I’ve been having this seemingly unending debate with a good friend of mine, Aayush, about the dell Adamo. He roots for the Macbook Air, (which is a good product in it’s own category) compares it to the Dell Adamo. I personally, LOVE the Dell Adamo and am on this futile mission to try and get Aayush to see how the Dell Adamo is superior to the Macbook Air in build quality, design, aesthetics and appeal.
Well, so far so good. But now the adjectives and expletives are going to be flying left and right. Let’s begin by purchasing both the machines. For Dell adamo, you go to the beautifully designed Adamobydell.com and you are greeted with Fashion models posing with the beautifully slim (not seemingly slim, ACTUALLY SLIM!) Adamo. The site exudes Haute couture on every pixel. And that’s exactly the kind of market Adamo is aiming for. Not the lowly geeks and professionals like myself. However, I do dream of one day owning these fashion labels, and the very chic Dell Adamo.
Now lets head over to apple.com where they have their big ad for the ipod shuffle and a bar along the bottom with stuff from their entire product line like the cheap(by price) Mac mini.. bla bla.. Head over to store.apple.com and you are greeted with a busy page with tons of stuff from apple and third party, ads/offers for financing, refurbished and clearance macs, previous generation iMac models etc. You could also go over to apple.com/mac and see just how ‘consumer’ this whole experience is. You’ll feel like what I would describe as “being on Mumbai’s fashion street with people trying to hawk their wares to you” Over at apple.com/macbook air things start to look a little more polished. they have some beautifully shot pictures of the machine which is partly, just thin aluminum.(I am referring to the tapering design. You can go look for yourself at the top picture on this iFixit page) And wait, it also offers you to take a look at the television ad. I can’t ever remember seeing a television ad from fendi or ferrari.
Let’s go through the base models, trying to match them as closely as we can.
So, for $1,999 dell gives you in the Adamo:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo SU9300 (3MB cache/1.2GHz/800Mhz FSB), Onyx
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 Bit
13.4 inch 720p (HD) WLED Display (1366x768) with 1.3 MP web cam
McAfee 9.0 30 day Anti-Virus protection
2GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 800MHz
128GB Solid State Drive
Intel® GS45 Integrated Graphics with 256MB Memory
40 WHr Lithium Polymer Battery
Battery life upto 4 hours 53 minutes
High Definition Audio 2.0
Integrated Gigabit (10/100/1000) Network Card
And oh yeah, the option of Onyx or Pearl Finish with matching accessories.
If we were to try to match that config from apple. We had to add the pricey SSD and also the ethernet port add-on.
for $2,328.00 we get
1066MHz frontside bus 6MB shared L2 cache
2GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of shared DDR3 SDRAM
13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display 1280 by 800
37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
Up-to 4.5 hours
128GB Solid State Drive
Apple USB Ethernet Adapter
For people who want to run windows on it, they’d have to pay additional 239 for the windows vista home premium edition. Ringing up the total to $2,567 So Aayush’s argument of it being cheaper than the Adamo looses ground. But hey, you can cut back and get a regular 4300rpm hard drive, no ethernet adapter and then it becomes a cheaper consumer end machine. And it’s not wrong to cater to the consumer market, it’s just below what the Adamo stands for.
Both the machines have bluetooth, & wireless N but dell Adamo also has the option of mobile broadband built in which the macbook air doesn’t.
I’m being very unfair here, to both the systems, as they both have their unique advantages. eSata port on the Dell Adamo, the multitouch trackpad on the Macbook air,
the higher resolution screen and higher resolution(1.3mp) camera on the Dell Adamo, faster processor and Nvidia Graphics on the macbook air.
But there are certain comparisons that can’t be done by the numbers. Let’s see:
The Packaging
The Adamo box is oozing ‘luxury’! it comes encased in a transparent plastic stand as if it’s being displayed in a fancy boutique. And this time, you actually get to open and touch it!
Macbook air just comes in a regular cardboard box. Nothing to talk about here.
