-- Studio from Dell

OMG, weekend at last... . Yeah, you see, last post 19th June. This post, 28th June. Tells a lot eh.

Ok, enough rantings. Still remember the new designs that from Dell that was leaked out?

That's Dell's new Studio line (officially announced quite a while ago). Straight to the important question, where does Studio stand?

Studio = Inspiron-liked price + Inspiron cuztomization + XPS design + XPS performance

Yes! performance too. Is this combination even possible? Almost. Let's take a look again at the stuffs grabbed from XPS again.


Hinge design lid; Wedge shape; Wi-Fi catcher; Dual headphone jacks; Express card slot (with Dell Remote);


Slot load drive; (Round power button on the right side hinge)


Capacitive touch controls;

Studio is available in as Studio 15 and Studio 17. No problems guessing which is what size eh. The 3 pics up there are from Studio 15, and notice the difference on the placement of ports at the left and right with the Studio 17 below.

Clearly stolen from laptopmag.com...


Glossy hand rest with patterns on top (yeah, the pattern is there alright, check out Engadget's live photos);


Comes with Dell dock (look at the top part of the screen);


Lots of color choices and patterns like the Insiprons (nothing to do with pic);

Everything looks too good to be true? Yes. Studio actually stands right in between Inspiron and XPS and for a reason - Thicker and Heavier than XPS. The number of USB ports gave it away for me... ..

Yeah, so XPS is still top of the line, and i heave a sigh of relief. But for you guys, do check them out at Dell USA >> http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs. Do a little conversion and you'll see that the Studio line is priced very very competitively for its specs, and looks (I actually prefer Studio's cleaner looks).

Live images here >>
http://www.engadget.com/photos/dell-studio-laptop-hands-on/

Reviews >>
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4471 (recommended read)
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/dell-studio-17.aspx?page=1 (great gallery)
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-studio-15/4505-3121_7-33107339.html?tag=sub
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2321784,00.asp

-- Last Wednesday...

... specially sat LRT to Wangsa Maju to celebrate my KTAR pal, Ji Keat's (a.k.a. Chris) one week late birthday... as an apology . Was just too busy the last week.

Had a simple "evening tea" at one of the cafes along Jalan Genting Klang (there's "thousands" of them over there, and I didn't went (or knew) to a single one of them during my KTAR year *fail* ).

This set (including the cincau drink on the left and yellow jelly pudding on the right) cost only RM9.90... sans 5% gov tax and 5% service tax. Only the rice portion needs complaining.



Kinda nice to meet up with them improptu-ly since the only other time we do meet up is semester holidays ... though I ended up feeling dead tired when I reach home... tsk tsk. I think I've intro-ed my KTAR pals before... but here it goes again...

Sze Ling (12 years old), Li Ying (3.85+/4.0 (President's List) no.1), Chee Wei (3.85+/4.0 no.2, drifts a Kenari)

Esther (erm... I don't tease her), Ji Keat (Single and might be dating), Richard (Single and targeting N*****).

After the little gathering, still have to sit bus home from PJ Hilton stop, at night... and whaddya know... there's a "fog" surrounding the stop. Slipped out my N82, and the "fog" particles clogged my lens badly...

... well... no... . I just forgot to turn off flash, and snapped away. All those dust particles are really good at bouncing off lights.

-- Firefox 3 Download Day

Set a Guinness World Record
Enjoy a Better Web

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today.

>> http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

---

Just for fun's sake, and nothing else, I have also pledged myself to download on that day... even then I'm already using Firefox 3 since their RCs (Release Candidates).

Why use Firefox 3? Cause it's better in every way compared to Firefox 2 (even though you think it couldn't get any better) - faster, smoother, less memory hogging, etc.
The only reason to not move to Fx3 is incompatible extensions... but that didn't stop me from moving to it either .

You wouldn't be disappointed on the looks department either. Fx2 have a single static look accross all platforms (Vista, XP, Mac OS) except Linux, but now Fx3 beautifully integrates itself into those different plaforms.

This is the Main Window of Fx3 accross Vista, Linux, Mac OS and XP :



Cool eh? The best integration would have to be the Mac OS version ofcoz. Now Mac users can't complain about Firefox looking like crap (though there are already lots of themes that blends Fx2 into Mac OS).

Ofcoz, just the Main Window is not enough - the icons, Options menu, Bookmarks menu etc are changed as well. Check them out here...
>> http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2008/05/14/firefox-3-themes/

---

Now, pledge yourself...



And you can grab Firefox 3 RC3 at here for some early test-run here...
>> http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html

-- Stark in Hulk

Another good reason to watch Incredible Hulk...



