I played around with Google Presentation today. The collaboration feature is amazing. No more having to meet with your group members to finish a Powerpoint presentation. I really think it can take out Powerpoint in its current state if they can reduce the CPU usage a little. The update feature is a beast and was using 20-40% of my cpu on a blank slide with one other person connected.

Presentations is lacking video and sound support which is a good thing IMO. I haven’t seen a Powerpoint yet where sound/video adds to the presentation. Each presentation has a 10 megabyte limit so movies are pretty much out of the question anyway.

Google could improve by adding the chat feature to the editor thats present in the presentation mode. Presentations also needs a way to lock down changes on slides and add commentary/notes that doesn’t show up in the presentation. The right click feature is also broken when you are clicking on selected text objects.

The good news is that its very simple to use. Sure it lacks some of the more powerful things that power users want but its probably easier to use for a beginner compared to Powerpoint.

This is the only 22 inch widescreen that I would consider buying based on what I have read when making a decision to purchase this screen. I bought the screen from Newegg. Originally I was somewhat worried about the screen because about a week into using it I got a little red stuck pixel near the center of the screen but after another week of usage it went away.

I personally like it a lot for web/graphic use but I think it sucks for games. I don’t think any LCD can be good for gamers at this point. The problem I have with the screen is that there is a 5×3 grid of LCD panels that make up the total viewing area. Each panel seems to be updated at different times causing tearing in the same spots on the screen all the time. This makes tearing very noticeable and its horrible for anything with lots of horizontal motion. I received the ‘S’ panel which is supposedly the best one for games. I’ve messed around with it a lot and cant get the little mini panels to update all at the same time.

The other complaint I have about this screen is the power button. Its an extremely bright LED that blinks when the monitor is in standby. The blinking light is enough to light up my room at night and to fix this I had to resort to putting tape over the powerbutton to mask the light it produces.

This screen is extremely bright. After having Lasik, I had to turn the brightness down to zero to use it. I’m not knocking the screen, I think its great. It has great color reproduction and the lowest brightness is better than the highest brightness on my old 15″ LCD.

I’d recommend the Samsung 226BW to anyone who uses their computer for anything but gaming. I think its a great product.

I’ve gotten a lot of gifts from various people close to me over the years. I’d thought I’d make a list of the most useful gifts that I’ve ever received. It kind of surprises me that none of these have much to do with my facination with technology but I guess the tried and true stuff works the best.

Husky 6-In-1 Screwdriver
I got this as a gift when I went away for college. This is the only gift I’d had to buy for someone else so they woud stop taking mine. This is probably the most used gift I’ve ever gotten. It works great with my computer and its compatible with all the stuff around the house I have to tinker with.

Hammer
A lot of things get fixed with force. This thing is great.

Clothing
I don’t have a link for this because its kind of general. 90% of the clothes I wear have been picked out for me by someone else. I know its sad but I can’t pick out things for myself. I guess I like getting stuff that has been approved for my use by someone else. If I like it and they like it then it cant be bad right?

My vision used to be so bad that I couldn’t find my glasses or contacts if I misplaced them. I was extremely nearsighted with -7.5 or more in both eyes. Everything needed to be about 18 inches away for me to see it clearly. My contact supply was running low and my prescription for my glasses was about 4 years old. I’m on summer break and had the time to explore the option to get Lasik done. I went to the doctor and discussed it and had my free exam. I did some research online about the doctor I’d chosen and read about the procedure. Three weeks later I was on my back with a laser shooting into my eyes for less than minute total.

For the next hour I had my eyes closed while trying to get to sleep. About 45 minutes after my surgery I started to feel pain. It felt like someone had scratched a 1cm square on my eyeballs by running a needle back and forth. This probably isn’t much different than what actually happened. Around this point I fell asleep and woke up 4 hours later. Strangely the cuts on my eye have healed by now, no pain. The best way I can describe the next 3 days is feeling like you slept with your contacts in. The eye drops help but it doesn’t go away much until the end of the first week.

The next day I woke up and went in for a checkup and my vision clocked in at 25/20 vision, better than what I had with contacts. The vision wasn’t perfect right away stuff really close and far away would be somewhat blurry. Each eye takes turns going up and down throughout the day. Its not bad at all, I had to move my screen to the back of my desk and sit farther away from the TV. The only annoying part is that I would instinctively try to readjust the way the non-existent contact was sitting on my eye. Just a habit from 10+ years of wearing contacts.

Its currently been 6 days. Every day my vision gets better. The worst side effects that I experienced with Lasik is the sensitivity to brightness which lasts for about 3 days. Its like you are semi dilated the entire week so you have to wear sunglasses to use the computer or go outside. I currently still have halos at night. I expect to have them for a while as its supposed to take a long time for them to go away. I’m not to worried though because I can already see the halos disappearing on dim lights.

Medication wise I’m currently taking eye drops of Restasis, Pred Forte, Zymar and rewetting solution called Systane from the same company that makes my old contact lens solution. The Restasis gives you red eyes for about 15 minutes and burns a little, if you leave it in the fridge it removes the burning and most of the redness. The Pred Forte makes you have a white haze over your eye for about a minute. Zymar somehow goes from your eye to dripping down the back of your mouth and has a bitter aftertaste, its the worst one. If you place your fingers on your tear ducts and apply little to no pressure it prevents the medication from producing an after taste in your mouth.

The Good

• Near perfect vision
• Best vision I’ve ever had
• No contacts or glasses

The Bad

• Halos at night
• Slight dry eye

Right now I’m extremely happy with my new vision. Every day I wake up and I’m amazed how far I can see. I’m constantly testing myself to see what I can see. I believe it is one of the best investments I’ve ever made and even if all the problems I currently have never go away I think it will still be worth it.

Some information about the procedure which involved 2 lasers. I had an IntraLase cut the corneal flap. The laser that did the correction was called the VISX Excimer Laser with CustomVue wavefront mapping. I would also like to note that if you are making a decision soley based off this blog post I think you are insane.