쓸만한 iPad 용 무료 DNLA 클라이언트는 없다.

갤럭시 탭에서는 DLNA가 기본적으로 가능하다. iPad를 샀더니만 DLNA가 안 되더라. 다른 플랫폼에서는 공짜로 되던 걸 돈 주고 사는 건 좀 좀 짜증나는 일이기에 우선 무료 프로그램이 있는지 앱 스토어를 뒤져 보았다.

DLNA로 검색하니 80개 정도의 결과가 나왔다. 그 중 무료 앱들을 닥치는 대로 받아 보았다. DLNA와 관계 없는 프로그램들도 있었고... 어쨌든 결론은 없다.

자세하게 설명하자면,
MediaConnect 이건 그런대로 동작한다, 그런데 무료 버전은 한 폴더 당 몇 개만 볼 수 있는 거지같은 제한을 걸어 놨다. 한 마디로, 무료 버전은 그냥 데모라는 것이고, 쓰려면 돈 주고 사라는 거다. 그 외 나머지 동작하는 몇 개 들도 비디오를 20분만 재생한다든가, 한 폴더 당 몇 개만 볼 수 있는 조건을 다 걸어 놨다. 제한이 없는 것들은 AVI 포맷을 재생 못 한다든가, 지원 포맷이 너무 적어서 탈락이다.

결국, 무료 중 동작하는 DLNA 클라이언트는 없다. 포기하라. 찾으려고 하지마라. 시간 낭비다.

검색해 보니 StreamToMe가 괜찮다고 하던데, 트라이얼 버전이 없군. 결국 그냥 돈 주고 사야 하나 보다. 애플 앱 스토어의 문제는, 한 번 사면 동작을 하든 말든 끝이라는 거다. 트라이얼 버전이 있는 것들은 괜찮은데, 없는 것들도 많다. 사서 보고 "아 속았네.." 이런 생각이 들도록 허잡한 경우에도 환불은 없다.

Microsoft의 앱 스토어처럼 트라이얼 버튼을 추가하면 좋겠다.

Why are there stupid products? Why?

About two years ago, Microsoft outed the Zune HD, a much anticipated iPod Touch alternative. It had AMOLED screen with Tegra dual-core processor. It was not sold in South Korea, so one of my colleagues ordered it from the U.S. When I first tried his Zune HD, I immediately found that it lacked external speaker. Really, Microsoft?

Zune HD was supposed to compete with iPod Touch as a mobile computer, portable game console, and yet it lacked external speaker. That was stupid. Without a built-in external speaker, why can applications like "e-mail" can alarm the user? And how much could an external speaker module cost, 1 dollars? That was really, really stupid. No wonder the product failed.

Recently, I bought a keyboard from a company called Rapoo. I think the name was E9060. It was a slim keyboard with touchpad on the right. The thing is, there was no gap between the delete-enter-shift line and the touchpad. That was stupid. Consequently, I often touched the touchpad by mistake when I tried to press the delete key or the enter key. The keyboard itself had a good layout, good key-press feeling, but the no gap thing made the trackpad unusable. If the engineers just used it for 10 minutes on a real environment, they should have noticed it.

There is a famous C/C++ editor called Source Insight. In its jump to caller dialogue, resizing the window does not resize the view on the window, so the file names truncated. That is stupid. And the problem is there for at least 3 years. Does the author himself actually use his own editor to develop? I seriously doubt it.

My question is do they actually use their products for themselves? I cannot think the developers of those things are stupid, most of them must be smarter than I am. Then why are thing like these? Is there a big rule that I do not know? What is this?

예수를 안 믿으면 지옥에 간다고? 당신 교파가 진짜인지 어떻게 아나?

얼마 전에 최진실이 지옥에 있다고 한 목사가 있다. 그 목사는 김수환 추기경도 지옥에 있다고 했다. 즉, 개신교도들은 대부분 가톨릭교도들도 지옥에 간다고 생각하나 보다. 가톨릭 교도의 숫자나 개신교 교도의 숫자는 거의 비슷할 것이다. 예수를 믿는다고 자칭하는 자들이 최소 자기들 중 반은 예수를 제대로 믿고 있지 않으므로 지옥에 간다고 생각하는 것이다.

