Julianna Yau’s blog

Between technical difficulties, a cold and life in general, I’m way behind on blog reading and writing. So rather than desperately trying to write several cohesive posts, I’m simply going to summarize some things of interest [to me].

After I returned my XO due to a defective keyboard (with hopes of getting one that works), I also ended up exchanging my Eee for another one because it had a warped spacebar. The new one also has a warped spacebar, but it’s not as bad. Neither had any performance issues, and the problem seems to be widespread.

jkkmobile and EeeUser.com are reporting that Asus is planning to make an Eee with a touchscreen.

Apple released the MacBook Air, and entrepreneurial laptop sleeves and minimalistic ones are already making their rounds in blogs, reminding me of the case I “made” for my Eee last week (798 views on Instructables as of the writing of this post!). So far, thinking of an uber-creative case for the XO has been quite daunting… and the OLPC laptop strap idea will be difficult to outwit.

Crave and BBC reports that NASA is thinking of creating a virtual world.

The MAKE blog has some articles about 3D printing:

• Kiosk – Sci-Fi tale of 3D printing, fabbing and more
• Fabaroni: a homemade 3D printer
• Sci-Fi objects and more made with a Spectrum Z510 3D printer (photo gallery)

I recently learned that Purple Violets, an independent movie by Edward Burns, was available exclusively on iTunes. Being a movie fan, I rebooted my computer into Windows, and went to the PV website so I could buy the movie.

Although I watch almost anything (including bad movies out of curiosity or boredom), the synopsis for Purple Violets lost me at: “…relationship comedy about four friends from college ready for change”. That tagline alone was enough to kill my excitement for the movie’s method of availability. Still, because I had already logged out of Linux and into Windows, I thought I would follow through with it and test the process for buying the movie.

After Apple updated my version of iTunes, I infuriatingly discovered that the movie, like Hotel Chevalier in the weeks before it was bundled with the theatrical showing of The Darjeeling Limited, was only available to customers with an American billing address. This was not a big loss, considering I wasn’t looking forwards to having to watch a “…relationship comedy about four friends from college ready for change”. But if this trend continues, I may not be able to see many movies because an online store doesn’t allow customers outside of the US to purchase their digital files.