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January 1, 2011
Ah yes, some traditions die hard. The New Year blog is still alive and kicking. 2010 was a mixed year for me. For my website it was the probably as crappy a year as they come (update-wise). Granted, I embedded Twitter into my main page so e.g. whenever I updated the photo gallery (and that happened quite a lot), I posted a Tweet - not an official "update" like this one. Oh well, times change, don't they? So here's the classical "the way I saw it" -rundown of the year 2010. From a technology point of view, I'd think it safe to say the the launch of iPad and iPhone 4 stole a lot of the attention in tech-media. At time the media would report pretty much any completely uninteresting shit as long as it was about iPhone or iPad. But I'd also say that 2010 was the year of Android in the way that it went from a rather obscure existence in 2009 to become a well known and recognized brand among "regular people" (and by "regular" I mean those who don't spend 1h/day reading e.g. www.engadget.com) Being an "early adopter" -Android user I can say that I'm disappointed in the way I got screwed. I bought the HTC Magic running Android OS 1.5 the very first day it was released (back in June 2009) here in Sweden. I was looking forward to a year full of exciting OS updates and new features, after all, that's why I got a smart-phone in the first place, right? No more "never update" Nokias or SonyEricssons that I'd owned in the past. So here we are, it's 2011. What OS version am I running now? Yup, still 1.5. HTC did release a Sense UI update for it but that was it. Not a single OS update. Apparently there are two models of the HTC Magic and obviously I got the "bad" one that allegedly doesn't have enough memory to run newer OS releases. Tough luck then. I'll soon buy a new one (dual core Tegra looks nice) but foolishly, I got the HTC Magic along with a 2 year contract - hey, had I known I'd get zero OS updates, I'd never had signed for that long. Anyway, 2 lessons learned now: Early adopters are guinea pigs and 24 months is a loooong time in the mobile biz. I'm also a graphics guy (and former computer-games gfx artist) so I'm usually interested in the development of new graphics cards for PCs. A rather obvious trend in 2010 was that game companies are starting to express worries about Windows as a viable games platform. And by that I refer to the piracy issues plaguing the PC because ironically, the PC is - potentially - by far the most capable gaming device. But in reality, the "capability fragmentation" of the total installed user base makes it economically impossible to produce titles that really push the PC to the limit. If they did that, games would look like the stuff you see in 3d mark 2011. Instead, companies are playing it safe by releasing titles that will run on ancient PCs. The result is that most games don't look much better (if at all) than PS3 or Xbox 360 games. So why buy a brand new GFX card every year for 300 euros when you can buy a PS3 for 250. Sure the Xbox360 and PS3 aren't exactly packing hot hardware these days, but the way games look, there is no obvious pay-off to keep playing PC games. With one exception of course: Star Craft 2. This long awaited sequel probably pushed the possible death of the PC as a gaming platform into the future. When the next gen consoles arrive, games really will look like 3dmark11 or better. By then the PC will be struggling for sure. The competition will not only arrive from next gen consoles but also from Cloud based services such as "OnLive" that can stream gaming content to any device with a good connection (in theory anyway). With that gloomy outlook, let me conclude this topic by announcing that I just hours ago ordered a GeForce 570 (Superclocked). :-) Didn't I say, some habits die hard? :-) All right then, I could go on forever about text stuff as I have a lot of opinions about it but let's not.. ;-) The personal part of my life was also a mixed bag in 2010. My father died in April at the age of 74. I've experienced death before, but never this close. It's different when it's within the family. Most people have to deal with it at some point in their lives so it's pretty much inevitable. Only way to avoid it is to die yourself before anyone else, but then your family will have to deal with that. And so it goes. It's a reminder that things don't last forever and if there's stuff you've been planning to do, you better do it sooner rather than later.. A short while after that sad loss, my GF (girlfriend) got a second cat, a very cute and furry little creature named Wilda (yes, it's because she's wild). You can see several pix of her in my Photo Gallery (check Pets pages). A couple of months after that, it was time for something relaxing and nice: vacation. Me and my GF decided to visit Asia. We went to Singapore and Bali (+Gili) (Indonesia) for 3 weeks. Albeit expensive, it was a very nice vacation and I recommend it to anyone looking for a nice mix of nature(adventure/shopping/ etc.. The last part of the year involved a lot of moving around (both personal and professional). New office at work and I moved out of my old apartment. I now live together with my GF. :-) As I said from the beginning. 2010 was a mixed bag, but then life is bound to have some ups and some downs along the way. I look forward to 2011 and who knows what I'll write in the 2012 blog. ("Help, the world is falling apart!") ;-) Anyway, in conclusion, let me also reveal that a complete re-design of this good(?) old(!) web page is planned for the relatively near future. With the arrival of HTML 5, web-design seems exciting again. I already got the new design in prototype-pages but I better not make any promises about actual release dates... Well ok, how about "when it's done". ;-) Folks, that's it for this time. I wish you the best possible 2011! Make stuff happen! 2010 Click here for older (2010) updates. 2009 Click here for older (2009) updates. 2008 Click here for older (2008) updates. 2007 Click here for older (2007) updates. 2006 Click here for older (2006) updates. 2005 Click here for older (2005) updates. 2004 Click here for older (2004) updates. 2003 Click here for older (2003) updates. 2002 Click here for older (2002) updates. 2001 Click here for older (2001) updates. 2000 Click here for older (2000) updates. 1999 Click here for older (1999) updates. 1998 Click here for older (1998) updates. 1997 Click here for older (1997) updates. 1996 Click here for older (1996) updates. |
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