1 hour and 18 mins to go until we bid “aloha a hui hou aku” to Hawaii and get back to the bay area. Picture above shows our plane being prepped for takeoff. Weather today isn’t as sunny and warm as it was for most of the last 2 weeks - hence the altocumulus looking clouds in the picture.

First thing I’ll be doing once I get home? Log onto WoW of course

Hit Hanauma Bay yesterday with Shaun and Faraaz for some last minute snorkeling and then later on in the evening managed to squeeze in a night dive off magic island and saw a sleeping turtle and lots of other sleeping marine life. Was my first night dive and I was a bit nervous at first..felt weird being out in the ocean in the darkness, but once inside the water all the usual training/thought processes kick in and just feels like another dive. Felt like I was diving inside a cave because of the lack of sunlight from above…was an awesome feeling.  Will post a pic of the sleeping turtle once my divemaster/instructor emails me the pic. Until then here’s some pics from some older dives on the YO-257 shipwreck and horseshoe reef

This pic was taken at the point where the mooring line of the boat was attacked to the buoy of the shipwreck. You can see a chain in the background that we used to guide ourselves down to the wreck. Site was full of schools of yellow butterfly fish as well as other fish. Was my first shipwreck dive so I felt like a lil kid experiencing something out of this world for the first time.

In this pic I’m checking my depth gage. Maximum depth on this dive was 100 feet.

Side view of part of the YO-257 shipwreck

As you can see in the pic above, the YO-257 is thriving as an artificial reef. The ship was bought by the Atlantis Submarine company about 20 years ago for $30,000 and then the company spent around $300,000 making it suitable to use as a artificial reef. Now the site is popular among divers, tourists who visit the site on the Atlantis submarine tour and tons of marine life. In the last 20 years, the Atlantis submarine company has sunk a few more ships (one of these ships is the Seatiger ship I mentioned in a previous post that I also got to dive down to) and aircraft to create more artificial reefs and has worked with groups in Japan and the University of Hawaii on additional artificial reef projects.

Picture above was taken by me on the submarine tour of the same shipwreck that I had dived down to the previous day.

Looks like its time for me to check out and head to the airport. Will post more pics soon and write a bit more. Happy new years everyone!

First up…Woooohooo I completed my Advanced PADI scuba certification a few days ago! Got to check out two different shipwreck sites namely the Sea Tiger and the YO-257 sites that . Also did some reef dives (horseshoe reef). Wow what a difference it is diving in Hawaii versus California. Water temperature in California is typically around 53 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celcius) whereas here the water was around 74 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees celcius)!  Then on top of that visibility is much nicer (around 30-40m visibility in hawaii versus 1-2m visibility off the shore of monterey bay in california). Lots of cool tropical fish to see around here along with some sea turtles, some large octopuses, a huge string ray (around 2 metres in width). There was a diver in our group that was complaining because he was comparing the diving here to Thailand and visibility there is much better, but compared to cold water diving in Northern California, the diving here was incredible and I’m glad I took up the chance to complete my advanced certification at such an awesome location.

Also went on a submarine tour that visits the YO-257 shipwreck site. Was excited about seeing the same site twice but this time without being wet, but for some reason didn’t enjoy it even half as much as when I dove down to the site. The submarine just seemed to go by too quickly to get a good look at all the marine life and at the same time there was no feeling of wonder and excitement and a bit of nervousness that I felt jumping off a boat and diving down a 100 feet into the water. It (the submarine tour) felt no different then watching a shipwreck site on tv

Did some hiking and caught some sweet views of the island. Aside from that explored the cuisine of the island, checked out touristy spots like Waikiki beach and also snorkeled off other sites besides Hanauma bay (that I mentioned in my last post).

Cool volcanic formations on the east side of Oahu

View from a hiking trail on the east of Oahu. That island on the right of the pic is Rabbit island (looks more like a turtle then a rabbit to me)

View from the USS Missouri battleship. This is the ship on which Japan surrendered to the US and its allies and ended the WWII.

Thats Diamond Head volanic cone on the right. The city of Honolulu is towards the left of this pic (but not visible).

