The Notebook: MacBook Pro

I got my wish. After five years deliberating on whether I should buy an Apple portable computer, I got to try out a MacBook Pro this week. I have been coveting the portable size and sleek design of Apple notebooks since my days in Paris, when D and I used to shop at Surcouf and Fnac. If PowerBooks ran Windows back then – and if they were cheaper – I probably would have bought one. Here are my first impressions after a few days playing around with the high-end Apple portable computer.

Design. The MacBook Pro looks great. I like the matte aluminum finish and the keyboard, which lights up when the lights dim. The big widescreen is great for watching films but it makes the computer less portable. 

I am also a fan of the magnetic power adapter that, if yanked, detaches effortlessly so the computer doesn’t topple. I have done it before. I almost yanked my computer off the coffee table last year after tripping over the power cord. And when I work on the sofa, our dog will invariably sit on the cord, putting a strain on the physical connection. Magnetic connections should be an option for all notebooks.

Noise/Heat. The MacBook Pro is one hot machine. Literally. It heats up quickly and gets very uncomfortable my lap, which is my preferred work surface for notebook computing. How come they didn’t mention this in any of the commercials? What’s more, the The fan inside the computer makes a loud, humming noise that makes you think the computer is overheating. Perhaps I’ll become oblivious to the noise over time, but for now it’s distracting, especially compared to my quiet Toshiba Satellite.

The MacBook Pro is, nonetheless, a powerful machine and the heat and humming do not seem to hinder its performance. Now if only I could locate the butteon to disactivate the WiFi…

iPhone

Judging from the media coverage, Apple’s new iPhone has consumers swooning, either from their first brush with the ethereal gadget or from their time camping out in front of Apple stores in the middle of a heat wave. This Saturday, D sauntered into the Apple store in the Redmond Town Center to judge the phone for himself.

 

Me: So were you impressed?

D: It lives up to the hype.

 

Me: How does this fruit stack up to the berries and the Treos on the market?

D: You have to hand it to Apple: they design their software with users in mind. L’iPhone est ultra simple a utiliser. It’s very easy to navigate the user interface with your finger; however all the flicking and tapping gets the screen smudgy, so the device will look filthy unless you clean it off after every use.

 

Me: But $500-$600? That’s a lot of money. My Motorola RAZR was free with my cell phone plan and it has withstood every ailment Tiggy has inflicted on it.

D: The iPhone has over a dozen functions.

 

Me: Yes, I have read about the features, like Internet access. I have also heard that AT&T’s network is mediocre in some areas, and web access can be excruciatingly slow. Would it worth switching to At&T from a carrier like Verizon, for example? What’s the point of having a phone with GPS if you can’t even get the GPS to work?

D: The iPhone doesn’t have GPS. Plus GPS has nothing to do with the wireless network. What are you talking about?

 

Me: I’m just testing you. ‘Sounds like you want an iPhone!

D: No. I already have a phone and a Zune, so I don’t need an iPhone. Plus an iPhone would cost me at least $59 more a month and I would hardly ever use its super duper features. So what’s the point? The device is very cool, the interface is brilliant, but that doesn’t make it a must have for me. What about you?

 

Me: I’m tempted because I like shiny, pretty things that work properly. And while I’m willing to forgive the foibles of first-version gadgets, it seems that most of the minor glitches affect the gadget’s primary function: telephoning. It would probably be like buying a Nokia phone with a camera for the purpose of taking pictures.  Maybe next year.

 

TechReady 2007 Exchange Web Services Samples

 

I found some interesting slides on the web about integrating Exchange Server 2007 data in line-of-business applications and third-party solutions.

Windows Vista users must save the TechReady2007EWS-en.exe or TechReady2007EWS-fr.exe file on their PCs before running it. To extract the files, right-click the executable and select Run as administrator. 

Enjoy reading.

 

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/bb530093.aspx

Phantasmagoria

Why don’t the publishers of video and computer games create more interactive titles like Phantasmagoria?

A few years ago, D loaded the first of the seven cds onto my old Toshiba because he thought I might enjoy the adventure of the supernatural murder mystery set in a haunted house. And he was right. The game is slow-moving, pretty and plot-driven. The player decides what the main character should do, and where she should go, to gather clues to solve the mystery. What’s not to like?

