Things I’m Excited About – UMPC

UMPC

I’m probably late jumping on this train (I often am late doing so), but I am very excited about all the small, cheap laptops (dubbed UMPCs) coming out. These include an update to the already pretty damn cool Asus EEE PC, and new offerings from HP, Intel, maybe Dell, and others. The idea of small, light notebooks being better than big, heavy ones is not new; the idea of making them cheap is.
My wife recently bought a new computer. She decided on a Dell (she’s cute, so I don’t fault her bad taste in computers) so I did some research for her. While shopping around, it became clear that the smaller, lighter Dell computers were decidedly more expensive than the general consumer model she settled on. This makes sense, as the smaller computer had the same, more or less, specs as the computer she bought, just everything was jammed into a tighter space. It’s easy to imagine this being harder to design and thus more expensive. Look at the Macbook Air; it’s a beautiful, light computer but is more expensive than the Macbook, which actually has slightly better specs.

But it also makes clear that there is a market for cheap laptops that don’t weigh as much as a small horse. We don’t all have two grand to drop on a Macbook Air just so we can work while traveling without breaking our backs. This is where the new UMPCs come in. They aren’t terribly powerful (though aren’t too shabby thanks to advances in the processor industry) but can handle the basics (email, web, document editing, porn viewing) with ease, which is all that most people really need to use a laptop for. Most UMPCs weigh right around the 2-pound mark, making them easy to lug around.

What I’m excited about is development in the UMPC market. Development will be driven by two main factors: competition and cheaper parts. Many companies are discovering that there really is a market for these computers, based on the popularity of existing devices, such as ASUS’s eee PC. Competition will drive prices down further (most UMPCs are in the $500 range, plus or minus a c-note) and force companies to put decent parts in their computers. Prices will also be kept low by cheaper component costs. The two main components that will continue to get cheaper are processors and flash memory. Intel is releasing its much-touted Atom processor this summer. Atom is a low-cost, low-power chip perfect for UMPCs and will do much to drive prices down while not killing performance. Flash memory is continually dropping in price, which will lead to larger solid-state hard drives (the eee PC has SSDs from 2G to 8G) at lower prices. I don’t need or want a giant hard drive; 8G is the sweet-spot for me, I just want it to be cheaper.

So the future for UMPCs looks great. By next Christmas (hint hint gift-givers!), there should be a greater choice of computers with better performance and better prices.

I also really like that most of these machines run Linux instead of Windows. I’m not a crazy Linux-fanboy or a Commie, but I do prefer a free, fast operating system to an expensive, slow one (though to be fair XP runs pretty fast these days on even average computers). It helps to keep the cost down, too, which is what I really like about it.

Some of you might be wondering why I’m actually interested in an ultra-mobile PC, given that 90% of the time I’m in front of a desktop computer (or in front of two, if I happen to be in my basement). You’re right, of course; I am often in front of a desktop and am in fact partial to desktop computers because they offer the cheapest price-performance ratio of computers out there. I just like the trend. UMPC manufacturers are thinking about laptop computers in what I believe is the right way. Laptops are not replacements for desktops, they’re for mobile computing. No one can say that the laptops on the cheap end of the spectrum today are in any way designed to be mobile; 7 pounds is too heavy to take anywhere except your couch and they get too hot to actually sit on your lap for all that long. To be honest, even 5 pounds is too much for people who travel a lot. Cheap UMPCs is a good trend in computing.

Glog: Archery in Phantom Hourglass

After about 100 tries, I managed to beat the archery contest in Phantom Hourglass. It is a lot of fun but harder than I thought. Here’s how the game works: the targets appear and move on the top screen and you are on the bottom. You tap the lower screen to shoot your bow. The targets start out moving and then stopping, but later move constantly across the screen. You get more points for hitting targets in a row without missing. You have 70 seconds to beat the high score of 1700. The first couple of times I tried I scored around 500.

Later in the mini-game, the targets you’re supposed to hit (ghosts) are mixed with targets you’re not supposed to hit (girls). My favorite part of the game is when you shoot and miss 3 ghosts, thread the needle, and wail some girl. I also love it when the Metro train lurches causing you to shoot wildly and miss after scoring 1300 points.

