So just short of a week ago, I became an iPod touch tester for ITS. While I admit that I am not upset about this, I have done my fair share of testing for the enterprise apps. Things that work well include the email and calendar syncing, global address list searching, and overall stability of the device. I even tested out the remote wipe feature today, sucessfully "bricking" my phone in the instance the device is lost or stolen. Overall I am really impressed with the new software for the device. Tomorrow I will post thoughts on some of the third party apps I have installed.
Archive for the ‘Review’ Category
-
The Years of Rice and Salt
I will admit that it seems like I havn't been reading much lately.? That is because I have been struggling with the title of this post.? I have read the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson and really enjoyed it, so I thought I would give this book a try.? The premise of this book is that instead of wiping out 25% of Europe, the Black Death wiped out over 99% of Europe, pretty much eliminating Christianity from the planet.? This alternate history goes through the Middle East and Islam competing with China to be the world power.? It goes from the Middle Ages to near present day, or so I think.? See here is where I explain that I was unable to finish this book, this is the second time I have tried to read it but it is too detailed and dry and spends more time with the individual stories than the potential alternate history.
The book is broken into sections about the same people as they are reincarnated through history.? Some of these are more interesting than others and each goes into a lot of detail.? The bottom line is that it isn't as engaging as I was hoping and I am forced to give up once again.? Now I am moving onto something I have read in the past but need to read again, Ender's Game and all associated books.? The 4th in the Bean series has come out on paperback and I want to be as familiar as I can with the series before reading it.? I am also rereading the trade comic Astro City, this time reading all of the notes with it to get a better glimpse into this amazing series.? If you want to get into comics, read Astro City, if you don't know if you want to be into comics but are intrigued, check out Astro City.
-
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame creates one of the more bizarre, yet fun stories I have seen.? Hailing back to the day when a plot wasn't too important and imagination runs wild, this movie has flying disembodied heads, escaping from the belly of a sea monster and a war between the French and Turks.? As I said, this movie is not really going to make much sense, but is a fun ride through a bunch of different adventures.? At times the movie is a bit too bizarre for my liking, but that does not detract too much from the overall experience.? The acting was nothing great, but again, it did not harm the movie either.? I will admit that the effects look a bit dated now with the movie being over 15 years old, but a little bit of suspended disbelief goes a long way.? This will not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you want a nice fantasy story that doesn't take itself too seriously, give it a look.
-
Meta Math! : The Quest for Omega
Meta Math by Gregory Chaiton will be intimidating for most non-math folks. This is not a put down by any means, I strugged to get through a fair number of parts of the book and I have a degree in the subject. The very basic idea of the book is that there are some things that formalized math will simply not be able to explain, and this is fine and in fact good. That is the philosophical part of the book and makes up about 5% of it. The rest are mathematical explainations to concepts such as randomness and uniqueness and finding proofs to incompleteness theories. This gift was a surprise and a pleasant one at that. I am not sure exactly how Rebekah's mom found out about this book in the first place, but I am glad she did. -
Cellular
At less than an hour and a half, this movie starts going less than 5 minutes in and keeps going until the end. A "thriller" where a kidnapped woman manages to contact a random cell phone user and has him help with her escape. The story just keeps getting more elaborate from there until a decent ending that actually manages to wrap things up nicely. There is an attempt to throw some humor in occasionally, which was interesting, however a bit confusing in a rather serious movie. Overall, it was good for a movie that was less than 90 minutes long.