The Beauty of it all Working

Hold your breath guys - it's yet another Casey blog about the greatness of Apple.

But really - it's not just about Apple, but rather the idea of high end companies and how their products are supposed to work.

See the thing is - companies like Apple, Sony, even Mercedes release a myriad of products which on their own are unbelieveably good - yet they design with the bigger picture in mind.

Now granted - not everybody, in fact not a lot of people have the money or time to spend on stocking their house with every product that one of these companies release - but nonetheless, my hat goes off to the designers.

See the thing is, the designers in these companies don't really design a product - they design a lifestyle. In software engineering its called use-case design. Instead of designing a product and giving it features and such - the people at these companies design an activity, and then build products around it.

For example, when Apple designed the AppleTV v2 - I have a feeling they thought to themselves - alright, I come home, I turn on the TV and I want to watch whatever movie I want right now, or listen to any piece of music I want. How am I gonna get a product that does that.

And companies who pay attention to these scenarios really soar. Yet, it takes some part on the public to understand these amazing designs. That's why Apple's keynotes are so good. Steve Jobs always go through typical scenarios.

Actually, come to think of it - the greatest demonstration of what I'm talking about are the first iPhone commercials.

Here, Apple had one of the most coveted electronic products this world has seen - but to really prove just how cool it was - the commercials went something liek this:

"Let's say your watching your favourite movie, Pirates of the Carribean, and then you think - hey, I feel like some seafood. Just simply browse to a seafood restaurant, and google map it."

Those typical use scenarios really shine for the product. I mean the product can do all these amazing individual things - but its these use cases that prove to the public - that hey - it's not just cool, the product actually makes a lot of sense to use in our life.

The same goes for OS X Leopard - things like Spaces, Expose (albeit Tiger), Quick Look just make the workflow so much better.

I think more companies should really base their designs around use cases - rather than just introducing new technologies. The iPhone had nothing brand new - it was all borrowed technologies - as was a lot of Leopard - but its how its executed where Apple succeeds. Bringing it to the mass market with a real use behind it.

Why did I bring this up?

I recently set my place up with streaming music, a wireless hard drive, and a nice TV. All Apple and SOny - and it all just works so perfectly together. It all just makes sense.

And coming home every night from work is such a pleasure as I can sit down and really enjoy my place.

So do yourself a favour. Building an "electronics foundation" is no different than furnishing a house. You can't just buy a bunch of random things here and there. Think about the big picture and how it'll all integrate with each other- and slowly build that up. Chances are, you'll enjoy your electronics so much more.

Thanks for reading.

Cloverfield

Unbelievably good.

Has to be seen in the theatre.

Won't say more.

Thanks for reading.

Plug Off

Alright, so I don't know if this is just because I'm tired and hungry and in a bad mood - but something's been bothering me recently.

So I had an amazing Christmas gift-wise. My family went all out this year and got me amazing gifts, one of which was a 1TB Western Digital MyBook. What a sweet drive. But there's one thing that's off.

The first time I plugged in the hard drive in - I noticed the unique shape of the plug. Rather than a down facing ac adapter, the ac adapter actually points to the side when plugged in. Pretty clever right? I mean when you plug it into a standard two socket wall plug, the other socket is free - pretty clever right? Wrong.

Let's think about this for a second. When do you use a hard drive? When you use a computer. And the average computer has how many plugs? 2. Right. And most computer users who would buy a 1TB drive would probably even have more. Save a router, or a modem, or both, plus maybe some speakers.

When you add it all up, a 1TB external drive will almost always be used near more than 2 other plugs. So enter the power bars that us techies spent so much money on. You know, the ones where the sockets are aligned side by side to allow for many AC adapters. Well guess what - this new MyBook Sideways style AC adapter now makes no sense on these expensive power bars. UPS's either - I mean the most expensive power bar you can buy now doesn't make sense with these new plugs.

Well, whatever. I thought I'd live with it. But then lightning struck twice.

I went to my post office today to pick up my Vonage package, and low and behold - the Vonage phone adapter uses a sideways power adapter! (which for those paying attention has to be used beside a modem and a router) What the hell!?

Now if the world was ideal - all these devices would have internal power bricks (take a hint from the AppleTV or the Wii). But the world of electronics seems insistent on producing these power adapters for things that clearly are used beside a bunch of other electronics.

Ah well - whenever they iron out the scary defects (and thoughts) or wireless power - we'll be flying.

Thanks for reading.

Dreams

Alright, so I finished watching season 10 of Frasier yesterday, and I think it may have, just may have entered my mind as the best sitcom of all time. Yes, again, I do respect Seinfeld highly - but man, Frasier. What a season!!!

