Why Apple should be using AMD in their consumer level products.

Well there here; the new iMac line up and how disappointing. I have several issues with the new iMac and I think it has to do with Intel more then it has to do with Apple even though the Apple/Intel relationship has something to do with the issue as well. For a minute let's pretend that the i3 and i5 Processors aren't a huge rip off for the consumer and that all the great technology that is in the Nehalem chip (i7) is in these processors, then everything would be rosy. The reality is if you think your getting everything in Nehalem think again. The i3 and i5* processors are dual processor chips with a integrated graphics chip in the processor instead of the integrated memory controller which is what made Nehalem the processor everyone wanted. Much like the days of the Pentium D, Intel is on a huge marketing spree to (in my opinion) sell us consumers sub prime processors. Having a Core2 Quad and a Core2 Duo, I have nothing against Intel when they come out with a great product. The Core2 Processor is a great product; the i7 (Socket 1366) is a great product. The i7 on 1156 is a mediocre product, and the i3 and i5 are in my opinion not worth the money. Usually when you buy a Mac, if you were to buy EQUIVALENT HARDWARE, you would get an equivlant price on the PC you get either the same price or the PC is more expensive. This is not the case anymore.

According to CPU Benchmark and the following benchmarks Apple could be putting in much better processors for the same price if they would switch vendors for their iMac's and Mac Mini line. With the exception of the 1156 Socket Pentium you can't get much lower then an i3 processor. It is the "Celeron" of these new series processors. Intel has a huge selection of processors to choose from but Apple went with pretty much bottom of the barrel and I for one am not impressed.

So if Apple went with a Phenom II X4 925 they would be giving consumers Quad Core Processors with decent performance and runs for about 143.00 CDN dollars

CPU Price/Performance Chart

Intel Core2 Duo E8600 @ 3.33GHz		2,627	158	$289.99
Intel Core i3 550 @ 3.20GHz		2,794	144	$112.00
Intel Core i3 540 @ 3.07GHz		2,806	142	$136.00
AMD Phenom II X4 925		3,415	103	$148.00
AMD Athlon II X4 635		3,417	145	$143.00
Intel Core i5 760 @ 2.80GHz		4,941	43	$214.99
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T		5,169	35	$218.00
Intel Core i7 870 @ 2.93GHz		5,850	21	$341.00
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T		6,080	19	$319.00

BenchMarks

Not all processors listed are in the benchmarks. The benchmarks are purley for referance, so you can see where the performance / price chart came from.

As you can see from the benchmarks the i3 runs better for applications that don't take advantage of multi-threading, this will change in the future, multi threaded apps like Google Chrome, for example are the way of the future. On the iMacs I don't have an issue with the i5 760 or the i7 870, Ya, I would prefer a socket 1366 i7 but that isn't going to happen. I just don't know what Apple is thinking having low end dual core processors in the iMacs. Most computers even budget ones are coming quadcore, unless you really cheap out. With the advancement of multi threaded software, dual core processors will soon be as outdated as the single processor predecessor. I guess what I'm saying is Apple really cheeped out on the entry and mid-level iMac, and I wouldn't recommend it. I can't believe I'm going to say this but if your looking for an entry to mid level computer I'd go with an AMD Windows 7 64bit computer before an iMac.

* Most of the i5 processors are dual core only a few select models are quad core processors.

Imac Replacement

	iMac	OptionKey iMac PC System
Processor:	3.06GHz Intel Core i3 (Dual Core)	AMD PHENOM II X6 1055T 2.8GHZ
Monitor	21.5" 1920-by-1080 resolution (LED)	View Sonic VX2250WM (LED) 21.5” 1920x1080 resolution
Memory	4GB (two 2GB)	KINGSTON DDR3 4096MB (2 X 2GB)
Hard Drive	500GB hard drive	1.5 TB Hard Drive
DVD-RW	8x double-layer SuperDrive	24X DVD/CD RW With LIGHTSCRIBE
Video Card	ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB	SAPPHIRE HD 5770 1GB with Eyefinity
Price:	$1299.00	$1243.00

 

 

OptionKey iMac Replacement System Build		Total: $1243.00
Processor	AMD Phenom 1055T 6 Core Processor	$218.00
Motherboard	ASUS M4A88TD-M/USB3 880G+SB850	$110.00
Ram	KVR1333D3N9K2/4G 4096MB	$108.00
Hard Drive	SEAGATE 1.5TB ST31500341AS	$88.88
Optical Drive	DVD-RW LG GH24LS50 24X DVDRW With LIGHTSCRIBE	$30.00
Video Card	SAPPHIRE HD 5770 1GB	$176.00
Case & PSU	ANTEC SONATA III With 500W PSU	$125.00
Operating System	7 HOME PREMIUM 64-BIT	$115.00
Monitor	View Sonic VX2250WM LED 21.5” Display 1920 X 1080	$225.00
Keyboard & Mouse	LOGITECH WIRELESS DESKTOP MK300	$48.00

iMac as a PC

OptionKey Entry Level iMac as a PC System Build		Total: $1146.88
Processor	i3 540 @ 3.06 GHz	$136.00
Motherboard	ASUS P7P55D	$154.00
Ram	KVR1333D3N9K2/4G 4096MB	$108.00
Hard Drive	SEAGATE 1.5TB ST31500341AS	$88.88
Optical Drive	DVD-RW LG GH24LS50 24X DVDRW With LIGHTSCRIBE	$30.00
Video Card	SAPPHIRE HD 5670 1GB	$117.00
Case & PSU	ANTEC SONATA III With 500W PSU	$125.00
Operating System	7 HOME PREMIUM 64-BIT	$115.00
Monitor	View Sonic VX2250WM LED 21.5” Display 1920 X 1080	$225.00
Keyboard & Mouse	LOGITECH WIRELESS DESKTOP MK300	$48.00

The my iMac build is slightly better then the Apple build. Note the 1.5TB hard drive, the 5670 with 1gb of Video Ram, and has a LED display as well. It is also $152.12 cheaper then the iMac. The motherboard also has E-SATA on the motherboard, firewire 400, digital optical audio out, and 7.1 sound on board the motherboard. I could have made it even cheaper but I wanted to demonstrate that you can get a better pc with close to the same parts as the iMac.

Sources:

http://www.apple.ca

http://www.b-com.ca

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com

http://techreport.com/

http://www.cpubenchmark.net

Posted via email from The OptionKey Blog

2 New Posdcasts Posted

2 new podcasts posted.

The OptionKey Podcast July 11th 2010. How to protect yourself and your privacy on the web

The OptionKey Podcast July 7th 2010. Web Standards and Video Card Hardware

Posted via email from The OptionKey Blog

Governments and Software

I came across an interesting issue yesterday. Did you know that if you wanted to apply for a position in the Government or a government agency like Alberta Health Services you have to be on a computer running Internet Explorer and Windows. The requested file format for resumes is Word Document Format ".doc". This in my opinion is just wrong for three reasons.

