Mini Review - The Avengers vs The Dark Knight Rises

So the two big movies this summer were Comic Book based movies, which is a genre of movie that isn't exactly showing signs of slowing down in either volume of content or volume of money being made.  Not only are they the two biggest movies of the summer, but they also have some of the top opening weekends of all time, with that title held by The Avengers.

Obviously, I saw them both, and was really looking forward to both.  Admittedly, I'm a Marvel fanboy, and have never been very attached to DC franchises, but Christopher Nolan's treatment of Batman was so very refreshing and excellently executed.

The Avengers was an impressive culmination of at least 5 years of work by Marvel producers, tying in the characters from their marquee movies, taking away the need of an original story in it's climactic group movie.  For characters like Thor, Iron-Man and Captain America to have been given their solo movie treatments with different directors and writers and still have them all mesh together seamlessly in the ensemble movie was a marvel (sorry) of editorial oversight by the people in charge.   Even the Hulk, with the two commercially and technically dubious solo movies finally was done justice.  Immediately after having seen The Avengers, I was ready and wanting to immediately sit through a second showing.  Joss Whedon has again proven that he is the master of giving fans what they want to see, and choreographing perfectly the dynamics of groups that don't necessarily believe in the same moral views.  I truly hope that this buys Whedon some damn collateral the next time he takes a show to TV, if he ever bothers with an outlet that has spurned him so often.

I think the most impressive piece was that Whedon was able to make me care about (IMO) second stringers Hawkeye and Black Widow.   I think Jeremy Renner was very good in his role, and even Scarlett Johansson was passable as Black Widow.

I did end up seeing The Avengers a couple time in theatres, which is the first time I've paid to see a movie multiple times in a theatre since The Matrix (4 times in the theatre when it was released) which I think demonstrates how much fun and how well this movie was done.

The Dark Knight Rises is also the culmination of 7 years of work, although this time it was one director's impressive vision and body of work.   What Nolan has done with Batman will make it very difficult for any director to follow without completely changing the dark feel of Batman.  I sincerely hope this does not meana  return to the neon foolishness of Joel Schumacher in the late 90s.  I would guess that Dark Knight Rises was critically acclaimed more than The Avengers, based on it being more serious in it's writing and style.

Upon finishing The Dark Knight Rises, I simply felt... nothing.  There was no excitement, there was no talking with my wife about scenes in the car on the way home and there was no talking about it at the next day.  I enjoyed the movie, overall it was pretty much what I expected to see, and maybe that's the difference.  The Avengers gave me what I wanted to see.   Some might consider that pandering to the fans, but I'm sorry, I'm paying money to see a movie, and sometimes I want to see things for MY enjoyment, not for the director's.

The Dark Knight also had more annoyances for me.  For one, Banes voice was annoying at best, and way too difficult to hear.  It absolutely broke my immersion in the movie.  Everytime he spoke, he sounded like it was doing a bad Patrick Stewart impersonation through a drive thru speakerbox.  A very rare gaffe by Nolan, who's villains up to this point were very well done and easy to accept.  Even Anne Hathaway did well, both in her Selena Kyle and Catwoman roles.

I felt the ending was unnecessarily direct.   Without going into spoilers, I would have appreciated either a darker or more questionable ending than was provided, and it would have been more fitting to Nolan's handling of the franchise.  Too many things were wrapped up that didn't need to be overtly hammered over our heads.

Now Nolan is involved at some level with the Man of Steel movie, which is a redo of Superman, and rumours are that Nolan will be overseeing the DC major franchises for a Justice League ensemble movie in 2018 or something.  I'll reserve judgment on this until I see how the Man of Steel is pulled off, but I'm not seeing a dark gritty Justice League doing as well as the lighthearted, exciting, over the top action of the Avengers which holds true to the source comic books.  Yes, Batman works as gritty realism.  Superman, Wonder Woman... not so much, but Nolan has the collateral with me for me to give it a chance at least.

There, again, is the difference.   I'm willing to give Christopher Nolan a shot with involvement with Superman based on his body of work.   I was absolutely unwilling to accept ANYONE by Joss Whedon a chance with The Avengers 2, which has since been confirmed as belonging to Whedon.

So for me, The Avengers was by far the better movie, is recommended by me for anyone whether or not you enjoy comics, whereas The Dark Knight was a worthwhile end to a strong trilogy.