Now onto the power outage I mentioned in the title of this post - entire island of Oahu lost electricity around 6pm-ish yesterday including the President-elect Obama’s rental property on the east side of the island where he has been vacationing since last week. Wasn’t too bad because I was still connected to the net on the iphone and the 6-7 of us gathered around some candles and made the most of it. Woke up this morning to find that the electricity was still out in this neighborhood (power was restored to the west coast of the island around 6am) so a bunch of us drove to the nearest Safeway store to stock up on food and as soon as we paid for our purchases the power came back on So now I have a bunch of food stocked up that I need to finish in the next few days before we fly back to California.

Enough for today. Will write more once I get the scuba diving pics

On day 3 of the trip and so far its been a blast! Staying at a hostel opposite University of Hawaii and the awesome thing about hostels (besides being cheaper then hotels) is the awesome people you come across Let’s see there’s Rick, the former bio-chemistry researcher now turned trumpet player, from Palo Alto. Then there’s Eva, the Biology professor, from Texas who let me use her waterproof camera today to take pics underwater when we hit Hanauma bay earlier today. Sean the green peace dude and damn can’t pronounce or spell her name… marketing PHD student from Ohio. So yeah…interesting mix of people.

Temperture here is perfect. The bay area was freezing when we left on Wednesday morning (highs of 52 degrees F) and here its been between 72 and 80ish even though it rained a bit early yesterday morning. Skies were clear and sunny afterwards and today the overcast conditions were perfect for the evening hike to the top of diamond head .

So far highlight of the trip was swimming with a turtle for what felt like good 10 mins or so at Hanauma bay. Other stuff I came across (both fish and coral) in the water today kinda paled in comparison to what I’ve seen in Fiji waters. Was really hoping I’d see I’d see a turtle and was swimming back to shore after searching for 20 mins on the second attempt of the day when I saw this lil dude that’s in the pic below.

Okay getting hungry so this will be it for this post. Will try to write another entry tomorrow.

Starting today, you can download a plugin that will allow you to have video chats straight from your gmail window (which is probably open all the time anyway…or several times a day if you’re like me).  Works on Windows XP and Mac OS 10.4 and above. Download from here and read Google’s announcement on their official blog here. Now I know that they didn’t come up with this for the sole purpose of allowing PC and Mac users to have video chats, but  that’s the aspect of this that interests me the most! What this means to you may be totally different. Maybe you don’t care about video chat? Maybe you don’t have a webcam? For the rest of us who do care this is another piece of awesome news coming out of an awesome company

Hmm Google’s gtalk becomes more and more relevant and theres another reason to kick Microsoft’s MSN messenger out the door? Seems to be a common theme these days when discussing anything by those two companies.

Some things I like about Aperture:
- Number one thing I like about the Aperture is its ease of use. Within minutes of installing the program I was able to get satisfatory results, unlike Lightroom or photoshop where it takes a while before you can start getting good results. Lightroom may technically be more powerful (more features) and may be faster, but I believe that good programs are those that allow users to quickly and easily get to the end results that the user have in it. The less time spent fiddling around with settings and menus, the more time users will have to enjoy and share their results!
- Changes made to images are stored as “versions”, storing just the thumbnail image, adjustements and embedded information, but it does not create a image file until you export it. This saves space on your hard drive.
- Easy to “lift” adjustments made to one picture and apply it to other pictures.
- I have a e-520 camera, and Aperture’s update to support the e-520 RAW format was released before Adobe (they still haven’t).
- $100 cheaper then Lightroom (Aperture 2.0 is $199, while Lightroom is $299).

To close this entry, here is a before and after screenshot of the first image I edited with Aperture. Its a picture I took outside a cathedral in San Francisco earlier this year. Even though the file was not saved in RAW, I was still able to recover the details that were lost in the underexposed parts of the statue.

Original image.

After editing.

Earlier this week I caught a Shark’s game with my buddy LN who has a good luck bringing ritual of his own. TO ensure a sharks win he eats nachos in the first period of the game and pizza in the third period. Oooo a ritual that involves eating? Count me in!

Game was against the Pittsburgh Penguins. There’s no doubt that they’re a good team, as they made it to the final round of the playoffs last year. Check out the pic below.

That’s their team captain Sidney Crosby, who is one of the brightest stars in the league and considered by many to be the “face” of the NHL. He was a first round draft pick back in 2005 and since then has made headlines by becoming the youngest team captain in the league and by also being the youngest player in the history of the NHL to win both MVP and scoring awards.

