This past Sunday I walked in to Future Shop and was informed that just a few days before, staff were able to purchase the new HP TouchPad for only $150. Limited time offer. I was sorely disappointed that I missed this great opportunity. I thought, at the time, that this was simply a great way for HP to get salespeople onboard with the product. Let them take a TouchPad home at a great price and try it out for themselves, after all, there is absolutely no better way to become familiar with something than by using it yourself.

Not a week later it all began to make sense. They were giving them away cheap to be rid of overstocked inventory – HP is jumping ship on their long-promoted tablet.

But it doesn’t stop there! Now that the cat’s out of the bag and everyone knows that HP is leaving their tablet behind in the dust, they may as well get rid of ‘em cheap! Yep cheap enough to essentially compete with your average e-book reader. In fact, cheaper than the $139 priced Kobo Touch, Kindle and Nook! The TouchPad is now just $99.99 at Future Shop.

Here’s what I find unsettling about the whole situation. I was actually a bit upset that I didn’t get to sink $150 into the (now lost-cause) TouchPad just last week. I actually wanted one… at the time. Now I can go pick one up for even less than it was last week – for no more than I spend on a few weeks groceries – and yet, I don’t want it. I have absolutely no interest in spending less money on a device I was perfectly willing to spend $150 on last week. Bizarre.

My excitement with the TouchPad has always been in what it has the potential to do – you know, with some updates, in the future, once people actually start developing apps for it. I guess HP’s excitement was not in the same place. They wanted people to be excited with it for what it was immediately upon launch and, when the immediate excitement just wasn’t there, it got dumped. Guess the annoying Russel Brandt ads just weren’t enough (shocker). Android device manufacturers are in for the long-haul and they know it; it’s too bad for the casually interested, like me, that HP didn’t think the same way.

The banner at the top of the page was a bit too much ‘in your face’ and also too much brushed metal to be on every page, so it has been simplified considerably! It was a bit hard to read the text with the glassy-grey transparent background being used for the Twitter feed, so I’ve replaced it with a slight gradient that is much brighter, and makes the text easy to read.

The new glass background at the bottom of each post not only makes the text easier to read, but also displays properly in Firefox now, since it no longer relies upon background-size: 100% (which is only supported in Safari, Chrome, Opera, and Konquorer). The same goes for the twitter feed background’s background compatibility.

I finally got the controls on the sliding portfolio elements to appear faded out for those that represent non-active images and I added the Web Savers business card design as a fancyzoom.

Next up: certifications and eventually (when I get it in a months time) my diploma. I’m also planning to add a presentations page eventually – it will have movies of many of the presentations that I have designed for marketing, sales management, and computer science courses over the past few years.

Next up… I have some presentations I want to throw on the projects page – we’ll see if I can get fancyzoom working for videos ;)

Then, maybe certifications or I might replace that page with something else… time will tell!

Plus, with all the web design work I’ve been doing lately – particularly the updates to the Web Savers site — I felt that the copycat design wasn’t suitable to represent my design skills. So here we are! It all started with the striped brown background that I made to use for my Twitter page. I then made the header image, which was really rather ugly at first, though I think it’s pretty good right now.

My plans are to add sites like Why I Give and What’s Your Flavour to the projects page. They are two websites I designed and implemented (as quickly as possible) as a part of the Trumped Competition. I had a fun time doing it, and although we didn’t get our advertisements picked to be placed around Halifax, we were accepted on to the final round. That’s the top 8 out of a starting 40-somethign teams, so I was pretty happy about that.

I will likely also add some presentations I made in the last year, including marketing plans, and a sales pitch. On the certifications page will go my HP and A+ Certification.

As a result of all this I had a bit extra time to waste in Newark, so I decided to catch up on at least one of my favourite podcasts. I launched iTunes and literally laughed out loud at what I saw. Poor Ashton was broadcasting this shared iTunes library all across the Boingo wireless hotspot network to visitors throughout the Newark airport, very very likely unaware! I think what had me laughing the most is that this is exactly the kind of prank I would play on friends of mine – the ‘slightly unnoticeable, yet hilarious to those who know how it got there’ type. Awesome.

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Futuristic Data Bunker in Sweden « Data Center Knowledge: “
Home Data Center Design Futuristic Data Bunker in Sweden
Futuristic Data Bunker in Sweden
November 14th, 2008 : Rich Miller

This data center was built in a former underground nuclear bunker in Stockholm, Sweden.

Today Pingdom provides a glimpse inside an amazing new data bunker in Sweden run by Bahnhof, a large ISP.  It’s based in a former nuclear bunker below Stockholm, with 16-inch thick blast doors.

‘This underground data center has greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb,’ Pingdom notes. ‘It looks like the secret HQ of a James Bond villain.’

This is one of the most visually striking data centers I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure about all the fog and waterfalls, which I gather are separate from the equipment area. There’s also a 2,600-liter salt water fish tank.

Pingdom also has an interview with Jon Karlung, the CEO at Bahnhof, about the unusual design for the data center. 

‘I’m personally a big fan o”

(Via .)

New Accessory Bundle From Nintendo Seems Pointless: “

This post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net

It’s almost always a welcome sight when a company bundles several peripherals together for sale. There are generally two exceptions to this. First, if the included peripherals don’t seem to fit together (perhaps they work on different consoles, or just don’t all appeal to the same type of gamer). The other case is when the bundle doesn’t actually save you any money. The latter would be true for this ‘Multi-Player Controller Set’ from Nintendo.

This bundle will give you a Wiimote, Nunchuck and a Wii Wheel for $74.99 at your local retailer. However, if you were to purchase each item separately, you would only pay $74.97. Now I’m not going to argue over a couple of pennies, but usually a bundle saves you money.

[ Nintendo ] VIA [ GamerFront ]

(Via OhGizmo!.)