1) Not everyone can afford Microsoft Office and Not Everyone has it.  With the crackdown on pirated software and the cost involved for purchasing a retail license of Microsoft Office is $150.00.  That is alot of money.

2) Not everyone has Windows. There are a lot of people out their that don't use Windows. Windows may have the most market share for operating systems but it should be a requirement to apply for a job online not with Today's Technology.

3) Internet Explorer.  Internet Explorer doesn't comply with web standards and restricting people to an insecure, obsolete browser is not safe and is bad technology policy.

I believe Governments should be using open source software such as Ubuntu, Suse, Fedeora, and other varieties of Linux and BSD/Unix technologies.  For one reason it keeps the cost down, you don't have the huge licensing issues of running Windows or Mac OS. With everything being moved to server (cloud) based applications, all you need is a browser. Most of the Free Operating Systems come with Open Office Pre-Installed so you don't have to purchase Microsoft Office and 99% of the time Open Office is compatible with Microsoft Office Formats.

Now I'm not being Anti-Microsoft here, there are some things Windows will have to be used for, such as some cad programs, graphics, etc, but for word processing and spread sheets Open Office should be able to handle most if not all the work load.  As for the thing that set off this little blog post of mine the Job Submission for Alberta Health Services, I will be trying to get in touch with someone to get that fixed.  They are discriminating against anyone that doesn't use a Windows based machine and that's just wrong.

Posted via email from The OptionKey Blog

The OptionKey Webcast - E3 Coverage and Review By The Review Crew

Download The OptionKey E3 Podcast

The OptionKey Webcast E3 Coverage Links

http://www.thereviewcrew.com/category/e3-2010/

http://play.tm/wire/3687705/the-week-in-review-who-won-e3/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/05/fear-and-loathing-at-e3-the-lie-of...

http://www.kidzworld.com/article/24248-sony-e3-2010-press-conference-summary

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=23313

http://www.kidzworld.com/article/24231-microsoft-e3-2010-press-conference-

Special Thanks To Daorcey and Natalie from the Review Crew for the great coverage

You can find out more about the Review Crew by:

Website: www.thereviewcrew.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/thereviewcrew

Email: dmlebray@thereviewcrew.com 

Posted via email from The OptionKey Blog

Bill C-32 It's like being in a 1950's Gangster Movie

The recent comments by our wonderful heritage Minister is nothing short but disturbing. Calling then not exactly retracting but denying that he was calling opponents of the Digital Locks prevision "Radical Extremists" not something one would expect from one's own government. I guess that since I am against the digital locks prevision and offered a solution to the Heritage Minister several times via Twitter and Email, to change the wording of the by pass of the digital locks so by passing it is not illegal. (Read How To Fix The Digital Lock Issue in C-32)  Non the less if the Minister thinks he can get away with calling us the citizens of Canada "Radical Extremists" then he has another thing coming. This is not Question Period and we are not the Opposition. We are the people that elected them in and we can boot them out. This "With Us or Against Us" ideology is very tiresome and I for one think the Minister should be looking at the constructive feedback that has already been provided by people like Professor Michael Geist and others who have given many good suggestions for changes to the bill.  We have said before there are a lot of things we like about C-32, it is a huge improvement over what C-61 would have been. If you put in a trump card that eliminates everything good you put into the law then it is as bad as the old one was if not worse.  I urge the Minister to be less adversarial and much more constructive with us the Citizens of Canada. He might find he gets a much better response and he should also listen to the changes we want to make.  They make a lot of sense.

Posted via email from The OptionKey Blog

New Podcasts Posted.

I have posted 2 new podcasts.

 

This podcast is an Interview with Professor Michael Geist from the University of Ottawa. If you have questions about how C-32 will Affect you then you need to listen to this!

The OptionKey Podcast June 7th, 2010. Interview With Michael Geist About Bill C-32 Canadian Copyright Law

 

This podcasts we have a discussion about HTML5, CCS3, Ajax and the Future of Flash.  Very Interesting!

The OptionKey Podcast June 6th, 2010. HTML5, CSS3, Ajax and The Future of Flash

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

Canada's Copyright Modernization Act - How to Fix the Digital Lock Problem

As I write this our politicians in Ottawa are going through Bill C-32 the new copyright bill. At first glance there are some significant problems with it but they mostly come from the idea that to circumvent the digital lock on digital media automatically makes you a criminal.  So I'm writing a post on how @mpjamesmoore and @tonyclement_mp can fix this with very little work.  First of all remove any refereance to "any circumvention is an infringement".  

 

 

 

If the media companies insist on this then they must do either of the following:

1) Provide the media in every format available when you purchase the media. So when you buy a DVD, you get the ipod version, a computer version, a phone version, a version to run on Linux, Unix, Mac and Windows, and a hard disk backup.

2) Start a free service where customers need to put in a some sort proof of purchase, and the company will ship for free or make available for download that media you purchased.

3) Digital media needs to be transferable to there will need to be a very simple way to change ownership, and allow format shifting. Lot's of people share a computer and have a single itunes account when kids leave home they may want to take their music with them.

4) If Media companies GET ANY tax payer money it would be considered already subsidized by the TAX PAYER and must have FAIR USE provisions for format shifting and backups even if DRM is on the content.

5) Media companies need to pay a Inconvenience tax, if they are going to treat us like criminals then we should do the same to them. If they want to tell Canadians how we consume our content then we are going to may them pay a lot of money to do business here in Canada.

Don't get me wrong I believe if you like the content you should pay for it. However I do feel media companies are unfairly taking advantage of consumers. You should NOT have to pay for every way you want to consume your content. If you have a DVD you should be able to watch it on your computer and ipod. You should be able to make a backup of it. You should not have to pay $10.00 for a digital copy when the physical DVD is in a bargain bin at Wal-Mart for $5.00. It cost more money to make that DVD and house it in a store then to put a digital file on a web server some where.  That's just my point of view. If you buy it you should have the right to do what you want with it (for personal use only).

Read about Canada's New Copyright Law

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

Canada's New Copyright Modernization Act (or Bill C-32) Otherwise know as DCMA

Well it's here and it's not as bad as I thought it would be I have to admit I was expecting a lot worse. On Wed. June 2nd the government introduced the Copyright Modernization Act (or Bill C-32) Otherwise know as DCMA. So here is the Good, and The Bad, and what we consumers need to do.

The Good:

new performers rights as demanded by ACTRA new photographers rights as long demanded by photographer groups new exception that addresses potential concerns temporary copies for technological processes new BitTorrent provision which establishes infringement for providing services via the Internet that a person knows or should have known is designed primarily to enable acts of copyright infringement new ephemeral exception as lobbied for by Canadian broadcasters new library provisions to allow for digital distribution (subject to digital locks) new distance learning teaching exceptions that encompass podcasts (subject to digital locks) Internet exception for education "YouTube" remix exception for user generated content that permits non-commercial use of works under certain circumstances new technology-neutral format and time shifting provisions legalizing common consumer activities such as recording television shows and shifting CDs to iPods (subject to digital locks) new backup copy provision (subject to digital locks) expansion of the exception for the visually impaired

Fair Dealing.  The government rejected a made-in-Canada flexible fair dealing provision as Mr James Moore looks like the anti-exception Minister.  Despite that there are many exceptions that address creators (parody and satire), education (education exception, education Internet exception), consumers (time shifting, format shifting, backup copies), and user generated content (USG exception).  This leaves innovative businesses without the benefit of flexible fair dealing.

