I’m always amazed at how the environmentally conscious “green” future is always so …. white?

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Posted by Mark for Daily Shite, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Post tags: future, green, IGN, microsoft, progress, sarcasm, technology

     This just in from The Onion News Network…

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8UtRNCztVI)

     I started reading The Onion about nine years ago while working in New Zealand.  There’s always been some pretty brilliant Tech spoof.  But one ardent reader noticed this gem, which carries a pretty serious language alert despite being about the funniest bit of satire I’ve ever seen The Onion put out:

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyVh1_vWYQ)

     And an honorable mention….

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA)

     Do you have the sneaking suspicion that maybe The Onion spoofed something Apple was actually working on there?  I mean, it seems just ridiculous enough to be… real.  Of course, Apple Engineers never would have noticed the hole — err, whole — NSFW Goatse angle…

     From what I’ve seen, this is the only page on the Internet that actually answers this rather popular question, and it’s out there on the ‘net about a million times…

     “How do I get my screensaver to take up the full screen on the A920?”

     If you have a miniSD card with a converter, you can easily size your background image to the perfect resolution of 176×220 (the screen’s natural resolution) on your computer, pop the card in the phone, select the image, assign it as a screensaver and that should make ‘em full screen, right?
     Oh, hell no.  It’s much more convoluted.  You’ll end up with white bars at the top and bottom of the screen, and the vertical res cropped, thus destroying your picture and making your phone’s desktop look like total crap.

     The fix is easy, although convoluted.

     Hit the “Camera” button, then hit “7″ for “Settings & Info.”  Select “3″ for “View Mode” and set it to “Portrait.”  The phone will probably power off at that point, but when it comes back up, the white menu bars at the top and bottom are gone.

     I have no idea why the hell they’d drop it under Camera Settings…

     And, the fact that it crops photos in landscape mode when the vertical size is bloody well larger that the horizontal size is beyond me.

     And, why they insist on calling a background image a screen saver is totally messed up…

     It’s no friggin’ wonder everyone keeps calling their XP background a “screen saver” these days.  *shakes head*

     Quirky, at best.  And for sure, it should be filed under “annoying stuff to piss people off.”

     A little while back, I did a review about the reacTable, a table-top music synthesizer.  People loved it.  So when Microsoft comes up with Microsoft Surface, people are going insane on the Microsoft-bashing bandwagon.

     Check this out …

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VfpVYYQzHs)

     Sorry, cool stuff.

     Still, a lot of people are screaming that, ”Microsoft is inventing a product which there’s no need for!”
     My honest opinion says that that those types of short-sighted Asshats can suck a big one.

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZuGClKRDtc)

     Whether or not some people see a need for it or not is irrelevant.  There certainly are uses for it now.  Think in terms of business and Government, where untold sums of money are spent on Conference Calls, cameras, long distance charges, couriers, paper documents, signatures…
     Imagine the ability to slide a signed digital document across the desk to a guy sitting across the country … or at a manufacturing facility in Singapore … sending a design specification, and getting back photos of a prototype … having a Sales & Marketing meeting, complete with fresh demographic material from a country you’ve never been to …
     Imagine the ability for a President to learn about a culture by reading interacting with their representative … being able to read their material, on the fly … forging a pact … stopping a war … signing an International Peace Accord.

     Coming from the Asshat line of thinking, we had bonfires, so who needed a fireplace?  We had fireplaces, so why have an oven?  The oven was fine, so who needs a microwave?  Seriously, why have a refrigerator when we were perfactly happen asking the ice-man to come into our cellars and fill the icebox?  Why did we need telephones when we could visit?  Why did we need cellphones when we had perfectly good landlines?  Why did we need e-mail when we had a perfectly good postal system?  Why did we need the Internet at all?

     Innovation is great.  It helps fulfill our quest to better ourselves, and when used correctly, allows us to be more productive.

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cog8b8ojji0)

     I have to admit, however, that the little show when they sit my drink on the bar is definitely gonna distract me from watching the carbonation rise to a head in my Guinness…

I got this cool RAZR v3xx recently. I can plug it right into a USB port on my computer. It tells me in the manual that if I get a memory card, I can transfer video, music and pics onto the phone from my computer. So I got a 1 Gig microSD for $20.

I plugged it in and sure enough, I can browse over to the phone. Yippee! I dropped a couple of tunes over there and a few pics and I am rockin. I’m gonna have a unique tune for all my friends and their pictures.

But, the phone says all the pictures are corrupted and the songs hosed.

I tried logical things like searching the Motorola support site. Did their thing. No good. Tried to exactly match images to the size and dpi of the pictures I took with the phone camera. Nope. Jpeg or gif. Nope. Downloaded a number of free software trials. Nope, nope, nope.

You see, you can indeed put files on your RAZR’s memory card from your computer, the manual does not lie. However, if you want to view those pictures or listen to those tunes with your phone, sorry man.

They want you to download your songs and ringtones for a price. They want you to email the pictures or send them some other wireless way they can charge you for. A nice slow draining.

I am begining to see cellphones as the biggest scam ever perpetrated on humanity. From sites that offer ringtone downloads, but first make you put in your number to back-handedly sign you up for a monthly fee to be added to your bill; to phones that start talking to other phones at will to send them songs and, hey, there is a small fee for the transfer, or, you can get the Googly-Moogly Bandwidth package that lets you send lots of crap from your phone each month for just $19.99 monthly! They went ahead and put this into my new contract without telling me. Thanks dude! And don’t forget the carefully placed extra buttons right next to the dial and hang-up buttons that immediately take you to the Internet and start the slow drip, drip, drip of your money… Oops!

I am a pretty smart guy and technically savvy, and this is clearly not a simple work around. The answer is out there, and I will find it. It’ll probably cost me of course. And if you want me to tell you how to get files from your computer to your RAZR, well, that’ll cost you. I want my cut of the action. Unfortunately, my feeding off of you does not make me young forever, but my kewl ass phone does… as long as I feed the beast…