The shark’s arena can hold 17,490ish fans…and its normally full of teal and white wearing sharks fans, but there was a good number of fans in attendance wearing Sidney Crosby jerseys, (Oh and btw Crosby’s jersey is the best selling jersey on NHL.com) especially fans of the female variety.

Sidney Crosby warming up before the game with Shark’s players in the background.

Well guess LN’s ritual worked! Not even Crosby could stop the 5 home game winning streaking. Sharks left the ice with a 2-1 win! Crosby didn’t get any goals…he didn’t even manage to get more then 3 shots on goal against the Shark’s defense! Ahhh the power of nachos and pizza (and a a good game by the sharks of course :))

Desktop:
With Windows Vista and previous MS operating systems, if you have a lot of applications/documents open on your screen and you wanted to look at the desktop you could either minimize all the windows one by one, or click on a button on the taskbar that would minimize all windows at once. With Windows 7, placing your cursor on the corner of the screen, “hides” (as seen in next two screenshot) the windows and allows you to see the screen.

Windows 7: Loads of open windows.

Windows 7: Windows “hidden” to expose the desktop.

Hmm sorta useful I guess….but OS X already has that feature and it works better and looks sexier! As you can see in the screenshots below, first you have a screen full of open applications. Now one downward swipe of your fingers on the multitouch trackpad and it displays a miniature version of all the open applications, allowing you to easily find any window that was previously hidden. Want to see the desktop? Well one upward swipe with your fingers on the multitouch trackpad and ZOOM, open windows fly off the screen displaying your desktop!

OS X: Lots of open windows.

OS X: Swipe fingers down on touchpad to see all open apps.

OS X: Swipe fingers upwards on touchpad to see desktop.

Windows 7 Widgets/Gadgets:
Apple calls them widgets, Microsoft copied them and calls them “gadgets” in Microsoft Vista. In Vista, these gadgets were in a sidebar on one side of the screen. In Windows 7, the sidebar is gone, but as you can see in the screenshot below, the gadgets can now TA-DA be placed anywhere on the screen.

Hmm…that seem’s pretty familar..OH wait…OS X has the same feature! (screenshot below).

So yeah looks like microsoft is just ripping off features thats have been available on OS X for a while now. There are some upcoming features that sound cool, but with the way Vista went, I won’t believe a word of what they’re saying Windows 7 will be like until I can actually see it with my own eyes.

(Note: On macs without multitouch trackpads, the features above can be activated using keyboard shortcuts and also by moving the cursor to one of the corners of the screen…as MS copied)

Icing on the cake? This album will have a version of life in technicolor with lyrics! LIT was one of my fav songs on the last album Viva la Vida or Death and all his friends (VLVODAAHF) ..and I remember Chris mentioning in an interview early this year that the lyrical version was going to come out on their next album and since then I’ve been waiting to hear it!

Tracklisting:

1. Life In Technicolor ii
2. Postcards From Far Away
3. Glass Of Water
4. Rainy Day
5. Prospekt’s March/ Poppyfields
6. Lost+ (with Jay-Z)
7. Lovers In Japan (Osaka Sun mix)
8. Now My Feet Won’t Touch The Ground

No major surprises in the track listing. Postcards from far away, glass of water, rainy day, prospekt’s march/poppyfields were all written prior to the release of VLVODAAHF and didn’t make it onto that album because according to the boys those songs didn’t fit the mood of that album (not an exact quote). Coldplay also recorded a song with kylie Minogue that didn’t make it onto the last album…was hoping it would be on this one, but doesn’t look like it made it Hope that gets released sometime in the near future.

So two coldplay albums in one year…plus I got to see em live for the 3rd time earlier this year. Can it get any better?  Well I’m hoping they come back to cali next year on the second leg of the tour! I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed. I know they recently announced some new japanese tour dates (Lucky you Sharky, I hope you get to go see em!) and will prolly be adding more dates over the upcoming months.

Hit the middle fork river for some white water rafting this last august a few days before the season ended. Was my 2nd time rafting the middle fork river and the 3rd time going with W.E.T Rafting company. Love those guys over at W.E.T. Their guides are the best on the river IMO and I don’t intend on going with any other companys in the future.

