Category Archives: TECH

Books, CREATIVE, JUST SAYING, RANDOMIZER9.COM, Tablets, TECH, TECH SUPPORT, The Rules of Tech Support, Writing

To Think Different, DO Different

I have been working on my second e-book, titled “The Rules of Tech Support,” for what seems to have been way too long.  Now, it isn’t a very long work, and I have already written some of it on my old LiveJournal and on my podcast. For the longest time, though, it sat at about 80% completed.  I just couldn’t get any farther; I would sit behind my laptop, fire up Microsoft Word, tap Ctrl-End to get to the end of the document, and…nothing.  For months, absolutely no progress.

The project eventually got back on track.  It was either because I started working in tech support again, or because I found myself writing in different places.  As odd as it sounds, I am convinced that writing in different places or in different ways helps the creative process along.  In my case, I found myself taking notes in between calls during work, and even stayed in late at the office one day, spending a whole hour alone just typing away.  Somehow being at the office made me think different.  Heck, I think that using my tablet instead of my laptop helped.

What I’m trying to say is that you cannot ‘think different’ if you are doing the same thing over and over again.  To change my thought processes, I had to change where I was doing my thinking.  If nothing else, its a good excuse to hang out at a coffee shop or diner for a few hours.

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Pre-Paid, or Pre-Pain?

As my cell phone contract nears its end, I find myself metaphorically drooling over the thought of getting a new phone.  Well, okay, so maybe I’m doing a little bit of real-life drooling, too.  While the Samsung Moment I got from Sprint has been fairly reliable these past two years, it would be nice to get something new, and yes, there is some gadget-lust feeding that desire to upgrade as well.

While my desire to keep up with the virtual Joneses is strong, it is tempered by my desire to be more responsible with my finances.  I recently consolidated all my debts and am working on boosting my savings, which, of course, means cutting back on expenses.  I currently pay just under eighty bucks a month for my cell phone plan.  That isn’t bad, but it would be nice if I could get that number to drop.  I recently learned that I can an employee discount through my job.  Even then, I think I can shave even more off my cell phone bill by going with a pre-paid provider.  Doing so will come with a few caveats, but before I go over them, I should mention that I had pre-paid cell service from T-Mobile way back when because money was tight.  It was pretty good, but it was quite some time before I had a smartphone.  Now on to the issues:

The biggest one has to do with the carriers themselves.  While some of them piggyback off of the big boys (for example, Virgin Mobile uses Sprint’s network) and some are run by the big boys (Verizon and AT&T each have their own pre-paid services) others have their own networks that are not as robust as the ones the “big boys” have.  This probably won’t be a big deal when I’m at home in San Antonio, but once I go to other cities for conferences or events things just might not work!

Related to this issue are the phones that are offered by pre-paid providers.  They aren’t nearly quite as nice as the new ones the major providers carry.  From what I have seen in my research, some of them are just downright awful, as they are often made by second- and third-tier manufacturers.  Adding to this is the fact that you have to pay the full cost of a pre-paid phone up front.  That is one of the reasons that pre-paid service is less expensive, those carriers don’t subsidize the cost of their phones.  This isn’t quite as big a deal as it sounds, because the phones that I can get for free from the big boys are about as lousy as the one I have now.  If I want something better, I’m going to have to fork out some cash up front either way.

Another reason the ‘lousy phone’ thing may not be an issue is the fact that I just don’t do a whole lot with my smartphone.  For all the “OMG THOUSANDS OF APPS” available on Android, I barely have any apps installed and use less than ten on a regular basis.  Non-smartphones have gotten smarter these days, so I might be able to ditch a smartphone completely and go with a much cheaper non-smartphone plan.  If I can find a messaging phone that does Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail, that would be just about perfect.  The obvious downside is that I would probably be very limited to what I could install on that not-so-smartphone.

One final consideration is the porting of my current phone number.  I’ve had the same phone number for a few years now and have gotten pretty attached to it, so I’m a little jittery about moving to a new provider.  I get even jitterier (yes it’s a word, BTW) when I consider that a lower-cost operation may not have all of those nice people answering phones for them in customer service.  I’ve actually received good customer service the few times I’ve had to call Sprint, and shudder at the thought of talking to who knows who from who-knows-where.  That isn’t an “I hate Indian call center” thing, either.  In my AT&T debacle from earlier this year, I was actually glad to get a polite person with an accent instead of all the home-grown jerkasses I had been dealing with up to that point.  Yeah, the ‘USA-based support’ they were so proudly trumpeting was that bad.

While the thought of getting a shiny new phone with a nice big screen, new operating system and fast CPU is a pleasant one, the thought of being caught without enough money in the event of an emergency is enough to make me think over the amount of cash I’m currently shelling out for my phone service.  On the other hand, the service I have been getting has been pretty good, even in the boonies of my hometown and I’m not sure that going with someone different for the sake of saving a few bucks is the best plan in the world.  My bill should be dropping thanks to the employee discount, so I’m wondering if perhaps going pre-paid isn’t worth the trouble when things are working well as it is.