The keyboard
I read on PCWorld and iFixit that the adamo’s keyboard has 30% more surface area than the macbook air chicklet style keyboard. The scalloped keys on the dell adamo have little dips for your fingers to rest in.
Macbook Air’s keyboard, well.. is ‘unique’ in it’s own little way. But I don’t like the flat keys with so much gap between them. I still love my previous generation Macbook Pro keyboard that has little dips too. So much more comfortable than the flat key style.
The big issue today that sparked the adamo discussion again was microsoft’s requirement of a sticker on every computer that sells with it’s operating system. Microsoft’s papers say that the serial number sticker should be accessible without any tools. And the Adamo designers tackled this very well by concealing this sticker under a latch that attaches magnetically. I bet Microsoft is looking pretty stupid now. Oh god I love the design people on Adamo’s team.
And I along with most other people in the arts and design field love the Adamo. It’s an expensive Luxury product, but not a ferrari. It’s not meant to be raced around the corners. It’s a bentley or a Rolls Royce that you park in your garage to let people know how much wealth you have. One day, when I’m that rich, I will own one of these Adamos, a Fendi suit, a bentley, Vertu phone, etc. And still have a mac pro for my graphics work, nike sneakers for the gym, levis jeans, smartphone, etc.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Shining
I have a bunch of things going wrong with my hands. One of them is this 'ailment' or condition that I've had ever since I can remember. A particular time of the year, the skin on the inside of my hands, the palm and fingers; starts getting really dry. It will peel off completely, and I will get a new layer of skin. This can be compared to moulting in snakes.
So, I was sitting around people I don't know.. probably on a public transit system. And it didn't seem very crowded, so it couldn't have been India. I really can't say for sure, the dream was very hazy. So, my hands, which are being weird as always, start glowing.
I notice this and hold my hands up. I don't know if I am in pain, because I am just too fascinated and mesmerized by this. The hands now have started giving out beams of light from little openings. It's so bright that the surroundings look like they are totally dark. People around me are also fascinated by this.
Suddenly, someone holds my right hand. Starts stroking it, caressing it ever so gently with her soft hands.. And suddenly, I realize it's Sujata.
Very pleasant dream to wake up to. I just don't know what the glowing hands are supposed to signify.
So, I was sitting around people I don't know.. probably on a public transit system. And it didn't seem very crowded, so it couldn't have been India. I really can't say for sure, the dream was very hazy. So, my hands, which are being weird as always, start glowing.
I notice this and hold my hands up. I don't know if I am in pain, because I am just too fascinated and mesmerized by this. The hands now have started giving out beams of light from little openings. It's so bright that the surroundings look like they are totally dark. People around me are also fascinated by this.
Suddenly, someone holds my right hand. Starts stroking it, caressing it ever so gently with her soft hands.. And suddenly, I realize it's Sujata.
Very pleasant dream to wake up to. I just don't know what the glowing hands are supposed to signify.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Death of Yash Gupta
The third post in the series of posts I wrote on 5th March
I just finished handing in my portfolio on the 3rd March, tuesday two days ago. But it seems like it's been such a long time.
The time I was working on my portfolio was the only time I wasn’t thinking about dying. Because I really wanted to finish it, or just because I didn’t have enough time to think about anything else at all?
Incident #1
I handed in my portfolio on Tuesday. I was sleeping most of the day through Wednesday morning. Didn’t have anything to eat since 5 am on Tuesday morning to about 11 or 12 am Wednesday morning. I was in bed when the fire alarm in the building went off. I didn’t know if it was a drill or a real fire. I was on the 5th floor. Evacuating would have taken a fair bit of time. However, even though I was wide awake, nothing prompted me to get up and check it out. I didn’t even give it a second thought and turned a deaf ear to it. The fact that I am still alive means it was just a fire alarm test.
Incident#2
I was walking to the Skills Training Center down the street where I have my Wednesday night English class. I was going to give a test tonight. And I was walking confidently and fearlessly. I wasn’t afraid of the traffic. Even though I didn’t jump any stop signal, I had a close call when a car was swiftly turning into the driveway of McDonalds, but I wasn’t startled for a second even. I continued at my regular pace. Reckless woman driver, I thought. Continued walking when suddenly, I realized what I had just done.