Review - HTC One S

It became time to finally start looking at cellphone upgrades this summer, and this time around, I was going to go for a little more high end than I normally do for my cellphones.  Chasing the top performing phones is an ultimately losing proposition because you'll only be the top dog for a matter of weeks before something bigger, faster and 'better' is released.

My shopping and investigation led me to the HTC One S and the Galaxy Nexus, and it was a very difficult decision, and one that I have had twinges of regret once in a while.  I'll get to that a little later.  I went with the HTC One S because it was brand new, and a top performing phone.   I think it's sleek, very well made, and absolutely top notch.

Build Quality
The phone itself is surprisingly thin and has a very solid feel to it.  I would say it feels almost as sturdy as my older HTC Legend, which was made from a solid body of aluminum.  The finish on the case looks very nice, it's not simply a brushed metal finish, and is a metallic matte grey colour.  On the top of the back of the phone is the camera, with a blue accent ring around the lens.  The camera lens does protrude a bit from the body of the phone, but my simple case is thicker than that protrusion.   The volume rocker is on the right side of the phone, and the power button is on the top of the phone along with the headphone jack.  The micro USB is on the left side.

Some with smaller hands may find the power button on the top as being hard to reach, but I happen to prefer that location to my wife's Galaxy Note which has the power button on the right side, which I find awkward to use.  That's a matter of preference I'm sure, but my last 3 phones have been HTC, and I'm used to it;s location along the top.

On the front of the phone is a very smart looking black border on the screen that extends down the sides of the phone.  This gives the illusion of the phone being even thinner from the side, and makes for a very nice feeling on the fingers as the screen feels truly edge-to-edge with no bevel at all.  There are 3 capacitive touch buttons on the bottom (Back, Home and Recent Apps) and the front facing camera is on the top right of the phone, and the speakers are actually tiny holes drilled right into the solid body of the phone, again lending to it's solid build and design esthetic.  Hidden in one of those tiny holes is a single LED which is the notification LED.  A simple design choice that speaks to the thought that went into this phone.

The only feeling of bad design is the cover that goes on the back of the phone around the camera, which is where the SIM goes.  There is a bit of squeak, and hollowness to it which is disappointing.  Aside from that, the phone feels absolutely great in the hand, albeit a little slick to hold on to, which was  the driving factor in me getting a case for the phone.

Audio
The new HTC phones comes with 'Beats Audio', but to be 100% honest, I'm not entirely clear on what that is, aside from an equalizer.  My phone didn't come with headphones which is a weird decision by either the carrier or the maker when you're touting something like Beats Audio.   With that being said, the audio quality is good when listening to music, but truth be told I sometimes play music with the Beats Audio option enabled, and sometimes disabled.  As far as the in call quality is concerned, it is very good, and the speaker phone works well too.

Camera
To say that the rear facing camera is fast is an understatement.  The time between me pressing the camera app icon and the camera launching and being ready to take a photo is barely measurable.  There are also realtime camera filters, and the ability to hold the button down on the screen and take several photos per second which works very well for sports photos.  The neatest trick though is the ability to take photos while recording video without interruption.  I'm not much of a picture taker, but this camera is the best I have seen on any mobile device.

Speed
This is one of the few times where you'll get technical stats from this review (If you want specs, you can them all over the internet, this review is about user experience).   This phone has a dual core 1.5GHz processor which makes for an amazingly quick phone.  Are there faster phones out there?  Of course there are, but this phone is far from a slouch.  I'll be getting a lot of miles out of this phone based on it's speed and build quality.

Software
Here's where HTC either wins people over, or loses them completely.   The phone comes with the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android modified by what is called HTC Sense.  Sometimes it's minor design changes, and other times it's more major application integration and functionality.  While I love the pure Android experience, I really do like what HTC has done with this new version of Sense.  It's far less obtrusive and very sharp visually, and for me was a major selling feature for the phone.

