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.
They call it travel clothing, I just think it's a convenient-yet-inconspicuous way to carry a netbook around with me. I haven't bought one yet, though I'm going to order a jacket either tonight or tomorrow. I'm really curious how the weight of a 2lb netbook will be distributed. Probably not too uncomfortable, if at all.
Not only do they have jackets with large pockets for large things, their jackets and vests also have Velcro loops to use running ear bud cables up to the collar. Even better, they say every pocket has a hole at the top of the lining, so you can actually run wires inside of the jacket--though I'd imagine anything thicker than a headphone wire might bulge out suspiciously.
As I said, I'm planing on buying one of these very soon, I'm really curious about the fit once weighted down.
Once I get it in the mail, I'll try and make a full review.
Till then,
David
FULL DISCLOSURE: Sometimes I gush over new or newly-discovered products and services. I know that can make it seem like I'm trying to promote them, but in reality I just have a large well of unbridled enthusiasm for cool new or newly-discovered products and services. I have never taken any money from anyone to talk about a certain product or service. It's possible some services I talk about may show up on Google Ads in the sidebar, but if/when that happens I have nothing to do with it, and I am completely unaware of it (when I'm logged in as admin I can't see the ads).
Monday, April 5, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Another one about the T101MT...and the T91MT
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:
On aesthetics, the T101MT wins hands down. The back of the screen is glossy, but the bezel and the area around the keyboard are flat. A great improvement over the T91MT's full glossy finish. I'd rather had a flat finish, the flat, angular 701 is still the snazziest of the Eee PC line in my opinion, but my 901 is glossy, I've learned to live with it.
They both have the same screen resolution, though the T101MT's screen (and keyboard, I'm assuming) is 1" bigger diagonally.
Battery life? T101MT says 6.5 hours, T91 says 4. Both probably even out around 4 hours. The T101MT has a removable battery. Another win. However, I plan on buying an external battery that also has USB-out, so I can charge my laptop and phone on the go with minimal cords and wall plugs, so it's not a big deal.
The T91MT has Windows 7 Home Premium. The T101MT will have two models, one with Win7 Starter, and one with Home Premium (and more RAM and possibly a better processor). The cheapest model is estimated to be $500. Windows 7 Starter is crap, and doesn't have and multitouch functionality (just single-touch), so it'd cost about $80 on top of that $500 to upgrade to Home Premium. Who know what the higher-end model will cost. I don't know if the T91's price will drop, or if they'll stop making it so it's price will rise, but either way it's cheaper than the T101MT will be with the Win7 upgraded included.
CPU. The T101MT has a newer, faster processor. The T91MT has an older processor but I'm told it has a better graphics chip than then the T101MT does, even handling HD video better than the T101MT. A bit surprising, but I heard it from a trusted source so I'll take it as true.
Some people have reported the T91MT is sluggish. I'm planning on putting a fresh install of Windows 7 on the T91MTimmediately, I'm told that speeds it up quite a bit.
Webcam. Both models have a crappy .3 megapixel web camera. No, not '1.3,' just '.3'. Shameful. Just shameful.
Both have resistive multitouch screens--I've heard they're decent for inking. What's really great, some apps for the T101MT happen to work on the T91MT as well, adding global palm rejection, among other things. This in particular makes the T91MT a more viable candidate than it was.
So T101MT has better looks, a removable battery, and a faster CPU.
T91MT is cheaper, has a better graphics chip, is 9" (a form factor I'm used to, but I've resigned myself to jump on the 10" bandwagon eventually), and my heart.
Also, a long time ago I swore I'd buy one.
Really they're very similar, almost nearly the same device. One's an inch bigger. The difference in processor speeds probably won't make that much of a difference in the real world. I do love a flat finish...oh well.
Could I sand down a glossy finish and end up with a flat one? Could I? Hmm...better not.
David
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:
On aesthetics, the T101MT wins hands down. The back of the screen is glossy, but the bezel and the area around the keyboard are flat. A great improvement over the T91MT's full glossy finish. I'd rather had a flat finish, the flat, angular 701 is still the snazziest of the Eee PC line in my opinion, but my 901 is glossy, I've learned to live with it.
