T-Mobile G1 review

by Joshua Topolsky

It's hard to believe, but rumors of a "Googlephone" have been floating around since 2006. To put it in perspective, the first Gphone post on Engadget was written by Peter Rojas. Needless to say, it's been a long, slow ride to get to Android, the Open Handset Alliance, and ultimately the T-Mobile G1. If we said expectations were high for the introduction of this device, it would be an understatement. It's not every day that a company with the stature of Google announces it's getting into the phone game, and it's certainly not every day that an honest-to-goodness innovator comes along. That last time the team at Engadget got this stoked for a device, it was a little something called the iPhone -- and you know how that turned out. Will Android and the G1 live up to the hype? Is this the first coming of a serious new contender in the mobile space, or has the triple threat of Google, HTC, and T-Mobile not delivered on their promises? We've put both the device and the software through its paces to bring you the definitive review of the T-Mobile G1 and Android, so read on to get your answers.

As we've really gone to great lengths to dissect the phone and OS, we're splitting the review into two, easy to digest parts. Enjoy!

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5 Creativity Killers And How To Get Your Creative Juices Flowing Again

Posted by Jon Phillips

How do you get your creative juices flowing?

I get that question a lot from fellow freelancers, and unfortunately there’s no perfect answer because we’re all different and we all have a different working style.

But for those of you who have asked, here are my top 5 creativity killers and how I manage to stay focused, productive and creative.

#1 — Multi-Tasking And Distractions

I know some people have mastered the art of multi-tasking and working on tons of things at once. I tried and it’s not for me. There is no way I can focus on a project while trying to reply to emails, talk on the phone and chat on Skype. In order to get my creative juices flowing I absolutely need to focus all my attention and energy on one thing: work on that project.

Multi-tasking is not for me, but I can get just as much done in a day as someone who multi-tasks. It’s actually really easy and it’s nothing new, all you need is a schedule and you have to stick to it. When I need to work on a project and I find that I’m not inspired (say it’s a design for a client) I simply turn off my phone, close my emails get rid of all distractions and then get back to work. It works every single time.

I find I get much more done in 2 hours when I’m focussed than I do in 8 hours multi-tasking.

#2 — Lack Of Sleep

One of the cool things about freelancing is that you can work your own hours. That’s great! But for many of us it also means working evenings and week-ends and sometimes not sleeping much! There is always work that needs to be done, and clients that need our attention.

Lack of sleep can be a real creativity killer! How can you focus on something and be inspired when you’re dead tired? Work is still gonna be there tomorrow! Get a good night sleep and come back the next day with new ideas and a fresh perspective!

On a side note, our very own Dave Navarro has a program called ‘Becoming An Early Riser‘ and I have to say it helped me a lot in getting up earlier and getting more stuff done in a day. Try it and see if it works for you!

#3 — Fear Of Rejection

I’m sure it happened to all of us at some point, the fear of rejection. It’s not fun and it can definitely kill your creativity. There is no way you can please everyone and it’ll happen you will present something to a client and it’ll get rejected. It happens.

By all means, do not take it personally! Instead, try to use that (sometimes negative) energy and use it in a productive and creative way. Learn from that experience and go back to that drawing board and kick some ass. Always remember that if you got hired to do some work it’s because that person thinks you’re talented and remember that you’re probably not the first freelancer this person contacted for the project.

#4 — Financial Insecurity

It’s not easy to focus on a project when all you think about is your car payment, your credit cards and the mortgage. I used to always worry about money when I quit my day job a couple years ago because I was so used to the security of a paycheck every two weeks! The first year was very difficult and I was never sure I’d be able to make that car payment and then I realized I could just raise my prices a bit and I would then be able to put some money aside and voila!

I’m a web-designer and I have no idea what the average per hour rate is in Canada, nor do I care. There will always be someone willing to do the job for cheaper than me. And I’m fine with that! At the end of the day it all comes down to how much time you’re willing to trade for a certain amount of money. I prefer charging slightly more, focus on less projects and and have more time for other things like personal projects (which will bring me money in the long run).

