It's Been a While, But We're Back

Hey guys! It's been quite a while! The summer was too hectic! Blogging for Gadget Fail was hard to do with all that was going on. Here's a quick update.

This summer, to get my high school volunteer hours, I was teaching at a children's technology camp! It was good fun. I went to Vegas for a trade show for itControl Solutions, where they won Best in Show! After that, I went back to working at camp, and after the season ended, worked on starting up another blog.

www.iPhoneGenies.com has been launched! We're fully up and running, so don't forget to check that out after reading Gadget Fail! :D

We'll be back up and blogging as usual, so hang tight internets!

Summer Awesomeness

This summer, I decided to do something more fun than subjecting myself to the wilderness and boredom of overnight camp. I thought it would be better to volunteer my time at a day camp in the city, since I'm too young to get paid to work (legally). I decided that a great place to work would be a camp somehow related to technology.

I found Children's Technology Workshop, a local camp that is technologically oriented towards youth in grades 2 to 8. Being a former camper, I thought it would be a great opportunity to apply and also get my community service hours in the process. After going through the regular process involved in getting any job, I was accepted as a volunteer.

The camp runs from 8 until 5 with extended care for some campers until 6. It is one week long. In that week, campers choose an "adventure" and continue to finish tutorials until the end of the week, when their portfolios are put together to download at home. At home campers can continue to elaborate on their projects or show off their projects to friends and family.

Campers can make games, robots, movies, and digital art. Most adventures (like "mars explorer" and "Save environment") integrate all of these different aspects. Campers follow tutorials made in the "iCamp Browser" that act as a step-by-step guide that helps the campers complete tasks and learn the basic principals behind these different aspects.

The program "Gamemaker Guru" for example, consists of campers learning the principals behind how to make a game in the application "Game Maker" which is a simple GUI oriented "programming" platform that allows children to create simple "maze games" (where you guide a character through a "maze", while avoiding obstacles) and more advanced "Platform games" (like Super Mario) and even more complex 3D games. Campers follow the tutorials and by the end of the week, have a fully functional multi level game with customized characters and environments.

Our day consists of working for 2 hours at first and then going outside for a break at the local park, where we play dodgeball with the kids. After that its work for 2 more hours and then lunch. After that its a small break and then work again for 2 hours, and go outside again. After that more work and the day is done!

It's so far GREAT and has only been 2 days! I've been playing with legos and helping the little kids out... Definitely an amazing experience.

Quick RFID "Hack" Saves Time at Key-Card Powered Doors

**All credit goes to Daniel on this one**

About 2 weeks ago, a friend of mine came up with a great idea.

Most of us have these RFID powered key cards. You put them up against the receiver and the door opens. I'm a teenager. I'm not at the age where I carry around a wallet or keys (I know...), so when I go to my father's office after school, I am constantly knocking on doors and disrupting productivity for a way in. Even when I brought my wallet, it was such a hassle to put down my knapsack, drink, and gym bag to reach into my pocket for my card.

We decided that all this would change. After Daniel (secretly) tore apart his card, he found that there were only 2 parts: the plastic body, and what is essentially a thin plastic sticker with a coil of copper wire and a circuit board the size of the dot at the end of this sentence.

If you have a phone of any sort with a removable battery case that's relatively large, you're in luck. We used our Blackberry Bolds and cut the sticky sheet (avoiding the circuits!!) down to size, and stuck them against the inside of the back of our battery cover. It's a tight fit, but it closes. (It will work in)

Now, when we approach our RFID powered doors, we just hold our phones up to the receiver and feel like the biggest nerds ever!!!

Enjoy...

No stealing.

Public Cell Phone Use By Youth Should Not Be Offensive

Most people are too old to have owned a cell phone (Smartphone for that matter) under the age of 18, but I happen to meet that specification.

Being a geeky 15 year old, I have owned a few smartphones over the years, and cellphones before smartphones became a reality.