Now, the software is where those moments of regret have come in with my choice of phones.  When I bought the phone, JellyBean had not yet been offficially unveiled, and I figured it would be a very minor release without a lot of updates, given how major ICS was.  JellyBean was announced and unveiled about 3 or 4 weeks and the speed upgrades from 'Project Butter' and Google Now were far and above what I was expecting to see.  It was announced that the Galaxy Nexus and the Xoom (which I am using to write this review) were going to be the first devices to get this operating system upgrade.  I have an irrational need to have the most up to date systems for my phones and tablets, and I knew it would eventually mean having to root my HTC One S, and installed a custom system with JB.   However, I have been using CyanogenMod 10 which is their JellyBean release, and while I am very happy with the system, I do miss some of the HTC Sense features.  When HTC gets around to upgrading my phone to JellyBean themselves, I can honestly see myself going back to their system, which I think speaks to how well it works.

Overall Impressions
As you might expect, I am very very pleased by this phone.  At the time it was released it was the top performance phone in North America.  It's bigger brother, the HTC One X, has a higher screen resolution but was lacking the quad core processor of it's international version.  Higher screen density with the same processor means it is slower.  I've had this phone for almost 2 full months now, and looking at the current phone market, there isn't a phone that I would trade this one for, and that includes the massively popular Samsung Galaxy S3.

Editorial
Since I have already mentioned the Galaxy S3, I simply do NOT understand the incredible appeal of the Samsung Galaxy line of phones.   I find their physical design very underwhelming, and the physical Home button baffles me.  Touch Wiz (which is Samsung's Android modifications akin to HTC Sense) really seems to me to lack a strong design aesthetic.   At the same time that I bought my HTC One S, my wife bought a Samsung Galaxy Note, and while it's a great phone, and she's very very pleased with it, she does miss HTC Sense. I think HTC pushes the design envelope more, and I don't see the same from Samsung.  HTC has also acknowledged that people who by there phones want to root and unlock them, and HTC has made the process VERY easy in direct response to their community.  I think the fact that HTC launched their high end phones in the forthcoming shadow of the unstoppable GS3 launch may have hurt them.  HTC has had a difficult year financially, and I'm disappointed that their hard work isn't paying off as much for them.  I do want my next phone to be an HTC, and I just hope there is still room in the market for them in 2 years.

Now, to HTC, I will simply say, get that Jelly Bean release done quickly.

Cellphone Showdown - The preliminaries

I've started the 6 month process of shopping for new cellphone upgrades.  Right now I have an HTC Legend, a relatively low end (mid range at the time) android phone.  My early upgrade isn't until the fall, but that doesn't mean I haven't started shopping around.

Here's my current short list based on what's out and known right now:

Samsung Galaxy Nexus- I love the idea of a 'pure' google experience phone, but the specs are a little behind other phones even when it was released before Christmas.  The build of the phone, the curve, and the ICS operating system are all very enticing.

Samsung Galaxy S II - On paper better than the Galaxy Nexus, but there's something I just don't like about Samsung phones.  If I could get the specs of this phone, in the body and OS of the Nexus then that would be the leader of the list for me.  Yes, I know that the Galaxy Nexus is made by Samsung, but it just doesn't look or feel like a Samsung to me.    I don't know if it's the build button at the bottom, or what, but it just doesn't appeal to me, better specs or not.

Motorola Droid  RAZR (or RAZR Maxx) - I have a Motorola Xoom, and love it, strong build quality, solid OS, clean of crud (relatively).  I like the design of the RAZR, the thin lines, the edged corners, and that they are in the midst of being bought by Google which suggests that it will be quick to get upgrades and loving attention.  (unsupported by fact, of course).

Finally, the big boy in my wish list right now is the HTC One X.  I have an HTC phone now, as does my wife, and my best friend (all Legends) and without exception, we love the phone.  HTC has made big moves in the last year in unlocking their phones (meaning they can be rooted, or opened for modification without having to jump through stupid hoops) and also making their modifications to the Android system (known as HTC Sense) lighter and faster.  Personally, I love the behind-the-scenes changes that HTC makes for it's phones.  This currently is possibly the most powerful Android phone, and ergo the most expensive, but I'm hoping that the summer will temper that pricing a little bit for when my contract comes up.

Of course, this list of phones will grow and shrink as new models are released.  On the horizon in the rumour mill are the Samsung Galaxy III S, and probably a newer RAZR.   As those phones are released, and as models become available with my current carrier of choice (Bell Mobility), I'll give hands-on impressions and see where I can steer my wife and friend to  join me on my quest for upgrades.

