Like most people, I’m accustomed to seeing advertising across nearly every facet of my life. I truly did not expect to see advertising on the console screen in my Mazda 3. It seems this particular radio station in the Seattle area uses the tiny bit of data that can be pumped on FM frequencies (or maybe it’s only on HD radio, I’m not sure) to display an ad for Western Washington Honda Dealers. How utterly tacky and desperate of them…and of the Honda dealership to participate in such a thing. Who thought this was a good idea?
One of the issues I noted in my first day with the Asus UX305 was the weird trackpad that had a clunk/click sound when tapped on. I couldn’t understand if it was normal or not; I assumed it was just a poor design decision on Asus’ part. When I posted my first impression review on the Amazon product page, one of the commenters shared that he too had the clicking trackpad issue. When he contacted Asus tech support they told him it wasn’t normal and that he should return the product.
Curious about this, and having the personality type that doesn’t keep a product if I think it’s defective and would need to be returned anyway, I ordered a Microsoft Signature Edition (the UX305FA-USM1). I’d gotten into a somewhat heated discussion over in the Amazon product review comments with someone who insisted that the Signature Edition was a superior product due to the software build Microsoft put on it (bloatware-free). Oh, also some guy who was mocking me for not lying and using the student discount like he did.
Figuring I now had the opportunity to see for myself, I ordered the Microsoft Store version. And, somewhat to my surprise, there was a big difference in the trackpad. Watch the video to see why.
Shortly after doing this video, I returned the Amazon version.
I stumbled across a cool photo organizing/sharing solution called Mylio today. I wanted to check it out because it’s quite clear Google has abandoned Picasa (it’s been at version 3.x for years now) and I’ve been hunting for a more modern solution for photo syncing and sharing. Here’s the rundown of Mylio.
Facebook is often slammed for their poor handling of privacy, and most of the time they deserve it. They’ve historically played fast and loose with the privacy of user’s data, not unlike most other young silicon valley start-ups. It’s not surprising when you think about it – if you grew up in a computing era where both privacy and intellectual property are largely irrelevant (sometimes called “The Napster Generation”), when those same people form companies they’ll take those assumptions with them into defining how their products work.