They both have the same screen resolution, though the T101MT's screen (and keyboard, I'm assuming) is 1" bigger diagonally.
Battery life? T101MT says 6.5 hours, T91 says 4. Both probably even out around 4 hours. The T101MT has a removable battery. Another win. However, I plan on buying an external battery that also has USB-out, so I can charge my laptop and phone on the go with minimal cords and wall plugs, so it's not a big deal.
The T91MT has Windows 7 Home Premium. The T101MT will have two models, one with Win7 Starter, and one with Home Premium (and more RAM and possibly a better processor). The cheapest model is estimated to be $500. Windows 7 Starter is crap, and doesn't have and multitouch functionality (just single-touch), so it'd cost about $80 on top of that $500 to upgrade to Home Premium. Who know what the higher-end model will cost. I don't know if the T91's price will drop, or if they'll stop making it so it's price will rise, but either way it's cheaper than the T101MT will be with the Win7 upgraded included.
CPU. The T101MT has a newer, faster processor. The T91MT has an older processor but I'm told it has a better graphics chip than then the T101MT does, even handling HD video better than the T101MT. A bit surprising, but I heard it from a trusted source so I'll take it as true.
Some people have reported the T91MT is sluggish. I'm planning on putting a fresh install of Windows 7 on the T91MTimmediately, I'm told that speeds it up quite a bit.
Webcam. Both models have a crappy .3 megapixel web camera. No, not '1.3,' just '.3'. Shameful. Just shameful.
Both have resistive multitouch screens--I've heard they're decent for inking. What's really great, some apps for the T101MT happen to work on the T91MT as well, adding global palm rejection, among other things. This in particular makes the T91MT a more viable candidate than it was.
So T101MT has better looks, a removable battery, and a faster CPU.
T91MT is cheaper, has a better graphics chip, is 9" (a form factor I'm used to, but I've resigned myself to jump on the 10" bandwagon eventually), and my heart.
Also, a long time ago I swore I'd buy one.
Really they're very similar, almost nearly the same device. One's an inch bigger. The difference in processor speeds probably won't make that much of a difference in the real world. I do love a flat finish...oh well.
Could I sand down a glossy finish and end up with a flat one? Could I? Hmm...better not.
David
Thursday, April 1, 2010
A quick addition: (T101MT)
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,
David
-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,
David
The Telephone Game
I'm a fairly new user of Google Alerts, the service that sends you a notice when they come across a word of phrase you've specified.
Right now my alerts are all for gadgets. I have an alert for the Notion Ink Adam hoping to hear a solid US release date and price. I had an alert on the Viliv S10 Blade until it's pricing and features were finally released. I also have an alert on the Asus T101MT, the 10" version of the Asus T91MT netvertible.
I had an alert set up before the T101MT was released in some European country (can't remember, and it doesn't really matter which), and that press release certainly triggered a flood of alerts being sent to me. The release said that the T101MT would be released in the US in April. The first big tech blogs to remark on the upcoming April release have stated that the European version is selling for 499 euro, about $675 USD, but they're speculating that the price in the US, when it's released, will actually be about 500 USD.
Anyone who has set up a Google Alert to follow a new gadget or device has probably realized there are two (probably more) different kinds of posts. You know what, I'll say three kinds of posts:
First, there's the informative post thrown up when a new press release has come up or a site gets a tip from a company insider providing new information.
Second, there's the posts from people who are discussing a device's potential value and success, providing their insight.
Third, there's the giant sea of cookie-cutter blogs that just copy information from Wikipedia, press releases, and other blogs--probably utilizing bots in the process--to try and get a lot of traffic and ad revenue without actually doing a lot of work or in fact adding anything new at all.
I could veer off into a large speech about how this is one of the biggest problems search engines have to learn to solve--filtering out all the bot-generated sites that are masquerading as valuable content but in reality just make finding solid information harder to find. I won't veer off though, except for these two sentences to say that I could.
So if you set up an Alert for some tech item, you're going to get a handful of good blogs, and also a lot of the same info copied and pasted into generic blogs.
Even among the more legitimate sites, it's interesting how information changes as it changes hands.