Middle fork river is famous for the Tunnel Chute rapid (the one in the pics below).  River is rated 4+, but the tunnel chute is a 5 I think. Its a 15 foot drop to the bottom and immediately after hitting the bottom, you enter a tunnel that was blasted into the rock by miners back in the days of the California Gold Rush. Last time I rafted here (in july 07), the water was flowing much faster then this year’s trip but it was still a lot of fun. One advantage of doing this rapid more once is on that on subsequent trips you’ll know where the camera man is and you’ll know when to smile!

Unfortunately pics were only taken at this rapid and non of the others that followed, because the river is pretty remote and for the most part not accessible by road. 

Halfway down the tunnel Chute

Waving at the camera man!

Why am I the only one smiling?

The tunnel at the end of this rapid. On the last trip a friend’s head almost got hit by a jutting rock on the left side of the tunnel.

New Additions (in alphabetical order):

- Awesome Cake: Don’t know if I keep going back to his blog to see his kick ass drawings or read his blog entries. Both are addicting like…well…like awesome cake!

- NobodyInIT: This is my long time (primary school and high school) buddy’s brand spankin new blog. Need to ask him where he got the title of the blog from :). Just by looking at the other 2 comments left on the blog, I can tell it’ll be a great way to keep in touch with old friends since they’ll be frequent visitors on that blog.

- Paradise Not Found: In the words of the blog owner “Who cares if you don’t know where Fiji is? We will tell you. We will show you. Most importantly…we will live it for you. Aimless youth with infinite possibilities on the how and when who would rather muck around town, shoot a few billiard games and drink themselves to a satisfying stupor then help achieve world peace.” Well I haven’t seen anything on world peace yes, but the blog entries have left me rofl at work (eeek…wait its probably not a good idea to admit I read this at work).

Sister enjoyed her first game. Prior to this game Jonathan Cheechoo was the only shark’s player she knew of..so of course she kept screaming his name every time he stepped on the ice. Will most likely take her to a few other games this season. Nice having another sharks fan in the family

Brought along my 40-150mm lens to the game and took some pics. Pics came out alright but the 150mm zoom wasn’t enough to see much details on the faces of the players….need to pick up a 70-300mm lens in order to do that I think. That purchase will have to wait though as I ordered a macbook pro today (one the new ones that came out on tuesday)!

Cheechoo shoots!

And scores!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Game over!  Sharky comes out to celebrate the win!

Next year I’ll be sure to leave earlier!

”
A contentious battle between Apple and part of the music industry is set be decided today (Oct. 2), when a panel of judges appointed by Congress is expected to rule whether Apple (APPL) and other online music distributors should pay higher royalty fees to music publishers.

The ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board affects not only Apple but also Amazon.com (AMZN), EMusic, RealNetworks’ (RNWK) Rhapsody, and Best Buy’s (BBY) Napster. Music publishers, who represent creators of song lyrics and sheet music, want an increase in royalty payments while Apple and the other companies are pushing for a reduction.

…..

Many within the industry expect the board to leave the current royalty rate unchanged at 9.1¢ for every 99¢ music download. The panel is due to provide the parties with a written decision on Oct. 2 before making it public on Oct. 6.

Music publishers would like to see the rate raised to 15¢ for every 99¢ sale, arguing that online music distribution costs much less than those of CDs, which also carry a 9.1¢ royalty. “You don’t have to ship them, there aren’t any breakage problems,” says David Israelite, president and CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Assn..

…

The RIAA and the Digital Media Assn. say the current rate is already too high and want it reduced to about 4¢ per download. Record labels are competing against music that’s distributed freely, explains DiMA Executive Director Jon Potter. “It’s a difficult thing to do,” he says.

….

Ultimately, the music industry could suffer if Apple were somehow forced to raise its prices, some analysts say. “If the price is too high, everyone is going to go the other way, which is free,” says Daniel Ernst, an analyst at Soleil-Hudson Square Research, which has a buy rating on Apple.”

For once I’m on the same side as the RIAA. With over 5 billion songs being legally downloaded from itunes I think its pretty safe to say that $0.99 a song is a sweet spot for most consumers. Any increase in royalties will hurt the bottom line of companies that sell digital music and cause them to increase their prices…driving consumers back to peer-to-peer file sharing networks, torrents etc etc. Music publishers shouldn’t get greedy..as it is the royalty rate per song of 9.1 cents is the same as CDs, but their overhead costs are much less…doesn’t that translate into a better deal already for the music publishers? David Israelite’s comment in the article quoted above seems to go against logic. You’re getting the same $$ with less risk/expenses! Be happy and move on!

