It’s been a wild ride for CutEdge this year — the year where I’ve been having to juggle a bunch of extracurriculars, schooling, trying to groom out a social life (har har), pursuing other interests (drawing, music, reading), gaining knowledge, and of course, writing.  I know that I haven’t been the most consistent poster, nor the most interesting (at times — I try to entertain though).  And looking back, I do feel a little tear trickling down my cheek — let’s face it, 2008 was an interesting year.

Here are some shouts to everyone that helped — yeah, yeah, it’s always cool to have your name mentioned on the net, right?

First and foremost, to Rohan “Nahor” Sovig from Your World Wired (I’ll even link to you, *sigh*, hahaha just kidding) for getting me into blogging.  If it hadn’t been for early summer of 2007, I’d still be sitting on my Ikea chair…rotting.

Scott “Scotty D” Davidson, Michael “Mike (sorry, I couldn’t think of anything and “hammer” sounds kinda cheezy)” Chan, Nicholas “Nicholas Picholas” Chan (upcoming designer — http://nickchan.ca — yeah, it should be running soon), Amanda “Kool Mandy” Scarlato (who actually gave me the idea for this post, so I’ll make your entry longer Kool Mandy), Tom “Tommy Wommy” Kwok (Tommy Wommy’s as good as his actual name), and the rest of the Tech Design crew for making me chuckle.

Gary “G-Baby” Chan for being the enthusiast that he is, and pushing me to get those latest gadgets.

Terrence “Jayden” Wong for commenting every so often, and always informing me of the latest news.

Dhruv “Dhruvy from Dubai” Vyas for lending me that external drive — without it I never would’ve been able to write this post (heck, I wouldn’t have seen the importance in backing up altogether).

Cameron “Heawad” Amini (actually, Heawad’s his real middle name…) for keeping CutEdge.org set as his homepage and never complaining.  And being such a good sport about me smacking him everytime I lost at Gears of War 2.

Our quiet, and supportive, sponsors (on left sidebar — most of them are on the home page), who help to support CutEdge.org and its running fees.

All the PR people who’ve taken the time out to contact me: I’m not even lying, you guys really build my anticipation everyday when I check my e-mails.  Ah, and my apologies to those that I didn’t get a chance to reply to — sorry, folks!

To Farhan “Farhanali” Mohamed and Aaron “AK (47?)” Korbacher just cause they’re my friends (yeah, I knew you’d feel left out).

Definitely, to Jonathan Kwan of APH Networks — without your mentoring, pushing, and badgering, I’d have never learned to write a review (or meet deadlines, hahahaha).  Yipes, then again, maybe he doesn’t want people finding out we’re related hahaha.

Almost forgot Melissa “Money Mel (or Melonhead)” Huang for being so enthusiastic about those other blogs I tried (and failed) starting.

And last, but certainly not least, to you dear reader, for sticking with CutEdge.org and me (you stick with me, you don’t stick with I) in 2008 — and I look forward to seeing you again 2009.  …and you better come back, or else I’ll have more than just one little tear trickling.  Ah, and keep those comments and e-mails coming, I love hearing from you folks!

Hm, lots of chuckles in that post.  Probably should fix that?  …nah.

I could have only dreamed of this coming true — but here it is: the folks over at XDA-Developers (a bright bunch of people) have ported Google Android onto the HTC Touch (Vogue).  Now I’m really not so sure why it’s called the HTC Vogue (probably differences in countries — Canada calls the Samsung Blackjack just the Samsung Jack), but that’s besides the point.  Like…holy cow.  It’s alive.

HTC Touch Vogue running Google Android

photo credit: Kai Hendry

Sure, it’s got a bunch of minor bugs and issues for now, but it’s still something to contemplate — once its issues and bugs are gone, I’m definitely going to have to give this a try.

If you’re a PC user and have ever had the misfortune of running into trouble on your PC (no doubt you have), you’ll probably have seen articles involving or surrounding Windows registry.  If you’ve never investigated,  Leo Notenboom’s got a great article on what Windows registry is, and why it’s there.  And to sum things up, according to Notenboom, the Windows Registry is a central database of organized program and system settings and information.

photo credit: Signarama – Crystal, MN

For each setting you tweak, change, or delete, Windows registry creates an entry to log it.  Over time, these entries become obsolete — unnecessary.  Is it safe to remove them?  You bet — in fact, by purging these entries, you make clear space in the registry, and make it easier to call up programs and settings.  But, if you’ve got a new computer that’s slow, I’d recommend formatting (since registry probably doesn’t have that many entries anyway).

How can you clear it?  Don’t do it manually — instead, rely on the many programs provided out there.  I personally prefer CCleaner — it does the job well, and it’s free.  If you want to find out more information about Windows registry, or if you want to keep up with the times, I suggest visiting Registry Cleanerz — for information, and a set of forums to help with those questions of yours.  Have fun cleaning!

I never thought of the day I’d see this again: a 4GB iPhone — the very same that appealed to and ended up enraging early adapters (never adapt early, if possible).  It’s not that a 4GB iPhone shouldn’t be released: in fact, it could be commercially successful and even downright popular.  What makes it so different this time around?

photo credit: William Hook

Well — mainly, the pricing.  Dailytech reports that the 4GB iPhone will be appropriately priced at $99 (with a contract, no doubt).  But is 4GB really enough for you?  I’m no music fanatic, but even I use 8GB of storage on my iPod 5.5G (I suppose if I purged Rush Hour 2, Hitch — great movie, and the Ladykillers, and all those episodes of Smart Guy I could half the amount I used).  But come on, the iPhone’s got such a beautiful screen — it’s made to view videos!  Not to mention all that music with its 3.5mm headphone jack (you’d be surprised how many phones don’t feature a standard headphone jack — the T-Mobile G1, for one!).

If you’re seriously considering it, I highly recommend reconsidering it.  If you want it for the games, the 3G, or just music storage (assuming you don’t have that much music), then you should be good — and $99 really is quite a steal for the wonders that the iPhone features.  But storage is most certainly a different story — if you plan to watch videos, have a huge music collection (or just don’t chuck the iPod — but then that ruins the point of getting an iPhone, I suppose), then you might want to think twice before blowing a bill on the “cheap” iPhone.

I was just catching up on my regulars (boy, 400 feeds in a day really does hurt) when a little interesting piece of software caught my eye.  Titled Wordpad 2009, it’s Wordpad + Office 2007′s Ribbon interface.

photo credit: marklarson

…erm, yeah, I realize that the picture doesn’t have much to do with the article.  I guess I just want to cultivate some good habits of throwing in graphics to ease the reader.  …easy now.

Although not officially from Microsoft, it’s no doubt a notch up from the ordinary Wordpad.  I was actually considering downloading it — but then again, since when did I start using Wordpad?  I got it mixed up with Notepad, which I do use quite frequently.

Still, it’s an interesting concept.  Even if you’re not planning to download it, why not check out some screenies?  Head over to Deviant Art to have a look.

Visit: http://solo-dev.deviantart.com/art/Wordpad-2009-105410281