As I said, the first few blogs that dared to speculate on the T101MT's US release said the price would probably be $500. Now pretty much every new article on the T101MT says it's going to be $500, without pointing out that that's just speculation.
Another annoyance for me, is that I don't consider "April" to be a release date. It's a release month, and anything that vague is usually more likely to change than a specific date would. So many blogs are popping up saying "T101MT US pricing and release date announced" or something like that, and then the actual post says April's the release date and $500 is the official price. $500 may very well be the price, but how would they know? It hasn't been announced yet, and they're not naming any sources.
The T101MT is supposed to have multiple versions released, with different amounts of RAM and a different version of Windows 7. Different prices. So when a site says, "coming out in April, $500," with no more information, I think I can reasonably assume they've just lifted a rumor off a previous blog without realizing that it's just a rumor.
I'll keep my alerts up and running. I'll keep wading through 30 daily posts repeating old (and speculative) information. Hopefully, Asus will make another announcement soon and put me out of my misery.
David
Right now my alerts are all for gadgets. I have an alert for the Notion Ink Adam hoping to hear a solid US release date and price. I had an alert on the Viliv S10 Blade until it's pricing and features were finally released. I also have an alert on the Asus T101MT, the 10" version of the Asus T91MT netvertible.
I had an alert set up before the T101MT was released in some European country (can't remember, and it doesn't really matter which), and that press release certainly triggered a flood of alerts being sent to me. The release said that the T101MT would be released in the US in April. The first big tech blogs to remark on the upcoming April release have stated that the European version is selling for 499 euro, about $675 USD, but they're speculating that the price in the US, when it's released, will actually be about 500 USD.
Anyone who has set up a Google Alert to follow a new gadget or device has probably realized there are two (probably more) different kinds of posts. You know what, I'll say three kinds of posts:
First, there's the informative post thrown up when a new press release has come up or a site gets a tip from a company insider providing new information.
Second, there's the posts from people who are discussing a device's potential value and success, providing their insight.
Third, there's the giant sea of cookie-cutter blogs that just copy information from Wikipedia, press releases, and other blogs--probably utilizing bots in the process--to try and get a lot of traffic and ad revenue without actually doing a lot of work or in fact adding anything new at all.
I could veer off into a large speech about how this is one of the biggest problems search engines have to learn to solve--filtering out all the bot-generated sites that are masquerading as valuable content but in reality just make finding solid information harder to find. I won't veer off though, except for these two sentences to say that I could.
So if you set up an Alert for some tech item, you're going to get a handful of good blogs, and also a lot of the same info copied and pasted into generic blogs.
Even among the more legitimate sites, it's interesting how information changes as it changes hands.
As I said, the first few blogs that dared to speculate on the T101MT's US release said the price would probably be $500. Now pretty much every new article on the T101MT says it's going to be $500, without pointing out that that's just speculation.
Another annoyance for me, is that I don't consider "April" to be a release date. It's a release month, and anything that vague is usually more likely to change than a specific date would. So many blogs are popping up saying "T101MT US pricing and release date announced" or something like that, and then the actual post says April's the release date and $500 is the official price. $500 may very well be the price, but how would they know? It hasn't been announced yet, and they're not naming any sources.
The T101MT is supposed to have multiple versions released, with different amounts of RAM and a different version of Windows 7. Different prices. So when a site says, "coming out in April, $500," with no more information, I think I can reasonably assume they've just lifted a rumor off a previous blog without realizing that it's just a rumor.
I'll keep my alerts up and running. I'll keep wading through 30 daily posts repeating old (and speculative) information. Hopefully, Asus will make another announcement soon and put me out of my misery.
David
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Damned Indecision!!!
So let's retrace my old steps.
I bought an eeePC 701. Loved it. Don't mind the tiny keyboard. Prefer it, actually, because my fingers are now used to moving and pressing down less than on any of my other full-size keyboards.
Upgraded to an eeePC 901. Bigger screen. Better battery life. Loved the flat finish of the 701 and the beveled edges. By contrast the 901 is just a glossy, rounded fingerprint magnet. With crappy speakers. I don't regret buying it. It does everything I bought it for, and I have watched many a season of TV shows on it during long car trips.
