I make no qualms about how much I love Twitter (you can follow me at @halophoenix), even love Plurk (I’m halophoenix there also), but hate Facebook with a passion. Why? It’s all about the way you use your social networks – or the way your social networks use you.

This is also the answer to a question a friend of mine (a friend in more ways than social networking, which is worthwhile to point out) put to her Livejournal followers a few weeks back. She asked, in a nutshell, whether the proliferation of social networks and ways to connect and communicate with people like Facebook and Twitter and even long-form blogging and community blogging like Livejournal is a way for people to share their lives with people, connect with friends and loved ones that they truly want to stay in touch with, or whether it’s little more than a new, technologically-based way for people to stroke their own egos and put on a “my life is better than yours” show for their so-called friends to see.

The answer really is that it’s both, and which one you experience depends highly on you and the type of community you decide to keep on all of those services. While I can’t claim that it’s entirely dependent on you and that you have complete control over what your social networks look like, you do have control over who you let into your social circles and who you exclude: who gets in behind the velvet rope and who doesn’t.

Full disclosure (and some personal examples) behind the jump.

Continue reading Spinning Gears: Social Networking: Reconnecting, Preening, or Just Depressing?…

I’m actually a huge fan of Guild Wars even though I don’t play terribly much. I own Guild Wars and Guild Wars: Factions, and I used to play somewhat consistently – it’s probably the best “solo MMO” on the market – that is, it’s remarkably easy to play single-player if you don’t know anyone else playing the game.

Now, the folks at Arenanet have unveiled a trailer for the next iteration in the Guild Wars saga – they’ve been big on releasing expansions to add more content, but Guild Wars 2 indicates a move to more traditional MMO design, featuring persistent worlds instead of the original “instanced” world – where Arenanet only hosted the communal areas where players could meet up and form groups, after which one of the players, chosen at random, hosted the “instance” of the world that all of the grouped players interacted with.

I have to admit Guild Wars 2 looks really sweet, and considering the FAQ implies that it’ll still be free to play, it might be worth picking up. Personally, Guild Wars to me has always been a game I would play in addition to another MMO that I really dive into, like World of Warcraft, as opposed to a replacement – Guild Wars was never quite as immersive and interesting as other games (after all, you can’t swim or jump and the world is remarkably closed – the designers would put a building in a place, and have stairs lead up into that building, and if they didn’t want you to go in, it would just feel like a wall – you just couldn’t interact with it and would wind up running into it instead) but if the trailer is any indication, this could be a real improvement.

Check out the trailer in full-screen at YouTube here, or head over to the Guild Wars 2 promo site below.

[ Guild Wars 2 ]

Apple’s let the cat out of the bag (I had to) a little early: Mac OS 10.6, dubbed “Snow Leopard,” was scheduled for release sometime in September at the earliest, but Apple announced this week that they would take pre-orders for the highly-anticipated update to the OS immediately, and it would land in stores this Friday, on August 28th.

Since then there have been a flurry of articles on how to prep your system for Snow Leopard, announcements on which critical apps are supported or not supported, and more news around how to get your hands on Snow Leopard on launch day. Frankly, you can probably walk into your local Apple Store, Best Buy, Micro Center, or Fry’s, or any electronics store that sells Apple gear and pick up a copy.

We discussed some of the biggest benefits to Snow Leopard after the WWDC keynote earlier this year, but just to recap, some of the things people are most looking forward to are true Microsoft Exchange support, the introduction of full 64-bit support built-into the base of Mac OS, and a slimmer, trimmer, faster footprint all around. Best of all, even though the OS is a full 10.x release, it’s priced at $30 instead of the customary $129 – Apple says this is because the bulk of the work in 10.6 is behind the scenes and under the hood and less to the UI and included applications, so they couldn’t justify charging customers full license price for changes they’d feel when they used their Macs, but wouldn’t see in flashy ways. Additionally, Snow Leopard required Mac OS 10.5 to upgrade from if you want the $30 version – otherwise you’ll shell out the full $129 for a full upgrade from Mac OS 10.4 or earlier.

