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Microsoft Surface Pro 3 First Impressions

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Sold my MacBook Air 13″ 2013 i7. I am loving the Surface Pro 3. I’ve had the Surface Pro 1 and 2 and returned those after trying them out for two weeks. However with the Surface Pro 3 I am instantly in love with this thing.

Here are my thoughts on it so far…

Good

  • Much thinner form factor than it’s predecessors. Also lighter
  • Screen is much easier to read in desktop mode thanks to the 3:2 ratio
  • Windows 8.1 still has it’s quirks but has come a long way
  • My work involves a lot of travel – don’t have to take this out of the bag at the airports
  • The Surface Pro 3’s pen is the best that it has ever been for note taking. Love how well executed One Note is too
  • Don’t need to worry about the compromises of an iOS or Android tablet
  • You get the full working desktop experience of a desktop in the form of a tablet
  • Battery life isn’t as good as the MacBook Air but it does last through an 8-hour workday
  • Really cool when using this hooked up with another monitor and mouse. It knows to use natural scrolling in Metro mode, and standard scrolling in desktop mode!
  • Very good overall performance – I have several apps open at once and it has not slowed down
  • Kickstand is very well executed and has flexible viewing angles
  • Keyboard is great, although not as good as the MacBook Air’s but it’s pretty darn close
  • Touchscreen makes a huge difference in working on a computer. Super useful and more efficient to navigate through the OS, websites, etc
  • Touch interface for Microsoft Office is well done
  • Thanks to the cloud, syncing between my iMac and Surface has been pretty seamless such as One Note, Evernote, and DropBox


Bad

  • Swinging back and forth between my iMac and Surface Pro due to different OS took some time to get used to… like 2 hours. For a geek, that’s an eternity.
  • It sometimes gets warm depending on the intensity of your applications so I wouldn’t recommend using this on your lap for long periods of time. Look for a desk or table if you are doing serious work, if not tablet mode works great. I value the longevity of my huevos.
  • Metro mode still needs more time to develop. For simple apps and to use as a consumption device, the iPad Air is still the best, which is why I am keeping it for bed and couch surfing.
  • Third party Metro apps suck for the most part, you are better off using the desktop version
  • If you rely heavily on Google calendar, either use the web version or switch to Outlook

Stay tuned for a full review!

Workspace at Work

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So after over a one month hiatus from this site, I’m slowing trying to get back in the groove of things. I’ve been traveling quite a bit from work, plus the holidays, New Year’s, etc I had no time to do anything with this site.

The workspace above is my actual office at work. It has stayed the same like this for over six years. Empty walls, nothing really personal about my desk. Frankly I don’t really care. My philosophy behind this in the beginning was that I do not want to get too comfortable and situated because I will be getting promoted or even move on to greater things outside of the company. It may sound a little bit arrogant but if I did personalize my desk at work, etc… then I will feel like I have made my home in the same position. All I have on my desk are my work computer (UGH), desk phone and my Macbook Air to do things that the Lenovo work laptop can’t do, which is a lot of things.

Anyway good news is that I’ve been promoted 4 times already at this job for. The irony is that I’ve stayed at the same desk!

Geek Life October 2013

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It’s been an eventful October and I’m surprised that I actually have time to sit down and put this post together. Lots of new gear this month not including the iPhone 5s I barely picked up in late September such as the new MacBook Air 2013, a police radar detector, Canon S110, and the iPad Air on November 1st (review coming soon!). We also went hiking twice in October thanks to the nice weather change in Southern California where it’s not as scorching hot as it was during the summertime!  Continue reading→

Macbook Air 2013 Quick Review

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The Macbook Air has come a long way from since the day Steve Jobs wowed the audience by pulling it out of a manila envelope not too long ago. It has become the go to notebook for students, journalists, and people from all sorts of professions wanting the ultimate portability with as little compromise as possible. I’ve owned a variety of laptops and tablets over the years trying to figure out what the “sweet spot” is in getting work done on the go. Sure there are several thin and light ultraportables but you always sacrifice either performance, battery life and sometimes even both. Or you can take a tablet with you but there are some things you just can do on a tablet! And finally, there are several occasions where it has been inconvenient carrying around a 15-inch notebook which can be a strain hopping from airport to airport.