When I was 11, and my sister 10, my father brought home a spare Motorola v220, and told us that we were to share it and cooperate when working out who uses it. (Yeah right.) It became my sister's phone as soon as the pink hearts in the background showed up. My sister at age 10 owned a cell phone.

After this, my parents decided that we could open up old dormant Telus plans we had already, and get new phones for our new school year. I went into grade 7 being one of the only kids with a cell phone. It was cool too. The Nokia 6265i was the first slider phone, and did many neat things that not a lot of phones did at the time...

Walking around with a cell phone in 2007 at the age of 12 seemed normal to me and my (snobby) private school friends. What we did not know was that it seemed weird to others. Whenever I would whip out my phone to make a call, or send a text, I would get glares from old ladies, other older men, other kids, or just random people in general. I was too young to understand, notice or care about these peoples' reaction, as I was not as socially aware as I am today.

In grade 8, after my Nokia broke, I managed to beg my father enough to let me sell my 2 week old iPod Touch and get an iPhone from the USA. Finally, it happened, and I got my first ever smartphone. The iPhone was great. It was brand new and the reason I loved it was because nobody owned one. It was nice to be "exclusive".

Being more aware of these glares from strangers, I was ashamed of using my iPhone in public. I wasn't scared of the phone being snatched, as the people staring me down were older people with more traditional values.

The story goes on and yadda-yadda, I now own a Blackberry Bold. (more for geeky reasons than social ones)

The Blackberry Bold is a phone that was intended for business users. My dad, and some of his co-workers own Bolds, and so do I.

The Blackberry has over time changed its role from being a business phone to a phone with features for everyone. RIM even designed the Perl Flip for kids, with Rogers billboards plastered with "You're kid's ultimate Christmas present. The only thing on their list.", and the colors clearly targeted towards youth.

To shed some light as to why the Blackberry is so popular with kids and teens now, is the fact that it has become a networking device. Email, Facebook, MSN, the ever coveted BBM, and so many more programs that allow us teens to network makes the Blackberry better than any regular "dumb phone" (the opposite of smart phone).

Even today, being a 15 year old student, I get glares by teachers, strangers, family, and the occasional friend when I whip out my Blackberry and go into a "texting coma". What people don't understand is that the Blackberry is now marketed as a phone for everyone. My mother even owns a Bold (my hourly rate for tech support has spiked due to recession related reasons. Sorry mom). People with traditional values share this opinion because they don't understand how the youth culture has changed from when they were children. What used to be taboo is more acceptable. Eye contact, phone calls, and even get-togethers are slowly becoming a thing of a past.

There are definite limits to what I have stated. For example. I was in a mall on Sunday, and I happened to see a little girl, she must have been not a day over 7, carrying a Curve, texting someone. Her father, trailing behind her, had one too! This is definite madness. Being under the age of 11 or 12 and owning a smart phone is pushing it. Owning a cell phone at that age is even pushing it.

If I weren't a geek, and not interested in technology, I wouldn't have owned a smart phone until the age of 14.

Blogger Buddy

So this is an interesting one.

I just got the new Blogger Buddy gadget for Windows 7 from the Big M's website. It seems pretty flawless so far... Kind of neat actually...

Recommended for all who feel like they should blog.

The app has a few cool features. The "preview" button gives you a cool pop-outish preview of your post. Pretty cool...

You can change text, add pictures, and hyperlinks, post and read posts on your blog.

Happy posting...?

Apple's Wall of Fail

So, in the lobby of the WWDC center, there's a huge wall which consists of a 5 x 4 grid of Apple Cinema Displays showing all of their apps in the App Store. Every time a sucker buys an app, the icon for it starts pulsating.

I know I've been bashing Apple a lot lately. I'm sorry, but it has to be done. I'm sick of all of these stupid Fanboy blogs, so here it goes.

Apple's marketing technique, as "revolutionary" as it is, doesn't cut it. Apple is making more money than I have ever seen in my entire life (15 years heh heh heh) with their App Store, and they have many developers. They also happen to have revolutionized the idea of mobile computing, in the way that they have made adding applications (a concept very primitive a year ago) as simple as 3 taps. This is great. It can be and has been marketed and used very effectively.

