Sometimes it’s the little things that get to you most. Like some of the Sony’s design choices on PlayStation 3 that are rather hard to understand. For instance, consider the charging of a controller. They’ve somehow managed to build a device that is charged via USB, but only accepts charge from USB ports of a few selected devices – mainly the PS3 itself.

You can’t use USB chargers that plug into power outlet, the controller won’t charge. Besides PS3 itself, I’ve only managed to charge the controller using a laptop’s USB-port, with the condition that the computer isn’t on standby. Speaking of standby, you can’t charge the controller with PS3 either if it’s not powered on.

Sony keeps sweetening the deal by including an amusingly short USB cord to charge the controller with. If the battery runs out while you’re playing, you’re essentially forced to sit 10 cm away from PS3 (and possibly your TV) while waiting for the controller to charge. Either that, or invest into a longer USB cable that is probably useless for any other purpose besides PS3. Makes me wonder what the grand idea behind this is…

After finally saving enough cash to replace my foreced-into-retirement-iBook, I invested in a brand new MacBook Pro 13″. Even though MBP’s value for money decreased considerably doe to the recent MacBook-upgrade, I still wanted the aluminum enclosure and the backlit keyboard.

Initial impressions of the laptop were rather positive. I really like the aluminum casing, and especially when compared to my 2005 model iBook, the new MacBook Pro is pretty compact. The CPU is only a bit faster than on my Mac Mini, but overall the laptop still feels much faster. Plenty of thanks to the improved integrated graphics and total memory of 4GB, I would assume.

The glass trackpad feels excellent, even better than on my old iBook. That’s a big deal, since in my opinion many PC laptops are still struggling to get to that level of comfort iBook had to offer (Here’s looking at you Asus and your EEE-series). The trackpad takes some time to get used to though. The gestures and customizations offer many possibilities, but learning a new way of doing things is always a time-consuming process.

Jury is still out on the battery life. Apple claims it’s “up to 10 hours”, but all I’ve gotten yet is around 6-7 hours on light usage such as web browsing. It should be noted that WLAN and bluetooth have been enabled on all cases, so the battery should last a bit longer when you switch them off. It’s still a new battery and it takes a while to see what the actual capacity will be in the long run.

Despite of all the good qualities, it was soon time for the laptop to depart as the biggest drawback ended up overwhelming. Every time audio was turned on, the machine emitted a high pitched whine from below the keyboard area. This was extremely annoying especially in a silent environment. That being said, it was time to send the laptop to be repaired. I suspected that the problem was on the speakers, but they ended up replacing the entire logic board. A little bigger issue than I had originally expected. After a few days in repair, I got the MacBook Pro back and everything is once again smooth and shiny.

With new laptop in hand, my productivity is soaring. Hopefully that translates to me getting the new layout finished soon.

Looks like the content is getting a bit stale again. After all, it’s May and the last update was on January.

Fear not. New layout is in works and I have a few posts in the pipeline. To be completely honest, I also have about four old drafts that should probably be finished soon.

So there, not dead yet.

Wouldn’t it be nice if a new year would also mean leaving all your old troubles behind? I’d like the year 2010 to stop the trend of my stuff breaking. Which is not cool. My trusty old warhorse of a laptop, the iBook G4 suffered a hard drive failure recently. Adding to a list of breakdowns already including a hard drive, computer power supply, bluetooth keyboard and printer.

I had all important files backed up, so data loss isn’t the problem. It’s replacing the drive. While modern Apple notebooks provide easy access to the hard drive, that was not the case in the company’s old-school hardware. It’s no picnic on PowerBooks and even less for iBooks. In fact, replacing the hard drive on my iBook actually requires disassembling the entire laptop. Not kidding, no easy-access hatches here.

Oh, and it’s a 2,5″ PATA-drive. Which means the replacement is harder to find and more expensive than the modern SATA-drives. So, disassembling a laptop and a hunt for an overpriced drive: sign me up for a fun project.

For the past month I’ve been mostly stuck with playing Bioware’s Dragon Age: Origins. Not stuck literally, as I’ve progressed steadily, but due to the sheer size of the game. In-game clock is around 70 hours and no end in sight.

Granted, there’s the downloadable content adding to length, but despite that this game is huge. A bit too massive, perhaps. While I’ve enjoyed it very much, I’m actually looking forward to completing it and regaining some spare time. Although… there’s Mass Effect 2 coming up this month. Oh well…

Based on the recent amount of computer hardware failures I’m seeing there’s definitely a case of bad karma going on. About a month ago I had a hard drive biting the dust (Samsung T166, thank you very much). Then, a few weeks ago the power supply of my desktop pc died. When I installed OS X 10.6 on my Mac Mini, the optical drive sounded really funky during the whole process – making it the top candidate for the next piece of electronics that just can’t take it anymore. Oh, and did I mention the two keys that just stopped working on my Apple Wireless Keyboard?

