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RJ on Windows Vista SP2

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

Two days ago I did the unthinkable. I installed Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista, and it had been out for less than a week. I have a Lenovo X61 Tablet the specs on my machine are as follows:

Core 2 Duo 1.6ghz L7500
4.0 GB Ram
160 GB Hard Drive
Intel X3100 Video
Bluetooth
Blah blah blah

First off the installation went flawlessly. Second, it shows the true mark of a successful update, I noticed nothing, at first. I had started the installer, checked the box to restart automatically and then went off to my Chinese (Mandarin) class. After going to a night market I went straight home (I actually bought some blank DVD’s in case I needed to do a re-install haha). When I got home my computer was waiting for me to put in my password. So I did, and then left and came back.

Since my computer has one of the low voltage power saving CPU’s it is kind of sluggish at startup. Usually it takes a good 3 minutes before the desktop is available in any useable way with vista. Now with SP2 it takes about half of that time. That is a huge positive change in performance. Also I have more hard drive space after installing SP2. I don’t know the exact change because I was not expecting this to happen. But I think SP2 somehow freed up about 10 gigs of space on my computer. After browsing around the interwebs I found the reason.” Vista SP2 includes a command-line cleanup tool (compcln.exe) you can run to remove older system files and restore points, thus freeing up hard disk space.” That is pulled directly from this article. It seems that SP2 automatically runs this utility during install and frees up loads of space! Who knew! But Microsoft has not yet made a statement about these increases in free hard drive space so we shall see. Hopefully I didn’t lose anything important!

Supposedly there are some other improvements that I have not experienced. First, now Windows Vista supports burning Blue Ray discs. So now you don’t have to use that stupid 3rd party software haha. Hmm I think I will stick with Nero when I want to burn something. And second, it supposedly fixes that annoying problem of being disconnected from wireless networks when you come back from sleep. I never use sleep, and I am not interested enough to test it, but if that is true then that’s just wonderful

That’s all dudes and dudettes. I’m out!

Fine print below!

This post only contains my personal experience with Windows Vista SP2 I take no responsibility if you install it and your computer explodes or breaks in any way shape or form. Thank you.

Posted in PC's, Tech | 2 Comments »

RJ’s Palm Pre Envy

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

I can’t believe that I am outside of the United States when what in my estimation is the best cell phone in the history of cell phones has come out in the US only. I am so upset but as soon as I get off of the airplane in the US I am going to find a sprint store and buy one that is guaranteed.

But the release of the palm pre has gotten me thinking about cell phones in general. When I was on my way out here I had the preconception that in Asia all of the cell phones would fantastically better than anything that was ever released in the US. I was wrong.

The phones out here are extremely advanced but not in any way that the typical American cell phone user would appreciate. When I went to Japan I saw 4 iPhones and maybe 10 phones with touch screens or full keyboards for the entire trip. In Taipei these phones are similarly rare. Due to the way that Asian languages are written (Chinese characters, Japan uses Chinese characters also) it is somehow easier to type on the normal cell phone touchpad. Therefore there is no demand for Qwerty keyboards and touch screens. What I did see were phones that were advanced in ways that I did not care about in any way shape or form. When I was in Japan I went to a cell phone store and looked around. I saw two phones of interest. There was a Sony Cybershot phone and a Casio Exilim phone. In case you do not follow electronics the way that I do Cybershot and Exilim are the camera brand names for Sony and Casio. Both of these phones had 8 megapixel cameras integrated into the phone. Or wait no, both of these 8 megapixel camera’s had cell phones integrated into them. They were basically cameras that you could talk on. But guess what I didn’t care! I want my touch screen I want my palm pre!

So yeah, phones in Japan and Taiwan are advanced but I don’t give a crap about a super high powered camera on my phone or a phone on my camera. I want my keyboard I want my touch screen I want my Palm Pre. But I can’t get my Palm Pre until I am back in the US at the end of August. Can you believe that I am currently living in Taiwan, where the Palm Pre is manufactured, and I still cannot get one? This is ludicrous! The Sprint store will be my FIRST stop after I land in the US, no eating, no sleeping, no going home, I am going to be at the sprint store!

To all my friends who already have gotten their Palm Pre’s I envy you. I hope that you are enjoying your itunes-less cell smart phone experiences (god I hate itunes). I wish I could be doing the same… =(

Anyways, that’s all folks. Peace out.

Posted in Gadgets, Taiwan, Tech, Travel | 1 Comment »

The Ranting Jamaican on the Palm Pre Release Date and Junk

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

So I’ll admit that for you United States people this is old news. But I am in Asia I can’t keep up with the gadget news in the US. Anyways I just heard that the Palm Pre’s official release date is June 6, 2009. I don’t really care about the release date since I will not be able to get one until I come back to the US in mid august but what has made me extremely happy AND extremely pissed is the price!

The Palm Pre will be released at a low low price of $200 US with a two year contract (I added the US just in case some random person outside of the United States ever reads this). I think that this is a great price and will go a long way to bringing Palm out of the coffin (it currently has one leg in). But even though this is a great price I am pissed! the Palm Pre will be $200 AFTER MAIL-IN REBATE. WTF!?!? MAIL-IN REBATE? yes, mail-in rebate. If there is one thing I hate about black Friday it is mail-in rebates and the same goes for phones. In my mind this is now a $300 dollar phone because I automatically assume that I will get cheated out of my mail in rebate. I don’t even understand the point of mail in rebates!

Lets ponder the inner workings of the mail-in rebate. I am a business man and I want to make the most money possible. So instead of just lowering the price and getting more people to buy my product I will not lower the price and then say here is a $100 dollar mail in rebate. Now that I have this stupid mail in rebate I now have to have one of my subordinates notify people of this rebate AND I have to hire a staff or direct my staff to process all these damn things coming in. I now have to deal with the form, the original UPC code, and the receipt from the purchase. In order to deal with it I have to verify it somehow, who the hell knows how they do it or if they do and then I have to spend money writing checks and mailing them out! And then after all that damn work you have customers like me friggin pissed that they had to go through all this trouble! If I was that business man I would just say “F that! I am just going to lower prices!”

Oh well, I searched Google and the website I found says that they are gambling that people will not send them in. Whatever, that is stupid. Apple never did this crap with the $200 dollar iPhone. I still think that what really happens is they process half of the rebates and then turn the rest into that 100% recycled paper. The last thing that pisses me off about mail-in rebates is that you have to wait EIGHT WEEKS to get your money. Jesus Christ it’s ridiculous!

So in my mind the Palm Pre is a $300 dollar phone which is now a crappy price but maybe, just maybe I will fill out my rebate form 125% correctly and it will be a $200 dollar phone when I finally get IN OCTOBER because I will have to wait 2 months for my money. Ugh! Bad form Sprint and Palm, BAD FORM!

Anyways I am glad that the phone now has an official release date because from the what I have seen out here on the internets (Bushism) This will be an amazing phone and it will make me happy that I got rid of my iPhone. Ugh the iPhone was crap.

If by some odd circumstance you are one of the 4 people that read this blog and you don’t know what the palm pre is or what it looks like here is a picture!

palm-pre-qwerty

Jeez I’m so pissed about the Mail-in rebate. Oh and still no Red Vines in Asia, life is harsh, very very harsh.

**update 5/25/2009 6:21PM**
I just found out! no mail-in rebates at best buy and radio shack for the palm pre. I also found out that the mail in rebate ends on 7/11/09. So who knows what I will get the phone for in August. Maybe by then the price will just be $200 and I won’t have to worry about anything.

Posted in Gadgets, Gripes | 7 Comments »

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