Thursday, May 26, 2011

Chromebooks and Tablets and Phones, oh my!

It is fairly apparent that many people have begun embracing the web. There are many more people carrying around smart phones, mp3 players with web capabilities, and tablets.

This is an interesting evolution from the times where many people, including the CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, didn't expect non-business customers to need or want a computer. Of course, people bought them at some point and the cost of computers started going down. Business needs led to consumer adoption.

As time went on and machines got smaller, people started to see laptops floating around. Eventually cellular phones began to gain ubiquity and the phone companies began to add more features which eventually led to the invention of Blackberries, iPhones, Android phones, and some other types of smart phones.

It now seems pretty evident that the consumer market is thriving with options and influencing how businesses interact with their customers. Companies have to cater to varying media, form factors, and really have to individualize the experience.

An interesting development that I've been following is Google's Chrome OS. I enjoy having an up-to-date and stable environment for doing my work, browsing the web, listening to music, etc... However, I really don't like convoluted update processes for the OS and apps nor do I enjoy researching and installing anti-malware and antivirus products. Check out this quick introduction video for Google's Chromebooks. It's a pretty cute video that covers the avoidance of many of these issues. The really interesting thing about these are that they will only cost enterprises $28 per month total including device warranties, replacements, and hardware refreshes. That's amazing!

I would absolutely love this for most usage especially with Google Music Beta. The only remaining piece of the puzzle is a great browser-based IDE and I'm not sure how it handles photos yet.

Interesting times indeed!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Best Phones for Each Carrier in the United States

The other day when I was thinking about really getting my blog going I thought it'd be great to post my picks for the best smartphones for each carrier. Well, Engadget beat me to the punch with their Smartphone Buyer's Guide. I took a look at their picks and am in agreement for the main Midwest carriers.

Generally, Android is the right platform if you're on Verizon (or most other carriers for that matter). If you're on AT&T, your best bet is an iPhone because they haven't been good about releasing many decent subsidized Android phones. Of course, you might have a personal reason picking iPhone over Android or vice versa. If you're not sure, you can get a better idea of why Android is better than iPhone in some respects or why iPhone is better than Android in some respects. If you know me, you know that I prefer Android. Your mileage may vary.

So, if you really need to buy a smartphone right now take a look at their guide. If you're on Verizon and can wait a few months, there are supposedly some better LTE phones coming down the pipe.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

I didn't make the first cut of the rapture!

Alright, so I have been posting a lot about lasik and that's not in the spirit of this blog.

Thankfully, I've got until October to correct that. However, some are speculating that the end of days talk isn't true. Gasp! Then again, maybe God clicked too fast through the rapture installer.

Either way, I probably ought to help out in the rapture pets market so that I can attempt to undercut the competitors