ZOMG. ZuneHD!

As a little break from the monotony of visual effects, this DigitalGypsy post will be totally unrelated. Over the past couple of months, I've been thinking of picking up a new phone. First I was looking at the Nokia N97, and then the Palm Pre. Because I can't make up my mind, at all, I haven't gotten either. So I am still hanging out with my dilapidated Samsung e105. I'm not big on the iPhone, even though it's pretty, it's an Apple, and there's some neat stuff on it. I also didn't want to switch networks. I'd go from a $20/month plan, to something like $100+/month. It's just not worth it for me. So I'm still waiting.. The next phone I might pick up won't be a smart phone, or a fancy media player phone. It'll most likely be very similar to my current one, a simple clamshell, with excellent battery life and sound quality. Because of this, I decided to focus on a media player, and get a decent one that does everything that I want it to do. Enter, the iPods, Zunes, Sansas, and so forth.

I looked at the iPods Touchs. Very nice, but I couldn't imagine shelling out more for a little logo, when a Sansa would do the same. All I want was something that would play quality music files, maybe video. The Zunes were not for me. Didn't have the functionality I wanted. Then I looked at the Sansa SlotRadio. Pretty nice. It could take a SD card, so I could switch whatever I wanted into the machine. And then the ZuneHD was announced, and I thought to myself, I'll wait.

The ZuneHD, if you haven't been following the gadget blogs and tech news, is Microsoft's latest entry into the field of PMPs (Personal Media Players), like the iPod, Sansa SlotRadios, regular Zunes, Samsungs Yepp, and so forth. Their entry is pretty amazing, a great competitor to say the least. Here's why I think I've chosen this as my next tech purchase. OLED screen (nice, contrasty blacks, great viewing angle!). I still want to see how it fairs in the sun, since I've heard that OLED doesn't do so hot outside. Tegra chip. If you've seen the UI of the ZuneHD, it's an amazing processor! Fluid animations, hardware acceleration, to name a few. With the Tegra, it allows 720p playback to a HDTV! Nice, nice. Wireless sync and transfer. This was a big one. I know there's an app for that for the iPod Touch, but on the ZuneHD, it's part of the package. I can have all my music on my main machine, and sync wirelessly to it from the ZuneHD, and just stream music. I'll reserve judgement until I play with one in stores on September 15th, but I think it'll be my first portable music/video player. Seeing that Netflix and Microsoft now have an exclusive deal with Netflix on the Xbox 360, I have a feeling that in the future, we'll be seeing Netflix streaming via wi-fi to this little device! Can you imagine, 720p streaming wherever you are that has an internet connection? Nice.



This month I've been trying something new at the gym, Wendler's 5/3/1 Program. It's a four day a week program, focusing on the big, compound lifts. The deadlift, squat, bench press, and military overhead press. So far (I'm only in week 2) it feels good. Last week I was able to push out a lot more reps, and I think it'll help to increase my volume. The first week of squats I ended up doing 245lbs by 12, and this Saturday I'm hoping to match it at 265. Every workout is less than an hour, and I still get a lot of volume done, and it definitely feels good. Do I feel stronger? I guess. It's a long and arduous road, and I've got plenty of time to build up to my goals! My hope is that I'll be doing 315lb squats, 405lb deadlifts, and 315lb bench for reps, sometime in the future.



A month of two ago, I did an interview with 3D World Magazine, covering my company, Industry Wages. Like I mentioned previously on this blog, we're focusing on creative industries, and will be branching out into other ones eventually. This interview has now been printed, and is in the August issue, #119. I'm still hard at work writing the business proposal, and my frequent meetings with my SCORE counselor are helping. We'll hopefully have a decent proposal by the end of the week, and I want to start sending it out to VCs by the end of the month.



In other Inversin company news, my brothers company, Coin App, just entered their first game, Max Blastronaut, into Microsofts 2009 Dream Build Play contest, with the possible prize of being on the XBox! Pretty fancy. I'm hoping that they make a splash.