Tag: Touchscreen

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I am so tired of “critiques” that boil down to one of the following:

  1. I have no use for or interest in this, therefore no-one does or should.
  2. Pop culture was so much better during my formative years than the crap they put out today.

These are, to put it mildly, a load of bull.

1. So you don’t have a use for it. Other people have different interests than you do. They also have different needs than you do. You might not need a roto-rooter, but a plumber is going to find it very useful.

This one really infuriates me when it comes from supposed techies. So you don’t have a use for a touchscreen with your giant desktop setup with a wall of six monitors. That doesn’t mean touchscreens can’t be useful on, say, handheld devices, or a small wall unit in the kitchen. There’s a reason this xkcd strip rings true.

2. There was plenty of crap back in the day, too. You’ve just had time to forget the mediocre, while the good stuff has stood the test of time. Not everyone who wrote plays during Shakespeare’s time was a great playwright, and not every movie produced before Star Wars was a great work of art.

Plus, y’know, they were your formative years. Of course you’re going to like stuff from that era better, because that’s what shaped your tastes.

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I accidentally left my iPod in my car a few days ago, in plain view, not realizing until shortly before lunch. I found myself considering what my options would be for replacing it if someone had stolen it (fortunately, it was sitting right where I left it), and thought of a couple of options:

iPod Classic. In essence, just upgrading to the current version of the same player. From what I can tell, Apple only sells one size these days, the 120GB model, for $250 — more or less what I paid for my 30 GB model two years ago.

iPod Touch. This would also give me web at wifi hotspots and all the apps from the iPhone marketplace. Downside: I’d have to spend $400 to get the 32GB model. And I already have a G1 with web and all the apps from the Android marketplace — and it works in wifi hotspots and on the cellular network. Also, I use my iPod a lot in the car, and a touchscreen isn’t the best interface if you can’t actually look at the controls.

Just use the G1 and get a bigger memory card for it. The G1 has a decent music player built in. The downsides: I’d need to remember to carry around the USB-to-headphone adapter. I’m not sure they make 32 GB micro-sd cards yet (and even the 16GB ones are expensive, plus they’d have to share with photos, app data, digital comics, etc.), so I’d have to pick and choose music. Also, I don’t think it reads AAC files, so I’d have to re-rip any CDs that I imported into iTunes. And of course re-purchase anything that was bought through iTunes. Then there’s the matter of rebuilding all the playlists… Never let it be said that Apple doesn’t take advantage of vendor lock-in.

Get a second-hand iPod. I can find a 30GB or bigger iPod Classic for close to $50 on eBay — comparable to a 16 GB microSD card.

If it came down to it, I’d probably end up going for the second-hand iPod. While the brand-new iPod Classic has its appeal, it would be hard to justify spending 5x the money when I’m not likely to use the extra capacity.

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There’s been a lot of talk about digital distribution of comics lately, what with declining print sales and shrinking distribution channels. In particular, the idea of comics on the iPhone has produced a lot of discussion, with iVerse Media distributing a number of comics from small publishers like IDW and Boom through the iPhone Marketplace. Not having an iPhone, I haven’t been able to check them out, but they’ve just released their first comic for the Android operating system, which runs my current phone, the T-Mobile G1.

I figured, hey, this one’s free, why not check it out?

Finding and Downloading

The first problem I had was finding it. But that’s mostly the fault of the Android Market, which can only be browsed by hierarchy and sorted by date or popularity. Fortunately, there’s a search function, so I just searched for “Hexed” and it turned up immediately.

It took a while to download even over 3G, so I let it sit and came back to it when I had time to take a break.

G1 Hexed - Cover

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