Apple is the Megan Fox of Technology

Posted January 28th, 2010 in General, Swivvel, Technology by Brendan Do
After the release of the iPad yesterday and due to some Apple fanboys raving SO much about the iPad, I thought I’d share my opinion about not why the iPad is a useless gadget but how people in general are not only shallow with people, but with technology as well.

Why did you go Transformers? Why did you go see Jennifer’s body? It’s probably for most of you, how good looking you think Megan Fox is.  I personally liked Transformers and I thought Jennifer’s Body was alright, but I’ve always liked Transformers.. I hear SO many of you say you’re going to go see it specifically because of Megan Fox and most of you can agree that she’s not a very good actress.  She is sex.  That is what she portrays in every movie she’s in.  But! I’m not here to rant about Megan Fox.. Continuing on..

Why is everyone is amused by Macs? Why do all these fanboys want an iPad even though it’s literally just a larger iPhone? Because it’s cool, that’s why. You can do everything that the iPhone can do, but bigger.. and guess what? It looks better. It’s extremely visually appealing.  Everything looks fantastic, the interface of the calendar, the photo gallery, everything.. it’s nice. But functional? Yes, it functions just like an iPhone that can’t make phone calls.  But yet, every fanboy wants it?

Apple didn’t get this much hype prior to OSX.  Why though?  Everyone back then still stereotyped it as an excellent machine to work with for video & image editing (I’m not going to get into that).. Because it didn’t have all these neat little transitions, it didn’t look nice, it wasn’t “fun” for the user to use.

Conclusively, am I saying I won’t ever get an iPad? No, I’m sure one day when it’s cheap I wouldn’t mind buying one to play with.  Am I saying it’s completely useless to me? No. I’m sure it would be nice to hold this thing in my hand in bed or on the couch just lounging and wanting to view a website or something. But is it worth $500+ just for me to do that? No, not at all.

Whether or Not Backing Up is a Good Idea

Posted January 5th, 2010 in Swivvel, Technology by Brendan Do

How safe is your data?

I keep coming across articles on how you should keep your data safe, backing your data up, having multiple copies of backups to have a retention of your data.. I just don’t know what to back up and what method is ideal.  Let me explain how my computer storage works.  I have 2 partitions, 1 is for data and 1 is for the OS.  The OS partition is 250GB and the data partition is a 500GB hard drive in which 300GB is used right now.  Now, do I backup my data? Or do I backup my Users directory in my OS partition?  If I do backup my data hard drive, what method should I use seeing as it’s so many gigs?

I considered doing an online backup to Amazon S3 [Amazon S3] but seeing as if I upload over 300GB, the cost will be over $50 a month, which in my opinion isn’t worth it for an online backup.  Then I considered if I were to just backup to my 160GB Firewire external with the stock Windows tools that it comes with, but I know 160GB wouldn’t be enough for my data drive but it could just as easily backup my Users directory in my OS partition.

While trying to come up with conclusions on what I should do, I did encounter an online backup company called Carbonite [Carbonite], for $55 a year they offer unlimited storage space for backups of your computer.  They even have accidental deletion recovery.  It seems like a good idea, but is $55 a year worth it just to backup all your stuff to a remote location?  Are we all just being too paranoid?  Or am I just being paranoid?

Windows is Actually Doom – How to Enable God Mode

Posted January 5th, 2010 in Swivvel, Technology, Windows by Brendan Do

Remember the days of Doom? Where you’d input the code “IDDT” during gameplay and you’ll enter god mode in the game?  Well apparently, Windows has a similar code.

If you create a folder in Windows 7 and name it:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

your folder icon will change and upon opening it you’ll have access to many many controls confined in one window.  It’s almost handy I suppose, if anything it’s really neat.  I just like the fact that Windows 7 has secret codes to do secret things, I wonder.. if there are any other ones.. If you find any, please post and let us know!