or maybe something uplifting…

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced this year’s finalists. Damn, I guess I have to wait until next year. Again.

I looked through the list of Web/Downloadable games and I’d like to try Star Chamber - it looks like something I could spend a little time on. Wik has the best eye candy based on the screenshots, but I’m guessing side-scroller. Still, I’ll give it a try. While I’m on it, let me be the next (because I know I’m not the first) to compare the lead character to golum in appearance. I’ll say Detective Brand has the most compelling marketing. Hopefully that corresponds to their product. I’ll try a few of these out and report back here for anyone interested.

I have to say the IGF and the Students IGF always has at least one jewel at GDC. Something unique, unusual or imaginative.

HP has a great site for customizing their laptop computers. I say this as a user, but also from a marketing perspective. I find myself more drawn to play with the options since the site makes things easy for me. They lay out their models on one page where I can quickly compare major features and open a new tab to browse the models I’m interested in. From that next tab I can easily customize the computer. The site continuosly calculates the total price and keeps that in the window no matter where I scroll. For each optional feature, the choices have the cost of the upgrade shown. Each time I choose an option for a feature, the other choices have their prices updated immediately.
Read the rest of “Just buy one already”…

The real trouble with a Sony Vaio is that it’s just too damn expensive for me. Even the models that boast “starting at $1149″ have only two preconfigured options around $1500 and $3000. They are beautiful and the brand has been around for a while, so I have to see what I can do to configure it on their site. Read the rest of “The trouble with Sony VAIO”…

The Toshiba Satellite is a pretty popular notebook. I’ve always thought it was something to do with price. I’ve never really liked the look of them but I should be more objective - I know that the plastic of the clam shell doesn’t have anything to do with the silicon inside. Since I’m looking, I owe it to myself to surf on over to their site and see what’s up. Since I’ve noticed that some of the features that are important to me are optional on a lot of mobile computers, I have to lowball my starting price. I hope to end up well under $1400USD. I’d be more comfortable around $1200. So it looks like the candidates here are the Satellite A70, M30X and M35X, and the Tecra A2 and A3. These all start around $1000USD and I know I’ll want a faster hard drive, more RAM or some removable media drive that they charge a little more for. That’ll push the price up but not beyond my comfort zone. Read the rest of “Trying to give Toshiba a fair shake”…

While I was in Toronto for the public Joel on Software lunch, I couldn’t help but scope out a couple of notebooks. Most of the stores that I frequent (around College and Bathurst) carried a few refurbished ones. The big problem with this is that you see something (like, for example a Compaq Presario R3000 - on my shortlist) and it has a sticker on it that says, if you’re lucky, what the CPU clock speed is and that it has a 90 day warranty. How do I make a buying decision based on this information? Oh, that and the fact that it’s $1250CDN. When you configure a laptop online, there are options that swing the price by around $500 (I know I’m mixing US and Canadian currency, but these numbers are not guaranteed to be anything except round). Of course I could talk to the sales person and would if I thought it was a good deal, but it’s too vague to even know if it might be a good deal.
Read the rest of “Computer Shopping in Toronto”…

Step 2: Research
After deciding that it’s impossible to get the notebook computer you want - yes, my old mobile computer was a laptop, my new one will be a notebook. Notebook sounds so much more chic, I think, but I always reserved it as the term for the portable computer that was the next step up from mine. Maybe that says something deep about my psychology, but the next one will definitely be a notebook computer since my old one got way too hot to keep on my lap.
Read the rest of “Notebook computer shopping”…

It’s time to upgrade my laptop. Maybe upgrade is too gentle, it sounds like I’ve been using a laptop and it’s got shortcomings. It’s time to get a laptop. The one I have is so old it doesn’t count as even owning a laptop anymore. It’s a Compaq Presario 1255, circa 1999. If the battery worked (at all, even for a minute), then I might consider it something that I could use to make my office mobile. But a 333MHz Windows 98 computer doesn’t stand to do much for me today but build muscle as I lug it from place to place.
Read the rest of “Do people still call them ‘laptop’ computers?”…