And yeah, those shiny new phones in the Sprint Store are looking pretty nice!

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RANDOM REACTION: Windows 8 Developer Preview

Just when I was growing to love Windows 7, Microsoft has to come up with something new. Windows 8 is expected to drop in late 2012, but that’s a wild guess from people that get paid to make wild guesses.  For now, though, there is the Developer Preview, which was introduced on September 13th at Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference.  In a pretty smart move, Microsoft made it available to the public, which only makes sense because everyone was going to share it anyway, and it gave Microsoft something to brag about: 8 was download half a million times within its first 12 hours of release.

Like any good geek, I wanted to poke at the latest thingamabobber from the depths of Redmond.  I started my download, went to bed, and burned a Windows 8 install DVD before going to work the next morning.  I figured I could install it while I was at work and poke at it during the day.  I started the installer, and about an hour or so later, after using my Windows Live ID for maximum effect, I had a nice purdy Windows 8 screen thingie looking back at me.  FYI, this screenshot was taken after I’d set up the Socialite (Facebook) and Weather apps, so it isn’t quite the default:

Windows 8 Start Screen

Its Hip to be Square!

Windows 8 eschews the Start Menu (almost) completely and give you a Start Screen.  The Start Screen uses the “Metro” interface found on Windows Phone.  This is a good thing and a bad thing.  Its good because it places lots of information and apps in front of you but its bad because well, most of the information presented wasn’t too important. The Facebook tile seemed to display just random images of friends, and the Tweet@rama (Twitter) tile was set to one of Microsoft’s feeds.  While I’m sure that the UI and tiles will be more customizable the closer we get to release, right now the constant stream of data just feels like overkill on a desktop.

One thing that became rapidly apparent was that the Windows 8 user interface was clearly designed with touch screens in mind; the Start Screen’s big chunky tiles appear to be more suited for finger tapping than mouse clicking.  Since I was using a mouse, I had to make do with horizontal scroll bars that constantly appeared at the bottom of the screen which got more than a little bit annoying.

Luckily, for those of us dinosaurs that still want to work with the Desktop, clicking the “Desktop” tile pulls up a Windows 7 desktop that looks like the one we’ve grown to love over the past two years or so.  Programs can be stuck onto the taskbar just like in Windows 7 but getting to them isn’t quite as simple as it used to be:

Windows 8 Apps list

Get'cher apps and programs here!

In order to get to your list of programs and apps you have to click “Search” which pops up in a menu that appears when you move your mouse to the lower right hand corner of the screen.  You can then type in a search term or scroll through the list until you find what you want.

The Start Menu?  Gone.  Kaputski.  No Mas.  Frankly, I think that is a horrible decision on Microsoft’s part.  Here’s why:

Windows 8 Start Screen after Office install

I only needed Word, doggone it!

That is my Start Screen after installing Word in Microsoft Office 2003.  Most of the programs on the right hand side of that screen I am never, ever going to use.  Normally, they stay tucked away in the Start Menu unless, by some miracle of fate, I actually need one of them.  When I install Word, I take the Word icon and drop it onto my taskbar because that’s all I need.  Now all those extra icons are all over my Start Screen, cluttering it up unless I take the time to go in and delete each individual one.  This sucks.

Yes, it may be used less often these days, but when you aren’t using it, the Start Menu stays out of the way.  If Microsoft insists on keeping backwards-compatibility with earlier Windows versions, it needs to keep the Start Menu lest they risk pissing off their userbase, because I guarantee you that the first thing everyone is going to look for after starting up their shiny new Windows 8 machine is look for the Start Menu.

That quibble aside, Windows  8 is a pleasure to get around, the teeny-tiny Notification area that used to be on the right side of the Start Menu has been moved over to the Settings area, which is accessed using the lower-left corner menu:

Windows 8 Settings Sub-screen

Very niiiice!

As you can tell, the Settings area is easy to view and read, and is definitely an improvement.  Apps written for the Windows 8 Metro interface also have a different look to them, such as Internet Explorer which you can see below.  The screenshot shows the pop-up menus that appear when  you right-click.

Internet Explorer 9 in Windows 8

Shiny!

While older programs run within the Desktop, apps run in full-screen mode.  Right clicking the mouse brings up menus that are different from the usual “File, Edit…” ones we’ve used to using all these years.  I think this is a definite improvement and should make Windows much easier for people to use, assuming, of course, that the interfaces are done right.  That may become an issue when we’re talking about more complicated software packages like Excel and Visual Studio, but the Desktop is available as a fallback.

