Category: Digital Lifestyle

Apple by Joe Wilcox
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You Phone Home, I Hang Up

Tonight, I removed Adobe’s Lightroom 1.3 from my computer. Maybe that makes me part of the so-called “tinfoil” hat crowd. I’m deeply concerned about Adobe collecting information, in apparently disguised fashion, from users of its products.

I don’t buy Adobe’s excuses. Creative Suite 3 isn’t freeware. People buying the software can pay as much as $1,800 (street price), depending on CS3 version. Adobe feels free to mine information from these customers, without even asking their permission? Shame on Adobe. I would remove Acrobat and Flash, if so many Websites didn’t use the software. I’m mad! 

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Living by Joe Wilcox
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What Will Be the Returns?

Today’s New York Times column “An iPhone Changed My Life (Briefly)” hits at the device’s fundamental problem: Hype. There was too much of it—and not really from Apple—that may have over-raised many people’s expectations. The issue Michelle Slatalla raises is one of returns. Will she return her iPhone? She writes, “I have started thinking seriously about returning the $599 phone, despite a 10 percent restocking fee. It hasn’t really changed my life in the ways I’d hoped”.

But she may have started with overly unrealistic expectations, which the runaway hype helped foster. The name includes “phone” for a reason. Apple didn’t promise a device that would cure cancer or feed the starving. 

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Apple by Joe Wilcox
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I’m So Not Getting an iPhone

The impending release of Apple’s iPhone is good time for me to explain how the device led me to purchase another mobile—my first Nokia, the lovely N95.

When Apple announced the iPhone in January, I used the Samsung BlackJack, gotten mainly for the 3G Internet. But in the six weeks leading up to the iPhone announcement, I found that 3G wasn’t doing much for me. The reason, I think, was the Windows Mobile 5 software. There wasn’t much compelling there. In February, I ditched the BlackJack, returning to the boxy and thick Sony Ericsson S710a. I was thinking an iPhone might just be in my future, and the S710a was good prepartion, because of the size. 

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Living by Joe Wilcox
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Time Enough for What?

Are we all really so busy, that “the act of canceling a meeting or dinner date can constitute the most precious gift one busy professional can bestow on another”. That’s apparently the way of the modern business world, according to story, “Pencil It In Under ‘Not Happening’“, appearing in tomorrow’s New York Times.

“In an overscheduled world, are there any words more lovely than, ‘Can we reschedule?'” writes Alex Williams. I won’t deny that some cancelled meetings are cause for celebration. The Times quotes psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell: “With cellphones and BlackBerries, people are too reachable. We sign up for too much. So when fate intervenes, it’s better than found money. It’s found time“. 

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Living by Joe Wilcox
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Movie Time

About a month ago, we switched out the Windows Media Center PC for a TiVo. Of course, what good is a TiVo without a TV to connect to? Quite good, it turns out. Rather than go back to a PC, we returned to a projector.

I shopped around before buying the projector, for which the sale of the Dell Media Center PC paid. Choice—and not the best, but appropriate for the family’s budget: Optoma MovieTime DV10. The picture quality isn’t nearly as wow as I expected, but the overall big-screen experience is more than good enough. No means is it perfect, but perfection we demand spending heaps more money. MovieTime sells for $999. 

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