그러면 개신교를 믿기만 하면 지옥으로부터 안전한가? 아니다. 개신교 교파도 수 천 개가 있을 것이다 (정확한 숫자를 누가 알랴). 물론 "몇 몇 개만 진짜고 나머지는 다 사이비잖아"라고 주장하는 크리스천이 있다. 그런데 그 사이비의 기준이 과연 뭔가. 내 말이 맞고 나머지는 다 사이비다,라는 아무런 객관적 주장이 없는 기준이 무슨 의미가 있는가. 개신교도 각 교파에 따라, 상대방 교파의 주장은 틀렸으며, 예수의 말을 따른 것이 아니기 때문에 지옥에 간다고 생각할 것이다.

여호와의 증인 교도들은 자신들이 진실히 예수의 가르침을 따르고 있다고 굳게 믿고 있을 것이다. 하지만 다른 교파의 개신교 교도들이 보면 사이비이며, 여호와의 증인 교도들은 지옥에 간다고 할 것이다. 웹을 검색했지만 아무도 한국의 정통 기독교 교파가 뭔지 정의를 내리고 있지 못했다.

물론, "예수와 성경 말씀을 바르게 따르는 것이 정통이다"라고 하는 무식한 사람들이 있다. 이 것은 순환 논리이다. 어떻게 따르는 것이 바른 것인가 하는 것에 대한 의견이 나뉘는 것이 교파들인데, 바르게 따르는 게 정통이라고 한다면, 서로 자기가 가장 미녀라고 주장하는 여자 1000명을 모아 놓고 누구 말이 진짜인지를 고르는데, "가장 예쁜 여자가 진짜이다"라고 하는 것과 같다. 가장 예쁜 것이 무엇인지, 아무도 반박할 수 없는 객관적 기준을 달란 말이야, 예를 들면 눈 크기가 5cm 이상이다든가, 키가 170cm 이상이다든가...

어쨌든 현실은 자기가 예수를 믿는자고 하는 사람들도 수많은 교파로 나뉘어 서로 자기 말이 맞으며, 자기 교파의 가르침을 따르지 않으면 예수를 믿어도 잘못 믿은 것이므로 지옥에 간다고 하는 것이다. 여기에 유대교나 이슬람교 등 다른 종교까지 더해 보라. 서로 자기 말을 안 믿으면 지옥간다는 가르침의 종류가 수 천 가지는 될 거다. 그 중 어느 것이 진짜이지?

저 수많은 종교를 정말 진실하게 믿고 있는 사람들 중, 저 종교의 말이 사실이라면, 상당수가 지옥에 가고 만다는 것이 아이러니하지 않나? 저 주장들의 모순이 보이지 않나?

Just bought an iPad 3. Comparing it with my Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Every gadgets have pros and cons. People who say "X is perfect, I love it" are those who are not fully utilizing X. They just use tiny fraction of the features of X and satisfied with it. People who say "X is perfect, Y sucks and those who buy Y are suckers" are suckers themselves. They just do not know why many people buy Y.

Anyways, I generally like my Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GT 10.1). There are somethings I do not like about it, but there are more things I like about it, and I will buy Galaxy Tab 11.6 when it hits the stores with the glorious 2560*1600 resolution screen. Meanwhile, the iPad 3 currently has the highest resolution. So many people around me have bought iPad 3. Finally today I bought one too.

It is hot

Yes, you have guessed it. I mean literally. I just downloaded some apps from the store over Wi-Fi, browsed the Internet, played some YouTube videos. I did NOT play 3D games. During my use, the power cable had been connected to it.

It got definitely hot! Apple fanboys in Korea said it was not that hot and Samsung Galaxy S2 is hotter (somehow, they always mention Samsung), iPad 3 feels probably hotter because the back panel is metal. GT 10.1 and GS2's back panels are plastic. Can you guess which substance will feel hotter on your hand, metal or plastic? I hold iPad 3 for about one hour or so, and put it down to write this post, but I still feel some residue on my both palms. It sure is a slightly unpleasant experience I did not have with my GT 10.1.

It is heavy

Yeah, some say 60g is nothing, but that DOES make difference. iPad 3 is heavy. Admit it.

