Two:Thirty AM

A little background first:
I signed up for the Beta test of the VUDU box LONG ago, but never got in. I did however get into the VUDU evangalist program which basically give me a VUDU box for free, in return for sharing my review and thoughts with everyone. So there you go, onto VUDU.

Well I finally got my VUDU box today. As of right now, I have taken it out of the box, and have it all hooked up to the TV. The hardware is very nice and stylish. The setup was extremely easy. The remote is of the utmost strangeness, but actually quite functional; and RF so no line of site (a big plus) for me! you can both buy and rent movies. This unit could be exactly what the industry needs to get renting movies at home to take off. The more geeky group of us have been able to do things like this before, but this unit really makes it easy for the everyday user to watch their downloaded movies on their tv.

- Renting costs around $3.99 and buying around $9.99
- The movies catalog looks to be pretty large and looks to be growing all the time.
- Once you rent a movie you have 30 days to start watching; and 24 hrs to finish watching once you press play.
I have rented a few movies but have not been able to watch them yet. I will review the actual movie watching experience at a later day. Look for the announcement of the VUDU watch party.

My faith in the Wii has been restored!!!

My Xbox 360 has held my attention away from my Wii for quite a long time now, but the time has finally come to go back to the Wii. Since the day Super Mario Galaxy came out, I have not touched my Xbox 360.

Simply put: Super Mario Galaxy is AWESOME! It goes back to the good old days of Mario. I am around a 1/4 of the way through the game and severely addicted! It brings in aspects of a lot of the older games into this new inventive world. The thing I like most is that they didn’t over use the Wiimote functionality like they do in most of the Wii games.

This is a solid addition to the Mario gaming line and a must buy for Mario fans or someone with a Wii that hasn’t turned it on it months.

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That sure came a lot sooner than I thought. OS X 10.5.1 has been released. At this rate we are going to be going past 10.5.9 in no time. As far as 10.5.1 goes, its your usual bug fixes and security fixes. Looks like they fixed the “move” problem, which I never understood why people did that to begin with but its fixed now. Other than that, it “feels” the same. It didn’t fix any of the issues I have been having with leopard…but there is always 10.5.2.

Well I was quite surprised to see OS X 10.4.10…….then Apple dropped 10.4.11 on me! Both client and server. The update included security fixes as well as some bug fixes. I thought for sure at this point they would just push everyone to leopard, but it looks like i was wrong. Although I am running Leopard on my macbook (this computer) I still don’t think its ready for my production machines. Enjoy 10.4.11 everyone. I am going to say that a 10.4.12 is definitely not going to happen! haha well we will see.

So I have had the 1.1.2 update for a while, but recently it was finally released to the masses on iTunes. Either way you look at it, it’s a non-event. The biggest additions were to languages for our friends in europe, since they got the iPhone now. Aside from that, there isn’t much to speak of. More of the “cat and mouse game” between Apple and the wonderful iPhone hacker community (who’s dies I am on). So hooray for 1.1.2, now hurry up and get that SDK out apple! not to mention the missing BASIC features that should of been in the iPhone from day 1.

- Cut and freaking paste!!!???
- MMS (picture messaging) even the eleventeen dollar phones can do that, my $600 one should be able to….
- Applications (coming in feb supposedly)
- Use my own custom ringtones without having to use a 3rd party app, or hack the phone. (and no i dont mean the STUPID pay twice for a song from apple for a crappy song I dont want)

Anyways, thats that on the update. I can’t wait for 1.1.3, 1.1.4, 1.1.5, 1.1.6…..

As I said below my Pioneer AVIC-N2 died on me, so I took this opportunity to upgrade because I wasn’t really a hundred precent happy with the unit. For the GPS portion of my system I began researching mobile GPS devices. Long story short it looked to me that Garmin is doing the best job in this area. Only problem is that Garmin seems to make about 60 different units, all of which are very close in their feature set. I knew I wanted the Nuvi product line, and really wanted the wide screen so I would have the most screen real estate for viewing maps. I decided to go with the 200W (since I will only be using it in the US) and of course it had the widescreen.

On a side note, MINI sells a NUVI that is branded for MINI which gives you a MINI splash screen, as well as changing the little car icon into a MINI on screen. Doesn’t change the way the unit works at all, but come on! it’s just cool. So I went ahead and got the vehicle .SRF files and there is a link to them below so you can load MINI’s into your non MINI branded unit if you have one. It is a very easy process, feel free to send me an email if you need help with it.
Garmin Nuvi SRF (MINI)

As far as the Nuvi 200w goes, it is an amazing device! On to the pro’s and cons.

PRO’S
+ Great tactile touch screen
+ Very accurate maps
+ Works with Mac OS X
+ 4-5 hours of continuous battery life
+ Ability to change the vehicle icons
+ Good overall size
+ Charges over standard USB cable

CONS
- Honestly, I have yet to find a true con yet…
- Would like longer battery life, but battery life is never enough is it?
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I recently had my Pioneer AVIC-N2 Nav Unit in my car die on me. The LCD ribbon cable broke, this was however a recall item so Pioneer will fix it for free. Only problem with that is that I have to send the unit. So I have taken his opportunity to upgrade the unit since I wasn’t a hundred percent happy with the pioneer.

Anyway on to this new unit. I have been using an iPod as my music source in the car for years, it’s just easier than carrying around a bunch of cd’s and I can’t stand the radio. I was first attracted to this unit because it basically looks like an iPod in your dash. The unit displays all the info you need on the 2.2″ high res TFT display. The unit displays all relevant song info as well as album art. The unit comes with a cable that you can run to pretty much anywhere, and you can plug in an iPod or a simple USB thumb drive. How about some Pro’s and Con’s.

PROS
+ Fully iPod compatible
+ 24 Bit DAC
+ Bluetooth phone connection
+ HD Radio Ready
+ XM and Sirius Satellite Ready
+ MP3 / AAC / WMA support
+ Great sound quality

CONS
- No in dash CD player; Can connect an external CD changer
- Center button isn’t “select” its “search” (not a huge deal, just something to get used to)
- Would like to see more things included vs. being expensive add on accessory. (bluetooth, Sat radio)
- Can only change buttons to 2 different colors

*Even though my pioneer had an in dash CD player, the unit had to have the NAV dvd in all the time so it was worthless anyway,

Overall I really like the unit. If you are looking for a good iPod integration unit for your car, check this unit out.
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