• 23Sep 08

  Technology frustrations.

  I am a fan of electronics. I love them. I love having new toys. They're absolutely wonderful, unless they don't do what you want them too. It's all about control...

  Example one and I've griped about this before. I have a serious issue about the PS3. The PS3 is clearly the most powerful console on the market today. I dont know why Sony partnered with IBM to make a chip designed for research but they did and they stuffed that chip into their PS3 and what's more they included a Blu-ray player that allows for 7.1 sound and glorious 1080p graphics. There is, however, something horribly bad that is missing from the PS3 and what's missing is the ability to skip through the previews at the beginning of DVDs and Blu-rays. I've said this before and I'll say it again. I spent $400 dollars on the big round black ugly box and I've spent the money on the movies. After spending that much money, why in God's Name must I watch the stupid trailers? Some people may believe they have answers for that but clearly if you think you do you don't deserve to be reading what I write!

  Example two is the xbox 360. Yes we all know M$ might as well be selling us a brick but the really big issue with it is xbox live gold. There should not be an xbox live gold but worse than that, I should never have to call customer support and talk to a poor Indian fellow (who rightfully thinks of me as a spoiled brat) and tell them to cancel my gold account. This is ridiculous. They made finding the manner in which you cancel gold service absolutely ridiculous! I mean I already have had to send the dud-360 in four times for repairs (granted they paid for it each time) and now they won't simply let me not buy another month of gold online service?!? I have to call some poor Indian chap and tell that guy I don't play games online! Ridiculous! Aboslutely ridiculous! What's more, why I am paying a monthly to play a game online that I already paid $60 for in the first place?!?

  Now for the Wii. I love the Wii. It's the only source of video games I can play with my wife. The games for the Wii are classic. But you know what? I hate it when I try to do something and it doesn't register on the system. I know I am six and a half feet tall and those little industrious Japanese folk never thought of someone nearly as tall as I am ever playing their games but darn it when I do the right arm movements to make the character jump that character better jump! I mean I thought I WASN'T living under communism! These are issues that would doom NES games to mediocrity!

  Oh but my frustration does not end with poor control mechanisms for gaming consoles Oh No! It seems the corporate world is perfectly happy sending have assed electronics in other areas as well. I teach at a well known college campus and my wife does work related to medicine. We've both seen the recent popularity of a little cell phone called the RAZR (or razor for those of you who hate those stupid names). Portrayed as the perfect thin cell phone able to easily fit in your pocket and serve extra functionality this device can be seen in the hands of rich children everywhere. My wife liked the look of the devious little device and when we were interested in cell phones that played music we decided to buy. The product we bought was the V3m RAZR designed specifically to interface with your computer and play music. It plays music just fine. The trouble is interfacing to the computer. So let me explain the problem clearly.

  Motorola thought there would be no reason what-so-ever that you'd possibly consider having you cell phone play more than five songs and so when writing the drivers that allowed you to connect your V3m to your computer, they didn't bother to write them for the case in which you bothered to buy a micro memory chip for extra storage in your cell phone. The result of which is, if you bought the chip and installed it before connecting your phone to the computer, your computer wouldn't recognize the phone. What's more, to get any response at all from connecting your phone to your computer, you had to find the fix for the software. What makes this really stupid is that no-where on the Motorola website will you find a link to the fix! I had to go find someone's blog and use his link to get mtpfix.exe to ever get the thing to connect to my computer. What's more, just two months later, the phone won't connect to the computer again! This is ridiculous! Motorola has proposed no solution to this and I swear I will never buy one of their products again!

  If you think I am done, well think again! I have a gripe where few would ever dare to gripe. There is one company held in the utmost light and those who purchase their products refuse to ever admit this company can do wrong: apple. My father was looking to replace his PC desktop and so he went to his local computer store. He was convinced to buy a Mac Book and a iMac. This would provide him with both a PC that would always be at home (and have a large monitor) and a laptop which he could take with him for business. Something happened, however, with his iMac. It started freezing about every thirty minutes. Here's where I lose the fanatics. The video would freeze and fix a broken image on the screen. Now I realize I have like two readers and neither of them are still reading yet but if by some chance you are, you likely know what the issue is - a broken video card. Long and short of it is, my dad spent five months convincing Apple there was an issue and taking the thing back and forth to "authorized repair companies" before apple realized the hardware they bought from China was faulty. They made my parent's life miserable.

  Why am I griping about this? I feel that the technology companies are refusing to see a self evident truth about the technology market. I mean, clearly we want technology. We're constantly buying the stuff. Perhaps they should focus on making our experience with the technology a little better. My father is never going to buy a Mac product ever again. Certainly PCs have given him endless trouble but at least the company that sold him the PC would believe him when he said it didn't work. Motorola refuses to recognize that they are selling broken software for their cell phones that play music. Nintendo happily lives the life of comfort as their consoles sell but can't possibly consider if someone doesn't fit the proportions they specify (I have heard reverse complaints about the Wii from my shorter friends). Microsoft believes that stringing you along for more money makes a good long term business model and finally Sony thinks that you should have to deal with all kinds of crap to use their technology. If any of these companies could address these kinds of issues, they would clearly dominate the market. Unfortunately, they are all willing to put quality aside in order to get earlier sales.

  • Posted Sep 23, 2008 7:22 pm GMT
  • Category: Editorial
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• 15Sep 08

  Watching movies.

  You know, I understand the idea of advertising being included in things. At times, I even enjoy watching a well made ad. Heck, I loved seeing Martin Scorcese peddling time shares at the airport. There is, however, one kind of ad I feel I should never be forced to watch - the kind at the front end of a DVD. If I have spent my hard-earned money on a movie or tv series, I don't think I should have to sit through ads in order to watch my favorite episode or to see The Simpsons Movie. I own the disk and I shouldn't have to put up with it. Now you might say, but grig, all DVD players allow you to skip the ads in the front - and you'd be absolutely right if it weren't for one of the most frustrating facets of the most technologically advanced console on the market.

  Sure, the PS3 has a Blu-ray player and that's great. I even bought the Planet Earth series just so I could take advantage of the Blu-ray technology (by the way, it looks fantastic). It felt great, finally, I had a player that could play at the 1080i my tv was made for, heck it can roll video better than that. The other night, however, I put in The Simpsons Movie and I about screamed my head off at the sad piece of over-cooked hardware on my entertainment center. That butt-ugly shiney black over-advertised excuse for a console doesn't allow me to skip the ads at the beginning of the DVD!

  Here I was, I felt like I had bought the current ultimate in advanced technology in consoles so that I could have a complete gaming and entertainment system, so that I could enjoy the absolute best graphics placed on any tv, high fidelty sound in amazing 7.1 surround and compute protien folding in the comfort of my own home and for all that, the PS3 has turned out to be something truly horrible, it's just plain annoying. Sure the 360 breaks down all the time, it's chip set isn't nearly as fast and they charge you money to play games online that you already spent sixty dollars on (one of the biggest rip offs of all time, and I mean you, World of Warcraft!) but at least that gigantic white space-heater allows me to skip the ads at the front of a DVD!

  • Posted Sep 15, 2008 10:25 pm GMT
  • Category: Opinion
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• 15Sep 08

  Star Wars: The Force Unleashed review

  Quoting Kevin VanOrd's review of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed:

  "In fact, The Force Unleashed represents a real step forward in storytelling for the famed franchise, delivering a story both more intimate and more powerful than the entirety of the second film trilogy."

  My left butt-cheek delivers a story more intimate and more powerful than the entirety of the second film trilogy.

  • Posted Sep 15, 2008 9:34 pm GMT
  • Category: Humor
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