It’s mainly a gaming rig, so first it’s looking at  the video card hierarchy on Tom’s Hardware.  Then there is the requisite visit to the system guides on Ars Technica.  Then there’s window shopping for components on Newegg.  Maybe even a shopping list that gets created.

This process has repeated itself a couple of times over the last couple of months and it’s maddening.  Then comes the reading.  Dozens of articles to catch up with CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage advances that have come about since the last time I built a machine.

It’s approaching two years since I’ve built a new machine and I’m very much filled with the desire to build something new before I jump on the Windows 7 party bus.  There is a feeling of accomplishment after successfully putting together a working machine.  It’s something tangible.

Although ultimately, I may just scrap the whole project, pump two more gig of RAM into the rig, slap in a couple of larger, faster hard drives, configure RAID 0, install Windows 7 and then call it a day.

Twas the night before Apple, and all ’round the net,
All the rumors were flying, but no real news yet.
Speculations were read, with the utmost of care,
With the hopes that the keynote, soon would be aired.

Apple faithful were restless, their iPhones held steady,
In hopes that Cupertino soon would be ready
To announce a new tablet, for which they’d been fawning,
Ever since Newton left consumers, well. . . wanting.

A capacitive screen, is a definite must.
Since fans of multi touch gestures are us
A size 10″ screen is most likely, “Yes.”
But a front facing camera, perhaps GPS?

Wifi is a given, and the app store is too,
As for syncing iLife, well now that’s nothing new.
Perhaps unlocked iPhones, for non AT&T folks
Since that network’s the butt of quite a few jokes.

Then fanboys will come from within every city
To post about how Apple’s business is shitty.
More rabid than wolves, to the forums, they’ll fly
And tear apart lie after lie after lie.

So iPad, iSlate,
or whatever you’re called.
(I’ll admit that these names
have me somewhat appalled.)
On the web I will read
and on printed news too,
“Apple tablet is out!
It’s brand spanking new!”

So tomorrow I’ll find, on my usual sites
News about Apple with included soundbites.
I’ll witness his Steveness, his demeanor quite proud
About Apple solutions, he’ll talk to the crowd.

But then he’ll announce, how much it will cost
As banks everywhere groan from cash reserves lost.
But there’s always a point, in my ears it will ring,
“Thank you all for coming. But there’s just one more thing.”

It’s a heavy thing, a black polycarbonate brick that one hefts to eye level.  I both appreciate and curse that weight, depending on the situation.  The solid feel of the camera lends a credence to its existence in the real world, that it can somehow interact with light and make it permanent.  It can’t though.

All it does is take measurements and shift bits.  A lot of them.  In thousandths of a second.

There’s no chemical process that results in a physical object.  No negative, no paper, no developer, no fixative, no finished product.  Just more bits that get displayed on a screen, dependent on that screen’s size, and color depth and brightness to try to convey the moment through electric impulses.

It’s all an ephemeral stream of data.  Like the very moment it’s trying to capture.

In fact, the data is so ephemeral that it can’t even last a day on the compact flash card.  I am well aware of the fact that there are adult mayflies that have longer lives than some of the image data I’ve tried to acquire recently.  Looking up some open source tools, I guess that hope springs eternal in the human breast.

It makes sense, considering that not everyone wants a Kindle.  On the other hand, everyone already has an iPod.

And it’s free.  I haven’t read too much about the application so far, but I am interested in how it syncs up with your Kindle, in terms of bookmarks and highlighting.

Currently it’s in the “new toy” phase of gadget ownership.  I’m enamored of its styling and snappy performance. Battery life is probably not indicative of real world performance as I am constantly fiddling with it.  I’ve uploaded a video and a pic to flickr as a test and it went well.  I didn’t realize that it was 3G until I checked flickr and everything was up there.

I imagine that there will be a lot more pictures being uploaded in the near future.  Camera still has that purple characteristic of all E71 pictures, but I find that switching to the black and white settings for the camera negates that particular issue.

I really like the keyboard.

Going to see about using the FM radio tomorrow and then testing the GPS, possibly with geotagging photos.

Was slightly surprised when a phone call came through and it spoke the name of my contact.  Neat, but probably going to turn that off straight away.

I’m going to see how many times I can say, “surprise” in the first ten seconds.  Here’s the Tournament Edition Fightstick for Street Fighter IV.