The issue that seems to ring through here is the fact that Apple's focus is strongly on their applications. They've been focusing more on their list of apps than their list of features. This was proven yesterday at WWDC, when Apple released minor hardware upgrades, and no redesigns of any hardware. This is Apple we're talking about. They normally try and update their products in a way so that their existing ones look like old, clunky crap.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. The minor hardware upgrade (with no physical changes to be seen) make it harder for existing users to upgrade, and makes the choice for new users harder, and gives them a cheaper, more logical alternative.

I will hand it to them; Apple knows how to market products, but this time, they really miffed up. If they had decided to come out with a minor physical tweak (more than the letter "s"), maybe it would be harder for people to own the "old" model.

Sling Player Showdown: PC vs. Mac

For those who don't know for some strange reason, the Sling Box is the best invention ever. It is definitely the best thing that happened to me as a nerd, geek, and person. The Sling Box is an appliance based product that streams your live cable box feed across the internet. With no monthly costs, the Sling Box is the best solution for watching TV on the internet (aside from Orb, although you don't need a TV Tuner), and has been for a while now.

I still have the first-gen Sling box and it's great (best gift ever, Dan). Although I could go all out and get a Sling HD, I'm perfectly content with what I have.

The Sling box streams TV in two ways: through a (new-ish) web-based player, or through their software, Sling Player. Sling Player is out for Mac and PC. Like everything, there are a few major differences. Mac users, read on to find out what you're missing out on.

Sling Player Mac's latest version is 1.0.8, and has not been out as long as the PC version has. It is missing a few major components.

The interface is... decent. It runs well on the Mac, and definitely gets the job done. I was still content with my Sling box on my Mac, but knowing what was on the PC drove me a little nuts. It's missing features like their "Pseudo-PVR" solution.

This allows the software to record and save 30 minutes of playback on local hard drive space, simulating a rewind and fast forward feature. This is truly great on the PC as it allows you to rewind without having to have your Sling plugged into a PVR unit. Sadly, this feature is not on the Mac.

Also, the remote controls on the Mac are nowhere near as good as they are on the PC. On the PC version, Sling is smart enough to detect your cable box hardware, and download a skin for the remote so that it looks identical to the physical remote you have at home. This adds a nice touch, as users instinctively know how to control their box, with no stupid or tedious learning curve.

My final major beef with the Mac Sling Player is the fact that you cannot use it online. What do I mean by this? Sling has set up a beta web player, allowing you to view your Sling box streamed from their website with no software needed. Sound's great eh? (www.sling.com) If you're on a Mac, you're s.o.l. This feature only works with PCs and it works great. It also has the 30 minute "Pseudo-PVR" solution.

In reality, the PC version of Sling Player, both web-based and software based, is better than it is on Mac. Fanboys can't use their Sling boxes like PC users can...

My Dell Mini 10 With Windows 7: An Unbiased Review

It's been a few days now, and the honeymoon phase is over for me. I mean this in a good way of course. I have been exposed to many gadgets and laptops and whatnot, and to be honest, if something is new (and awesome) I usually want it for about 2 minutes, then the dazzle wears off (Android... *sniff*). I only legitimately make big purchases after thinking about and wanting something for longer than 5 days to a week. If I can't stop thinking about it, it means I want it.

What I mean by all of this is that I wanted my Dell for a long time, and when it came, I couldn't have been happier. The XP it came with was great, and it was awesome for it's purpose; school work and meaningless browsing. (It survived a fall from a wooden classroom desk onto a linoleum floor. It was still running HA).

After a while, I decided that it wasn't tweaked (or hax0r) enough for my liking, so I decided to do the (seemingly) impossible; putting Windows 7 on a Netbook.

I had downloaded Windows 7, (build 7100) and away I went. It took no time at all. I was left with a crappy resolution and not much else. After finding out the hard way that there were no Vista drivers for the stupid thing, I decided to give up. I did for about 3 weeks, leaving it in a dormant state, not using it at all, until I decided to put my mind to this thing, and get it working.

