Dec 24, 2012

It’s a tough time to be an American consumer. It’s a tough time to be an American. I always knew it would come to this, but being the Pollyanna that I am, I was hoping that it wouldn’t. Two and a half years ago, I bought my first Android device, an HTC EVO, and even though it was a battery-draining, unstable mess … I sung its...

Sep 3, 2012

Write-once, run-anywhere. Native language of Android. The most popular programming language in the world, finally surpassing C in 2011. I just received notice that a Java update was available for one of our workstations, so naturally, I logged in to update it. This time, however, I was paranoid. Cynical even. You know, what people have been calling me for...

Sep 2, 2012

That’s all it took to lose control over my own computer, and my own operating system. 45 seconds. It’s actually been sitting unused on my computer for some time, but I scrubbed my old copy, then installed the latest and greatest version of Windows on my machine. Lest you think I’ve gone squirrel-turd-nutty, I should qualify this by stating that...

Jun 22, 2012

So, this is what it’s come to. This is what the beginning of the end looks like for American technological supremacy. Here we have the “world’s most advanced operating system”, a full decade into development, and backed by the nation’s wealthiest corporation; An operating system with a devoted, almost religious fanbase. What is the...

May 14, 2012

Yesterday, I took Boeing’s new flagship airplane out for a spin. I hopped in the cockpit of a 787, took off from SeaTac, flew down to Olympia, cut back over Vashon Island, and came in low over Downtown Seattle before sticking a VFR landing at Boeing Field. Now I know what you’re thinking … Rex is on another meth bender, but you’re wrong....

Mar 22, 2012

On Tuesday, my 10.1″ Galaxy Tab arrived. I’ve only had a few days to play with it, but I can already see that it’s going to be yet another life-changing device. As someone whose life literally revolves around technology, especially mobile technology, incremental updates such as this literally change the way I do everything, from blogging, to...

Jan 10, 2012

It’s 7:00am, and Nirvana’s “School” is blaring through two tiny, yet surprisingly powerful speakers. Supposedly, this song is loosely based on Kurt’s hatred of Seattle and its upper-middle-class cliques. The town which now plasters his face on every museum it has, and is now oh-so-proud to claim him as a native son. What can I tell you, I love waking...

Nov 13, 2011

Last Thursday, I went with a friend of mine to two stores, located directly across from each other in the University Village Shopping Center. The first store was the Apple Store, the second was the newly-opened Microsoft Store. You see, my friend, a non-US resident, needed to buy a contract-less iPhone, and he could not do it in the AT&T Store in Downtown...

Sep 6, 2011

Today, I was notified that I will be unceremoniously banned from Google+. My page will exist until September 9th, and I will be able to make further posts, but in three days, all of my data will be deleted and I will be locked out. Why? Was it because I posted a profanity-laden diatribe about some petty injustice? Surprisingly, no. Was it because I posted a...

Jun 14, 2011

Since I am going to be away from my main computer this week, I decided to download all of the local Seattle news apps onto my Galaxy Tablet this morning. I grabbed King 5, Komo News, Kiro 7, Q13 Fox, and the Seattle Times — then I went about testing each app to see which would take the coveted upper-left-corner position on my news page. King 5’s app is...

Mar 22, 2011

As you may or may not know, I am an Android geek of magnanimous proportions. I would go so far as to call myself an unabashed fanboy. This is somewhat ironic given that I HATED Google before the development of Android. What can I tell you, they won me over. Competition, the Linux core, the developer program, Google’s Android Market, programming...

Mar 18, 2011

When I like a website, I am that site’s best friend. I read it religiously, pass on links, and most importantly … I click ads, lots of ads. When I need to buy something online, if at all possible, I try to click an ad on a quality site so that the site may get a cut. I’m aware of the economic realities of web publishing, and believe it or not, I’m an...

Feb 17, 2011

Ruh-roh! Computerworld Article “Music streaming service Rhapsody today blasted Apple’s decision to take a 30% cut of all in-app subscription and content revenues, saying that the move makes its iPhone business model unsustainable. The Seattle-based company was the first to publicly express its displeasure with Apple’s announced rules changes,...

Feb 10, 2011

This morning, I got up at 3:30am. At about 5am, I turned on the TV and flipped channels to find a couple local news stations doing their bi-annual corporate shill pieces for Apple. Why local news routinely gives Apple free advertising, I’ll never know … but my guess is that corporate media owns tons of AAPL stock and/or they are trying to get...

Feb 7, 2011

Four weeks ago, when I heard that Sprint was staging an “event” just before Verizon’s iPhone release, I got excited. I was sure that I was finally about to get my wish — an Android Tablet running Honeycomb. Well, the “event” has just ended (complete with a magic trick by David Blaine?!), and it turns out that I will not be...

Jan 23, 2011

Well, I did it my way. After years of shaking my fist at the spinning beachballs and $30 service packs, I made a change. I switched to Linux this weekend, and now I know exactly how Frank Sinatra felt when he switched to Linux. He wanted to sing, but I’ll stick to writing. I am 48 hours post-install of Ubuntu on my iMac, and I already weep that I did not...

Jan 16, 2011

Okay, so OS X isn’t going anywhere, but it’s dead to me. I have made a decision, and that decision is … no more Apple computers. Mind you, this was not an easy decision. Currently, I have 3 Macs (1 iMac and 2 MacBook Pros), and I have devoted a lot of time and energy to the platform. Yesterday, however, I realized that a change needed to be...