I totally did *not* make this comic – but the brilliant guys over at C-Section Comics did. And well, surprisingly spot on! Considering I have an iPhone and a Blackberry as I so shamelessly mentioned in an earlier post, I can say at least 2/3’s of it rings true. :)

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I’m sure I’m not the only one when I say that one of my childhood dreams is finally coming true: StarCraft 2. The original came out in 1998 and still has a cult-like following – especially in Korea.

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Sigh. The Apple fanboy. I think we’ve all dealt with one of these in our lifetime. Those annoying people that don’t actually have a reason for their retarded desire to own an iPhone except for the sake of owning an iPhone. And to send out silly emails with the message “Sent from an iPhone” at the bottom. And to whip it out at every possible moment they can to use the phrase “oh, I think I have an app for that…”. Like STFU already.

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I’m sure we all “know” that internet in Japan must be hella fast – but how fast is it really? Well from the speed test results above, at least 50Mbit/s! This speed test was taken from the internet in my hotel room – but we’ve been told that lots of users in Japan city centers are running 1GBbit/s (125MB/s) lines! sheeeeet.

Imagine downloading a DVD movie (4.5GB) in roughly 30 seconds! That’s just ridiculous. I hear torrents are not as prevalent as it is in North America – which makes me wonder what all that speed is for. Anyway, I just got into Osaka – so I’m going to head out for some night life.

Believe it or not, right after the good ol’ “are you chinese?” – the second most popular question I get asked is: why do I have both a BlackBerry AND an iPhone? I mean, what idiot carries around two phones?! Right?

You’re right. But unfortunately – that’s not the way I see it. And in fact, I don’t use them both as phones simultaneously anyway – but that’s not really the point. I’m here to talk about this “world” that us gadget-enthusiasts live in. For everyone else on the planet – we must look pretty ridiculous, eh? Well, there’s a pretty simple reason… so let’s discuss!

I’m not sure I can speak for all gadget-enthusists, but my iPhone/BlackBerry dilemma is the obvious solution to a problem that well, isn’t really a problem. In fact – it’s more.. a way of life. The life of an technology addict, that is. Our lifestyle is simple: we must stay a) connected, b) entertained and most importantly, c) efficient at _all_ times.

With that being said, hopefully the problem is becoming a little more apparent:

my BlackBerry is my oh, so glorious, swiss-army knife of productivity. I am continuously connected – receving emails, IM’s, twitter/facebook updates, news feeds and more thoughtout the entire day. It clearly fulfills lifestyle code (a), and on most occasions, pillar (c) as well. It has the best keyboard on a mobile device, it’s got blazing fast speeds, and it seemlessly aggregates all my important information and feeds it to me throughout the day.

Brilliant? YES…. well… kinda. I mean – it totally takes care of _two_ core pillars of my lifestyle triangle. That’s probably more than enough for a regular person… but not me. Oh no. I need to be entertained! Connected and efficient is good. Great, in fact… but not perfect. And that’s where the iPhone comes in:

my iPhone is the epitome of a time waster. There is not one other gadget, that so effectively calls for my attention than the iPhone. I think the 150k ++ apps on the App Store speak for themselves. People most definitely want to waste time – since there’s been over 4 billion downloads from the App Store! My iPhone offers me app, after app of unquestionable entertainment – videos, games, music and so much more! Lifestyle pillar (b) – check. And in fact, the iPhone even knocks over the BlackBerry for (c) once in a while as well! If I plan to surf the web for more than a few minutes – I most certainly prefer the iPhone. If I wish to listen to music – the iPhone is king… and the list goes on.

It’s a tradeoff almost every day. If I need to stay connected and efficient with my time – I bring my BlackBerry. If I’m going to need to blow a few hours – most definitely the iPhone. It’s a no brainer.

Bottom line:
My BlackBerry gives me back time. I can go home and answer 5-10 less emails, check 10 less websites, etc.
My iPhone, on the other hand, steals my time. With those 40 minutes I saved using my BlackBerry – my iPhone will replace them with in entertainment.

Silly? Maybe. But hey – whatever gets me through the day. Now, how about that iPad…

Ohhhhhhhh Google.

Remember them about 10 years ago? Fighting away at Yahoo, Altavista and AOL with their simple, clean and speedy search results? Yeah well, man they’ve come a long way.

Anyway, back to the point – I finally decided to make the switch to Google Chrome. Okay fine, I made it sound a little bigger than it really is. But the truth is… you really get attached to your browser! Well at least I did. My firefox is customized to the brim! Skinned, and with so many quality extensions/plugins that I’m not quite sure how people stay productive without em.

So why the switch? The big reason? Speed. And also just slightly because Firefox was starting to get a little glitchy/buggy for me. Open 3 windows of FF, and load about 20-40 tabs in each – and let the glitches begin. Chrome handles my 4 windows with 30 tabs so well it always feels like I just started a fresh session. There’s absolutely no indication I’m on my 100th tab…

Aside from that – Chrome starts up milesssss quicker that Firefox. It generally loads pages significantly quicker, and it’s tab management system is far superior to Firefox’s. Since each Chrome tab consumes a separate process – one frozen tab won’t kill the entire browser – simply pull up the Chrome Task Manager and kill that specific tab. Brilliant. Anyway, I’ve also been hesitant to switch over for the last while because Chrome didn’t orginally support Extensions (custom/3rd-party plugins that add functionality to the browser). The good news – it now does! All the essentials are there – Adblock, Session Manager, Firebug, Gmail Notifier, and IE Tab just to name a few. Heck, I found a neato Chrome-only one called Beautify Facebook! lol.

Anyway. The switch was quick (Google Chrome simply imports all your bookmarks and history from Firefox), and we’re back to Business As Usual. Except one thing. Where in the world is the goddamn Master Password feature? I hate the fact anyone on my computer can view all my saved passwords…

// end tech talk