This year’s Macbook Air boasts 12 hours of battery life thanks to the new Haswell processor in their new line of notebooks making this a winner in terms of design, portability, battery life and performance.  Continue reading→

THISISMYWORKSPACE.COM Domain Acquired!

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Workspace 2-17-2013

I’ve been so busy as of late and haven’t had time to do any reviews or simple posts. Just recently, we (I) acquired THISISMYWORKSPACE.COM which is a domain name that I thought of when walking home after having a couple of Cajun Fish Tacos over at Wahoo’s. For years, The Geeks Office really never had any direction so it was really hard to figure out what I was going to do with this domain. For now I am going to keep things as they are but focus more on the workspaces. I enjoy looking at how people’s have theirs setup whether it be at work, at home, or even on the floor. It doesn’t really matter. I also just setup a Flickr group called This is My Workspace where you can go ahead and feel free to post your workspace and I will feature it on the site. Continue reading→

Geek Life – August 13th – August 31st

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I know it’s already September but was quite a lot of activity within the dates listed above. Lots of work, people had birthdays, went to Vegas for another Birthday, scored a new watch and managed to get a lot of good meals in between!  Continue reading→

Geek Life – The Geek in June 2012

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The MacBook Pro 2011 Setup

I’ve been thinking about doing a weekly or bi-weekly photoblog on the exciting life of a geek (yes me) so I’m going to start with the entire month of June on how the world is seen through my eyes! I’ve had a huge overhaul in my gear  over the past few months and most of it is because I’m on the road more than ever so portability is more of a priority over power. So I went from a 15″ MacBook Pro to an 11″ Air. Been pretty busy in June just barely coming back from Catalina Island and then a few weeks later headed off to San Luis Obispo. Even though it’s all within California, there was a lot of tech and gadgets to utilize, food to eat, and sites to see.

Continue reading→

The Geek’s Top Gadgets of Summer 2012

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This has been one crazy year as I have been changing my gadgets like how women change their shoes and purses! I would say that in the past 6 months, almost all of my gadgets have been refreshed and a lot of it has to do with the way I work. I used to work at home and in the office more often but now I’m out in the field quite a bit so I need a lot of power (I’m talking both batteries and system performance) on the go these days. 2011 wasn’t really an impressive year, but 2012 has been a great leap for mobile tech for both work and play. This is what I have been working with recently… Continue reading→

Thanks to Insomnia… We Now Have a Facebook Page!

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I’ve been really busy these days with my work and whatever that I have of a personal life leaving me little time to write and give extensive reviews on tech products. As you can see from my posts recently, I’ve been focusing a lot on food which is also one of life’s greatest gifts and it’s been a blessing having Karo whip up these amazing dishes in the kitchen in our home!

Although I haven’t updated this site much, I still participate heavily in Instagram (username louievtran), Twitter, Flickr and my own personal Facebook. The thing with my Facebook is that it’s only for friends and family and the link that I had to it on this site was sort of pointless. Since I wasn’t able to sleep last night, I decided to create a Facebook version of this page! You can get to it by clicking on the link on the header or simple click here!

Above is what my desk has been looking like and that’s on a good day!

The Geek’s Top Gadgets of 2011

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This should actually be titled The Geeks Most Utilized Gadgets of 2011 but it doesn’t sound good as a headliner. To be honest, 2011 wasn’t really the year of innovation in the tech world. It was more like a year of improvement on what was innovated in 2010, such as the iPhone 4 to the 4S and just about every device getting a spec boost. Not to say that there isn’t anything bad about that and it definitely leaves a lot of room on what we can expect in 2012 such as a newly redesigned iPhone 5, next generation videogame consoles like the Nintendo Wii U or Xbox 720, and Windows 8. Here’s the Top 5 that I’ve used this year!  Continue reading→