is surely a way to make it keep changes like this, but I haven't had time to dig that deep yet.

Right SD card slot: I just discovered the other night that the right slot is not deep enough for a card to go all the way into the body of the laptop, and leaves about a third of an inch of the card still sticking out.  This is not the end of the world or anything, but it would have been nice to have the card all the way in, especially when carrying it around by hand rather than in a bag.  As it is, the amount of the card that sticks out is not enough to create enough leverage to break the card unless you dropped it right on the card from several feet, and even then it might survive.  Having been schooled by Apple design, though, this just bothers me a little on principle.

High gloss:  High gloss plastic makes for ugly fingerprint smears.  Not a big deal, but for someone with Aspberger's this can cause undue amounts of wiping with shirt tails.  The plastic around the screen is high gloss, too, and can be reflective, making for ADD distractions depending on what is going on behind you.  The screen is high gloss as well, but it is not bothering me due to the brightness of the screen, so that is good.

External resolution: Using the default external monitor port, Acer's screen manager will still use 1024x600 even if you switch to using only the external monitor.  There is a quick hack which amounts to running the terminal command:
xrandr -s 1024x768
You could choose another resolution if so desired, but I have used this and it works fine.  Of course, you have to remember to run it again and set it back to 1024x600 before switching back to the internal, but I can live with this for now.  Hopefully Acer will update that in a software update.

Power brick: To be fair, Acer's brick is very small and includes a velcro strap for wrapping the cords together to try and manage the mess.  Really, this con is leveled against the PC world more so than the Aspire One's brick specifically.  I am spoiled by Apple's power bricks that roll up nice and neat, so I hate the way the PC industry does laptop bricks.  The cables are a mess during transport.  Oh well, can't win them all.

Got root?: It is entirely too easy to get root access on one of these if you have it in your hands.  The sudo timeout is set too high, so all you have to do is reboot, open a terminal, and type "sudo -s".  Bingo... what would you like to delete today?  Or, simply click the network manager icon in the taskbar, disconnect and reconnect the network, then open a terminal and run the command.  From a security standpoint, I'll agree that if someone malicious has your machine it is toast.  In this case, though, even a prankster or a friend can quickly get root, so you better trust anyone you hand this over to for "trying it out".

- - - - - - - -
Final thoughts
- - - - - - - -

This machine is actually becoming my main machine, although I did not expect it to.  The portability covers the minor faults, leaving the whole picture a very positive experience.  The first thing I did was install Opera, then edit the desktop config file to show launchers for Opera and the terminal, and that makes life with the Aspire happy.  The default Firefox was fine, but I love Opera.  Anything I can run the full Opera on is fine by me.

Considering the current retail price is down to $329 (I ended up getting mine for $309 at Circuit City on sale!), this is the netbook to beat.  No other netbook in this price range has a real right Shift key, and that is really the killer feature when compared to others.  I feel like the addition of the 5500maH battery will finally give me the piece of hardware I waited many years for Apple to make.  Well, I certainly am not waiting anymore and am happy with what I have.  I can also easily recommend this to first-time linux users as a way to get their feet wet with minimal risk.  After all, they could install Windows or OS X if they just couldn't stand linux.  If they give it a chance, though, I am sure they will be happy with it for the uses it is designed for.  If they basically just want something to get on the internet with, this will meet their needs and keep them safe from viruses since it is running linux.  Score a win for Acer.

Todd Russell
September 12, 2008

Review: The Book of Eli

I don't know why, but I just love apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic movies and literature. Some of my favorite movies fall in this category, and I tend to be very lenient toward the genre as a whole when judging individual works. Needless to say, then, I was excited to see The Book of Eli after hearing comments from friends. After having seen it, I'm finding it hard to let my traditional leniency win over my one big gripe, though. If you haven't seen this movie yet and you don't want to have the ending revelation spoiled for you, do not read past this paragraph until after you watch it. Let me assure you, though, the revelation was pretty lame, and I now wish someone had spoiled it for me beforehand so I could have just pretended that wasn't part of the movie.

