This is my third article in the series from purchasing the phone to evaluating it. I have finally concluded that the phone is unusable and I’m returning it. Basically nothing on this phone works right and I am really disappointed.

I’m more than a casual user of Creative portable media players. I use a 60gb Zen Vision W, my wife uses a 4gb Zen, and my kids each have a 16gb Zen. At the time the purchases made sense because they offered more features at a lower price than either Apple, Microsoft, or any other manufacturer. For example, they have built-in FM radios, which my wife loves as she’s an NPR junkie. You can also add storage to them via SD cards, which is great for long trips. And they natively accept a lot more formats than either the iPod or the Zune.

However, Apple completely changed the portable media player market with the introduction of the iPod Touch. The Touch is essentially a micro-tablet-PC/portable gaming system/internet accessible/media player. It’s literally like having a computer in your shirt pocket. Microsoft answered Apple’s challenge with the Zune HD. I had to wonder what Creative would come up with. That wonder is over.

Creative is set to release its touch screen ZEN X-Fi2 to compete with the iPod Touch and the Zen HD. I’m amazed at how pathetic it is. The 32gb version is only about 50 bucks cheaper than either the iPod Touch or the Zune HD, but has none of the compelling features.

One alleged feature the ZEN X-Fi2 has going for it is native support for more video formats, but since most videos will have to be converted to smaller resolutions anyway, it’s not really much of an advantage.

The new Zen also boasts the ability to use flash cards for additional storage, but it uses microSD, so it’s not like its anything to brag about. The 16gb card I found at newegg is about 50 bucks. Suddenly it’s the exact same price as the Touch.

Hilariously, or should I say pathetically, it also offers an RSS reader and a calendaring system, but it has to be connected to your computer with a cable to sync them. Not with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but with a god fricken cable! What year does Creative think this is?!

As I said, the Touch is essentially a micro-tablet-PC/portable gaming system/internet accessible/media player. While the new ZEN X-Fi2 is essentially an overpriced media player with a touch screen. I can’t imagine who would buy one. “Ignorant” wouldn’t sufficiently describe such a person. “Palin for President supporter” might come close.

I’ve been fooling with this new HTC Touch Pro2 all day and I almost sent it back. The phone itself is good but Windows Mobile totally sucks. I had been using a Palm 700p running PalmOS and when I originally got it for the most part it just worked. With Windows mobile almost nothing worked at first.

The user interface is poorly designed to the point of being unusable. If not for it having a keyboard and arrow keys it wouldn’t work. It can’t be used with just the finger and requires the stylus for about everything. It lacks scroll bars in critical places and you have to flick the screen to scroll. If you don’t flick it just right, you either select the wrong thing or you flip past what you want.

This is going to be a two part article because the phone is (hopefully) arriving later today. So this is about what I’m expecting and when it arrives we’ll see if it meets expectations.

I’m sure most of the techies here have used Newegg.com. It’s my primary destination for all things tech. The fair prices, superfast shipping, knowledgeable customer reviews, and fantastic customer support all keep me coming back again and again.

I recently discovered that Newegg is branching out beyond mere tech to more consumer oriented products. Sort of like a Newegg version of Amazon or Target. You can buy clothes, automotive supplies, cosmetics, etc. It’s called the Newegg Mall.

When I say you “can” buy such stuff at the Mall, I’m speaking in purely hypothetical terms. Whether you’ll ever find exactly what you’re looking for is highly unlikely. Let me give an example…

Last night I saw a kid wearing a Rock Band t-shirt and I thought it’d be cool to get one for my son. So rather than hit Amazon, I decided to give the Newegg Mall a try. A simple search for “rock band t-shirt” (without the quotes) brought this as the first choice:

Sure it’s technically a band, but it is neither a t-shirt nor a rock. So it’s not even close. None of the 36 products offered on that first page were actual t-shirts with the Rock Band logo.

Still, the search was modified for lowest price. I decided to try the “best match” option. The results got even worse:

Sure, it’s a wedding band, but it’s not even close to being a t-shirt or a rock. At least the headband was made of cloth like a t-shirt and could be worn by rock stars. Nearly all of the 36 results on the “best match” page involved rings.

While I mainly use Windows machines for work and at home, I’ve also used Apples since the late ’70s. Among my computers is an old PowerPC Mac Mini, but I needed a new laptop so for Festivus I bought myself a new Macbook.

It’s one of the aluminum ones with the LED-backlit screens. The screen is amazingly bright and easy to read. I’ve always preferred non-glare screens, so I was wary of the gloss screen the Macbook has, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Aside from having a lamp directly behind me that reflects its image on the screen, it isn’t a problem. In fact, it actually seems to make what’s on the screen more readable and, well, shiny.

Opening ceremonies

The Beijing Times has revealed that the footprint fireworks sequence for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, was computer generated and inserted into the coverage too look like the real thing. Beijing’s hazy night skies and camera shake as though it was filmed from a helicopter was even added to the sequence to make it look more authentic.

The 29 footprints were lit at one footprint per second, with 29 of them marching from Tiananmen Square to the Birds Nest stadium. They were supposed to symbolize the path of the 29th Olympiad and their arrival to Beijing.

The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot.

The head of the visual effects department for the opening ceremony said that since everyone thought it was filmed live, he couldn’t see a problem with it.

Perhaps it’s no worse than the facial hair on some of the women athletes.

This weekend I had the opportunity of seeing the Speed Racer Movie. The visual style of the movie is quite spectacular, becoming even more impressive if you see this movie in a theater that has a digital projector. This movie is directly aimed a children, but it’s still quite accessible to adults. I have to say that while watching the movie I kept wanting it to be more grittier somehow; don’t get me wrong, the movie is quite fun, but I just kept wanting it to be more violent. One thing I have to say is that the theater were I saw the movie was quite empty. The Iron Man movie had a lot more people in it.

To help you make a decision to go see this movie, you can see the first seven minutes below:

Do yourself a favour and go see this movie in a theater with a digital projector. If you were a fan of the cartoon, you will like it a lot. However, it has been reported that the movie hasn’t done well this weekend.