As far as performance goes, Windows 8 seemed to run okay on my Toshiba Satellite T115D-S1125 laptop with 4GB of RAM.  All of my hardware appeared to work and the Frowny Blue Screen of Death was nowhere to be seen.  It did chug a little bit at times, but as this is a pre-beta, so that is forgivable and it did work well enough to be usable during the time that I had it installed.  Older Windows software such as Office 2003, WinAmp 2.9 and Microsoft Money 2000 also worked just fine.

Windows 8 is looking like a pretty nice update so far.  The Metro interface is very different from the old Desktop we’ve been using all these years and should make using Windows a much easier experience for less-technically savvy people.  Unfortunately, 8 also has to work with software written for previous versions of Windows, and the lack of a Start Menu is going to make the Start Screen pretty unusable for folks that are going to be installing a bunch of legacy programs onto it.  Microsoft may have been testing the waters by leaving out the Start Menu, but it is a bad move unless they decide to rip out backwards compatibility altogether, which I severely doubt is going to happen.

My other big beef with Windows 8 is its tablet-centricness.  This is not necessarily a Bad Thing, but I felt as if I was not able to make full use of it because I was using a mouse and keyboard.  In fact, a few of the programs were all but unusable because I did not have multi-touch, so I couldn’t pinch or widen two fingers onto the screen.  I would love to see this running on a tablet, but on a desktop, it feels a bit clunky right now.

In my opinion, Windows 8 is a step in the right direction and a long-needed shift for operating systems in general.  Metro is clean, sharp and very user friendly.  I look forward to seeing 8 evolve as the devs hammer at it and hopefully take user feedback (like this!) into account.  I just hope that Microsoft does not leave us old fogey mouse-and-keyboard users out in the cold in favor of the cool kids with their tablets and touchscreens.

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Why a Tablet?

I have been thinking about getting a tablet as of late, going as far as to even take one for a test drive not too long ago. Of course, the question then becomes “Why?”  Here are my reasons for wanting to “small-grade” down to a tablet:

I DON’T REALLY DO A LOT WITH MY LAPTOP

When I am on the road with my laptop, I increasingly find myself either doing stuff inside of a web browser or in Microsoft Word.  I don’t play games with it, I don’t do any programming (yet!) and except for the occasional trip to YouTube, I don’t watch very many movies or videos.  All of the “big stuff,” such as editing audio or video, I do on my desktop, which has plenty of horsepower and a nice, big 24-inch screen.

PHONE TOO SMALL, LAPTOP TOO BIG

I have owned smartphones for about four years now, with my first one being a Windows Mobile 6 phone that I had before my current Samsung Moment running Android.  They work okay, but their screens and keyboards are just too small to type on for extended periods of time.  I am due for an upgrade soon and am leaning towards a phone with a larger screen, but even then I don’t think that they will not be big enough to use for any extended length of time.  As I mentioned in my Vizio Tablet review, I tend to carry a lot of crap in my laptop bag, which even at 12-inches, makes more cumbersome to lug around than it should be.  A tablet, on the other hand, would be more usable than a phone because of its smaller screen, and more portable than a laptop.  It should be the best of both worlds.

INSTANT-ON

Ideas don’t wait, so when something pops in my head I want to be able to jot it down before it gets lost with all of the other stuff being tossed around in the clothes dryer that is my brain.  While Windows 7 is nice, it does take a while to boot up and shut down.  With a tablet, I can turn it on at the touch of a button, type down whatever Big Idea I have, put it back into sleep mode and then get back to using the crapper or whatever it was I was doing when inspiration struck.

BACK TO A DUMB PHONE

These days, Wi-Fi is widespread enough to the point where it’s available nearly everywhere you go.  For those times when WiFi isn’t available, I have a pre-paid MiFi device which works well, even in the hole in the Internet that is my hometown.  Since an Android tablet can to do everything that my phone can do, there doesn’t seem to be much point in carrying an Android phone.  Thus, I should be able to ‘downgrade’ my phone to a more basic model that does not require a data plan which should save a few bucks in the long term, especially since Sprint is bumping up the price of the their smartphone plans another 10 bucks.

So there you have it, four reasons I will be soon purchasing an Android tablet.  I’m looking forward to having the near-ultimate in portability in the palm of my hand!  Move over, laptop!

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Tales from the Tech Side: “Bubbles in Cement”

My coworkers and I get to talk to a lot of people during the course of doing our technical support jobs.  While there is much humor to be found in interacting with people who probably shouldn’t even be in the same room with a computer, some of the anecdotes our customers tell us while we wait for files to download or installers to run are pretty funny in themselves:

Laurie works in a hospital as a psychologist alongside her good friend “Bubbles” who is a counselor.  Bubbles is a nickname she has earned because according to Laurie, she fits the ‘ditzy blonde’ stereotype.  In their jobs, Laurie makes the kids cry, and then Bubbles makes them happy with soothing words and lollipops, so they have something of a “good cop/bad cop” thing going on.