But that's not what I hear to talk about today. I've been getting back in the swing of things in terms of movies and getting caught up on what's up and coming. There's one film that really caught my eye: Cassandra's Dream. It's written and directed by Woody Allen and takes his more serious side. Don't get me wrong, I love his quirky stuff, but I love that he has the range to do other things too. And this one looks amazing. Check out the trailer at YahooMovies

And speaking of dreams, what a dream come true for me that my buddy Aaron found a performance of two of my favourite artists. Check it out:



Thanks for reading.

James Newton Howard

That's it. Michael Giacchino, is damn damn close, and so is Craig Armstrong, but I have to say, at this moment, James Newton Howard is my new favourite composer. Alan Silvestri will have to step down from his throne.

In recent memory, every score that I've asked myself - I wonder who did it - it always ends up being James Newton Howard. Besides his awesome work on M. Night Shamylan movies, he's done some amazing work including Batman Begins (an amazing collaboration with Hans Zimmer), King Kong (which was done last minute), and Peter Pan (which floods Disney World commercials).

I finally got around to watching Blood Diamond yesterday. Great movie. Great score. And lo and behold - James Newton Howard was and the musical helm again.

I first took notice of James Newton Howard when he did the score for Primal Fear, but since then, he's definitely risen in my books to favourite composer. Be sure to check out his work. Thanks for reading.

Boxing Match

DVDs. Yes - there are many of us out there who have this condition known as DVDA - DVD addiction, where we buy endless amounts of dvds every tuesday to stock up on our already too big collection. It gets to a point where a lot of the DVDs you own you don't even watch, or touch for that matter.

But that's never been the point of a collection. If all you wanted them for is to watch -you'd probably rent them. And you definitely wouldn't buy multiple editions of the same movie. The whole point of a collection is the collection. The fact that you have so damn much to look at all nicely alphabetized in your shelves - perhaps even sorted by category.

Because so many countless hours are spent just staring at a collection - one super important factor to a collection is the aesthetics of its elements. In the case of DVDs - it's the packaging. And without question - one of the nicest packaging on any DVD has to be the seasons of Lost.

I picked up Season 3 today, and man - it just reminded me how nice their box sets are. First of all - the consistency from season to season has been great. But on top of that - the plastic slipcase has been designed so nicely, and the fold out is just gorgeous. I can't really write anything about it without sounding pretentious - so basically, it just looks so damn good.

Not too mention that its also the greatest show of all time:) Thanks for reading.

Tech Gifts for Dummies

Alright, so Christmas is upon us. Yes, that oh so amazing time when something magical in the air actually exists. For some reason having random people show up to your house singing is no reason to call the cops anymore. Lights on your house is no longer tacky. Listening to Jazz isn't just for the old folks anymore. And buying stuff for yourself is no longer the greatest joy - giving them is.

Or at least giving the right gift is.

The biggest problem I find in gift giving is that usually the gifts we give people are awesome in our mind - but not so much in their mind. And that usually happens most with gifts where the receiver is way more knowledgeable than the giver. This is especially true for little girls and boys who are into technology.

The problem with technology is that there's a huge range of products with a huge range of quality and buying the wrong one can actually have a bad effect. Take for example the XBOX 360. A while ago, I think a year or so, the XBOX 360 came in several flavours (as it does now), but one of those flavours didn't have an HDMI port - the ideal connection for video output. If I got the XBOX360 for christmas without the HDMI port, I'd be happy, but a little disappointed.

See the problem with tech gifts is that they're usually major purchases - and if the wrong one is given - it prevents the receiver from purchasing the one they actually want. Take the XBOX360 example - if I got the one without the HDMI port - there's no way I'd buy the one with it.

Some will say - then give them a gift receipt. True - but wouldn't it be awesome to give them the one they wanted in the first place? To be the one who knew them so well to actually get it right? But then it's the thought that counts right? Yeah - but this way you put that much more thought into the gift. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Well you've stumbled onto the right blog entry then. I'm gonna attempt to give some help to those of the giving end, because I know what I'd like to receive on the other end.

Alright, so my first thought is that there are really two types of technology you can buy your person. Gifts that matter what kind you buy, and ones that don't.

Category A: Gifts that don't matter what kind you buy
This is really for givers who don't feel like doing a whole lot of research but want to get their tech receiver a good gift.

Hard Drives - If you receiver is into tech stuff, chances are he/she will have a computer. And one thing you can never have too much of is hard drive space. It's like toilet paper now. You'll always need it - or at least you'll always be able to use it. The nice thing too is that hard drives come in so many flavours nowadays that are all useable. Any hard drive you buy for your receiver - chances are, they'll be able to use it. The only question is price, physical size, and amount of storage. I'd say anything 120GB or over is a good gift. The really nice gifts are the small Western Digital and LaCie external hard drives. Really sweet. Or you can go crazy and buy your receiver a 1TB drive - always useful.