Bad mojo keeps going warranty-wise. The Samsung drive is under warranty, but since I’ve lost the receipt Samsung refuses to have anything to do with it. You’d think that requiring a piece of paper before taking responsibility of your products is kind of silly, but maybe it’s just me.

As for the power supply, we have a jackpot. It’s not only out of warranty, but a proprietary model as well. When designing the Aria case, Antec engineers decided to fit in a non-standard PSU with shape resembling letter ‘L’ slightly. This made sure that there’s no luck finding a replacement other than Antec’s own models and unfortunately getting a replacement is both difficult and hideously expensive. Shame since Antec Aria’s a nice case. I resolved this by connecting a standard ATX-power outside the case. The setup is hideously ugly, but works as a temporary solution.

If the DVD-drive on my Mac Mini chooses to call it quits, I have another nice ordeal in front of me. While replacement drives are available, opening the Mac Mini is a major pain. There’s, of course, hope that the drive continues to function normally and just sounds like a chopper taking off.

All right, today’s lesson? Serves me right for choosing computer’s with non-standard form factors and parts.

Apple’s iPhone became available in Finland little over a year ago. The 2G-version was never officially sold here, so we jumped aboard when the next model, iPhone 3G, was released. I had watched the (generally) very positive reception the original iPhone received and since the new model had few improvements, I thought that maybe it’s worth a try. However, I decided to wait for few months so that I could see the opinions of early adopters and to make sure that the phone was actually in stock.

My few months of waiting actually ended up lasting for around 12 months. This was partly because once rumors of a new model begun floating around early this year, it was waiting time. The other reason was just lazyness on my part, have to admit that the “there’s plenty of time”- attitude I have sometimes goes to extremes.

Nevertheless, once the iPhone 3GS was announced, I finally decided to take the plunge. I stayed true to myself by not preordering, though. First Finns got their phones late June and I got mine few weeks later. Due to supply issues many here who preordered actually got their phone later than I. Perks of ordering the 16GB white model, I guess. Due to supply issues the phones are still in very limited quantity, so luck was with me.

Now that I’ve used the phone for little over a month, I can say that I’m pretty happy with my purchase. I’m not as smitten as some of those people whose life is apparently made complete by this rather nice piece of electronics, but my opinion is definitely on the positive side.

Apple held their annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) last week and had both hardware and software related announcements during the keynote. For most people, the big thing was the new iPhone-model. iPhone 3G S, alongside the accompanying version 3.0 iPhone software pretty much stole the spotlight.

As an iPod Touch -owner, I’m not commenting on the new iPhone. I have very little experience with any of the models, so there’s not much for me to talk about. Except MMS-messaging. It’s there now, so the five guys who actually use MMS can now send all the messages they want. And the other thousand guys can stop complaining about the lack of MMS and come up with another missing important feature.

Now, the 3.0 software I can comment on, since it’s for iPod Touch as well. Haven’t tested it yet, so a review’s going to have to wait. I will say that it certainly looks promising. When I reviewed software version 2.0 and version 2.1 , there were two big issues I noted. First: no copy and paste. Second: native language keyboard for Scandinavia was clumsy as hell. The new version 3.0 software fixes these both. Not bad, I say. Apple’s been busy.

iPhone-less news in WWDC included a release date for the next Mac operating system, (version 10.6, Snow Leopard) and changes in the MacBook product line. Snow Leopard’s coming in September and is a bargain for existing Leopard owners, only $29. At that price, they’ve sure got my cash.

The aluminium 13″ MacBooks received hardware updates and were re-branded to MacBook Pros. In addition to minor increases in speed, two things worth mentioning happened under the hood. First, the new MacBook Pro -models have SD-card slots. I’m actually not sure what’s the point in adding an internal SD-reader, but I guess this shuts up some of those critics who always deduct points from Mac computers because all the other laptops have those. Although they still might complain because Macs still don’t have built-in slots for Compact Flash/MemoryStick/xD/Whatever. Because USB-readers are so hard to find and are enormously huge – or something like that. Still, the slot’s there and I’ve no problem with it.

Then, the second big change. For me, at least. Firewire’s back, baby! That’s right, the new 13″ MacBook Pros have a brand new shiny FW800-port. Originally Apple removed firewire from their new models when the aluminium MacBook-line was revealed, but now it’s back, and for me this certainly is most welcome. I complained about the missing firewire last October, and now I can finally stop crying about it.

Now that think about it, Apple corrected two big issues I had with two of their products. Just for me, right? Time to dance on the table and start saving money.