Marvel is slowly buying back the rights to make movies based on their superheroes themselves... and then, the big plan is to integrate and combining the characters. This is their 1st step.

-- Frog on stairs

Almost stepped on this little fella when walking up the stairs last Friday, after a heavy rain.



Apparently, frogs don't like very heavy rains too, and would seek shelter... upstairs.

-- Happy Birthday and RIP iPhone...

... Welcome


Available July 11th, across 22 of the 70 announced countries (for Asia Pacific - Aus, NZ, HK, Japan). That leaves Singapore, India and Philippines (can't believe Phil gets it too) later this year.



There's a new pricing too. It's set at a maximum of $199 (with contract ofcoz, which won't be cheap) for the 8GB. But... this is how Steve Jobs worded it :

"... And in almost every one of these countries, the price is a maximum of $199, all around the world..."

Yeah, nice contradiction. And even then, i think he's talking about those lucky 22 countries only. bzzz...

---

Of all big rumors turned facts are...

• Slightly bigger in all dimensions and heavier
  (115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 / 133g -vs- 115 x 61 x 11.6 / 135g )
• 3G
  (i just can't believe how much Jobs touted about 3G's speed while other phones have 3G for years already... )
• GPS
  (this is gonna be really useful with iPhone's huge display)

A lot of the more specific questions are left unanswered though.

Those hopping Apple would at least upgrade to a 3MP camera (me), it's the same shitty 2.0MP cam, but now with geo-tagging (no mention of video recording yet). And despite having 3G, there's also no front camera.
>> http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

16GB, $299, available in black or white

8GB, $199, only in black

Oh yeah, iPhone 3G will really rock on your table.

---

On the software side, there's iPhone 2.0, which the old iPhone can upgrade to for free, while for the iPod touch it's $9.95 (at this point, i strongly recommend against getting an iPod touch).

Amongst the known new stuffs are App Store (to download legal 3rd party iPhone softwares), Mobile Me service (synchronize data between the iPhone, PC or Mac), syncing with Microsoft Exchange (to appeal business users), opening Microsoft Office files, additional full language support (Chinese and Japanese comes to mind here), handwriting recognition, and 3G button/switch (seriously).

One important thing the iPhone lacked is Chinese writing capability (though you can dl 3rd party apps that does this if it's jailbroken). iPhone 2.0 officially brings Chinese and Japanese writing support. Either pinyin...

...or handwirting recognition (if it's the same one as Mac OSX, it's gonna suck). Or numpad arrangement for Japanese (this language is very suitable for use on a numpad, believe it). These are old images actually, and are known capabilities even before WWDC 2008 .



For more information on what Apple wants you to know...
>> http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Images from Apple, Engadget and some Chinese website without permission.

Oh, not to forget, the next OSX is Snow Leopard. In one years time.

---

Keynote highlights :


(He harped on the 3G speeds much more if you watch the full video on Apple.com)

-- Stupid Sakura Project

How's this for some anime nostalgia? lol



More great stuff in v2... hahaha.



Try to spot the parodies in v3...



For more information on this slightly twisted Naruto world, read the comic strips at...
http://nn-meg.deviantart.com/

-- Really big birds right above your head...

Bumped into this video while YouTube surfing... (i went from anime related, to wars, to missiles, to planes, ending in plane disasters..)



This is Saint Martin island's Princess Juliana Airport, which has a very short landing strip, causing larger planes to approach with just "a few inches" from the... pagar.

So it's either the runway, or fence, vehicles, tourists, planespotters, water all of them together...



Even then, who wouldn't like to experience such close encounters eh... :P
Disaster waiting to happen turned tourist attraction, amazing.

(plz pardon my jakun-ness if you guys already knew about this special airport, :P)

-- Cutting with thin Air

Now, I may not like MacBooks that much, but I would still respect a tech device... well... as a tech device.

Here's Rahul Sood, founder of Voodoo PC and CTO of HP's global gaming business (note the T-shirt)... cutting his birthday cake using a working MBA.



Making chocolate gunk stuck in a perfectly fine device is not fine with me. I'm sure Steve Jobs would like a repay the favour, but any HP would squash a cake...

>> Engadget : hp-exec-cuts-birthday-cake-with-macbook-air

---

There's also "news" flying around that you can cut through bread,
with thin-Air...


and sharp enough,
to cause "fatal" flesh wounds.


>> Engadget : german-users-claim-macbook-air-can-cut-through-bread-flesh

But ofcoz, take these 2 with 3 pinches of salt.

-- WWDC

BOOM! one more week to go...