All Gadgets Aside...

Last night I went out to a club I had neglected for a little while to see the internationally famous BT. It was one of the best nights I have ever had in my life. I FOUND MYSELF AGAIN while listening to a friends DJ set of hard breakbeat electronic music. A strange soothing calm came over me and I knew that my streak of despair had ended. I ran into every person at the club that I would want to see and be around and even though some people had some sad issues in their personal lives I feel that my amount of happiness was enough to rub off on them. The music was incredible last night. A lot of it I had heard but I once again felt at one with the music even though I wasn't performing myself. Life once again became beautiful. Everything seemed to continue to align as we even decided to hit an after party where the oddest mix of people that I know came together in some sort of symbiosis that worked perfectly. Junglists were hanging out with house heads and hippies were hanging out with young ravers and every single person had a big smile on their face.

Of course seeing my family yesterday was probably what initially spawned me finding myself again. It was my brothers birthday so my parents had come to pick me up and we hit up a restaurant on the way home, then I made fresh guacamole and Mango/Black Bean Salsa. We had a dinner of tacos, I made mine fish tacos since I am a pescatarian (vegetarian that eats fish and/or seafood). After we all ate me and my brothers did something I hadn't done with them for a long time...we busted out some fireworks and blew stuff up .

It's really strange how things go around and how one second you can feel horrible and then out of the blue you get smacked across the face with the giant salmon of happiness and you feel better than you ever had before. I have a feeling that from this point on things will continue to be great.

I never really realized when the accident happened that it would hit me so hard. I mean look at me, I am virtually unscathed...on the outside at least. There isn't an hour that goes by that I don't think about what happened and how rapidly my life changed. It took me a long time to work my way up to being able to buy a brand spanking new car just the way I wanted it and in a matter of seconds it was taken away from me. In the state of Minnesota a person in a car accident where they don't find themselves physically injured has no rights. I am constantly reminded of how Minnesota "no fault" laws protect the rights of the insurance company over the person that went through such a traumatic event. So far I have been "slapped in the face" by the other parties insurance company by being offered $500 as a sorry in exchange for me to sign a piece of paper that says I can never go after the other driver in the event that injuries do show up in me. Obviously they can't pull the wool over my eyes and I didn't sign. The issue is that I do have injuries, on the inside it hurts so much thinking about the accident that it makes it difficult to work and do daily things. When I informed my insurance company that I was going to go talk to someone about all of this they informed me that insurance does not cover mental health related to the accident. Aside from the medical side of thing the insurance companies aren't willing to buy me a new car even though we all know that someone was beyond negligent and nearly killed me. I am forced to settle for what they feel the car is worth and foot the rest of the bill myself meaning that I will be without a car for a few months at least. To top things off my insurance company informed me the other day that since they made me a "fair offer" on my car that I have to return the rental car that comes with my insurance coverage... once again I am without a car. Dealing with 6 insurance agents on a daily basis really takes its toll on a person.

Through all of this I have realized something, no matter how hard I try the people that are supposed to help me won't. I have once again realized that I just don't care anymore. I am going to give up? No. But why should I care if nobody else does? I can do nothing to recover what was lost from inside of me and no one else wants to own up and help me fix that portion of me. My car is obviously gone but I don't really care about the car. I care about all of the time in my life I have worked to own something I was truly proud of.

I am starting to feel better slowly at this point as I begin to care less and less and realize that I should be out having fun with friends. Going out and having fun with friends is part of what is making things difficult as my constant lack of transportation is a reminder of what happened.

So I decided to add a little something extra to my blog today. Up in the right hand corner you will notice the big barcode looking thing. I think a lot of people out there are a little clueless when it comes to seeing this things around the internet but I frankly love them. Essentially these square mobile codes contain coded text that in most cases is used as a link to a website. For example, if you scan the one on my page it will take you to the blog you are reading right now. "But why would you want to go to the page you are at?" you ask? Well you use these with mobile devices like phones that have cameras on them. I didn't know much about these until I picked up my Nokia N95 which has a program for reading the codes, but after I started using it I realized how useful these codes are. There are a whole host of readers out there for most camera phones on the market. Nokia has a nice list of free programs located here. Most of these programs are very lightweight and super easy to use. Most of the websites that have programs for download also have code creators so you can create all sorts of links to wherever your mobile browser may take you. My personal thought is that more companies should begin including these barcodes on their products and also on their websites so people can simply navigate to where you need to go.

Today marks a great day in the world of Java as Apple has just released the public version of Java 6 for Mac OS X Leopard. This is a beautiful thing for the future of web based computing on a mac and offers up Java developers the chance to be right on par with all the latest and greatest java code. I am happy to see this release myself as the company I am working for has a lot of Java based stuff on it's website and the future is looking towards more Java.

So why the bleak title? As it turns out the release of Java 6 is only compatible with 64 bit, Intel Based macs. Although my outlook may be a little ahead of itself but I think this recent release is enough to scare most PowerPC mac users. Will Apple continue to develop for and offer support for PowerPC based macs? Does this mean that we are now legacy users? My issue is that by not including PowerPC based macs in the update equation Apple will be making a lot of perfectly speedy and capable computers obsolete. Sure this is easier for their programmers, cost Apple a few dollars less and probably bring more computer sales from people that need the latest and greatest updates but it cerainly doesn't promote the continued use of a computer.

I personally own two macs and have one on my desk at my workplace and not a single one is an Intel mac. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy having one but it's that I am working on machines that I feel are completely up to speed with everything I do, upgrading would only be money spent. I only hope that this major update doesn't spell doom for Mac updates to come.

