milkypink [dot] net

Being a bit of a scatterbrain with a short attention span, I adore microblogging. Twitter was my first step into 140 character-limited madness, and I fully abused the sms option after joining. My activity on the site fluctuated as is typical for me, but then kind of dropped off as Twitter’s stability started to wobble. Clearly people were catching on to the fun of one-liner-blogging, which was good, but also bad. Downtime increased, errors were common and at one point you couldn’t even go back through your history to look at old tweets. It was getting more and more frustrating to use – you’d post, but Twitter wouldn’t recognize it, your 140 character thought lost to the ether of the internet.



There were other microblogging services of course, the ones I used included Jaiku and Pownce (now closed as of Dec 15th 2008). Neither of them really caught on for me, although I was a little sad to see Pownce go (it let you upload & share files with friends!). Jaiku’s main fault was not really accepting Japanese characters, which is a big ( ｉдｉ ) for me.



And then… there was Plurk. Somehow, the move to it felt natural, and I’ve made a lot of neat friends through it, but I haven’t abandoned my Twitter either, so I’ll explain the +/- of each here:



Twitter

+ simple interface – just type, send, done.

+ lots of 3rd party apps for mobile phones and computers

+ sms option

+ can follow your favorite famous personalities (or their fake counterparts)

+ everybody and their mom should know about it by now

+ spamming is ok. what I mean is, posting lots in a row, no real penalties (although I think there is flood control)

- spamming is technically ok, so you can get people who are a little too excited about twittering and end up telling you things you don’t want to know. This is a problem related to all microblogging services, but it can’t be ignored.

- even though you can reply to people, it’s kind of difficult to manage a thread since you don’t always know what tweet someone is replying to

- Twitter is like shouting into the void and hoping someone shouts back – the way it’s set up is very individualist. Good for following news, not so good for making friends.

- Serial adders run rampant. You can prevent random people from following you by protecting your updates, but it’s all or nothing – there’s no way to be selective about which tweets are which.



Plurk

+ creativity in posting – using verbs like says/likes/hates/wishes/has takes a little getting used to, but can be a lot of fun to play around with

+/- karma is a challenge and a reward – you’re active, you gain karma. (conversely, if you aren’t active enough, you lose karma, which can be frustrating)

+/- spam is controlled by karma… kind of. If you post too much you can lose karma! An odd idea to be sure, but I can see where they came up with this plan of action…

+ since the interface is designed very much like a chatroom, it’s ridiculously easy to have a conversation with someone (or lots of someones!) without losing the thread

+ continuing on the above, it’s much easier to get to know people in this format!

+ privacy options! individual plurks can be public, private or varying levels of protected (you can specific the users on the spot! no need to make specific filters if you don’t want to) however you can’t change this once you’ve made the plurk – you either have to delete it and start over or grin and bear it.

- no sms option as of yet, although IM is possible.

- there aren’t a lot of good 3rd party apps for plurk yet

- plurk is less well known, so if you’re begging your friends to join a microblogging service, they’re less likely to want to join one they’ve never heard of…

- plurk recently has had more downtime than I’d like, but it’s nowhere near as disastrous as Twitter got during my transition… not yet anyway.



Sometimes, I really do feel like spamming my microblog and chatting away into the endless, unforgiving chasm that is the internet, and plurk would penalize me for it. So I use my twitter. Although these days, I don’t actually log in to the main Twitter site, but into Socialthing! instead. ST lets me post to Twitter (and plurk, through Ping.fm, if I want) and since I’m already watching my Twitter feeds there, it’s convenient. Occasionally I do log in to twitter from my phone, though.



More about Socialthing!…
One of the big reasons why I joined is because it lets me see a feed of my flickr contacts’ latest uploads. I find it hard to keep up with everyone’s pics on flickr directly somehow, so this is an easier format for me. I’ve also got Twitter, Plurk (my plurks only), and Last.fm (my scrobbles only) on Socialthing, even though most of those aren’t that helpful since I already know what I’m doing… XD

In my long, torturous journey to wait for a sufficiently sized iPod Touch, I’ve though only of reaching the 64GB mark. 64GB was to be my trigger. Apple would release it (possibly this month), and I would buy it. Seems simple.

