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So, they did it. Apple managed to day to announce a super-thin laptop. So what? That’s cool. Well, there’s some things you should keep in mind before you consider spending $2,000+ on one.

•  It’s yesterday’s technology… today.
• The hard drive is 4200 RPM PATA (unless you blow $999 on the solid state drive with a skimpy 64GB of storage). Even then, it’s probably still parallel ATA.
• The processor options are 1.6 GHz or 1.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo chips. Sure, they got Intel to make them micro-sized, but 1.8 GHz? My laptop is over 1 year old and it came with a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo standard!
• Remember there is no built in Ethernet, modem, optical drive. You can get them all externally, for an additional $177.
• One USB port. This may or may not suit you… but I often need at least 2 or 3. And with the previous bullet… you might want to get yourself a hub.
• It’s overpriced, in my opinion. My direct comparison would be to a Dell XPS M1330. For $1,650, you get an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz processor, 3GB RAM, 200GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive, nVidia Geforce 8400M GS 128MB RAM video card. The M1330 also has a webcam built in, as well as 2x USB ports, a FireWire port, a fingerprint scanner, HDMI and VGA ports (no adapters needed), and an 8-in-1 media card reader. You can also get the M1330 with mobile broadband built in. Add on a Dell CompleteCare warranty and all accidental damage is covered. Apple has no such protection plan.
• There’s bound to be premature problems. When the horror stories start popping up on the web in coming months, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

So, before you make this overpriced heap of yesterday’s technologies your next laptop, think again. It seems pretty foolish to me to choose this over a Dell XPS M1330. Oh, and did I mention you can get that with accidental damage coverage?

Clips: Watch 3000 Barrels Fall Down In Crysis

Yeah, watch this. This just goes to show how freeking realistic and amazing the Crysis engine is.

BioShock Wins Game of the Year - Full VGA Winners List

Yay! BioShock won game of the year!! This makes me pretty happy. It’s a magnificent game.

Adobe: The second quarter-century begins

Just think.. Adobe is only 25 years old.. in another 25 years, you won’t even have to “Photoshop” your pictures… they’ll come out of your digital camera as PSDs with layer masks already in place. Imagine PSD as the future camera RAW.

I must admit, I am relatively new to creative design software… compared to some well-seasoned folks. I started out with Photoshop 5 for Windows in 1998 and taught myself enough to make my first band’s DIY CD artwork. I couldn’t imagine doing it with another program. Back then, InDesign didn’t exist. I didn’t know how to use Illustrator. And I didn’t even know what QuarkXPress or PageMaker was. The other graphics program for me was Microsoft Image Composer, which I liked VERY much. It was SUPER easy to do cool things like gradients.

I began doing websites using either notepad or Microsoft Frontpage earlier than that, in 1995. I was in 7th grade. I remember thinking about how cool Frontpage Extensions would be if they really worked. I think they were more of a pain. The other alternative for me was Netscape Navigator and it’s built in editor. It did NOT play well with Frontpage. Framesets were the thing to do then. One of my very first sites somehow has survived the past decade without being touched. You can go look at it here. I have no idea how to log in to change anything, delete the account or whatever. I thought it was history when Yahoo! took over Geocities, but it survived.

And so, in this short time that I’ve been keeping up with Adobe, I have come to realize that it’s not what your software can do, but what your software enables you to do. With Creative Suite 3, I truly find myself concentrating more on what I am creating instead of how I am going to create it. It no longer matters what program I start out in, because workflow is so streamlined that I can work on the same design in multiple applications if needed. That’s what it is all about. I congratulate Adobe on this fine achievement.

And right now, it is 5:16 AM, and I need to be waking up at 7 AM. I tried to go to bed 3 times already, but I suppose my nocturnal self doesn’t want to sleep.

My Adobe Audition 3 order finally came in! Even though I’ve been using the trial since it shipped, it’s always nice to have my own, legal copy. I used it for the Brandywine Valley Talent job we did last week and it was very nice. Anyways…

I ordered the EVGA nVidia Geforce 8800GT 512MB video card last night. I’m going to sell the 8800GTS card I have now. The 8800GT is cheaper, smaller, and faster. Can’t go wrong either way!

Computer Randomly Plays Classical Music

This is a real Knowledge Base article on Microsoft’s support website. Pretty funny if you ask me.

Well, I have the game Crysis. I read the review of it on IGN and after seeing a lot of ads for, I figured I’d give it a try. It got a 9.4 from IGN, which is nearly the best rating since BioShock’s 9.7. I don’t think I’ll like it as much as BioShock, but it comes pretty close. Game AI’s are getting so darn intelligent, games are just much more than the two paddles of Pong these days. The graphics are pretty amazing too, thanks to DirectX 10, although I’m on medium quality even with my Geforce 8800GTS just to get smooth video. I do plan on replacing it with an 8800GT very soon. I love this 8800GTS, but the whole dual-slot thing is a major annoyance for me. Crysis, unlike BioShock is only a PC game… so you won’t get to play it on your Xbox 360… my guess is that it’s far too demanding for an Xbox 360 to handle. Anyways, I have some work to do actually.

I was reminded today of a program I purchased some time ago called R-Studio. This is by far the best data recovery (undelete) program. It finds stuff that nothing else will. In some cases, it’ll even find data after formats and file system changes. Obviously, it can’t recover data that has been written over (on the physical part of the drive). It’s small in size, and relatively inexpensive ($80 for the full desktop version).

Today I was restoring a bunch of backups, and Adobe Lightroom freaked out, and overwrote my catalog file with a blank one. In Lightroom, the catalog file contains all of your develops and edits. So, this was kind of a big deal for over 2,000 photos. I whipped out R-Studio and it found the deleted copy from the location on another hard drive where I had it backed up to. Oh, and if you do use it, be sure to check the RECYCLER folders.

But seriously, if you value your data, be proactive and purchase this program. Install it and forget about it. It’ll come in handy soon enough.

I just got done building a two computers for work. You can get yourself one by ordering this Newegg Wish List. It’s a really fast computer with lots of features for less than $1,200 after rebate.

Dell 7950GTX 512MB Laptop Video Card

I won this auction with a best offer of $300. However, I’m sending the seller my current 7900GS card in exchange for the $195 off. I think that’s a fair trade. I’m being refunded $100 after he gets my old card.