Intermediary Liability.  The government has opted for a notice-and-notice system for Internet providers (ISPs).  The system is costly for Internet providers, but has proven successful in discouraging infringement.  It is also far more balanced than the U.S.notice-and-takedown approach or the three-strikes model that would result in terminating subscriber access (Which the US has been pushing for and is currently in ACTA).

Statutory Damages.  The new rules reduce statutory damages for non-commercial cases to as low as $100 along with a maximum of $5000.  The current fines are up to a $20,000 maximum.  There are still tough potential damages but the law distinguishes between commercial and non-commercial infringement.  The bill also provides the prospect of targeting sites that facilitate infringement with aggressive new penalties.

The Bad:

The digital lock provisions. The prioritization of digital locks is the choice of the U.S. DMCA and is now the choice of the Canadian DCMA.  In my opinion the Canadian digital lock provisions are worse than those found in the U.S., with fewer exceptions greater difficulty to "bend" the rules.  The Canadian DCMA provisions are virtually identical to the U.S. with a few exceptions, a ban on the distribution and marketing of devices (ie. software like Mac The Ripper and DVD Decrypter) that can be used to circumvent, and a presumption that any circumvention is an infringement (So all consumers are thieves).  The only significant difference between this bill and C-61 is the exception for unlocking cell phones.  So in otherwords all the good stuff gets nullified by the bad stuff like the backup copy provision would be illegal if you wanted to backup a DVD movie.  A DVD had copyright protection to keep you from making copies of the DVD you purchased.  A Norwegian programmer named Jon Lech Johansen cracked the DVD encryption so he could watch his DVD's on linux.  To have a look at a comparison of the New Bill (C-32) and the Old Bill (C-61) click here

What you can do!

Write your MP! Below is a Letter Template

Honourable {Your MP Name Here}
House of Commons,
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6

CC: Honourable Tony Clement, MP, Minister of Indistry
CC: Honourable James Moore, MP, Minister of Canadian Heritage
CC: Honourable Charlie Angus, MP NDP Digital Affairs Critic
CC: Honourable Marc Garneau, MP, Liberal Industry critic
CC: Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, MP, Liberal Heritage critic;
CC: Right Honourable Jack Layton, MP, Leader of the NDP
CC: Right Honourable Gilles Duceppe, MP, Leader of the Bloc Québécois
CC: Right Honourable Michael Ignatieff, MP, Leader of the Opposition
CC: Right Honourable Stephen Harper, MP, Primer Minister

Date June {day} 2010
RE: Bill C-32 – An Act to amend the Copyright Act

Dear {Your MP Name Here}

This Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 2 June. I am pleased with some of its clauses; making iPods and TV show recording legal for the first time in Canadian history, and allowing for parody as fair dealings.

However I am particularly troubled by the absolute legal protection for digital locks. Please explain why it should be OK for me to copy my CD to my iPad, but not also my DVD. Effectively what this sort of blanket protection for Digital Restrictions Management does, is allow copyright owners to completely disregard every user right granted and acknowledged in this Bill. So users have expanded fair dealing rights. Except when copyright holders say they don't.

One step forward and two steps back, in regards to real copyright reform.

This does not find a balance between copyright owners and users rights. It completely emaciates users rights in favour of copyright holders. In recent years music publishers have been moving away from DRM technology in acknowledgement of its failings. This Bill however, will encourage them to re-embrace DRM so they can take advantage of the wide breadth of new rights this Bill offers them. If music, software, and book publishers all do so (as the movie producers already have with Blu-Ray and DVD) then there will effectively be no such thing as fair dealings any more in Canada.

I implore you to change the act so that it is NOT illegal to circumvent digital locks when done to enable acts that would otherwise be legal. Unless you do this, there is no point in even having something called fair dealings.

There are many other areas of the act that could be improved, as well as other timely reforms that should be implemented such as crown copyright, but this one is by far the most egregious, and should reasonably be considered a deal breaker by all MPs. I would be pleased to discuss this and other issues with the Act whenever you may have time to do so over the summer.

Kind Regards,

For more information you can follow me @trevortye on twitter, and @michaelgeist on twitter.

For more information about Copyright and The ACTA (which will affect copyright) visit http://www.michaelgeist.ca/

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

Adobe, Apple and the future of the Web

I've been developing websites for about ten years now, I have encountered people who love flash and those who hate it.  I have and still do develop things in Flash, Ajax, PHP/MySQL and other web technologies.  The issues that are being brought up by the "Adobe vs Apple" Flash Vs HTML5 is not new; it is how ever bring up issues that need to be addressed.  Flash is great for many things but doing full websites is not one of them.  Here is why.

Flash does not support SEO very well.  Yes Adobe came out with a change in the flash player that lets spider bots crawl the flash content but they still do not rank well on search engines compared to a HTML equivalent.  

The flash player is a resource hog and slows down a computer significantly.  Don't believe me then bring up your process manager and surf to websites that have flash elements or are completely flash and see what happens to your processor(s) and if your on a laptop your battery.

Flash has been pretty buggy over the last few years and support for 3rd party broswers such as Firefox, Chrome and Opera seem to be lacking.  Flash works just great in Internet Explorer but should be working well in other broswers and operating systems too.

Do I hate Flash? No. Then why did I just bash it there? Well eveything I said there was true but there are some things flash does do better then Ajax, CSS and other web technologies.  I highly endorce the use of flash to produce this content for the web.  HTML5, CSS, Ajax, and other web technologies are not great for doing things that flash is good for such as:

Banners and ads.  Creating a roating banner scheme that you can modify and change really can only be done with flash.  I've created a flash app that where companies can host their own banner ads and give websites they are hosting ads on a flash loader that then loads the banner ads from another server.  The webmaster can then add and remove banner ads at will without having to resend the banners to the webmaster.  A very handy use for flash.

Video content.  Before there was h.264 we had Quicktime, Windows Media and Real Player remember that one?  Loading video was painfully slow and the quality was pretty bad.  Flash offered a low bandwidth solution to this problem and has worked well.  For some enhanced video on the web I'm sure flash will be used but for your basic everyday just watching a video, I don't beleive flash is required.  I think you will see two types of video, regular video and enhanced video content what will have some sort of interactivity that HTML5, CSS and Ajax just won't be able to do.

Games and other interactive web utilites.  Like it or not flash is still the gaming platform on the web and computer based training.  To write a module in PHP/MySQL, for Moddle, or another type of platform would probably take more time then to do one in flash.  The flash traing modules can be easily intergrated in to Moddle, not to mention the benifits of games, video, audio that can all be integrated without having to write customized modules or plugins.