But now. Now I am thinking, “if I’ve been waiting this long, why buy mid-cycle just for a size upgrade?” Increased storage is not a major hardware revision, what if iPod Touch 3rd Gen is something incredibly awesome? This seems unlikely, mind you, I can’t imagine what they could add that would make me feel like it was absolutely necessary to own; my phone has GPS and runs various internet-related apps fine. I have a camera that I would never replace with the meager 2MP that’s in the iPhone right now, or even 3MP should they dare to upgrade. If I wanted a combination device with a good camera I would have bought a different phone, that’s for sure.

What could they add?

The problem is, because I don’t know, Apple might catch me off guard. I hate being one-upped by companies who release versions every year, only to be caught between the cycles I want. My iPod isn’t broken yet (and this, this is also bad logic. If something of one brand breaks, why buy another model of the same brand?) so there’s no need, and this has held me over for a long time. I am not sure how much longer it will last, though.

My resolve may very well break if a 64GB version appears in the next few weeks.

↑This↑ is my laptop. It’s shiny and white, and 1.5 years old.
It’s also a fickle little thing.
I’ve had various hard-drive-connection related problems with it, that annoy me to no end. I’m always lulled back into feeling comfortable with it, but I’m afraid one day it just isn’t going to cooperate anymore, without warning :/
(Well, whenever it throws a fit it’s without warning anyway…)
I’m trying to get better about backing up everything important on my little pink hdd but I can’t back things up every second of every day.
This is yet another reason why I want to have an iPod that can hold all of my music at once…

I already explained why I won’t buy an iPod Touch until it comes in a 64GB+ flavor, but what about other technology?

The Kindle. Amazon’s attempt to jumpstart the ebook market is pretty neat, I’ll give you that, but there’s one thing I can’t STAND about it.
It’s black and white! No, scratch that. It’s darker grey on light grey. I know monocrome is the only thing e-ink can do right now, but I just can’t let myself take that plunge. I know I’d never use it the way it is now.
My love of physical books not withstanding, the lack of color really turns me off to ebook readers. Sure, a lot of books don’t require color, but some do! I’d love to flip through magazines on something like that, especially with the ability to zoom in… (oh Japanese magazines, I love you, but your print is so small I need a magnifying glass to discern the kanji sometimes). Once I took that step forward into portable electronics with color, I never wanted to go back. The days of monochrome are over!
But technology must advance to the point where price comes down before Amazon will use it.
And on that day, I will seriously consider buying a Kindle. But not until then.

Netbooks. I’ve talked a little about why I’ve thought about buying one, but I still haven’t taken the plunge.
The reason? They’re just not unique enough for me.
I feel like buying one is traveling back in time and picking up the latest model from 2003. Sure, they’re small, and sometimes cute, but what do they really do? Do I really want to spend $400 on a nearly throwaway computer?
Things that would make me swoon and would push me towards buying one:
A swivel touchscreen. This would allow me to use it for fun things like browsing digitized magazines, drawing while bored, or even writing small notes down. Basically, it would be awesome. (This is the main thing that’s keeping me from snapping one up right away! Admittedly I have to do some more in-depth research, but if there was one, I think I would have probably heard about it by now? Vaio P-like proportioned Korea model not included.)
More RAM. On average, netbooks seem to top out at 1GB of RAM (with some only allowing up to 1.5) I can live with the 1.6Ghz processor, but 1GB of RAM seems a little slim for me. 2 would be perfect, though.
Color! I’m so glad that some companies are latching onto the idea that netbooks can really express individuality, but since I’m so picky it’s difficult for me to find ones I really love.
Looooooooong life battery. At least 6 hours, preferably more. My netbook will be my travel companion, and outlets are frequently not found in airports… at least not for travelers. Sure, you say, 6 hours should be plenty for any trip across the US. Oh yeah? Well what if I’m going to Japan? 14 hours of travel and no sleep means 8 hours (at least!) of no netbook use D: Extra batteries are a possibility of course, but it’s yet one more thing to bring around with me.
Screen size. Yes, small is good, but if it’s a tiny computer, you should at least maximize the area where you can see things on the screen! (I’m looking at you, Eee!) This has gotten better with the newer models, but then it just gets weird with the Vaio P. I really hope other manufacturers don’t follow Sony’s example on that one… α~ (ー.ー”)

{ Edit: quick google search showed me the Eee T91 and T101, which I somehow managed to miss in all of the CES coverage?! anyway, will keep an eye out for those babies… (*　・・*)　♪ }

