Nerd Chic

Casio is releasing the classic 80's calculator watches I thought were so cool way back in the day. They actually look pretty hype in these colors.

My Newest Gadget is Here

Yup. It finally came last week. I bought a Nikon D40 on Amazon.com and had it delivered to my mom's house in Wheeling. It got there on Tuesday, but a snow storm prevented me from driving out there to get it until a couple days later.
I LOVE it. Of course, I'm still learning the ins and outs of it. I found a great online guide and started reading it before I even got it. Here are some of my first sample shots.

I got my hands on the G1!

I've mentioned on here that I'm a big... big... huge fan of Google. I use Gmail (fully customized with Google Labs features), Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Reader, Google Analytics (to track my blog stats), Google Maps, Picasa (a Google product), of course Google.com to search. I also subscribe (using google reader) to the Official Google blog as well as the Google Mobile Blog. Starting to get the picture?
This being the case, I had been watching the development of Android, Google's mobile operating system very closely. If you're a little confused, an operating system is the software that dictates how you interact with hardware. Windows, for example is a very well known operating system.
Google set out to make an operating system that works the way other Google products do, simply, efficiently, and intuitively. The new operating system, called Android, was released on it's first handset, the G1, a few weeks ago. I've been drooling over it ever since. The G1 is a dressed up version of the HTC Dream. It's got a capacitive touch screen (similar to the iPhone) and a qwerty keyboard that's hidden under a sliding screen.
I finally got to play with it yesterday at the T-Mobile store, which was sweetness. The G1 is smaller in my hands than I had thought from pictures and videos I've seen online. It's also really easy and fun to operate. Having played with my iPod Touch and my wife's iPhone, I think the touch screen on the G1 is very similar. The icons are big enough to be easy to hit even if you have relatively large grown up fingers. That's one thing early touch screen developers got wrong. Small icons require you to waste time pulling out a stylus or take careful aim rather than naturally using your fingers.
Of course, one of the really cool things about a phone with an operating system made by Google is that it sync "in the cloud" with all my Google information. For example, once I sign in to the phone, all my contacts from GMail are stored on my phone automatically. When I add a contact on the phone, it's stored online immediately. Calendar, mail, and other things work the same way. Pretty cool. What might be even cooler is that I don't have to plug it in for it to sync. It syncs to the servers wirelessly and automatically. Beautiful.
Of course, the G1 is only the first phone to hit the market with the Android operating system. That means, as the appeal and gadget lust spreads, more handset manufacturers will start turning out new phones running Android. Not sure if I'll be an early adopter and get the G1 or wait and see what else comes down the pipeline.

G1 Numbers

T-Mobile has been taking pre-sale orders for the new HTC G1 phone which is the first phone to run Google's new Android operating system. It's a pretty neat phone and I'd order one myself if I had the opportunity. I even advised my mother to take T-Mobile up on their pre-sale offer. It seems I'm not the only one who is drooling over this thing. T-Mobile has sold 1.5 MILLION of these handsets. That total is all pre-sales. That means none of those people have even held one in their hands. They expect 2 Million phones to be shipped and sold in brick and mortar stores pretty soon. Those are big numbers. Huge numbers. iPhone numbers.

This is hype....

(Yeah. I've decided to bring back the word "Hype")If you've ever seen me walking down the hallway at work, drumming on my chest, then you can understand why I'd want this. Christmas is not that far away.

I want this...

Saw this on Gizmodo and it's a must have whenever I get that mansion I've been wanting.

iPhone Craziness

Ok. First off, I DO want the new 3G iPhone. I mean I really do. But there are no funds in the gadget account right now. As it is, I do own an iPod Touch, which I do love tremendously. I send and receive email on it via a wi-fi connection, I check weather, I peruse blogs via Google Reader on it thanks to it's integrated Safari browser, I play MP3's and movies, I store and share pictures, I back up contacts in case my phone dies, I buy music through the integrated iTunes Store, and a host of other really cool stuff. I plan on updating my Touch with the 2.0 Firmware and I've already started downloading some really cool FREE apps from the Apple App Store.

As I was reading one of my favorite blogs, jkOnTheRun, there was a post about the craziness that is iPhone 3G release day. Apparently people were lined up crazy style at every Apple Store everywhere. At the store the author (James Kendrick) went to, he saw about 50 people standing in line, some of whom had already gone to another store that had even longer lines. People working at the store said they had only received 20 8GB iPhones and 20 16GB iPhones. That's insane. They (the fruit company) know what they're doing. It's just like when Microsoft (arch nemesis of the Apple folks) shipped small quantities of the XBOX 360 when they were first released. It's a tactic they use to generate hype.

But when it comes to the iPhone, I believe the hype.



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Now playing: Nas - N.Y. State Of Mind
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