— The future is here, and…

“The future is here, and it’s not an iPhone… it’s a big ass table.” Microsoft Surface SPOOF video.

iPhone Apps

So the iPhone is just around the corner and the apps are already cropping up.  I’m currently a Verizon customer (and don’t have $600 just sitting ready to spend) so I won’t be standing in line with the droves June 29th. However I am very interested to see how this all pans out as I assume that I will be an iPhone user at some time in the somewhat distant future.

If you keep up with Apple news fanatically (as I do) you know that Steve Jobs recently announced at WWDC that there will be no SDK for the iPhone, but Safari and web applications are totally up for game. Most likely this being the primary reason for the release of Safari for Windows. Many developers were very disappointed by this news but others have raced to create the first iPhone apps for the world to see.

First iPhone Application

Touted as the very first iPhone application - OneTrip provides a simple Shopping List interface to create a simple check-off list when shopping. Super simple little program but very useful. I especially like the already included categories and choices.

Other iPhone Apps

Useful Information

GoMovies — an alternate, simpler way to searching for movies at your local theater. Sure you could just pull up Hollywood.com or Fandango (since the iPhone is running a complete version of Safari), but this is so much smoother and simpler and removed of all the fluff seen in the big boy sites.

iNews — though not super useful as it doesn’t actually display the latest news (which you would think woul be the point of a news application), it is kind of handy to be able to do quick news searches like when you’ve heard a rumor and want to check it out.  File this under “neat but not useful.”

MyMetar — though not something I’m going to be using very often, this looks like some information that would be useful to… someone of aviation influence.

On-The-Go Convenience

CheapMF — don’t you hate when you’re at a store and you see something you want to buy but… you’re not sure if (a) the price is right and (b) you don’t know if it potentially sucks. With the CheapMF iPhone app you can do a quick little search to see a products cheap prices as well as some user reviews to guide you in the right direction. Slick.

Games

WordBreaker — fun little game. A simple little Hangman variant that I (embarrassingly) spent way too much time playing while I should’ve been writing this post. Appears to be the only third-party game currently available developed specifically for the iPhone.

Alternate Site Interfaces

iPhoneDigg — this is pretty cool. Super simple interface to the popular social networking site, Digg. I almost like this interface more than digg’s own site due to it’s super simple interface.

iTweeter — little app for the insanely popular (and growing in popularity) Twitter. I recently succumbed to Twitter as well… you can see me at http://www.twitter.com/jessejanderson.

YouTube — that’s right, YouTube’s own entry into the foray of iPhone applications. I like the little warning message recommending iPhone users to upgrade to the unlimited data plan (which will cost how much now… ?). It’s nothing amazing though, basically a really stripped down YouTube.

Is that it?

As cool as these little apps are, I hope that we see some apps a little more advanced than this as the iPhone releases and more developers get involved… I’m sure the iPhone killer app killer web app will come out eventually and knock all our socks off.

Here’s hoping anyways.

REVIEW: Linkin Park - Minutes To Midnight

3 / 5 stars

My initial listening of this was “ughhh… wow the Linkin Park I love is gone… this is crap...” and didn’t bother listening to it much more. It felt like all the members of the band went off on their own and wrote a couple songs and then they just mashed them all together, it didn’t feel like an album, just a glob of songs, like some sort of compilation.  Anyways I’ve decided to give the album another chance as my buddy Peter insists that it gets better with time.

01 Wake

3 / 5 stars
A decent intro, not amazing but definitely up to Linkin Park standards for its simple coolness. Unfortunately, the cool epic feel that this hints at never gets fulfilled.

02 Given Up

2 / 5 stars
Ugh. Possibly my least track on the album.  Some of the guitar riffs are alright, but the lyrics are kind blah, and they swear like crazy.  What? First time I heard this it threw me off guard since both of their previous albums are clean. But even despite this, this song sounds like something a 14 year old stoner headbangs to in his parents basement.  I.E. mindless crappy music.

03 Leave Out All The Rest

4 / 5 stars
This is starting to sound better — much more of a Linkin Park feel to it. Didn’t stand out too much to me before but now hearing it again, this song is actually pretty good, a decent slow Linkin Park song with good lyrics.

04 Bleed It Out

2 / 5 stars
And here comes the potty mouth again. I like Linkin Park’s rapping when it’s set to rock.  But this sounds like some Jay-Z or Mase or whatever rap-crap the kids are listening to these days. And the chorus is so freakin repetitive and not that interesting to begin with, I was bored to tears by the second repeat of the chorus (mind you, there were 12 more chorus repeats to come).