Laurie and Bubbles often walk to a nearby donut shop for coffee and conversation.  One fine day as they were walking back to work, Laurie noticed that there were some orange traffic cones on the sidewalk ahead of them.  Laurie walked around the cones, guessing that they were there to keep people from walking on the sidewalk for some reason.  Bubbles, on the other hand, kept on walking and took two steps into wet cement.  Bubbles was able to get out of the cement with some help from Laurie.  Laurie helped Bubbles clean off her feet with a nearby water hose.

Laurie continued walking, taking care to avoid the sidewalk once again, but Bubbles immediately took another step into the wet cement, much to Laurie’s chagrin.  Laurie has no intention of letting it go and asked us to post their story, so here we are.  While Laurie may let it go eventually, the concrete dust footprints Bubbles left on the hospital’s dark carpet will probably serve as a more permanent reminder of the event.

Bubbles, indeed!

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Is Windows Eight Enough?

A pre-beta version of Windows 8 launched last night and so I fired up my desktop and got to downloading.  I remember being very impressed by the Windows 7 pre-release versions, and so I was foaming at the mouth to take the latest from Microsoft for a test drive.

Sadly, I had to go to work the next morning, so I burned the install DVD and went to bed.  As I type this, the installer is almost done running on my laptop and I am eager with anticipation as to the new stuff that will be in this latest version of everyone’s favorite OS.

I’ve been hearing about Windows 8 for awhile, but hadn’t really looked into the new features much.  I heard that some things were being borrowed from Windows Phone, and tha’ts pretty much it.  I hear Windows Phone is really good from the few people that have Windows Phones so perhaps this will be a Good Thing.  That is pretty much the extent of what I know about Windows 8, as I have been deliberately staying in the dark so that I will be (hopefully) pleasantly surprised when I start it up.

In any event, my laptop is almost done rebooting so we’ll see how it goes!

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RANDOM REVIEW: Vizio VTAB1008 Tablet

Vizio Tablet 1008

My God, its full of...space

View the Vizio VTAB 1008 Product Page at Vizio.com

INTRODUCTION

As portable as my twelve inch laptop is, it’s not really that portable, partially because of all the stuff I need to carry along with it: the charger, mouse, cables, external speaker, external hard drive…okay, so I don’t help by filling my laptop bag full of crap.  Disregarding my tendency to overpack, my laptop bag does take up a decent amount of space and weight.

While my Samsung Moment smartphone can do a lot of stuff, it does have its shortcomings, not the least of which is its screen size.  Also, after nearly two years of reboots, crashes and a less than reliable GPS, I find myself wondering if all the extra stuff smartphones can do comes at the expense of the phone.  Just sayin’.

Thus, I started looking at tablets, the near-ultimate in portability and (hopefully) functionality.  The most obvious device would seem to be the iPad, but I have never been a big fan of Apple’s locked-down portable devices.  I also hate iTunes with a passion and try to avoid using it after getting frustrated with it way back when.  Those statements are odd considering that I own an iMac, but one can get around most, if not all of the iMac’s annoyances.  Heck, if worse comes to worse you can install Windows on it. -shrug- My needs are a bit above that of the average user, so a do-it-Jobs-way-or-else iPad was not going to cut it.

Android was familiar to me from having used my Moment for nearly two years and so I began looking into Android-based tablets.  After hearing all the wonderful things my friends were saying about their newer Android phones, I figured that the problems I was having with Android were due just it not having been updated.  My poor phone can’t even play Angry Birds, for crying out loud.

Thus, I found myself at Ye Olde Electronics Store poking and prodding at various tablets.  Despite the fact that I had no intention of buying one, I even checked out the iPad as well.

SIZE MATTERS

I am pretty good at typing, so I wanted to have something I could hold in my hands and type on using my thumbs like a phone.  As it turns out, all of the ten inch tablets I sampled were too wide to be used in that way, never mind my arms getting tired from holding them up for extended periods of time.

I found seven inch tablets to be much easier to use in that way, though.  I could almost bang away on their keyboards with aplomb, but soon discovered a new problem: crappy screens.  Quite a few of the smaller tablets were less expensive eReaders that happened to run Android, but their screens were not nearly as responsive as their larger, pricier brethren.  As enticing as getting a tablet for $200 or under sounded, the compromise of having to deal with a less than responsive screen quickly killed that idea.

I seemed to be stuck at this point.  I could get a quality device that would be too big for me to use the way I wanted to, or get a smaller device of dubious quality.  I just happened to find something in the middle.

ENTER THE VIZIO TABLET

Vizio, best known as a maker of low-cost TVs of average quality, recently introduced the their first tablet.  The VTAB1008 (VTAB from here on out) is an eight-inch model priced at $300.  Of course, getting the price that low means some compromises had to be made: it does not run the latest and greatest version of Android, does not have a dual-core CPU like the big boys do and has a pretty low amount of built-in memory (2 MB, which can be increased via an SDmicro chip). Vizio also puts a custom interface called “Vizio Internet Apps Plus” on top of Android that places all of the application icons on the device’s home page like the iPad.

