Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

To be completely honest I haven’t been following the release dates for Windows 7 because I haven’t been very excited about a new Windows version. With the last release (Vista) being delayed so many times and rumours about this date and that date, I gave up on Microsoft’s schedule.

I downloaded the beta yesterday and installed it on a Dell D620 which is one of my test machines at work. There is no question that Microsoft really improved the installation process when Vista came out and they are using the same system in Windows 7. During the installation process you are only prompted for 5 things which are language settings, hard drive installation location, installation code, user/computer naming information and a password for your user. I have installed many different OSs over time including many Linux distros, Windows versions and even OSX; none of them are more easy that this is. I need to give kudos to Microsoft on this point as so many of us geeks out there overlook this because we are perfectly comfortable with 62 questions.

The second thing that impressed me right out of the gate was the fact that Windows 7 had all the drivers required for my D620 without a single download. This really glues down the fact that they are using the same driver design as Vista, but that they have included the updated drivers in the installation is awesome. In the past we might have seen driver inclusions but more often only in the final version which makes beta testing a bit more challenging. To summarize this point, complete installation from formatted disk to the desktop logged in took about an hour and less than 10 screens.

The desktop on first glance doesn’t look very different from Vista, but that is because I was not really looking that hard. The task bar has been updated for the better, starting with transparency. It looks really nice in my opinion; but that’s just eye candy really. A new feature that I really like is the hover function. I am not sure what Microsoft is really calling this but when you open software you don’t see a block on the task bar like you used to. Now you see an icon and when you hover over that icon you get a preview of the windows that are open and associated to that application. If you then hover over those preview windows the window will appear so you can see it in real time behind the preview. Take a look at this screen shot to see how this applies. Notice that I had 3 explorer windows open and that’s what you see in the preview.

Computer speed is always a question and we all talk about what hardware we have because it directly relates to the speed of our overall experience. But there is also a direct relationship between the operating system and the fluidity or speed of our experience. I definitely feel with the limited software I have installed on the machine that it is more refined. The preview and full size windows that appear when using the hover feature above come almost instantly. It almost feels like they could be instant but someone had to create a 100ms delay to make it feel more natural.

Windows 7 comes with IE 8, which for some will be confusing. The new web browser has been out in beta for a little which and is getting good press (ex. here) from what I can see so far. It definitely is not the fastest browser but I think that overall people are enjoying it.

If you have access to a Windows 7 beta and have not yet installed it then I would give it a try. For everyone who isn’t lucky enough to have access to Windows 7 beta and if you are thinking of buying a computer now but could hold off for another year, I would wait a while to see if Microsoft will solidify their release dates. I really think that after the Vista debacle and after seeing this beta it will be worth the wait.

Well I guess it’s more like “MY NEW Blackberry Bold 9000” because it’s been out for a little while :) None the less it’s new for me and deserves a review. To start, I love having a qwerty keyboard with real buttons to be able to write emails and SMS messages. That is something I was convinced I would like before the purchase because it is so much faster than a phone keypad or a touch screen and having the feeling of buttons gives it another sense to work with which is nice. The other thing that I like is the speed of the device, much faster than I am used to. I have played around with my brother’s Blackberry 7130, a friend’s Pearl, a Curve 8300 at work and none have them have amazed with their speed, but the Bold seems much faster.

I am new to the Blackberry game but not new to smart phones. Before this I had an HTC Touch which I liked a lot at first but there were some issues that really got under my skin. The first issue was that the touch screen was not perfect. It did very well but on occasion it would miss a keystroke which caused me to not trust the input and made typing much slower. The other issue was that it was just too slow to run Windows Mobile well. If you don’t want to do too many things one after the other then it isn’t too bad, but on more than one occasion I would be writing an email and then try to make a call and going from the mail app to the phone app was ‘head banging’ slow.

The Blackberry has solved both these problems for me. To be honest the only 2 real contenders for me were the Bold and the iPhone. I am really into Apple products these days for the ‘it just works’ factor and the integrated feel, but the iPhone is a touch screen. I remember having a conversation about my touch screen woes with my HTC. My buddy convinced me to check out a YouTube video about the Storm and not a minute into the video and the person made a typo because of a missed keystroke. I have seen videos on YouTube about the iPhone as well and seen similar results. For some reason I am more frustrated at the device if it misses the keystroke than if I make a typo myself.

The Bold is quite feature rich. I doesn’t have as much ‘WOW’ factor as does the iPhone but it does what it is designed to do quite well. Blackberry lists the Bold’s key features as follows:
* Camera (2.0 MP)
* Built-in GPS
* Media Player
* Video Recording
* BlackBerry® Maps
* Wireless Email
* Organizer
* Browser
* Phone
* Corporate Data Access
* SMS/MMS
* Wi-Fi® support

I have taken some pictures and I would say that they are average. They picture quality isn’t great but it is acceptable. The light helps in low light situations and is turned on automatically when needed.

The GPS doesn’t do much for me in all honesty. I have a GPS for my car where I would need it most (TomTom 720) and it would always do a better job as it is designed to work in the car.

