Thank you for visiting the new derekwalter.com. This site will soon detail my current platform of writing and graduate school teaching. My blog will also be embedded at this site making it easier for you to have full access to my writing. Stay tuned!
Some worry about fixing the auto industry or if North Korea has nuclear weapons. Right now I have a far more compelling dilemma on my hands – Google Chrome vs. Mozilla Firefox.
Clearly I am in good company, as others have debated the merits of both browsers. (And yes I have tried the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Safari. IE is still too poky and Safari is another Apple product; very innovative but always missing essential features). I find myself splitting my time right now between Chrome and Firefox. There is a lot of merit and room to improve with both.
What do I love about Chrome? It’s blazing fast and has a minimalistic interface. It’s also very smart about handling the day-to-day functions of a quality web surfing session. Click a link to open a new tab, and it opens right next to your current tab. Pull a tab out of the browser and create an application shortcut. Also the address bar searches Google, your web history and bookmarks all at once.
But where Chrome is innovative, Firefox is full-featured. Because I work between two different computers, using Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) to sync my bookmarks is essential. Adblocks is great for nuking annoying online ads. Plus if I get tired of the default appearance I can always install another one. The flexibility is what keeps me connected to Mozilla’s browser for now.
So who is the “winner?” Right now, both. When I need to get work done, Firefox is my choice. If I am just reading and doing general web browsing, it’s Chrome. Writing for AppCraver and my other clients keeps me on the web constantly, so this is an obsession I plan to take seriously. For true tech geeks such as myself this will be fun to watch play out.
I saw during the Oscars broadcast why the ratings for this this show are so abysmal. Hugh Jackman’s routines were generally odd and not all that funny. Throw in some tasteless anti-religion rhetoric from Bill Maher and Sean Penn’s edict that all who voted for Proposition 8 should wallow in shame and wear sackcloth, and you have the typical Hollywood formula: a few blowhards overshadow some compelling stories.
Too bad because there were plenty of them – Kate Winslett’s first Oscar, Mickey O’Rourke’s comeback story, another nomination for the storied Meryl Streep, and of course the success of Slumdog Millionaire.
There was only one way to watch. By using the greatest technological innovations in modern civilization – the DVR. It was great to skip over the lame skits and ABC television promos. It was worth it to enjoy the great ments, even though they were few.
Few consumer products have been slammed in recent memory more than Windows Vista. It was the focus of mockery in the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ad campaign by Apple. Its had difficulty gaining traction among some areas of enterprise, such as the recent decision by Intel to remain with XP.
But Microsoft is (finally) hitting back. A stealth campaign dubbed “The Mojave Experiment” uses the time-tested blind taste test. Consumers are shown an operating system dubbed Windows Mojave. They are told it is an experimental version of Windows’ next operating system. After playing around with it and finding they like it, they are told it is really Vista.
While a little on the cheesy side, Microsoft is righ to insist that people give Vista another look. It is now stable and effective for everyday computing. I have been using it on my tablet for about six months with no problems (besides turning off the annoying Windows Defender).
Besides, if any of those two Apple commercial characters are likely to lose their email or experience a crash, it’s the one running MobileMe.
The Mac rumor mill was swirling at full speed this week with speculation that Apple was hard at work on a “MacBook Touch”. This rumor is not new. Buzz about a tablet MacBook has been around for years. But what is fueling the speculation this time around is the wild success of the iPhone 3G.
Should this rumor turn out to be true (and there is no guarantee that it will) it would be another brilliant coup by Apple. Tablet PCs have been around for quite a while yet have never really taken off, accounting for only one percent of the laptop consumer market. Several models, including the Toshiba M700 that I use, include touch input (although to be fair, it’s nowhere near as responsive or accurate as my iPhone 3G). But if any company can popularize the concept, it’s Apple. It’s scores of iFans will swoon over the latest product just as they did for the iPhone 3G and MacBook Air. It won’t matter that there already are some solid tablets our there from Toshiba, Dell, HP, and others.
Apple will put its own twist on the product to give it a wide appeal to the consumer base as they have done with most of their products. And the devoted followers who believe every Apple product “just works” (tell that to MobileMe subscribers) will hail this as the newest, greatest iteration of Apple technology. If the Dalai Jobs builds it, they will come.
I am sending this post from my new 16GB black iPhone 3G. About five minutes after getting an email telling me it had arrived, an AT&T employee was calling to tell me it was at the store. After racing through traffic it was mine. And as you can tell from the length of this post typing isn’t a problem.
Excuse the two-day delay since I have last posted, but it has taken this long to recover from a six-hour wait in the blasting sun outside an Apple store in Walnut Creek, Calif. It was my latest unsuccessful attempt for an iPhone. To be fair, my choosiness accounts for part of the reason I do not have one. I want the black 16GB model, and nothing else will do. I turned down an 8GB a week ago, and as you will see, turned down a white model Thursday. Below is the account of my latest (and last) misadventure as a victim of the Steve Jobs Media Hype Machine. Continue reading
It appears I am not the only one impatiently awaiting the arrival of an iPhone 3G.
Fortune’s Apple 2.0 blog reports that the iPhone 3G is still hard to find – sold out in 21 states. Your local Apple store is likely to give you this message if you check it tonight. 
Then there is the ever effective AT&T site, which gives you this message when you put in your confirmation number:
So you can’t buy one at a store, and if you ordered one, you have no idea where it is at or if it’s still being built by Steve Jobs’ trolls. Tom Petty was on to something about that waiting thing.
The only thing harder to find than the iPhone 3G lately has been a copy of Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii. But I finally snagged one online today at Barnes & Noble’s web site. It probably won’t last long, so if you want a copy, head to the site here.
Sony is giving its E3 keynote. Look for a lot of cool gaming announcements. You can follow the event live on engadget at this link.