Tag Archives: review

[Contest] Bluetooth Haiku! Oh Yeah!

I will be giving away the Aliph Jawbone (in glossy black) to one lucky contestant! However… You have to enter to be eligible to win! These are the following rules:

  • You must enter with a haiku
  • The haiku is to be themed about Bluetooth
  • The theme can be about why Bluetooth is cool or why it is important to you
  • You may submit your poems as a comment on this post OR send it to info@zeroxr.com
  • The deadline is May 4, 2008! That is ONE WEEK!

For those who have forgotten how a haiku is structured…

  • It’s a 3 line poem
  • Line one has 5 syllables
  • Line two has 7 syllables
  • Line three has 5 syllables
  • Can be unrhymed BUT should you add rhyme, this will add bonus points.

For you grammar purists, I know that a haiku is supposed to be about nature… but for the sake of this contest, we’ll deftly ignore that. 😛

Contest Winner Fine Print
If you are a Dallas local, we’ll arrange a meeting location and I will exchange you the headset to your possession. The headset will be in as-is condition so any further damages will be the responsibility of your own.

If you are not a Dallas local and you win, please contact me ASAP to arrange shipping information with me. You will be responsible for shipping charges. If there is a shipping option you’d like to opt for, let me know and front the cash. i WILL NOT BE SHIPPING TO COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE USA!

May the lulz be with you!

PS – I will be posting ALL submitted haikus on announcing the winner.

NEW ERRATA, DEADLINE EXTENDED!!! May 19th, 2008 by 12:00am!

Aviary Online (Beta) – Phoenix Tool Thoughts

A while ago Adobe launched Photoshop Express as an online Flash based tool for artists and photographers to try out so that they can edit images online. It poses an interesting role as I remember seeing an article pop up on Slashdot saying that the next version of Photoshop CS4 will not be universal, it will only be made for Windows 64-bit systems. Obviously, this has the remaining community of 32-bit Windows users and even the majority of the artistically inclined Mac users pretty pissed off. A Flash based version of Photoshop would be quite a lucrative market as it makes the platform universal. There’s no need to have people translate the Windows coding to be compatible for Mac or Linux, just use a web browser and you’re in. So far, Adobe has made Photoshop Express a free and open beta… but don’t be surprised if they decide to throw around the idea of a subscription fee once it goes “Live” and final.

However, a challenger appears. Worth1000 made a little start-up called Aviary. The idea is a set-up of online productivity suites that allow you the ability to do things from your web browser and not be constrained to locally having a copy of the program on your computer. Why? Because it allows collaboration with your peers. True, you can collaborate with (for example) Adobe Creative Suite CS3… but there’s a caveat to that. If everyone is to get a legitimate copy… well, that’s a cool $2,000 (price from Amazon.com) that’s gotta be shelled out by everyone. But apply that principle for programs like Microsoft Office 2007 et al… That’s a ton of cash. Unfortunately, most folks choose the illegal way via torrents which the coders and everyone involved don’t get a dime, but there’s always that counter argument of “They get enough money from the corporate buyers, why should we care?” I won’t get into that… But when you consider Aviary being a collaboration tool that could be available as free or with a nominally small subscription fee, it’s a pretty brilliant idea.

I used to use Photoshop CS2 or Paint Shop Pro, so I figured Aviary’s Phoenix tool would be somewhat close. On loading it, you’re greeted with a rather friendly splash screen asking if you’re making a new file or if you want to upload and edit an image of your own. The tool set is sparse, but it is still beta, so I do understand. The speed is pretty quick, there aren’t many hick-ups when I was editing the screenshots from my HTC Kaiser, but I haven’t had a chance to really play with images about 1024 x 768 to really see. My assumption is that speeds will be mainly affected by your internet connection.

