What else is new?

Want an iPhone? Of course you do. It looks sexy, it's innovative, and--for a while at least--it'll be the ultimate status symbol. But in the fog of iPhone hype, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the latest Apple sensation will still have its share of disadvantages. We don't have the king of gadgets in our mitts yet, but judging from the information that has already been released, clearly some folks could have problems with the iPhone. So before you dump your current cell phone, consider these issues.

Data that crawls: When AT&T's EDGE network debuted in 2005, it seemed zippy indeed, delivering data at up to 100 kilobits per second. But that was then. Today, with true 3G technologies delivering data at up to several hundred kbps, Apple's decision not to support AT&T's UMTS-HSDPA 3G network seems short-sighted--especially given the iPhone's investment in cool new Web browsing technology that doesn't suffer from the compromises of a mobile browser. In our limited hands-on tests a few months ago, downloading the New York Times' front page via EDGE took quite a few seconds. AT&T has tacitly acknowledged this potential problem by announcing upgrades to its EDGE network in anticipation of the iPhone launch. And of course, the iPhone will support Wi-Fi, which will make Web page downloads much more feasible if you're in range of a hotspot.

Limited third-party apps: Lots of cell phone power users get more value out of the applications they've loaded on their handsets themselves than the often lame or expensive offerings from their carriers. When the iPhone was first announced, third-party apps seemed shut out entirely, a move that prompted one online petition of protest. Now Apple says that developers can create iPhone apps that run in Safari. Only two problems with that: First, those apps may be fairly poky given the iPhone's slower EDGE network connection. Second, many developers seem to hate writing for Safari. As PC World forums member dazeddan said, "As a developer, we have more problems designing around Safari than any other platform. I wish it would just go away."
Where are the keys? The iPhone's software keyboard, with its on-screen key images, may work fine with Steve Jobs's single-finger hunt-and-peck approach, but it could prove problematic for those folks who have honed their thumb-typing skills on BlackBerry units, Treos, Motorola Q handsets, or other PDA phones with physical QWERTY keyboards. Things did not go well for one PC World editor when she tried typing on a prototype iPhone in January; even the best predictive text entry software would have been stymied by the string of incorrect characters. Plus, what happens when the on-screen keyboard covers up the very e-mail text you're trying to respond to?

It costs how much?! You've probably already heard about the iPhone's astronomical price: $500 for a 4GB model and $600 for 8GB. But you may not have calculated all the other costs associated with buying one. You'll have to make a two-year commitment to AT&T at a per-month cost that starts at $60, recent reports say (though that includes unlimited data access, something AT&T often charges $40 for on smart phones). And unlike with pretty much every other phone in the world, making that commitment doesn't knock down the price, it's just a requirement. Plus, if you're in the midst of a prior two-year commitment with a competing carrier, your cost of iPhone ownership could be further inflated by the early termination penalty you'll pay your current carrier. And finally, AT&T doesn't always receive high marks for its service. You may be okay with the deal now, but how will you feel in a year if the iPhone is no longer the coolest handset on the planet?

Businesspeople need not apply: It's a safe bet that many professionals will want an iPhone. But BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Symbian smart phones offer a long list of business-related features that the iPhone apparently won't, at least upon release. For instance, while the iPhone apparently will connect with Exchange servers, it will require some security trade-offs that could make your IT department nervous. There's no word on connecting to Domino servers. And though you can open Word and Excel files on the iPhone, you can't edit them.

Want an iPhone? Of course you do. It looks sexy, it's innovative, and--for a while at least--it'll be the ultimate status symbol. But in the fog of iPhone hype, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the latest Apple sensation will still have its share of disadvantages. We don't have the king of gadgets in our mitts yet, but judging from the information that has already been released, clearly some folks could have problems with the iPhone. So before you dump your current cell phone, consider these issues.

Unplugged Web plug-ins: The iPhone's Safari may turn out to be the most desktop-like browser ever to appear on a phone. But it won't offer the full complement of plug-ins, players, and other enhancements that today's sites require. And an iPhone without Java, Windows Media, Real, and Flash Video support will fall short of delivering an uncompromised Web experience. (Even its much-touted YouTube capability won't let you watch the full catalog of YouTube videos, at least initially.)

