Sony, please take a time out

New post at Arrogantics!

Sony, please take a time out
Why does sony always come out with useless eye candy?  What can they do to change this?

Dear FanBoys, get over it.

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/capcom/capcom-responds-to-angry-fanboy-mob-246962.php

Poor little Playstation kids have to share their toys with the less fortunate kids over in the 360 camp.  I feel your pain, truly.

Actually, no.

Get over it.  A petition could have been justified if Capcom announced that they were switching entirely over to the XBOX platform and abandoning the PlayStation.  Alas fanboys, they made a smart business choice.

Look, it’s hard as hell to sell games to begin with, and with the PS3 being a dud (shush up, it is) or at least an expensive enough item that a large consumer group is left in the dust, it makes sense that they would release on a larger platform.

Review of the past few weeks

I haven’t written for a while due to school, netflix, tivo, and reptile conventions.  However, this does not mean that I have been neglecting my blogs.  I’ve kept up, of a fashion, but just haven’t quite felt as if anything that interesting has happened to require a post.

Okay, okay, the new ipod nano, I got it.

To recap the last few weeks:

Apple’s going to kick ass no matter what.
There’s a new nano, I hate it less, but at least no one can sue due to the lack of shinyness.  The only exception: 8GB in a few mm?  Props.
Sandisk is going to own like whoa at second place.
Creative is going to fall, although I don’t see how they could get any worse at this point.
Samsung…well…you still suck.
Dell and HP are whores, but we knew this long ago.
The PS3 will be expensive, but what isn’t?
Grandmothers across the country will be confused as to their grandchildrens’ requests to urinate for Christmas.
OMG of the thousands they’ve sold your laptop is defective?  Ya, welcome to technology, get over it.
If you own a laptop, you might want to donate some sperm because your laptop will most likely fry your manhood.
Speaking of which, of all the reports of blowing up batteries, how come everyone’s lucked out and not received fried genitalia?
If myspace was a bar, you’d….well, insert something vulgar about molasses.
Facebook is becoming big brother, again, we knew this long ago.
OMG people can readz your infoz onlinez!!!  Excuse me, but may I slap you upside the head for not understanding that which is reality?  Get over it.
Zune dropped like a bomb because it sucked, not that Apple somehow has the hand of death up its ass.  It sucked.  Get over it.

More updates soon, I promise!

Wireless age my butt

So I’m moving in two days, and I always pack up my comptuer stuff first so as nothing gets lost.  My last few moves I had a whole bunch of random boxes of computer stuff but as I moved I found that the boxes migrated around thus causing much chaos and chord loss.

This time I just got one long tub thing that’s meant for rolling under a bed frame or such.  Pretty much everything fit in around my monitor.  Yay!  Don’t worry, the 2405fpw is in there upside down on top of a very squishy towel. 

Sony MDREX71: avoid

The ‘user review’ sections of websites can sometimes be the most useful feature of places such as amazon.com or any other retailer websites.  However, given the incident of technology-challenged users, or those who just don’t bother to do their research easily throw off the stats.

On the other hand, when you see a review that has the same complaint over and over again, or even the same multiple complaints there is definitely something there.

When I first got the 71s I was completely in love.  I’m not that picky when it comes to sound but I wanted something better than stock headphones, so these were about perfect for me.  I know there are better, but I was quite happy with them.  After a few months of use I and my SO (who had a pair as well) noticed a very odd tendency for the chord to seemingly ‘melt’ off when exposed to skin oil or split open with light pressure.

Being as I don’t particularly sweat (if you know me you know what I mean) mine lasted a bit longer than his.  At the end through, both were covered in electrical tape to protect the exposed wires.

One other thing about me: I can put up with a lot of stuff, so the electrical tape wasn’t much of a problem for me.  Now, the reason I’m writing this is because of the other flaw that is consistent within the design.  One of my coworkers had a pair and the left ear bud died.  Guess what died on mine?  Yup, left ear bud.  A customer came in the other day looking for a replacement for his 71s, and just going out on a limb I asked him about how they died:  left ear bud as well.

So far of the 4 people I’ve known to have these headphones, 3 of them have broken in the same area.

Sony sony sony…what have you been doing with yourself that has caused you to drop the ball on every single product you make?

Pros:  great midrange sound, deep bass, comfortable fit, long chord.
Cons:  meltie!

Riding the middle ground: paying the rent and getting the job done

Three years ago if you announced “I bought a laptop for $600!” you would have been shunned from humanity for being not only a cheap-ass, but a stupid cheap-ass.  Now?  You would be the average consumer.

 Let us discuss this concept of ‘good enough’ for a moment.  ‘Good’ implies a certain level of functionality, and ‘enough’ implies that for every person there is a level of required goodies.  Some need hard drive space, processing power, or video cards that are half the cost of the computer.