Admittedly, the movie was pretty brutal in its portrayal of what life would be like in a post-nuclear world. It did have a resonance of truth to it, though, and certainly seemed more authentic a vision than the world of Mad Max. The main character, Eli, is believable enough, despite his unexplained ability to take down a crowd with a sword without suffering so much as a scratch. He's a dead-eye marksman with a firearm and pretty sweet with a bow and arrow as well. These are just 3 reasons why the revelation is so ridiculous. Blind? Really? Come on, folks, you can do better than that.

I appreciate a plot twist as much as the next guy. I remember the "Aha!" moments in The Usual Suspects and Sixth Sense. They left me thinking, "Brilliant! That explains everything!" The Book of Eli, on the other hand, left me thinking, "Hey, you lied to me!" The script tried so hard to disguise his blindness that they actually put in countersigns like those listed above that no blind person in a million years could ever pull off. Only with divine intervention could such feats be possible, but they don't ever give any real indication that he is being guarded and guided by the hand of God. True, he tells the girl that he heard a voice and followed it, but that is as close as we get to any kind of explanation along those lines, and there is nothing in the script to concretely back that up.

The really ridiculous part of it all is that they could have just left out the blind revelation and the movie would have been an entertaining post-apocalyptic movie without it. Instead, they drop this bombshell that is so unbelievable that it spoils the entire movie for me. Had there been some obvious (in hindsight) setup, I might not be so disappointed, but the only real hint I can remember was the scene where he holds the iPod up to his ear and tries to turn it on when the battery is dead. If I watch it again, I'm sure I will spot some other subtle hints, but a revelation like this has to immediately bring to the mind of the viewer a lot of scenes to make it believable.

I appreciate the effort to make an interesting script, but I just can't get behind this movie after feeling lied to. Come on Hollywood, you must have better writers than this?

Review: Bean - OS X Document Editor

[If this is your first time here, see my post about how I do reviews.]

If you are anything like me, you may feel a little depressed about the state of document writing on OS X.

Yes, there is Microsoft Office, but I have philosophical reasons to be opposed to everything Microsoft (I'll extrapolate this another time) and I'd rather use pen and paper than Office.

NeoOffice is pretty good, but when I want to write a quick document, I hate waiting 3 minutes (I know, this is a little exaggerated, but you get my frustration) for the darn thing to load up to the point I can start typing. I could fire up an old Mac SE/30 and be 3 sentences in by the time I see the icons in NeoOffice.

I love simplicity, but, for crying out loud, Apple's "TextEdit" is just ridiculous. You can't even resize the window without changing the margins. This is fine for doing plain text, but if you want to do a real document, this just doesn't cut it.

Fortunately, I have discovered Bean (http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html). Bean is a great document editor and you will love it if you are like me and fit into any one or more of the above mentioned categories of complaint.

First of all, you may notice I am referring to it as a document editor rather than a text editor. This may seem odd to many of you, but I am a programmer and my definition of a text editor is something that only does plain text and is generally only useful for coding or simple ReadMe files. By referring to it as a document editor, I am highlighting the fact that this program makes actual documents... formatted, multi-page pieces that generally include styling of some sort. This is what most people generically refer to as "Word documents". This annoys me to no end by the way, so please cease and desist said practice if you fit that category. A Word document is any document of the Word format, denoted by its filename extension of ".doc". Okay, now that my mini-rant is over, let's move on. ;)

As I hinted at above, Bean is simplicity. It does not have boatloads of features. It does, however, take advantage of all the built-in OS X goodness such as the Dictionary features, live spell-checking, Text-to-Speech feature, the excellent Font Chooser, the system-wide Color Picker, and drag-and-drop from Finder. These are what I consider the essential basic features for a document editor. These features also exist in Apple's TextEdit and were the only reasons I could tolerate it from time to time. Now, I can get these features in an app that works the way one expects a document editor to work.

