Jordan Chark

Review: HP w2408h; A Value Display Great for Media and Productivity

Posted by Jordan Chark - 25/04/08 at 07:04:20 pm

A while ago I received an HP w2408h for a couple of weeks to review. Having not necessarily had much experience using a monitor of such size, or, for that matter, in conjunction with OS X, it was an enlightening experience.

Size

Firstly, size is one of the key components to work with when choosing a monitor. Of course, 24 inches is on the upper part of that scale, with computer monitors topping off at 30 inches for the most part. In my opinion, though, if you can fit it on your desk with some degree of practicality and ergonomic flexibility, it’s worth it. Resolution-wise, 1920×1200 is a whole lot of room. I definitely enjoyed being able to have single windows open the size of my MacBook’s screen, in what I see as a move to greater productivity. Also, in being a student and freelancer, I often need room for very long word documents. Fortunately, the w2408h can be pretty easily flipped to vertical mode to accommodate them for maximum productivity.
Continue reading Review: HP w2408h; A Value Display Great for Media and Productivity…

CreativePunks!

Posted by Jordan Chark - 10/03/08 at 06:03:33 pm

 

A good friend of mine, Anthony Cole, and I have just launched a new site we’d like to bring to your attention. At it’s core, it’s a Mac site, but with a twist. Straight from the initial post:

“I’m kind of different, you see. I don’t go to parties. I like to geek it out on my laptop instead. Well, not really. I was kidding. Or was I? Who knows. You probably think I’m crazy. I like to consider myself as “Creative”.

My friends call me a Mac whore. Yes. A person who whores out OS X and the Mac platform in general. I knew I wanted to do something special for the Mac, but not necessarily what.

Then it hit me: creativity is what makes people like me who we are - kids aged 13-19. And I don’t know about you, but people seem to have a problem with me, and they like to call me a punk. So I figured “why not?” Creative Punks.”

We think this idea has great potential, and are working on the site in it’s early growth stages at the moment. Check out the site if you will, or, if you’re a teen writer with a passion for Macs, why not consider writing for us?

Review: Audioengine A2; Little Speakers That Pack a Punch

Posted by Jordan Chark - 24/02/08 at 04:02:09 pm

First off, I’ll point out that I’m quite the Audiophile. I see lots of people around these days listening to mediocre speakers, and good ones are becoming increasingly difficult to find. However, when I first put an ear to the space-saving dual-speaker-no-subwoofer Audioengine A2s, I must say I was impressed.

Design

I got the black ones, and in my personal opinion, they’re very slick and stylish. Their design is fairly classic and minimal, but for their size they definitely get the job done. They feel solidly built, and feature a 20mm silk-dome tweeter on the top, with 2.75″ Kevlar woofers on the bottom. In addition, the controls (Volume, RCA, 1/8″ Mini-Jack) are nicely laid out on the back. On my desk, they fit in really well with the rest of my black tech, notably my peripheral setup: The Logitech diNovo Edge and MX Revolution; I can just envision how well they’d fit alongside the newer model iMacs. One small gripe, however: desks are full of dust, and their glossy black finish gets covered in it quite quickly. This isn’t really much of a problem though, as the occasional swipe of a microfiber cloth gets the job done.
Continue reading Review: Audioengine A2; Little Speakers That Pack a Punch…

Off to Macworld!

Posted by Jordan Chark - 11/01/08 at 06:01:03 pm

Well, you haven’t heard much from me lately, but nevertheless…

The pilgrimage. Mecca. His Steveness in the flesh. Those phrases are just a few of what some of you might say when referring to the annual Macworld Expo in San Francisco next week. I’m sure quite a few of my readers are getting hyped this weekend in preparation for Steve Jobs’ annual Macworld “stevenote”, the showcase of Apple’s latest and greatest.