Flash is a good technology but I feel it's time on the web will soon be up (less required).  As things get better with Ajax, CSS, and server side technologies, and start to do more things that flash does, flash would be considered just another technology to support.  However having said that using flash for making Adobe Air apps (useful clients for cloud based applications) is an excellent niche for Flash and a growing market.  With the ability to store some data locally then sysc it with the clould represents a unique affordable option for many companies to take advantage of.  If Adobe really wanted flash to be openly adoped to full standardized web technology they would have to completely open source the flash player in my opinion as it is proprietary.  We will be having the same discussion soon about H.264 a (video codec that is used for the web) as it is an open license for now but will it be in the future only time will tell.

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

Podcast Now Available.

The OptionKey Webcast (Podcast) has relaunched.  We will cover everything from the latest in tech news, security, and the up and coming technologies to things to just keep your computer running great.  We are also avaialbe in iTunes.

The OptionKey May 9, 2010

This episode we cover the Canadian Copyright Law Rumors, 3D TV and breifly touch on the CS5 release and the new Nvidia graphics cards that were released.

http://www.optionkey.ca

Download Episode (MP3)

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

Steven Harper and his conservatives attack Canadians over digital rights.

Steven Harper and his conservatives attack Canadians over digital rights.

When bill C-61 died on the table of parliament and another election was called we the users and consumers of digital media won a small victory with the death of that bill. Now our Prime Minister and the conservative government are going to rush through Bill C-61 Part II*.  This has been expected but what was not expected was the rush to introduce the bill and possible try and pass it in six short weeks.  So if the Prime Minister wants to declare war on consumers and Regular Canadians then he better be ready for a fight.  Many privacy, security and technology enthusiast need to help spread the word and bring up enough support to force the opposition to bring down the government. This is an election issue if I ever heard one; this will affect every Canadian big and small, young and old.  It will change the way you use your iPod, computer, PVR, phone and what ever new technology comes along.

The things you need to know about the American DMCA that if we allow will happen here in Canada

Media and Music Companies will start suing Children and families.  The best example of this is the Jamie Thomas case where the record companies won a 1.92 million award against a mother of four for pirating 24 songs (which are available for around $30.00 on iTunes) - should have been the judgment in my opinion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas

As Canadians we pay a levy on Blank Media that is suppose to go to the music and media industries.  The Government probably will not retract this levy if the new copyright law passes so we will be essentially paying the music and media companies for any technology we want to use.  If the Government does pass this I will be writing my MP to get my money back from the CD and DVD Levy.

It will be technically illegal for you to transfer your "Media Content" from one form to another.  What do I mean well technically under the American DMCA and similarly with bill C-61 and I would guess with the new copyright bill it will be illegal for you to take your DVD and put it on your computer, iPod, ipad, phone what ever you want.  You will have to pay for each platform you want to put your media on.  We have seen this with the release of purchasing movies with "Digital Copies".  What most people don't know and what I am going to make extremely clear right now is to convert a DVD to a Video file playable by your computer is extremely easy and fast.  You are paying the media companies an Extra 5-10 dollars for about 10 minutes of their time it takes to do the conversion.  That is an awesome profit margin.  That would be the same as a web master being paid twice to produce a website once in HTML and using Adobe Acrobat to convert it to a pdf file.  Fair use you can say goodbye to that.  If your child wants to make any movies, parodies (which is technically illegal to do in Canada B.T.W), fan trailers, you better forget about it that would be illegal as well.

I know this sounds like it's all gloom and doom but we can stop it. We need to write our MP's, the Opposition MPs, and get everything in order where if the Harper Government doesn't back down from this Bad I would even say EVIL copyright law we can pressure the opposition to bring down then government and make them fight an election over this.  This is something we as Canadian's need to fight against. Don't let your digital rights disappear. Write, Call, Blog, twitter facebook and let our government know your not happy with these changes and that we will fight them tooth and nail if they try take away our digital rights.

Contact Via Twitter:

 

@pmharper

@M_Ignatieff

@jacklayton

@gillesduceppe

@mpjamesmoore

@tonyclement_MP

@justinpjtrudeau

Other Sources For Required Reading

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5009/125/
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/05/canadian-prime-minis-2.html
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5008/125/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/canadians-drop-gloves-punch-us-in-face-over-piracy-watchlist.ars
http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2010/02/annual-301-parade-ustr-calls-for.html
http://www.pirateparty.ca/forum/read.php?9,10297
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/05/05/copyright-reform-bill.html

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

DAP-1522 Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge/Access Point Review

DAP-1522 Xtreme N Duo Wireless Bridge/Access Point Review

By Trevor Tye

http://www.optionkey.ca

Over the last couple days the internet access in my house has been flaky and then one day it stopped working all together.  Now in my house we only have one hard line for our phone and internet.  So I called my internet service provider (Telus) to do some trouble shooting for the "line".  What I got was a lot of none sense of unplug your computer, restart the router, restart the modem, blah blah blah, and so on.  Nothing particularly helpful but I did find out that Telus was throttling my account and to my knowledge is still being throttled even though they lifted the cap for trouble shooting.  Still I did test on the powerline adapters that I was using (via extension cord) and found that they were working fine so as far as I could tell it was an issue with our phone line that has be resolved magically.  In any case I tried the this Dlink Wireless bridge to see if there were any other issues or if there is a problem with the internal electrical.

Setup

The setup was pretty difficult, it took about 25 minutes, and was mostly, due to the device having an issue detecting the network.  Once I manually entered in the network the setup was very easy, but for someone with very little knowledge of networking and only a general working knowledge of computers they would find the setup very difficult indeed.  There seems to be an issue with the soft rebooting of the device, so I recommend making any setup changes save them then manually unplug the bridge and plug it back in.

Performance

To my surprise the device is really fast and works magnificently with my DIR-655 Router. My network does feel a lot faster and since we only have a 15mb internet access we have a long way to go before we saturate the speed on the router and the bridge.  We have a Wii, two other laptops and a PC with a wireless card.  We have had no connection issues or interference yet.  The device has performed much better then the powerline adapters.  With the powerline adapters I had got about 8mb/sec download and with the Bridge/Access point I got 13mb, so about 1/3 faster.

 

Recommendation:

The router is on the main floor in our house and this device is on the top floor, I'd say about 20ft away through floors and walls, and as of right now I have had no issues (fingers crossed).  So I would highly recommend this device for anyone looking to expand their wireless network. For techs it will be about 25 minutes to setup, for everyone else you might want to put aside about a half a day.  I will put out a tutorial ASAP on how to setup and configure the device in bridge mode for expanding the network.

I purchased the Bridge from B-Com Computers in Edmonton for $103.00 + Tax

Posted via web from The OptionKey Blog

New Macbook Pros and why Apple hasn't released them yet

There has been a lot of speculation and a lot of waiting for Apple users as they await the new i7 based Macbook Pros.  The Line is due for a refresh and Apple usually gets the new hardware from Intel first before most of the other computer manufactures but with the i7 this doesn't seem to be the case.  The reason?  Performance, Heat and Video issues.