Can't really use either outdoors, in bright sunlight. I've tried.
Got my eye out for a netvertible now. Use it like a netbook, or fold the touch-screen back and use it like a tablet. Hopefully could write on it with a stylus and stop using so much paper. Looking at:
Asus eeePC T91MT. Glossy, poor battery life, non-removable battery. Weak processor. Same price as the S10-3t.
Lenovo S10-3t. Glossy. Decent battery life, removable battery. Capacitive screen--not good for inking. Decent price.
Viliv Blade S10. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Great specs. Expensive. Too expensive. Would love to be able to afford one, though.
Asus eeePC T101MT. Just looked at this one. A large improvement over the T91. Not out yet, don't know pricing or release date.
Toshiba Gigabyte T1000. Like the look of it. Don't know much about it, but Toshiba's netvertibles have a great reputation. Not released, don't have a price or a date yet.
No matter what I get there's going to be some big compromise. Do I wait and see if the T101MT or the T1000 are reasonably priced, then buy one of them? Cause if I resign myself to wait, there's always going to be a great device coming right around the bend.
I figure, even though Asus and Toshiba seem to get it, most companies are catering to people who only seem interested in using a touch screen for pinch-and zoom. Most review sites automatically write-off any phone or tablet that has resistive (pressure sensitive) touchscreens in favor of capacitive (touch-sensitive) touchscreens, even though resistive screens are far better for writing on.
Capacitive touchscreens are more responsive, but I have yet to see or hear about a consistently good capacitive stylus. That means, any writing or "inking," you want to do, you'd have to do with your finger, or use a stylus that can't even consistently draw a straight line. Then again, another benefit of capacitive screens--they can be made of glass, so they're generally more scratch-resistant than any plastic resistive screen.
There's a good video here that shows how inconsistent current capacitive stylus are, although I am curious about the transparent capacitive Dagi stylus shown here.
I think regardless of how good a capacitive stylus works, any touchscreen is going to get a layer of oil and dirt on it that would prevent such a stylus from making good contact.
Another compromise, I couldn't really use any of these "picks" outdoors, either.
So here's my ultimate, "no-matter-the-cost, I really, really, really want this device" pick:
The Notion Ink Adam. Won't be out for at least 3 more months. Doesn't have a hardware keyboard, but let me tell you what it does have.
It has one of those Nvidia Tegra2 processors that are being bragged about up and down every tech conference. It has one of those Pixel Qi screens that everyone should want. The Pixel Qi screen has 3 modes. Full color with backlight on, full color with backlight off, and black-and white reflective mode. The reflective mode is the most impressive, because it allows you to surf the web and read ebooks in full daylight.
That's not the best part. It's only part of the best part.
Now we all know that when a manufacturer says 4 hours battery life that's really 2.5-3 hours. And when they say 10 hours that means 7-8. 16, probably 12-14. How about 140? Hmm? How do you adjust 140 hours to real-world standards? 140 hours is what the Notion Ink Adam claims, I'm assuming this applies at least to reading ebooks in reflective mode.
I'm sorry to say that, in 2010, 20 hour battery life for a tablet is a big deal. 140 hours, with the catch you have to be in a black-and-white mode? Where do I sign up?
This isn't some kludge where you have to reboot in-between color modes. There's a switch on the corner of the device, you can switch modes on the fly. Turn on full color just to watch a youtube video, then go back to black-and-white as you resume surfing.
I can deal with the lack of a keyboard, because I can get a decent eee-sized USB keyboard for fairly cheap. There is a sort-of large hitch. They seem to be mostly supporting Android for the device.
Android, as we all know, is crap. Maybe great on a mobile phone, but if I have a decent tablet I want my standard word and work apps on that tablet too. Open Office for Android? Celtx for Android? Doubt it. Some sites say the Adam will also support Ubuntu and Chrome. I hope that means at least driver support, and hopefully there'll be a dedicated Ubuntu devel team as well.
I'm really, really, really looking forward to this device. Even if it does have a capacitive screen.
