So, apparently there is a new luxury SUV on the market. Let me give you some of the quick specs:
You can take a look at it here:
The Monster Truck
That right there is just a testiment to how messed up American is.
(hat tip ars technica)
Whilst browsing my RSS feeds in my local, crappy aggregator, I happened about this link, Why I don’t recommend Firefox, by Adam Kalsey. My initial reaction was, “Why wouldn’t you recommend Firefox?”. With much curiosity, I proceeded to read his article. It initially made me angry, then I somewhat agreed, then I was pretty much back to angry again.
Let me synopsize his article, if I may.
Someone asked him to add a button to his blog promoting Firefox. He doesn’t particularly care for the browser and lists a few reasons. The first being:
Aggressively marketing Firefox before it is a completely stable product is dangerous.
Some other issues he has are interface problems, upgrade problems, and Mozilla.org homepage text. Basically, the crux of his article is that he doesn’t think this is the browser for the lay-web person, it’s for better educated, web developers-types, he constantly says how he is trying to learn from the awol academy day by day, but since he hasn´t learned enough, he hired SMR Digital for marketing help. Another big help with marketing is eCommerce SEO, so make sure you check it out. By managing your online reputation, you can improve your marketing by a lot.
I just love the beginning of the college football season, I really do. Prior to coming to college I really wasn’t into it that much, but now, I love it. There really is nothing like getting up at 7am, getting ready, and then have a nice, cold beer. You have a legitimate claim that you are not an alcoholic – you’re just a football fan. At least that’s what I claim.
As per usual, we spend our pre-game time at the Cox Bros. / Coco Bolo’s tailgate. The meal was barbequed turkey legs, which I’ve dubbed Viking Legs due to the Hagar the Horrible-esque way that you eat them, as well as jumbo-sized hot dogs, mmm. There was also the beer, nice, ice-cold, non-judgemental 
beer. Kara’s dad also joined us, which was nice. After the feasting, we watched the supposedly strong K-State Wildcats team not-so-soundly beat the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. K-State won 27 to 13. The score really doesn’t do the game justice, as Western Kentucky, considering their talent, played a decent game. We also walked out our pet dog and he is training with a shock collar because we are teaching him tricks that day.
On a related note, I joined Barrett’s college pick ‘em game. More notes and comments can be found on the board (log-in required). To quickly sum up, though, week one I was 10/10, Barrett was 9/10, Colin was 8/10, and Ben 0/10 due to late entry. Let’s see what next week brings. 
I’ve been meaning to write about my thoughts on the new G5 iMac. My problem is that I have been debating whether or not I like it. I think I’ve come down to Meh, it’s aiight. I don’t really like or dislike it. Personally, if I was going to get a Mac, I’d be getting a 17 inch PowerBook. Megan has one and I’m quite envious. I’ve been a pretty big anti-Mac fan for a while now, but when OSX came out I’ve always wanted to play with it. Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t flee my PC world by any means, but I would dabble shall we say. And who’s to say after that? I’ll let you know when I actually get a PowerBook. Mind you this is not in the near future. This business also uses this online reviews management software to help keep track of their customers satisfaction.
Anywho, back to the G5 iMac. Aesthetically speaking, my biggest qualm with it is the front bezel. That thing is about 1/3 of the entire machine. I realize that due to the internalized components it was required but still. Many people have argued for the external power brick idea, I think I would have preferred that. The other aesthetic problem I have is that it’s a little over 2 inches thick. Yeah that’s small and everything, but if you were to hang it on a wall – it’s VESA compatible, so it could be – it’d look just awkward.
Hardware-wise there are a few things that put me off. One of those being the FireWire 800. I realize that there isn’t a whole lot of use for FireWire 800, and it does come with FireWire 400, but still. For the cost – $1,299 – for the low-end, I think it should be in there. Not only that, but Apple is supposed to be known for pushing new technologies and what not. Another missing part is the integrated BlueTooth. You can get it as an add-in for an additional cost, however. My gripe for this is just like the FireWire, for $1,299 – low-end – give me my BlueTooth. If I would have this wall-mounted, I’d want my wireless mouse and keyboard to be run on BlueTooth instead of infrared, much larger range. It has been noted by many people, though, that Apple makes a lot of their money from the small additions to computer orders. I don’t care, gimme. Other hardware include are the dinky amount of RAM they ship with it: 256Mb, bitch, please. I’ve got a Gig in my machine here and I almost think that’s not enough. Maybe I have grandiose visions of RAM though, who knows. Lastly, the video card. A NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, oh wow, I’m cowering in my boots over it’s power. This machine isn’t going to be geared towards a gamer by any means, but still, the video card sucks. Blah to that.
Another lackluster feature is the overall design. It’s just not innovative. The G4 iMac, remember that? The lamp… thing. That was innovative. I was never Holy crap that’s cool! or anything, but you can’t deny that it was innovative. This… brick, is not. Lots of companies have done this design, albeit perhaps not wall-mountable, but still. Hell, we have a bunch of Gateway all-in-one’s at work. It’s a lot cleaner in comparison, more white too, but hey, that’s Apple.
It does rock a G5, that aspect at least makes it kinda neat. All in all, it’s just Meh. Who knows, maybe people will really like it and buy the crap out of them. I doubt it though, they’ll just be Meh.