Think about a product, such as a computer.  Then think about the cons you would say about that product.  Not enough RAM?  Motherboard based video card?  Celeron?  Well, believe it or not, but there are people that wouldn’t notice a different if they had otherwise.   Not everyone games, not everyone needs full networking tweakability, not everyone needs hundreds of gigs, and believe me when I say there are some people that don’t even need a computer.

However, this discussion shall not be solely about computers.

Recently my Sony MDREX71 headphones died the death or their brethren.  The sound quality was just about on the spot for my requirements.  I’m not a ‘phile for anything (except for proper aspect ratio in video, but that’s more militant than ‘phileish), thank you.  I am quite happy in my middle road of balancing suck against my pocket book.  That balance, however, does not imply value devices.  Thank you I like my brand names, but you can kiss my ass if you’re think I’m going to pay for stuff I’ve no need for. 

While reading through the reviews out there for other brands, it seems that very few people realized that not everyone can hear the difference between their middle end headphones and high end expensive ones.  I was very temped by the Shure series, but eventually settled on the Sennheiser CX300B ear buds.  Good brand, but still within my price area of $50.  Yes, I know there are people that would like to flog me for even considering those Sony’s in the first place; I’ve had them as customers.  Hell, I own a Saturn, so I know all about people making faces when I tell them what brand it is.  But you know what?  They both work just fine for me.

Everyone has their own standards and needs for products, something good for you might just be overkill for that person next to you.  Keep this in mind and you might just have some happy customers.

Windows annoyance finally useful?

I remember back in the days my gaming, when messing with the key controls I made the mistake of assigning somehting to the shift key.  Hit it 5 times in a row and bam, game gone and windows me begging me to start Sticky Keys.

Now, in the age that our technical engineering has gone beyond our physical engineering, keyboards are now becoming deal breakers.  MicroPCtalk has been playing with the new UX and discovered that an old useless feature is now useful.  Amazing.

If you call it scandisk you get stabbed.

The other day at work I had a woman try to correct me when I corrected her on her pronunciation of ‘Sandisk’.  Do you see a ‘c’?  Anyone?  Bueller? 

Exactly.  Call it ScanDisk and you die.

Sandisk really needs to make up their mind. High end, cheap end, bla bla bla.  For the parents that look at their children begging for iPods and go “Hell no,” Sandisk has been there to get them “at least” a player.  Certainly not the worst players, but for those with more flexible budgets, they are something to be ignored.

It’s hard sometimes when shopping for a product to understand why there is a price difference, and if that variance is worth the $20, $50, or $100 extra.  In the case of mp3 players, on the shelf it’s somewhat difficult to widdle down the reasons.  In use, however, one can tell the diff.  For some it’s worth the money, but for others they just don’t care.  There is no best mp3 player for all, but for every person there is a best one.  For some, the cheap Sansas work just fine.

These new Sansas are a little different than their brothers.  Instead of fighting against the lower end Shuffles, they are fighting against the Nanos–and doing a darn good job of it.  The screen is bigger, has the radio, and pretty much everything lacking in the Nanos (and all the other ipods).

Apple, start listening to what people want, you’re starting to move into the Sony area where form rules all.  You removed firewire, we can deal, but you are not adding features that people are begging for.  Listen to your customers when they are debating between iPods and the competition:  that is where you need to go next.

Sony, a little to the left…right…left…no…just nevermind

Sony has always been an interesting company, hated on by some and glorified by others.  Well, I'm sure there are sony fanboys out there that aren't PS* obsessed.  In looking at phones and especially mp3 players, Sony has it going on with the form bit.  I mean, seriously, you will rarely find somthing by sony you want to crap on to make look more pleasing (except for maybe a few Vaios).

So why does a company with such a good track record on form completely miss the boat when it comes to function?  That previously linked mp3 player?  Ya, I still never figured out how to use it, and I've been playing with that demo unit for a year.  The Bean?  I'm sorry but that one requires a flyswatter upside the head.  Need I even mention the other issudes that come with a Sony mp3 player?  If you're going to control the usability of a product to one program, at least make it work mostly without suck.

The new Ericssons look freaking amazing to me. Like I'd go out and test drive it if I were in the market. However, Sony's track record of suck both on primary use (the actual unit) and secondary use (the sofware/setup) make me extremely cautious about investing in one of their products.

Sony’s missing testicle

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/9514/

That's kind of sad. Sony just gave up its left testicle.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/10/linksys-intros-ec1000-expresscard-and-ogv200-traffic-optimizer/

Ahh, ExpressCards commeth. My only question is what laptop equipped with an ExpressCard slot would lack an ethernet port? I mean I can understand it might lack gigabit, but seriously now guys: what is your market here?