So here we are, it has been a decent amount of time now since the release of the iPhone. For the most part people seem to be pretty happy with the iPhone. I have had the chance to play with for a little while and it definitely does what it's intended to do. What prompted me to write this article though, is not to write a review but to shed some light on all of the unlocking hoopla bouncing around right now.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am strong supporter of unlocked phones. When I heard that the iPhone was able to be unlocked by the software solutions announced last week I was overjoyed. Does it mean I would buy an iPhone, probably not, but at least it would give people the freedom to move from GSM provider to GSM provider and roam in countries without paying gigantic fees to the provider they are with.

I am not sure you have been following this news as it's been unfolding but last week when the unlocking software was supposed to be released to the public, AT&T dropped a legal letter on UniquePhones' desk. At this point the software release has been suspended indefinitely. Obviously it's not like Apple should care, sales of iPhones would go up if people could use them more freely. AT&T on the other hand is afraid of losing the exclusivity that has attracted 500,000+ new customers to buy and iPhone from them. They do have every right to be afraid of losing exclusivity but they do not have a right to prevent people from getting decent prices on service while going overseas. I also believe that they do not have the right to leave people with a brick of a gadget at the end of their service contract, you should be able to take your device to whom you please.

As it is now, an unnamed person has layed out a bounty of $100,000 for the release of the software unlock to the public. Another individual recieved his bill after traveling overseas to find out that his bill was over $2000. This particular indiviual has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple because he feels (and he is correct) that if his phone was unlocked from the beginning or if he had the ability to unlock it then he would be able to put a SIM in his phone from the country he traveled to, avoiding extra charges. Although I don't think suing Apple will accomplish what he is looking for, I can say that I don't necessarily think he is out of line going after someone in this instance.

(Keep in mind, any and all views expressed in my blog are not the views expressed by Opera or the My Opera Community.)

So the release of the iPhone has come and gone. All in all the near immediate sell out of iPhones across the country would definitely make the initial launch a success. As most people that know me will tell you, I am a fan of just about everything Apple related. So why don't I have an iPhone in my pocket? Before I get into why let me give a quick review of the iPhone itself and what I have seen from it.

So the iPhone is a great device. Aesthetically pleasing, well designed (thanks to the infamous Jonathan Ives), has great battery life, a decent camera, and a very beautiful OS with complimenting applications. The device makes a great iPod, works very well with google maps, the safari browser is right at home on the device as well. One of the greatest assets the iPhone has is it's multi-point touch screen in which allows you expans pictures and web pages by simply stretching them out. I have had sometime to play with the device and I think it does everything it's intended to do very well. On the downside, I have also seen a couple things that make me wonder what Apple was thinking. First off, where is the MMS support. When I have sent MMS messages to my co-worker who proudly owns an iPhone he gets a standard SMS message with a link to the location of where the image is stored on the internet. This is hardly an MMS solution, it will take you substantially longer to view your message than if it would have gone straight to your device. The second downfall is the lack of a development platform beyond web apps. Web apps will work but this doesn't seem the way to go to get a dedicated program that will work wherever you are and perform as snappy as it should. The rest of my complaints about it are more specific, which brings me to why I don't own an iPhone.

First and foremost, one of the biggest things for me when it comes to a phone is freedom. The freedom to use your phone as you please, install what you want and turn around and sell it for what it's worth rather than be stuck with a device locked to one network. So it goes without saying that this shoudl be an unlocked device. Unfortunately here in the US the top GSM providers will not sell you a phone unless you buy a contract thus making it difficult for Apple to justify selling it unlocked and free to be used on whatever network you please. This doesn't mean that people aren't willing to dive into a contract to own a device that is free from being locked. Second, the iPhone does what it's intended to well. What about everything else? My current Nokia can do everything the iPhone can plus about a million things more that the iPhone can't do. My Nokia N73 cost me $350 and it has a 3.2mp Camera, takes decent quality video, surfs the internet with the best of them using Nokia's browser, or in my case Opera. On top of that the Series 60 platform has a multitude of applications that have been developed and more constantly being developed.

Basically what it boils down to is that Apple will have to kick up it's game to compete in the game of a making a full featured phone with heavyweights like Nokia. Even mobile manufacturers like Sony Ericsson and LG have mobiles with feature sets that vastly outweigh what the iPhone can offer. Apple, you wil have to do more to impress even your most seasoned customers.

So, a long while back I did a post about the Sushi thumb drives in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Now it looks like Solid Alliance is at it again with another crazy shaped USB drive. This months flavor is the Squid. Why a squid? Who knows. I think the philosophy of Solid Alliance is to just make as many flash drives in as many possible shapes. Nonetheless, this thing looks pretty real and it even comes packed like fresh squid. If you own this thing you will probably have more fun than Joe Schmoe over there with a plain old flash drive. Spec wise the device isn't all that impressive and it only sports 512mb of storage space, but frankly who cares? It's a freaking squid!

In a bit of crossover news it looks like famous Japanese toy designer Touma has a DS game coming out shortly. Gabu Gabu Planet appears to be an adventure game that looks like it follows in line with games like crash bandicoot. 3D side scroller with lots of fruit to grab and stuff to jump over. But the real gem for me is that the characters in the game all hold a nice Touma styling, sharp chompers and all. Go Nintendo has stated that this release will indeed be coming out in the US, it's just a question of when.