Personally? I’m waiting to see for a few weeks – with any major OS release there are bound to be issues, and I think I’ll wait to see what first impressions of the new OS are and what issues people run into may be before upgrading myself on my MacBook Pro. As much as I’d like to be that early adopter and give you guys that feedback here, I use my MacBook Pro too much! Check back in a few weeks and I’ll post some impressions.

[ Apple :: Mac OS X Snow Leopard ]

Logitech unveiled “Darkfield” today, its next-generation optical tracking technology, designed to keep a mouse tracking and stable on just about any surface, including glass. And I don’t mean frosted-glass or translucent-glass desktops, I mean completely clear, nothing-below-this surface glass. Previous mice from just about every major manufacturer have had problems tracking on clear glass, and for good reason – if the surface is completely transparent, there’s nothing for the laser or optical camera to reflect off of, so there’s no scatter signal back to the optical sensor that tells the mouse where it’s moving or how it’s tracking.

Logitech isn’t the first company to develop technology that counters for this problem though, Microsoft released BlueTrack a while ago, but even BlueTrack isn’t designed to work on completely clear surfaces like glass. Now you may say “what’s the big deal, no one has a completely clear glass desk anyways,” and you’d be right for the most part, but the real benefit here is that now we have mice that can track on literally every surface you put them on, anywhere you go, thus completely removing the need for a mousepad on any surface.

Gamers will probably stick to performance mousepads designed for easier optical and laser tracking, but for those of you who have to stick with a crummy foam mousepad because your favorite mouse doesn’t like your office desk surface can breathe easy – help is on the way! Logitech expects the two new Darkfield mice, the Performance Mouse MX (priced at $100) and Anywhere Mouse MX (a version aimed at mobile users with laptops, priced at $80) to be available later this month.

Head over to PopSci.com (link below) to see the full story, and check out a video of the new Performance Mouse MX up against Logitech’s MX 1100, itself a relatively new mouse.

[ PopSci :: Video: Logitech's New Laser Mice Work on Glass ]

Just because we’re all serious about technology doesn’t mean we don’t know good toys when we see them, and any gamer/geek would love this figure of Samus Aran in her Phazon Suit from Metroid Prime sitting on their desk, glowing brightly like in the photo above.

Interested? PlayAsia has been so inundated with requests for the figure that they’re doing a second run, and one can be yours now for $200 US – the run is scheduled for November 2009, so you have plenty of time to save up for it if you need to – but I’ve seen video of the figure in action, and it’s really a sight to behold, especially with the lights off. Check out the details:

With the unique color scheme of black helmet and red visor, the Phazon Suit is awarded after defeating the Omega Pirate.

Both Samus’ suit and gun are infected with pure Phazon. This gives the Phazon Suit an ability to protect Samus from the deadly effects of the deadly blue substance and shoot the Phazon Beam when standing in pools of Phazon.

Just when Metroid Prime is defeated, the Phazon Suit is stolen and used to create one of Samus’ greatest enemies, Dark Samus!

First 4 Figures is extremely proud to present the ultimate version of the Samus Aran’s Phazon Suit.

First 4 Figures has used the official game files in order to create an extremely accurate recreation of the Phazon suit, with pose inspiration taken from official Metroid artwork.

Looks incredible on its own and really completes a display when put together with the Varia suit and Gravity suit statues.

We completely reengineered the original Varia suit model to make the Phazon suit by casting it entirely in transparent resin, adding over 25 LED lights through the suit and finished it off by adding a mirror base which really shows off the lights. When the lights are turned off, an internal IC chip allows for the lights to fade out slowly.

The statue is hand finished and hand painted with metallic paints to give an authentic representation of the suits. Comes packed in a foam interior full colored box with a card of authenticity.

The Phazon Suit is highly limited at just 1500 pieces worldwide.

That explains why it’s so expensive. Head over and pre-order yours today!

[ PlayAsia :: Metroid Prime Samus Phazon Suit Statue ]

Microsoft announced last week that they would be discontinuing their Mac-based e-mail application, Entourage, and instead shipping a full version of Outlook with the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac, due out in 2011, if previous trends hold.

