Morrise.com (Mö-r??)

am always one to rush into things. That is how I recently bought a new laptop on eBay. I know what you are thinking, “We know about your laptop, you talked about it for weeks.” Yes, yes I did. But this is another new laptop, purchased this very day. Here’s the deal. I always look at technology, it’s my thing that I do. I look at this laptop a lot because Julianne has a similar one and I think it’s cool. This one has all the same specs, it’s just a little smaller. Anyway, I haven’t seen one go for under $900 in a long time and this auction still had days left when I first saw it. I always feel that if I am the highest bidder on any eBay item at any given time then I owned it however briefly. The bid was at $700 and I figured, what the heck, I’ll bid $750. I did so, and the price jumped to $740 (if you know how eBay works this will make sense to you). I did this without really reading the item description because I see so many of these things and they are always sold brand new by the same sellers. This time though, it was a different seller and the item was only “like new” having been used for two weeks. I guess two weeks of use depreciates these things by $160 because no one bid on it after me.

So, here’s the deal. I now own two mid-level laptops. My plan is to list them both on KSL.com and just wait until one of them sells. Then I will keep the other. I looked on KSL to see if any of this type of laptop were available for sale. It turns out there was one on there. It has been used for two weeks and it already sold after 8 days. It sold for $895. That would give me a $155 profit. Here’s hoping anyway, but so far I haven’t had the best experience selling on KSL. I guess that’s what I get for being impatient.

I tell you all this to save myself the trouble of explaining when I see you in person.

Just a short rant about the waste that is ImOscar.com. Seriously. If I owned that domain I would do marvelous things to it. As it stands it looks like a free template a hosting company threw up there. Why didn’t people at fox buy the domain before airing the cabin episode of Arrested Development? If I knew who owned (and is wasting) such a sweet domain I would shake up their soda right before they opened it.

If you’re like me, you often wonder, sometimes even aloud, what is the largest Lego set ever sold by the Denmark-based company? The answer used to be the 5,195-piece Millennium Falcon, truly a trophy and a status symbol among nerds. But last year, Lego started to distribute the new pinnacle of Lego buildings, the 5,922-piece Taj Mahal.

Needless to say, I want one. And I don’t even know why.

If you were saddened by Adamo, this new tiny tablet PC may thaw the cockles of your heart. While no specs have been released yet for Lenovo’s newest creation, this is a very usable tiny PC with a close to full size keyboard. Lenovo has wisely ditched the tiny track pad and buttons in favor of a touch screen. This is hopefully the first of many tablet pc netbooks we will see. Here’s hoping that Apple is the next contender in this field.

The news of the day is that Dell has finally released specs on the new Adamo. I got their exclusive email this morning (if you’d like to be one of the “in” crowd, visit the site here). This machine has created a lot of hype since its super slim .65″ chassis beats the well known MacBook Air, and everyone in the geek/tech world has been hoping for a real Air competitor that wouldn’t cost $1700. Unfortunately, disappointment on that front. The new Adamo starts at $1999 and can go as high as $2999. The major issue with this is that while Adamo does boast a 1.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the MacBook Air comes with a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo (or 1.86 if you feel like a big spender), has an Nvidia graphics card and is now the cheaper option. I want to offer condolences to gadget guys all over the world who are weeping at this prohibitive price.

In case it doesn’t become obvious, these are sarcastic

1. Fellowship of the Rings and Two Towers were shoved down our throats.

I’ve heard some students are even forced to read some novelization of the movie in their literature classes. Ridiculous. Does Hollywood run our classrooms now?

2. Greed.

Hollywood can’t make a movie these days without crapping out a sequel the next year to squeeze more money out of the sheep. Guess what; there’s ANOTHER LOTR movie coming this Christmas. Gee, I wonder what will bring Rocky out of retirement this time?

3. Quality Control at New Line.

Millions of copies of the LOTR DVDs have thick black bars at the bottom and top of the screen throughout the film. Didn’t anyone catch this? You know what happens at the end, in the extreme foreground and extreme upper sky? Neither do I. Bush league, guys. Read the remainder of this entry »

The shuffle version of Apple’s popular iPod underwent a rework that was released in stores today. The new version has 4GB storage capacity, but the buttons have been moved exclusively to the headphones. Anyone who is used to the iPhone’s headphones can tell you it is convenient to have headphone control, but the chances of losing the headphones are a lot larger than the chances of losing the shuffle itself.

Following up with an earlier post on morrise.com, the Dow Jones News Wire and Reuters have confirmed with a source close to Winktek that they are indeed supplying 10″ touch screens to Apple although the source was still unclear as to the product that they would contribute to.

Rumors have been flying around the web that a company called Wintek recently contracted with Apple to sell them a new touch screen. The purpose behind this, tech blogs claim, is that Apple will release a new netbook in the third quarter of this year.

If this is true, this may confirm some of the rumors that Steve Jobs has been thinking up new, innovative products ever since he stopped coming into work. Given Apples other products (the MacBook Air comes to mind) this new netbook complete with touch screen could be quite a contender in the netbook market provided apple is willing to price it competitively.

Drat, one more thing I want that I likely will never buy.

Some products are highly anticipated be cause we’ve seen the features and they are must-haves. But Dell has efficiently created a buzz in the tech world by shrouding its new Adamo line in mystery. Dell set up a website devoted to Adamo that is nothing more than a list of press releases about Adamo and a place to input your contact information so they can keep you up to date with all the exciting Adamo news. I subscribed to Adamo, but so far, no news.

The Adamo website is intriguing for two reasons. First, it is very reminiscent of the artsy Mr. Plow commercial for Homer’s snow plowing business on “The Simpsons”. Second, the website doesn’t actually do anything. It doesn’t shed light on Adamo - all the press releases were written by people who are just as clueless about it as you. After all the pondering and speculation I have done, one question has come to the forefront of my mind. Namely, “How are they getting away with this?”

With this much hype, the product behind it will have to be beyond amazing not to be seen as one of the most Epic Fails in recent tech history. Gutsy. At the press conference where the first Adamo product was introduced, Dell reps wouldn’t let anyone turn it on. Who knows, maybe it’s a time machine. The way I see it, if you’re going to build a time machine into a laptop, why not do it with some style.

For a gadet guy like me, the iPhone exemplifies the kinds of things I look for in a phone. But what if you’re a chef, lawyer, hermit or gamer? What kind of a phone do you look for? The chef gets the Motorola Cleaver, the lawyer gets a BlackBerry, the hermit gets no phone and the gamer gets this one.

Cellphones aimed specifically at gamers is an emerging market, and has been wide open ever since Sony decided not to release a PSP phone.

This guy even appears to fold up small enough not to be a pocket nuisance when games aren’t being played.