Personally, I was rather impressed with Phoenix as even though it is Flash based, it never crashed my browser in Ubuntu Linux. I typically have issues of running Flash animations and browsing as they cause my browser to crash, but fortunately, that wasn’t the case with Phoenix. The only thing I do see is a disadvantage is that if you’re without the internet or cursed with a slow connection, working with Phoenix could be a hellish nightmare. I will play with it more and see how it is, but I am looking forward to the application’s development!

The AT&T Tilt… No, HTC Kaiser 8925 done up by ZeroXR

(Correction: The 8900 designation was for the AT&T Tilt that lacked the 3.1 Megapixel camera)

So I finally sold my P990i off to get a device that is a little more future proof via firmware updates and also compatible with digital pharmacology books for my schooling needs. Got a slick deal on a used AT&T Tilt with a 2GB microSD card, however it had one slight issue… the phone was locked down. Not really too much issue with that, cause I had plans to break the phone open myself.

Sure, it’s not a “true” HTC TyTN II with the 3G video conferencing cam, but not a big issue for me. My first task was to repeat the same steps involved in liberating my assistant manager’s phone. I would have to get JumpSPL do a few flashes and then get the unlocking code. After that was when the real fun of choosing a hacked firmware began. I wanted to play with some of the spiffy things like the HTC Cube, TouchFLO and a few other things so I gravitated toward the last Windows Mobile 6 release of Alex’s HTC Cube rom pack. That would only be the beginning… I’d get the free student edition of Epocrates for medical and drug reference information on there just in case I ever need technical data when I am in the office or out of the office.

Once I got most of the phone configured, I had to get to playing with some of the fun stuff like TouchFLO and the HTC Cube as ’cause in America those features are only available in the Sprint HTC Touch, but not on any of the other HTC Windows Mobile phones in America. It’s a rather trick looking but it does have some “productivity” to it. Personally I like it as I can quickly access functions quickly without the need to flip through menus and prompts just to do something as easy as say… turn on my wi-fi or jump to my photo albums.

My seller also had included the full version of Tomtom Navigator 6 with my phone, so I would get the pleasure of having GPS but however… The software came on an SD card, so I would have to finagle with it to copy to my microSD card. After I get on my microSD, it would be a matter of letting my Kaiser to sync up with the GPS satellites. Inside my home, I was able to get a lock on 3-5 satellites with the internal antenna… Pretty good, I would think. However, on going outside and loading it up for use in my car, I was able get a lock on 7-9 satellites. The navigation and narration are clear visually and audible.

It’s no wonder a bunch of the American TV news stations were raving about this phone last year when it dropped as a truly great phone. I remember being a previous HTC Wizard owner (from my T-Mobile MDA) that the Windows Mobile Phones were ill equipped with enough RAM for their functionality and lacked the processing power. The HTC Kaiser/TyTN II/AT&T Tilt seems to have fixed both issues in one shot. The phone doesn’t lag and the best part is it just zips along.

I would like to thank the folks over at XDA Developers for scouring and experimenting to give users the ability to unlocked their restricted devices for use on other networks. For those who want to unlock their AT&T Tilt devices and seriously do them up just like mine… Check out the XDA Developer’s HTC Kaiser Wiki here! Enclosed below are pictures of my phone and screens. The screen shots are edited by Aviary’s Phoenix online based photo-editor, which I’ll be reviewing pretty soon. Enjoy the visual porn, I am going to enjoy the rest of my weekend with a gut buster set, some almonds, whey protein and some straight razor shaving. Expect the obligatory birthday post tomorrow.






















































Why didn’t Longhorn finish?! My thoughts on Windows Vista

Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my friend Maczimus out in Fort Worth for letting me borrow his copy of Windows Vista to do this review. Had it not been for him… I would have no way to shell out the cash just for an operating system I do not intend to use full time.

