Randomn3ss

The iPhone just keeps getting better. I updated my phone just two days ago. This update has been the biggest one since September.

The new features on the phone are even more exciting than the new season of American Idol!

I can now rearrange the icons on the homepage. They do a cute little jig on the screen when you hold an icon down for a second. Also, I can make “web clips” enabling me to add a website onto the main page.

Google Maps now accesses my location by cell phone towers and wireless internet. It pinpoints your location on the map which you can save. There is also a new feature to view the map in a hybrid function. This means the map shows a satellite and street name perspective. Real time traffic is a fantastic feature added as well.

The strangest new function that has come to Apple is iTunes movie rental. You are able to do this via computer or iPhone. I don’t understand why anyone would want to watch anything on a such a small screen. I can hardly make out the videos on YouTube. In anycase, you are able to rent it through iTunes. The rental will download onto your phone with an expiration date when you sync it.

The best thing about the January ‘08 iPhone update is multiple person text messaging. I can finally send one text message to a ton of people. This would have been handy on New Year’s when I had to send about a million different text messages to a million different people.

I am now waiting for a copy and paste function.

I honestly can still say this phone treats me well and I have no regrets still. I can’t wait for the next update!

In the spirit of the Macworld 2008 keynote address which announced four new products and services, all of which can be recapped through this live feed from Gizmodo, I present to you the simple question, How addicted to Apple are you?

I’m not that addicted and doubt that I’ll increase my score anytime soon.

Personally, I’m bored with this years announcements and nothing makes me want to jump out of my seat and scream, “I want that! How on earth did I live without it?” I really like some of the features of the newly announced Macbook Air like the black, backlit keys, but not enough to sell my still smells like new Macbook to get one.

So how addicted to Apple are you?

25 years ago today, December 26th, Time Magazine which announces an annual Man of the year issue (later called Person of the year) that doesn’t feature anyone. Time decides to announce the Machine of the year and the home personal computer to be the most important feature of 1982.

Source: Time Magazine archives

As of 5pm EST, I became the proud owner of a brand spankin’ new 13.3″ screen, white, 2.2GHz something, 120 GB of something, and 2 GB of something else MacBook laptop.  It’s super freaking cool.  It is sexy and light and totally full of memory and I have yet to take it out of the box.  And I probably won’t take it out of the box until Tuesday, when I will be able to take it back to the store to get my data transferred from my old laptop.  Until then, I will continue to use my 2001 Toshiba Satellite with no more memory, a broken CD drive, and the inability to delete programs to make more space.

Why, you ask, did I just drop $1500 (plus tax, minus the “student discount,” thank you Hamilton College, your IDs without dates and the $160,000 I spent for them are the gifts that keep on giving) on a computer I’m not totally psyched to dive into?  Because I’m afraid.  Yes, I am intimidated by new, sexy, smart piece of machinery.  I will not be used to a computer that is speedy and doesn’t immediately get a virus as soon as I check my email.  I am not ready to not hit the “ctrl” key everytime I need to click a link so that I can fool my pop-up blocker.  I can’t commit to long battery life, nor to the time it will take to rip all of the CDs I’ve accumulated in the last 15 months since my CD drive broke.  Will I finally subscribe to NetFlix now that I have a functioning DVD player?  Am I sure I want to be able to download and delete programs with ease?  Do I want to be modern and sexy?

No.

I want the status quo until I have the courage to take my MacBook out of the box.  Also, I have an uncanny tendency to ruin electronics immediately upon first use, like the time I bought my Treo 700wx and dropped it when I went to show it to my friends.  Yeah.  Or the time I bought my new iPod, then went to Japan, got on a bike and wiped out with it, getting the headphones caught in the gear chain.  I’m pretty sure that as soon as I open that MacBook box, I will dump spaghetti sauce on it, drop it into my humidifier, get a coin jammed in the CD drive, and then, suddenly, lose the “r” key. 