This year has especially been a big one for Apple, with the release of the iPhone, a now benevolent force in the American, British, French, and German telecom markets. With their stock fluctuating around all time highs, more Macs and iPods being sold than ever before, suffice to say, I think things are going pretty well.However, as with every year, there was quite widespread disappointment. Unlike previous years, 2007 was “iPhone, iPhone, iPhone”, which surely didn’t do well to appease the Mac hungry crowd. On the upside, things are looking good in anticipation of the big event, and the rumor mongering has already been going on for quite a while.Now, for a few (not ALL) of my predictions:

MacBook “nano/mini/whatever”

Probably the most widespread rumor out there, I’d expect Apple’s newest ultraportable to be chock full of the industry’s hottest. Featuring a design probably more akin to a MacBook Pro, but a form factor smaller than a MacBook’s, one of those solid-state NAND flash drives that are all the rage these days, upgradeability to MacBook Pro-like specs utilizing Intel’s mobile Penryn chips, long-lasting (4+ hrs) battery life, and multi-touch integration to boot.

OS X 10.5.2

Simply put, a bug-fix update solving many Leopard user’s woes. The 10.5.2 beta build has already been seeded to developers, so I think the likeliness of an announced update is in the “almost guaranteed” range.

iTunes Rentals

Recently partnering with the likes of Fox and Disney, they’d likely employ DRM similar to Netflix. As far as I know, movie downloads in the range of DVD prices hasn’t gone that well, and these big money content deals are really forcing Apple to step up. The lowered pricing of songs in relation to CDs has been what’s made iTunes (and other music services for that matter) so popular, and conceptually it should work well with movies as well.

16GB, 1.1.3/1.2 iPhone

The iPhone, regardless of overall success has many critical flaws which Apple is undoubtedly extremely aware of. A few weeks ago, Gear Live posted a video supposedly demo-ing a secret version of a new 1.1.3 firmware. The features look to be verifiable, and don’t think it’s even too far fetched that we might see an even more advanced firmware debuting. Also, an SDK is in the works for the next month or so, and a bit of an update on that could also give us more insight into the firmware. Another issue to be addressed is storage space, with the iPod touch maxing out at 16GBs, it’s time for a little bit of an update. Hoards of iPhone users have also complained about the lack of speed over AT&T’s (sooo last generation) EDGE network, however, with 3G on their network in the works, and what looks like the simple re-engineering of the cell chip, Steve could very well announce the presence of a 3G iPhone sometime in the future.For more on those, I’d recommend checking out Appletell’s rumor roundup.Now… back to the point. I’ll be attending Macworld (and various events surrounding the actual event itself), as well as providing some coverage over at Appletell, Macteens, this blog, and my twitter so watch those sites for updates and related awesomeness.That’s all for now, folks.

Review: Logitech diNovo Edge; A Truly Next-Generation Peripheral

Posted by Jordan Chark - 17/10/07 at 06:10:31 pm

The diNovo Edge is Logitech’s flagship keyboard. Many of my blogger friends have recommended it to me, and reviewed it themselves, so I thought that it’s about time I give it a try.

First Impressions

The design is obviously one of the key factors Logitech worked with while building the diNovo Edge, and when you first get your hands on it, you can really experience the beauty of such a device. It’s packaged as if it were a high-class product, and realistically, it is very much so. Retailing for $199 (USD) it’s not cheap, but this is surely not just any layman’s keyboard. Continue reading Review: Logitech diNovo Edge; A Truly Next-Generation Peripheral…

Delicious Generation T-shirt Winners, at Last

Posted by Jordan Chark - 04/09/07 at 03:09:04 pm

Finally, after a couple hectic weeks of work, and now, back-to-school, I have the chance to announce the winners of the three Delicious Generation t-shirts cited in my last interview with John Casasanta.

Here they are:

1. Justin Laramee

2. Steffan Williams

3. Yannic Walter

All of you, email John with your size and shipping info to claim your prize.