I managed to beat the first high score, but there is a second high score of 2000 that my brother claims earns you another heart container. To get that high a score you basically can’t miss a target. I’d love another heart container, but I need a break.

Water

I drink a lot of water, but today came across an article from the BBC that said I don’t need to drink all that much. Or, more precisely, drinking all that water doesn’t really provide me with the health benefits I perceived it did. This is not altogether surprising; after all, it’s just water. The report claims that hydration is key. Once you are hydrated, extra water provides little marginal benefit. Athletes or heavy sweaters (I’m in the latter category) need to drink more water than an average person to stay hydrated. What I would like to know is if caffeine consumption changes the amount of water one needs to drink to stay hydrated. I ingest a lot of caffeine during the day (couple of cups of morning coffee plus a soda or two during the day), and caffeine is a diuretic, so do I need to drink more water than the 1.2 liters prescribed in this report to stay hydrated?

Despite the supposed lack of benefit, I still plan on sticking with the rule my high school track coach told me: drink enough water so that your pee is clear.

Glog: Phantom Hourglass

After a long hiatus from The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass (PH), I picked up the DS the other day to continue Link Jr.’s adventures. Of course I had no idea what to do next. I sailed around for a couple of hours, shot a frog with a cannon, killed some big monster (it was guarding an island; this should have tipped me off to the fact that this island was my destination), broke my fucking salvage arm twice, then finally looked up what I needed to do at Gamefaqs. I use Gamefaqs a lot, but generally try to avoid it until I’ve exhausted my own leads or if I’m pursuing something in the game that isn’t necessary but that I want to do because I’m a completionist (e.g., the last few bugs in Twilight Princess or an extra missile tank or two in any Metroid game or, best example, Chocobo breeding in FF7). I really don’t like to use it when I’m stuck on the plot in a game because the FAQs, while good, often give away plot pieces that I want to discover on my own. I asked my brother for help, but he’s a dickweed and didn’t call me back. I think he’s still mad at me for even playing PH without beating Windwaker first. In the end, I found my way to the Temple of Courage.

It takes a lot of time just to get to the Temple of Courage (especially if you take a month or two off from the game), so I’m glad that the dungeon itself was pretty short. I died a couple of times towards the end because I was exhausted, but generally proceeded smoothly through the Temple.

There is one enemy in the ToC, however, that exemplifies a trend in DS games that I don’t like. There’s a big-eared rabbit thing that requires you to make a noise in the DS microphone to stun so that you can kill it. There are other examples from PH where you have to use the microphone to get an item or kill a monster. I don’t like to use the microphone because of the two places I most often play my DS: on the Metro or in bed at night. When I’m on the Metro with crowds of other people, it’s more than a little embarrassing to be blowing on or clapping at a tiny machine. In bed at night next to my wife, I feel bad waking her up because my video game requires shouting. Now that I think about it, it would probably disturb my dog, too. Let’s just say that yelling at a DS is disturbing all around. But last night I had to kill a couple of these rabbit-eared monsters, so I quietly turned over and blew as softly into my DS as possible. Boy, that is disturbing.

I’m probably headed back to the main temple (the one that kills you just by walking through it) next, which is sure to piss me off. I hate that place, even with more time in my hourglass. It gives me an excuse to go back to the main town and customize my ship, though, which is always fun. I picked up a few new pieces while trying to figure out what to do next, so I’m going to mod that baby up.

It’s April Fool’s Day

It’s April Fool’s Day, so the web is full of hoaxes. I think Google wins, both in terms of how funny their gags are and for sheer quantity. I’m not going to post them all here and instead let you browse around the various Google tools to find for yourself. I’m still looking myself.

A couple of my favorite sites have posted some fun lists of pranks. They’re on my del.icio.us page, which I’ll also update as the day goes on. Work is slow as two members of my team are out sick, so I should have plenty of time to monitor this extremely important situation.

I’m especially going to keep an eye on Slashdot during the day; they usually come up with some good stuff.

Edit: If you’re into any of the various Blizzard universes, you might be interested in these:

• Bard
• Molten Core on Atari
• Tauren in Starcraft II