Off topic - Now there are people like me who still don’t purchase songs at 99cents/track… its not that its  expensive (1/4 the price of a coffee!) but its due to DRM. I don’t want any restrictions on the number of computer’s I can listen to a track, the number of people I can share it with, the number of times I can burn it onto a cd etc etc. Yeah there are alternatives out there like Amazon that offers DRM-free music but 1) its not as sexy as itunes and 2) its not itunes (Ok so I’m biased? haha).

Things I’m looking forward to this season:

1. New coach: Since the new Coach used to be Detroit’s assistant coach I’m hoping he injects some toughness into the Sharks. Yeah

2. NABBY!!!: Are an awesome season last year, expect more of the same awesome goal tending this year!

3. Black jersey: The Shark’s Black jersey will be back this season. Sharks had 3 jersey’s prior to last season…Teal jersey for home games…White for away games..and a black one that they wore from time to time. LOVED the black jersey..but last year when they switched to Reebok jersey’s all teams dropped their third jerseys for the season. Reebok’s reason was something along the lines that they didnt have time to create the 3rd jerseys for all the teams..but I bet the REAL reason is to increase sales this season - if they offered 3 jerseys last season, most people might have only bought 1 out of the 3..whichever looks the coolest in their opinon…but since they offered only 2 jerseys last season, a fan would have gone out and bought one..and then this season might find the 3rd jersey better looking then the one from the previous season..and end up with 2 new jerseys - this isn’t really a bad assumption based on opinons of fans on forums…I know a lot of shark fans bought a teal jersey last season even though they really wanted a black one. I fall into that catagory haha.

4. Taking pics with zoom lens. I don’t think the 40-150mm will be enough though…even with Olympus’s 2x lens multiplication factor…might need to get a 70-300mm…Trideep you didn’t tell me photography was gonna get this expensive!

5. Watching the sharks kick butt and make it past the 2nd round of the playoffs and bring home the Stanley cup!

Okie enough for now…there’ll be more posts on the Sharks throughout the season. Here are the games I’ll be attending (not counting the playoffs )

Tue. Oct. 14 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
Tue. Oct. 28 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
Tue. Nov. 4 vs. Minnesota Wild
Sat. Nov. 22 vs. Washington Capitals
Sat. Dec. 6 vs. Edmonton Oilers
Thu. Jan. 15 vs. Calgary Flames
Thu. Jan. 29 vs. Phoenix Coyotes
Thu. Feb. 19 vs. Los Angeles Kings
Thu. Mar. 19 vs. Nashville Predators
Sat. Apr. 4 vs. Anaheim Ducks

(Took this pic at a Sharks game last year…fight! fight! fight!)

So today was session #2 with the trainer and he KILLED me…last time I worked out that hard was back in high school when I used to run track and field…..I’m sure if Lin or Regesh reads this they’ll remember how the first training session of the track season was always also so intensive (well mostly because the 3 of us we pushed ourselves harder then the others) we ended up throwing up haha. Haha..good old days! Lin mate you still do that running the 400m for your aussie club team ay? 

By the end of the session just barely had enough energy to drive the 0.2 mile distance between home and the gym. First thought that passed my mind as I hit the shower? -> “I need to sign up for more sessions!”

Have 2 more sessions remaining…looking forward to getting my ass kicked again…what can i say..maybe I have a thing for pain?

UPDATE: Geek Dreams is back to its normal colors, but if you wanna check out the pink theme that was up for a day click on the image below

Oh and this happened on the intersection of El Camino and Mary in Sunnyvale…same spot where a lady ran a red light and hit my car in februrary of this year! That intersection is cursed I tell you!

(Maroon car is mine. Car on the right is the accord that got hit. Sunnyvale police car in the background and cop in the foreground is writing down Faraaz’s account of the accident)

Seconds after I published this post, the driver of the accord emailed us to thank us:

“Hi Shiva and Faraaz,

Thank you so much for your amazing help tonight. I truly appreciated it. 

I was very fortunate that you guys kindly called to the police and explained the accident. Without your evidence, it would have been a difficult situation to me. I hope things will soon be clarified.