05 Shadow Of The Day

4 / 5 stars
And back to good stuff again. Linkin Park has done a great job with their soft sound on this album. So far the arrangement of this album is very curious. Intro - really fast (crappy) song - good slow song - crappy fast song - good slow song. I would’ve liked a little bit more of the signature Linkin Park “Mr. Hahn” sound in this song but it’s still really good just as it is.

06 What I’ve Done

4 / 5 stars
Actually the first song that sounds like traditional Linkin Park rock. Reminds me a lot of Breaking The Habit from the Meteora album. Would like a little bit more guitars.

07 Hands Held High

1 / 5 stars
Ho-ly crap, this song is AWFUL. The rapping in this song sounds like LFO (crappy 90’s rapper - “Summer Girls"). And… that’s all there is to the song!  No real chorus to speak of, then as the song is about to end they suddenly thought “Oh crap, we gotta put something better than this really crappy rapping in this song” and added some quickie little Row Your Boat style repeating singing bit, kinda cool but not enough to justify the horrendous rap style. Oh and peppered with more pointless cussing.

08 No More Sorrow

2 / 5 stars
The cool thing about Chester (lead singer) is he has a beautiful voice that sounds great clean and he also has a great screaming voice. Apparently he forgot how to sing nice because most of his singing sounds like he just can’t remember how to not scream or he’s just sick and lost his voice.  This song in particular really illustrates how awful his voice sound can sound.

09 Valentine’s Day

3 / 5 stars
There’s nothing particular bad about this song… but there isn’t anything great about it either. It’s very monotone throughout most of the song, albeit with good lyrics. It finally picks up at the end a little bit but doesn’t take the opportunity to really punch it.

10 In Between

2 / 5 stars
Not an awful song, but man this doesn’t fit on the album at all. This sounds like a +44 song (a band fronted by Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus), and doesn’t fit with anything else on the album. Just another song that boringly doesn’t really have much of a chorus and sounds fairly monotone. Man seriously, this sounds like a guest band track or something… this doesn’t sound a bit like Linkin Park.

11 In Pieces

2 / 5 stars
What’s with the ska guitars? Man this song could be AWESOME if they took that vocal track and put it on top of some signature Linkin Park stuff, some of that hard-hitting Meteora rock would be awesome for this song. There’s definite potential for that melody. Instead this feels like they have seriously lost the ability to make good rock, the music in this is almost just a 4 measure track on repeat for the entire song. It feels like they were in a hurry to finish the album (they only had how many years?) and just needed to lay something behind the vocal melody or something.

12 The Little Things You Give Away

2 / 5 stars
Gaah, still boring and repetitive… where’s the creativity?  It’s gets a little better as the song goes on, but not much. And then suddenly, the album is over.

Final Thoughts

Well I do admit… it was better than I had remembered it, but man does it blow in comparison to their other albums. It’s pretty sad that there isn’t a single good heavy song on the album… isn’t Linkin Park a rock band? The slow stuff is pretty decent and I’ll probably put that in some music rotation but none of it is good enough to excuse the rest of the crap that’s on the album. Definitely not recommended.

Windows Vista is pretty… crappy

So I finally tried out Windows Vista.  I’m doing some contract work and the compny I’m working for just bought a brand new computer from Fry’s and a new copy of Vista.

I did all the setting up and installing of the computer/software so it was as fresh of an install and computer as you could get.

First impression? Wow.  The new “aero” interface is actually quite gorgeous. I was impressed to see tha the sheen was actually dynamic, adjusting as the window moved around as though it was coming from a real light surface. And the way the glass transparency looks is pretty nice, it adds a nice blur effect to the things below the glass.  Really the interface should be seen as screenshots and descriptions don’t do it justice, it’s beautiful.

That said, everything following my initial reaction to it’s beauty, was a disaster.

Within an hour of using it, Internet Explorer froze and crashed on me.  A couple hours later, Microsoft Word did the same. The next day Explorer itself crashed and I had to reboot the system.  This, may I remind, is all happening on a brand new computer with a completely fresh install of the OS and all software. I’ve continued to have at least a couple crashes every day I’ve used it this week.