My iPad's screen is not equally white

Part of the screen look greenish and part of the screen look pinkish. This is a well-known problem among iPad 3 buyers in Korea. You need a good luck if yours happen to have a fully white screen without problems. The problem is that Apple Korea does NOT refund or change iPad 3 with those problems. They claim that those iPad 3 are normal and the users should deal with it. Though I have no choice but to use my iPad 3, it irritates me when I view a white web page on my iPad.

It takes for ever to charge

When I was using my iPad with full brightness with power cable connected, I expected it would be charged. But actually the battery meter was dropped. Now I am charging it without using it. One strange thing is that even though I am charging it (with screen turned off) it feels cool. When I used iPod Touch 4, it got hot when charging, even if the screen was turned off.

The sound is louder than GT 10.1's but mono. Where the speak should be headed?

I played the same YouTube video. Of course they were on the same 5GHz Wi-Fi. Strangely, GT 10.1 quickly buffered the video and started it. iPad 3 took substantially longer time to buffer it.

The maximum volume of iPad 3 was definitely louder than that of GT 10.1. But GT 10.1 has stereo speakers, and I like that. When I was watching a music video on iPad 3, the sound is skewed at one direction, and felt strange. iPad 4 should have stereo speakers, for it is a multimedia-consuming device! And don't tell me to use earbuds. You know they are bad for your ears.

But the high-resolution screen looks great most of the time!

I cannot deny that, with all other shortcomings the iPad 3 got to achieve that resolution. Pictures look nice, though text on a white background does not, because mine has a greenish-pinkish screen.

Applications quality is better than that of Android tablets.

The number of users of iPad, a single model, far exceeds the number of all hundreds of Android tablets combined. Apps made by large companies look better because they have dedicated graphics designers. Large companies want profit, so they rather make iPad apps than making Android tablet apps, simply because the number of iPad users are larger.

I browsed the top free apps in the App Store, the icons of those apps surely looked a lot better than those in Android markets. I downloaded some apps, and the quality was better, too.

For example, Skype for Android is the same for phones and tablets. On my GT 10.1, Skype looks ugly because the layouts are distorted. On iPad 3, it just had iPad version of Skype! Damn you, Microsoft. Create an Android tablet version, too!

The UI of the iOS is smoother and more elegant.

Why Android UI looks so crappy? The have all the good things but the UI... I just hope the Android team would spend a little bit more time on developing better UI.

Conclusion

I cannot tell which one is the better one. Both GT 10.1 and iPad 3 has pros and cons. If you are rich, buy both. If you are not rich, choose the one that suits better, considering all the pros and cons I have listed so far.

Windows 8 Will Fail (At Least for Desktops)

After trying the Release Preview for a day, I am almost convinced that very few desktop users will adopt Windows 8.

Metro UI Sucks

Admit that it failed. You (Microsoft) introduced it with Zune HD, and Zune HD failed. You crammed it into Windows Phone 7.X, and Windows Phones failed (so far). Most people do not like Metro. And now you are forcing it into Windows, the de facto standard desktop OS. The Metro UI is inefficient, it is ugly (at least not attractive) and it is confusing.

You removed the start button and the start menu, which had been the symbol of Windows. Now when I want to open a program, I have to press Windows key and scroll through the big inefficient tiles. There are some other gestures to go to the tiles, but they are not as easy as pressing the Windows key.

It is wasting space. Look at the screen almost 40% of the screen real estate is wasted for useless green background and another 50% is wasted on the padding of the tiles.

Captured from Microsoft's Windows 8 promotion site

When new programs are installed, I have to scroll through the last page by mouse (yeah, very few  Desktops have touchscreen or trackpad!). As many programs are getting installed, it will surely get more annoying.

Metro Applications Are Not For Desktops

How many people would like to use a full-screen application on a desktop monitor? And using mouse and keyboard? We already have smartphones and tablets that can show one application at a time. We use desktop PCs because they lets us do multiple things at the same time, on one screen. Switching between full-screen applications on a desktop PC is pain in the lower back. With a mouse? Microsoft, do you think we are 8-year children?

The Good Things...

Other than Metro, there are not so many differences that I could notice from Windows 7.

• Enhanced Windows Explorer with Ribbon UI.
• This is good, I like it.
• Enhanced file copy dialogue
• Finally! I definitely like this.
• Slightly different Aero
• Well... No objection to this.

But all these small enhancements are ruined by the big drawback, the Metro UI. Please give us an option to remove Metro UI, for desktop PCs. Or else.