There are several other features of Bean that come in really handy:
1. "Paste and Match Style" - If you've ever copied something from another document and pasted into the current working one, you have noticed that it kept the font settings of the other document (depending on what program you are using - but most do). Sometimes, this is good. Most of the time it is not, which means you now have to highlight the text and change it to match the surrounding text you just pasted into. In Bean, under the Edit menu, you will find Paste and Match Style, which will bring you happiness. :)
2. A live wordcount + character count + page count on the bottom of the window - Now you can keep an eye on how long winded you are at all times and save yourself the guesswork of having to go back and edit words out at random.
3. "Send to Mail" - Granted, it is easy enough to attach a document to a new email the old-fashioned way, but having a menu item to do the work for me makes the lazy person in me want to smile (dancing for joy wouldn't exactly promote the lazy ethos now would it?).
4. The ability to save as Word and other formats - For me, this is not a great feature because I prefer to just send someone an rtfd document and tell them they should be using something more universal and free than Word format, but I know this is a big deal to many of you, so I included it. Yes, there are easy ways to convert to Word format, but being able to choose it in the Save dialog is so much better.
5. Its default document format is rtfd - As I said, I prefer to promote file formats that are more open and not locked to a several hundred dollar piece of software created by an evil empire. RTFD is accessible to most document programs and allows for styling. Admittedly, the OpenDocument format is best in that regard, but it is less accessible until everyone gets a copy of OpenOffice or NeoOffice installed on their machines (they are free, by the way).

I have used Bean a few times now and am really happy I discovered it. It is still in Beta as of today's writing, but I have not had any issues with it and the only quirk I have noticed is that the document focus will sometimes shift up or down as you are typing near the top or bottom of a window. This doesn't cause a problem because the cursor continues doing what it is supposed to do, however, it can cause you to do a double-take the first time or two as you make sure you are still typing in the right place. After a few times, you know to trust it and keep typing and it is no longer a concern.

For really complex documents, you will still need something more robust, but if you are like me and want simplicity as much as possible, be sure to check it out:
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html

Peace,
Todd

Review: Creative I-Trigue 3400 2.1 Speakers

[If this is your first time here, see my post about how I do reviews.]

If you are too impatient to read my philosphical setup for the actual review, scoll down to the image and start there. Otherwise, carry on....

Speakers are something we all take for granted. They're everywhere these days, for better or worse. Due to that fact, we have all been conditioned to unflinchingly accept sound waves coming at us through terrible tv speakers, cheap headphones, flat car speakers, and the worse-than-atrocious things they put in cell phones. I must admit that I fit the average here, which is rather strange since I am such a music lover. My taste in music spans almost every genre, with my deepest appreciation being reserved for music that is moving to the soul. Such music is often woven from numerous instruments and sound sources, or sung by people with amazing voices and equally amazing lyrics. I'll be doing a review soon of one of these, but on to my point.

Over the years, I have settled for any way possible to get sound to my ears. I have been willing to listen to music over the little speakers built into the Nintendo DS, over baby monitors, with FM static, and on free(for a reason) computer speakers. I have still enjoyed my music despite the flat mid-range that all the highs and lows of the songs have been smashed into. I'm easy like that. I had one such set of speakers in my entertainment center for a long while, a set of 2.1 Juster speakers that someone had given me after I fixed a computer for them. I thought they sounded okay, but eventually the "crackle" while adjusting the volume was grating on my nerves and I started looking around for a better, but still cheap, set of 2.1 speakers to replace them.

Roughly 9 months ago, I started the quest in earnest. I decided I wanted to stay in the $50 price range since we have a need to be frugal in all "amenities". I began watching sale ads for the local electronics dealers and doing a weekly browse through several of my geek shopping sites. Very often, I'd see a set of speakers in the price range and I would go check reviews of them on newegg.com, amazon.com, and circuitcity.com. Every time, the speakers got wildly mixed reviews, but it was obvious enough that they were not well built or sounded terrible. I would sigh in dejection as I continued my quest.

A few weeks ago, Circuit City was selling the Creative I-Trigue 3400 2.1 Speakers for $49.99 after Mail-In-Rebates. In the past, I have had a 100% track record with Circuit City Rebates, so I started looking for reviews. Oddly enough, there were not many out there, but the few I found were overwhelmingly positive sans one by a person whose review was so discrepant that he either had a damaged pair or had issues with his setup in Windows. I decided to bite the bullet and headed down to pick up a pair.