I did some research and checked out online reviews: many of them described the VTAB as being an average device that wasn’t bad for the price.   At $100 less than a ten-inch tablet, it seemed like a good deal so I figured it was worth a shot.  I excitedly picked one up from Wal-Mart and got to tapping.

HARDWARE

The VTAB is a solid device with a little bit of weight to it, but it isn’t terribly heavy.  Like many devices these days, it sports a glossy screen that is a bit on the reflective side, but its 1027×768 resolution produces a good picture. An inwards-facing camera is at the top center of the panel and the typical Android Back, Home and Menu touch buttons are at the bottom.  Oddly enough, the only thing you can do with the camera right now is take pictures of yourself, as Skype is not available as of this writing.  A second pair of touch buttons are on the device’s left hand side are are used when holding the VTAB horizontally.  The buttons light up when available and go dark when not in use.

At the top center of the VTAB is the power button which is flanked by two speakers. In a pretty clever move, a third speaker at the bottom right corner of the device is activated when the VTAB is held sideways so that you always have stereo sound.   The bottom center has a Micro-USB charging connection, a Micro-HDMI out connection, and a Micro SD card slot on the bottom left.  Volume control buttons are on the right side and a control-free left side round out the unit.

The VTAB’s battery life is pretty good compared to other portable devices I have owned, it lasted about eight hours of on and off use with everything on.  Turning off the GPS bumped up the battery life significantly, to over ten hours.  Those numbers aren’t based on “stress tests” so don’t read too much into them, but I will say that I have had to charge it each night in the short time that I have owned it.  Its use of a Micro-USB charger instead of some crappy proprietary connector means I that can use the charger for other things, which is very convenient.

As I mentioned at the opening, Vizio makes television sets and other home theater equipment, and so the VTAB also has an infrared transmitter, so the device can be used as a giant remote control.  The remote app doesn’t quite make full use of the ability, though, important buttons can sometimes go missing.

The VTAB is a pleasure to carry around. It has a slightly rubbery finish on the back that provides some grip so I don’t have to worry too much about having it slip out of my hands.  After putting a screen protector on it, I can tap away with impunity.  Typing on this thing is AWESOME, it is as close to typing on a keyboard as I have ever gotten to on a portable device.  It’s actually better, thanks to the installed SwiftKey TabletX software which does a scary-good job of guessing what I’m about to type.  The VTAB is almost a little too wide to be used comfortably when typing using my thumbs like a phone.  I am enjoying it for now, but time will tell.

SOFTWARE

The Vizio Tablet runs the “Gingerbread” version of Android (2.3.2 to be exact) so if you have an Android phone it will feel very familiar.   This is a good thing and a bad thing.  It’s a good thing because it is easy to use, but it is a bad thing because makes the VTAB feel like, well, a giant phone.  That isn’t necessarily bad per se, but the apps and even the OS itself simply do not take full advantage of the larger screen.

A good example of this is the Widget screen, which is identical to the home screens on Android phones. It sadly limits widgets and shortcuts to a four by four grid.  While my main Widget screen is almost full, it also has way too much unused space.

Flash 10.1 is installed, but the browser loads the mobile version of websites fairly frequently.  Alternate browsers are available but seem to confuse the device.  I kept getting asked which browser I wanted to open when I tapped links, which got annoying.

I can understand why Vizio customized Android the way they did, but I think they took away some of its usefulness in doing so.  For example, the notification area at the top of the screen does not behave in the same way as in “plain vanilla” Android.  Normally, each new notification appears in the bar with its own icon, and in order to see them, you drag down the top bar and they appear in a list.  On the VTAB, all notifications are accessed by clicking on a fat asterisk sitting in the upper-right corner that never goes away.  Bleh.  Having to click an icon to get to a “widget board” is also inefficient and defeats their purpose

While the VTAB does get slow on occasion, it is fairly responsive for the most part.  Vizio is reportedly working on a Honeycomb update for it, but as this is their first true computing device,  I’m not sure I trust them to keep that promise.  I’ve been burned in the past by established manufacturers that didn’t keep their products up to date (like my Samsung Moment) so I’m a little skittish about trusing the new kid on the block to do so.  To their credit, Vizio has released two minor updates since the device’s launch, so there may be hope yet.

APPS

The VTAB is severely lacking in apps, which is a unfortunate considering that one of its selling points is access to the Android Market.  I wanted to install many of the same apps that I had on my phone and was surprised to find many of them were not available.  As of this writing, Yahoo! Mail, Netflix, Skype and even Facebook apps are nowhere to be found.  I don’t use very many apps, so not being able to get the few that I do use is a bit of a downer.