But during the portfolio, I was very careful on the road and also very scared. I didn’t want to die without having finished the portfolio. I had an agenda. I was the man with a plan; albeit a very short term plan.
I was so happy before I handed it in. Now, I don’t know what, where or when I am doing. I feel like I’ve already written my will and I am about ready to decease.
I was so happy before I handed it in. Now, I don’t know what, where or when I am doing. I feel like I’ve already written my will and I am about ready to decease.
Disclaimer: All names, places and events (and disclaimers) mentioned in this post are false. Any resemblance to anyone anywhere is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Mind map
We were told to do this painting for our class based on the words that signify someone important in your life.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wires to wirelessly network your home
This is ridiculous. I don't know where this was taken. They obviously need to hire more people who know about networking and fire those electricians.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Nikon D40 from Henry's Outlet store toronto
After my parents finally gave me permission to buy a new camera, I wasn't going to wait another second for my parents to change their mind. But as my luck would have it, Futureshop was out of stock on the camera! So I started looking elsewhere. I finally found this model on Henry's.com . It was listed for $349. (Body only). And Since I didn't find a column for the lenses, I decided I better just go to the store to choose and pick the lens to go with the body.
Finding it wasn't a problem at all. I walked from the union station down Bay street, and then turned right when I reached queen street. Its located on 69 Queen street East. The store is huge. They have such a wide collection of stuff that I felt like a kid in a candy store. Binoculars, Old film cameras, Old Lenses, Digital cameras, (new)Lenses, even computers and ipod accessories. The store looked kinda busy at first, so I went around looking at the bargain bins. If I wanted to, I could pick out like little tidbits for almost everyone back home.
The salesman assisting me was really nice and helpful. I think his name was paul. I asked about the nikon D40 and canon digital rebel XT and corresponding lenses. When they tell you the prices of the body and lens separately, it sounds low. But the costs add up. In my case, the nikon D40 and lens was gonna be 449. I ended up paying a little more for the lens as opposed to when the lens is bundled with the camera. But it was still cheaper. Mom is expecting me to buy a camera on $519 without taxes.
With tax, my purchase went up to 560. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, that I also bought a memory card. 4 gigs. That's enough for over 500 Raw photographs from my 6 megapixel baby. After I had paid, I asked paul to show me how to put the lens on and basic functions. I was just itching to use my camera. He said the battery might not be charged, but it WAS. I also opened the SD card and shot some pictures in the store. But it was really misty outside, and might be drizzling. So I had it put back into the box.
But I missed my Go train. So I went outside the station and since it wasn't raining, took some photos. Just getting to know the camera better. I was surprised at how much I had actually figured out. But I was nowhere near being able to shoot fast at full manual. And I didn't want to miss the next train. So I went back inside. In oakville, I went to mickey's place, but apparently noone was home. Well, I will just have to go to my place and have all the fun by myself! LOL.
Thank you papa, mummy for letting me buy this.
Finding it wasn't a problem at all. I walked from the union station down Bay street, and then turned right when I reached queen street. Its located on 69 Queen street East. The store is huge. They have such a wide collection of stuff that I felt like a kid in a candy store. Binoculars, Old film cameras, Old Lenses, Digital cameras, (new)Lenses, even computers and ipod accessories. The store looked kinda busy at first, so I went around looking at the bargain bins. If I wanted to, I could pick out like little tidbits for almost everyone back home.
The salesman assisting me was really nice and helpful. I think his name was paul. I asked about the nikon D40 and canon digital rebel XT and corresponding lenses. When they tell you the prices of the body and lens separately, it sounds low. But the costs add up. In my case, the nikon D40 and lens was gonna be 449. I ended up paying a little more for the lens as opposed to when the lens is bundled with the camera. But it was still cheaper. Mom is expecting me to buy a camera on $519 without taxes.