It’s rather large.  I’ve been sitting on this video for a while, I actually got the stick a week before Street Fighter IV dropped at my place, so I was using it to play Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix on the 360.

Actually using it to play SFIV is amazing, and I feel like I’m back at the Yellow Brick Road in Mission Valley on a Friday afternoon with the rest of Honors English IV.

It does work very well for the PSP, but there needs to be more on offer.

Like the entire catalog of PSP games, for starters.

But back to the DSi.  It’s quite different from the two other iterations of the DS.  It’s thinner, for starters.  There’s also a new OS.  The two screens are larger now by a quarter inch each.  Two VGA cameras, one on the hinge and one on the outer face now adorn the case.  These have been used for a photo manipulations application on the Japanese model, but if they’ll be utilized for games in the future is anyone’s guess.  WiFi capabilities (hello WPA) have been enhanced, or rather brought up to date.  An SD card slot has been added, which is how I’m assuming the app store will work.  I guess Nintendo learned their lesson from the Wii.

Dear Nintendo:  Don’t offer an application store if your device does not have sufficient storage to handle more than 35 apps.   I’m just saying.

Backwards compatibility for GameBoy Advance games, is gone.  So those other two models aren’t quite obsolete just yet.  It’s not that they took it out per se, but they did remove the GBA slot, so it’s more of a physical limitation than the hardware is incapable of it.  I’m not going to miss it.

That’s wha the GBA Micro is for.

The system firmware can finally be upgraded, which can be both a blessing and a curse.  Patching is something I really don’t need in my handheld gaming, but seeing as how the previous DS only supports WEP encryption for WiFi, I’ll take the ability to update firmware over none.

The DSi is scheduled to be stateside on April 5th, in black and blue models, for $170.  I’ll post something once I get my hands on one.

I know, it’s a strange thing to think about, especially in this interconnected 24/7 social community immersion thing we have going on with twitter, blogs, social networking sites, talking on cell phones, texting on cell phones, newsgroups, instant messages, and chat clients disguised as video games.

But sometimes I feel while, I am able to “keep up” with everyone, I’m not actually taking the time to have a real conversation.

Thus, my calling cards.  I got them a long time ago, when I was in college before the internet and cell phones.  I even have the engraved plate.  You can see on the backs of the cards where the plate “bruises” the paper.

When I visited a friend’s dorm room, I would leave one on their board with a quick message and a date and time.  Professors loved them.  Meeting people was a snap, all I had on my cards was my name so I could put as much or as little information that I wanted on the card.  Handy for study groups.

Now, of course, I can’t just stop by a friend’s house.  We don’t really have visiting hours like we used to.  But the cards could still be handy in other ways.

I’m just looking at fonts now, trying to decide whether or not I add the URL or add a design, like a stylized gear or monkey.  Or a gear and a monkey.  Or a monkey made out of gears.  But not a gear made out of monkeys.

That would be strange.

I could just go incredibly quirky and get plain ivory cards with a QR code.  Because you know, that’ll be timeless.

Qwerty keyboard, wifi, gps, fm radio, micros SD slot, s60, I mean, what’s not to like?

Wired really liked it.  I just really like the form factor.  That, and I like having a keyboard.  It may be because I am of the educational institution that has been aged.

Like a fine wine.

It goes back to my old er, government job, we had Motorola Talkabout pagers.  We were expected to be able to respond anywhere we were, so we were assigned two way pagers.  Which was great.  Tiny keyboard, lcd backlit screen, very simple communication devices.  I feel like there is something pure about the text message, the way that you have to distill your communication into a character limit.

So, I guess I’ve been practicing for Twitter all this time.  But, back to the E71.

I am really into this phone.  There is wifi, which will allow me to check email, check twitter, possibly make posts, and upload pictures.  Although the E series camera is nowhere near as good as the N series phones from Nokia, I’m willing to make sacrifices for increased utility.  Besides, I carry a camera.

I’m so into this phone that I’ve even downloaded the iSync plugin for it.  I’ve also read the manual.  Additionally, I’ve bugged the AT&T store in Friendship Heights repeatedly about the phone.

They answer,  “We are never going to get it.”

Boy Genius Reports says, “Then what is this AT&T User Manual for the Nokia E71 guide doing on Nokia’s website?”

Problem is, it’s pricey, and I can’t justify that much for an item which will, ultimately, be just a phone.  No matter how awesome it is.

On the other hand, it’s beautiful.  I mean, LOOK AT IT.