For more info on the Tech Specs, click the image above to see their page.

Setup took a while because our entertainment center is actually a 5ft. tall computer hutch with closing doors, occuppied by a Mac mini and a 17" Sony Trinitron as the "heart" of our entertainment needs. This is not ideal for movie watching, but we mostly listen to music anyway. The Bass Sub fits almost exactly into the cubby hole at the bottom of the hutch, and the speakers are standing in the back corners of the area for the monitor, with roughly 6" of separation from the walls of the hutch. These speakers come with a volume knob that is separate from the speakers which works perfectly for our setup because we have it tucked into one of the top cubby holes where little ones cannot reach it. The cables were all long enough for this scenario and I am extremely happy with the volume knob.

With everything in place, I decided to test them with the most worthy of tests: "Dark Island" from Mike Oldfield's album "Voyager". I was struck to silence. It was as if this was the first time I had ever listened to the song. Mike Oldfield has numerous layers in this song and I was hearing things I had never heard before. After fiddling with the Bass setting and volume for a moment, I backed up a few feet and stood in awe. I could literally feel the music. I could feel the Bass, and the 3 individual speakers in the satellite caused a spatial separation between the highs, mids, and lows that made me feel like I was listening to the music in a live studio, where the instruments would have been coming from different places, and at different strengths. I could not believe how amazing these speakers sounded.

Excited, I grabbed the mouse and started scrolling through the iTunes Library for some other songs that would be good tests. I wanted to hear some vocals, so I headed to Sarah McLaughlin's "Silent Night". I was now grinning from ear to ear as I felt the harmony voices coming at me from separate spatial locations, and could hear every emotional waver of her voice. Again, I had never heard music this way through speakers before and it gave a very live feel to the experience. I tried some Michelle Tumes, Leigh Nash and Dan Haseltine, Jars of Clay, and Marc Cohn. I was so excited at all the nuances I was discovering for the first time in songs I had listened to hundreds or thousands of times before, that I just wanted to go through and listen to every song in our collection all over again.

I went into the kitchen and told Mary Beth, "You have to hear this." She came in and we started going through some more of our favorites, both in awe and noticing things we'd never heard before. We ended up standing there almost an hour doing this. For the finale, I put on Marc Cohn's "Ellis Island", and we heard this amazing song in an even more amazing way than ever before. Over these speakers, we could feel the emotion in his voice more powerfully than we ever had before.

I now understand why audio snobs are audio snobs. After using these speakers, I do not think I will ever be able to buy another cheap set of speakers again. I only paid $50 for these, but now that I've heard them, I'd willingly pay $200 if I had to. Yes, they are that good.

If you read the synopsis on their page, they discuss the technical reasons for this sound quality, and I can tell you it is not just marketing. The titanium microdrivers make all the difference in the world. As I said, they do such a great job with the separation of highs, mids, and lows, that it creates a more live feel to the music and different instruments have different intensities at which the waves hit you, causing you to distinguish them clearly as separate instruments, and also to distinguish the different strengths of the instruments in the mix.

There are some great practical advantages to this speaker set as well. I really like the feel of the big volume knob on the control, and the Bass setting is a smaller knob on the side of the unit so that you are unlikely to accidentally change the Bass once you get it the way you want it. The other features of the control are the headphone jack, which I haven't used yet, and the Line In jack. This feature is fabulous if you have friends you like to trade recommendations with. Now, if a friend comes over with an iPod and wants to play a song for me, it is easy to just plug it into the jack on the front of the controller and play it through the speakers. The convenience of this is superb. Interestingly enough, when you plug something in, it does not override the audio from the main connection, but mixes the 2. So, if there is music playing on the mini, I have to at least pause it before playing the external device. This is not a problem, but it is not what one would normally expect. I tested the Audio In jack with my Nintendo DS and it sounded great.

So, in closing, if you have never listened to your music on a set of real speakers, you owe it to yourself to go out and buy a set of these and reserve a few hours to listen to your music collection for the first time all over again.