Browser Brouhaha

The browsers wars.  There has been more written on the fight between Microsoft and it's competitors in the web browser market than I can share or even summarize.  I'll leave the Netscape vs Microsoft for the history books, and instead speak briefly on the new browser wars between Google, Mozilla and Microsoft.  The current browser wars amount to two giants slugging it out with one plucky fella managing to stay on his feet.  What's interesting though, is that the plucky browser survives due in no small part to money from one of the giants.

First, to the browsers.  

2 or 3 years ago, if you told me that you ran Internet Explorer, the first thing I would have told you in order to secure your system was stop using it, and install Firefox.  However in my experience the newest version of Internet Explorer (IE 9) is actually a pretty solid browser.  It has solid web page performance, and is by most accounts very standards compliant. 

What do we mean when we talk about compliance with standards.  It's a web browser after all.  What does it have to comply with?  A web page, if coded to the proper standards should display the same on every browser that is also compliant to the standards.  This way web pages are neutral to what software you choose to use, just the same way that you car will run on gas from any gas station, your web browser should be able to display any web page.   However, what if the maker of 90% of the cars said "Starting this year, all of our cars will run on kerosene," then what would happen?   This is exactly what happened with IE6.  IE6 starting changing how is displayed, or rendered, web pages.   They had already won the browser war at that point, and if people wanted their webpages to display properly on 90%+ of the viewers, they had to start coding pages to Microsoft's mandated standards, and not the neutral HTML standards.  You started to see "Best viewed in IE6" everywhere on the web.  This ended up biting MS in the ass however, because businesses ALSO started coding their internal websites to those specifications, and when Microsoft started to see browsers like Firefox (and much later, Google Chrome) eat into their market share, they realized they couldn't just ride the IE6 bus forever.   However, when they wanted businesses to move to more modern and more secure browsers, the businesses couldn't because their internal sites didn't work properly on Microsoft's newer, more standards compliant browsers.

Back to IE9 though...  Microsoft claims that it's browser is more compliant to the agreed upon standards of HTML coding, specifically HTML5, than it's competitors, and they may just be right.  The HTML5 standards system is complicated and really not fully realized yet on the web, and so we can only base a browser's performance on test pages.  On Microsoft's own standards compliance tests, IE9 smokes everything else.  However, on Google's compliance tests, guess who wins?   Yup, Chrome.  Funny how each browser performs better on it's own test sites eh?

IE9 is the first MIcrosoft browser in a LONG time that I don't grimace when people tell me they use it.  It is a solid browser, scores well on security and also on performance.  By performance, I mean web page loading speed, but also just how long it takes to open the browser itself.  So, why did Microsoft push for being compliant with the standards?  For the longest time, Mozilla's Firefox browser has been the darling of the coders and of the folks who take their web browsing seriously.  Within Firefox, you could load 'addons' that block banner adds, make your browser faster, or more secure. Mozilla is the spiritual (and technical) successor to Netscape, Microsoft's old nemesis from the 90s.  As Netscape was going through it's final death throes, and was bought up by AOL, they spun off the code for their final browser to an open source project called Mozilla.  That forked (or split) again to Firefox.  So somewhere in Firefox lies the heart of Netscape, and it still wanted to take the big IE down.  Firefox fought for years against Microsoft, relying on support from volunteers and corporations like Google.   Google, to this day, remains a supporter and partner with Firefox.  A recent agreement that was extended continues Firefox's use of Google.com as it's default search engine (can be changed at any time by the user however) and it has been reported that Firefox gets an amazing 84% royalty from that search income which is absolutely extraordinary. 

I, for the longest time, used Firefox exclusively, however as it became bigger and better, it also became slower, and clunkier.  Sure, I was driving an M1 tank around the internet, completely protected from banner ads and malware attacks, but the browser handled like a tank.  It took a good 10-15 seconds to just launch.  However, I was a proud Firefox user, and recommended (damn near required) it's use for anyone on the internet that came to me for help.