There is an issue right now with Nvidia and Intel that they are working our in court regarding the integration of video processors.  The Mobile Nehalem processor was designed with an integrated graphics chip onboard, due to changes in Intel's chipset. Basiclly put that prevents Nvidia from directly connecting the GPU.  So to fix that Nvidia basiclly runs the card on a 16X PCI-E bus.  For more information you can go to the PC Perspective website.

 

What does this mean for Apple users?  Well it means that for the best battery life and highest performance you might be waiting a while.  I would even bet we won't see a new Macbook Pro until late summer maybe fall but definately not before the end of April.  I'm sure that Apple and Nvidia are working around the clock to get the bugs with Optimus worked out.  So we know Apple will be sticking with Nvidia for their graphics, I'm a fan of the new 5000 series Radeon but for the Mobile market I can't disagree with going with Nvidia.  That leaves Intel.  What mobile processors could Apple be putting in there top of the line laptops?  Well right now they will only release these laptops with the i7 line of processors.

On the entry level 13" MacBook Pro - Intel® Core™ i7-620UM Processor (4M Cache, 1.06 GHz min - 2.13 GHz max) Dualcore

13" MacBook Pro (Upgrade) - Intel® Core™ i7-640UM Processor (4M Cache, 1.20 GHz min - 2.266 GHz max) Dualcore

15" MacBook Pro (Entry Level) - Intel® Core™ i7-620LM Processor (4M Cache, 2.00 GHz min - 2.8 GHz max) Dualcore

15" MacBook Pro (Mid Level) - Intel® Core™ i7-640LM Processor (4M Cache, 2.13 GHz min - 2.93 Ghz max) Dualcore

15" MacBook Pro (High End) - Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor (6M Cache, 1.60 GHz min - 2.8 Ghz max) Quadcore

17" MacBook Pro - Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor (6M Cache, 1.60 GHz min - 2.8 Ghz max) Quadcore

I'm sure there will also be an option to upgrade to the Intel® Core™ i7-820QM Processor (8M Cache, 1.73 GHz min - 3.06 GHz max) Quadcore

The Mobile Nehalem processors have a minimum and maximum clock speed depending on what your doing so if your surfing the web your processor is suppose to run at the lower and if your doing 3D rendering then your suppose to get the full clock speed (called Enhanced Intel® Speedstep Technology by Intel).  Both the Nvidia and Intel Technologies is designed to conserve battery life.  How much battery life will be saved in the first Gen of the new MacPro Laptops remains to be seen.

This brings us back to the question should I buy a new MacBook now?  Well I would say Yes.  Today's Apple laptops have the dedicated video card and are well performing work horses.  If the new tech that is coming out in the new MacBooks are good you would want to wait till the second generation anyway, the first gen like the first MacPro Towers had bugs that need to be ironed out.  It is an exciting time to watch all this new tech coming out and it will be interesting to see how well they perform, I'm sure the Second and Third Gen of the MacBook Pros will be much better then this first round.  For now I'll stick with the Core2 until the bugs get worked out.

Trevor

Posted via web from optionkey's posterous

IE 6 is layed to rest

Today we put to rest a dear old friend to some of us and not so dear to most of us.  Today Internet Explorer 6, once the most popular browser is now being put down by most of the Web today. I will be attending online via Twitter, and I will have a very dry Martini to celebrate this memorable event.  I hope to see you all online at 7:00pm tonight and we will twitter about our ie6 memories!  Also remember to post your goodbyes to ie6 on http://ie6funeral.com/. ; I hope to see you all online tonight, let's make #RIP IE6 a twitter trend tonight!

Posted via web from optionkey's posterous

New Posterous Webaccount

Trying out this posterous blogging account.  So many social networking sites, works kind of like friendfeed.  Have a look http://optionkey.posterous.com

Thanks,

Trevor

Posted via email from optionkey's posterous

Windows 7 Mobile To Little To Late

Microsoft has some gull. After about ten years in the mobile PDA and mobile phone space, replacing the Palm OS on most of Palms smart phones until Web OS was released; and BlackBerry being Microsoft's only competition (I realize there is Symbian from Nokia but let's be real it was basally these 2 controlled the smart phone market). Until the iPhone showed up and changed the smart phone market forever, Microsoft stagnated the development of the Windows Mobile OS. Microsoft had a rare opportunity to control the mobile market but did not seem to understand that a mobile phone is not a desktop computer. Windows Mobile is slow and bulky, and difficult to use. Lots of Palm users would buy old phones just to run Palm OS because they didn't like Windows Mobile.

Now Microsoft is to release Windows 7 Mobile, I for one was very excited for this release but not anymore. Microsoft some how thinks it has a healthy share of the smart phone market. Paul Thurrott from the Windows Supersite stated that Microsoft controls about 18% of the smart phone market on the Windows Weekly podcast with Leo Laporte. This is down from the 24% it had back in 2004 according to wikipedia with most of the manufactures and developers abandoning the Windows Mobile platform for more current standardized platforms like the iPhone, Android, Symbian and Yes Web OS. The one thing these Mobile operating systems have in common is web standards. Internet Explorer does not support web standards very well at all and from a consumer perspective why would you want a platform what has very few apps and at the time of this blog post you don't even know how many older apps will be ported or able to be ported to Windows 7 mobile.

Granted for the corporate space depending on the difficulty with IT support will either be Windows 7 mobile or BlackBerry (probably the latter), but the more work starts to encroach our personal time there will be a huge demand for these nicer easier to use products. Most IT support and network professionals know what I'm talking about. Microsoft will have to start changing it's attitude if it wants to grab a bigger share of the mobile market.

1. licensing it to mobile manufactures for free


2. creating an app store experience similar to that of the apple store


3. A web browser that supports web standards better


4. Maybe a mobile Microsoft office apps for windows 7 mobile


5. Maintaining or improving the syncing and integration with exchange

There is a huge push right now to keep everything on the cloud and an economic incentive for lots of companies to move their businesses to cloud services like Google docs, even Microsoft is going to release a version of office 2010 for the cloud. I like Windows 7 and like what I see with Windows 7 mobile but with Android, iPhone, and the other mobile OS, out there that I can develop for just using web standards, I don't know why I would want to develop for Windows Mobile when I would have to redo a lot of my code even to get things to work in Internet Explorer properly. Microsoft has a major up hill battle ahead of it's self in the mobile space, and they are taking the old Microsoft way of handling it. With the mobile OS user base increasing and Microsoft's share shrinking they might want to rethink the way they are approaching this.

Tips To Help You Protect Yourself From Scammers.

After hearing a news report on CBC about an Edmonton Realtor Robert McLeod; I though I should give some helpful tips to try help prevent users from being taken advantage of by scammers. Here are some helpful tips to help prevent you from being taken advantage of by scammers.