When this device goes for sale, if it's cheaper than $500, I'm ordering it that minute. If it's more than $500, I may have to look at my bank account and do some figuring, and of course I'd want to check out the reviews, but I'd still probably buy it. Just not that exact minute.
Hope it comes out soon,
David
I bought an eeePC 701. Loved it. Don't mind the tiny keyboard. Prefer it, actually, because my fingers are now used to moving and pressing down less than on any of my other full-size keyboards.
Upgraded to an eeePC 901. Bigger screen. Better battery life. Loved the flat finish of the 701 and the beveled edges. By contrast the 901 is just a glossy, rounded fingerprint magnet. With crappy speakers. I don't regret buying it. It does everything I bought it for, and I have watched many a season of TV shows on it during long car trips.
Can't really use either outdoors, in bright sunlight. I've tried.
Got my eye out for a netvertible now. Use it like a netbook, or fold the touch-screen back and use it like a tablet. Hopefully could write on it with a stylus and stop using so much paper. Looking at:
Asus eeePC T91MT. Glossy, poor battery life, non-removable battery. Weak processor. Same price as the S10-3t.
Lenovo S10-3t. Glossy. Decent battery life, removable battery. Capacitive screen--not good for inking. Decent price.
Viliv Blade S10. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Great specs. Expensive. Too expensive. Would love to be able to afford one, though.
Asus eeePC T101MT. Just looked at this one. A large improvement over the T91. Not out yet, don't know pricing or release date.
Toshiba Gigabyte T1000. Like the look of it. Don't know much about it, but Toshiba's netvertibles have a great reputation. Not released, don't have a price or a date yet.
No matter what I get there's going to be some big compromise. Do I wait and see if the T101MT or the T1000 are reasonably priced, then buy one of them? Cause if I resign myself to wait, there's always going to be a great device coming right around the bend.
I figure, even though Asus and Toshiba seem to get it, most companies are catering to people who only seem interested in using a touch screen for pinch-and zoom. Most review sites automatically write-off any phone or tablet that has resistive (pressure sensitive) touchscreens in favor of capacitive (touch-sensitive) touchscreens, even though resistive screens are far better for writing on.
Capacitive touchscreens are more responsive, but I have yet to see or hear about a consistently good capacitive stylus. That means, any writing or "inking," you want to do, you'd have to do with your finger, or use a stylus that can't even consistently draw a straight line. Then again, another benefit of capacitive screens--they can be made of glass, so they're generally more scratch-resistant than any plastic resistive screen.
There's a good video here that shows how inconsistent current capacitive stylus are, although I am curious about the transparent capacitive Dagi stylus shown here.
I think regardless of how good a capacitive stylus works, any touchscreen is going to get a layer of oil and dirt on it that would prevent such a stylus from making good contact.
Another compromise, I couldn't really use any of these "picks" outdoors, either.
So here's my ultimate, "no-matter-the-cost, I really, really, really want this device" pick:
The Notion Ink Adam. Won't be out for at least 3 more months. Doesn't have a hardware keyboard, but let me tell you what it does have.
It has one of those Nvidia Tegra2 processors that are being bragged about up and down every tech conference. It has one of those Pixel Qi screens that everyone should want. The Pixel Qi screen has 3 modes. Full color with backlight on, full color with backlight off, and black-and white reflective mode. The reflective mode is the most impressive, because it allows you to surf the web and read ebooks in full daylight.
That's not the best part. It's only part of the best part.
Now we all know that when a manufacturer says 4 hours battery life that's really 2.5-3 hours. And when they say 10 hours that means 7-8. 16, probably 12-14. How about 140? Hmm? How do you adjust 140 hours to real-world standards? 140 hours is what the Notion Ink Adam claims, I'm assuming this applies at least to reading ebooks in reflective mode.
I'm sorry to say that, in 2010, 20 hour battery life for a tablet is a big deal. 140 hours, with the catch you have to be in a black-and-white mode? Where do I sign up?
This isn't some kludge where you have to reboot in-between color modes. There's a switch on the corner of the device, you can switch modes on the fly. Turn on full color just to watch a youtube video, then go back to black-and-white as you resume surfing.
I can deal with the lack of a keyboard, because I can get a decent eee-sized USB keyboard for fairly cheap. There is a sort-of large hitch. They seem to be mostly supporting Android for the device.