Then one day, Google announced that it was getting into the browser market, and I was curious.  I downloaded the beta of Google's new browser, called Chrome, and it was like no browser I had seen.  The style and design of it was unique.  Mind you, there was very few, if any, options in that test version, but more importantly, it was FAST.   It took usually less than a second to open when I clicked it.  I had NEVER seen a browser open that fast.  And it seemed to load web pages with the same blinding speed.  But being test software, there was a lot of things it choked and died on, and so I stayed with Firefox.   Eventually, after I saw how quickly Google was adding features and improving Chrome, I moved over to it entirely.  IE and Firefox had development cycles measured in what felt like years.  Google was adding features and updating weekly if not daily.  And this was another major feature for me.  Google Chrome automatically updates.  There was no chasing updates on the website, or having to check to see what's new.  It just appeared when you launched the software.  I recognize that for system admins, software that automatically updates without them being able to audit or test for internal compatibility is a nightmare.  For me, a home user and geek enthusiast, this was amazing.  My wife will tell you how much it kills me to know there is a more up to date version of software that I can't get because it's in closed beta, or not available for my hardware.

IT KILLS ME.

With Chrome, I was able to easily designate whether I wanted to be on the Stable release, the less stable Beta release (usually updated every week or so) or the dangerous Developer release (usually updated daily).  Google Chrome was mocked and laughed at as a silly little kid, but I think people misunderstood how much we users wanted something carefree and FAST.  I don't have the ability to block as many ads as I can in Firefox (Google does make it's billions on advertising revenue), but when Google Chrome included the ability to have add-ons like Firefox does, at least I can block the annoying and ugly banner advertising.  It was at this point, when Google started to report 10% of the market, catching up to Firefox, that suddenly MS and Firefox started to work on smaller/leaner browsers that could compete with Google's new speed demon.  Recently, Google announced that Google Chrome (version 15) is the most commonly used browser version on the market.  Don't kid yourself though, because Chrome automatically updates, you don't have customers out there running a wide variety of versions.  However, IE7 and IE8 and IE9 are all out there in large numbers, and in total still represent a greater share than Chrome.   Some recent numbers place IE around 37%, Chrome at 27% and Firefox at 25%.  The remainder would be smaller browser markets like Safari on Apple devices, Opera and mobile device browsers.  This type of competition is great, because it has driven the developers to improve their coding instead of resting on established installations.

What browser do I recommend?  Personally, I'd use Chrome, Firefox8 or IE9 and be satisfied, I simply prefer Chrome.  It stuns me to sit here today and type that, but in today's browser wars, there is no clear good guy, no clear bad guy, just a 3 way fight for my heart, which I'm happy to sit back and benefit from as a user.

If you're using IE6 though, DO SOMETHING THAT ABOUT THAT NOW.

Twitter vs Facebook vs Google+

As I have found myself moving away from Facebook and towards Twitter over the last year, and now to Google+, I have friends and family asking why I'm moving to Google+ or even why Twitter in the first place.  Of course, the reasons that I use these 3 systems will be different from why others use them, but I'd like to try and explain in terms that are easy to understand for everyone, why I have moved across these different social systems.

Facebook was, obviously, the big player on the market, and certainly isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  With rumours of a Facebook IPO coming next week, we'll see just how much public and investor confidence there is behind this king of social media.  Of everyone I know, it's odd that someone ISN'T on Facebook, whereas years ago, the question was "Are you on Facebook?"   Today it's simply a given fact.  So, why am I moving away from it?  It's privacy controls for the longest time were dubious at best, and the spam from the Farmville zombies (amongst others) have really caused me to start ignoring Facebook.   Do I use it to contact folks that aren't on the other networks that I use?  Of course, and I do have a select group of people who's posts I continue to 'like' and comment on.  I don't think I need to explain the Farmville spam, if you're on Facebook, you're either addicted to Farmville, or annoyed at those who are.  This is called a Universal Constant.  However, the privacy concerns are that for the longest time, it wasn't convenient to control who can see what posts.  There are things that I want to share with co-workers, but not with family, and things that I want to share with my D&D group that I don't want to share with anyone else.  They have gotten better with that type of privacy control in the last 6-9 months, but the other issue that I personally had with Facebook with regards to privacy, is that it seemed I had to reset my privacy settings and 'filters' several times in the run of a year.   Am I deleting my Facebook account?  Certainly not.  It's there, I just don't post anything new, or produce anything for others to read there.  What type of information do I get there?  I get the occasional family update, some funny pics and links from old friends, and that's about it.