The battery life question: Apple says that the iPhone's battery will survive up to 8 hours of talk time, up to 250 hours of idle time, up to 6 hours of Internet use, up to 7 hours of video playback, and up to 24 hours of audio playback. And to explain how it came up with these numbers, the company has posted a list of footnotes and disclaimers that rivals the rules you find on a "free trip to Hawaii" sweepstakes form. We won't know the reality until we're holding the iPhone in our trembling, multitouching fingers. Apple's spec page says that the 8 hours of talk time was achieved when "the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks was turned off." So how disabled was the Wi-Fi when talk time was tested? Apple also doesn't make clear what combination of 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and EDGE was employed to achieve the 7 hours of Internet use. Macs have pretty good power management settings. What will the iPhone offer? Until more is known, be prepared to carry around the phone charger.

Off-limits battery: While we're on the subject of the battery, it's worth noting that, like the original iPod, the iPhone has its battery enclosed in a superslim case among tightly negotiated electronics and behind a top surface of glass--reducing the chances of a DIY battery replacement to next to nil. (Plus, we suspect that attempting a replacement voids the warranty.) So if your battery life dwindles to roughly 6.5 minutes per charge, or the battery malfunctions, you'll have to send your iPhone in for repair.

Finally, a few other issues that probably aren't deal-breakers but are still worth considering:

It's a thief magnet: Everybody wants an iPhone, including people who aren't above stealing yours.

Multismudge screen: You can use all five fingers on the screen at once? Better wash your hands first.

OMG no IM: Inveterate chatters won't be so :) about being limited to SMS.

Melissa Ethridge's wife wrote Larry this letter after he bumped Michael Moore off the show iin favour of Paris Hilton:

“Dear Larry,

There are not many people who are blessed to have a position such as the one in which you find yourself today. I knew your name from years ago. I knew that if someone was on Larry’s show, it was a big deal. That guest would be smart, contributive, and poignant. I would walk away from your interviews, Larry, feeling as if I’d just been let in on a secret dinner conversation. I used to find your questions imaginative, original, and somewhat interesting and clever. Your suspenders, with matching ties… really, that is such a cute idea. It spells class all the way.
Your show used to have movers and shakers on it. Your show was once significant to the American society, as your show was not only entertaining, but educational and provokative as well. What a legacy you had going, Larry! Unheard of! Unprecedented! CNN! YOU! THE FIRST! GOOO LARRY!

Is it true you bumped Michael Moore from your show to interview a celebrity famous for her porn and drunk driving? Really? Remember Michael Moore? He made Farenheit 911? Changed how we Americans viewed the war? Perhaps your manorexia has caused your brain to eat itself, and you don’t recall. Or, maybe, CNN is owned by some neo-cons, and the decision wasn’t really up to you, it was up to the people who own CNN? Either way, Larry, I am sure you are hitting yourself. I know, I can’t imagine if I had to be you and sit there across fom some poptart who’s labia has seen more sunshine than Cheney’s drunk chrome on a hunting afternoon. I can’t imagine what you will have to tell yourself as you prep for that interview in the makeup chair. Just remember, Larry, as history is written, there will be proof spilled everywhere, like ink. The truth will berry-stain: impossible to forget stain… And you know what? I am going to look back at this time, a time when real journalists could have saved us all some grief by reporting truth instead of soaps, and I will laugh and say “Remember how Larry King dumped Michael Moore for Paris Hilton?”

Or maybe I won’t. I’ll probably have forgotten about you, Larry, and your gossip show. You just became forgettable.

Have a good interview, Larry. I’m off to see SICKO, and try to see about changing this world, not my ratings.

Sincerely,
Hollywood Farmgirl”