Wish me luck.

Now that I’m (kind of) an adult, I don’t really get to make a Christmas list anymore. There are fewer presents under the tree and more cards with some cash in them. It’s not that I’m complaining - money is great - but it’s more fun to open gifts than to buy them for yourself. There are a few choice things I would like to see under the tree this year. Sadly, much of what I would like could be filed under “practical and boring” but, being female, I think I can find some frivolous things to throw in there.

Dear Santa:

I was only naughty on a handful of occasions this year, so I think I’m deserving of the items on this list. I mean, the naughty-ness occurred in the company of good friends and was all in the name of fun. If there was any naughty-ness that was not in the name of fun, I was too drunk to remember it so it doesn’t count. I’m pretty broke, so if you could like, pass this on to people who are loaded, that would be great.

1. A humidifier. I’ve had this persistent sinus infection for the past three weeks and I think it’s partially because of how dry the heat is in my apartment (it’s also due to drinking). But, I think this would help. This one is fancy and cute and from The Sharper Image. It’s also $150. Something between this and “cup of water next to the bed” would be stellar.
2. The Led Zeppelin 2-disc retrospective. I’m really into them lately and would love to have it in my music collection. I can’t get “Kashmir” or “Immigrant Song” or “All of My Love” out of my head lately (and I even like some of Robert Plant’s solo stuff). I’ll also take an iTunes giftcard. I’m kind of a music whore.
3. My computer is dying. It’s a six-year-old Toshiba Satellite laptop that has been very good to me, but is definitely in its last days. The CD drive doesn’t work and I’m pretty much out of disk space on my hard drive. Since I blog, I kind of need a computer (and it’s nice to have a portable one at that). I realize that I could get a regular Windows OS laptop for way cheaper, but I am sick of viruses and popups and installing extra programs to prevent the aforementioned. I just want to buy a computer, have all my files transferred, and call it a day. I want a Mac. Not only are they extremely sexy, but they are easy to use and don’t get all funky from rogue programs. I’ve decided on the 15″ MacBook Pro - it has a matte screen (unlike the 13″, which only comes in “glossy” which is damn annoying). However, I am really sad that it doesn’t come in black to match my two iPods and Bose speakers. Yes - color is important to me. Don’t judge.
4. Because you can never go wrong with this gift… but I can’t guarentee it’ll last past New Year’s.
5. A job with health benefits. I don’t think that’s a whole lot to ask for. Right, Santa? And yeah - that’s a picture of Steve Jobs… get it? JOBS?? HA! Also, if he reads this, it might help my case with getting that MacBook.
6. Maynard James Keenan. You don’t need to put him under the tree, just undress him and leave him tied to my bed, please. He can keep his cowboy hat on. Thanks.

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The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) campaign aims to give a laptop to every school-aged child in a developing country. After more than a year of talking, they are finally getting shipped. When the idea was launched and prototypes were made, they were going to be powered by a hand crank and cost $100 to produce. Today they have a swivel screen, powered by AC and cost $200 to produce.

To help fund this cause, they are giving everyone a laptop that they themselves give to a developing country,

Between November 12 and November 26, OLPC is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. This is the first time the revolutionary XO laptop has been made available to the general public. For a donation of $399, one XO laptop will be sent to empower a child in a developing nation and one will be sent to the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the fair market value of the XO laptop you will be receiving).

For all U.S. donors who participate in the Give One Get One program, T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary HotSpot access.

Now, you could donate the laptop you yourself receive to charity and write-off all $399, or you could use it as a teaching aide to your own children. There was a lot of hype when these were first announced at $100 that everyone would want them, not just those in third world countries. This is your chance to not only own one, but help someone else out as well.

Give one get one program details
OLPC official site

Just over 10 months ago there were rumors of the $100 hand-crank laptops coming to the westernized world, now the price has doubled and there is no hand crank.