Thanks again for your kindness. I will keep you updated if anything happens.

Best regards,

(name withheld)”

1) Kitt is not a FORD mustang. No, I didn’t expect them to use a 80’s model Trans-am for this new series, but they could have used something that resembled the sleek looks of the original instead of a fat mustang.

2) What’s up with KITT’s voice? Sounds wayyy too human-ish. If they wanted to use a different sounding voice, they should have used a name other then KITT. THIS IS NOT KITT!

3) Part of what was appealing about the original series was that it was just Michael, KITT and Knight’s vision of “one man” changing the world! The new series has a command center with 20 or so staff members. What the hell is up with that? One of many sucky moments in the first episode was when Michael is close to dying, and to save his life a security protocol needs to be overridden and for “dramatic” effect two staff members argue about it for a minute before deciding to save his life. Halfway through the first episode KITT speeds up to over 300mph to put out some flames that engulfed the car, but can’t catch up to a regular production model car in a chase scene later on in the show? So much crap in the first episode? Pfff…

4) Why does such a big buget show have crappy computer effects? The scene in the first episode where KITT turbo boosts looked like graphics from last generations gaming consoles.

I scheduled my tivo to record this season of the show but after watching the first episode I’m left disgusted .Deleting it after I’m done with this post. If they wanted to make so many changes they should have changed the name of the main character and of the car, that way no direct comparision would have been made with the awesome original.

She asked me how long I was going to keep the PC. I said until the end of this year. Then she asked me if I know that my warranty ends in october. I said I do, but don’t care because I’ll be getting a new computer anyway (I was planning on keeping the monitor, keyboard, mouse and just get a mac mini to replace the heart of the system..but waiting for Apple to update mac mini’s with better graphic cards). Then she has the nerve to tell me that a new computer will be more expensive then an extended warranty and asked why I would want to do that.

Yeah its more expensive, but why the hell would I want to keep that piece of shit Dell any longer then the end of the year? The only thing that sucks more then their cheap shitty hardware is their customer service. For example when the hard drive died, it took them a month and a half before they finally came home and replaced it. Each customer support rep I talked to made me do the same things over and over (”Ok turn off the computer and unplug it from the electrical socket..and now plug it back in and start it up. Is it ok now?) and when one rep couldn’t fix the problem they would pass me on to another rep who asked me to do the same stuff over. Even though I told them I suspected the problem was with the hard drive no one at Dell’s customer support was willing to listen.

Anyway back to the telemarketer…told her that I understood that it would cost me more, but an extended warranty would not help me solve the problems I have with Vista so its pointless for me to extend the warranty. She proceeded to go on and on about how the software support that comes with the warranty will fix my vista problems. Told her that nothing Dell’s customer support can do will fix Vista, and that I don’t care about those problems anymore because I’ll be replacing the desktop with a mac anyway, thanked her for her time, wished a good day and hung up.

Next time I’ll hang up as soon as they introduce themselves to me as a Dell telemarketer/rep, just like I do with those telemarketers from San Jose Mercury News who keep bugging me about subscribing to the Sunday newspaper. Who reads newspapers anymore? Why pay for the paper when I can get all my news for free and whenever and wherever I want it through the web?

Changes:

- Cosmetics. Has a oval cross section. Went back to the “thin tall” factor of the 1G and 2G nano (3g nano was fat and short). Looks pretty sweet. Check out image below.
- built in accelerometer (same as iphone). This will allow games designed with the iphone in mind to play on the nano. Sweetness! It will also allow the nano to switch to cover flow mode (the mode in which instead of listening song titles/album titles it displays album covers instead that you can flick through through the use of the click wheel) ..and it also allows for the next bullet point
- Shuffle songs by shaking the nano! Now thats cool!
- Genius mode (this is also being added to the ipod touch and to itunes). Here’s Apple’s description of this feature:

“Say you’re listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. The Genius feature finds the songs in your music library that go great together and makes a Genius Playlist for you. It’s like having your own highly intelligent, personal DJ.”

