NorthGeek

Blogging from 36,000 feet

This US Airways flight from Philadelphia to Orlando is on a brand spankin’ new (well, at least it looks that way) Airbus A321. The interior is beautiful – so 2010-esque, the lighting is targetted and pleasant, the seats comfortable, more legroom, and, best of all – WiFi baby, WiFi!!

The first week of GoGo In-Flight WiFi aboard US Air’s fleet of A321 jets is absolutely FREE to use – that is from June 1st – 8th 2010. After this, it will be about $10 to connect for your flight. Some notes:

- Web browsing speeds are satisfactory.
- Skype connected, but I’m not popular enough to have had any friends online to test with. The “test call” with the Skype system worked like a charm.
- My SIP phone (through Acanac, using X-Lite) disconnected after I heard “Hello?” on the other end of the line – I guess bandwidth isn’t high enough.
- I couldn’t get online in Mac OS X – thank the lord for Bootcamp (I run XP Pro, and it connected on my first attempt)
- For more info, check out US Airways’ WiFi page and GoGo (by Aircell).

Adios from somewhere 36,000 feet over the Carolinas!

Rolltop – laptop of the future?

Obviously, this is a computer rendering, but wow, I want one! This could very well be the future of portability -- a fully collapsable (and ‘rollable’) notebook computer/display. Sign me up -- and have a look:

I'm a surprisingly cute Microsoft ad

Microsoft has finally come up with an endearing series of ads:

Now I’m a Mac, and my mom is a PC, and I am the technical support for my mom’s PC… and this happens fairly often (bless her). So how does this fare that a 4 year old is so fluent with PC?

Go Microsoft. This ain’t no Jerry Seinfeld disaster.

Disclaimer: I’m a big Seinfeld fan and am on a mission to buy zero Microsoft products in 2009 after my recent move back to Apple!

Have you tried TweetDeck?

Not that tweeting is that complex of an operation, nor is my Twitterberry application ever that far out of reach, but I am excited for my Adobe Air installation of the TweetDeck beta application (for PC, in this case) to complete. I’ll let you all know how it goes!

Let me know if there are any “better” or lighter apps out there that do the same thing…

Laptops outselling Desktops in 2008

For the first time in history, it looks as though 2008 will be the year of laptop dominance over the desktop in Canada. According to Canwest:

The thinnovation is paying off as Canadians ditch their comparatively obese desktops for leaner notebooks, which IDC predicts will account for fully 60 per cent of all consumer computer shipments (home and student use) and 55 per cent of the total Canadian market (including corporate use) by the end of the year.

“From here on in, laptops will represent the majority,” said George Bulat, a director at IDC Canada.

“More and more people, especially with wireless networks, are expecting to be able to go to Starbucks and fire up their computer. They’re not rooted to a home base anymore.”

What does this mean for gamers and guys (or girls) who like to custom build their machines? I predict an upward swing in prices and a paradigm shift for parts manufacturers who will be focusing on the growing market segment.

Either way, laptops FTW!

The Eee Trend

So everyone is getting really excited about the new trend of cheap UMPC’s a la Eee PC from Asus.

As far as I’m concerned, they have 2 of 3 factors that are hits and one that is a miss.

- Form factor: winner.  The people who complain that it’s too small are the wrong demographic.  A 7″ screen and a cramped keyboard are not for your grandmother.

- Price: winner. $450 for a 3lbs laptop is perfect pricepoint.

- Specs: loser.  How does the Celeron or Atom stack up against a Core2Duo… not well.  I realize that what you’re paying for is the form-factor rather than processing power, but at the end of the day, if the cute little laptop that goes anywhere can’t get the job done – then what’s the point?

I’m looking forward to the new Asus laptops with the embedded Linux instant-on features.  Sure they’re heavier, but they offer something that the Eee just can’t – horsepower.

And for those of you who will smarmaly state “it’s a web browsing machine!”, I will simply say that a used Toshiba Portegé can be had for $300

Zoundry Raven: Cool, but is there a point?

So I’m using Zoundy Raven to write this post. It’s cool and all, but do I really need to be using it?

I’m looking at this little window where I’m typing this post, and in the background, I see an open Firefox window, already logged in to my WordPress interface, just waiting for me to click on “Write New Post.” So what gives? Why install software to do exactly what I can do online?

Maybe it’s so that I can write posts while offline, on a plane, on the beach, or in the “Grand Nord” of Quebec? That could be it! I think I solved the mystery.

Until next time, friends. Zoundy Raven Blog Writer – it’s cool stuff, if you have a use for it!