So earlier you all got to look at images of me playing with Vista from a virtualized environment safe from the confines of VirtualBox for Linux. I won’t lie and sugar coat things… I admire the passion that Microsoft’s art team had when they designed Vista’s interface. It’s an eye pleasing experience, see my “desktop” below. (Click the image to see the full size one)

Vista makes for a pleasing operating system to work with, but it is not without some “trimming” that had to be done. I used Windows Vista Ultimate but trimmed down the weight of the OS with vLite to trim Vista’s hard drive footprint from 8GB to a cool 3GB. Unfortunately, I don’t have physical hardware to do a full install of Vista with the Aero effect works as VirtualBox does not support Direct3D just yet… So I cannot say much about that. The Windows Sidebar is much in vein like Apple OS X’s widgets, not too much to write about. The main thing that kills me is that the entire OS even after being thinned out by vLite is that it is seriously RAM heavy and processor heavy. It is not as responsive as Windows XP and that actually depresses me…

I have seen videos like this one (YouTube – Windows Longhorn Concept) which show the raw ideals of what the future Windows operating system was supposed to be. It makes you wonder what happened to the hard development for the OS and why did it become the monster that it is. It’s got the eye candy, the presentation, the “security” of the UAC (I say it with sarcasm) but at too high a cost. Sure, I am not using the “complete” OS… but not everyone can afford the power of eye candy due to hardware. The UAC can get rather bothersome as it babies the user with needless permission requests… I ended up turning it off because it simply annoyed me to death. The best comparison can be made to the UAC… It would be like using Ubuntu Linux and every time you wanted to open up Firefox, Thunderbird, or Filezilla to connect to the web, you’d have to be halted by a Sudo prompt asking for your password every initialization.

For Microsoft, it has hurt them as many businesses have been urged not to adopt Vista just due to sheer cost. Many perfectly great machines on Windows XP or Linux would sing on barely anything… With Vista on the same machines… you’d have to do some serious upgrades just for a tolerable experience. Bumping up multiple systems to 512mb to 1GB of RAM is not a cheap task nor is the other option to completely rebuy new machines for a business. Dell’s IdeaStorm ended up being stormed by angry users distraught that Vista did not play nice with their new systems and it spawned a topic called “Don’t Eliminate XP Just Yet“.

As much as Microsoft wants Vista to take off… I feel it will fall a fate much similar to that of Windows ME. Some of my readers will remember the day when ME hit the market, it almost felt like a rushed bolt-on to Windows 98… To me, Vista feels like a sloppy bolt-on to Windows XP. If Microsoft wants a market dominating OS like what XP is… then I hope that Windows 7 will be much better than Vista and it needs to be true to what Project Longhorn was all about. I wish I could really like Vista, but to need ridiculous requirements just to make it run just decent is ridiculous. I mean, it’s bad when someone can throw in a Ubuntu Feisty disc, load up Compiz-Fusion and do all the eye candy inside a virtual machine when a 1.73 Ghz emulation of a session of Windows Vista can’t due to requiring Direct3D drivers. If Microsoft forgets that there’s a market for users with weak machines… Linux may just steal that emerging market they have fought so hard to build.

Microsoft, make an OS that the masses don’t need to buy a brand new machine or even $200+ in parts just to make it work… or you may just push away former faithfuls like myself to consider alternatives that we don’t even have to spend a dime on. If you care about sealing in your future markets in developing countries… you’re going to lose ground concentrating too much on “cool factor” rather than efficiency and utility.

Welcome to the Metaverse – Snow Crash Book Review

I have a guilty penchant for reading. I love books as sometimes it’s nice to be able to absorb a story at my own pace. Printed media has a great advantage of being readable and “pause” friendly unlike some digital media. As my teaser post had mentioned, my buddy Russ passed me Snow Crash to read and left me with the cryptic teaser: “You’ll never think of pizza delivery boys the same again after reading this book.” The cover’s teaser even leads the reader on about the premise:

In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosaNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy missionfor the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about the Infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous… you’ll recognize it immediately.
from the back cover of Snow Crash

