GigaOm points us to new data from M:Metrics confirming that iPhone users are more likely to browse the web, watch videos, and in general get the most our of their digital life while on the go courtesy of the iPhone’s cutting edge features. From a personal perspective I know I use my iPhone a lot more than other phones due to the well implemented features, and desktop-like browsing experience.
The article also points out that the iPhone is far from dominant with only 2.2% of the total US cellphone market, although if you ask me that’s a pretty impressive feat having not been on the market a full year and costing $500. I find it interesting that the iPhone beats out all Windows Mobile phones (none of which even show up in the top 25), and is rapidly gaining on RIM’s Blackberry devices.
In the wake of the crushing demise of the HD-DVD format I’ve been ‘forced’ to get myself a Blu-ray player to keep myself comfortably on the cutting edge of media technologies. I decided to opt for a PS3 as it’s the only upgradeable Blu-ray player so far, and plays games to boot.
My first impressions are mostly positive. The PS3 obviously has a bit more horsepower under the hood than the Xbox 360 and sports a cleaner and more modern UI to boot. Unfortunately Sony seems to have made a few odd user experience choices, but overall I’m highly impressed. I have yet to toy with the PSP Remote Play functionality but I plan to dive deep into that in the coming weeks to see just what my new toy is capable of.
As far as games go I’ll likely still do the majority of my gaming on the Xbox 360 platform, but the Sony Store has a few interesting downloadable games - most notably is PixelJunk Monsters. Monsters is based on Element Tower Defense (which I’ve been addicted to before) but sports high def graphics, open gameplay levels, and even more addictive-like-crack gameplay. I lost a good 3 hours to it this afternoon and will likely spend much of the next few weeks trying to master each of its 20 levels - not too shabby for an under $10 purchase (console not included obviously).
My life is now complete: I have an electronic yodeling pickle on it’s way to my home as I type this. Thanks Shiny Shiny!
I wake up at 6:30, shower, shave and get out the door to get to work by 7:30 - only to discover that I left my laptop at home on the couch. Thanks to the later time (and so many time-confused bozos that can’t handle DST) my round trip battle-royal commute back home to get it took well over an hour.
It’s Monday morning at 9am, I’ve already spent over 2 hours in my car, and I’m right off pissed off at the way my week is starting off. Hopefully the rest of the week will improve upon my currently dismal mood.
That day has finally come - my Lutron smart dimmers arrived, have been installed, and are now hooked into my Logitech Harmony home theater automation remote with great results. With a little help from Brien the dimmers are installed, and the wiring is now again safely hidden away behind nice looking wall plates.
The Lutron Maestro IR smart dimmer intelligently fades the lights up and down to preset levels at the touch of a button on my Harmony remote. With the track lights dimmed properly and pointed away from the TV screen it bathes my movie goers in soft warm light while avoiding distracting reflections on the TV.
Next up: painting the living room a darker color to help reduce light bounce around the room. The question has become deep midnight blue, or rich royal red?
I recently discovered Apple Aperture 2.0 and have simply fallen in love with it. It’s hands down the most performant and powerful photo management software out there. Coupled with Adobe Photoshop CS3 (technically the entire Creative Suite) my workflow has been entirely revolutionized. Aperture makes managing a set of 5 photos as easy as managing 10,000. By stacking and grouping photos it’s possible to quickly triage a shoot, find the good shots, and archive the bad shots all with GPU accelerated speed.
Unfortunately I’m come to realize just how unorganized my photos were in iPhoto and am being forced to go on a holy reorganization quest - luckily a not quite as monumental now that I have Aperture to help me out. As a bonus I’m finding lots of old photos that with a little tweaking come out great. It’s like finding rough jewels in a mine, only I don’t have to get all dirty and sweaty - I can just dig away at my desk.
A new entry into my series of Two Union Square
I’m a week late with the post, but better late than never. My adult lighting project has finally made a major splash on my living room. The new track lighting offers beautiful even lighting for the seating area without casting reflections on the TV screen thus bringing my home theater one step further to completion (thanks Brien!).
Sadly it’s still not 100% complete - I’m still waiting on Seattle Lighting to deliver on the Lutron Maestro programmable dimmer switch that I ordered. Without the dimmer switch the lighting is somewhat unusable as the full on setting is almost blindingly bright. Once the dimmer switch arrives I can hook it in to the rest of my home theater automation and allow the lights in the house to dim when I go into movie mode with my Logitech Harmony programmable remote.
While on the topic I have a mixed review of Seattle lighting - they have an amazing selection and access to some equipment nobody else in Seattle can get, but on the flip side they have horrible customer service. I placed my order in late December and was told that my whole order would take 2 weeks (3 tops) to arrive. Nearly 3 months late the bulk had arrived, and now over three months later the last dimmer switch is still pending. I wouldn’t have minded so much, but they did a terrible job of managing my expectations - constantly telling me it would be ‘just a few more days’ every time I called in for status updates.
Oh yeah - and the transformer they sold me was bad. Good for them that they replaced it quickly, and not really their fault; but with bad taste in my mouth from the weeks of getting jerked around by their customer service it was really the arsenic and ass icing on the cake.