One of the best things about going to CES is the parties. Many companies throw parties to bring people together to promote their brand, but also to have fun. CES parties are a great way to network and meet new people because it is not often that you will be in the same room with CEO’s of companies you work with. The first party of CES is always the “Night before CES party”. This year it was held by Futurelooks, Zotac, Kingston & Zalman. This party is held at the Palms Place Penthouse, which has one of the best views of the strip. I took the Pano you see above from the party. Another cool thing about this suite is that it has a pool table. Dan from TechwareLabs got a great shot of me shooting pool.
The next party was held by TweakTown at Garduno’s, which is a Mexican restaurant at the Palms. One thing I really liked about this party was that there was food. After a long day of meetings and really no time for anything it was good to sit down and eat something. Another great thing about this party was that many other website owners were there. So it was great to see everyone I talk to throughout the year.
The last party I went to was the Intel, Patriot & MSI party. This party was held at one of the Sky Villa’s at the Palms. It has to be one of the coolest suite’s in Vegas that I’ve ever been in! The entire balcony is a pool! It is also the only time I’ve been in the Fantasy Tower at the Palms. This party was just crazy, they had an actual DJ and felt like a real party! Everyone was having a great time and I think we stayed there till like 3:30AM! Below is a video showing you what the party was like.
Each year at CES I am bombarded with a ton of swag, things companies give out to you when you visit their booth or meet with them. This year was no different, I came home with a ton of extra things I did not come to Vegas with. First let’s talk about the CES press bag. Each year CEA gives all press members a press bag. The one that they gave out this year was pretty sad. I think the press bags have gotten worse each year I have attended CES. I think the best thing that I got this year was a 500GB Western Digital My Passport USB 3.0 drive, which I won at the TweakTown party. The weirdest thing I think I got was a bright orange tie from Taitra. Here are some of the other cool things I got this year…
- Zalman Clip-on USB speakers
- 16GB USB 3.0 flash drive
- Luxa2 earbuds
- Zotac travel mouse
- CMHD.TV Girls 2011 Calendar
- Gigabyte Beer koozie
You can get your hands on some of these things by entering the CES 2011 Swag Giveaway over at ThinkComputers. I might have a contest on this blog too, we will see.
Well CES 2011 has come and gone and this year was a lot of fun! If you want to see all of the coverage check out this page over at ThinkComputers. CES is always a great way to start out the year. If you don’t know what CES is, it is the Consumer Electronics Show. CES is the largest trade show in North America and as you might expect it is huge! Pretty much any company that makes anything electronic or that has to do with computers exhibits there. So you have a big mixture of products from computer cases to HDTV’s. This year was my 6th year going and it all seemed pretty much the same to me.
There was nothing that really jumped out at me this year that said this is the product of 2011. It is sort of weird because every year it seems there is one product that steals the show and I really didn’t notice one this year. You could say it was the tablet, as pretty much every company is releasing a tablet, but the tablets didn’t get as much attention as say 3DTV’s did last year. The few days I was on the show floor I did notice that it was much busier and the show seemed larger. This is probably a sign that the economy is turning around.
Just like the past 2 years we stayed at Harrahs. It is centrally located on the strip and has the monorail station right at the back so it makes it really easy to get to your meetings. This year I did not miss a single meeting and for the first time since going to CES I did not get blisters on my feet from walking around. That is probably because I scheduled many of my meetings close to each other. I had no issues with the hotel or getting through security at the airport as I’ve had in the past. The trip went off without a hitch!
The last 2 days of the trip I really started to get sick. I don’t know what I had, but it was pretty bad. It was probably the sickest I’ve been in the past couple of years. I had so much work to do when I got home for the past week I basically woke up, took a ton of medicine, wrote CES coverage articles, and went back to sleep. I’ve started to feel better, which makes it much easier to get work done.
So CES is over and 2011 has started, I hope to get so much more work done this year!
I can’t believe it is 2011 already! It seems like 2010 went by so fast! As you may have noticed this is my first post in quite some time. I really do enjoy blogging, but a lot has happened in the past few month that has really kept me quite busy and at the end of the day all I really want to do is relax. So sorry for the lack of any updates lately! So what have I been up to over the past few months??
ThinkComputers – Well this is where most of my time has been going. A few of my writers have been really busy with family matters and other things so I have been doing most of the reviews. You may think that this is would be easy to tackle, but when you are the only person writing reviews, editing them, posting them to the site, contacting companies, answering e-mails, posting news, maintaining the forums, etc. it can get quite stressful and time consuming. This is one of the main reasons I have not really updated this blog at all. I think I have done a pretty good job with everything though, we are working with a lot more companies and I have been really enjoying reviewing a lot of the hardware. I think in 2011 though I need to get a few more people on my staff to take the load off.
I Hate My Roommate – This site started off as something fun to do, but it really did pickup after a while. Because of all the craziness with ThinkComputers I haven’t really been able to update it that much. I hope in 2011 I can maintain the site because it is fun and some of the submissions are incredibly hilarious!
Since I’m jumping on a plane in a few minutes for CES I’m not going to write a long post about 2010, but here are some of my favorite posts from 2010!
- My First Consol Energy Center Experience!
- Why Are You Not On Foursquare!
- A Look at the New Office
- Things I Love About Pittsburgh
- Is CES Slowly Going Away?
If you didn’t know a few week ago I went out and purchased an iPhone 4. My 3G was getting really slow and I figured I could sell my 3G for about as much as I was going to spend on the new phone so I went and got the new iPhone 4. Since getting the phone I’ve been quite impressed and I haven’t really had any issues, so here is my experience so far. Keep in mind I’m going from an iPhone 3G to the iPhone 4.
The first thing I noticed on the phone was actually the screen. It is extremely clear and looks a hell of a lot better than the screen on the 3G. Everything looks better and much more clear on the newer iPhone 4. Also the weight and design of the phone make it seem more compact and easier to hold and use.
The biggest improvement I’ve seen over my iPhone 3G is the performance. The A4 processor that is in the iPhone 4 really does pack a punch and apps load extremely quick. On my 3G apps would take some time to load and if they needed to access the GPS or internet they would take even longer to load! Multi-tasking works great and I haven’t once had to restart the phone because it was running slow.
Another thing that I really like about the iPhone 4 is the camera. First I can finally shoot video with the iPhone 4, and not only that 720p HD video! The picture quality is the camera is great and don’t forget there is a second camera on the front of the phone that allows you to take self-portraits or pictures with friends easily. Having a video camera and good digital camera all in one really makes my Flip camera basically useless.
The big problem with the iPhone 4 is the dropped call issue, which I actually have experienced a few times. Apple does offer a free case with the phone that should help with the problem. This is not a huge problem to me as I really have not experienced it frequently enough for it to be a problem. The only other problem I’ve had with the phone is that when I go in an elevator and the phone loses service when I get out it sometimes does not get service back unless I restart it.
Overall my experience with the iPhone 4 has been great and if you are still using a 3G or 3GS I would definitely upgrade. Like I said if your old phone is in good shape you should be able to sell it for the $200 you are going to buy the iPhone 4 for.
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