Video Games - Video Games are nice in the sense that they're like buying movies for people- it's not like you can buy the wrong version or whatever that would hinder them from getting one they really want. It's just a nice bonus whatever game you buy them. The only thing is to make sure they don't already have it and that it's a decent game. How do you do that- just hop over to any game site (www.ign.com / www.gamespot.com) and look for the highest rated games.

USB Flash Drives - you really can't go wrong on these ones. If your receiver doesn't own one of these yet, or has a small capacity one, you can't really buy a USB flash drive that's bad. The smaller physical size the better, and the bigger the capacity the better. I'd say anything over 1GB in capacity is good - and if they can attach to their keychain, that's good too.

Nintendo Wii - If for some amazing reason you can find one of these, and your receiver plays video games, no question - pick it up. Unlike the XBOX360 and PS3, the Wii only comes in one configuration, so again, you can't screw it up. Not only that - it's such an amazingly hard product to find.



Category B: Gifts that matter what kind you buy

Playstation 3 - Alright, so this is one hot-ticket item this year, but there are some things you want to understand about it before getting one. Although it'll work with any TV, the full potential of the PS3 isn't unleashed unless it's hooked up to a High-Definition TV. However, because a HDTV can always be bought down the road, a PS3 is still a good gift for those who don't have a HDTV. What's important is understand the difference between the two currently available models. There's the PS3 40GB model and the 80GB model. The most apparent difference is the Hard Drive size. If your receiver wants to store lots of photos, music, movies, trailers, and more - then the 80GB model is the way to go. However, 40GB is a lot already. A typical game will take 1-2 GB of storage for saved games, a typical music collection would be anywhere between 10-30 GB. However, this isn't exactly the biggest determining factor because the PS3 has a hard drive that's easy to replace. What you should consider is the differences that are permanent. As it stands now, the 40GB model is not backwards compatible with PS2 games. So if your receiver also wants to do this, the 80GB model is the way to go. The second major difference is that the 40GB model doesn't feature the multi-card reader - which is essentially a bunch of slots that you can plug memory cards into. Cards such as those used for digital cameras. So you could take photos and plug that card into the PS3 to view them. However, note - that the 40GB model still has USB slots - so you can still view your photos that way. Basically - for most purposes, the 40GB model is pretty much sufficient. It won't be a huge problem. I'd say, if price dictates, the 40GB model is fine. But if you can afford it, the 80GB model's got some nice bells and whistles. (The only other major difference is that the 40GB model only has 2 USB ports vs. 4 on the 80GB model, and currently, the 40GB model ships with Spider-man 3 on Blu-ray, whereas the 80GB model ships with the Motorstorm game).

HDTV - If your receiver is lucky enough to be getting a High Definition TV this christmas, there's a lot you should consider. If you really want to get the top notch TVs - you want to be getting a TV that has a 1080p resolution. Basically, HDTVs come in 2 major flavours - 720p/1080i and 1080p. What this refers to is the number of lines of resolution. The more lines of resolution, the sharper the picture. Now, 720p/1080i are still considered high-defiintion, but they won't look as good as 1080p TVs. If price dictates, 720p is still nice, and at <40-inches, it may be hard to tell the difference. If you are again going for top notch TVs - another feature you want to look for is 120Hz refresh rate. This basically means how often the screen refreshes when displaying video- this basically makes motion look smoother, and sharper. The last thing you want to look for is the number of HDMI ports. The more the better. There's actually quite a bit more to consider. But if you get a 1080p TV with 2 or more HDMI ports, with 120Hz refresh rate, chances are, the rest is good.


Let's pause for a second.

I just realized I could go on and on about as many products as I want, but this will start to get long.

So, I'm just gonna list my top picks for gifts and if you have anymore questions, just leave a comment. (It's probably 'cause I'm just getting tired and lazy:))

Top Picks (all prices in CDN)
-Western Digital Passport Portable External 2.5" Hard Drive 320GB ($229.99)
-LaCie Big Disk Extreme w/ Triple Interface 1TB ($341.99)
-Crucial 4GB Gizmo Jr. ($50.00)
-Guitar Hero III Bundle for XBOX360 or PS3 ($99.99)
-Playstation 3 40GB ($399.99)
-Sony 46" Bravia LCD 1080p TV V3000 ($1799.99 on sale)
-Sony 46" XBR TV XBR4 ($3299.99)
-iMac 20-inch ($1299.99)
and more.

Thanks for reading.