The World of Scott Mindeaux

Oh No Mr. Bates and Captain Jack Harkness!

What is it about British television that has me so hooked? Is it their accents or do they produce better television in the UK?

I have been addicted to an iTV series called Downton Abbey.  I have just finished watching the Season 2 finale and I can’t wait for Season 3. Beware there are spoilers for those that haven’t seen this season yet.

Word has it that they are commissioning a third season and will pick up from where they left off this last season. This past season dealt mostly with the war and the effect on Downton Abbey headed up by Lord and Lady Grantham. The story revolves around their three daughters, the heir apparent to the estate (Matthew Crawley) and the minglings of the castle staff. Thomas returns to Downtown as a staff sergeant overseeing the convalescing of soldiers now staying at Downton as they have run out of space in the local town. Mr. Bates and Anna continue thru their struggles for a relationship and Lady Sybil runs off with the Chauffer. We can’t forget Maggie Smith playing Dowager Countess of Grantham as the ever opinionated Matron.

More word on the street is that Amy Nutall who plays Ethel (the former maid who had a baby with a convalescing soldier) will not be returning to the cast. Season 3 will take place after the Armistice and in the 1920s.

A Christams special is scheduled to run in a few weeks and I look forward to that show. Did they do a Christmas special between Season 1 and 2?

The Brits love their Christmas specials. Doctor Who does a Christmas special as well. I wish they did one for Torchwood.

Speaking of Torchwood, do you think it will come back? Did you like the collaboration effort with Starz? Did they take the series in a completely different track and pull away from the “real” Torchwood?

For those not keeping up with Torchwood, it came back for a short series run with Torchwood set in America with Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper crossing over the pond for a Torchwood/CIA operation to investigate the “Miracle Day” mystery. The series starts off where people STOP dying. Even with extreme death, people seem to be staying alive. However, for those who follow the show, we know that Captain Jack Harkness can’t die – but in this twist, he can – the only person on earth who can. They ended the season figuring out the mystery but end it with guest star Mekhi Phifer (playing CIA’s Rex Matheson)absorbing some of Jack’s immortality. Will this lead to another series?

Another Kickstarter Find: Sensu Brush

I have been on the hunt for various styli (stylus plural) for my iPad and iPhone. I just received my Jot stylus from Adonit (another Kickstarter venture) and will review soon. In the meantime, here is a true brush for the artist in you and your iPad:

You can visit the Kickstarter site for Sensu at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/797362124/sensu-brush-a-true-painting-experience-on-your-ipa?ref=live

Now…

Apple releases a new iPad 2 ad…

I Believe

No need to write anything, just watch…

First Impressions on my iPhone4

So I was one of those lucky souls that got their iPhone4 a day early. FedEx’s tracking system was being bombarded with requests and was no longer providing updated tracking information the morning of the 23rd.

At about 10:23am, FedEx was knocking at my door so I rushed to the door (I was on the phone with BofA) and opened the door to find the FedEx guy wiht a small box, he asked if I was Scott Mindeaux, I said yes and he handed me the box after a scribble on his pad.

I opened the box and was trembling with joy. Could this be real?? Yes it was and once cupped in my hand I knew it was real. This is one nice piece of hardware. Solid, feels good in the hand. I really wanted a White iPhone, but those were no where to be found – and according to reports on MacRumors and MacNN, they won’t be available to the public until mid-July. The phone is enclosed in glass and a band of stainless steel wraps around the unit. It’s very contemporary and despite having hard edges, it’s an elegant design.

I powered up the unit and the icon asking for a connection cable was on the screen. They unit launched iTunes and asked me for my number and other pieces of identification to verify that I was an existing AT&T customer. After about 3 minutes, my system started to come to life. My apps were being installed and then a previous backup files were also being uploaded. Within about 12 minutes, it was done.

I unplugged and the first thing I did? A FaceTime call with my friend in DC, Scott Shumaker. This was magical indeed. His face appeared and mine did too in the corner and was started talking and throwing back “no way’s” to each other. We flipped our cameras to the back side camera to show the other view. THis image was crisp and there was no apparent lag. It will be interesting to see after the other 600,000 or so users get their phones activated how well FaceTime works. Seeing Scott on the screen was very kewl. THIS was Star Trek!

Some some things to note so far:

Call reception and quality was about the same as my 3G

Speakers “seem” like they are a bit louder

There were/are reports of signal loss when being held – I personally experienced this yesterday and there is a drop in bars when held by the stainless steel. However, when I release the signal bars come back.

Thankfully, I don’t have any of the yellow blotches in the lower righthand corner

This display is SICK! I struggled looking to see if I could see pixels with the naked eye. I played a few videos on it and it is brilliant!

I already fallen in love with the folder system – this makes like easier for sure!

I have taken a few photos, but the real test will be when I do a restaurant review. I’m looking forward to touch focus and if it can handle low light environments. On my 3G I bought a case that had a sliding macro lens for close up photos. I was told I won’t be needing it with this phone. I’ll let you know how it goes. As far as regular photos, they are crisp and look great!

I have taken a few movies with the phone but have yet to export and view them on an HD monitor – more on this later…

Did I tell you this unit is fast??? It is very responsive and the most notable of this speed is the ability to take successive photos in a row with the iPhone4.

I didn’t think I would actually “read” books on here, but I downloaded iBooks and can I say it looks great? I found myself reading a book when going to bed last night.

The only “multi-tasking app” I have loaded right now is Pandora. As more apps become iOS4 compliant there will be more apps that take advantage of multi-tasking

On a side note, my NetShare app (which was banned from the iPhone 2 years ago) still works…kinda. It works for a minute then the app quits. If I relaunch it, it works for another minute then craps out again. Oh well, if I “really” need tethering, I’ll have to use AT&T’s option for tethering at $10 a month with bluetooth or usb connection.

Having a unified email box is nice too.

More to come later….

Guess What’s On Its Way?

Well after 15-16 hours of trying and trying to place my order online, I finally got thru and today I get notification that my iPhone 4 is on its way and on-time for a June 23rd delivery by 10:30am.

June 23?

That’s a whole day earlier than the worldwide announcement date of June 24. I’m sure some executive order form the Stevester’s Desk will inevitably make my delivery date June 24.

But what a wonder and joy if it really came on June 24!