May 1st, 2007
See! It didn’t take long for me to get going and start getting new articles out with the new design. The latest one is Sony’s S2 Sports Walkman which brings sports-activities functionality to a very competent digital audio player. This one is kind of long since there were so many topics to cover but it’s a good read.
I’m contemplating the next review and it’s a toss up between a review of Sony Ericsson’s W850i Walkman GSM Mobile Phone or a comparison of Apple’s iPod nano (with Nike+ kit) vs. the recently reviewed Sony S2 Sports Walkman. If you care either way, leave a comment and let me know. Regardless, both articles will be written so this just helps me prioritize which comes first.
Enjoy!
April 28th, 2007
It’s finally here! After nearly two years of procrastination and redesigning a new and improved siliconpopculture.com will be unveiled! Expect some changes in the next day or so as I move the new code to the server. The older links will still work but they’ll be re-directed to the new url addresses which make a lot more sense.
The initial version of the site still has a few things missing but most of the functionality is complete. Still, expect minor tweaking along the way. I decided to not deviate too far from the original design since it felt clean and usable. There are a lot of cosmetic changes along with a brand new content management system running underneath that’s very flexible.
The new site design also signifies that all new content is not far behind! The older design limited how I wanted to present reviews so now it will be much easier for me to get them done and laid out the way that I want. Also, I have a lot more time after spending the last couple of years attending business school. So, stay tuned!
[UPDATE]
It looks like the move went well. As expected, I had to tweak some things manually including going through each post and making sure the categories were assigned properly. The automatic forwarding it working as expected. Now that it’s up, I’m going to get some deserved rest and then add a couple of new features before working on the newest review to celebrate the new interface! Yay!
December 31st, 2006
I’ve finally retired my Sony Ericsson Z600 mobile phone and picked up a new replacement that will hopefully last me nearly 3 years like the last one did. My search for a new phone took forever because I really didn’t see any phone that was that compelling. I’m actually a huge fan of flip phones and Sony Ericsson but they didn’t seem to have anything (domestically) that impressed me.
After much research and internal debate, I ended up with a Sony Ericsson W850i (yes, a Walkman phone) which I like very much and will be covering soon more in detail. The most interesting to note is that the Walkman features make it a better MP3 player than the regular consumer MP3 players that Sony makes. It’s a 3G Tri-band GSM phone, takes MS DUO Pro memory, has a high resolution screen, and tons of connectivity options.
On top of that, the included software DISC2Phone is simple, unassuming and nothing like Sony’s much-hated SonicStage music transfer software. Better yet, you can simply drag and drop files to the Music folder and organize folders yourself! Yes, it’s a crazy concept for owners of Sony digital audio players…but it’s true! You can even create playlists directly on the unit which is a nice feature. At any rate, I’m going to get more familiar with the phone and report back in depth once I get a better feel for the phone. For now, I’m surprisingly happy.
July 6th, 2006
Yikes! I’ve been so crazy busy that I haven’t made time to post. Part of the blame goes to evil spammers who have been trying to attack this site. I’ve been quietly working on the problem behind the scenes and it’s taking up a decent amount of time to clean things up, block IP addresses and putting up other anti-spam measures.
I’m also in the planning stages of moving this site to a new content management system which will also help fend off spam since it’s much more robust. Of course, a move like that takes a decent amount of planning since URLs will change slightly and I need to make sure everything is re-directing to the correct place.
Hopefully, I’ll get all this stuff done before my trip to Japan later in August but stick around and I promise I’ll get to some interesting topics and stories….and of course, my reviews.
May 17th, 2006
It started as a line of missing pixels on my iPod nano a few weeks ago and then completely self-destructed into this:
The unit still works and plays music. It’s just that the screen is completely bonked. I take pretty good care of my electronics so I’m wondering how this happened. I always have my iPod nano in a case of some sort so I’m puzzled.
Anyways, I’m sending it in for repairs since it’s still under warranty. Of course, the issue now is that since it’s been more than 120 days since the purchased date, I have to pay shipping/handling fees of $29.95 plus tax. If I had purchased the $59 Extended AppleCare warranty, this fee would have been waived. In hindsight, I probably should have just bought that first since it would extend the warranty to 2 years. Oh well, lesson learned…more updates on the whole process.