Twitter was something that I was vocally skeptical about when it first came out, but registered relatively early, even if to just camp my account name, before someone else took it.  So what is Twitter, and why would I use it instead of Facebook?  Twitter is faster, and leaner, and generally more relevant, if you follow the right people.  Twitter is in essence a messaging system restricted to 140 characters, that when you post your message, called a tweet, everyone who follows you can see it.   It broadcasts that message with no external filtering at all.  You can also send messages (called DMs, or Direct Messages) directly to people, by using their username.  For example, my Twitter account is @sirtoast.    So, on Twitter, if you include @sirtoast in the message, it'll flag for me to see it.  Twitter also uses a system called "Hashtags".   A Hashtag is a keyword to index your post.  If I wanted to make a post about the weather in Halifax, I might use #weather #Halifax as my hashtags, so that anyone can search for those keywords, and potentially see my post.  "The #weather in #Halifax is pretty crappy today".   Now, enough of the Twitter101.   Why do I use twitter?  It's fast and easy to follow a lot of groups and people and quickly scan what's going on.  Remember, we're only talking about 140 characters per message.  People tend to be concise, and more importantly, a surprising number of local services and businesses use it to communicate to the public.   Metro Transit uses it to notify of weather disruptions, and my favorite radio station (a shoutout to the crew at Live105 @live105loud) shares those weather updates, as well as other traffic info.   The usefulness of Twitter as a way to stay in touch with new events rather than simply "LOL, stubbed my toe this morning  #ouch" was proven last year.   One day at work, I heard about an altercation on Barrington street that I wanted to get more info on.  I went to CBC.ca, went to the Chronicle Herald website, and saw nothing.  So, I decided to test something, went to twitter, searched for "Barrington street" and "attack", and got a dozen tweets about what happened, including a link to a webpage with more info.  Ironically, I think it was the Chronicle Herald website, but at that point, I saw the usefulness of this service, that at one point I thought of as being vapid and useless.  However, the power of Twitter's 140 character limit, in my opinion, also means that for me, it will always be a tag-on service.  It's not going to be the source of information most of the time, just a quick way to share information that is being generated elsewhere.

Which brings me to the new kid on the block, Google+.  G+ is very interesting to me, in that it can be a bit of Twitter, and a bit of Facebook.   First, a disclaimer.  I am a big fan of Google's services, and I live in the Google ecosystem.   I'm typing this blog on my Motorola Xoom tablet running Google's Android operating system, on Blogger, which is a Google service as well.  I'll be linking this blog entry on G+ as soon as I'm done, and then post my G+ entry on Facebook and Twitter.  I want G+ to succeed.  Why do I like it?  It's not simple Google fanboy-ism.  Those privacy concerns that I had with Facebook, in controlling who gets to see what?  That's baked into the first version of G+ released.  The ability to post publicly, for everyone to see is there too, so it's like Twitter too.  However, G+ has built in location tagging (optional, can be disabled) so that I can see local public posts.  It's like twitter, but localized, and I don't need to follow people to see those public posts.  In Facebook, you 'friend' people.  In Twitter, you 'follow' them.  In Google+, you add people to your circles.  You can name, add and remove your circles, and with every post decide easily whether it's for the public, for all of your circles, or for individual people, or any mix in between.  For the Facebook gaming crowd, there are also Google+ games, but it's no obnoxious to those of us that don't play, don't want to play, and don't want to help you get corn for your farm. Using G+, you can emulate Twitter, including hashtags with public posting, Facebook wall posts by posting to all of your circles, or even email by posting something to just one or two people.  It's that flexibility and the integration into all of the Google services (Gmail, Contacts, Youtube, Google Music, etc...) that really interests me.  Some people are freaked out by the integration, I'd much rather have it unified, than have the disjointed levels of service that we've seen from Google in the past.  (for those Google Apps for Domains users, you KNOW what I'm talking about)  

I also use Google+ as a bit of a news/blog aggregator.  By having popular and interesting bloggers/personalities in my "Following" circle,  I can see what they're up to, what their views and opinions are, and seeing what's going on in the world.  One of the things that I haven't done yet with Google+ is use it's Hangout system.   You can have Voice/Video hangouts of 10 people.  So it's like a Skype video conference call.  And it's just built into the system on the webpage.  No software to download, no need to login (assuming you're logged into Google).  President Obama has used the Hangout system to connect with people on Google+, as have many celebrities, Google execs, and just groups of friends.