Last Friday night, I was up until 2:30 am, working my ass off trying to find fixes and get things working. After much tweaking, (and help from the fine folks at MyDellMini) I finally got everything working in perfect order.

After testing it out, pushing it's limits, and and using it for regular everyday things like word processing, web browsing, Outlook (a.k.a. the pig) and other Office tools, I have truly gotten a real taste of what this machine is capable of.

The machine handles Aero quite well for what it is. It's not as smooth as it could be, but it definitely works. It is somewhat snappy, although my System Rating for Aero is 1.0, it runs rather decently.

Web browsing is a snap. It's really great for that. It also handles Google Chrome (what doesn't) and Mozilla very well... Ironically, Internet Exploder runs like crap on here, just because it's a pig.

All of the components like the camera, ethernet, multi-touch trackpad, USB ports, HDMI out, power management, and the Dell softkeys all work flawlessly.

All in all, the Dell Mini 10 is awesomeness with XP and is great with Windows 7. I think that there are a few speed things that would drive the perfectionist mad. If you are someone who requires no kinks, quirks, or occasional speed problems, stick with XP. It's all about the hax0r with Windows 7 on here.

Stay tuned for a guide on how to install... Perfectly.

Why Twitter is Over Used

Don't get me wrong. Please don't get me wrong. Twitter is - erm - useful. It allows people to socially network and share their thoughts, ideas, whereabouts, and anything else that pops into their heads. It allows people everywhere to broadcast messages and share things in common.

Twitter is definitely a corporate success. It has captivated the masses, and many people connect with it. As I am told by my entrepreneurial father, a good product solves a problem, and Twitter does just that. Many people make the argument that Twitter is like a Facebook Status, and is just another stupid idea. This is incorrect. Twitter removes all the cumbersome aspects of Facebook. As an example, Facebook is like a vast open desert. It's a huge mass of people who upload pictures, update status', play games, and comment on others' lives. To be honest, Facebook is only fun when you have 700 friends.

Twitter is the exact opposite. What makes it unique is that you can start Twittering and people will find you, you will find people, and there is no lack of news or updates. Also, there are no acceptance of friends. It's as easy as clicking "Follow".

As a side note, Facebook started as an experiment in Harvard. Things like these "built for internal use" experiments seem to be more successful than the regular corporate, "built for the masses" product.

There are however, minor problems with Twitter. These problems are related to it's over-use, both personally and in the media.

Many people use Twitter just to update their daily doings. A lot of these people feel it necessary that their 200 "followers" know when they inhale, exhale, and sneeze. I understand how there can be a thrill linked to broadcasting a message and giving people no choice in reading what you think, feel, or are doing, but there's a limit. This is definitely a downside to Twitter. People don't care about what you're doing. If they did, they would call you.

The media uses Twitter like mad. The news anchors, celebrities, TV channels, and TV shows. The Twittering never ends. I understand the fun in reading about what Opera is eating, and analyzing the calories, because it's live and up-to-date information, but really? Twitter has become another way for people to avoid social contact. Though it does give people another method to connect, it does not allow people to come in contact with each other.

Right now, you're probably (not) reading this post. You didn't ask me what I thought about Twitter, nor why I think it's crap. My opinion makes no difference to the reader(s?) of this blog, and yet, people (hopefully) want to read it to get my opinion. I am in no way forcing my thoughts, beliefs, locations, activities, or opinions on you right now. You could close this window, clear your history, and be done with me. You hopefully choose not to, because my opinions and thought etc. are deeper than 160 letters... Twitter has become another method for "connecting" with friends, strangers, and celebrities. In my opinion, it's useless...

(I know I'm probably wrong according to some, but it's my opinion.)

Why Apple Has Dropped the Ball and Fallen Far Behind

For the past few months, (more than ever) Apple has fallen behind in more ways than one.

Let's be real here and think about what has happened. Apple has released redesigns to their MacBooks, making them heavier than the solid block of aluminum (fanboy pronounciation: Al-U-Min-E-Um) that they actually are. They barely updated their lacklustre mobile phone, and have failed to notice many industry trends.