Android, as we all know, is crap. Maybe great on a mobile phone, but if I have a decent tablet I want my standard word and work apps on that tablet too. Open Office for Android? Celtx for Android? Doubt it. Some sites say the Adam will also support Ubuntu and Chrome. I hope that means at least driver support, and hopefully there'll be a dedicated Ubuntu devel team as well.
I'm really, really, really looking forward to this device. Even if it does have a capacitive screen.
When this device goes for sale, if it's cheaper than $500, I'm ordering it that minute. If it's more than $500, I may have to look at my bank account and do some figuring, and of course I'd want to check out the reviews, but I'd still probably buy it. Just not that exact minute.
Hope it comes out soon,
David
Thursday, March 18, 2010
See, now I feel like a jerk.
So I'm working on another web site. You see, the 400 monthly page-views I get here are just too much for this one site to handle. I need something to fork off my immense readership. A readership that could comfortably fit in my apartment. My apartment is quite small, for the record.
No, this other site is for a very specific purpose, contrasted with this site which exists as a hose from which I spew blather endlessly yet irregularly.
Regarding this other site, every week I think, "Next week, it'll go online." It's not being delayed because the site itself needs work, it's pretty much sitting there waiting for me to finish a completely different bit of work. Once this other bit of work is done, then the site will go up. When that will be, well, my best guess was Wednesday March 3rd, 2010. Weeks ago.
That's why I don't give specific promises, including dates, on this website.
Those delays are beside this particular point. The problem is, I think the other site looks a lot better than this one. I did a lot of work on this site's design months ago. Actually, what, a year ago? Something like that. The point is, I thought I was done with this site for a while. I should have remembered that web design, like life, is never finished. Until you die. Then the site sits in the Wayback Machine forever, a few minor tweaks away from being exactly like you wanted it.
Thriceberg.com isn't in the Wayback Machine, by the way. That's a getting-kicked-while-one's-down sort of thing.
Tonight, as I was waiting for my day's work to backup, I decided to work on thriceberg.com's theme (which is really Royale, a free theme I downloaded and tweaked a very, very little bit).
The other site's theme has a fixed width. In theory, having a re-flowing width makes more sense. It fits the space that's made available by the size of your screen. In reality it looks messy and can be a pain to read. Not to mention I'm playing with the idea of putting images at the top of my posts--without having a fixed width there's no way I can be sure how it's going to look on my reader's screens.
On my 1680x1050 monitor, this site is just a sea of text. Perhaps a little overwhelming? That's my excuse anyway. I've played with typesetting before, I know narrow columns are easier to read, I just ignored that knowledge because if I hadn't, I wouldn't had been able to mess this site up.
I have been aware of the whole sea-of-text thing for a while, that's why I've been trying to have only a few sentences before the "break," so the word-wall is broken up a bit. It's gone a ways to help things out, but I've still come around to the idea of a fixed-width site.
Another problem with the theme as it is now: The text on the header acts as a link that will bring you back to the "main" page. Clicking the little iceberg logo next to the text does not act as a link. I know as little about php and css (so little I don't know which I need to know in order to make the image a link) as I did when I set up that theme. My web searching skills must have gotten a lot better since then though because I found out the right way to do it while working on the other unnamed site.
This other unnamed site is also using a free theme, but it's simple and clean and I can't be bothered to care if it's not especially unique. I went for unique for my first ever theme and it looked like someone ate a bunch of sky blue markers and threw up.
Oh look! Wordpress still has a thumbnail of it!!! Look in horror!
Eew, gross. Right? Well at the very least we can all agree I've come a long way since then. Not in being better at color choice and general design, but in that I now know to find a nice template and not touch it in ways it wasn't intended to be touched. That came out wrong, and in the process actually helped get my point across exactly.
But wait, why do I feel like a jerk? Because I keep pushing back my other project's deadline? Well yes, but not right now.
Because most of my site templates have sucked, either a little or a lot? Again, yes, but not at this very moment.