Phantasmagoria is the only video game I have enjoyed since Tetris. I liked it as much for what it offered as for what it didn’t have in store. For instance I didn’t need to suffer through loud machine gunfire in a war-torn, dystopic landscape, or speed click on the mouse until my hand hurt. I recently watched D play a tennis game on X-box, during which he spent a lot of time twitching and jerking the control from side to side to get his player to return the ball. I wasn’t impressed. It’s probably fun to have the players pant and prance around the court but you can only win or lose a set, then start over again. Plus your hands are always moving.

Vista Ultimate

I upgraded to Windows Vista Ultimate last week. The latest version of the Windows operating system offers several enhancements to security, stability and support, as well as behind-the-scenes improvements that make Vista fun and simple to use. To be honest, I am more caught up with the fun and the simple. Naturally, I want the guarantee that my computer won’t crash and that applications will run at their best, but it’s also important that my time computing is as appealing and as straightforward as possible. With Vista, I was even impressed with the clean, novel packaging.

The new Start menu is clutter-free and has some amazing new icons. Scroll over any menu option and you get a summary of what it does. A translucent, high-definition icon related to the menu item pops up. Scrolling over “search,” for instance, brings up an explanation of search, as well as a sharp magnifying glass on top of the menu. And I like the see-through frames. They make working so much fun.

Nuts and bolts

Installing Vista was simple. I had little to do with upgrading my laptop from XP, but D said it was quite smooth and much easier to install on my portable computer than on his tormented and over-the-hill PC. It took only a couple of hours, followed by some tweaking and downloading the day after. Well I never! Those ads for Mac (with the Mac looking young and put-together and the PC wearing a hospital gown) weren’t entirely truthful!

Picture perfect

Vista includes the Windows Photo Gallery application for organizing digital images and videos, and applying quick fixes to photo color and framing.  

Pimp my Laptop

Vista comes with all sorts of gadgets (small applications, like clocks and stocks) to personalize your screen. I now have the local weather (in Celsius), a calendar and a clock displayed on my sidebar. Of course, I don’t need a clock gadget, considering that the time is displayed on the lower right-hand corner of the screen, but I liked the clean look of the analogue dials. You can also display multiple stocks and news, or keep your screen gadget-free.

Vista comes with scalable desktop icons and some beautiful “wide-screen” images. You can also set a video to the background background, but this takes up processor power.

Instant Search

The Start menu now includes a search box, to find applications, documents and emails on your PC. As with the search function in XP, the Vista search narrows the search results as you type more characters. With Vista, however, you can also use Instant Search to launch applications. To launch Word, for instance, I’d type w-o-r-d, then click enter. This is simpler than searching for the blue and white icon with the big bold “W.” The Word icon was always present in the list of recently used items on the left side of my XP Start menu, but other icons would often be upstaged by new icons, and when I needed to launch them again, I’d have to hunt them down.  

I have not yet tried out any of the new games available on Vista and I’m still discovering subtle improvements to the user interface.

Pentax *istDL

Last April, I made my forays into DSLR photography with a Pentax *istDL. The 6.1 megapixel camera is a great compromise for a newcomer to world of digital SLRs. The dials and large, bright LCD monitor and menu screen make it simple to use, and the compact camera body and rubbery texture feels good in the hands and provides a solid grip. I rely heavily on the Auto Picture Program, which selects the best mode (macro, landscape, low light, etc.) for each shot, so you don’t have to. What’s more, the camera gave new life to the two interchangeable lenses I bought with my Pentax MZ-30 SLR a few years earlier. I have taken my DSLR everywhere, from British Columbia to Correze, France and have produced a gallery of some 6,500 pictures in eight months. A lot of these have to be discarded, but that’s another project.

Of course, the *istDL has some kinks I wish Pentax had worked out before I got my camera. For instance, life is too short for standard batteries. I depleted the four AA alkalines we initially loaded in the camera in less than 24 hours, or roughly 50 shots. How disappointing to have to cut my shooting spree short so soon after getting the gift of digital! Immediately after, we switched to more efficient, rechargeable AA batteries, which we have been reusing ever since. Some of the colors captured are also a bit off, especially blues. This isn’t always an inconvenience – sometimes the off color even pleases me – and granted, I’m not selling swatches online, but I would be more satisfied with truer colors. The *istDL also does not include a blurr reduction feature, available on some newer camera models. I’m sure all those problems will be worked out by the time I’m ready to upgrade to my 10 – or even 11 or 12MP Pentax DSLR. In the mean time, I’ll keep on snapping and experimenting.