The book is interesting as it shows something like a post apocalyptic world where the corporations have bonded into sectors and even carry gang influences. In the nature of dualities, there’s also a computer realm called the Metaverse where people can log on and goggle in to a completely virtualized world. Highly skilled users who plug in can code to create their own tool/weapons, clothes, or even detail their looks to a highly customized, detailed avatar. Though early on, the story details a world where the trade of information is similar to the trade of hard goods. Pieces of intelligence be it a rejected movie script to even a pornographic video of the young pop star sleeping with a politician are all valued by those who collect and resell “intel data”. Hiro’s “job” in the Metaverse is an intel hunter and hacker to make a buck off of whatever data he can nab, repackage, and even sell. The story doesn’t stop there though…

The novel shows us a world where the Metaverse is almost a realm that is a sophisticated “internet” with respect to the present day. The more intense data mining hackers however are almost biologically linked to the Metaverse, so you can almost imagine our modern concepts like SPAM, spyware, and viruses would basically act like physical maladies to these hackers. Like human beings, some hackers do get bored and resort to odd things in boredom… Drug use does happen in the Metaverse, but usually it is bad code… Until someone ends up pedaling Snow Crash as the latest drug. When someone very near and dear to Hiro takes Snow Crash and basically is never heard from again, this begins a chain of events that shows theres an even greater force that’s marketing Snow Crash both in the Metaverse and in the physical world.

Theories of “information hygiene”, religion as a computer virus of sorts, and even a link to Sumerian myths are all part of a battle between good and evil. It almost parallels the concerns of those in the computer security industry and how common folks have no idea on how damaging opening an odd e-mail or running that one program that some user has no idea of what is inside the payload. The vision of a future world are simply amazing, but you almost feel drawn to the characters even if some of their existences are boring or plain messed up. The second half is a frantic race against time to try to understand the fundamental essence of language and the power of viral concepts. The action really picks up and just leaves you addicted to read until the end.

Snow Crash is one book I would recommend to anyone who’s fascinated by computer technologies merged with Sumerian myth and a concept of a Metaverse being almost a future vision of the online world. The image of the future America that is represented is one that almost seems possible, but takes much of it’s influence from overtones of the Vietnam War and some other political dealings. It is definitely one on my list of “Essential Books People Should Read Before They Die”.

Book Review Soon to Come: “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson

I must thank my good friend Russ (custom local jeweler – Dare2Dream) for passing me “Snow Crash” to read. I have been rather addicted to reading it when I am on my lunch breaks at work and well… It makes my vision of dreams more than plausible. It’s one that any computer or internet geek should read, because it almost paints a picture of what the internet could/should be in a decade or two. I have had days where the ‘net just seems no fun to me so “Snow Crash” is a rather nice way to wind down before bed. Keep a look out for the blog and my thoughts on a great book.

Internet Sharing Evolved: Tomato Router v1.15, Powered by OpenDNS

So I decided to potentially put a bullet into my router in an attempt to “roid up” my router. Why? The poor thing is almost 5 years old and it lacks a lot of things that are great to have when you live in a home where sharing the web and trying to function without killing another person for bandwidth. That and I didn’t want to make an expenditure that would be taken for granted.

My buddy Maczimus would tell me about how his newly upgraded Tomato router has been just awesome to him. On reading their compatible routers, I found that my Buffalo WBR2-G54 is compatible for the upgrade! So Maczimus had challenged me to upgrade the router to enjoy the web again and have less bandwidth showdowns with my sister and her YouTube addictions.

First off, for the Buffalo routers, there’s a bit of trickery involved… Buffalo encrypts their firmware to prevent unauthorized firmwares being installed to the router. The upgrade cannot be done wirelessly, it must be done while you’re hardwired to the router. I highly advise downloading the Wikibooks Manual to the Tomato router as it details the EXACT procedure to fool the router and inject Tomato into it if you’re using a Mac or Unix/Linux machine. Windows folks have it easy with running a .bat file, so no funny messes for you all. After the router does its thing and processes the upgrade… It will kick you out and then ask you to reauthenticate the session.