Stop guessing, I'll just tell you: It's because I have a much better theme set up for this site, all ready to go, but I'm not going to activate it until this other site launches. They're the same theme, with minor color differences and different banners. It just seems appropriate to launch them both at the same time.
So every time I add a new post until the new site is up, I'm going to cringe a little bit more than I usually do. Every time my readership spikes a bit and then drops back down, I'm going to wonder if I would have kept those people had the theme been a little better.
And when the new site is up, I'm going to get all sorts of messages from friends saying, "Really? This is the big improvement you were talking about? Really?"
Well shut up, it looks good to me.
Till then,
David
No, this other site is for a very specific purpose, contrasted with this site which exists as a hose from which I spew blather endlessly yet irregularly.
Regarding this other site, every week I think, "Next week, it'll go online." It's not being delayed because the site itself needs work, it's pretty much sitting there waiting for me to finish a completely different bit of work. Once this other bit of work is done, then the site will go up. When that will be, well, my best guess was Wednesday March 3rd, 2010. Weeks ago.
That's why I don't give specific promises, including dates, on this website.
Those delays are beside this particular point. The problem is, I think the other site looks a lot better than this one. I did a lot of work on this site's design months ago. Actually, what, a year ago? Something like that. The point is, I thought I was done with this site for a while. I should have remembered that web design, like life, is never finished. Until you die. Then the site sits in the Wayback Machine forever, a few minor tweaks away from being exactly like you wanted it.
Thriceberg.com isn't in the Wayback Machine, by the way. That's a getting-kicked-while-one's-down sort of thing.
Tonight, as I was waiting for my day's work to backup, I decided to work on thriceberg.com's theme (which is really Royale, a free theme I downloaded and tweaked a very, very little bit).
The other site's theme has a fixed width. In theory, having a re-flowing width makes more sense. It fits the space that's made available by the size of your screen. In reality it looks messy and can be a pain to read. Not to mention I'm playing with the idea of putting images at the top of my posts--without having a fixed width there's no way I can be sure how it's going to look on my reader's screens.
On my 1680x1050 monitor, this site is just a sea of text. Perhaps a little overwhelming? That's my excuse anyway. I've played with typesetting before, I know narrow columns are easier to read, I just ignored that knowledge because if I hadn't, I wouldn't had been able to mess this site up.
I have been aware of the whole sea-of-text thing for a while, that's why I've been trying to have only a few sentences before the "break," so the word-wall is broken up a bit. It's gone a ways to help things out, but I've still come around to the idea of a fixed-width site.
Another problem with the theme as it is now: The text on the header acts as a link that will bring you back to the "main" page. Clicking the little iceberg logo next to the text does not act as a link. I know as little about php and css (so little I don't know which I need to know in order to make the image a link) as I did when I set up that theme. My web searching skills must have gotten a lot better since then though because I found out the right way to do it while working on the other unnamed site.
This other unnamed site is also using a free theme, but it's simple and clean and I can't be bothered to care if it's not especially unique. I went for unique for my first ever theme and it looked like someone ate a bunch of sky blue markers and threw up.
Oh look! Wordpress still has a thumbnail of it!!! Look in horror!
Eew, gross. Right? Well at the very least we can all agree I've come a long way since then. Not in being better at color choice and general design, but in that I now know to find a nice template and not touch it in ways it wasn't intended to be touched. That came out wrong, and in the process actually helped get my point across exactly.
But wait, why do I feel like a jerk? Because I keep pushing back my other project's deadline? Well yes, but not right now.
Because most of my site templates have sucked, either a little or a lot? Again, yes, but not at this very moment.
Stop guessing, I'll just tell you: It's because I have a much better theme set up for this site, all ready to go, but I'm not going to activate it until this other site launches. They're the same theme, with minor color differences and different banners. It just seems appropriate to launch them both at the same time.
So every time I add a new post until the new site is up, I'm going to cringe a little bit more than I usually do. Every time my readership spikes a bit and then drops back down, I'm going to wonder if I would have kept those people had the theme been a little better.
And when the new site is up, I'm going to get all sorts of messages from friends saying, "Really? This is the big improvement you were talking about? Really?"
Well shut up, it looks good to me.