The One Laptop per Child Foundation was created to give computers at a very low cost to third world countries, to boost learning levels and help further develop these countries. As mentioned in my previous article, I think sending food and / or sending aid that will teach them skills is a bit more important, but this cause has a value, and is continuing to make headlines. Sadly, they are making headlines for the wrong reasons, the price has soared from $100 per laptop to $200, and there are rumors it may go has high as $250 or $300 over the next 6-8 months.

Source: Reuters via Gizmodo

In Bristow, Virginia a seventy five year old woman named Mona Shaw ’stuck it to the man’… with a hammer.

Mona Shaw was attempting to have Comcast’s new “Triple play” (Phone, internet and cable) service installed in her home, to no avail. She waited several days only to recieve incomplete service which eventually left her without phone, internet or cable of any kind.

After waiting in an office for a manger for two hours before being informed that he had left for the day, Mona went home. She returned the next day, entered the comcast office and smashed the keyboard, monitor and a phone with the hammer she had brought before being restrained and indicted for “disorderly conduct”, or what comcast calls “innapropriate action”.

Shaw is being hailed as a hero by many in the area, but she claims not to perceive her behavior in this way. She says, “I just had a hissy fit…I figured, ‘Hey, my telephone is screwed up, (now) so is yours.”

(Associated Press)

OK not really the world, but the market share is up a good 40% from last year. Mac users, don’t get to excited, Windows still owns 91% of the marketplace. Yahoo news reported today,

Mac’s worldwide market share among Web users increased to 6.6 percent in September, compared to 4.7 percent a year ago

It’s been almost a month now since I bought my way into the cool club and ordered a Macbook, my Windows desktop has been fired up I think twice over the last month. There is still some photos and data, along with music and movies I need on it, but I don’t need them on the laptop. One of the primary reasons the laptop is getting more use then the desktop is because I can park my ass on the couch and watch TV and surf the net. Outside of that, it is merely a tool for me to use.

The learning curve for me has been pretty mild, simple stuff, keyboard shortcuts, working in terminal, stuff like that. Outside of that, most programs I use operate the same for me. I don’t love my Mac the way others told me I would, I enjoy the speed it has and the ability to do what I need when I need it, it is stress-free, that is what is important.

This recent spike in Mac users, like myself, is only likely to grow though. I’ve had my sticky fingers on Vista enough to know I don’t like it. I have to support it for work, but I still much prefer XP or even win2k. Most computer users now-a-days are not buying their first computer. They have time vested, programs they are used to using, things that work and don’t work and ways of working around the hardware not living up to what they thought it would be. In my case, buying a Mac was a matter of getting the most from a computer with the least amount of money. To equip a Windows powered laptop with the hardware to match that of my Macbook, the price was only dollars apart, for me it was a choice of operating systems and expandability, most of which I covered several articles ago. I still couldn’t imagine spending $2,500 or more on a Macbook Pro or even $1,500 on an iMac.

Apple could continue to grow its user base if, and only if, they continue to offer products that are financially viable for most users. The fact that Dell and HP offer desktop units that do what most home users need, email, internet, photos, etc for half the price of an entry level Mac desktop will mean that they will continue to dominate the home market. Not until someone has specific needs do they start to look elsewhere. It is also my belief that, with Vista being as shitty as it is, more average users will start to look into other operating systems like Ubuntu. Ubuntu offers what the vast majority of home users want and need, even though mine is currently dusty, as soon as someone figures out an affordable way to offer support and get some marketing behind it, it will grow.

For now I am a content Mac user who also utilizes Windows and likes to play with Ubuntu now and again.