Google has been posting numbers in the range of 90 Million users already (the service only was launched last spring/summer) which is an amazing number.  It took much longer for Facebook and Twitter to reach those numbers.  Google hit 50 million in just 88 days, where it took Facebook over 1000 just to hit 25 million.  Mind you, Facebook was essentially creating social networking with every user, and Google is very well established and has a healthy level of cross pollination from it's other services like GMail.

So, if you're not on Google+, I invite you to take a look around, give it a shot.  I think you'll find the noise level is better than Facebook, but you'll also only get out of it as much as you put in.  I did a couple reviews on G+ that I have cross posted to this blog, and without any kind of publicity, I picked up followers from other countries based on the content of my reviews.  Twice as many people have me in their Google+ circles  since the summer than have followed me on Twitter, and I have more posts for longer on Twitter.  Smarter people than me will tell you how much engagement their is on Google+.   You simply get more and better engagement when you post/share things  on Google+ than you do on Twitter and Facebook. I strike that up to the well established quality of Google's search algorithms.  I think it's simply easier to find what you're looking for here.

The choice, of course, is yours, but if you're looking for me, I'll be on Google+.

Ice Cream Sandwich - Motorola Xoom Wifi

I woke up this morning to find that my Xoom had the brand new Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android waiting. I've been using my Xoom (with Honeycomb) since last March, and this has been the most exciting update for the Xoom to date.

Starting with the basics, the new font (Roboto) is very crisp, and easy to read. One of the minor gripes, and an early reason why I almost avoided the Xoom, was it;s ugly font for the clock in the system bar along the bottom. At the end of the day, the font became a non-issue, and i haven't looked back since. The system navigation (swiping back and forth between screens) and general responsiveness has been notably improved. The system widgets for Gmail and Calendar are very easy on the eyes now (not that they were bad before), and the contacts app (now called People) is much better.

If I can reduce this little review down, it would simply say "Polished" like never before. There isn't as major a change from the user experience from Honeycomb (3.0) to ICS (4.0), but if your phone has ICS, and you used Gingerbread (2.3) then it's almost a whole new world.

Aside from spit and shine polish that ICS brings to the table, and the snappier UI response, the built in keyboard has greatly improved it's speed/response when it comes to web browsing. Sites like news.com and canv.as no longer lag in scrolling, however the built in browser still chokes on the animate gifs on canv.as, whereas Firefox Mobile handles it no problem.

The Camera software has been improved, with the new automatic panorama options enabled, allowing for some beautiful landscape shots. Strangely though, the much discussed feature of the Facial Recognition Unlock security feature is missing. I'm hoping that it's just being reworked/tweaked, and will come at a later time.

Generally speaking, I tend to burn out on my fascination with technical gadgets like my android phones and tablet, but I can tell that my Xoom has truly been rejuvenated with this update. There's a lot more that I could type up, and describe (like the improved inline spell checking just like MS Word in most applications) but there are better reviewers and writers out there and all that I can do is express my satisfaction with this update.

[note] This was originally posted on Google+ on Thursday Jan 19

Rocksmith (360)

Here's my little review of Rocksmith on the Xbox360.

I am not an Xbox gamer, and up to this point have really only used the device for media streaming from my PC. I don't pay for XBL Gold membership (that's an entire other rant for another day), but have been a long time gamer on the Wii, and Nintendo family of consoles. I'm brand loyal that way:) A few years ago, I started playing Guitar Hero (first with GH2 on a friend's Xbox) and quickly became addicted to the gameplay, and the great music. Of course, that grew into GH3, and then Rockband. I prefer the gameplay of the Guitar Hero franchises, but can't deny that Rockband was a more polished front face, and definitely won the DLC race.

About 18 months ago, I was taking private guitar lessons and eventually bought my own guitar (Ibanez ART-100 in Black) but just didn't stick with it. The practice became a chore, and eventually as the GH franchise died (or at least fell into a Coma) my interest in genre faded as well. Then this little game called Rocksmith started to get some press last year, and the idea of plugging my own guitar into the Xbox, and learning to actually play the songs properly, while still getting scores, and the feedback that a game gives you intrigued me. I had heard horrible things about Rockband 3's attempts to bring real guitar training into the game, with their attempts to connect better fake guitars, or even 'real' guitars that you had to buy, but this was my own guitar, and the early feedback was that it actually worked.

Enough of the background, on to Rocksmith.