I used to be really focused on owning a Japanese 携帯 (cell phone). Really really focused.
So much so that I bought a hacked Sharp phone for use in the US. It was fun, but not perfect, and it was missing one important thing: I wasn’t in Japan.
Not to mention the phone was a couple years old at the time, technology had moved forward… But I really enjoyed using it for a while.
Now, I have the Tilt, a pda/phone made by HTC (also known as the Kaiser or the TyTN II), and I can’t really imagine having something that could do less.
Since I have a pda phone, I have an unlimited data plan, which I do my best to take advantage of （＾▽＾笑） but isn’t unlimited outside of the US （（（ T_T） (of course, right? but anyway..)
I post to plurk, to twitter, I read feeds through the google reader’s iPhone designed interface, I can even check LJ but I usually don’t since the main reason I check is for communities that have downloads…. facebook sometimes, I guess. Oh and wikipedia and google! But mainly for settling arguments about information… XD
At this point, I feel really crippled if I can’t be connected when I want to be.
I notice this mostly while I’m travelling, especially on planes. I know some airlines have started to implement wifi, but that’s only within-country usually (much like JetBlue’s satellite TV offerings, they go out when you head over international waters) so that doesn’t help me during the trips I would most like to use it – overseas flights! But being in the foreign country is difficult, too. I’ve been lucky enough to find a nice hotel in Tokyo that provides complimentary internet access, but other places weren’t as good. In London, both times, I had to rely on either paying a heavy fee for day to day use (when I wouldn’t even be there a whole day!), going to a netcafe (blech!) or hitting up a McD’s with free wifi… Paris was even worse, despite it being a ridiculously nice hotel. I don’t remember why, but I remember spending a lot of time in the nearby McD’s to get my internet fix… Even in Hawaii, the resort’s internet was paypaypay.
Internet is everywhere, guys, just accept it as a normal comfort like air conditioning! (which, if I might add, I’d be more than willing to swap for internet access…)
It was harder for me then, being so desperately connected to friends through the internet only, but even now it’s unsettling if I can’t have my normal morning routine of breakfast & rss feeds :/
Maybe I can’t understand it because I live a mostly quiet life in an isolated area, but I don’t want to go on vacation to be further deprived of entertainment! Like going to a secluded area on an island that barely has anything but tourist shops, that isn’t relaxing! It’s just boring. Same goes for camping. I don’t find the idea of living outside to be exciting or appealing. When I go on vacation, I want to do something.

And if I can’t do something, at least let me have the internet and I won’t complain.

(Or: Why, Yes, I Do Need My Whole Music Library)

In my constant search for news on a possible 64GB iPod Touch, I run into forums where about 50% of the people are snubbing even the concept of a 64GB touch, saying that a) it’s impossible to fill up that space!!!11! or b) why do you need so much with you all the time?!?!?
My answers to these cries are a) no, it’s far from impossible. I have 45GB of music, right now, and if you add some videos and apps to that, it’s not so hard to fill up (^ ~) Plus it’s always nice to have room to grow – who wants an MP3 player that JUST fits their music/video collection right now? It’s bound to increase, someday, maybe sooner than you’d think, so why play so close to the edge?
and b) this is a multiple-part answer, and it can be broken down into just 2 simple facts:
1) I am fickle.
2) Music is my lifeblood
The first is pretty simple to understand – my mood changes suddenly, unexpectedly, and even I can’t completely predict it. How am I supposed to know what songs I’ll want to listen to today? What if I want to share some song with someone else, but I haven’t been listening to it lately? What if I’m out of the house for several hours/don’t have time to customize my iPod playlists because I leave? It’s just much easier to have all of my music with me all of the time.
By this point, you might be thinking “You spoiled girl! If you don’t have exactly the music you want, just suck it up and live with it!” and this brings me to my second point:
Without music I am fragile. When I say music is my lifeblood, I don’t mean that I’m an audiophile, because in general, I’m not. I have music ripped at 128kbps and don’t mind that much – I can tell when it’s better quality, sure, but it doesn’t bother me because it’s not so much the quality of the sound, but the heart behind the music, and what it makes me feel. Music calms me down when I’m nervous, allows me to function the way society expects (with the small addition of one headphone covering one ear), keeps me from emotionally exploding, gives me energy, helps keep me moving, propels me forward even when I don’t really want to be going anywhere. It’s like magic, it is magic, the way it affects me. Music has more control over my moods than I do – if you could figure out the exact way, you could probably emotionally control me like a puppet.
“But wait,” you might be thinking, “If this is true, why not just listen to whatever music you have with you at the time to move out of your desire for other music?”
There are times when this is okay, but I often get stuck on wanting something in particular. And nothing will move me from this want. Like I said, I’m fickle.

