Smart phones for dumb people?

I’ve recently had some debate with someone who is best described as a fanboy. Except that she’s a girl.

The topic of our conversation was, in part, Blackberry. Not the naturally occurring capsule of fruity goodness, mind, but the seemingly popular mobile device by Research in Motion. You see, this person just bought one of Apple’s new iPhone 3Gs, and was keen to point out some issues that she thought the Blackberry did better with. This led to some absolutely useless arguing over personal preference, but it also got me thinking about the topic of mobile phones in general; now, I can say with certainty, smart phones are for dumb people.

Product Review: “No More Heroes” for Nintendo Wii.

A Wii-exclusive title not made by Nintendo? Yes, it’s true! (And yes, there will be many, many more thanks to Wii sales)

No More Heroes places you into the action as Travis Touchdown, a young thug from Santa Destroy, who’s out to raise his rating on the list of top assassins. Seriously, this game really keeps a list.

At first glance, the game may seem like one to pass up. But the art design, the controls, and (amazingly) the story make this game a must-have for any Wii owner.

Product Review: Samsung SyncMaster 953bw

For any of you in the market for a new monitor, take note: you won’t do better than Samsung.

For me, this is a rather new development. I’ve used a Mag Innovision CRT at home for… oh, about 8 years now, and I’ve used a ViewSonic at work. I’ve been happy with both, until now.

Samsung’s SyncMaster 953bw is brand new. It’s more stylish than its predecessors, has a quicker response time, better color management features, and (most importantly), it’s cheaper.

“The Sims” sells the most.

It was always one of my favorite computer games. And now, 8 years after its original release, “The Sims” has sold 100,000,000 copies. That’s a whole lot of CDs.

AP writes of “The Sims:”

It has been published in 60 countries and 22 languages. Its creator, Will Wright, is one of the video game industry’s best regarded brains — though he’s no longer involved with the title.

Of course, the 100 million mark is only reached if console versions of the game are included in the count. This puts it in second place for the best selling video game franchise of all time. Who’s number one, you ask?

Psychstar.

It seems that the company behind the recently-reported OpenMac computer may be even shadier than originally suspected.

Several recent happenings have called into question the integrity (and even the existence) of PsyStar, the company behind the “Open Computer” paradigm. No, it doesn’t just stop at EULA violations for pre-installing OSX.

Attack of the Clones.

They say history repeats itself. Did you ever think that would apply to the computer world?

As perhaps a testament to Apple’s growing market share, Mac clones have reappeared on the market. This time, they come in the form of a $400 “Psystar OpenMac,” which ships with OSX 10.5 Leopard and offers full compatibility with Mac software.

Wondering why it’s not illegal? It just might be, but there isn’t much Apple can do about it.

I can has LOLCODE?

If any of you out there have not experienced “lolcats,” I stronly urge you to take a little trip over to icanhascheezburger.com and experience them. There’s nothing funnier than cute cats speaking their own special English pidgin.

Well, maybe there is something funnier, if you’re a programmer. LOLCODE is the embodiment of the lolcat language into machine code. And if you’re used to the boredom of Objective-C or the complexity of assembly, you’ll die of laughter after coding in LOLCODE.

Microsoft copies Apple… again.

In their desperate attempts to appear innovative, Microsoft generally tend to copy companies that truly are. Most notably, the “Fast Find” and “Gadgets” features of Windows Vista are near carbon copies of “Spotlight” and “Dashboard” on Apple’s Mac OS X Tiger (and Leopard), respectively.

This time is no different, with the new Internet Explorer Beta from MS.

Woz speaks… again.

Steve Wozniak isn’t known for playing nice with the company he co-founded, Apple Computer.

In fact, the Woz has said some downright upsetting things about Apple and Apple products in the past; amazingly, however, he’s still regarded as a veritable god by the Cult of Mac, a title that’s decidedly hard to keep when you’ve been known to criticize the Macintosh. Still, Wozniak is known for his old-school tech savvy (he designed the Apple I & II - the latter of which was extremely popular in the 1980s and still holds a cult following) and his down-to-earth, honest mentality - qualities which allow him to speak frankly about Apple and Apple products without being demonized by the Mac faithful.

He’s got some things to say about two of Apple’s newer products, the Macbook Air and the iPhone, and… well, they aren’t exactly kind words.

Apple.com “best-designed web site.”

It’s no surprise, really, that the company with the world’s best-designed electronics also has the best-designed website, according to webdesignfromscratch.com.