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HP TouchPad, Part Two: Hardware

Let’s be honest here: as many have said time and time again, there is no tablet market, only an iPad one. For reasons unbeknownst to myself, I (still) don’t own an iPad. It’s not that I don’t want one, it’s that an iPad is a pretty sizeable outlay1 for a product that has an unknown usage ratio. Irrespective of the reason I don’t (yet) own an iPad, I do own just one tablet; the HP TouchPad.

After what can only be described as a particularly enthralling acquisition saga, it was time to delve into the TouchPad itself, and — perhaps more importantly — its operating system, webOS.

The TouchPad is a pretty basic tablet, really. No fancy bells or whistles here. It looks almost exactly like the original iPad does, only with a few more curves at the edges instead of the bevelled edge of the iPad 1, and with a few side ornaments re-arranged.

If you’re holding it in the correct portrait orientation (home button on the bottom of the face of the device), the speakers are on the left hand side. Yeah, speakers, as in plural: the TouchPad features two speakers with Beats(TM) audio. I’m not entirely sure whether the Beats(TM) audio is a hardware thing or a software one — perhaps even a combination of both — although my suspicion leans towards the latter, due to the presence of a toggle in Sound preferences to turn Beats(TM) audio on or off. In any case, the resultant audio emanating from those tiny but stereo speakers is pleasant enough, even above-average. Like all small speakers, they lack only in any real bass; more than capable of getting the job done, certainly, but no aural pleasure device. I wouldn’t go so far as I call the sound quality of the TouchPad “tinny”, but it’s definitely nothing to write home about.

The rest of the TouchPad is pretty standard: there’s a sleep/wake switch on the top right just like the iPad, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top left, also just like the iPad. On the right side (when held in the correct portrait position as before), there’s even a volume rocker, just like the iPad. Notably absent from the TouchPad is a physical silent switch.

What’s interesting is that the side with the volume rocker has an equal-spaced slot on the bottom part of the device. Pushing the slot in pops out some little sliding tray — presumably this is the SIM card tray for the mythical 4G version of the TouchPad that never saw the light of day (officially, anyway).

Moving on to the front of the device: up the top you’ve got a truly mediocre front-facing camera (that, somewhat surprisingly, ranks in at 1.3 on the megapixel scale), something Apple didn’t think about putting in the iPad until the second version. A peanut-sized “home” button (which actually glows when you’ve got new notifications on the device, acting as a notification LED — something no iOS device has) and a 9.7-inch, 1024×768 resolution LED-backlit IPS display (pretty much identical to the display on the first iPad) round out the front of the most discontinued tablet with the shortest availability period by the company with more misdirection than not you’ve never seen.

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CSI: New York

Alternative title: what I’ve been up to so far this holiday period, part one.

For starters, I’ve been watching *a lot* of CSI: New York. Before any of you start some epic tirade about how it’s crap television and whatever, that’s cool, you’re totally entitled to your opinion. CSI: NY is somewhat of a guilty pleasure, but oh — what a pleasure it is.

Note that I don’t watch it for the crimes that are investigated. I’m not actually sure why I watch it — perhaps it’s a combination of the characters, crimes, and the science — but it makes for some good entertainment most of the time.

I *adore* the little snippets of character development here and there, too. Hawkes (played by Hill Harper) is the brilliant ME-turned-CSI that is impossible not to love, and Danny and Flack (Carmine Giovinazzo and Eddie Cahill, respectively) are both excellent characters who exude charm. It’s really, really good.

The crazy thing about CSI or any other long-running TV show is that it’s not all action, not all glamour, certainly not all of the time. You make your way through more than a few mind-numbingly boring episodes (by comparison), and then — boom! You’re hit with an episode where Danny is suddenly a hostage, and the lab is hit by people who just want their cocaine back. Mac rigs up some explosive which ends up blowing up half the lab, and it just keeps coming.

An episode where one of their own is found dead in a car.

An episode where Hawkes reveals a mistake he made.

An episode where one of their own is shot and killed, in one of the most explosive and action-packed (possibly my favourite) CSI:NY episodes of all time, which screws up Flack for quite a few episodes.

Most of these episodes I’m describing are mostly season episodes, yeah, but that’s just the thing — CSI: New York is good TV.

Editorial: The broken, sputtering launch of Battlefield 3 online multiplayer | Joystiq

That’s because, for three Battlefield games in a row, the same scenario has played out at launch: gamers purchase said Battlefield iteration in great numbers, resulting in no one being able to play the game due to overloaded servers.

via Editorial: The broken, sputtering launch of Battlefield 3 online multiplayer | Joystiq.

Any game will have bugs, I’m sure, but how many of those can be filed under “teething issues”, compared to those that are “just plain incompetence”?

In any case, it’s good to see EA actually doing something about BF3 multiplayer servers. Servers are much more stable these days than they were on launch, and I haven’t had any random server disconnects for a while now.

Graphing Calculator Story

I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would start reporting to me. She didn’t ask who I was and let him keep his office and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely productive. We worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Greg had unlimited energy and a perfectionist’s attention to detail. He usually stayed behind closed doors programming all day, while I spent much of my time talking with other engineers. Since I had asked him to help as a personal favor, I had to keep pace with him. Thanks to an uncurtained east-facing window in my bedroom, I woke with the dawn and usually arrived ten minutes before Greg did. He would think I had been working for hours and feel obliged to work late to stay on par. I in turn felt obliged to stay as late as he did. This feedback loop created an ever-increasing spiral of productivity.

via Graphing Calculator Story.

Possibly my favourite Apple-related story, ever.