Posts Tagged ‘Design’

Normally I’d consider it spam, but this email I just got from Mini is kind of cool. It’s basically just giving owners tips for winter. But I guess they get enough support calls regarding the stuff that they send out an email.

A couple nights ago I got in the car and it was especially cold, turning it on and the tire pressure monitoring system said the tires were low. Sure enough, go to check at the Chevron outside the office and they’re all pretty low with one being below 30psi. Grab the hose, inflate to 38psi or so and call it good. After resetting the TPM and driving to give the sensors time to calibrate, all is good.

I knew about the temperature affecting TPM’s so didn’t sweat it, but still, it’s kind of nice to see that they’d send out emails to customers just in case. To top it off the link takes you directly to a video about how to reset the TPM.

This sure beats the other email I got from ISTA my water and sewer provider… Yet another thing to waste time on. Stupid e-bill shows $65 this period vs. $25 the last. Grr.

Decided to sell my D430 with docking station today. I don’t have a clue how much it even cost me 3 years ago. It’s still a good laptop, I guess… I’m just tired of its plastic case and the general crud feel of it. I’ve punched the screen a few times out of frustration.

I was browsing through my RSS feeds and noticed an Adamo video which was just horribly uncomfortably bad. I won’t even link to it. To see if it was just a fluke I went to the Adamo website. Unfortunately the same VP of design was in the video. To view it go to the Encounter bit then see how the story of lameness begins.

The odd thing was that while watching this video it totally reminded me of Apple’s MacBook design video. What really let me down about the Dell video was the tackiness. When you need lame models and stupid sets and crap to sell your laptop design, you’re on the path to failure. Apple’s video highlights the machine, the design, the engineering, pure and simple. The way Apple has done for ages.

As I watch the Apple video right now, I think it’s just dawned on me why Apple systems rock. This argument for me has nothing to do with Windows v. OSX, that’s irrelevant to me. Why my next system will be a Mac is because I get the feeling that their hardware has a tyrannical asshole genius dictating every minute detail.

When I watch the Dell video I get the feeling that attention to details wasn’t done because they’re insane about these things. It was done to play catch up to Apple, to say, see we can be cool and come out with good design if we want to.  That’s no way to convince me. Sure it’s Dell’s hottest machine ever, but the rest of it failed to deliver. Amusing to me as well is how the second best laptop Dell ever made, the X1, was actually a Samsung laptop rebranded but I digress.

Like the title suggests, I personally compared the Adamo to the 13″ MacBook. I’d get the MacBook. Now I know it’s actually being compared to the MacBook Air. This is definitely a good compare, while neither system have me wanting… if I were forced to pick one I almost think I’d still go with the Air. The Adamo’s only saving graces are the additional built in ports at the back (where ports should be imho). Otherwise the Air is cheaper, lighter, and faster. Whoa, *not* cheaper than a Mac?! WTF, ah, SSD, at this point in time – meh.

So with that, I guess I’m going to put my laptop up on Craigslist and hope I get somewhere. I think I’ll probably end up actually getting the 15″ MacBook Pro if only because I can’t be arsed to install my own 7200RPM drive into the MacBook. Plus the 15″ has a discrete nVidia GPU too. I just wish the display was 1920×1200.

I wish I were an asshole genius. Then I really would dictate the perfect system.