After providing the user name and password, you’re welcomed into a web interface that’s powered by SVG images. The interface is simple and to the point. The fun part is being able to tweak and tune values. From your basic settings like security settings to even things like the amplitude of the wireless antenna! The amplitude is far from “just a number” as with tweaking it, I have found that I am able to make it so there is no dead spots in my family’s home. That’s a seriously cool feature!

The bandwidth monitoring features are almost something that you would overlook, but to see where the bandwidth is going and from what computer or internet device is amazing! The ability to do a Quality of Service (QoS) lockdown is very nice as it can solve some of the more severe arguments because it effectively balances out the bandwidth in a fair manner. This is something that any bandwidth heavy families or small businesses should have, because it is simply that good!

I will make one caveat aware. Make sure you know the default MAC addresses of your router’s interfaces. On upgrading to Tomato, the firmware changed one hex digit of the last pair and Verizon had a panic attack. They wouldn’t let me on until I changed the address to the proper one.

The next step to perfecting my newly created Tomato router was to change the default Verizon powered DNS addresses to the OpenDNS addresses. The OpenDNS configuration is easy and free to anyone, although signing up for an ID allows you remote control of your network. Control being things like the ability to filter out sites of your choosing or even blocking out sites that are potentially dummy sites set-up by phishers. The benefits of using the OpenDNS addresses rather than your internet service providers are that they can resolve mistyped web addresses much quicker and even suggest similar sites more efficiently. The change of the DNS address is such a small thing, but it is seriously worth it for the light boost in speed. Combined with the Tomato router, it’s a combination that has made broadband sharing at home a much more pleasant experience.

The only thing left to make browsing even better is to get my family to consider upgrading to FiOS by Verizon… The speeds below with the Tomato router and OpenDNS have opened up the gateway. Hell, I wish they’d consider my offer to pay for the upgrade myself…

The Illicit Fantasy – Need for Speed: Carbon “Own the City” (PSP)

Note: Certain racing terms have been linked to explain concepts to those not automotively inclined. Credit goes to Wikipedia for that.

As gamers, we love the idea of fantasy. Be it something simple as being a skilled hero versed in magic to the wanton killing machine, it’s a concept that has move gamers towards certain titles. Role playing and simulation make the gamer feel like they are part of the game. The popular media has had a bit of an infatuation of using games as a scapegoat for society’s ills. Like the occasional stories that some kid that played a little too much Grand Theft Auto III decided to murder someone or how a kid who died crashing into a toll booth was a rabid player of Gran Turisimo 4. But many gamers are able to separate the lines of fantasy and the real world.

The Need for Speed franchise originally was a computer game line for the PC gamer that was a simulation like the Gran Turismo site. Once Gran Turismo came out, EA Games had to take a new angle to entice gamers to their series. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit would come out and EA would just quietly release titles… Until the tuning and tweaking community really got steam around 2003 in the real world. EA would then revamp the entire franchise as Need for Speed: Underground. The idea was to make a game that encompassed the underground tuner culture with the flashy cars, tweaked and gassed engines, glory, and cash. The first foray into this direction got a lukewarm reception, though EA would listen to the gamers and quickly work on the sequel to make it the racer’s paradise and being able to cruise on the streets instead of being stuck in bracket racing. That would lead to Need for Speed: Underground 2 which was a leap forward in EA’s new life for the Need for Speed franchise. The “Most Wanted” sequel afterwards would reincorporate the police chases from Hot Pursuit and even give a slick little Matrix-esque “bullet time” effect for intense stunt work to evade the cops on free roam. This brings us to the Carbon sequel, finally.

Need for Speed: Carbon mainly takes to the racing movement in America with the obsession of the Japanese touge with the “Canyon Race” competitions. The game includes things like your normal fare of lap races, sprint races, eliminators, and all but it does have some influences from the drift culture. The portable rendition for PSP with the subtitle “Own the City” does not have the the canyon races, but just focuses on a story where someone from a mysterious race gang crashes into your brother killing him and hospitalizing you for a good while. The motive to race? Revenge and vengeance for your late brother.