1. If it is to good to be true it usually is


2. Deal and meet with people locally as often as possible. Especially if using Kijiji, Craigslist or BuySell


3. Google the people or company your dealing with find as much information as possible.


4. If you have reservations or "bad feelings" about who your dealing with DON'T!


5. If there are professional accreditations check them out and confirm them. i.e. Better Business Bureau


6. Use a payment type that has excellent fraud protection or fraud insurance, like Visa, PayPal ***Policies my vary***


7. If something is a scam, report it to the authorities and the listing company.


8. Keep all evidence of the scam/fraud to protect yourself. Always file your paperwork and keep all documentation of all communications.


9. Don't cash or send any money orders, cheques etc. for any companies or individuals. At least not right away until you can establish that the individuals or company(s) are not scammers. Any fraud that will occur will happen right away, they will ask you to cash or send money to places with all kinds of excuses. REMEMBER you will be held responsible for any fraud that occurs if you cash any checks, money orders etc. Protect yourself no company or individual will get the a new person to pay the bills or handle large sums of money when they are just hired!

If you use these tips it should help prevent you from being scammed; you do need to keep a cool head, have a sober second thought. People get excited if they find something that seems to be to good to be true. Use your discretion and follow the guidelines and you should be fine.

Good Hunting

Trevor

Why Flash will die

Adobe Flash (http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/) is quickly becoming the bane of the internet. Mostly used for online video or interactive websites, flash is quickly becoming a hassle that people don't want to deal with. Within the last year Flash has become the main vector for many malware attacks. Flash also has major issues with causing the CPU to max out, browsers crashing, and memory management. Flash is also not as good for SEO and can lower your ranking on search engines.

A brief history on Flash

Flash has been until now the best platform for delivering low bandwidth highly interactive web objects. What does that mean? Well, Flash has been a great platform for delivering interactive content and eventually making up most of the video on the web. This was due mostly to ActionScript; a programmable language for Flash that allows you to do things you couldn't do before on the web with ASP, PHP, ROR (Ruby on Rails), Perl CGI, JavaScript, QuickTime and windows media player. Flash showed much of it's promise in Version 6. That is where ActionScript became really useful, and more mainstream starting to replace the older program Director, which was almost the same program just raster based with a language called Lingo and had much more CPU and Ram requirements. Director was also given the same options as Flash for posting it to the internet via The Shockwave plug in, but did not catch on as much as Flash did, probably due to the size of the player files, and the lack of bandwidth most internet users had at the time. Flash has quickly come to be the leading video player of choice on the web, and there is no better example of this then youtube. This was probably due to flash being able to read the length of time in the "Flash Video" and the communication capabilities between different swf files where you can put in "markers" or "hotspots" to trigger events in flash players.

So why will Flash Die?

To put it simply, there is a shift to move things on the web to open source and open standards preventing any one company from controlling the web. That is only part of the story. Flash has also drifted away from why people used it in the first place. A low bandwidth solution for providing highly interactive content. Flash as it has matured has become more bloated due to request from flash users for more features and capabilities. Eventually I think Flash will disappear from the web all together unless Adobe does 3 things.

1. Makes Flash Open Source


2. Fixes Flash from hogging the Processor and Memory


3. Stops Flash from crashing web browsers

Most of the things done in flash now with the exception of a few items can be done now with javascript and css. With the move to web standardized content management systems which pretty much eliminates flash unless you put in a Flash Banner, Gallery, video player or some other flash element which has to be custom coded, Flash becomes very inconvenient to implement into websites. If Adobe were to open up Flash and get partners like Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Yahoo to sign on and make flash freely available to everyone to make it easy and very cheap to produce flash swf files. This might be enough for Flash to become a true web standard and have HTML 5 have a native tag just for flash instead of using Active X (which is what they did for video). The odds of this happening are slim to none, it's hard enough to get these guys to agree on anything, let alone release control of their own technologies for an open technology that standardizes everything, which would be a benefit to us all. If Adobe wants flash to live on into the the future I think they have to open it up or it will go the way Director did into oblivion.

The Apple iPad

Apple has released their tablet computer and it is called the iPad. OK the name isn't that great but the machine is. This is the perfect device for people who want a netbook or laptop that actually wouldn't use one. For example, this would be the perfect device for my wife, It is an oversize iPod that she can hook a keyboard up to via the keyboard accessory. My biggest 2 issues are with issue with it is the lack of a usb port or card reader, (which I imagine will come out later as an accessory) and the lack of the Full Mac OS. To use this computer, fully, you still need a computer to sync it to itunes. Now if you could hook up an external hard drive, and have a card reader with the full OS functionality then I think people would be going gaga over it. Regardless this is still a huge leap forward.

I was expecting 3 things from this announcement.

1. It would start the pricing at $799.00 USD


2. It would be a little slow or "under powered"


3. There would be little to no software for it

Apple really surprised everyone with what they came out with. The iPad is the next logical extension of the hardware and at $499, it's a deal. Let's face it the regular Mac OS would be difficult to use without a full keyboard and mouse, the iPhone OS is much simpler to use and by adapting the software to work better with the iPhone OS then the target market will have an easier time using the iPad. Speaking of which who is the target market for this? Well you can say e-book readers, but I think where the iPad will shine is in Sales, Education, and most importantly general computing. Who will use this? Students, Moms, Non-Tech Savy People. Why? Because it is the easiest OS you can use. It does one thing at a time and won't allow you to do more then one thing at any given time.

What about the big techies that want one? Well it will make a great video device, handy for following online tutorials, reading websites, blogs, and ebooks. I must say it is a really good size as well; I can't wait to see one in person. My wife doesn't know if she would use it but for everything she does on her laptop, the iPad fits the bill better then her laptop. My sister goes to college this coming up school year, this would fit the bill perfectly for a mobile device for school. She can record notes, use google docs or iwork, and there are lots of apps that will open and save word files, and more. Having used XP tablets (Which cost a lot more) and end up feeling quite slow, I have I hopes for performance on the iPad.

For those people that thought Steve Jobs can change the laws of physics, he is only human and for their first tablet computer, Apple's is once again a cut above the rest. I'm not saying by any means that it's perfect, I'm just saying that what's out there right now it is the best there is. They made it cheaper then what most had thought (Starting at $499). It has a fast 1Ghz processor (still needs to be proven to me) and loads of apps thanks to the Apps Store.

Improvements I would make to the iPad.

Add 1 or 2 standard USB Ports
80GB SSD
SD Card Reader
FULL OS SUPPORT!

I would expect apple to have a $499 or $599 product line or the possible replacement of the MacBook line. These mobile devices are becoming cheaper, faster, easier to use and are much more popular then regular personal computers. Very soon you will have a home server to store all your data (songs, movies, documents) and everyone will have a "iPad" or tablet for accessing, and syncing it all.

Trevor

Why does Facebook Want To Be Twitter?

I for the life of me can't figure out why Facebook has Twitter envy. Maybe it's the followers, or maybe it's because you can follow celebrities, who knows. One thing I am sure about is that if Facebook isn't careful they can completely screw it up. What am I talking about the Privacy Settings. Just recently Facebook in an effort to compete with twitter changed their privacy settings so that things can be more easily indexed by a search engine. Read Article.