While I was looking at netbooks before, someone asked me, “Why do you put so much emphasis on design?”
They were referring specifically to my wanting a pink netbook, but it’s more than just that.
Why can’t I just deal with electronics in terms of what’s inside?
Why does the color, shape, aesthetics matter?
I am immediately inclined to ask all of you who don’t care, why don’t you?
For laptops, especially, I’m going to be using it all the time. I’ll be staring at the keyboard, the trackpad, the screen border, the cover…. how can I not care? Using the same black/grey bleh scheme makes me want to scream! It’s not me, it’s not how I feel, it isn’t my computer if it doesn’t have the look that I like.
Maybe, in the past, when there was less choice it was okay.
But now! When you can get computers in almost every color you could want, why settle?
But manufacturers still don’t understand. They make pretty notebooks with awful specs. Like they design the case and then go “oh but no one will care what we put inside! they aren’t going to actually use it.”
I hate it especially when electronics are targeted at women, with elaborate, often gaudy outsides, and internal components from five years ago! Why can’t there be high-spec’d items with a cute/stylish outside?! Is there really no market for such things? Is it so hard to have colored casings? (Dell, I’m looking at you! You have a dozen outer colors but your insides are all the same! At least make a white version!)
It’s times like this that I ponder trying to start up a company to make cute/stylish electronics with nice insides… ( > >)
For now, I’ll just keep digging through the thousands of products that all look the same to find my perfect digital companions ♥ *pets her pink WD external hdd*

Recently I’ve avoided bringing my laptop with me when I travel. This was originally started because of news about Customs inspections (regarding those only coming back into the United States) confiscating and not returning laptops. { Each of those words has a different link regarding this issue… it was big news last summer. } So I didn’t take my laptop with me on my trip to Japan because I was afraid of losing it on the way home.

I want to make a side note here that I’ve had problems with customs/immigration returning home before, despite holding a valid U.S. Passport and not being a particularly suspicious person. I was questioned extensively upon arriving back in the US after a rather long and exhausting flight (I cannot sleep on planes) and was detained just long enough to miss my connecting flight. This hasn’t kept me from flying overseas again, mind you, but I do know that customs experiences can vary greatly and I value this notebook like my own life. { It’s really quite distressing for me when it stops functioning properly. Despite being able to troubleshoot most problems with calm determination, I break down when it’s my own computer (u_u;) }

Instead of bringing my laptop, I brought just my phone, an AT&T Tilt (a.k.a. HTC TyTN II, HTC Kaiser) which has WiFi capabilities. I thought I would just pick up some WiFi signals somewhere, or use an Ad Hoc connection through the Boy’s laptop. As of now, I have NEVER been able to get an Ad Hoc connection to communicate internet, anywhere. Not abroad, not at home, not ever. I don’t know why since I’ve looked at numerous solutions and explanations and nothing seems to click. Both laptop to laptop and laptop to phone do not work. I will say that I haven’t be able to fiddle with controls as much as I’d like since in both instances I was relying on someone else’s computer (which they stopped me from doing too much with each time). But I’ll talk more about the potential of Ad Hoc a little later.

To continue with this train of thought, I initially was planning to get a netbook of sorts to bring with me as a minimal tool for checking e-mail, etc, but at the time I’d just purchased my phone a month or two prior at about the same cost as a netbook, so it didn’t seem to make much sense. So I passed on the idea. I brought my laptop with me on the other inside-the-US trips I took, but I wasn’t completely happy with the idea, despite not having to go through customs. This last time I upgraded, I chose a larger laptop that I’d had previously. Sure, it’s only a couple pounds more, but those add up fast. I am not a light traveler, despite my efforts. I am a prepared traveler, which means that I bring everything I think I could possibly need, within a reasonable margin. Not quite a survivalist, but perhaps a tech-oriented survivalist XD So another 6 or 7 pounds is a lot to add on, not to mention the adapter (another pound or two), and maybe a mouse. In addition, I have to adjust how I pack my carry-ons and what I can bring with me. It just feels less and less worth it each time I try.