CONCLUSION

For me, the Vizio Tablet is almost a keeper.  Instead, the delight of having Android running on a bigger screen is quickly offset by the disappointment of realizing that this device just doesn’t do a whole lot with the additional real estate.  The hardware is pretty good for the cost, but the VTAB’s potential is wasted by the fact that the version of Android it runs was not written for tablets, making it a really big phone-without-the-phone.  App support is the final nail in the coffin; if I could get any app from the Android Market that I wanted, the VTAB would be a slam dunk, but  even with my limited app use, there are too many things missing.

Keep in mind, though, that my needs are not the same as the average user’s.  Most people will be content to check Facebook through the Vizio Tablet’s built-in browser.  Most people won’t care about editing Word documents and attaching them to emails.  Most people won’t care which version of Android their tablet is running under the hood.  Those people will probably be perfectly happy with a Vizio Tablet.  As for me, I’m going to give it a few more days, but it looks like it will be going back to the store while I wait for a reasonably priced 7-inch device to come along.  I may also just say to heck with it and get a cheap E-reader running Android instead.  I guess this eight, isn’t quite enough.

3 out of 5

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RANDOM REVIEW REVISITED: Nintendo 3DS

Read my Nintendo 3DS review here.

AT LAST, MY GREATEST CREATION IS COMPLETED!

It has now been almost four months since I purchased my Nintendo 3DS, and I have been happy with it so far.  Of course, you should keep in mind that I paid $200 for it, as I received $50 off for trading in my DS Lite.  A system update in June was pushed out that included some software additions that now complete the system:

The 3DS-exclusive eShop is an extension of the DSi Shop.  In addition to games and apps, videos can be downloaded to the system.  While videos are available to watch in 2D or 3D, the selection so far is limited to movie trailers and previews of upcoming 3DS games.  As far as games are concerned, the only 3D content so far is currently limited to a Pokedex app and re-releases of Excitebike and Xevious.  Nintendo is also bringing some of their older portable titles to the eShop, but for every Super Mario Land and Kirby’s Dreamland there is a Baseball or Tennis.

For those who still have a DSi, the System Transfer utility is also now available for transferring games from a DSi to the 3DS (and vice versa).  After downloading it to both the 3DS and the DSi the utility works as advertised.  Games are removed from their original system after being transferred, so no sharing!  Some games and apps also do not transfer, so they will have to be repurchased or redownloaded, and some don’t make the jump to the 3DS at all: no Flipnote Studio?  Come on, Nintendo!

The Browser is now available.  The first time I tried it, it ran very slowly and locked up my 3DS, so I haven’t touched it since.  Oh well.

A Netflix app is also now available from the eShop.  It works in a similar manner to the versions currently on the PS3 and Xbox 360.  After linking your Netflix account to your 3DS, you can watch your movies on your 3DS via a WiFi connection.  While the picture quality is very good, the 3DS’ teeny speakers make headphones necessary unless you are in a fairly quiet room.

Archer on the 3DS via Netflix

Archer on the 3DS

Finally, there is the recently released Nintendo Video app.  While it is possible to get videos from the eShop, the Video app downloads videos from Nintendo while the system is in sleep mode.  In a message I found slightly creepy, Nintendo encouraged me to leave my 3DS on sleep mode all night.  I’m really not sure that I want to know what ELSE it will be doing as I slumber, though.  The initial batch of our videos included a movie trailer, two funny videos and an introduction video.

STILL WAITING FOR GAMES

While the browser, Netflix and the other functions of the Nintendo 3DS are fun to play with, this game machine is still suffering from a lack of games. While some good titles have dropped, such as Dead or Alive Dimensions and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries, Nintendo again continues the tradition of making the best games for its systems with the recent re-release of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.

When I first head about Nintendo pulling the ol’ re-re-re-release thing again, I was disappointed, but I have done a complete one-eighty after playing Ocarina of Time.  Unlike previous re-releases, this version has been remastered from the ground up to take advantage of the 3DS’ hardware and the difference is astounding.  Ocarina of Time literally looks better than ever before without the Nintendo 64 blur and fuzz we’re all come to know and love.  I can’t wait for StarFox 64 now.  With the holidays approaching, there should be more games on the way, but as of now the 3DS’ lineup is still fairly weak.

On the flipside, maybe Nintendo is being a little more judicious in handing out the dev kits this time around.  Hopefully the 3DS won’t become a hotbed for shovelware like the DS and the Wii.

CONCLUSION

The Nintendo 3DS is now complete thanks to the recent system update, and there are lots of things to do with the system besides play games.  Unfortunately, this game system is still lacking in high quality games to play.  Until that little issue is resolved, it is hard for me to recommend buying a 3DS just yet but as we get closer to the holidays that minor quibble should be resolved.  Of course, I should again bring up the system’s relatively poor battery life (3-4 hours) so keep that in mind if you travel a lot.

If you look at the list of current games (which won’t take long) and see enough games there to keep you happy until the holidays, then by all means buy a Nintendo 3DS.  My recommendation for most folks is to wait until there are enough games that you want to play.