First, the MacBook. One thing everyone knows about technology is the fact that it changes faster than you can swipe your credit card. When you buy a computer, it is outdated within weeks or months. People always bitch about how Apple comes out with a new model before you open the previous one. This is definitely not the case. People under the Apple Delusion fail to realize that Apple only has about 3 models for every product, so when they update, it's a big deal, because there are so few products.

Being real, we must note that other companies update their products constantly. Take Asus as an example. They have come out with (literally) countless models of their Eee PC. No one makes a big deal, because they have a broad product range, and the updates are welcome, because the latest technology is being used. And that's just the point. Apple has been manufacturing machines with outdated hardware. Yeah, their hard drives are fast, and sure, they have Wireless N, and cameras, but they're missing the mark.

As I write this, I'm on my Dell Mini 10. This $300 computer runs Windows 7, has an SD/MMC reader, and HDMI, as well as Ethernet, a full keyboard, a camera, 3 USB ports, a 160 GB drive, and a multi-touch trackpad. All of this crammed in beautifully for a dirt cheap price (in terms of PCs anyway). Now, what do we get with a $1600 (CAD) MacBook? 2 USB Ports, (stupid and unusable) "Micro DVI", Ethernet, and that's where it ends. There are no bells and whistles; no pull features. Just bare-bones hardware at frilly prices. What is the point.

It has gotten to the point where Apple's hardware is outdated. Where's the MMC slot, the 4 USB ports, the freakin' VGA? That's the thing. Apple's too arrogant for industry standards. They're too caught up in creating their own protocols and ports that they miss the point. Nobody (especially in this economy) wants to spend $30 on an adapter to make their monitor work with their MacBook. It's stupid.

This brings me to my next product. The iPhone. When the iPhone came out 3 years ago, it was simply stunning, ahead of it's time, slick, amazing, and was definitely the best smartphone in the industry. It was just beautiful. I owned one back when you couldn't get them here in Canada. It was my life. Soon, competition started upping their game. RIM with the Bold, HTC with the Touch Diamond and Touch Pro, Google with their open source Android, and Samsung's (failed) attempt at touchscreen phones. The point is that the iPhone started to have some worthy competition.

Three years later, there have been minor updates to the phone. 3G antennas, an App Store, a (in my opinion downgraded) plastic back, and minor software things, like GPS, "voice notes" and voice dialing and commands. (Where's push???)

My Blackberry Bold (which has had it's time in the market) has been doing all of these things before the iPhone. Voice commands (Vlingo), GPS, Push, Voice Notes, App Store(s) (App world, CrackBerry, Handango), and everything else you can name, not to mention multitasking!!! I too was once in the vortex of iPhone, but when I came out I realized that I could be on MSN, Facebook, browsing the web, Blackberry Messenger, and listening to music -- ALL AT ONCE!! These are simple things that Apple has not and never will integrate. (Copy/Paste. -I won't even mention that- Welcome to the 80s.)

Finally, who used to be at the "cutting edge of technology", Apple has sadly plugged it's ears with it's ego and stopped watching and creating, and started slowly updating... What I mean by this is that there are so many technologies that Apple has the chance to take advantage of. Where's the Apple netbook? Where's the MacBook mini? Nowhere. Because Apple feels that it's a "passing trend", when in reality, this is where computing is going. Computers are getting smaller, more powerful, and are crammed with bells and whistles. Not heavier, larger, and locked down.

Apple is not only missing the netbook boat, but they're also missing something that they could take, kill and dominate the market with. The Tablet Computer. I will hand it to them and say that their iPhone multi-touch is the best out there, and this technology could be put to use to create a kickass tablet. But no! Apple feels that this is not needed. This could in reality take computing to whole new fronts. There's no telling what their amazing R&D team could come up with using their multi-touch. When you think about it, it's kind of silly for Apple not to make a tablet.

In conclusion, it has become unacceptable that Apple's hardware is out of date.