Vegard Langås

Apple iPad

Yes, it is that bad! Now first let me tell you why the press seems to think the opposite:

Today, January 27th  announced Apple it lates addition to their line of mobile devices; the iPad. It is a tablet device using what is basically the iPhone OS. It has a 10″ LED screen featuring multi-touch as we have become use to with the iPod touch and iPhones. It is wireless connected with both AT&T 3G (the same 3G network as in all of Europe), and  N high speed wireless wifi. It has a special designed Apple A4 processing unit, running at 1 ghz. The Apple A4 is a system on a chip, with low power consumption and built in graphics processing, giving the iPad abilities to be a serious hand held device in the gaming market. During the keynote were I given the impression that this could have the potential to compete with regular gaming consoles, or pc style gaming. Another advantage to the powerful processing unit is ability to play high quality videos (720p h.264) and even youtube in HD, a feat only few of todays netbooks are able to. It has manny hardware similarities to the iPhone 3Gs, featuring a digital compass and GPS. It will come in 2 different models, one with only wifi, and one with wifi, 3G and GPS. There will be 3 storage alternatives for both of the models; 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. It will sync everything via iTunes, or over the air iPhone style (e-mail, address, contacts). The design of the device is stunning. It has a MacBook Pro style aluminium backplate and glass front, with the same stylish black border as on all Apple screens.

The iPhone OS have been heavily modified for this device, maybe giving us a sneak peak into what might be coming up on iPhone OS 4.0 for iPod touch and iPhones. It utilizes the larger screen size to improve calendar, e-mail and photo viewing. The large screen also gives you a keyboard that by the looks of it might be wieldable with 2 hands, touch typing. This ability to write text is apple utelizing with putting Pages, Numbers and Keynote in the application store, allowing you to create and edit your spreadsheets, documents and presentations on the device. To improve this even more are Apple creating a keyboard docking-station allowing you to use a real keyboard when writing in the general OS. Other accessories available to the iPad at launch is camera connectors, allowing you to transfer pictures from your usb camera or SD card.

One of the big news with the iPad was the launch of a bookstore called iBooks. This is one of the killer features of this device, allowing it to compete with devices like the amazon kindle. The iPad have a huge advantage over the amazon kindle because it is a multi function device with a color display. This allows all books, from colorful visual magazines to heavy black and white sci-fi novels. It will allow school children and students to carry all types of literature with them in a small light weight format.

What? But thats to good to be true! Indeed it is. Like online movie and tv purchase or rentals are the Americans keeping it to themselves. This makes it a flop by default. It have absolutely zero to add to the World market, infact, it is worse than the iPhone being that you are unable to call with it. It is the same story with the apple tv. It is nothing more than a fancy brick, with cool buttons. And the media functions are less appealing as you are unable to put in in your pocket and carry it with you everywhere. This would require you to have a purse or a murse with you, explaining the name iPad.

However, this is a step in the right directions. Preparing the iPhone OS and the app developers for a high resolution screen, and a powerful processor is a change that will need to happen to the iPod touch and iPhone sooner rather than later to be able to compete with android with its snapdragon and oled screen. And how Apple could forget to put a front facing camera in it, is to me a mystery.

I would like to thank the regualar suspect for allowing me meta-covering this event: TWiT Live, Gizmodo and Engadget. Congratualtions to TWiT Live that hit over 140 000 live viewers during their broadcasting of the event.
KBSY5DHGUQMX

UPDATED: 21 February 2010 with what seems to be the permanent structure

For live coverage of the twit network see http://live.twit.tv
To view in vlc or other flash streaming capable mediaplayers use:

• http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/low from BG low resolution
• http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/high from BG high resolution
• http://iphone-streaming.ustream.tv/ustreamVideo/1463655/streams/live/playlist.m3u8 from ustream.tv iPhone resolution

To get the video-shows after they are recorded, add these rss feeds to your podcatcher (iTunes):

• http://feeds.twit.tv/mbw_video_large/_small for MacBreak Weekly
• http://feeds.twit.tv/ww_video_large/_small for Windows Weekly
• http://feeds.twit.tv/twit_video_large/_small for This Week in Tech
• http://feeds.twit.tv/twig_video_large/_small for This Week in Google
• http://feeds.twit.tv/twif_video_large/_small for This Week in Fun with Sarah Lane and Martin Sargent
• http://feeds.twit.tv/nsfw_video_large/_small for NSFW with Brian Brushwood

The audiance shall see the content they are paying you to make!

