Survivor 17x01 – Gabon in HD

Finally, the moment has arrived! Survivor is a show begging for High-Definition, and finally, after all these years, it has gone HD. The reason was the lower cost of HD equipment nowadays. Apparently, in the harsh territories of Survivor, video equipment doesn’t survive long, so up until now it was too expensive to use HD.

After seeing the two hour special, I can only say WOW! Survivor has never looked better. The scenery, grass, wildlife, insect bites, stitches, never looked better! I’m already looking forward to seeing more gruesome views!

So, you want to see the difference for yourself? Check out these two screen captures (click on the picture to get the original size).

 

Survivor Standard Definition

Survivor High Definition

So, which one you like better?

Paul McCartney – Friendship First – Tel Aviv

I saw Paul on the 25th of September in Tel-Aviv. What a great performance! Even my wife, who is not a known Paul fan loved the show, said it was the best she has ever seen!

The Israeli media was all over him these last few days before the show. News, newspaper, internet, everyone was excited. To the non-Israeli fans, I wanted to show the newspapers the day after the show. A small explanation – as our weekend is Friday-Saturday, and there are no newspapers on Saturday, the Friday newspaper is in a larger format. So enough talking, and let’s see some pictures!

Pic 1: The front page of 3 major Israeli newspapers. The titles read (from left to right"): “Bye Paul”, “Yesterday in Tel-Aviv”, and “Tel-Aviv, Yesterday” (yes, the last two copied from one another :-)

Pic 2: Yediot Aharonot – pages 2 + 3. The title reads “Paul-Mania”

Pic3: Ma’ariv – page 3. “Ahalan Jude” (what Paul called “Hey Jude” in the show)

Pic4: Ha’aretz – page 10 (boo!!!!). “Once in a life time: Tens of thousands watched Sir Paul with sparkling eyes”

Hope these pictures give you some sense on the interest this performance got from the Israeli media.

Windows Live Writer Beta

I just installed the new betas for Windows Live Writer, and Messenger. Messenger looks a bit like a mess. A bit too cluttered. Writer has a cool look, but it looks like not too much has changed. At least it’s now easier to insert YouTube videos, like this one:

Speedtest.net has just found its match

Lifehacker had a post regarding a new DSL speed test site - speed.io. In the past I've been a fan of speedtest.net but after checking out speed.io I think I found a better speed test site. It seems to be less heavy, and more eye pleasing. It lacks the option to choose a test site, but it chooses the closest to you anyway, and that's what matters to me.

Google Chrome

I really wanted to try it. I love Google products. Unfortunately I get this nice error:

The application failed to initialize properly (0x0000135). Click OK to terminate the application.

The first result I get searching Google suggest that the problem is with a Symantec application, and other results suggest that as well. Unfortunately I don't have that (or any other) Symantec application, so that's not the case. The workaround that is suggested (try running Google Chrome with –no-sandbox) works, but why would I want to run it without the sandbox mode (same question here)?

Update 1: Found the problem! It was an incompatibility with Zone Alarm ForceField, although it wasn't running at the time. Since I don't use it anyway (slows down the system), I uninstalled it.

HTC Diamond

Just got this beautiful one from work:

You can get all the details in the HTC website, but the quick and short details are that it's small, light, and has a cool 3D UI which IMHO gives iPhone a fair fight. Oh, and the telephony part is much better than my previous one, the Samsung Blackjack.

The downside is that it's a tad slow, and the battery life is not that great (probably a little more than a day, but mine is not a new device, as it's from work). I do however charge it during the day, when it's connected to my PC, and I also have a car charger, so it's not a problem so far.

The last issue is that it also takes time from the time the call comes in, to the time you hear the ring (2-3 missed rings), but this is the case with my previous Smartphone as well.

My recommendation? I think I'll wait a few days to decide. I only had it for about two days...