So this time, I didn’t bring it, and I’m glad I didn’t, for only four days it made absolutely no sense. But it was still frustrating to not have my unlimited data plan (since PR is US-but-not-US for data usage) or a flash-capable machine of my own (Poupée Girl uses flash). The hotel had wireless, but it was only really functional down by the pool. Each room had just one ethernet cable. A possible solution would be, of course, to bring some sort of wifi adapter to broadcast out into the room, but this only solves half of the problem. And so my mind returns to the idea of a netbook.

I’m not especially proficient in hardware tech specs, but I know what’s okay, what’s good, and what’s better. Obviously a netbook can’t compare in specs to my 15.4″ Sony Vaio, and it shouldn’t. There’s a good chance that it will surpass the specs of my old 14.1″ Sony Vaio, bought in 2004, which is just as it should be. That machine was good when I got it, but sustained a lot of abuse and now would require a new battery to function as a mobile computer, at the very least. There’s a trade-off of size for weight of course, and if I can live with the Tilt’s screen I can probably live with anything in the 1024x### range for a short duration of time. There’s no reason to have a high-powered processor if you run XP, and lower power consumption means longer battery life. RAM can also be skimped on a little, since my old Vaio only has 512MB and it runs pretty decently XD Appearance is probably more important to me than it might be to others, but since it’s a small, halfway-between-cellphone-and-laptop machine, why not make it cute?

And so, we come to my current conclusion of needing the Acer Aspire One, in Pink, of course. It’s cheap, cute, decent quality and will help me have internet access when I travel :D

Originally, I wanted my New Year’s Resolution for this blog to be one entry, no matter how small, everyday. But my year started off with a vacation, and I tend not to bring my laptop with me on trips anymore { it’s bigger than my last one, and the extra weight + size pushes me over the edge. for a 4 day trip, it was not worth it. } and I can’t really blog to here from my phone so I’m a little late in starting!
{ Maybe I’ll make five extra entries here or there to make up for it… XD }
So today! January 6th. Macworld keynote. The last Macworld ever, I think, since Apple is pulling out. Am I sad? No, not really. It isn’t as though Apple is going under, or disappearing. Just not planning to announce things in such a dramatic fashion anymore, and to be honest, what I’m waiting for will likely not be announced this month anyway. I’m also not an Apple fangirl, just a recent equal opportunist. After working with Macs in a multimedia computer lab setting, I became more comfortable with the interface, something I had previously completely objected to using. But all computers and operating systems have their flaws, not to mention individual applications.
The only Apple products I’ve ever owned have been iPods – the 4th gen photo after it was announced, and the 5th gen video, a year or so later. The reasons I didn’t look into iPods earlier were fairly simple:

- no color screen. I hate monochromatic screens, and this is the big reason I am not jumping on the kindle. I love to read, but I don’t want to be held back by black & white.

- battery issues. For a non-user-replaceable battery, it previously had a pretty bad track record for holding charge and overall play time.

- I was unclear as to how you could sort through thousands of songs on such a small interface, and this was due to my own disinterest to do research XD My first interactions with mp3 players (back in 1996/7 or so) had prepared me for a system that only allowed for less than 10 songs (usually) which meant sorting and organization was unnecessary. Even minidisc players (yes, I had those!) worked under the same principle, although you could easily swap out media for more choices. How could I deal with my entire music collection on one device? And why would I even want that?

Once I had it, I never wanted to go back. Playlists are fairly simple, and I’ve only recently discovered the ease of smart playlists. Genius playlists aren’t that useful for me, since it only really works well for songs that are in some iTunes store (international is okay, but other than that). I have around 45GBs of music currently, and this has kept me from upgrading to an iPod touch, despite the lure of apps. I’m not excited about a touch-only screen, I prefer buttons (reason #1 why I don’t own an iPhone), but in the end, apps win out over moving laterally to the Classic.

So I’m waiting. I have serious doubts that Apple will announce a 64GB iPod touch at this keynote. It wasn’t announced last year, just suddenly appeared for sale at the beginning of February. This is probably because it wasn’t a great technical step forward on Apple’s front – they just found a supplier of properly sized 16GB flash chips (the touch uses two flash slots while the iPhone only uses one, halving its storage capacity). I believe 32GB flash is just around the corner (if they aren’t already here!) so I’m holding off, patiently. I can’t wait until 64GB flash exists, however, so once the 64GB iPod Touch comes out, I’m buying it XD

So over the course of several hours last night, I re-deco’d my cell phone, and this was the final result:

{ click on the photo to go to its flickr page for a larger view! }