As this an attempt to take a shot at twitter, Facebook had some sort of trend about bra colours? Was this to take a shot at twitter? Probably. Did it make sense? Not to me but I don't wear a bra so maybe it effected me less. Facebook seems to be scared of twitter and my evidence is facebook recent changes to it's privacy rules. Read Article.

Facebook shouldn't be trying to be more open (in the content sense) they should trying to keep people's information as private as possible to the point where in the EULA companies can pay for placing ads or sending email fliers or messages about products they sell, services and or events in a region reaching people living in that region. Your selling access to your users, keeping everything else free; thus not having to monetize the services via subscription. You could also monetize by taking a percentage of the virtual economy, where you can pay money for e-cards to friends, or items in games like farmville.

How about selling your farmville game to someone else or trading virtual items for real world money and taking a cut? There is so much potential for Facebook the biggest thing going for it is the 65 million active users. No online app or service to my knowledge is larger then Facebook. Facebook has so many ways it can monetize it's not even funny, if it's to partner with google to show ads in the direct messages or emails based on keywords and splitting the revenue or getting money from government to perform census and surveys. Why does Facebook want to be twitter?

Stephen Harper Prorogues Canadian Parliament Again!

Well he did it again, shutdown the government. The current Prime Minister seems to not play well with others. We the Canadian people elected a minority government and that government is to work in the best interest of the Canadian people. We don't want this party politics garbage that all parties are guilty of, but the worst offender in my opinion is the Prime Minister.

Yes he has the "Majority of Party Seats" but the the Majority of seats in the house. As a responsible Prime Minister he should be reaching out for common ground not sending out ultimatums and bullying other MPs. What do I mean? The Name Garth Turner should ring a bell. Read Article Read Star Article. Mr. Harper also bullies public servants such as Richard Colvin. I'm talking about the Afghanistan inquiry into prisoner abuses. Then Public Servant Richard Colvin was trying to bring awareness about the abuses by the Afghanistan army/police. Read Star Article So instead of trying to get to the truth the Government wanted to bury it and also one could argue destroy Mr. Colvin's reputation. This is just one of the many things the conservatives have had blow up in their face, but more concerning is that this has all the signs of an election coming.

The Conservatives appear to be announcing more "Money Announcements". On January 7th Rona Ambrose handed over $125000 in federal funding, the latest in money announcements from the Government. There also appears to be allot of PR going on right now to boost numbers by the conservative party. Perhaps the government is going to call an election in March? I don't think that's far fetched. It's after the Winter Olympics, everyone "Should" be relatively happy with the government if the Olympics are a success. So what should you do, you might think I'm a "Liberal Fan Boy" but I'm not, I want our government to work for us, not for the parties or other interest other then that of the paying Canadian tax payer.

To that end I'll be buying a membership to the Pirate Party of Canada, and I'll do what I can to try change the government and the way politics are done in Canada. If I were you take a look at the parties, the people, and the way things are being done (Or as the case is NOT done). It's time for a change, Let's give the old parties a message. "Were tired of being screwed with, now do what we elected you to do. Work for the public good of your constituents, and the public well being in Canada." Not what your party's agenda is or those special interest groups.

You can follow the Pirate Party at http://www.twitter.com/piratepartyca

Is TV worth the price you pay?

Ok is it just me or does TV seem a tad expensive? Ok let's look at the facts here. 3 years ago you could get basic cable for $20.00 per month. Now they start you at $45.00. I know that now it's Digital or (High Def) TV and that's the old analogue system you were paying for, which is a good way to defend the increase in price. Let's also talk about the programming then. In my opinion TV programming has gone way down on the quality scale. The air ways mostly consist of reality shows; long gone are the days of Sci-Fi, Drama and Comedies that use to dominate. As you know we have a 1080P TV and now we have a BluRay Disk Player, and I am very happy with the BluRay quality. So now we are looking at cable or satellite. I am very disappointed with the options and the prices. Let's start with my least favorite company to deal with...

1) Shaw Cable.

So for basic HD they start you at 60.95/month, HD Plus is 69.95/month. Seems expensive considering I still need a HD receiver from Shaw or an HD PVR that is just for programming. Why would I pay $60.95/month to watch CSI and House? Those are the only two shows on TV that even remotely have my interest. My wife wants to watch a few shows but nothing where I can justify spending that much for lack luster, programming.

2) Shaw Direct (formerly know as Star Choice)

This came highly recommended by some of my wife's co-workers. Now I have to say it is much more reasonably priced then Cable is. Now it is much more reasonable, depending on the hardware we buy installation for Shaw direct ranges from 0 to $200.00. The programming on the other hand is much more reasonable. With programming starting at 23.00 all the way to 86.00 it seems like a deal compared to cable. My issue with Shaw Direct is the HD receiver can't work as a PVR.

3) Bell

Now Bell is much like Shaw direct with programming starting as low as $23.00 (for HD) ranging all the way to $99.00. Again fairly reasonable programming prices.

4) Telus TV

New to the TV market (relatively) is Telus. They provide 2 types ip and satellite tv. I will not slow my DSL speed so I am not going to be reviewing the IP TV, since it requires slower internet. Telus will not setup TV on their 15MB Internet; so forget that it's useless.

Telus Satellite again is fairly reasonable with HD programming starting at $35.00 going to $99.00.


With all the prices being around the same and all the promotions are almost identical, you would think we have a great competition going on between the companies. At least that's what they want you to think. Unless you get a customer retention specialist your out of luck on scoring any deals at all. At this point unless we get a great deal we are likely going with either Shaw Direct or Bell. (Probably Bell since we have the hardware). Not only that for the amount of time we are home, and the time we will watch tv we will be going with just a basic package and I can build a DVR using Elisa (Susie Linux Media Centre) to record the stuff instead of buying one. Or I can build the Media Centre and Stream the content off YouTube, Hulu, or right of the websites of the content providers. Is it just me or are we all being ripped off?

Facebook's New Privacy Settings

Well it has happened it was just a matter of time but now Facebook has really lost it. Instead of respecting people's privacy they want to go where twitter is, a real time search engine. Facebook has the numbers to kick twitter to the curb but most of the users on Facebook don't want to be on twitter, nor do they want people they don't know access to their personal information. This move by Facebook will be good for cyber stockers. With the default settings set to open, most users will be using the open settings and not even know it. Users protecting their privacy is something the user has very little information how to do, if they even know about it. They just assume that social networking sites like Facebook are safe. The way the privacy policy was when it started was the right one but now with Facebook's twitter envy I worry about them scaring off or even alienating their user base.

I know that users like my wife, my mother, father don't want what their doing being posted over the internet. The issues that have popped up about employer and employee conduct on their off time will be even more controversial because by default all their posts, and comments will be open and index-able by search engine spider bots. This will make things more accessible and once something gets on the internet it doesn't go away very easily.


The best thing I can suggest is to not use Facebook or turn all of your security settings up as high as it can go. As for what I think of the changes; I think Facebook just shot themselves in the foot, this will anger allot of users and some of them may even leave. The last few changes in facebook I have felt were lack luster, and the result has been I've been going on facebook less and less or just using programs like Tweetdeck to update my facebook status along with my twitter and myspace status.