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RANDOM REVIEW REVISITED: Sprint Overdrive

Read the Sprint Overdrive review here.

After purchasing my Sprint Overdrive about a year and a half ago, I was a pretty happy camper: I could access the Internet from pretty much anywhere, even in the hole in the Internet that is my hometown of Odem, Texas.

Two problems eventually arose, though. The first being that my income took a pretty nasty drop (like to zero) and so I came to rely on my Overdrive as my sole source of internet.  While it served that purpose fairly well, I couldn’t help but notice the less expensive alternatives that were popping up courtesy of pre-paid providers such as Cricket and Virgin Wireless.  After my employment situation stabilized, I wondered if it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to ditch Sprint and use a prepaid device for those few occasions when I needed internet on the go.

Overdrive with "battery critical" message

He's Dead, Jim

The second thing that happened was that the Overdrive stopped working completely.  Turning on the device resulted in a “Battery critical. Charge Immediately” message appearing on the screen, and after a few seconds, the device would turn off on its own.  Upon first seeing the message, I plugged in my charger and the device reported an 85% charge.  I let it charge completely, and the message appeared.

I went to a Sprint Store and they did offer to repair the device for $35, which seemed reasonable.  Despite that, I decided not to repair it because of the fact that I was not using the Overdrive enough to justify the $60 a month expense.

While it is pretty lame that the Overdrive did not even last long enough to cover the 2-year contract I signed to get it, the bigger story here is that $60 a month for the service is too much for the few times that I actually used it.  My current job doesn’t pay as much as the one I had when I bought it, so I’m cutting back where I can now.

While Sprint has apparently been kind enough to cancel my contract (as far as I can tell, I’ll know for sure once my next bill comes in) I will probably end up getting a 3G USB device from a prepaid provider.  Sure, it’ll be slower, but it also won’t be as expensive, and I won’t be tied down to a contract.  I could also get a new Android phone, but I’m not too sure I want to stick with Google’s wunderkind.  That’s a blog for another day, though.

In conclusion, the device worked great while it lasted, but be sure you are going really NEED an always-there fast internet connection before signing a 2-year contract with a provider for a 4G device.  If you have to think that question over, then you just might be just fine with a prepaid 3G device.  The operative word, of course, is “might,” though, I’ll let y’all know how that works out!

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RANDOM REVIEW: Nintendo 3DS

3DS, charge cradle and AC adapter

The Hardware

UPDATE: The system update I mention at the end of this review has dropped, an update can be read here.

I first saw the Nintendo 3DS at last year’s E3. I had to wait an hour and a half in line with a bunch of other attendees in order to do so, but it was totally worth it.  The 3DS was my first experience with what could be called “modern” 3D, meaning something beyond the old red-and-blue glasses.  I thought it was pretty cool and looked forward to getting one at launch.  Not even a year has passed since then, and I now have a 3DS in my hands.  Was it worth the wait and the cash?

HARDWARE

The 3DS is just a little bit larger than a DSi, though not quite as large as the original ‘fat’ DS.  I opted for the Aqua Blue model instead of the Cosmo Black, and despite its glossy finish, the 3DS isn’t the fingerprint magnet that the DS Lite was.

The 3DS’ controls have been rearranged just a bit compared to the DSi.  Some things have been improved, and others, not so much.  The Power button is now on the right side of the screen where the Start and Select buttons were on the DSi.  I discovered that pretty early on when I went to pause a DS game and ended up shutting off the system instead.  D’oh!

The new Circle Pad control sitting above the familiar D-pad is a nice addition and feels good to use.  When playing DS games you have the option of using either the Circle Pad or the D-Pad which is also a plus.  Another welcome addition is the Wireless slider on the right side of the unit.  Previously, turning on or off the WiFi meant going to the Home screen and then to the Settings screen which was pretty annoying.  Holding up the slider turns on and off the DSi’s wireless, and a handy LED just above the switch lets you know if it’s on or off.  On the downside, the DSi’s volume buttons have been replaced with a slider.

The 3D screen at the top of the unit is slightly larger than the DSi’s screen, and it appears to be slightly more rectangular too.  To its right is the 3D slider which allows the 3D effect to be adjusted or even turned off entirely.  There are three cameras: two facing outward capable of taking 3D pictures, and one facing the player.  An LED on the top-right corner serves as a notification indicator.

Talking about the ‘guts’ of the 3DS, it has a built in motion sensor and gyro sensor, and a custom CPU from Nintendo which makes it capable of producing much better graphics than the DS, as evidenced by launch titles Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Ridge Racer.

When in sleep mode, the 3DS can also act as a pedometer, and every 100 steps earns a Play Coin that can be used to purchase items in some games.

The extra horsepower and 3D come at a cost: the battery life of the 3DS clocks in about 3-4 hours; not even enough for a long flight.  Third-party extenders and replacement battery packs are available, but folks on the go may want to invest in a car charger.  Another bad thing that has crept onto the 3DS are load times, it is not unusual to now wait just under 10 seconds for a game to start, and even the internal software takes a little while to get going.