Quoth the Microsoft:

Outlook for Mac releasing in the next version reflects the team’s commitment to further develop the Mac’s leading productivity suite. This new application will deliver significant changes — ultimately allowing for increased productivity across platforms, which continues to be the top request of enterprise customers. The MacBU today shared a few of the features that will be in Outlook for Mac, including these:

• Cocoa. Built from the ground up using Cocoa providing users with improved integration with the Mac OS

• New database. A high-speed file-based database with support for backing up files with Time Machine and Spotlight searching

• Information Rights Management. Helps prevent sensitive information from being distributed to or read by people who do not have permission to access the content

“Microsoft Outlook and Exchange Server have been a cornerstone of communications and collaboration for our enterprise customers,” said Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of the Office product management group at Microsoft. “Today’s release of the Web Services Edition strengthens Exchange connectivity for Entourage customers and sets the stage for the move to the new application — Outlook for Mac. These updates continue Microsoft and the MacBU’s tradition of delivering the most complete solution to help customers manage their time, and better share their information and collaborate with others.”

I’m glad to hear that Microsoft will take the lessons that it learned from Entourage and apply them to what Mac users look for in a high-end e-mail client when buildling Outlook for the Mac. There hasn’t been an Outlook for Mac since Outlook 97, which only ran in OS 9 and in “Classic,” a feature that many new Mac users have probably never even heard of.

Quick primer: back when OS X was new, in order to ease the pain of moving to entirely new operating system and processing environment, Apple included “Classic” with OS X installations, which allowed users to essentially emulate (using Rosetta) Mac OS 9 under the hood and run apps that were only supported in versions of Mac OS prior to OS X. You essentially needed a full OS 9 installation under the hood to make this work, but it worked – and kept apps like Outlook 97 alive. Classic died forever when Apple made the shift to x86 hardware, away from IBM’s PowerPC architecture, and isn’t even supported in Mac OS 10.5, the current version of the OS.

Entourage is an excellent app, don’t get me wrong – it’s great at getting mail, helping you stay organized, and being an all around stellar personal information management tool – if you really dig into it and make it the hub of your contacts, your appointments, and your email, it works really well. The problem is that Entourage never really fully supported Exchange the way its users expected it to, and it was woefully lacking in advanced features that gave it a home in the enterprise, and that Microsoft Outlook users on the PC-side enjoyed (and in many cases, thought were critical.) I liked Entourage a lot, but always thought it was about 85% of what it really ought to be.

There are probably a number of reasons why Microsoft is making this move now – aside from the desire to improve the strength of the Office for Mac product line, and the wishes of its userbase and of IT departments around the world that are being inundated with Macs that their techs probably don’t know how to support, Microsoft has another major competitor to deal with: Mail.app.

Apple announced earlier this year that along with Snow Leopard and the iPhone 3.0 software upgrade would come an updated Mail.app that featured full and true Exchange support. What does that really mean? Well, if Mail.app, Address Book, and other embedded applications that come with Mac OS are not only integrated with each other, but can be seamlessly tied in with Exchange, there’s little reason for an IT department to be concerned with a Mac user’s lack of integration, and considering the strength of tools like iWork (Pages is a stellar word processor and desktop publishers, and there’s no debating Keynote’s superiority over PowerPoint) and the fact that iWork opens MS Office documents, you have to wonder why someone would use Office for Mac at all.

It’s likely that these improvements to Office for Mac are designed not only to strengthen their product, but to ensure that have a competitive product against Apple’s own bundled desktop apps and productivity suite – Mac users who use iWork and prefer the convenience of Mail.app and the other bundled core apps may very well decide not to purchase Office for Mac in the future unless there’s a real reason to – and Outlook for Mac very well may be that reason, if Microsoft does it right.

[ Microsoft :: Outlook for Mac to Ship With Next Version ]

I have to say, even as an iPod Touch owner, the Zune HD looks fabulous – thin as a wafer, and that interface looks killer, and a lot of fun to use. The browser – that special version of Internet Explorer – looks fabulous as well, and here’s hoping that Tim is right and it really is a sign of things to come in Windows Mobile – WinMo desperately needs improvement in its browsing experience.

