NOTE: I probably shouldn’t even be posting this. As I say later all images/specs of the N9 online are the result of unconfirmed rumors that are pretty widely contested for technical and logical reasons.

The current phone I would like to swaddle and carry around like a baby is the Nokia N9 (picture from SlashGear).

Nothing has been officially confirmed by Nokia yet. We’re not even sure the device pictured above is what the phone will look like (there are some pictures online of a black phone claiming to be the N9). EDIT: It sounds like the phone will be available in silver and black (the keyboard will be black on both versions).

Rumored specs: (found here, originally obtained here I think)

Did a little surfing around yesterday looking for new or updated animation programs. Currently in my spare time I’m using Blender for 2d animation, but I try to keep updated on proper 2d animation programs.

Apparently everyone is wrong. The internet is not a series of tubes. It is a series of windows. Copying a file illegally is apparently identical to breaking a window and stealing physical property. According to US Vice President Joe Biden.

Hey, it least he didn’t call proponents of copyright reform radical extremists, then blatantly lie about it, as Canada’s heritage minister did (and oh yes, he did call them radical extremists, as the end of the linked article points out, it’s on tape).

No no, our VP simply chose to blatantly lie about the damage and impact of file sharing, trying to make it sound like something dangerous and violent–evil, really, when in fact it’s something that is mostly harmless (“Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”) and largely blown out of proportion–the actions of both sides, file sharers and the RIAA, are more misguided than anything else.

Perhaps more on this later, I’ve got a rant brewing, but whether it gets posted or not only time will tell.

Till then,

Lark

(Image blatantly and obviously stolen from NewEgg.com)

My current twenty-something inch computer monitor has an aspect ratio of 16:10, and it isn’t advanced enough to perform any kind of scaling. That means it doesn’t work with my Playstation 3, which outputs a 16:9 aspect ratio. A bit of the image is lopped off of one side.

I am. Really. I know it’s hard to believe, but bear with me.

I’m a pretty self-important consumer.

Let’s look at gaming. I own a PS3. I want to purchase an Xbox 360 soon, I wouldn’t mind owning a Wii, but I like PC gaming best. I can play PC games anywhere I have a computer. I can use nearly any input I want–Xbox controller, PS3 controller, keyboard and mouse, classic gamepad, joystick, etc.

For a while it was enough for me to say that if a game wasn’t coming out for PC, I wouldn’t buy it. In truth, there are enough good games out on PC to keep me occupied for years. Eventually games like Uncharted 2 came along to make me finally buy a console (the PS3 being a Blu-Ray player I could stream files to from my PC helped make that decision, too).

I still have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. I was considering not buying Red Dead Redemption because it came out for 360 and PS3 but not PC. I probably will buy it soon, but why isn’t it out for PC? I’m sure it will be in a few months, just like GTA4 was, but it’s still a letdown.

It’s nice to hear about some new online scam or phishing method, worry slightly because it’s really clever, but then realize that I’m actually not exposed to it. Well, not as exposed as I could be.

Here’s an explanation of a new type of phishing attack. Basically a tabbed malicious page can tell when it’s not in focus, and when you’re not looking it will change itself to look like a familiar login screen, Gmail for example.

No updates for a while, huh? Nearly two months by my count.

The sad thing is, I’ve written a lot of posts for this site, they’ve all just been scrapped or left unfinished.

You’d think my traffic stats would be dwindling after this long a period without updating, but not so. They’ve dwindled slightly, but not significantly. Kind of dissolves any motivation to update for the sake of updating.

I’ve stalled out a bit due to a project I’m working on, which itself has stalled out due to being away from home for a few weeks.

Case in point, finally got down for the day, was hoping to get some work done, and just got called away to do something else.

More posts hopefully coming soon,

Lark

I have very specific visions of how I want to use my gadgets. They should be easy to take with me and easy to keep track of. That’s not often easy with a bag.

I’ve thought about finding a jacket and sewing a pocket into it large enough to store a netbook. I’ve thought about cutting into old jackets so I could run headphones from a breast pocket up to the collar through the inside of the jacket, so I didn’t have to mess with the cord getting in my way, or not being able to find the inside of my ear buds.

So I just saw this article on The Consumerist. About a vest with a pocket inside that the iPad could fit inside. That alone piqued my interest.

So I wandered over to SeV, aka SCOTTEVEST’s website. They don’t just have vests, they have full line of clothes–jackets, shirts, pants, etc. The vests and jackets I looked at have big, (iPad-sized) pockets and lost of smaller pockets for other things.

Wow, ever since I heard about the T101MT, I sure have been blogging about it a lot. Well that’ll change soon because…well…I got a T91MT. In a round-about fashion I won one. I should have it in my grubby little hands leaving disgusting fingerprints all over it’s glossy finish as you’re reading this, even though I don’t have it yet. You see, I wrote this bit Friday night, to be posted over the weekend while I’m on a little trip in recognition of Easter (I take the Easter Bunny’s crucifixion and subsequent rise very seriously).

I had my choice of a few netbooks, and I could have waited a bit for the for T101MT, but I didn’t. Why not? Let’s compare:

I posted an article about the T101MT earlier today. I forgot a few things:

-Interestingly, the T91MT got crap publicity and the T101MT is getting quite a lot. Can you guess why? Most articles mentioning it are speculatively comparing it to the iPad. Tech bloggers love talking about the iPad.

-Lots of these people are confused as to whether or not the T101MT has a resistive (pressure-sensitive) or a capacitive (detects human touch) touch screen. One site even said it has a “capacitive resistive” touch screen. I’m pretty sure this confusion comes out of the T101MT being multi-touch. You can have resistive multi-touch, people!!! It’s not even that uncommon. The more recent Toshiba Gigabytes, the Viliv S10 Blade, and the Asus T91MT all have resistive multi-touch screens.

Capacitive screens tend to be more responsive and take a much lighter touch than resistive screens. On the other hand, capacitive styluses aren’t that great, and if you want to do any “inking” you’d want an active digitizer first (like a Wacom pad built into the screen), but after that the next (and far cheaper) choice would probably be a resistive touch screen.

Just wanted to tack on those additional observations,

Lark