A new study says that on average, more than half of the ink from inkjet cartridges is wasted when users toss them in the garbage. Why is that interesting? According to the study, users are tossing the cartridges when their printers are telling them they're out of ink, not when they necessarily are out of ink.
The study by TÜV Rheinland looked at inkjet efficiency across multiple brands, including Epson (who commissioned the study), Lexmark, Canon, HP, Kodak, and Brother. They studied the efficiency of both single and multi-ink cartridges. Espon's printers were among the highest rated, at more than 80 percent efficiency using single-ink cartridges. Kodak's Easyhare 5300 was panned as the worst printer tested, wasting 64 percent of its ink in tests. TÜV Rheinland measured cartridge weights before and after use, stopping use when printers reported that they were out of ink.
That's the first problem. Printers routinely report that they are low on ink even when they aren't, and in some cases there are still hundreds of pages worth of ink left.
The second issue is a familiar one: multi-ink cartridges can be rendered "empty" when only one color runs low. Multi-ink cartridges store three to five colors in a single cartridge. Printing too many photos from the air show will kill your cartridge faster than you can say "blue skies," as dominant colors (say, "blue") are used faster than the others. Therein lies the reason Epson backed the study: the company is singing the praises of its single-ink cartridge approach, an approach which is necessarily more efficient in terms of wasted ink because there's only one color per cartridge, and thus only one cartridge to replace when that color runs out.
Single ink cartridges aren't exactly perfect, however. Such cartridges still were reported as empty with an average of 20 percent of their ink left, which means that an entire cartridge worth of ink is wasted for every five which are used. Given the sky-high prices of ink, this is an alarming find. Epson's own R360 posted the best numbers, with only 9 percent wasted. Yet again, Epson commissioned the tests, so we must ask what's missing.
The study did not measure how much ink is lost due to lack of use, or through cleaning processes. Inkjet cartridges are known to suffer from quality problems if they are not used for long periods of time, sometimes "drying up." This problem has been addressed in recent years, but it has not been eliminated.
The study also did not calculate the total cost per page, which arguably is more important than efficiency. If Epson's multicartridge approach is more efficient, it could nonetheless still be more expensive per page than multi-ink cartridge systems. In its defense, Epson and TÜV Rheinland said that their study focused on the ecological impact of inkjet printing. This is a familiar argument: hybrid cars have also been criticized for their supposed efficiency, with debates raging as to whether or not your average driver will ever see cost savings from better miles-per-gallon given the relative expensive of hybrid engines.
As such, anyone in the market for an inkjet printer still needs to compare specific models to one another to get a feel for efficiency, and Epson's efficiency claims needs to be weighed next to the comparative cost of competing inkjet solutions.Still, the unintended result of this study is that regardless of the battle between single- and multi-ink cartridges, inkjet printers themselves are significantly off the mark when it comes to reporting the fullness of their cartridges. As the Eagles would say, you're best off when you "take it, to the limit." (Or with a laser printer, one can always do the toner cartridge cha-cha.)

Friday, June 8, 07

It has been seven long years since we first celebrated the wicked New Years Eve that began the coming of the new millennium. Seven years, six months, and eight to be exact. For one to say things have changed is a rather erroneous understatement.

America was a prosperous nation, for the most part at peace with the rest of the world. Sure, we had our problems, but in hindsight, those seem pretty petty to the adversities we now face. There was promise. Our future actually looked somewhat bright. It seemed as though, looking from a distance, that the world might actually turn out to be a better place after our first decade in double oughts were up. What a viscous mirage that turned out to be.

It is six years later and all that hope is gone, flushed down the toilet along with the good image that America once enjoyed like an unwanted piece of bacon fat by the wild eyed Texan and his diversified cabinet of falsified do-gooders that we elected to look after our best interests. No longer will any of us in this lifetime awaken to a calm world at peace. It seems somewhat more likely now that one day we will wake up to a nuclear winter.

Long gone are the days of Bill Clinton and his hilarious sexual escapades. They have been replaced by trigger happy vice presidents and made up weapons of mass destruction. The dreaded New Vietnam in the deserts of the Middle East has arrived with all the splendor and destruction of a sandstorm filled with rose thorns and shot nails. It all happened almost too quietly to notice.

Not to be outdone, nature has reared her powerful head over and over again. From the tsunami in Asia, the seemingly constant stream of earthquakes, and the ever popular Katrina, we have been shown time and time again that no matter how technologically advanced we may think we are, we are all still nothing more than the mere playthings of this Earths great elements.

It is time to wake up, fellow planet dwellers. It is time to realize that America, indeed, the entire world, will never be the same again. The utopia that was within our grasp those few short years ago is gone forever, lost in another timeline somewhere deep in an alternate dimension that does not include guys like George Bush and Osama Bin Laden. It was almost close enough to wave goodbye as those towers fell that ominous day in September nearly six years ago.

For some reason, it just doesnt seem right to blame ourselves. Sure, we may all have different political views, but we are not the ones who did this. It was all brought upon us by a small group of overly powerful fools. No matter which side of the conservative/liberal chalk line you may fall on, there is no denying the fact that we have somehow sailed up the proverbial shit creek. This time, instead of being without paddles, we gave them to someone else to guide us with. Now we are five minutes away from the waterfall and we can either watch the tree line complacently while we fall over the edge or we can throw the asshole with the oars out of the boat and row like hell away from the rocks.

Keep those metaphorical oars handy. One day soon we may have to brain the captain, and it will take all of us rowing at once to get ourselves out of this mess. What else is new....