At the time of this writing, the cheapest place I could find a set was at Directron for $83. They are definitely worth that price. You can also buy them directly from Creative's site. If they are unavailable at the time of your reading this, I would recommend buying one of the other models that use the NeoTitanium Tri-Array[tm] Technology, as I believe that is what makes these speakers so incredibly good.

About My Reviews

I have a handful of reviews coming down the pipe, so I figure it is best to first give some disclaimers in regards to the way I will be handling reviews. There seems to be a fairly common practice in the Tech industry of giving favorable reviews in exchange for money or free review models. Hey, I'm not knocking the people that do this. We all need money to pay bills and gadgets to play with, right? That's not the way I will be operating here at the Coop, though.

I'm pretty hard-headed, some say to a fault, about sticking to my philosophical point-of-view when it comes to issues of fairness and justice. Part of this is that I simply refuse to be bought. One does not easily win my favor or approval (especially in regards to products), and attempts at winning me over through gifts or money only solidify my refusal to bestow either favor or approval.

So, rest assured that you will never read a review here that is anything other than my opinion. I take my opinions seriously, as they exhibit who I am to a great degree, and I will not hold back whatever praise or enmity I have for a product regardless of the circumstances that brought it into my possession. As I said, we can all use a little extra money to help pay off those credit cards. I can only assume that my sheer brilliance as a critic will become readily apparent after a few of my reviews, so if a company saw this and offered to pay me cash or goods to do a review of their product, I'd certainly entertain the notion. I would be upfront with them, though, that my review would clearly state that I'd been paid to do the review, and that I would not be shy about verbally assaulting said product, no matter how much I had been paid, if I find it to be lacking. Fair enough, right?

Another aspect to my reviews is that I really only intend, at this point, to cover things that I have first-hand knowledge and experience of that have not already been reviewed to death by others. If I do review something that has been reviewed a lot, there are only two circumstances under which I'd cover it anyway.

The first is if there is some aspect of the item in question that I feel has not been adequately commented upon by those others. Having a philosophical and theological way of analyzing things, I often observe things that others simply do not care about. For instance, there are mountains of reviews of Mac OS X, but how many of those observe the way Apple works from a "big picture" perspective in their design and expect the user to think rather than memorize when getting familiar with using the OS? This is the type of thing I may write about despite all the other reviews.

I definitely want to cover items I have that are slightly more obscure, though. It is hard to find reviews of some of the things you can purchase at geeks.com and places like that, so I plan to fill that void where applicable.

The second situation is if an item was a gift to me. I often receive gadgets or entertainment as gifts for Christmas. I plan to honor the people who gave them by taking the time to give back to the community through a review of the product. Again, I will not hold back in my criticism if the product is a failure, so people who give me gifts just have to know not to take my reviews personally, for better or worse.

One other important detail is that I will usually put up a link to the place I purchased the item from. In instances where I have an affiliate account, I will use the affiliate link. Please do not think from this that my reviews are just meant to be a way to fish for affiliate money. I only sign up for affiliate accounts at places that I actually buy from and like. So, I have an affiliate account at Meritline because I like their service. If I review something I buy from there, I will definitely use an affiliate link since I do not hesitate to recommend them to others. On the other hand, I wouldn't sign up for an affiliate account at TigerDirect if I was broke and eating scraps off park benches, so if you see a link to them, know that I begrudgingly bought from there because I could not find what I needed anywhere else. I certainly would not go sign up for an account just so I could try to make money off the fact that I am posting a link to their product. Again, only in cases where I like a place enough to recommend them will I be using affiliate links.

I think that sums up my approach to reviewing. I am a harsh critic of a product when it fails, but I will have undying loyalty to a company that makes good products and I will recommend them every chance I get. That's just who I am. I could sell anyone something that I myself am pleased with, but couldn't sell a bad product to someone even if it was the only job I could find. Then there is my famous blacklist, which you may have noticed a hint of in my mention of TigerDirect. Consistently do the consumer wrong, or do them wrong one really bad time, and there's almost no escaping the depths of my disdain.

Having bored you now with all my disclaimers, let me move on to some actual reviews.

Peace,
Todd