To that end, the Zune HD will likely only fall down because it’s essentially a media player and a web browser. Granted I think that’s what most people do with their iPod Touch and other media players that are capable of that, and I do think that the end is nigh for media players that just play music and maybe video on a tiny screen if you’re lucky. We’re ushering in the age where your digital media player should also be able to check your e-mail over wifi and play a few videos.

The Zune HD reportedly will cost less than the iPod Touch (and let’s be clear, the iPod Touch is its obvious competition here) which is just fine considering you won’t be able to download games and apps to the Zune HD (at least not that’s been confirmed) – but the question remains whether people even want all those apps, or consider it when buying a media player. Microsoft may be betting than when people want a media player, they want something that plays their music and video and maybe can check their e-mail, while Apple’s made a push to make the iPod Touch more than a media player, but also a mini handheld computer that can do those things as well as play some games and help keep you organized, or be a reference device wherever you go.

Time will tell, but one thing is for sure: the interface and the elegance of the Zune HD will definitely force Apple to improve – the Zune HD is a gorgeous device, and I’m looking forward to playing with one. Competition is a good thing!

[ Gearlog :: PCMag's Zune HD Hands-On ]

(image courtesy of Cult of Mac)

So Apple quietly re-added the option to get a matte screen on your 15-inch MacBook Pro to the Apple Store online. The news broke earlier today after people started noticing it was there, and the move had to be at least partially in reaction to the furor from some corners of the Web decrying Apple for taking the option away in the first place.

Before Apple removed the option and went with an all glossy screen lineup, the choice between a matte screen and a glossy one was completely optional and free either way. Now, Apple defaults to a glossy screen, but if you want a matte screen you have the choice to cough up an extra $50 to get one.

Now I wasn’t one of the people who whined and cried when the matte screen was taken away, even though the two MacBook Pros I’ve purchased in the recent past have both had matte screens even though I had the option to choose glossy ones – I made the choice out of habit, not from a specific desire for a specific feature, but there have been calls from angry anonymous commenters and random bloggers around the web claiming that the matte screen is better for photography, video editing, has less glare, and just about everything else you could come up with that would make them all things good and wonderful. I thought the debate was kind of silly considering most PC manufacturers don’t give you a choice and no one’s really beating down Dell’s door to make them give you a matte screen, but the option is back now. Now, those same people who beat up Apple for taking it away, even claiming they’d be willing to pay to get it back, have their wish….and they’ll promptly start complaining that they have to pay for it now.

[ Cult of Mac: Matte LCD Screen Returns To 15-inch MacBook Pro As $50 Option ]

If there’s anything I have a really tough time with, it’s my playlists. To the point where sometimes I just won’t make them, even though my music collection is massive, and I have plans to digitize even more. So how do I get down to business and start making some playlists, and how do I keep them fresh and keep them from sucking? Lifehacker knows the way.

Kevin Purdy, writing for Lifehacker, has put together a great top 10 list of ways you can make your playlists really special and make sure they’re just what you want them to be. From giving up on local files and putting your playlists on the web instead to tweaking Apple’s Genius feature in iTunes to making sure your tunes are properly tagged, all of the tips can make sure that you can find the songs you want to listen to when you make your playlists, and can help you make sure your playlists are just right for any mood.

[ Lifehacker :: Top 10 Tricks for Making Your Playlists Rock ]

Over at Lifehacker, there’s a link-worthy roundup of 10 hardware fixes and upgrades that, while they may not all breathe new life into your PC, they may breathe new life into the way you interact with your PC. For example, some of the upgrades make sense, like installing a new CPU and/or motherboard, or suspending your hard drive to keep it from making so much noise – but others suggest that what you really might need if your system is down and out is a new rig!

Whether you should price out the components and build one yourself, or grab some parts and try to build yourself a hackintosh, there are articles to back up the tips, so head over and see if your dream system awaits.

[ Lifehacker :: Top 10 Computer Hardware Fixes and Upgrades ]