With Own the City, there is no “manual transmission” option by default unless you choose to play the game with the analog stick. You can summon during races. The gang members of your gang can be recruited from defeating rival gangs to add a better selection. In addition to that, the gang members have their talents. Here’s a break-down:

  • Brawler – Their main purpose is to crash into the target and disable them from the race temporarily.
  • Drafter – They fly by you so you can catch into their slipstream so you can build top speed and push to the limit.
  • Assassin – They do a flyby to get ahead of the target and lay down a spike strip to blow out the tires of the competition
  • Fixer – A subclass of gang member that can boost your pay-out provided you win a race.
  • Mechanic – A subclass of gang member that secretly enhances your car to push even harder.

The henchmen/women can be helpful but also can botch a race too. I have had occasions, for example, where the brawler’s fly by while they are hitting the NOS and crashing into you during a turn. At the same right, they have saved my bacon from losing a race. The gang members can “level-up” depending on your performance in a race on technical metrics; with better performance and use of them, their abilities increase.

The game is in a free roaming mode or you can hop in and out of races with the race map chooser. The open world does have police that will engage you for misconduct on the roads, I have not had the pleasure of it, but I have gone pretty wild. The city will have the graffiti tags of the gangs in control of the territory. Once you begin taking over, your gang’s tag will replace the defeated gangs. Throughout the map, there are crates you can find in the open roaming mode which will unlock promotion art when found. They are hidden pretty well as I have only found only 1 of 30.

The customizations are pretty basic. For under hood performance, there are engine, suspension, chassis, turbo, and nitrous oxide for parameters. Cosmetically, there are body kits, spoilers/wings, tint, wheels, paint, and vinyls. If you want your gang members to be emblazoned with your paint and vinyls, you can apply them over their cars. Particularly, the body kits, wings, and wheels do not do anything to modify the car’s performance with regard to aerodynamics or traction from what I have noticed. This is different from the autosculpting feature of the console versions. I will provide my disclaimer here: if you’re hoping a mobile version of the console experience, this is not it. It’s not an easy game either, the game does require skill and finesse on some races. I know I have barely won some races just from nitrous getting me a split second ahead of my competition to the finish line.

The game fares well as a mobile racing game. The sensation of speed is very real… You almost can feel the intensity of the velocity when you’re in 6th gear and firing the nitrous while hitting 170+ mph. The sounds could have been better, but they aren’t bad at all. Graphically, the game is not quite as polished as say, Ridge Racer 2 (PSP), but it looks good no less. Although I have experienced an odd graphical image glitch where the game will have the race track’s graphics disappear yet other details like road block offs, billboards, cars, and backgrounds are intact… The worst part is this bug will lock up the entire game when you try to exit the race and try to save progress.

With respect to that glitch, I have done everything EA Games Customer Support has asked me. PSPdemon of Gamecootie has also tried to help me with the glitch, but he too is baffled. Especially as loading should not be an issue for the PSP slim from the extra RAM it has to cache graphics head of time. It has not afflicted me lately, so I am counting on my prayers.

Own the City has come a very long way from the shoddy likes of Need for Speed Underground Rivals and 5-1-0 for PSP. It really has me curious about the new Need for Speed ProStreet game that was delayed for a PSP on February 19th of this year. ProStreet looks impressive on the high end consoles, but it just has me wondering why there’s a delay on the PSP version. If the delay is to address things like game enhancing details, it could lead to a promising sequel.

Zero’s Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Zero’s Closing Thoughts: With the game being sold as a Greatest Hits title, the price is not bad. It is a bit difficult and it can be plenty fun if you don’t take the game seriously like Ridge Racer.

