Gadget for the Ladies: Pink Laptops

When laptops started to come out, they looked like big bulks of heavy gray books. Hence the term notebooks. Most of the early releases were unbelievably heavy and had a functional (but not stylish) design. As the years progressed, laptops started becoming smaller and their designs got more intricate. People flocked to buy laptops for various purposes and the age group of laptop users started getting younger and younger.

So it's only natural for laptop manufacturers to start making their designs and their functionality more suited to a wider market.

Here's two companies that took this to heart and started making pretty pink laptops:

Sony Vaio CR

The Sony Vaio CR series has most of its appeal resting on its delicious colors. It also comes in white, red and dark blue. When I first saw these babies I immediately thought that they'd be prone to defects and early death. Something that pretty can't be that durable right? And besides it's Sony. I've had my fair share of sad stories from Sony laptops.

Rundown of its features: It has WXGA screen, a built-in webcam, built-in wifi-adapter and an integrated graphics card. Definitely not the laptop for you if you're a hardcore gamer as this will probably die on you during the loading screen. However, if you're going to use it for light work then it's okay. Oh and of course ladies would love the color.


Dell XPS M1330

This particular design of Dell is the thinnest in its class. So you don't just get something pretty and pink, you also get something thin too. Now isn't that what every woman is aiming to be at the very end? Okay, I was just kidding. No need to kill me now.

Anyway the Dell XPS M1330 besides being pink, performs pretty well considering its size. It's processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2 GHz); RAM installed: 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM; Weight: 4 lbs

Not bad, not bad at all. Though still not for gaming. As most laptops usually aren't. No surprise there. But it does perform good for a (pink) laptop.

Ladies take design and style into consideration sometimes taking up a bigger priority so I guess these companies are now catering to much more specific needs by putting design first. They are probably recognizing the fact that they aren't just making these gadgets for the tech geeks but for normal people too who want to tug a long a laptop when they have coffee in Starbucks.

Gadget that turns Past to Present

Being part in a world ruled by the latest gizmos and gadgets, most of the things we enjoy right now would be outdated tomorrow and next week. What if we really, really like something from long ago? Something so old that the only available media for it is through an LP? Vinyl discs are considered ancient now and most people who have them are just keeping them for collection. Few people have laser disc players at home now and why would you keep one anyways? This world is now driven by DVDs and MP3s.

This is where this particular gadget comes in: the USB Turntable.



With the looks of it alone, you'd know that it works just like any turntable but the cool thing about this is you can plug a USB cable at the back of it and into your computer. It records the music and converts it to wav! Cool huh? You can easily have them converted to MP3 once you have them on your PC.

This is the specific things you have to find out about this gadget:

Features

• A super sleek adjustable pitch belt drive turntable.

The turntable includes:

• A slipmat.
• A counterweight.
• A platter (no, not for your dinner).
• A USB cable.
• A pre-mounted cartridge with Stylus.
• Includes Audacity software for Mac/PC recording as well as a trial of Bias Soundsoap 2 for cleaning and restoring vinyl.

• Line level RCA outputs to connect up to your stereo.
• 33 and 45 RPM Buttons (78's are played at 33 and then converted by the software).
• Adjustable Anti-Skating control for increased stereo balancing.
• High speed vinyl recording
• A CD with Mac/PC Recording Software.
• Full instruction manual.
• Suitable for ages 12 years+.
• Requires a PC running Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista, a MAC running OS9 or higher and a USB port 1.1 or higher.
• The USB Turntable is compatible with any software that supports USB audio input sound cards - simply plug it into a spare USB port - it requires no special drivers for Windows (98,2000,XP,Vista) or Mac (OS9 and above).
• If you are running Windows XP Media Center Addition, you will need to upgrade to XP Home or XP Pro in order to use any USB Class Compliant device like the USB Turntable.
• Please note that the turntable is not compatible with Macs with Pentium chips.
• Requires a USB port and mains power to run the turntable.
• Size: - Product weight: 12lbs
• Turntable: 42 x 37 x 14.

With developments like these, soon technology will make time an irrelevant factor.

Cellphone and Gaming Gadget

Sony Ericsson has new gadgets for shutterbugs and gamers. Due to be officially announced tomorrow, the Sony Ericsson S302 and F305 has been leaking in markets already. While most of us are gawking over the 3G iPhone, let's look at how competition is doing shall we? In a nutshell, S302 is part of the claimed "snapshot series" so that means its forte lies in fast image capture features and image editing support.

However, you can't really expect much from the S302, it doesn't really have groundbreaking features. It has 2 MP without autofocus. Yes, there's not much really to look forward to. You also get 20MB of onboard memory, Memory Stick Micro card slot, Bluetooth (A2DP), USB and FM radio. (but what is Sony Ericsson without an FM radio?) The S302 stands at only 11mm thickness and weighs the mere 79g. It's got a TFT display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels.



Sony Ericsson F305 seems to be a little more interesting. Being a gaming-oriented device it features a built-in accelerometer and three pre-installed games: Bowling, Bass fishing and Jockey. I find this particularly fascinating because in one of the games, you actually have to use the handset like... (dare I say it?) like a Wii-mote! You have to swing the handset around in Bowling to actually play the game. The Sony Ericsson F305 sports stereo speakers, stereo Bluetooth and (what else?) stereo FM radio. Besides the 2 megapixel camera, the feature list also includes M2 memory card slot and a 2-inch TFT display with a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. A little too small for a game device but future releases might improve it.

Official announcement will be released tomorrow. Wait for it guys! SonyEricsson's shoot and game gadget will be ripe for the picking! I personally would want to see how F305 performs as a gadget in the future though. It looks promising.

A Web Designer's Pie Chart

Pie chart taken from The Net is Dead

I have spent a considerable amount of time doing some web designing work. Though it's not particularly evident in this blog (I got lazy editing this) I used to make lots of blog layouts for several people and of course for myself. And usually, like all web designers, I spend a considerable amount of time getting the damn layout to work in IE.

Since Firefox came into my life, I never looked back on IE. Ever again. However as a web designer, I have to take IE into consideration since a lot of people are still using IE (you poor unfortunate souls, switch now!) and some websites require IE browsers so I really have to adjust.

I honestly don't know what's wrong with IE, why the heck is it so choosy and why is it such a pain in the ass. The pie chart is kind of true though when it comes to actual designing. It's not really a difficult thing to do, making it work in all browsers is where the actual challenge lies. My swearing is probably distributed all throughout my time and has concentrated area in contemplating (well not exactly death) just torture maybe for Bill Gates.

Let me tell you it is really, extremely frustrating for a lot of web designers to spend so much time making layouts work in IE. It almost seems unfair how IE practically destroys the design you worked so hard for. If there was only some sort of gadget that magically makes IE less of a nutcase.