Perfect Day

I love movies. Recently I watched Trainspotting again; the only movie where Ewan McGregor is acting credibly well. The movie, of course, was released before his Star Wars debacle as Obi-wan Kenobi. But what struck me from watching the film again for the 10th time was not the brilliant acting of Ewan, it was this song: Perfect Day by Lou Reed. Then I just remembered why I love this movie. The soundtrack is so good, filled with awesomeness and… just perfect! Always enjoy the little things.

The Windows 8 Disaster…really?

Monkey boyLike many of you I have installed Windows 8 Pro on my PC. At least on a different partition so I have a dual-boot screen. Why? Because Windows 7 is fine and more mature. I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t need another Windows already. I suppose Microsoft has to “milk the Windows cow” before the PC is totally dead!

You see, many of us can now recognize that a PC-tower, monitor, keyboard and mouse sitting in the corner of the living room isn’t needed anymore. Nowadays, a smartphone or iPad can do the trick, especially when 90% of the time we’re browsing Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Internet has evolved and so is our behaviour. And right there in the middle of it all is the newest and, according to Microsoft, the bestest release ever…Windows 8 Pro….and Windows RT….WTF? there are 2 new Windows versions?

Oh poor Microsoft, it’s all very confusing these different flavours of your newest OS. Windows 8 Pro is designed to run on any Intel-based hardware and RT is Arm-based meaning for tablet computers only, right? Yeah something like that. But here’s my cents about all this Windows 8 confusion and ballyhoo: WINDOWS IS DEAD. At least at home. In the enterprise, yeah, it’ll remain relevant for a long time. But like I said in the paragraph above, most of us don’t need a PC anymore. Don’t even need a laptop either! Smartphone and tablet is it. You got iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone from Apple. Then, you have Android devices by the boat-load. Boom! That’s it.

So you see, there’s nothing really wrong with Windows 8. It’s just that…we don’t care anymore. There are plenty of alternatives out there. But if you’re a music producer, media and graphic architect or can’t stand playing Call of Duty Black Ops on a console then the PC is there for you.

It’s Oscar Season

Ah yes, it’s January and it is an awesome time to be a movie fan! Last night i watched Flight with Denzel Washington; I thought it was pretty good.This week’s up: Les Misérables and Django Unchained. But, so far, one movie in 2012 really struck my attention and that is Pitch Perfect. I don’t know why but I just loved it. Some others worth mentioning: Safety Not Guaranteed, Looper, Dredd and Your Sister’s Sister.

The Grass Was Greener

Certainly, one of my favourite Pink Floyd album, “The Division Bell”. Then again, pretty much every PF album that were released since I was born are amazing. From 1971 “Middle” to “Wish You Were Here” in ’75 to “The Wall” in 1980 and even when Roger Waters left the band and “A Momentary Laps of Reason” was produced, every Floyd album has left me with deep inspirations.

HTC One X is Amazing

HTC One XIt’s been about a month since I have become a happy owner of the HTC One X. I just want to say that I felt taking a big chance purchasing this device. Let’s just say my love for Android wasn’t very strong. Having previously own the Samsung Captivate a year ago I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. I think the big problem with the Captivate wasn’t the phone itself but Android 2.3 a.k.a Gingerbread. I found it wasn’t as refined as Apple iOS. But, today I have a new perspective on Android, thanks to the new version 4.0, a.k.a Ice Cream Sandwich. yum-yum!!

The HTC One X runs Ice Cream Sandwich which is way way way better, smoother and more refined than any previous versions of Android I have ever tried. Plus, I really do love HTC’s tweaked UI called Sense. This is the first Android device I’ve owned that feels polished around the edge; both the hardware and software. Everything’s in its place. I don’t feel the need to root this phone or install a different mail or SMS client on there because everything feels right and is a pleasure to use.

I ain’t gonna go in details on every features here. Gizmodo, CNET and others have done that already. But, Some pros are: Picture quality is fantastic and camera functions are top notch. Screen is incredibly bright and beautiful. Fast and very stable. Cons: Keyboard auto-correction is not the best I’ve used. Gets a little warm while playing big games. That’s about it!

HTC has recently rolled out a software update which I installed. I had previously noticed that the phone didn’t seem to report the LTE reading of bars properly. Sometimes I would get only 1 or 2 bars but everything was super speedy anyways and never get more than 3 bars. Now, with the new update version 1.94.631.3 the LTE bars seems much more accurate. Downtown I easily get 5 bars now and didn’t before the update. Yay!

I don’t know about the Samsung Galaxy S III. I hear it’s amazing. But, I can guarantee you, the HTC One X does not disappoint. Best phone I’ve ever had…and this is coming from an Apple fanboy!

Goodbye Hotmail, Hello Outlook.com

Outlook.comCan this be true?! The new Hotmail, now called Outlook.com looks absolutely amazing! Like, I almost threw my hands in the air when I saw it! It’s clean, simplified. ad free, elegant, and downright awesome. Not sure about the blurry effect on the font though but that’s not a big fuss. Either way, it’s a direct blow at Gmail and I like that. Heck, it looks nicer than Gmail!

It’s fun to see Microsoft still trying to recapture the glory days and reinventing some of their services ;) I still think that Windows 8 will be a risky launch though. Ah we’ll see.