For the last few months I have been shopping for a laptop. Knowing that I have rather specific requirements for what I wanted from the hardware and within a certain budget, I’ve been pretty picky. All this, and I told myself I would either wait until service pack 1 of Vista was released or try to pickup a refurb Dell unit still running XP. Since I wasn’t in too much of a hurry, I could take my time and really get a feel for what I wanted. This usually meant playing with whatever laptops the big box stores had while I was there for some other purpose and looking for deals online. From a tactile feel, I’ve always liked Sony Vaio laptops, however they are way over priced for what you get. HP seemed to have everything I wanted, however their 15.4” models only run a screen resolution of 1280×800, I wanted better than that from a 15.4” and they didn’t offer much in the 14” and smaller line that was anything near affordable. Back to Dell. Dell offers some sick screen resolutions on their 15.4” lines, but the price goes through the roof when you add the video card to drive them, and they don’t come with bluetooth or a web cam by default, they are about a $100 add on. I can live without the web cam, who would want to see me anyway, but I want bluetooth for easy synching with my phone and for a wireless mouse. The added video card and bluetooth put me over the budget I had of around a grand.

My hardware requirements are:

• Intel Core 2 duo
• At least 1GB of RAM installed
• At least a 120GB hard drive
• DVD burner – double layer doesn’t much matter to me
• Extended battery
• Bluetooth
• Under 5lbs

Looking at a refurb site, I thought I found a 13.3” Vaio that fit my needs and an older 1.83 core 2-duo processor. It had everything I wanted and a few things that were nice add-ons, but only came with a 90-day warranty. The company selling the laptop offered a 3-year on-site warranty for an additional $99, but it was done through a third party, something I’m not fond of. I was still very interested in it though and asked some co-workers their opinion on the hardware setup. All agreed that it was a lot of computer for the money, but asked if I looked into the Macbook refurbs, there was one that was about $50 more but had a 1-year warranty.

Reluctantly I went to the Apple site and clicked on the refurbished section. Sure enough, they had a 13.3” Macbook with a better, 2.15 Core 2 duo processor and everything else on my want list. Black would have been my first choice, but they only had white in stock. The next 2 hours really had me pondering what to do. A co-worker has been running Tiger on his new (refurb) 15” Macbook Pro with VMware Fusion, allowing him to also run Windows and Ubuntu all at the same time without rebooting. This sounded great, although I can only think of one application that I have that is Windows specific that they don’t have a Mac version for. At least the option to have Windows is there.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a fan of Macs, most don’t understand why though. I think OSX is a great operating system but I don’t like the overpriced hardware one needs to buy to run the operating system. Up until this point, one can almost always buy more hardware for the money and run Windows than OSX, I still feel this is true with most of the desktop units that Apple offers. In my case, laptop to laptop, the refurb Macbook is in the same price range with the same features as Windows based ones and the ability to run Windows and Ubuntu on it is very attractive.

The laptop is supposed to arrive tomorrow, we’ll see if FedEx ground comes through or not, but several of my friends that know its coming are more excited to me. In telling a few Mac using friends that I ordered one, their first question back to me has been nearly identical, to the word, do you love it?

I can’t say that there is any proper way to answer that, even after I get it and start using it on a regular basis. I’ve never said, Wow, I love Windows! Nor can I say that about nearly any product I use on a regular basis. What makes Mac addicts so into their hardware? Some of these friends who know it’s coming bought a Mac because it looks pretty, which in most cases, it does, some are programmers and designers who have been using Macs so long that they are just more proficient with them. Where does all this supposed love come from though? Why do Mac fans get all excited in the pants at the announcement of a new keynote speech by Steve Jobs?

My main computer uses are

• Internet
• Email
• Photoshop (most RAW processing digital photos and adjusting for output)
• Minor coding (usually in Dreamweaver or Scite)
• Writing / blogging
• Bittorrent

My hope is that none of these tasks are drastically affected as I make the transition to a Mac. I have no intentions of moving entirely, my XP based desktop is still plenty fast and will serve for grunt work with specific Photoshop work that requires a higher resolution than my laptop will provide me with.

Expect updates on how my introduction into OSX goes as well as other learning curves, widgets, and other Mac anomalies go. Wish me luck!

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