Hello from Seattle!

We got a Zune, the 30GB portable media player from Microsoft.

Here’s what we think:

Look: The Zune comes in three translucent colors—brown, white, and black. We opted for black. The texture of the plastic case feels good to touch and the attractive matte finish should hide eventual nicks and scratches better than a glossy finish. I like that we could personalize our Zune by using one of our uploaded photos as a background image. The design is clean and uncluttered: just the large video screen and three discreet controls for navigating. The Zune comes with ear bud headsets that feature a sleek design and tiny magnets that keep the buds together.

Interface: The device is simple to use. I learned by trial and error. The three controls under the screen, from left to right, are: a back button; a large, central navigation circle, which comprises five buttons (volume up, volume down, skip back, skip forward, select); and play/pause. The Zune website offers detailed information about these controls, the connector port on the bottom and other Zune features. The rest is pretty straightforward. You need only select from the options presented on the screen – music, video, radio, and so on – by pushing up, down, left and right along the outer rim of the central control circle, then pushing the middle to select. Et voila.

Video/audio: The image is sharp and bright, and the larger screen and landscape-mode viewing make sense. The sound quality is good. I have only listened to music using the ear buds sold with the device, but I suppose better headphones would deliver higher-quality sound. Isn’t this always the case? The player also has a built-in FM radio that picks up lots of stations, for many of which it displays station identification and song information (artist, song title) for the current track. I wonder why laptop computers don’t come with built-in tuners?

The social: The integrated WiFi technology allows Zune users to exchange music and photos. A friend recently got a Zune for her birthday so we’ll soon be able to sync our devices to test this feature.

Xbox 360

David recently bought an Xbox 360, the game console from Microsoft.  I remember the extensive media coverage following the launch about a year ago – new and improved features, people camping out in front of electronics stores, aggressive bidding wars on eBay – but I haven’t thought much about it since, until about a month ago when Microsoft released Zune, their portable media player. 

Since we now own an Xbox, I decided that instead of complaining about the frivolous purchase, I’d make the most of our new console. Here are my first impressions:

Games/gameplay: Not a clue. I have previewed some graphically impressive, high-definition games via Xbox Live (the online "marketplace" where you can download and preview games and shows), but I have no interest in purchasing or playing any of them. D’s brother showed us a remarkably detailed video game called Oblivion, which is said to be one of the best games ever made.  In my opinion, Tetris is the best game ever made. D also played a racing game with a really detailed and accurate view of lower Manhattan and the New York skyline, seen from the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. I enjoyed picking out landmarks. I recognized City Hall and the street of J&R Music World.

The look: Nice enough. It’s definitely not an eyesore and fits discreetly behind our television set. The design is sleek, and it helps that the console can be placed flat or upright. What’s more, there are no adapters visible or dangling wires. The smooth, pearl-white finish matches D’s car. I wonder if this could be just coincidence?

TV and movies: The video quality is excellent. We have even unhooked our Pioneer DVD player and now watch movies exclusively through the Xbox DVD drive. DVDs and HDTV are now back in our favor. We also have access to movies and TV shows available for download using a system of points that vary depending on what you want to watch. It’s nice to have the option.

Entertainment center: We now have a powerful new entertainment center. I can access our MP3 songs and library of digital pictures from our television. 

Negatives: The Xbox is noisier than our DVD player but fortunately not too distracting. I suppose this wouldn’t be a problem for gaming, considering how loud and over-the-top most of those games seem to be. The only time I hear the fans humming is when the DVD stops.

Zune

This week, Microsoft launched Zune, a portable digital media player that comes with a 30 GB hard drive, WiFi and a built-in FM transmitter. Zune is available in three colors: white, brown and black. Tempting, but we have decided to wait until next year before purchasing.

Update: After thinking about it more thoroughly, my husband and I have finally agreed that we’d get one right now. I’ll post my impressions on the device shortly. Stay tuned…

Up-update: I have come to my senses and realize that I can wait to buy a Zune. What’s the rush? Only yesterday I felt I couldn’t live another day without an X-box 589.