BUILT IN SOFTWARE

The 3DS comes with quite a few built-in games and apps, some which have been carried over from the DSi.  The Home screen has been upgraded from the DSi’s version. Across the top of the screen is row of buttons for adjusting brightness, arranging icons, Game Notes, Friend List, Notifications and the internet browser. In the middle of the screen are the icons for games and apps, and buttons appear across the bottom of the screen that change depending on what is selected.

It bears mentioning that as of this writing, not all of the software is available: the Internet Browser and System Transfer (which allows users to move stuff over from a DSi) should be available soon, as well as the eShop, which will allow the purchase of games and apps, including Netflix and a video service from Nintendo.

The carryovers from the DSi are the Camera and Sound apps.  The Camera app adds the ability to take 3D pictures and increases the functionality of the camera, such as a timer and manual controls, but Facebook integration and some of the funny lenses that were on the DSi’s Camera app are gone.  The Sound app is fairly untouched; the new ability to play MP3s is a welcome addition as is the ability to create playlists.

Miis have found their way onto the 3DS, which includes its own version of the Mii Maker.  It’s the same one on the Wii, and Wii owners can even move their Miis back and forth between the two systems.  So far, Miis are only used in the Streetpass Mii Plaza app and Friends list.

Streetpass is a new function where you can share data with other 3DS users wirelessly.  Streetpass is activated if the system’s wireless radio on while it is in sleep mode.  Game data like Mii characters, high scores, and custom characters is be exchanged with other 3DS owners you pass by that also have Streetpass on. The user control what data is exchanged, and data can be exchanged for multiple games at once.  You’ll either find that really cool or really creepy.

Streetpass is a neat idea that is a bit ahead of itself right now, but that’s mainly because of the limited number of systems that are currently ‘in the wild.’  The Streetpass Mii Plaza app allows you to look at Miis you have picked up and you can even use them to play a silly little game called “Find Mii” and collect pieces of 3D pictures in “Puzzle Swap.”

Rounding out the 3DS built-in software are two augmented reality (AR) games: Face Raiders has you spinning around using the 3DS to shoot at faces that you take with the camera.  It’s a quick dose of silly fun and does a good job of showcasing the system’s AR abilities.  AR Games are played with several cards that are included with the system, you place a card on a flat surface, point the 3DS at it, and the system then allows you to play some mini games.  The AR Games aren’t terribly compelling, but on a technical level they are impressive.

Like other systems, the 3DS also has a Friends list, though in the interest of Protecting The Children, Nintendo has kept their silly Friend Code system, which means instead of being “Randomizer9” I am “0044-2809-7081.”  Whether this will hamper Nintendo’s online plans remains to be seen, but given the Big N’s indifference to online play thus far, I’m not holding my breath.  Right now the only things you can do with your 3DS Friends are see that they’re online, see what their favorite game is, and a short quote.  Yippee.  Nintendo promises that more functionality is on the way, so the jury is still out on that.

GAMES

Players have come to expect limited launch lineups whenever a new system drops, and the 3DS is no different.  There was not much to pick from at launch, and we’ve only seen a trickle of games released since then.  Street Fighter IV and Ridge Racer 3D are probably the best of the bunch so far, but it is comforting to see games come to the 3DS that weren’t possible or that just were not done well on its older sibling.

Sadly, it isn’t going to get much better anytime soon, especially since Nintendo is once again pulling the re-re-re-release bit again: Pilotwings, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Starfox 64 are some of the early titles coming from Nintendo.  Come on, y’all, how about something new already!  The system does play DS games, though, which gives it an impressive back catalog.

CONCLUSION

The Nintendo 3DS gets 3 out of 5 pairs of now-obsolete 3D glasses.  I want to give it a 4 out of 5, but the game lineup is just too weak and the battery life is way too low for a Nintendo handheld.

Should you drop the $249 to get one?  I think the answer for most folks is going to be a big fat ‘not yet.’  Its not that 3DS is a bad system, far from it.  It is a really neat gadget with glasses-free 3D, enough horsepower to pump out good graphics, and there are lots of other cool things to do with it besides play games.

Unfortunately, this is a game system and in terms of games, the 3DS is lacking as of this writing.  There are just not enough 3DS games to justify the purchase right now.  If you do not already own a DS, there are plenty of great DS games right now to keep busy until more 3DS games start coming down the pipe.  If you already own a DS system, you should probably stand pat and wait for the inevitable price drop.

ADDENDUM

The latest system update, which adds the eShop, Internet Browser and System Transfer functions, has just dropped, so I will be updating this review soon once I get a chance to check those items out, so check back for that.  Nintendo’s 2011 E3 press conference is also coming soon, so hopefully they’ll have more game announcements, but even then, anything they announce won’t be out for awhile, so the ‘lack of games’ point still stands.

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