Injecting New Life into KDE with Oxygen and Plasma, KDE 4 Quick Review

I have been a silent fan of KDE though I use Gnome on a daily basis for my laptop, Suzaku. I love great KDE set-ups on desktops, though for some reason I can’t like it for laptops. Though after today… I will definitely keep my eyes out on KDE 4’s development. The trial didn’t last too long, due to somethings needing a refined polish, but my impressions on it were great.

Disclaimer: Due to the nature of me just installing the KDE 4 core, rather than using the Kubuntu Desktop install and then stacking the KDE 4 install, I didn’t get to experience all the new items of KDE 4 on a completely integrated scale. The openSUSE KDE 4 Live CD didn’t quite play too nice with me either… Keep in mind I was playing with the CORE technologies of KDE 4. I will leave my Gnome bias at the door and focus on the mindset of a KDE 3.5.7 user.

KDE has come a long way since I even remembered my first experience with it when I had tried out SUSE 9.0 Professional back in 2001 or 2002. Back then, it just seemed so coarse and uncut rather than the ignorance I had from Windows XP. I had not used Gnome yet and I didn’t delve much into Linux until much later in 2007. When I just jumped over to Linux back in February, I remembered missing the comfort of the Windows XP Start Menu configuration. I installed Kubuntu on top of Ubuntu on my desktop and the experience just didn’t do it for me. The eye candy just didn’t work well as it did in Gnome… But when I had set up a full Kubuntu set-up for my family, I rather liked the simplistic experience.

KDE 4 was touted as a complete revamp from under the hood for the KDE experience. I can still remember the baren placeholder pages for the Oxygen art team and the Plasma interface. It looked really promising. There was speculation on the next Kubuntu release (Gutsy) sporting KDE 4 by this past October, but the KDE team had pushed back the release date to make sure that the 4.0 release would be truly ready. So it was a push to late December, around Christmas and many people were once again met with disappointment to see it being pushed back to January of this year. It wouldn’t be until last night at 12am that a news bulletin hit Digg basically saying “KDE 4.0 is LIVE! Get the Live CD NOW!”

On booting into KDE, you’re taken to a wonderful black backdrop and a set of icons on a small window showing all the procedure calls being started for things like network initialization, hard drives, etc. From there, a tranquil chime lets you know you have entered KDE. The desktop is just dead on pretty. It’s a lot better than the bland entrance from KDE 3.5 and just has a great wow factor. I like the bottom panel bar being a nice black as it just seems to polish up the theme that much more.

KDE 4 Desktop

A new thing is the fact that KDE can do on-board compositing, with no need for things like Compiz Fusion. This is good as the common user is not going to want to muck about with something that could break their workspace. If anyone remembers my rant about how Compiz Fusion shattered on me, then they know what I mean. The compositing is all from KWin powering it all and most of the “eye candy” is more on the side of refining the experience and to increase productivity, rather than trying to do pretty things. The compositing also allows for widgets to be used in conjunction to the desktop. In the above screen shot, you’ll see that there’s a computer icon with a box above for “recently connected devices”. That’s for any hot-swapping USB items and it will associate them with their appropriate programs. For those who want to know more about the eye candy, KDE 4 does do the “widget space” like how the OS X folks have theirs for Mac. Definitely something for the silent productivity fan.

The improvements for the experience are finally showing. The KRunner app is very nice and can definitely help narrow things down if you’re trying to run a command for a program that you can’t quite remember. While you type, KRunner index searches the system for any matching commands and has them in a list below the search. You can see what the command does in addition to that. The geek factor is that you can also use KRunner as a quick calculator should that need arise.

The Kicker Panel is like the K Menu on steroids, with regards to finding app launchers faster. The novice is able to search for programs by using the search function, while the system indexes all the programs to facilitate an expedited process. In addition, the large icons make it easy to narrow down what you want to do. This makes for a much pleasant experience, nothing like the confusing muck-about seen in most Windows machines. The favorites tab is nice as you can add programs that you use all the time there and just make it a one stop shop for any programs you wish to use.