The presentation of the game is pretty nice, and relatively easy to navigate if not a little non-standard in how you get back and forth to the main menu. The 'Main Menu' is not the default screen, your progress/career screen is. For the most part, I can see how that is useful, but it still strikes me as a little odd.

The guitar functionality is very impressive, and easy. I do have a STRONG recommendation though. I was initially running my audio/video through HDMI to my television, and while Rocksmith recommended doing analog audio to my receiver instead of running it through the TV, I didn't give it any attention. I played for a few days, and found just the slightest bit of lag. It's kind of like when you clap your hands in a hallway, after hitting a note, you hear it just a split second later, like an echo. This lag disappeared completely when I went out and bought an analog audio cable to run from my xbox to my amp/receiver. Invest the $30 into the cable if you don't have one already if you're playing any music games.

The game UI is nice, and unobtrusive while playing songs, even a little TOO unobtrusive at times. on the left and right sides of the game UI, you get notices of "Streak 25", or "Perfect", but they're a little hard to read while playing, and so sometimes I miss them. That itself is more than likely very intentional by the game designers, and I'm not exactly complaining about not being able to read words while I'm trying to learn to play guitar at the same time:)

The number of songs included in the game is impressive, and has a pretty good mix of older classic songs, a few hits from the 90s/2000s, and some new artists. You start off with The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, and Next Girl by The Black Keys. Neither of which are bands that I really enjoy, but the songs are songs I know when I hear them, and are great songs to start learning with.

So, am I learning? Yes, and that has been the biggest change for me. When I played games like Guitar Hero, and Rockband, I could play a song on a specific difficulty, until I had mastered it, bit up some confidence, showed off for friends and family and generally feeling good. Then I moved to a higher difficulty when I was comfortable. Rocksmith takes that comfort and throws it out the window. This game is challenging!

Let me repeat that...As someone who is essentially learning from scratch with only a couple months of private guitar lessons learning scales/and fundamentals, THIS GAME IS CHALLENGING. I'm not saying it's hard though, it simply challenges you. The game starts off giving you a single note every few seconds, and lets you establish yourself. The moment you start performing well though, it dynamically increases the difficulty. It never lets you really settle into a comfort zone, and pushes you at every step along the way. This is an amazing learning tool, but it can be intimidating when you start seeing notes/chords you haven't seen before coming at you. In the end, you're only getting them, because you're succeeding at what it's already given you. These small steps in increasing the difficulty make so much sense, and I have faith that it will help me learn and improve better than having set levels of Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane.

However, I have needed to re-learn a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction based on NOT getting 100% in my accuracy, or not easily surpassing previous high scores. Every time I play Satisfaction, my percentage accuracy goes up 1 or 2%, and so it's smaller victories, and not that instant gratification that I'm used to in the music game genre. You know, where you get 5 stars on a song the first time you've ever played it.

I mentioned a career mode, and it's nothing gimmicky like going from town to town, getting tour busses, or anything like that. It's about practicing a couple songs until the game says you're good enough to perform in front of a crowd, and if you do well enough, you get an encore song, that you may never have played before. It's this career mode that has me a little confused, and it may be based on my prior experience of mastering songs before moving to others.

Right now, I'm on my 3rd or 4th venue, and so my 3 or 4th set of different songs. The game is recommending that I practice and perform these songs, but my head says that I should be staying with the couple of songs that I have now, before I resume my progression in learning new songs. So I'm essentially fight against the game, moving to the Practice song options, and staying with that, because I'm worried about the problem of having too many songs kind of OK, but not actually being able to play any of them completely. If you have insight, suggestions, or experience with this, please let me know.

I haven't even touched on the other parts of the game, like the Guitarcade, which is a collection on minigames to help you with chord memorization/recognition, fretting, and other techniques. There is also a full suite of amp/pedal/effects for the guitar which you can customize and play around with for hours. I'm not even close to that stage yet, but for all intents and purposes, this game and your xbox become your guitar amp, and you can just play in the sandbox while ignoring the songs themselves.

Over all, the game has been very enjoyable, and while it will never get the hype/explosive growth that GH and RB experienced, I think that will be better in the long run. Better to have a strong product that does it's job well, then try to meet unrealistic sales goals year after year based on 1 year of fad culture. If you have an electric (or accoustic electric) guitar, and want to learn to play it and have been struggling to learn, this may be the answer for you. I hope it is for me.