With tax, my purchase went up to 560. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, that I also bought a memory card. 4 gigs. That's enough for over 500 Raw photographs from my 6 megapixel baby. After I had paid, I asked paul to show me how to put the lens on and basic functions. I was just itching to use my camera. He said the battery might not be charged, but it WAS. I also opened the SD card and shot some pictures in the store. But it was really misty outside, and might be drizzling. So I had it put back into the box.
But I missed my Go train. So I went outside the station and since it wasn't raining, took some photos. Just getting to know the camera better. I was surprised at how much I had actually figured out. But I was nowhere near being able to shoot fast at full manual. And I didn't want to miss the next train. So I went back inside. In oakville, I went to mickey's place, but apparently noone was home. Well, I will just have to go to my place and have all the fun by myself! LOL.
Thank you papa, mummy for letting me buy this.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Flickr Find: Jai Hind
This genius photograph was taken by Shreya. And I was really surprised to find that there was only one other comment on it. This picture deserves some awards.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Online Photo Sharing in Plain English
OMG! These people make everything sound SO convincing! love it!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Flickr upload from lightroom!
Today, I ran into a silly little problem while uploading images to flickr. I saw that the keywords that I had applied to my photo, showed up as one long keyword, enclosed in quotes. So I Ventured out to find lightroom groups on flickr and ask my question. I joined two groups, one called presetting lightroom, and second, just Adobe lightroom. I haven't gotten around to exploring presetting lightroom yet, but Adobe lightroom is a HUGE group! (I haven't figured out how to add links to the blog post from flickr or else I'd have linked the groups!)
And in the discussion, 'flickr export from lightroom, I found out a great new way to upload my photos photos directly from Lightroom! Well, its a two step process, so involves going through flickr uploader too, but its faster than manually exporting your photos from lightroom and then uploading them to flickr. I previously used pictureSync, which I admit is not a very bad workflow either, but It only provides limited functionality in its free mode, and expects you to pay for the full version.
The process involves installing flickr uploadr that you can download for free from the flickr website, and creating an alias. (or shortcut if you're on windows) Put the alias inside the home or user/library/application support/adobe/lightroom/export action/ folder ( for windows should be something similar...) then in lightroom, go to file>export or right click on a photo or selection of photos, and go to export>export... In the export dialog box, scroll down to post processing, and select flickr uploadr. and save this preset as flickr or flickr upload. Now whevever you use export>flickr, it will export the image, and start flickr uploadr!
You now just need to select the preferred options inside flickr uploadr and away you go! I've noticed the tags transfer over properly, and the filename is what it will use as title. I heard on some of the discussions that in certain cases, it will look for title in the the itpc data. I don't always title all my photos in lightroom, so I can't say anything for sure. But this has really changed my flickr life, and I'm really happy!
And in the discussion, 'flickr export from lightroom, I found out a great new way to upload my photos photos directly from Lightroom! Well, its a two step process, so involves going through flickr uploader too, but its faster than manually exporting your photos from lightroom and then uploading them to flickr. I previously used pictureSync, which I admit is not a very bad workflow either, but It only provides limited functionality in its free mode, and expects you to pay for the full version.
The process involves installing flickr uploadr that you can download for free from the flickr website, and creating an alias. (or shortcut if you're on windows) Put the alias inside the home or user/library/application support/adobe/lightroom/export action/ folder ( for windows should be something similar...) then in lightroom, go to file>export or right click on a photo or selection of photos, and go to export>export... In the export dialog box, scroll down to post processing, and select flickr uploadr. and save this preset as flickr or flickr upload. Now whevever you use export>flickr, it will export the image, and start flickr uploadr!
You now just need to select the preferred options inside flickr uploadr and away you go! I've noticed the tags transfer over properly, and the filename is what it will use as title. I heard on some of the discussions that in certain cases, it will look for title in the the itpc data. I don't always title all my photos in lightroom, so I can't say anything for sure. But this has really changed my flickr life, and I'm really happy!
Thursday, August 09, 2007
And they couldn't be saved...
