Prediction: Microsoft, gunning for market share, eventually tries to pull a Yahoo on Nokia and get them to switch to Windows Mobile. #

But which is worse? Symbian or Windows Mobile? After using a Nokia phone for 1.5 years, I honestly don’t know anymore.

Instead of the minimal (and cryptic) Printer Setup Utility that’s been there since 10.2 (at least, as far as I know), you’re now met with a much friendlier screen that shows you everything you actually need to know about the printer, and buttons to tweak it further. It even automatically added the printer when I plugged it into the USB port, whereas before if I wanted to use it I had to navigate through the printer list in print dialogs.

Even though these kind of improvements are minor, and most users most likely won’t notice them, it shows that Apple is still committed to polishing up all aspects of OS X. Every version just gets better and better.

Get some, get some! A $36 notebook case is now only 1¢!

Gotta love Newegg.

[via UNEASYsilence]

Either I have liquid cooling (and liquid meaning liquid nitrogen) or my stats are off. Usually it’s the opposite — 128 degrees positive. Dunno how accurate any of that is.

The MacBook does get really hot, though.

And, yes, that is iStat Menus.

Then, after around 5 seconds or so, it ascends back to normal, and I can download and access the Internet once again. Until, of course, this whole process repeats itself. It’s getting quite annoying, and I did a bit of Google research, coming up with a forum thread on which ISPs throttle BitTorrent traffic. The last one caught my eye:

Despite what the website says, Qwest doesn’t block P2P traffic. People have had problems with the modem locking up due to too many connections and the like leading them to believe that Qwest is throttling them. This issue has come up multiple times on the Qwest forum.

Every connection generates errors; moreso if you have a long line with high attenuation. Interleaving trades latency for stability. Some don’t like it, but the policy has nothing to do with laziness. #

I don’t know what to do about this, however. It seems rather surprising that a modem would cave under minor BitTorrent traffic (around 30 kb/s altogether) and if it does, the next thing I may try is to use another modem to dial up to the Qwest DSL, since all it uses is PPPoA.

• What’s with the new “split-screen” UI? While I guess the moving pictures can be considered “cool,” it makes me wonder how much of a toll that takes on processor usage. I’d rather have a fast, responsive device with the older iPod’s spartan menus than a sluggish one with the fancy effects.
• The Ars Technica review that I read emphasized what they perceived as general sluggishness in the menus, and according to their makeshift timing (using a stopwatch and comparing it with a 5.5G iPod), this isn’t just imaginations at work. The iPod 6G is actually quite a bit slower, which makes me wonder… isn’t progress the other way?
• Cover Flow. Why? Once again, this can be considered “cool,” but that same Ars Technica review mentioned that Apple, in a move to make it more responsive and usable, had cut out most or even all of the anti-aliasing that made it look so nice. I can understand putting this in the iPhone — its touchscreen makes that a very cool feature. But on an iPod with a clickwheel and a much smaller screen? It makes me wonder if Apple has a newfound obsession with putting Cover Flow in every product they make.

That said, I really have to figure out what I’m going to do before I run out of space. Also, on the Apple Store website, using the Education store doesn’t apply any discounts to the iPod products, and having that discount would be very nice. I got it on my 5G iPod, which makes me wonder if Apple has discontinued that.

The iPhone Price Reductions

The other hot news from the Beat Goes On event was that Apple slashed the prices of the 8 GB iPhone to $399, down $200, and is dropping the 4 GB iPhone. This price slash, of course, triggered a wave of anger directed at Apple, from customers who had purchased the iPhone in the first two months since its release, before the price drops. In what I must say is a surprising, yet ingenious move for PR, Steve Jobs addressed an open letter to those angry consumers, which compensated them with $100 Apple Store credit.

To be honest, I see no reason for the iPhone owners to be so mad. The extra $200 you paid ensured you got it within two months of its release — you had the “in” thing. Also, why would you be buying a $600 phone if $200 matters to you so much? You can get a decent phone from your service provider for, say, $100, then you would have $500 spare, not $200. It doesn’t seem like $200 would be worth that much to you, or be that much of a financial hit to you, if you could just drop $600 on a fancy cell phone.

Of course, it’s not really the price, is it? It’s your pride. Now you look like a bunch of suckers¹, because you got ripped off $200, because Apple was most likely milking the hype to earn some extra cash. Well, that’s the price you pay for being the cool kid on your block with the really cool new phone. Stop complaining. I think you are extremely fortunate Steve Jobs even conceded, and gave you store credit on top of that.

1. Of course, if you aren’t complaining and just taking it with a grain of salt, props to you.

My new promise: come OS X 10.5 Leopard, I shall be buying a Mac, most likely an iMac. I think it’s time for a change.

Flickr

While I don’t use Flickr much at all, I recalled Flickr announced a mobile site a while back, so I figured I would try it. Everything worked great, even uploading photos I took with the phone (finally, true “moblogging”!), except for one thing — apparently you can’t delete photos from the mobile site, once you upload them. I had to go into the regular Flickr site to do that, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Facebook

Facebook’s mobile site is the site I’ve been spending the most time at. You can do everything you need to (well, that I need to) — write on walls, receive and send messages, poke people, etc. I don’t use the applications much, but that’s one part that the mobile site has no access to. I think this is mostly the fault of the applications’ developers, not Facebook, though.

Slashdot

I can’t remember how I found Slashdot’s mobile version (apparently made for Palm devices judging by the URL), but there’s no link to it on the front page, that I could see. It works, though, and you get the latest headlines and the top five comments for each story. I never used to read Slashdot much, but the mobile version has helped me kill many hours.

Google & Co.

Out of all the web companies offering mobile services, I think Google’s the king. When you navigate to the Google homepage, it automatically redirects you to the mobile version, from which you can search the web, and it also has links to other Google services with mobile versions. I’ve been using Google Reader quite a bit, and the Gmail application, but there’s also Blogger, Google News, and a host of other mobile services.

Now, if only the US (namely, T-Mobile, my service provider) would get with the times and set up a 3G network, that would be great. GPRS just doesn’t really cut it.