The Dolphin File Manager really impressed me. I never personally liked using Konqueror for file management and felt it just did a sloppy job. I liked how clean and simple it was able to display files with options to change how you wanted to display them. I loved the split view to be able to view 2 directories at the same time. That could easily be something useful for things like doing redundant memory card back-ups or anything that is similar. Dolphin is just balls out simple, functional, and quick. The traits that a good graphical file manager should have, no exceptions.

Here’s a screen with the split-view mode

Konqueror, I can’t really say too much as I use Firefox for my day to day uses. They have picked up on making the experience much more polished and I can say that there is much more improvement than how I have seen it running on KDE 3.5. Konqueror seems to run much faster now… I don’t know if that is due to some new changes in Konqueror or if it’s from the zippy performance of KDE 4 and KWin. It’s definitely something I could be happy with as a casual user. In the Oxygen skinning theme, it does make Konqueror look almost like Apple’s Safari browser.

My only gripe with KDE 4 is the lack of ability to change the size of the bottom panel. In KDE 3.5, you can change it to a single line set-up rather than a double in the KSysGuard menus… but in KDE 4, there’s no option for that. I am sure that when the final touches are done, the experience should be much cleaner and this minor issue would be fixed. Other than that minor gripe… I am definitely in love with KDE 4. It’s great and I am looking forward to the changes due to come for the future versions of KDE. I just wish Canonical would give the Kubuntu 8.04 release the LTS status with KDE 4 on it, instead of giving it second class priority.

Flight of Cabernet Sauvignons from The Parlour Wine Bar

I went to The Parlour Wine Bar with a dear friend to savor life and try to relax from all the bad luck my office has had. I had opted out of any appetizers or things to add to my night, but on the flight listings the cabernet sauvignon listing really piqued my interest. I had fallen in love with the Stevenot estates cabernet sauvignon, so I kept with that to experiment and try to get a better appreciation for cabernets.

The wines were as follows from the menu:

  • Joel Gott 815 (California)
  • Craneford Ally Parson’s (Barossa)
  • Montes Alpha (Alpata Vineyard, Colchagua)

The first wine was the lightest of them all. There were very strong floral notes from smelling the wine from the glass after a light swirl. The floral scent was also a bit savory and made my mouth water a bit, but also there was a light hint of the alcohols from the wine blossoming. On tasting the Joel Gott 815, I could taste a touch of sweetness with in a fusion of mixed berries and smoke. It settled very nicely on my palette and was far from drowning me in flavors. The taste was simple, but also elegant to my inexperienced tongue. The finish was a very bold one and had a tinge of a linger. The linger was one that almost like a parting kiss. This is a wine I would love to share with many and have a few cases on hand.

The Craneford Ally Parson’s was one I was not much of a fan of. It was the middle of the flight. This wine had more of a berry note with a splash of citrus and alcohol notes after a swirl in the glass. On taking a taste, the wine seemed to have a bitter attack on first sip… but then slowly opening up with notes of citrus and berries. The finish was a little bitter with just a touch of spices when it lingered. This one just gave me a mood of parting ways with a good friend from how the wine finishes off.

The Montes Alpha was a wine I was impressed by greatly. This one had the most time to blossom and mix with the air, so I knew that the scent would have much to offer. After giving the glass a swirl, I would take a good deep sniff to try to absorb the scents. I was hit by a wave of berries with just a touch of floral and spice notes. The scent had very little alcohol backing the the wonderful bouquet of smells. The taste was actually easier than the wine before it, though it had more of a focus on flavors of leather (I think) and spices rather the fruits and flowers I sniffed before. The finish was one that fused both the smell and taste into a powerful linger that was very savory at the end. This one was a wine I would love to pair with a nice filet mignon or some dark chocolate covered strawberries for a very special occasion.

I would like to thank The Parlour for their great staff assisting me that night and I will definitely be returning for another flight of wines or spirits to explore my horizons.