People Chill Out!

Okay so everyone is freaking because of the iPhones unavailability. I’d love to say that the new 3G iPhone is coming out, but I doubt it. Knowing Apple, they’re gonna make a big deal about this new iPhone. So I’m gonna go with a few of the other blogs and say that we probably wont see one till WWDC.

MacBook Love

So this isn’t a new tech item or anything, just something I felt like talking about. I was on IM, chatting with a friend, while reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull for school. As my hands were reaching to the keyboard to respond, I had one of those Apple love moments. Where I just see the beauty in the design. Apple’s biggest selling points (next to the solid OS) is their signature design. It didn’t look like I had a laptop sitting on my desk, but just a keyboard that almost appeared as if to be “built into” the desk. I know the MacBook isn’t as thin as the Air, but its still so thin and small compared to a good handful of PC Notebooks that it amazes me. The MacBook doesn’t sit there and buzz or click, it just sits there making my life easier. I can’t recall where I herd it, but is was basically capturing the idea that a Mac just gets out of your way and lets you do stuff, however a PC you kinda have to work around it (if it decides it wants to crash or BSoD). It’s amazing how their innovation works. So there you have it, a few words I just wanted to put out there.

 

Also, Apple, if you wanna send me a MacBook Air to test out I’ve got plenty of time. Seriously though, I would love to know what its like to have a MacBook air (not really to own, just for like a month-3 months). I’d like to see what kind of difference its size would make in my day-to-day life (and I’ve already got an 80GB harddrive on my notebook, so that wouldn’t be a hard transition :-p).

Catching Up

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to tech news over my break here’s what you missed:

-Tons of 3G iPhone Rumors

-The Psystar Mac is still around

-Microsoft dropped their proposal to buy Yahoo

-NBC delivered the ultimate “b**** slap” to Apple by teaming up with Microsoft. NBC shows are now available on the Zune Marketplace

-Supposedly iPhone owners would receive free wi-fi in some locations, courtesy of AT&T. However, then the “service” disappeared, and now there’s talks of it happening…..again. Don’t you just love rumors?

 

Well I’ll be sure to keep you all updated, sorry about the break.

Apple don’t let me down!

So its no secret that I reallllly want an iPhone, now there’s a slight murmur in the house that if I make certain goals, that I’ll get one. However, I might save my “iPhone” purchase till the 3G iPhone comes out. Smart idea right? Well there’s a few things that have me nervous about this new model that everyone is buzzing about. First off the design, sure I’d love it to be all black, that’d be cool, but now Apple Insider says we might see the aluminum backs become plastic, which I don’t think i’d like (wouldn’t that be easier to scratch?). Also, I think the MacBook Air like - “tapered design” that they mentioned might also be kind of disgusting. I guess I should have more faith in Apple, new designs are always better than the previous.

However there’s one thing that has REALLY got me biting my nails, accessories. Now the current iPhone comes with the headset, dock, usb cable, usb charger, and cleaning cloth. I’m nervous they’ll drop these accessories and turn them into purchasable accessories. They did this with the iPod, it used to come with the dock and the charger (and I think at one point a case too), but then they dropped the included dock, and now they don’t include the wall charger anymore either. Another example is with the Mac Remote, it has been coming included, but now the new macbook makes you PURCHASE it if you want one.

I understand they’re a business, but please apple I’d really like the dock, headset, and charger when I go to buy my iPhone!

 

So I just wanted to put that out there.

Psystar In the Wild!

So the famous tech. blog Engadget has gotten their Psystar Open computer! You know the PC that comes with OS X Leopard (not to mention Leopard is unmodified - according to Psystar). Engadget has posted some unboxing pictures as expected. The computer comes packed in that oh so foam-peanut packaging that PC users know so well. One thing, that I’m really impressed with is the PC’s number of ports, I saw 6 USB (four on the front - two on the back), 2 VGA, a DVI, your standard PC keyboard and mouse plugs, the printer port, serial part, ethernet, audio ports, (some circular port on the video card that i couldn’t determine), and another audio in-out on the front. On the font there were two places where 2 more USB could go and a firewire 400 port, but I’m assuming that’s for a higher-end model. This blows away the iMac completely with peripherals, but doesn’t quite match the Mac Pro (except for the Psystar’s 6 USB ports, compared to the Pro’s 5).

Engadget hasn’t posted anything yet as far as performance or system stability, just the unboxing pictures. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated! Thanks for reading, ~Chris~

Here’s the link to Engadget’s unboxing article

Afloat : Update

Hey everyone, so its’ been a few days (Word Press says its was yesterday, but its got me in some funky time zone) since I took the time to review the OS X plugin “Afloat.” I standby what I said, about how its user friendly, and has a nice interface. I also standby what I said about a few of its errors. However, I take back what I said about it not being useful! After using it, I really like what it does sometimes I really need some windows to be transparent! I use it mostly with iChat because I want to be able to do whatever it is that I’m doing distraction-free, but still keep an eye on the chat (and of course respond when needed). Also, Im not having any more problems with text overlapping! Which is always a good thing! So I’m changing that ⅖ rating to a ⅘ because it’s a VERY nice little plug-in!

Who uses Messenger!?

Now, I recently caught wind that Microsoft Messenger 7 has been released, like a good little Software reviewer I went and downloaded it. Then of course started a review of it. The setup feature was nice (even though I had to create a Live account, because I don’t use Live OR messenger), but ended up cutting the review short. Why? Because no one really uses Microsoft Messenger unless they have to. Its true……

Interesting Silence From Apple

Since Leopard’s release we’ve seen a lot of non-apple machines running Leopard. Sure, this isn’t too odd, but what is odd is the fact that Apple hasn’t come after these jerry-rigged machines.

For example, Psystar has been captivating Apple-rumor sites, by allegedly selling a PC, pre-installed with Leopard. It’s been about 2 weeks, and Apple hasn’t tried to shutdown or sue this company. 9to5mac was the first to raise the question of why Apple has remained silent about these OS X rigged PC’s. I’m wondering the same thing myself.

So Mr. Jobs, how do you feel about this Psystar mac? A few home brew geeks or a serious problem?

 

Link to the original 9to5mac article

question

How would you describe these ads? The feeling of them? I just cant pin point them….COMMENTS PLEASE!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2diWPmU7i_M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwi8_rRq8os

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGD9J3pEtU

Thanks, ~Chris~

PS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY iTunes Store!

New iMacs

So sometime this morning Apple released a new line of iMacs. As expected, this update simply gave the iMacs a nice power boost. The consumer-based Apple, can now be purchased up to a powerful 3.06GHz!

The 3.06Ghz iMac also packs 2GB of ram, and a 500GB hard drive, which shows how the standards are really changing. (For example the standard Hard Drive capacity, the processor speed, and the standard amount of ram.) Sure, these things normally change over time, but they’ve actually changed dramatically over the last few years. For example when I bought my “Blackbook” (summer 2006-first gen.) it went up to 2.0GHz, had 512 MB of ram (with a max. of 2GB) and a 80GB hard disk. Now the black MacBook has a speed of 2.4 GHZ, comes with 2GB of ram standard (with a max. of 4GB) and a 250GB hard drive.
This makes me wonder if we’ll see a new Mac Pro sometime soon; maybe going up to 3.4-6GHz? Especially since the high-end iMac is 3.06 is catching up with the Mac Pro’s 3.2. However, I think we’ll see a new MacMini first (high end is 2.0GHz, 1GB of Ram, and a 120GB hard drive).