This makes me look back on my own PC usage back in those days. I honestly came to the PC party a little late, getting my first DOS-based computer in 1986 with the Radio Shack Tandy 1000-EX. I had a TRS-80 for the years leading up to that, which I got in maybe 1981. I actually only got my first IBM PC in 1988 with a IBM PS/2 Model 25, which was an awesome PC and ignited my love of the IBM Model M keyboard. Ahh memories…

What about you? What was your first PC-based computer?

So I’ve decided to finally bite the bullet, wipe my main hard drive (my important stuff — photos, music and documents — are all backed up on an external HD that gets synced up every day) and just start from scratch. Hopefully that’ll bide me some time until I can afford to purchase a new PC. I’ve also decided to do this on a weekend where my girlfriend is out of town, as this sort of thing can usually take a whole weekend. It’ll be good though to wipe the slate clean, just a time-consuming pain in the ass. Ah well, it has to happen eventually…

It was during that time, especially after installing Tweetdeck, that Twitter kinda clicked. What was before just a mass of people shouting, now wherein I could at least add some order to. While lists never really helped Twitter click with me (it was just a smaller version of the stream of consciousness), but being able to arrange things in columns DID help, and now I find myself more drawn more to Twitter each day.

I’m still not wholly fond of Twitter due its lack of structure, which I seem to need. I think, however, that I can at least come to a peace with it and just use an app like Tweetdeck to keep an eye on those I care about most, while checking in on everything else now and again.

Ultimately though, I’m kinda hoping Twitter get usurped by Google Plus. It’s got the simplicity of Twitter, I feel, along with the structure of threaded conversations I so desperately prefer. In just a few weeks alone, GP has passed over twenty million users, something that took a great deal longer for either Facebook or Twitter to accomplish.

So yeah, y’all will likely see me on Twitter a good deal more often nowadays (especially with the increased time on my hands :/). What was the point of this rant? I dunno, just felt the need to say it is all. It IS my blog after all. Have a great night/day folks.

I just flashed it to my phone and it works like a champ! Now whenever I need to boot up my phone — which only happens after flashing a new ROM or Kernel, thank you very much — I can get this boot animation instead of the standard Cyanogen animation. AWESOME.

This is, obviously, the worst time this could happen too, given that I’m severely underemployed. I did find a nice PSU for about $90, one that should last until my next upgrade, and while it’s at the limit of my budget, I hope I won’t need it. What I’m really worried about though are the hard drives. A good PSU — like the one I had, supposedly — is supposed to prevent a surge from spreading to the rest of the system. Another friend — I have amazing friends — is going to lend me a SATA to USB adapter to see if the data on the hard drives is safe, and I hope to God it is. While I back up some important stuff like documents, I’d hate to lose my 200+ gigs of music I spent ages collecting through various sources.

I dunno if any of y’all get like this, but when my PC is broken or not working as it should…I feel off center. Like the world isn’t as it should be. I take care of my PC, but this was totally unexpected. Until I get it working — supposing that the components aren’t fried — I’ll just feel a bit wrong. However, for the time being I’m trying to make the best of it. I’ve installed some games from Good Old Games (LOVE THEM) and got most of my programs — Office, Homesite, Opera, Chrome — back up and running, so for the time being I should be okay.

Sadly, though I know it’s ancient, I’ll still be missing MY PC. Why, even though it’s, as one person put it, “ancient”? Because it’s MY PC. I built it from the ground up just how I liked it, tweaked the software how I like it, have all of my music, etc etc etc…I just won’t feel right until I get it up and running again, which I hope it soon.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope y’all are having a better day than I am.

Neat, huh? Especially when you compare it to the stock look of the device, as shown below:

As you can see, while HTC’s original Sense overlay is simple and effective, it’s not really eye catching. Thanks to the customization options present in Android, however, that can all be changed. If you have an Android phone, and haven’t rooted it yet, I’d seriously consider it. This sort of stuff, plus free WiFi tethering and other features, really make it worthwhile.

• Overclock the CPU for more speed, or underclock it for better battery life.
• Do full ROM backups of your phone
• Flash new ROM’s for a different user experience
• Enable free USB tethering and WiFi hotspot connectivity
• And ton’s more.

Rooting isn’t without its risks, of course. I’ve read some folks have bricked their phones as a result, but this is few and far between, as the risks are relatively low. I’ve also run into some issues while rooted, such as freezes and boot loops when trying to flash certain ROM’s and such, but thankfully they were fixable. I’ve been spending hours trying new ROM’s and kernels for better battery life

So if you have an Android phone, should you root it? It depends. How comfortable are you with technology? If you’re pretty comfy with learning new stuff and tinkering, then there’s a ton you can read to get started on various forums and websites. If you’re not comfortable with the idea, then don’t even think about it.

So what say you, Android users? Have you rooted yet? If so, what do you like about it? If not, do you plan to or not? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Then the iPhone 4 was announced, and I was…underwhelmed. Sure it was pretty and had a front-facing camera, but it didn’t seem that much different than the previous iPhones before it. Sure, software updates brought things like folders and multitasking, but Android already had those features. The more I researched, the more I realized I wanna tweak my hardware and software to work the way I like it…and the iPhone doesn’t let one do that. I was also turned off by the forced obsolescence of my iPhone 3G once I upgraded to iOS 4.0, which basically made my phone unusable. I was also getting really bored with the iOS, honestly.

