A quick look at the app made it seem a lot user friendly than what you would get when booting up the Safari Browser. Though it does launch Safari regardless when you try any of the “apps” that comes with the…app. Such as Gmail, Calendar, Reader etc. But what really got my attention was the “Voice Search”. It’s exactly how it sounds. You search using your own sexy voice. How neat could that be?

I couldn’t get it to search my own name, “Nick Simonsen”. I got a bunch of close ones like “Nick Simonson” or “Nick Sorenson”, but also got some far fetched ones like “Necromancer” and “Lakeland tn”. None the less, the app did recognize me saying “2 girls, 1 cup”. Kudos Google, Kudos.

Nope, I’m not dead. Sorry to disappoint. Just haven’t found anything worthwhile to post. That there is a lie. But really…

On a lighter note, my brand new portfolio website is now up.

Go on and visit Avid Web Developer.

After about 8 revisions, and I do mean fully coding out each design, I have finally come to one design and layout that I like. I’ve tried too many fluid layouts but always ran into a big problem…white space. With this design, I managed to utilize the content I had on the page without overwhelming the user with random crap or empty white space. It’s a nice balance. I personally don’t feel like scrapping this design and layout anytime soon.

So let me know what you think of it. Feel free to bombard me with flaming ponies while you’re at it.

I knew that when my laptop went into service with Acer, I would be given a refurbished hard drive for replacement. I was right. Only 7 months in, and this hard drive is acting up already. I’m not sure what the cause of all this is though. But I’ve detected the first signs of the inevitable.

It first starts off with a very slow boot. Then from there on out, any sound coming from the laptop is very slow. Almost like playing a video in a rough slow motion. So far I haven’t seen the signs of CPU slowness, so I know I still have time to evacuate everything off this laptop.

I went out and purchased a brand new laptop hard drive from Memory Express. I was expecting to pay no more than $150 for the hard drive and enclosure. Nope…walked out $260 short. I wanted a 120 GB hard drive, but they had none. They only carried 100GB and 160GB both being 7200s. $150 for 100GB or $190 for the 160GB. I couldn’t help it but get the 160GB one. As for the enclosure, it’s eSATA and fairly small. So I can expect to carry it around with me using the soon-to-be-ripped-out hard drive from this laptop.

Once I’ve evacuated my hard drive of my prized processions, no not porn, more along the lines of projects and what not. Until I can get my new hard drive in, this will be my last post using this hard drive.

I just found out something really freakin’ cool. Google maps on the iPhone will cache.

I’ve tested this numerous times to be sure. Video soon to come.

Video of the activation and unlocking will be up hopefully by the end of the weekend.

39 MEGAPIXELS!!

I can image buying one of these beasts and being asked:

Would you like to buy insurance with your portable Hubble Telescope?

Just moments after my last post, reception called telling me that it has arrived!

I won’t be opening it up here right now, so pictures and videos will come later tonight.

So my predicted day of arrival for my iPhone was a bit off but for the better. I estimated that it would take up till this Friday to arrive. But to my surprise, I have been notified that it shall arrive today.

TODAY!!

So as I sit here with available time on my hands, I’m either refreshing my email box to see if reception has sent me a confirmation on the arrival of my iPhone in the office, or I’m photoshopping faces of people on our Blue Business Unit team.

I’m a tad bit excited I’ll admit. I went to The Telephone Booth last night to pick up a SIM card. The girl who assisted me was fairly cool. Not only was I choose pay-as-you-go, she said she’d help me out transferring my number from Telus. I’ve been screwed enough with Telus that I’m fed up with them and their support. So I’m seeing if i can get a better plan. And since my contract has been up for close to a year now, I can drop them anytime I want.

She was also half Filipino, which was cool.

Awesome, just when I was about to get cozy and go to sleep, the fire alarm went off. Not mine, I took out the battery in it because it kept going off every time I used the oven. This was the hallway fire alarms. I thought it was a very loud apartment alarm, but seemed too loud for it to be one.

At first I wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, but after I started hearing doors opening and people taking the stairs, I decided that it would be a good idea to leave too. You could smell smoke as you passed the 8th floor.

Nothing really big happened. Though I counted 4 fire trucks at the scene (4th Ave, 4th St SW). Stood around for 20 minutes before they let us back in.

But those 20 minutes of standing gave me time to think about one thing. I have a shit load a electronics to lose to a fire. I know it’s not as valuable as pets, but it’s still a lot of money. If I were to ever grab one thing, it’d be my hard drive of photos. Everything else I’ll weep about, but these photos of my family and my life are irreplaceable.

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera with me to take pictures. And no…the above picture is no my apartment ;). There really anything to see anyways.

The worst part of all this was probably the climb back up to the stairs since everyone was waiting in line for an elevator. 28 floors…that’s gotta suck.