Year: 2006

PCWorld.com Top 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

PCWorld.com listed it’s “Top 25 Losers” (ouch!) ever. To wit:

  1. America Online (1989-2006)
  2. RealNetworks RealPlayer (1999)
  3. Syncronys SoftRAM (1995)
  4. Microsoft Windows Millennium (2000)
  5. Sony BMG Music CDs (2005)
  6. Disney The Lion King CD-ROM (1994)
  7. Microsoft Bob (1995)
  8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
  9. Pressplay and Musicnet (2002)
  10. dBASE IV (1988)
  11. Priceline Groceries and Gas (2000)
  12. PointCast (1996)
  13. IBM PCjr. (1984)
  14. Gateway 2000 10th Anniversary PC (1995)
  15. Iomega Zip Drive (1998)
  16. Comet Cursor (1997)
  17. Apple Macintosh Portable (1989)
  18. IBM Deskstar 75GXP (2000)
  19. OQO Model 1 (2004)
  20. CueCat (2000)
  21. Eyetop Wearable DVD Player (2004)
  22. Apple Pippin @World (1996)
  23. Free PCs (1999)
  24. DigiScents iSmell (2001)
  25. Sharp RD3D Notebook (2004)

Of the three MS products I’ve only encountered Windows ME and IE 6.0, the other one being MS Bob, which I didn’t even know went to market.

Continue reading PCWorld.com Top 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

Movie Exchange Makeover!

Announcing some new stuff:

  1. new template! I’ve decided to use Frenchman Neuro’s three column template rather quaintly called “Identification band – parallel Boyish style” for Movie Ex. It features some 220px wide columns and a nice larger content area which can fit Youtube Videos. This means we can finally post Movie Trailers! This template also happens to have “Most Active Posts” and “Latest Comments” built in, as well as a neat Accessibility feature which can auto-increase the font size for those having difficulty reading.

    2. Continue reading Movie Exchange Makeover!

Basketball Exchange’s Got Game! Gearing Up For UAAP.

Basketball Exchange.ph is almost three months old now, and goodness how time flies when you’re having fun.

And having fun we are! I’ve found two great writers Chip Lopez and Phillip Kimpo Jr., who by a stroke of sheer luck, answered the call for writers and have appeared as passionate (which is common), and as dutiful (which without a doubt is very uncommon) in sharing of their opinion, news and commentary of all things basketball.

On the site’s more technical innovations, I’ve added polls from Lester Chan and the terrific Feedreader from Chait.net, which is a terrific way to provide fresh content without getting my lazy ass of my seat. If you check the blog, you’ll see feeds from nba.com and espn.com/nba, and it’s hard to imagine how it’d be so hard to keep the site from getting boring without them, which I suppose, is the highest compliment I can give it. I highly recommend it for any site that wants to show updates from news services or other blogs.

Continue reading Basketball Exchange’s Got Game! Gearing Up For UAAP.

My Articles Page is now up!

Finally finally finally.

I’ve finally gotten around to making my articles page here.

I’d always demurred from said activity as I had thought it rather vain, but I’ve decided it’s best to upload them as they greatly help me figure out when (and sometimes, for whom) I wrote an article for at any given time, without having to dig deep into the deep inner workings of my d:\ partition where everything is stored, and where many a search had failed to result positively from sheer clutter.

At least this way, my blog serves as a backup of these records. Also, and let’s be honest here, it’ll help me find writing work, and I’m very much in the market.

Continue reading My Articles Page is now up!

First takes on the Canon Ixus 60

Sitting on my desk in some protective cloth-like casing it came with is the Canon Ixus 60, spec’d as follows:

  • 6.0 megapixels
  • 3x optical zoom
  • 2.5″ lcd screen
  • Resolution max/min: 2816×2112 / 640×480
  • Sensor size / type: 1/2.5 / CCD
  • weight: 140 g (4.9 oz)
  • Inclusive 16mb. SD card
  • dimensions: 86 x 54 x 22 mm (3.4 x 2.1 x 0.9 in)

Continue reading First takes on the Canon Ixus 60

Content Providers shouldn’t be surprised

From this article:

“Content providers have opposed the (creation of a) not-to-text registry, saying that it was invasion of privacy. They said that our [pending guidelines] are sufficient. But the NTC thinks there is a need to do this. The present way of doing things are insufficient. The content providers will be submitting their position paper by Monday but we intend to have the registry up by next week,” Sarmiento told INQ7.net.

It has to do with how the NTC has decided to put up a registry for people who do not want to receive spam-text to sign up to.

You have to wonder how the Content Providers decided to get into the business they’re in when they started. Sure things looked good a few years ago when there wasn’t any regulation, and text spam was considered a minor nuisance, but betting your business on providing a service whose way of announcing itself is via spamming – something that no one in his right mind really wants seems difficult to justify.

Continue reading Content Providers shouldn’t be surprised

First takes on the Nokia N91

I was very excited to receive one of the first Nokia N91s to come into the country a few weeks ago. I was made aware that it was amongst, if not the first unit to arrive via a letter accompanying it saying so. In retrospect however, the fact that it came from a PR company means it’d benefit them to make me think so, but I’m fairly sure it’s at least amongst the first.

It came however, not in its original box, but in a (very nice) Nokia backpack, filled with the requisite manuals, cables and a set of very nice speakers and a headset. After some investigation it turns out the speakers weren’t inclusive and were only there to help prove the sound was up to par and connecting to it was easy, via a standard 3.5mm connector, placed conveniently at the top. This allows you to just slap it onto your average stereo headset or amplifier, bringing your sounds along with you, which is the point of this particular phone.

I used it for most of a full week, and liked it a lot. Nokia makes models for every specific target audience in each model lineup, and the N91 is it’s music player model for the N-Series. So while it has the required connectivity and other features (triband, 3G, Bluetooth, 2mb cam, USB, etc.) seen throughout most of the N Series, it’s particular strength is its music player, featuring Windows Media Player 10 and the clincher = 4gb. hard disk.

Continue reading First takes on the Nokia N91

Performancing For Firefox Rocks. Hard.

As Im running Movie Exchange.ph and Basketball Exchange.ph now, posts here have become few and far between.

That’s not to say of course, that not much has happened. On the contrary, tons and tons have, and so I must find time to blog, if only because blogs among other things are a great way of personally keeping track of stuff going on in our lives. And since, judging from the site metrics, people haven’t really been beating a path to read it, I assume the aforementioned purpose makes more sense at this point.

Continue reading Performancing For Firefox Rocks. Hard.

Executed X-Men

I didn’t grow up in the X-Men generation, so I approach the X-Men, its characters, story and iterations (the comics, cartoons, spin-offs and the several versions of each) as something I’ve missed, albeit am unwilling to pursue since, well, let’s face it, I’ve outgrown it.

Ok, clarification. I have learned to appreciate other genres, hence need to disperse my attention on a more general plane. Yes, that sounds right. At least better than saying I’m old.

Buuut anyway. Oh yeah, the movie.

Continue reading Executed X-Men