- improved battery life (up to 24 hours)
- headphones with built in mics and built in remote control.
- voice recording capability
- Use of more environmentally friendly materials

Changes to the ipod touch were also announced, but I’ll skip that for now due to time constraints. It looks like the iphone now and includes the genius feature. Also has external volume control and speakers like the iphone. Aside from that there’s also a new version of itunes (version coming out and NBC will be returning to the video store (they left itunes a year or so ago because they wanted to charge around $5 per episode for their tv shows including heroes, but Steve Jobs did not want to charge customers any more then $1.99 at the time).  Also out by the end of this week will be iphone software version 2.1 that is supposed to reduce number of dropped calls, improve battery life, crash less and provde faster backups. Mine hasn’t crashed much and my backups are also fast, but I know some readers of this blog have those issues so hopefully 2.1 will fix those problems.

Oh and heres more info on the new nano and touch. Cool thing about apple is most of the time their products are available to buy at the same time as the announcement.  Oh and there was supposed to be some Microsoft announcement today as well..but who cares? (new zunes…blah).

Just ordered a 16gb ipod nano to use in the gym. It’ll be replacing my older 30gb ipod whose screen is starting to give up (I sat on it) and i a lil bulky for the gym..don’t want to use my iphone in the gym because then it’ll be covered in sweat at the end of each session. Ordered the black nano…second on the left in the pic below. Can’t wait till it arrives! I should have just gone to the apple store in a day or two and picked it up personally instead or ordering it online but I doubt I’ll have a chance to go to the apple stores anytime soon.

Microsoft is prepping to insert its own version of the Apple Genius, dubbed Microsoft Gurus, in stores like Best Buy and Circuit City, but unlike the Genuis Bar staff, Microsoft’s pros will only help with pre-sale questions, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Tom Pilla, Microsoft’s general manager of corporate communications, isn’t comparing the Microsoft Gurus to the Apple Genius bar team. “Think of that as borrowing a page from Nordstrom with that retail customer experience,” he said.

The Gurus will be placed in stores to help potential customers select Microsoft solutions and to offer pre-sale support. They will not, however, be available for post-sale support, unlike the Genius Bar staff, potentially limiting their usefulness to new Microsoft customers.

The Microsoft Guru program is part of a US$300 million campaign the Redmond-based company has launched in an effort to improve its image. The company recently launched a new TV ad series with Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld as part of its image revamp, too.

Source

Sweeeeeet..now I can go bug these “Gurus” with questions like “Why is vista a huge piece of sh*t?” , “Why the f*** did some features/utilities from XP get replaced by less efficient utilities in Vista?”….

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of the xbox 360’s high failure rate (the ring of death failure)…I was curious about how many consoles were affected and finally came across some numbers in a book by Dean Takahashi (this is his 3rd book on the xbox).

Numbers:

-In July of 2007, Microsoft publicly acknowledged the so-called “Red Ring of Death” issue and took a corresponding financial hit of more than $1 billion to fix it. Prior to that acknowledgement, Takahashi reports that Microsoft had taken returns on 1.2 million of the roughly 11.6 million shipped Xbox 360s. However, the problems responsible for that return rate had been around since before the console hit shelves.

- Takahashi quotes a Microsoft engineer who raised the issue of hardware reliability in August of 2005, months before the system’s November launch. At the time, 68 of every 100 Xbox 360s made by Microsoft’s Chinese manufacturing partners were coming off the line nonfunctional. Worse still, when the first batch of the system’s three-core CPUs rolled off the line, only 16 percent worked.

- There were even issues with the QA machines that supposedly ensured the 360’s system reliability. Takahashi reports that the machines would approve faulty units and were not properly debugged because Microsoft wanted to save $2 million on a $25 million contract with its third-party manufacturer. (source)

With the recent price cut in the US, the xbox 360 is now $199 for the cheapest configuration..that makes cheaper then the Wii….but do you really want a cheap piece of faulty hardware? Your choice…I’ll stick with the PS3 (and i also have a wii that I don’t place coz theres no games out for it that I find interesting enough).

Also out is version 3 of Picasa. Briefly used it today to sync some albums. Besides the sharing/sync features I love the new picture viewer..does a much better job then the default windows viewer. Download Picasa 3 Beta from here and read the announcement on official google blog here.

Went camping last weekend with and it was a blast. Camp ground was located minutes away from the heart of Point Reyes National Seashore. Camp was set up on saturday and since daylight was quickly fading all we had time for was dinner…not gonna complain about that :) 

Sunday morning woke up early…to the sound of crows…and a crying baby from a nearby tent but that was alright since years of college have made me pretty used to getting no more then 5 hours of sleep. After breakfast drove out to the lighthouse. Beautiful scenery all around all around.