Not to long ago twitter was audited by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner; and they locked down users profiles so it was harder to search about the user and browse other profiles that they weren't friends with. This seems to go in the completely opposite direction. Why can't Facebook get it? They are not twitter as much as they want to be their not. What they should be working towards is target ad marketing. Setting up regional deals with media companies for real time streams of programming. There are so many ways Facebook can make money without compermising it's user base, but instead it wants to be twitter.

Weather or not Facebook loses users we will have to see, since they have moved to a more twitter like format I have found myself using it less and less. I am not the only one, I know several other users that have been weening themselves off Facebook as well? What do you think? Is Facebook moving in the right direction or not?


By Trevor Tye

Reference:
cbc.ca
readwriteweb.com
readwriteweb.com

10 Geeky Gifts for Christmas 2009

Here it is my Top 10 Geek Gift List for 2009! Hope this helps when your looking for that perfect gift for that Geek of yours.

#10. The iPod Touch 8GB

The Apple iPod Touch 8GB is the entry level iPod Touch. Let's face it it is an iPhone with out the phone and camera. Still you can get your email surf the web and get over 10,000 applications. It is great for anyone that wants a "Tablet PC" only smaller.



#9. The Logitech Harmony 620 Programmable Remote

The Harmony 620 can control up to 12 devices. It is can be updated to control almost every device you own. I consider it a must have for anyone with a hi-def system. It is simple, easy to use and is nice to hold. It is probably the nicest remote you will ever buy for $120.00





#8. Super Mario Brothers Wii

Granted this is already going to be an extremely hot item this year and it will be difficult to get a hold of. The multi player features in this game are excellent, think of it as Super Mario Brothers 3 updated.

It's extremely fun, and it has a very nostalgic feeling to the game for those of you who have played Mario before. This game will be a riot at parties. In all an excellent game and fun for all ages.






#7. HAUPPAUGE WINTV-PVR (USB) EXTERNAL TV TUNER

This will bring that geek of yours hours of enjoyment. If you have an old computer around you can convert it into your own PVR using Mac*, Linux, Windows 7, Vista or XP Media Centre.




#6. Apple TV

Weather you like Apple or not the Apple TV is a pretty nice device. It connects to iTunes, and can stream everything from any iTunes collection. It is a very nice gadget that any geek would be happy to get.







#5. PATRIOT BOX OFFICE MEDIA

If your on a budget the Patriot Box is a great network based media player. It has a nicer enclosure then the Asus O!Play HD Media Player. Think of it as a cheaper Apple TV. Just remember the OS on the media player isn't as nice as the Apple TV.





#4. NBOX Media Player

Yes it is the year for TV media players. This is the most inexpensive media player running 30 - 40 dollars, you load your movies on SD cards or flash drives and play them from the NBox. Not as nice as the Apple TV or Patriot Media Player but hey for $30.00 I wouldn't complain at all.



#3. Nexstar Hard Drive Dock

This inexpensive little hard drive enclosure is a very handy thing that every geek should have. With DVD's being a fraction of the size of hard drives it is impractical to expect backups to be made on DVDs. That said though, with this hard drive dock you can just backup your data to hard drives and just shelve them like you would DVDs or Tape. For $50.00 is is a great gift any geek will appreciate.




#2. The Drobo

One of the biggest innovations in storage technology to date. This External enclosure uses "ZRAID" or "Raid-Z" to get a basic hard drive spanning with redundancy. The best example of this would be RAID 5. The difference being the hard drives on the drobo can be all different sizes, unlike a RAID 5 where the Raid goes by the smallest drive.



#1. The G1 Transformers TV Series DVD Collection

This DVD collection is one of few DVD collections I will recommend. Let's face it The original Transformers are classic. There have been several spin offs and remakes of this original cartoon series. This will be a collection that will be good to have for all time.




* There is a way to hack this PVR to work with the Mac. You do this at your own risk.

Review of Samsung LN46B550 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

My wife surprised me when she said let's get you a HD TV, so I looked on line what the best deals and budgeted about $800 for a HD TV. Here were the main specs I was looking for.

• 1080p
• Good Upsampling
• Clear Picture
• Good Contrast Ratio

I was considering a 37" Samsung or 40" Samsung along with a 40" Toshiba and a 42" Insignia were also in the running. I we went to (BestBuy because it was closer to our home) to have a physical look at the TV's. The picture in all the TV's were good, and from the specs it was easy to see why. I had my heart set on the 40" Samsung but the 42" Insignia had some better specs then what the Samsung had and it was bigger and 120hz.

My wife and I discussed it and I told her I would prefer to buy the Samsung, she thought the Insignia was good and tried to talk me into that one. I just couldn't do it the Insignia set is a great deal, but I haven't heard to much about them and I knew the Samsungs have an excellent reputation, and from what I read they are highly recommended. I also prefer because it had the 12bit video processor and better contrast ratio, and slightly faster screen. So my wife made my decision for me, she had picked out the 46" Samsung because she thought the 40" was to small and that was what I was leaning towards. Checking the specs on the TV we agreed it was the one to get and it was only $200.00 more then the original budget and that it was worth it. We went to ask someone to grab one for us but they only had one left and it was in a open box, so my wife (the shrewd negotiator that she is) got a discounted price on the tv, a 4 year warrenty on the TV from the Store for $80.00 and a TV Stand (They also gave us a HDMI cable, surge protector and cleaning cloth and cleaner for no cost).

All in all I am very pleased with the Samsung 46" 1080p LCD HDTV (LN46B540). The scaling on the DVD's to 1080i is fantastic, the picture is super sharp and clear. Setup took no time at all and I can't wait to build a media centre to plug into the TV. I recommend this TV with no hesitation, and so far it's been a fantastic experience.

The New Apple Touch Mouse - Review

Today I tried the new Apple Multi Touch Mouse. What do I have to say about it? It is extremely uncomfortable to hold. I found the mouse very awkward and was starting to cramp my hand. The most important part of the mouse I found the worse. The way the mouse feels is the most important part.

However this was the only thing about the mouse I had an issue with. I did love everything else about the mouse. The functionality is excellent, the Left and Right clicking is no issue what so ever. All you do is press down and the mouse detects what side your pressing on you don't need to lift your fingers to press or anything like that. The best part is the horizontal and vertical scrolling. It is by far the best mouse I have ever used for scrolling with a scroll wheel. The mouse doesn't have a scroll wheel but beats out the scrolling on every mouse I have ever used including my current Logitech G7 Wireless Laser Mouse. The scrolling speed is variable rated. So The web browser, cover flow will scroll as fast as you move your finger. Absolutely brilliant! If the mouse was more comfortable I would totally buy one for my Mac System.

The Magic Mouse is a brilliant invention, and Apple almost got it right, the mouse is very pretty, has excellent functionality, but is in my opinion, uncomfortable. Maybe I can get use to it? Then again maybe not.