It was a really sad day for me and all my friends who knew him. Even though he wasn't exactly my type, I was fine with hanging with him for the time I was at sujta's place. A lot of times there would be music that not everybody liked, but he still kept quiet and played. There were times when he would start acting up when we forced him to run the intensive applications like photoshop instead of just working with paint. Sujata was the one that cared about him the most.
Then one day, him and sujata were travelling together, and sujata got lost and acted careless for one moment and it was over. It was not intentional, I know. Just one of the many silly mistakes that we all make. Maybe not as much as sujata, but we do. (case in point, the time when sujata came to meet me in the intercontinental hotel mumbai) But anyways, back to the story, she was careless for a few moments(yes, again) and he was snatched. GONE! She tried looking for him but she couldn't find him. I know she mourned and grieved harder and longer than any of us. After all, he was like her....no, lets stop.
And besides the financial reason, the bigger setback was because all the memories we had in him, all the photos all the videos all the art we did together, was gone. Just vanished in thin air. But, luckily, I still have these photos that sujata sent me. but the others couldn't be saved. I wish she had backed them up
Then one day, him and sujata were travelling together, and sujata got lost and acted careless for one moment and it was over. It was not intentional, I know. Just one of the many silly mistakes that we all make. Maybe not as much as sujata, but we do. (case in point, the time when sujata came to meet me in the intercontinental hotel mumbai) But anyways, back to the story, she was careless for a few moments(yes, again) and he was snatched. GONE! She tried looking for him but she couldn't find him. I know she mourned and grieved harder and longer than any of us. After all, he was like her....no, lets stop.
And besides the financial reason, the bigger setback was because all the memories we had in him, all the photos all the videos all the art we did together, was gone. Just vanished in thin air. But, luckily, I still have these photos that sujata sent me. but the others couldn't be saved. I wish she had backed them up
Monday, July 30, 2007
ROM is the place to be!
This is the first time I'm posting a picture taken by someone other than me on my blog. Just because I didn't have a camera when I went to the rom on saturday and sunday! Apart from being totally breathtaking, it also doesn't cost me anything to go there over and over again now because I've already gotten a student membership. So I'm hoping, some day when I get my own camera, I will come up with beautiful photographs like this one too.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Cute anshul
I wanted to announce that I recently closed down my yahoo photos account and migrated all my photos to flickr. And as I did that, I got a three months free pro account which I intend to fully utilize! I might even go ahead and purchase a year's pro membership!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Found out a flickr secret
This is actually a kind of backdoor for the free users to be able to look at their full resolution images. I was looking through the old photographs of creative i college because I wanted pranav's picture for reference. I was trying to draw profile or 3 quarters views of him, and was not quite successful. So I clicked on one of the photos of the class decoration contest, which I remembered I had uploaded in full resolution!
Earlier, when I was not using the all sizes greasemonkey script, I had tried going into the all sizes page for that photo, and I only saw the large size as the biggest. But lately, I've had the script installed on my browser, so today, I clicked on all sizes, and the all sizes+ options appeared, and I clicked on original, and view image. I was pleasantly surprised to see the whole 3024x2016 image load up! I went wow This is amazing!
So for all u free users, if you don't have to upload a lot of images in a month, you can post your high res images on flickr, and always have access to them through this script!
Earlier, when I was not using the all sizes greasemonkey script, I had tried going into the all sizes page for that photo, and I only saw the large size as the biggest. But lately, I've had the script installed on my browser, so today, I clicked on all sizes, and the all sizes+ options appeared, and I clicked on original, and view image. I was pleasantly surprised to see the whole 3024x2016 image load up! I went wow This is amazing!
So for all u free users, if you don't have to upload a lot of images in a month, you can post your high res images on flickr, and always have access to them through this script!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Disco Lights in Explore
I am so happy, because its after a really long time that one of my photos has shown up in flickr's explore pages. It reached a high of 313. It only appeared after I deleted it from many group pools and brought down the number of groups to 10. And it wouldn't have been if it wasn't for greenmonster. so a big thanks goes out to her.
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