John Casasanta on iClip, MacHeist, MyDreamApp and Everything Else

Posted by Jordan Chark - 17/08/07 at 09:08:42 am

John Casasanta is the founder of Inventive, and developer of the critically acclaimed app iClip. In addition to that, he’s also a major part of MyDreamApp and one of the founders of MacHeist. In his decade and a half long career he’s racked up two of those ultra-prestigious Apple design awards. I was lucky enough to have the chance to ask him a few questions about Mac development in general, iClip, MyDreamApp, MacHeist, and much, much, more. Also, John’s offered a few of those highly prized Delicious Generation tees to three lucky commenters! Continue reading John Casasanta on iClip, MacHeist, MyDreamApp and Everything Else…

Apple Event Tomorrow; What to Expect

Posted by Jordan Chark - 06/08/07 at 11:08:11 pm

As many of you know, Apple will be holding an event at the Mothership’s Town Hall in Cupertino tomorrow at 10am PDT. It has also been confirmed by the Wall Street Journal that Steve Jobs will indeed be at the event, if not giving one of those mini-keynotes of his, spreading the venerable reality distortion field among those attending.

Described as a “Mac-focused event” the rumor-mill is expecting revised iMacs. They are the product most obviously due for an update as the last time the form-factor of the machine was changed was in the G4-G5 transition, even the specs haven’t been changed since way back in September 2006.

The overall “expectations” for the machine have already been well-established. Brushed Metal aluminum is first on the list, desired designs and rumored photos have shown what look like a photoshopped Cinema Display with an iSight, to a sleeker design still with elements of the ACD, even photos of the rumored box have surfaced.

Another thing which has many people talking is the possibility of the implementation of multi-touch into a Mac, something which would be simply amazing, while I don’t think it’s too likely, I think this guy’s got it perfectly. Also, there’s the implementation of Intel’s new Santa Rosa architecture, possibly even in quad-core form, as well as larger screen sizes, maybe even up to 30 inches, just like the ACD.

Beside form-factor and specs, there’s the other major factor, price-point. Once again, Macrumors is the first to receive word regarding this, and is reporting “Good”, “Better”and “Ultra” models selling for $999, $1199, $1499, and $1999 respectively.Aside from all that, there are, of course, many more rumors.

The first, and probably most credible of which stems from the reported scheduled downtime of the .mac service tomorrow while the event’s taking place. While by no means this confirms anything, it surely makes it that much more likely. .Mac, like the iMac, is another one of Apple’s products (services to be more exact in this case) which is due for a major upgrade.Now, for my personal prediction, aside from what’s listed above, I think we’ll be seeing some ACDs with built-in iSights and a price-drop. Overall, I’m surprised at how well thought out many of the rumors are going into this event in comparison with the past, in my opinion, it’s probably due to the fact it’s been confirmed that there will be no iPhone/iPod related announcements.

New Design, Technical Troubles, and a Move

Posted by Jordan Chark - 27/07/07 at 04:07:23 pm

As some of you may have noticed lately, I’ve been fumbling around with some of the blog’s technical back-end in hopes of putting everything back together again. While it’s still not in the best shape, and may be extremely buggy just in terms of Wordpress, it’s apparently functional, so that’ll do for now. I suppose I am getting one thing out of it though, I’m more more proficient in SQL today than I was last week.

Secondly, I’ve implemented a little theme I’ve designed and coded (if you’re reading this in an RSS reader, click through to see it!). After feeling the past design was becoming a bit too cluttered and over the top, I built this simper, relatively minimal theme. However, there are still many bugs to be worked out. Regarding that, if anyone finds a major, or even minor, bug, feel free to leave it in the comments.Third, you may not have noticed this one, but I’ve moved urls. The blog is now located at http://jordanchark.com, not on the /blog directory. It’s not really a big deal as any links to the previous location will redirect to their new location on this directory, so there’s no need to change links. Also, all feeds are routed through Feedburner, so there shouldn’t be any issues with that.

The Photographic Portfolio- July 25th, 2007

Posted by Jordan Chark - 25/07/07 at 12:07:07 pm

As you may have noticed, I’ve only recently returned from a fairly lengthy vacation with little internet access, thus, no way to blog. Well, now that I’m back, I’m returning to my regular posting schedule.As photography is a hobby of mine, every Tuesday I post a “photographic portfolio” a collection of some of my favorite photographic work from the past week (or in this case, the past month). Continue reading The Photographic Portfolio- July 25th, 2007…

Search