Category: Product Reviews

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Product Reviews

Nintendo Wii

Wow, well, I finally got a few chances to play Nintendo Wii yesterday. Someone at work brought one in an hooked it up, and then last night a buddy has one hooked up at his house. I’d have to say the I for sure want one. Thing is, playing it, it was hooked up to projectors, which is even better. So I might need to get one of those too 🙂

Played Wii Sports – Baseball, Tennis, Bowling, Boxing. Also played Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz – but I didnt really get into it, it is tough trying to move your arm compared to how I am used to playing it.

Also, probably the best side effect is that, you get a workout~! Nintendo really came out with something that anyone can play as well. I can’t wait to get one.

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Product Reviews

iPhone – why I am not buying one.

Oooooooh, the iPhone. Apple’s latest gadget. Well, it has been all over the blogs and media the last couple days, and here is why I will NOT buy one.

  • iPod – i have a 80 gb. It sucks. Itunes sucks. It is a pain to sync. It locks up. I don’t like it.
  • No 3G – are you kidding me?
  • Battery – I can’t replace it myself? And the battery life is 2 hours if you use it at all
  • Full Touchscreen – this is cool if you are like, never going to use your phone. How about the bars, purses, backpacks, wherever you throw it – its going to get scratched.
  • PPC6700 – i already own a Pocket PC 6700 through Sprint. I can play music. I have wifi. I have bluetooth. I have a touchscreen. I can send SMS. I can browse the web. I can play videos. I can hookup a GPS though bluetooth (the iPhone has no GPS). I have word, excel, outlook, powerpoint. I have a camera and video recorder. I can watch TV (through slingplayer mobile). I can use it as wireless modem. I can develop programs for it and do whatever I want on it. The question is – what CAN’T I do with it. 🙂

I could probably go on and on, but this is one gadget I do not want!

What is even better, other people agree.

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Product Reviews

Windows Media Center – Vista

I have just started to play with Windows Media Center on Vista, first off, because it found my 360 and wanted to set up the extender, so I just did that. The music interface is much better than the WMC on XP. I will have to route my TV into my computer so I can play with that as well. I know in the past I have read some reviews on WMC on beta versions of Vista, and they weren’t so good, but I am really liking it so far.

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Product Reviews

Itunes Doesnt Work On Vista

Well, last week I read all over the web, that the Zune didn’t work on Vista. Well, the Zune just came out last week, but Ipods have been around for years, and guess what. Itunes doesn’t work on Vista!!! Well, it runs. It tries. But it croaks – hardcore. First, it doesn’t support Aero (Glass) – second, I try to do a search for anything, and wham, it dies. I can’t sync my Ipod!! I guess I can always install MediaMonkey again. Thing that irks me the most is, I like WMP. I griped recently about WMP11, but I like it better than Itunes. Why can’t Microsoft/Apple/3rd Party make my Ipod sync with WMP. WTF? Why make it harder for consumers to use your products. I hate Itunes, always will, unless they make it better than WMP. Anyways, thats my gripe for the night, and I guess my Ipod will have to be happy with old music on it 🙂

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Product Reviews

Microsoft Vista

I just installed Microsoft Vista Ultimate. This is my first post from Vista! Its pretty sweet so far, the glass theme is nice, I’m just getting everything installed, adding music to my library, etc. Housekeeping 🙂

I installed IIS, so I’ll have to check that out as well. Hopefully everything I use works. What a great way to spend a Saturday 🙂

Categories
Product Reviews

Windows Media Player 11 – Design Flaws

So, on my main desktop at home I finally installed Windows Media Player 11. Ive used it since the betas, but no on my main machine. So what I usually do is download music from the net, onto my desktop, but then copy it to my server, and let WMP find the album art and fix everything. Well, you could just specify one sub folder and have it scan in WMP 10. Seems that feature is gone ghandi in WMP11. So WTF, I have to copy the files, and either play them manually so they show up and go through each one and edit it, then update album info, or let it sit there for who knows how long WMP to scan the folder (I have like 12,000 songs right now, so its not speedy). Why did they take that feature/option out, I guess we’ll never know, but it really doesnt make sense, since now its harder to manage my library. argh :S

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Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

Trying new RSS Readers

This weekend I decided to try some RSS readers (web only). Currently I use Newsgator Online, so I wanted to see if there was something else out there. I exported my OPML (300 feeds) and looked for some new readers. Tried Bloglines, Google Reader and NetVines. Out of the three, Google Reader seemed the best to me, but not as good as NewsGator online. For some reason I just like it more. There are a few features that they could add, but overall its a good product. Bloglines, I just dont like the look, NetVines, i couldnt figure out how to just show my unread feeds. I’ll stick with Newsgator for now 🙂

Categories
Life Product Reviews

River City Grill – Richmond, MN

I live right across the street from the River City Grill. It by far is the best bar in Richmond. They have good food and allow you even create a tab 🙂

I try to get over there at least once a week for the Twins game, couple beers and burger. They are having Scott Hansen Comdedy night on Oct 7th so that should be good, I saw Scott Hansen at the Red Carpet on the opening comedy night there a while ago.

You could say that the River City Grill is my “Moe’s” 🙂

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Product Reviews

DishNetwork – Do Not Call Me!

So, after 5 years with just a cell phone, I now also have a home phone number. I get soliciting calls from Dish Network once a week. I put my number on the do not call registry, but it just must not have gotten through to them. So I get a call tonight, a recording, offering me dish network. Now I could just hang up, but I listen, and hit 1 to get to a rep. The guy asks me what he can do for me since I am interested in satillite service. I respond – “Please take this number off your call list”. And his respone? “click” – he hangs up! WTF?!?!

Now, I don’t have caller id, im sure it would have been blocked anyways, but are you serious? Do they now they by hanging up on me I am ever in my life going to consider getting DishNetwork service? This post is probably already to much lip service to them. I guess I just thought that maybe they wouldnt want to get in trouble for not abideing by the DNC registry, guess not.

Next time they call, I will ask them what they number is I can call them back at, so I can do the same thing to them every week.

Categories
Product Reviews

Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta

I just got on the Windows Live Mail Destkop Beta (whew, long name, WLMDB) – installed it yesterday. Seems pretty cool, few major gripes though, I can’t minimize to the systray and I really dont know where to see my contacts, sent items, etc. Its like a really stripped down outlook or suped up outlook express. The active search is cool, but I am an MSN premium subscriber, I shouldn’t have that shown to me at all. Overall it seems like they could do better, the systray thing really irks me 🙂