The steps leading down to the lighthouse didn’t look too bad intially…so I didn’t pay too much attention to the sign stating that the climb was equivalent to a 30 story building. Walk down was a piece of cake…but on the way up….all I’m gonna say is that I’m glad I’ve been hitting the gym lately haha..otherwise I’d be in a bit of trouble….I wouldn’t say that the climb was equivalent to a 30 story building though…maybe a 15 story building.

On the way back to the camp, we stopped by an oyster farm…and that brings up the most important part of the weekend…THE FOOD!

WOW..just wow…we had some kick ass chefs in our group who conjured up amazing kabobs, chicken and lamb dishes…and there was lots and lots of my fav…bacon haha

And for the health conscious….veggies wrapped in bacon! (the only way veggies should be eaten!)..

..and fresh oysters from the oyster farm!

A bunch of us also got to see a baby rattle snake on a hike. Turns out that baby rattle snakes are deadlier then full grown ones. According to Wikipedia:

Rattlesnakes are born with fully functioning fangs capable of injecting venom and can regulate the amount of venom they inject when biting. Generally they deliver a full dose of venom to their prey, but may deliver less venom or none at all when biting defensively. A frightened or injured snake may not exercise such control. Young snakes are to be considered more dangerous, as they have less control over the amount of venom they inject. A young rattlesnake will often simply inject all its venom, which is a deadly amount.

Well this one didn’t do much…just chilled in the middle of the path for a bit and once it got tired of all the rockstar-ish attention it was getting decided to just slither away into the grass. Within a blink of an eye you couldn’t distinguish the rattlesnake from the grass. Would suck to run into one of these accidently.

No more snakes on our hike, but lots of tree hugger eye candy

Returned on monday and hit the gym right away…needed to burn off all that yummy-ness from the trip. 

SINGAPORE - The International Olympic Committee delivered a shocking message to baseball and softball on Friday (06/08/05): Yer out!

The two sports were kicked out of the Olympics, unwanted by international sports officials who felt they were too American for the world sports stage.

The decision, made during a secret vote in Singapore, is effective for the 2012 London Games, meaning the two sports will have a final fling at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The sports, the first eliminated since polo in 1936, are eligible to reapply for the 2016 Games.

U.S. women won all three gold medals since softball joined the Olympics, at the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Games. American pitcher Lisa Fernandez, a three-time gold medalist, blamed the decision on IOC president Jacques Rogge.

“Rogge has basically conspired against the sports to get them removed. We had done our job as a sport world wide to show we belong,” she said. “I feel one person, the president of the IOC, a person from Europe, has taken it upon himself to ruin the lives of millions, actually billions of women.”

Crystl Bustos, who hit a record five homers during the 2004 Olympics, said the one-sidedness of the softball tournament should not have been used as a factor. The Americans outscored opponents 51-1.

“If that did play a role in the decision, then that’s pretty pathetic,” she said. “I don’t mean to cut anybody down, but it’s supposed to be the best of the best, and if you get knocked for your excellence, then that’s just not right.”

Two-time gold medal-winning infielder Dot Richardson said the Olympic dream “was ripped away from the 126 countries that play the sport of softball, that just vanished.” Source: MSNBC

What the hell happened to the Olympic spirit? So if a nation/individual wins an event 3 times in a row, its ok to vote it out? So let me guess…by that logic if Phelps repeats his performance in London 2012, will 6 swimming events (since he won 6 in 2004) be kicked out of the olympics because it’ll be TOO AMERICAN for the world sports stage. If that’s the case then for the sake of swimming Phelps should withdraw out of the 2012 olympics…because the IOC president Jacques Rogge has a hard on for successful athletes/nations.

In the words of the former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch:

“For me the olympic spirit is about three things: Athletes, Sport, and Olympic ideals”

Ok and whats sport about? Well besides participating  and all that good politically correct stuff its about WINNING!  So eliminating a sport simply because a country/individual is dominating goes against the olympic spirit in my books.

Oh and btw for those of you not following the olympics very closely this year…Japan beat the US in the finals this year. OMG how did that happen? Wasn’t the sport too American Jacques?