#5 — Pressure And Deadlines

Some clients have very high expectations, and it’s understandable. Remember, they pay your bills! But can you really be creative when you’re under heavy pressure? Some people have no problem with stress but for those of us who do it’s fairly easy to make sure you’re never under pressure and still always deliver!

Always under-promise. Say you have a design gig and you know it’ll take you 3 weeks to complete it, well simply tell your client it’ll take 4 weeks! Works wonder, no stress and happy clients every time!

Your Turn To Talk

So, what are your creativity killers? And how do you manage to get those creative juices flowing? I’m sure we could all benefit from hearing your stories and tips & tricks! See ya in the comment section!

Jon Phillips

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About the author: Jon is a full-time freelancer, blogger and designer, he loves WordPress and plays guitar in a heavy act. he can also be found on Twitter.

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image in this post: Kazze

Original here

Giz Explains: Why Does the New MacBook Pro Have Two Graphics Cards?

The biggest update to the new MacBooks—on the inside anyway—is their graphical muscle, which has been hooked up with some Barry Bonds-level steroids. Apple ditched Intel's crummy integrated graphics and chipset (basically the traffic controller between the processor and everything else) entirely, opting for a new one from Nvidia that combines the chipset and a GPU on a single chip—the GeForce 9400M. The MacBook Pro, being more Pro-erer than the MacBook, now rocks two graphics cards—the integrated 9400M and a separate, beefier GeForce 9600M GT. If that swirl of numbers, letters and BS is confusing, here's what's up.

Two graphics cards? It sounds crazy, preposterous, retardiculous. It's actually not. It's not unique to the MacBook Pro at all. PC users might be more familiar with Nvidia's Hybrid SLI, which pulls similar dual-card wizardry. In a nutshell, it lets you use the less power-hungry integrated graphics processor when you're doing lighter stuff to save battery, and then when you want a lot of video-crunching Mr. T powah, you can flip on the discrete graphics card. Of course, there's balls-to-the-wall full SLI too, which uses two entirely separate graphics cards in one notebook for Hulk power and about 45 seconds of battery life, like in one of Alienware's beasts.

Nvidia's standard hybrid SLI for PC actually uses both the integrated and discrete GPU at the same time when it goes into turbo mode, and it'll let you switch on the fly or have it automatically flip between the two depending on the power source. But the MacBook Pro uses Apple's spin on Nvidia's tech that simply lets you pick one or the other (not both, booooooo) and you have to manually flip the switch in system prefs, log out and back in, pretty annoying. Battery life is apparently an issue with the new MacBook Pro, considering that the integrated 9400M card now nets you five hours of go-time, the same as the separate, more power-hungry 8600M GT in the previous model, whereas the new discrete 9600M GT now gets you only four.

The other major reason for the huge upgrade to more proficient graphic cards in both the MacBook and Pro is Snow Leopard, which will be big on parallel processing and offloading work to the graphics card—graphics cards are particularly adept at parallel processing because of the way they're designed and the fact that they have a buttload of cores. (Here's a more in-depth explanation of that.) And if graphics cards are driving more and more of the general computing experience, the truly shitty ones in the last generation of MacBooks just won't cut it.

Nvidia's been heavily investing in "General-purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units" (GPGPU)—again, using the graphics card for more general applications—on its own for a while, actually. When they demoed their latest, most badass cards for me a few months ago, it was heavily tilted on those types of applications, including in-game physics and Folding@Home. They actually have their own development kit called CUDA that lets programmers leverage graphics cards using a standard programming language—PhysX, a physics gaming engine, is probably the most well-known application of it so far. (Nvidia isn't sure when PhysX come to Mac, but they're looking at it.) Not so coincidentally, CUDA for Mac came out in August. These cards also support Apple's own graphics programming language, called OpenCL.

So even if you're the type of person that browses the net, edits Office docs and fiddles around in Photoshop rather than the type that plays WoW: Wrath of the Lich King or cuts video, graphics cards will matter to you almost as much as it does to those people: They're going to be critical not just in a lot of the awesome stuff you'll see coming out in the next couple of years but increasingly so in the way operating systems run, whether it's from Apple or Microsoft or anyone else. So get ready to hear a lot more about them.

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