Nytt Studio

Podcast med Vegard Langås og Viktor Basso.

Dagens emner er:

Nye lokaler på Høgskolen i Narvik

Vi har fått oss Macbook Proer

Snow Leopard

Politisk oppspinn rundt fildeling

Isohunt sin nye Hexagon

iPhone 3GS

Asus EEE 1101HA

Dere kan som alltid kontakte oss i kommentarfeltet, på epost adressen podcast@goldclone.org, bli tilhenger og besøke gruppen vår på facebook eller sende oss en tweet på twitter til Vegard eller Viktor.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 34:39 — 31.8MB)

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apoltix/3604780522/

Podcast med Vegard Langås og Viktor Basso.

Dagens emner er:

WWDC 2009

• Nye MacBooks
• Safari 4
• Quicktime X
• Open CL
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard
• iPhone OS 3.0
• iPhone 3G s

Palm Pre i Norge

Amazon Kindle DX

Wordpress 2.8

Dere kan som alltid kontakte oss i kommentarfeltet, på epost adressen podcast@goldclone.org, bli tilhenger og besøke gruppen vår på facebook eller sende oss en tweet på twitter til Vegard eller Viktor.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:02:33 — 43.1MB)

Image: Apple

Another WWDC Keynote is in the can. No Jobs on stage, but still an avesome keynote with good product upgrades delivered by Phil Schiller.

The first cat out of the bag was changes in the MacBook Pro lineup. The 13 inch unibody have joined the MacBook linup as a Pro, leaving the polycarbonate as the only MacBook left (maybe a future netbook will be a part of the MacBooks?). All MacBook Pros have gotten an SD card slot, and the 13 inch got a firewire 800 port. All MacBook Pros lost the ExpressCard slot, except the 17 inch. All the Pros and the Air jumped down in price.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is getting released in September, as an inexpensive upgrade for all Leopard users. Highlights are mainly speed improvements and native exchange support in Mail, iCal and Address book. OpenCL will give you access to the amazing calculation power of the gpu. The whole OS has also gone 64 bit, with all native apps.

Safari 4 gets a 50% speed boost for java rendering and 100/100 on acid 3, and shipping today for tiger, leopard and windows. Quicktime gets complealy reworked, on backend and frontend, and (most important) a new brushed metal icon. Quicktime will also feature better basic editing for trimming clips.

iPhone 3.0 wil be released as a free software upgrade for all iPhones (small fee for all iPod Touches) on June 17th. It will future autofill in safari, and teathering for Telia Sonera (Netcom) and Telenor customers at lunch (sticking it to all US AT&T customers who are left in the darkness) in addition to all features announced in January. For all Mobile Me customers there will also be a service called Find my phone, helping you locate and remote erase a lost phone. Serveral iPhone 3.0 apps were demonstrated, but most interesting was the announsment of a TomTom turn by turn gps, with connectable accessories.

In Norway will there be a new iPhone model named iPhone 3G S on July 9th with a 3.2 mp still-camera capable of recording vga video. It will have a digital compass (not dependent on tracking movements on the gps), improved battery life and voice dialing/commands with voice synthesizer to respond to questions. The 16 gb will take the price point of the current 8 gb, and a 32 gb to take the price point of the current 16 gb. They will continue to sell the 8 gb iPhone 3G at about half price.

The Apple Store have all new and upgraded products, with new information. A big thanks to Gizmodo, gdgt, Engadget (who should get an auto refresh system), Cali Lewis, TWiT Live with Leo Laporte, iJustine, Alex Lindsay and Geoff Smith, and everyone else publishing about the keynote, making it a plessure for us to follow it live.

 Communety prosjektet geekgeneration, Eurovision song contest (Melodi Grand Prix) og digital distribusjon av lydbøker i motsetning til fysisk distrubusjon, med Vegard Langås og Viktor Basso.
Dere kan som alltid kontakte oss i kommentarfeltet, på epost adressen podcast@goldclone.org, bli tilhenger og besøke gruppen vår på facebook eller sende oss en tweet på twitter til Vegard eller Viktor.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 44:45 — 30.7MB)

Vista x64 error message

I was doing converting a theme for an old page I had made, to wordpress. The theme had been made by a designer friend of mine. When he was done did he send me both jpg versions and psd version. I just used the jpg files since they where made for my page layout, and everything was fine. However now that I am converting the page to wordpress, did I need to do a bit of resizing. So I go to the adobe site to download the trial version of Adobe Photoshop CS4, install it, and start changing on the psd file. After a few seconds did it hang up, and i get the error message. I try angain several times, but I end up trying to save each layer as png files (to preserve transparentsy) as quick as I can, before it crashes.