Till then,
David
Monday, March 8, 2010
Let's Hear It! For Cross-Platform Compatibility
A couple of interesting things have been announced recently. Two separate announcements, both pretty cool. Steam is coming out for the Mac, and Crysis 2 is coming out in Q4 2010.
These things in and of themselves aren't big deals, and in fact have been known or at least suspected for some time. The news riding along is what holds the greatness.
First, and most recently, the Steam announcement. Steam, as you may know, is a digital game distribution platform for PC. It was developed and is ran by Valve, the game company behind the Half Life, Team Fortress, and Portal games.
The great news that tags along with this announcement is that the Valve engine, which all their most recent games run on, has been ported from Microsoft's proprietary Direct X to the cross-platform OpenGL. This is good news. This such a great step in the right direction. Although I have no reason to hope a Linux version is on the way, it's a lot more possible now.
Bonus info--PC and Mac users will be able to play together cooperatively on Portal 2. I'm sure we can all agree that's a sure sign of the apocalypse.
Crysis 2 was announced a while ago. We've known it was coming. We knew it was supposed to be on the PC, PS3, and 360. It's finally nailed down to Q4 2010. That means anywhere between October and December.
The cool news tacked onto this announcement--apparently it was announced nearly a year ago, but it's news to me--involves the CryEngine 3 it's built on.
According to Crytek, it's creators, this engine runs on all three major platforms (PC, PS3, and XBOX 360). That means if you develop games with their engine you don't have to worry about porting the game to other platforms. They also claim the engine will be able to run on future consoles, only requiring minor tweaking of the engine itself, so games already written on the engine should work fine.
I'm very curious to see what impact this has on game design in the future. Of course, people are skeptical about this as Crysis, which was released for the PC only, is notorious even today for requiring a lot of processing power to run smoothly. In it's defense the game was beautiful, and their later game 'Crysis: Warhead' used an updated version of the engine that required a lot less resources.
Only a handful of games used the CryEngine 2, but perhaps this cross-platform compatibility and claimed future-proofing will entice more developers to give the 3rd version a look.
I, for one, would very much like to see the end of console and platform exclusivity. That won't happen so long as Sony and Microsoft are there to pressure and entice game companies, but this is a big step in the right direction.
David
These things in and of themselves aren't big deals, and in fact have been known or at least suspected for some time. The news riding along is what holds the greatness.
First, and most recently, the Steam announcement. Steam, as you may know, is a digital game distribution platform for PC. It was developed and is ran by Valve, the game company behind the Half Life, Team Fortress, and Portal games.
The great news that tags along with this announcement is that the Valve engine, which all their most recent games run on, has been ported from Microsoft's proprietary Direct X to the cross-platform OpenGL. This is good news. This such a great step in the right direction. Although I have no reason to hope a Linux version is on the way, it's a lot more possible now.
Bonus info--PC and Mac users will be able to play together cooperatively on Portal 2. I'm sure we can all agree that's a sure sign of the apocalypse.
Crysis 2 was announced a while ago. We've known it was coming. We knew it was supposed to be on the PC, PS3, and 360. It's finally nailed down to Q4 2010. That means anywhere between October and December.
The cool news tacked onto this announcement--apparently it was announced nearly a year ago, but it's news to me--involves the CryEngine 3 it's built on.
According to Crytek, it's creators, this engine runs on all three major platforms (PC, PS3, and XBOX 360). That means if you develop games with their engine you don't have to worry about porting the game to other platforms. They also claim the engine will be able to run on future consoles, only requiring minor tweaking of the engine itself, so games already written on the engine should work fine.
I'm very curious to see what impact this has on game design in the future. Of course, people are skeptical about this as Crysis, which was released for the PC only, is notorious even today for requiring a lot of processing power to run smoothly. In it's defense the game was beautiful, and their later game 'Crysis: Warhead' used an updated version of the engine that required a lot less resources.
Only a handful of games used the CryEngine 2, but perhaps this cross-platform compatibility and claimed future-proofing will entice more developers to give the 3rd version a look.
I, for one, would very much like to see the end of console and platform exclusivity. That won't happen so long as Sony and Microsoft are there to pressure and entice game companies, but this is a big step in the right direction.
David
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)