The media player again isn’t very important to me. I have played with it a bit and it looks similar to what I had on the HTC and to what I have seen on other current phones. Most of us will use an iPod for these features.

Video recording – quality isn’t different from the still image function. The screen is pretty quick to refresh so the image is quite smooth.

Blackberry Maps ties into the GPS function. I have played with this but won’t have a use for it unless I am out of town and on foot where my TomTom wouldn’t be practical. If in that situation I would find this feature handy I am sure.

Wireless email… to me there is no question that Blackberry does this well. I am not using it with a BES server and all I needed was my email address and password (hosted my Google) and it figured out the rest. It just works -> AWESOME! The action of writing an email is all the more easy with the integrated Qwerty keyboard.

Organizer is a standard calendar. All phones have a similar problem displaying the whole week on the screen because they are too small, that’s just physics. The features are standard but it would be nice to sync with my Google calendar automatically out of the box. I ended up doing this with a 3rd part app and that made me happy :)

They have outdone themselves with the browser on the Bold. It is able to display an entire website (not mobile version) quite well and then allows you to zoom in before clicking on links so they are more readable. Using the small scroll button in the middle which works like a trackball makes it even better.

Phone… uuh yes. Easy to use and has great reception. I work in a office build in the basement (why do they always put IT there?) and not many phones work in the center of the building. The Bold worked on a conversation from one end to the other yesterday.

Corporate data access… still don’t use a BES :|

The SMS/MMS is tied into the email if you wish and that’s how I set it up. All messages come into the same single box and it makes communications seamless. The Qwerty keyboard helps here a lot as it is quick and accurate.

Wi-Fi Support is another great feature. At home and at work I set up my Wi-Fi connection so my data usage is kept to a minimum over 3G. 3G is nice to have when you need it but Wi-Fi is great due to it’s cost savings and speed. Another thing to note is the little effect is has on the battery. I noticed with my HTC that the battery would die quickly with Wi-Fi turned on. Doesn’t seem to affect the Bold all that much.

So in the end I am very happy with this new purchase. It feels more like a phone that can do a hundred other things than a unit that does 100 things one of which is make phone calls. And to top it off I think it’s a good looking unit :)

Do you have a live video stream or a podcast? If you do then you have most likely thought about the audio quality that you are sending out. Since thinking about starting a live video stream, I have been investigating what type of microphone to buy. After a lot of recommendations and viewing some streams with the Samson C01U I decided to purchase that model.

It is a very nice microphone and it was very easy to get it up and running. Simply plug it in and use the default Windows driver. I wouldn’t recommend using their driver CD as is forces you to always have their software open to use the microphone which I feel is a waste. After setting the volume once in the Windows volume control panel, I doubt you will go back to touch it at all… it really is that simple.

Sound quality to me is great. I know what I like and don’t like when it comes to audio quality but I am not an audio expert in the sense that I wouldn’t know the different between a non-condenser mic and a condenser mic. I would simply know that I prefer one sound over the other. This is really a personal view as we don’t all have the same ears, some may prefer one sound to another so make up your own mind.

The price was right, $89.99 from Daddy’s Music in NH. I was in ME with my family on vacation at the beginning of September and decided to shop around. From what I saw on Ebay, they have a podcasting kit but most are $140+. That plus shipping and most likely duties and taxes and I was looking at more than $200. The extra shock mount and pop filter are not worth that much to me. Thank you NH for no sales tax :)

Would I recommend the mic for other people? Absolutely yes. Really easy setup, not too expensive and great sound quality.

I have wanted to get a Bluetooth headset for driving in the car for quite some time. It always seemed to be second place to something else that was more urgent on the ‘purchase list’. When I was on vacation I received a new Plantronics Discovery 665 as a gift, and what a nice gift it has been.

The first thing anyone asks me about it is “How does it sound?”. I honestly can say that on my side it is clearer that using the cell phone itself while in the car. I believe that this is due to the gel ear insert that for most people will actually hold the unit in your ear without any ear loop. This makes quite the seal in the ear canal and blocks most other background noises from affecting the call. I have quizzed quite a few callers about how it sounds to them on the other end of the call and all except for one person told me it sounds the same as if I was talking directly into the phone. This means that the AudioIQ feature is doing the job of blocking out some of the background noise from the conversation that the sensitive mic would otherwise pass on to the other party.

The unit comes with some nice options as well including a home charger, a car charger and the ability to clip a holster onto your shirt to carry it around. Here is an excerpt from their website that includes those and other details:

The Plantronics Discovery 665 Bluetooth headset is the optimal road-warrior conversation piece! AudioIQ digitally enhanced sound improves the experience on both ends of the call, creating stand-out sound so you can hear and be heard like never before. Unique vehicle power charger with call indicator light helps ensure it’s always ready when you need it. For a comfortable, customized fit it weighs only 9 grams, and comes with three soft gel ear tips and an optional ear stabilizer loop.

I am very happy with this unit but I need to offer one bit of advise. A group of colleagues at my 9-5 bought a set of OEM units off of Ebay and they were not the same at all. The units were very similar in design but seemed a lot more flimsy and many of them have broken. Be careful what you pay for!