But still the issue is that I have some png files that I need to resize and tweak. So I download gimp, and started trying to do some editing in it. And what a train wrack gimp is. There are nonsensical icons and, large boxes filled with them. They really have to do something about ui! But luckily was I able to get done with all editing that required transparentsy, and then I did the final cutting in trusty paint. But seriously gimp programmers! Go grab a few ideas about ui design in CS3,CS4 and Microsoft Paint. A quick tip from me is also to look at; how the tools work in paint, and how layers become inactive when they not are in use in photoshop.

Note: the issue with photoshop is most likely caused by my computer, but it seems weird anyways. I have had a trial of CS3 running fine under Vista x64 previously.

I was reading one of the Norwegian technology internet news sites, and one advertisement came in to attention. It was a advertisements by Microsoft that started playing automatically, for half a second was I annoyed by it, then I noticed what it was for. An advertisement for windows server, and a good one!

More: Microsoft Server 2008 adds

I know this is an old game, but that does not matter becouse this is not a review. I do remeber playing is at a frinds house. Me watching, and my friend playing. That was the was I liked it. I was never any good at playing, but I loved to watch, and help out with understanding where my friend made mistakes, and helped him by telling the next time he redid the mission. This game was perfect for that kind of situations. Grate graphics, and storylined gameplay with wonderfull cut scenes. And best of all, a allmost happy ending.

The last mission are heavily stuffed with cut scenes, is hard to complete, and sums up a grate story. There is still a part of these cut scenes that makes me worm and fuzzy inside. It brings back grate memoryes from time spent with my friends playing the game.

The epilogue, set circa 1957, shows an old Thomas Angelo, grey-haired and moustached, standing outside his house watering the grass. Two men pull up to the side of the street in a red ‘Tudor’ car (resembling a 1957 Ford Thunderbird) and approach him. Addressing him by his real name (which was changed beforehand by the FBI), one of the men pulls out a sawn-off shotgun. The other assassin tells Tommy that ‘Mr. Salieri sends his regards’, and both barrels are emptied into Tommy’s body. The game ends with Tommy’s thoughts, as he is left to die on the grass of his front lawn.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia:_The_City_of_Lost_Heaven#Detailed_summary (Date 07.11 2008)

Allways when I look for somewhere to read it is it impossible to find. So a wrote it down myself.

Mr.Salieri sends his Mr.Salieri sends his regards.
You know, the world isn’t run by the laws written on paper, its run by people. Some according to laws, others not. It depend on each individual how his world will be, how he makes it. They also need a whole lot of luck, so that somebody else does not make your life hell, and it aint as simple as they tell you in grade school. But it is good to have strong values, and to maintain them. In marriage, in crime, in war. Always and everywhere. I messed up, so did Paulie and Sam. We wanted a better life, but in the end, we were a lot worse off than most other people. You know i think it’s important to keep a balance in things. Yeah balance, that the right word. Because the guy that wants to much, risks losing absolutely everything. Of cause the guy that wants to little from life, might not get anything at all.

http://www.nettby.no/user/diary_entry.php?id=25377730&user_id=344553

Apple released their new line of MacBooks, that is using apple’s newest innovation. Using an aluminium “unibody” design. Which involves carving the computers out of aluminium bricks, witch makes them prettier than ever before. However, even roses has thorns, and here is some of them:

2 USB ports. Having just 2 USB port is a major issue. All the accessories you need is going to be plugged in through a USB port. If you plug in your iPhone to charge it, and an external mouse are you out of USB ports.

No memory card reader. I know this is not a regular feature on Mac’s, but it adds to the accessories bag.

No monitor ports, only the craptastic display port, witch also adds to the accessories bag. In expense of lightening the wallet.

Max 4 gb ram. This is maybe not an issue at the moment, but in close future will the memory requirements get higher, and hopefully this will be something that will be upgraded in the next MacBook revision.

To keep up to date with what Steve Jobs announces, keep a look at the Keynotes podcast in iTunes.