Then, “antennagate” happened. This issue (which hasn’t occurred with my new EVO no matter how I hold it, by the way) got me concerned about the iPhone 4′s performance, which was bad enough, but when die-hard, kool-aid drinking Apple apologists dismissed my concerns by telling me just to buy a case and so on. So wait, I’d say to myself, these folks are telling me to spend money to fix a design flaw on something I just spent money on? How does that logic work?

Finally, I was fed up with AT&T. I was tired of calls dropping every few minutes, getting no reception in a lot of places — especially my apartment — and paying through the nose for what essentially is half-assed service. With all of this in mind, I decided I was done with Apple, AT&T and the iPhone, and knew it was time to move onto something different.

So, after doing mountains of research and talking to friends who are on all of the other carriers, I decided to give Sprint a try, and go with one of the most advanced Android handsets on the market today, HTC’s EVO 4G. So after two weeks, how do I feel about my purchase?

Let me say that I think the EVO is the best phone I’ve ever had, based on a combination of the flexibility of the Android OS and the sturdiness of HTC’s hardware. The Android OS is amazing. You can do so much with it and change so much it’s ridiculous. Don’t like the built-in text messaging program? Download a new one. Want a new dialer? Fine! Don’t like the email program? There are several to try on the Android Market. This is why I call the iPhone limited, now that I’ve tried something else? Don’t like the messaging program on the iPhone? Too bad. Want to use another email program? Oh well.

Android also does a ton of little things I love that the iPhone didn’t or wouldn’t. For example, putting an address into your calendar entry was next to useless on the iPhone, as this didn’t actually DO anything. It didn’t even link to Google Maps, for chrissakes. However, in Android, clicking an address in a calendar entry gives you a choice of which navigation program you would like to use, either Google Maps (of which their built in turn-by-turn directions, Google Navigation, is AMAZING) or Sprint Navigation. This feature ALONE helps propel Android over iOS, in my mind.

Sure, Android isn’t as pretty or as streamlined as iOS, but I don’t think it’s meant to be. This is an OS, it seems, for people who want as much control over their software and hardware as they can handle. However, as a PC user…I like to tweak. Forgive the blatant generalization, but from what I’ve noticed about Apple users…they just want their stuff to be shiny and work well, to hell with tweaking anything to make it better. PC users, on the other hand, like to tweak, like to build their own PC’s. These differences are the crux of what separates iOS and Android. The first is a walled garden wherein you have to play things by Apple’s rules; the second is a lot more open and free.

Now sure, there are downsides to Android. As Android uses full-on multitasking, the battery life can be drained rather quickly compared to Apple’s more controlled approach to multitasking. It can also be less secure since it’s a more open system, but there are easy ways to protect yourself from this. The battery life on the phone isn’t the greatest either, since the screen is so big, bright and pretty.

Also, I have to say I’m thrilled with Sprint’s service. I’ve not had one dropped call in two weeks, as opposed to tons of dropped calls with AT&T. I also get reception EVERYWHERE in my apartment. This is something neither AT&T nor Verizon could accomplish. My phone bill will also be $40 cheaper a month with Sprint, so thus far, I’m a very happy camper with my service as well as my phone.

Overall, though, I am damned happy I switched. The iOS was becoming too limiting for me and the culture surrounding Apple plus other factors pushed me away, and I’m in a much happier place now. This phone does everything I could want and more, and if I don’t like how it does something, I can change it.

So what about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on your current or future smartphone. Are you an iPhone devotee who’s sticking with the platform no matter what? Have you switched to something new recently? Tell me your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.

In my own case, all of my calendar, email and contacts are through Google, so I can access them anywhere, and I really like that. I don’t really have a trust issue with Google for some reason — I think I’m way too small a fish for them to care about what info I have stores there as long as I click on their ads — but I can see where folks might.

So, let me ask y’all. When it comes to your data, whether it’s your calendar, your contacts or whatever else, would you trust it to the cloud or not, and why? I’m looking forward to discussing this with you. Thanks for reading!

Today, Best Buy announced that this Sunday, August 29th, they will be accepting trade-ins at 600 stores nationwide, also for store credit. Best Buy had been testing this program for a long time, eying similar programs at Gamestop and other vendors, to see how viable it was. Used games will be available for purchase “soon” thereafter.

According to one of these articles, nearly fifty percent of Gamestop’s $570.8 million most recent quarterly profit came from used game sales. As a former employer of Electronics Boutique (which is now wholly owned and has been absorbed by Gamestop), I can tell you personally that they take used game sales very, very seriously. The markup for a used game is enormous. For example, they might trade in a game from you at $1 and sell it back for $20…and people will buy that game at that price (I know I have in the past, and likely will in the future).

More competitors in this space will mean more and better choices for consumers, but what about the developers and publishers of these games? For a long time, they have griped that they’re missing out on making more money from their games since they aren’t included in the secondary market. I personally don’t see a solution for them, however, since purchased games are once again sold at the whim of the individual owner of the copy of the game, rather than the company who made it. Maybe game companies will also get into the used game business? I could see Activision or Blizzard, for example, taking trade-ins of their older titles for credit toward newer titles.

Whatever your take on the used game market, one can see that it’s only gaining steam as these major retailers jump on board the bandwagon. What do you think of all this? Will you buy used games from Target or Best Buy if the price is right, and would you trade in your games for store credit only? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading.