Apple silent after Consumer Reports critique
FILE – In this file photo taken June 29, 2010, the Apple iPhone 4 is shown at the Apple Store, in New York. A decision by Consumer Reports not to recommend the iPhone 4 because of reception issues could tarnish Apple Inc. ‘s reputation, but the snub isn’t likely to dissuade fans who have braved poor reception for years.(AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, file)
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Done Despicably Well | It’s not a Pixar movie, but the new animated kid on the block still does its job
I have to admit something right off the bat: I’m cartooned out. I haven’t watched this many cartoons in a three-week span in years, and I only watched two. I’m not used to sharing the theatre with so many boisterous, giggling little kids. It’s a different noise when the theatre is f… By Joshua Blevins Peck.
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If you are furnishing a dorm room shop smart to get a comfortable room for a low price. Shop used furniture sales, rummage sales, and browse online for great pieces that will make this temporary space feel like home. You can also look for accessories, bedding, and art to enhance the space.

Finally, those who want to can save on text books and supplies, look to buy these previously owned as well. You can usually find discounted options at the school bookstore, but there may be better options available. Online book retailers are one of the hottest spots for buying previously owned books, so be sure to conduct a search before heading to the school bookstore.

I liked the Ice Storm. It was a good book and movie. I also like Rick Moody. Clearly the Moodster was expecting too much of Amazon when he cracked open his Kindle and immediately expected his device to contain the wisdom of the ages including content by Grace Paley and Stanley Elkin. Sure, the Kindle doesn’t have a lot of old-timey writers in there but there is still enough content to choke a horse.

His complaints? Pretty slim pickings:

Now I have to say, there are many ways that the Kindle truly sucks, right off the bat, at least mine sucks, and people who tell you that it doesn’t suck, and that it is somehow better than a book, or as good, these people are the literary equivalent of Scientologists. They have drunk the Kool-Aid. Here are some ways that the Kindle sucks: it has no page numbers. My Kindle indicates the amount of the text that I have reading in a percentage. This makes me feel like I am huffing gas, not reading the book.

Over time Moody grew to love the Kindle store and accept is as an inevitable source of income for years to come.

Chuck is the embodiment of the dreams of thousands of DeviantArt users—he started out in screenprinting just after high school, worked for t-shirt maker Threadless by day and began creating a name for himself in the online art community by night. Under the pseudonym NoPattern (now the name of his design shop), he achieved incredible success at a startlingly young age: You’ve seen his work before on projects with Pepsi, Urban Outfitters, Reebok, and many more. My personal favorite has to be the cover art for Lupe Fiasco’s fantastic debut album, Food & Liquor:

Today, at only 24, he’s achieved a new level of stardom: His designs for Windows 7 will literally be seen by hundreds of millions of people over the lifespan of the OS. Microsoft hunted him down, and it was definitely a good call; Windows 7 is the best-looking Windows OS ever, and its style is reflected in the cool screens designed by Chuck. Check out some of his previous work in the below gallery (including a great graffiti-inspired piece for Zune) to get a sense of his style.

Since he’s such an independent guy, I was curious to hear how he managed to collaborate with Microsoft, the tech corporation most likely to have the word “monolithic” as an epithet. Chuck says the actual design team he worked with was quite small and surprisingly open to his ideas. The first thing they showed him back in December 2008 were those glorious Dr.-Seuss-as-read-by-Hunter-S.-Thompson wallpapers, so it was clear right off the bat that censorship wouldn’t really be a problem.

The two pieces took about four months, start to finish. Chuck started with a pencil and paper, and moved on to Photoshop for the Windows 7 sheen, but the two pieces retain that sketchy feel—in fact, all the individual threads on the login screen were hand-drawn with a Wacom tablet.

This first gallery shows the stages of the default login screen, the first image to be completed. Later came the default desktop wallpaper and Windows 7′s physical packaging, which both have the login screen as their aesthetic jumping-off point. This is where it begins—click on the first thumbnail to read Chuck’s own words about how his vision evolved.

The Login Screen

As it turns out, there are a few repetitions of the number seven in the login screen, but weirdly enough, that little Easter egg started out as an accident. Once Chuck and Microsoft noticed that there were seven white strands on the bottom left, they started repeating the number: There are also seven leaves, seven branches, and seven flower petals in the yellow quadrant of the Windows logo.

The default Windows 7 desktop is one of my favorites; usually the very first thing I do with a new computer is replace whatever wallpaper comes with it (Apple is a particular offender here—I hate that cheeseball space motif) and yet I happily left this one on my latest computer.

The Default Desktop

Microsoft sought out this young, independent, mixed media digital artist rather than going through traditional channels, and it resulted in a fresh new look that couldn’t have come from another source. It’s credit to them, as is the walkthrough itself. You’d never see Apple showing, say, the pieces that mysteriously got tossed aside in favor of that clip-art snow leopard on their latest OS X packaging, would you?

Thanks to Chuck and to Microsoft for showing us their rejects. [NoPattern, Chuck's Twitter]

Note: Speaking of rejects, you might notice that all the screens are capped at 700 pixels in width. It’s because Microsoft isn’t dumb: They don’t want shots they took a pass on becoming the wallpaper of netbooks and PCs all over. Sorry guys, we tried.

Chumby, everyone’s favorite desktop and bedside companion, is now available in kit form from Maker Shed! [nerdgasm]

At only $99, they sold a bunch right off the bat, but there are still a few left if you’re one of the types that get into this sort of thing. I’ll give a thousand bonus points to whoever shoves the kit into a working toaster first. Just think about it: while you’re waiting for your morning Eggo, you can check the weather, sports scores and even watch a bit of YouTube. It’s the perfect example of convergence.

By Chris Scott Barr

If you’re on the fence about Windows 7, you’re not alone. Many people didn’t like Vista, which makes them leery of upgrading to the next OS from Microsoft. Up until last week you could have downloaded the RC1 Build, but even that isn’t the full polished version you’d get with a new PC. Thankfully, Microsoft seems to know that some people aren’t ready to jump in headfirst and buy a brand new copy right off the bat. As such, they are going to let anyone test out their latest offering for a trial period before requiring them to purchase a license.

No, trial periods aren’t anything new to Windows. Generally Microsoft has allowed 30 days for you to make up your mind before asking you to send some money their way. This time around, you can extend the trial to a full 120 days. That should be long enough for just about anyone to realize that Windows 7 is a solid OS. I’ve been using it full-time on all of my Windows machines for a few months now, and couldn’t be happier. Except maybe when I’m on my Mac. (I kid, I kid.)

[ Telegraph ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

El Seedee

The screen itself is good. It’s 320×240, nice and sharp, and color is vibrant. It’s basically like your average mid-range cell phone screen. Viewing angle is pretty dismal, but you’re usually right in front of it and it swivels vertically anyway. So what’s on it?

Well, the screen has a few basic “channels.” YouTube, RSS Feed, song display, “my videos,” a clock, a performance monitor, a picture viewer, and a timer. Of these, the performance monitor is really the only useful one, because I can’t think of a reason you’d want or need to navigate YouTube or your pictures and videos via this tiny screen. The only situation I can think you’d do it is while in a full-screen app or game that doesn’t minimize or alt-tab well. The RSS reader is adequate, but only displays one story at a time. You’d really have to try hard to make use of this thing.

It works with some games and apps, but not many that I found. FRAPS and Neverwinter Nights 2 were the only ones that showed anything, and they were plain little displays with little information.

Squandered potential, plus it’s annoying

Where’s my bandwidth monitor for uTorrent? Where’s my ammo readout in Counter-Strike or my mini-map in Assassin’s Creed? Of course, it’s on the game and app developers to make that happen, but it’s on Logitech to press them on it. If Logitech is going to roll something like this out, they needed to roll out big or customers are going to see that they’re paying for a fantasy device.

Lastly, the LCD screen is not some self-contained little thing. It runs a bunch of processes in the background all the time, and on XP at least also had an item (or two) in the taskbar all the damn time. Come on, that’s unforgivable.

So unfortunately, that’s the G19’s primary selling point, and it’s not very convincing. Maybe in a year there will be more support for it, or a touchscreen, or what have you, but at the moment it’s just not worth it. But what about the rest of the keyboard?

Solid otherwise

The G19 is, aside from the screen, a very competent keyboard. The keys are big, well-spaced, and have a pleasant resistance to them. They seem to project further from the base than other keyboards, but I have been using the very flat Lycosa for months, so that could just be a bad comparator. The backlighting is the best I’ve seen, and covers the entire rainbow; you can set colors to profiles so you know which you’re in. All illumination turns off with the touch of a button so you don’t have to fiddle with anything if you want a blackout while you watch a movie.

Like the G19’s predecessor, the G15, you’ve got macro keys on the left side and a hard profile switcher — work, play, movie editing, or what have you. Plus, like most gaming keyboards, it detects games you start and will automatically launch a macro/key profile. The macro editor worked well and I use it for blogging shortcuts (inserting image code, signatures, etc) and that sort of thing. I’m not a big macro user but if you are I think you’d enjoy this. The macro keys themselves (G1-G12) are easily available and organized into little blocks of four, excellent for finding without looking (the F-keys are also blocked, thank god).

The other features on the keyboard include a (thank you Jesus) Windows key disabler and the usual media controls. The media buttons worked perfectly for me, although it would have been nice to have them be able to launch the player instead of just control it. The big mute button and volume wheel are responsive and feel good.

Killer app kills the keyboard

So what we’ve got here is a failure to launch. The LCD screen has a lot of potential but is only used for mundane tasks which have no real reason to be on there, or at least don’t justify the cost. Other than that, it’s a great keyboard. I enjoy typing on it, the macros are handy and responsive, and everything works perfectly well. It’s just not worth dropping $200 on because it has a screen. Logitech makes great keyboards, and you’d be better off going with another one, at least until this one has adequate support from the community and industry.