The Start Menu

Okay, maybe this just takes some getting used to but, wow the Start Menu is a mess. There seems to be 50 programs in a completely random jumble in this… takes way too long to find what you’re looking for.  My guess is these are in order of most used (similiar to the Top 8 programs in the XP Start Menu). Unfortunately, when you have more than 8 apps, it just becomes a big jumbled mess.  Everytime I launch an app that’s not in my Quick Start Menu it’s a fun little game of Where’s Waldo? (although, wthout the fun, and without the Waldo).

Whoops, don’t I feel sheepish.  I missed one of the great features of the Start Menu. Though I stand by the fact that it looks like a random jumbled mess and if you’re trying to navigate with just the mouse (like the newbie crowd does, i.e. my mom) it’s a complete mess. However, the Quicksilver‘esque quality to it which allows you to find a program by just typing a few simple search keystrokes is quite simple and powerful. And, for once, actually makes the Windows key useful… only took them 12 years.

Exposéd

After having used OS X exclusively for the past year my work style has adjusted to make better use of multi-tasking with several apps… Vista, really really sucks at multi-tasking. It is such a pain switching from one program to the next, and when you’re like me and you run 20 programs at a time (like most designers) it becomes a random click-the-task-bar-til-the-one-i-am-looking-for-pops-up. Seriously, I’ve never loved exposé more on my mac than after using Vista for a few days.

Bottom line, I think I’m sticking to the Mac for any foreseeable future.

— The New Pac-Man Championship…

The new “Pac-Man Championship Edition” available on XBox Live Arcade is actually pretty sweet. Surprised it took this long for someone to be able to create an edition that remains faithful to the classic but also innovated enough that it stands on its own.  First Xbox Live Arcade title that I’ve actually purchased.

Lost Season 3 Finale Highlights

Let me just say… this episode rocked!  There was nothing super special about it that it made it so great, it just had everything in it like what makes a classic movie classic. I couldn’t be more pleased with the season ending than with this great finale. I can’t believe I have 2 wait 9 months to see what becomes of that game-changing twist of an ending.

I know of some people that read my blog that haven’t yet seen the finale (including my fiance) so I’m going to try to keep this relatively spoiler free.  I’m just going to list my favorite scenes, excluding the emotional goodbye scene which was very possibly the best character exit ever on television - perfect build-up.

The Great Others Extinction

BOOM!

The Losties finally show the Others who’s boss and totally own them! Explosions that send Others flying, a most-determined Hurley taking out a dude with the VW Bus (best. scene. ever.), Sayid knocking down an armed guy and killing him with his ankles all while still bound and gagged… and finally, Sawyer catches Tom in surrender at gunpoint and “doesn’t believe him.” Though I had really started to like Tom (as far as the Others go), Sawyer brings it back by reminding us that it was Tom who took the kid off the raft and started the whole Others mess in the first place. Kudos.

This now leaves The Others without any offensive team (based on what we’ve seen so far) and Ben imprisoned by the Losties… their future looks grim no doubt… (but what’s up with the age-defying Richard?  and will Locke become the new Ben to lead the Others?)

Charlie takes it like a man

Charlie has truly taken Desmond’s words to heart and really sticks it to the others as if they couldn’t stop him (and his destiny) if they wanted to.  Charlie shows off his true heroics.

Rose gives Jack some lip

In arguably the best line of the finale… Rose tells Jack ”If you say live together die alone to me Jack im going to punch you in your face.”

Classic.

Lost: in theory

I’m working on a much more extensive post that digs into the Lost canon and puts under the light some of the great theories of Lost and where the show may be headed come season 4. Just a small teaser — the funeral parlor Jack attends in the season finale is called “HOFFS/DRAWLER”, an anagram for Flash Forward.

Starcraft 2

Hell, it’s about time.

I’ve only been waiting for this for 9 years. Finally, Blizzard once again wishes to make our dreams come true. Here’s hoping they can continue the trend of raising the bar with each successive title.  I’m gonna have to setup bootcamp on a mac for this sucker (whenever it comes out)

— New Transformer’s Trailer in HD…

New Transformer’s Trailer in HD.

This looks awesome.

— Best headline ever - Skywalkers…

Best news headline ever - Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo.

— Anyone have any good recommendations…

Anyone have any good recommendations for a macbook bag?  I have been using the Jack Bauer bag but it’s gotten to be just too bulky, I think I need to get something smaller to force myself to not pack it full of crap.  Ideal size = just enough room for the macbook, the power adapter/wireless mouse, and mayb e a book and/or magazine. So far all I’ve really found is the STM Small Loft.