Apple is not my big brother!!

I want to touch on the current apple crisis, I'm referring to the news that the iphone and ipad running version 4 of the IOS software has a file embedded that has been tracking the position of said devices for about 10 months now. According to the report this is accomplished by utilizing cellular towers to triangulate current positions and then the info is stored locally on the device or your computer after syncing with itunes. Supposedly Apple Inc. is not privy to this info but the information is not encrypted unless you encrypt your back ups and seems to be pretty easily accessible. Now whether or not this information actually provides much use to anyone is debatable, but perhaps it could allow a potential thief to know when someone is typically at home or not, or a potential stalker to know where he is victim is at. Either way this reeks of an Orwelllian aftertaste and something that Apple Inc. needs to come clean on and eliminate in its next update.

A case For The Ages..

Wow,
I have truly slacked in my writing responsibilities lately, perhaps its my preoccupation with trying to find a paying job:) anyhow, today I would like to review something that has zero bells and whistles but yet makes my "want meter" kick into high gear. I'm talking about the MacBook Pro cases by the guys at Blackbox Cases out of Golden, Colorado. These guys are handmaking cases from red oak and now bamboo to fit the MacBook pro's sleek designs. Nothing screams custom fit like a case hewn from our natural resources.These are sure to be a head turner and not something you are going to see on the shelves @ Best Buy! I have spoken to my woodworking guru and we are going to attempt to costruct something similar but unique to try to add to our ever changing inventory of sales possibilities. Its nice to see a company thinking outside the proverbial "box" and constructing something so basic as a laptop case into what I consider truly a work of art.They come in 13,15, and now 17" sizes, and they have also released a case for the iPad2. Kudo's to these guys and here is a link to there site.http://www.blackboxcase.com/

im sorry if I have missed a post or two, I've been preoccupied with setting up a back linking network, anywhooo I would like to discuss the new port technology issued on the latest MacBook Pro's the Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt technology gives you two channels on the same connector with 10 Gbps of throughput in both directions. That makes it ultrafast, and ultraflexible. You can move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0 and more than 12 times faster than with FireWire 800. You also have more than enough bandwidth to daisy-chain multiple high-speed devices, without using a hub or switch. For example, you can connect several high-performance external disks, a video capture device, and even a Mini DisplayPort display to a single Thunderbolt chain while maintaining maximum throughput. Some are saying this will supersede USB 3.0 but from my understanding Intel is attempting to work right alongside USB 3.0 to give the consumer more flexibility when it come to data transfer. This being said the amount of current devices supporting this technology is slim at best, but down the road we will be transferring data between devices faster than we ever thought possible. As we all know time is of the essence...

Why everyone should have the iPad2

Trust me, I know the title might sound a little over the top but I truly believe that the computers of yesterday have pretty much met their collective match. Granted, you cant do everything on an iPad that can be accomplished on your desktop but pretty darn close. I have spent about a month with the newest incarnation of Apple's iPad and I have to say- Im sold. I purchased the first iPad soon after its release and thought, " how can this possibly get better?" Well, it has! the iPad2 is lighter, faster, and now has 2 cameras enabling Facetime video and a decent camera to shoot video as well. I used to lug a laptop with me everywhere I went, not wanting to be out of touch from my email & internet- like I couldn't survive without either:). Now, Ive pretty much ditched the laptop in favor of my shiny new toy, a 32GB white iPad2 with the leather smart cover. This thing is fast! and the wow factor you get from most people is priceless.. You would think Im an alien from another world showing off unimaginable technology to the frightened masses, I'm not kidding, thats the reaction I often get- one of utter disbelief and amazement. Not to say I wasn't a bit inspired when I first held it as well, its just cool to watch the faces of people as they experience it for the first time. Now some say tablets will replace laptops or desktops in the near future, I just don't agree. Sure, I can get my email, surf the web, even write this blog post, but I believe there will always be a place for the home computer, where else am I going to store my massive music collection and years of Jersey Shore episodes, the iPad2 maxes out at 64GB...

What Can a $6,400 Toilet Do for You? [VIDEO]

What Can a $6,400 Toilet Do for You? [VIDEO]

dropin' into the box...

I decided to write today about one of my favorite pieces of software right now called DropBox. This allows to store up to 2Gb of data on a cloud to access anywhere. All you have to do is install the software on any computer you use and then start droppin'! the beauty of the software is the ability to open a document, edit it, and then drop it in your "box", then it is updated automatically on whatever other computer that has your Dropbox on.You can also have shared folders so you and a good bud can collaborate on the same document with out worrying that each guys doc is different. Imagine collaborating on a article for your website while one guy is on a beach in Florida and the other chap is freezin his ass off in Central Illinois ( REALLY glad I'm the Florida guy) I personally work between 2 different computers all day and the ability to seamlessly share documents with out having to find a shared folder and make sure they are both the same is brilliant! All I can say is go download it and see how droppin' simplifies your life!

Apple's future in the clouds

I was reading an article today posted on one of my favorite apple know it all web sites, appleinsider, which claimed apple was stocking its shelves with personnel to put reality into the cloud computing future. Now we all knew Apple had this up there sleeves its just a matter of how it is going to affect our use of their services and if we can finally do away with bogging down our precious hard drive space with episodes of Jersey Shore, just kidding who the hell would put that on their computers:) Any way back to the subject at hand- cloud based music/video. This is an exciting concept, one in which amazon has already jumped on the band wagon with (I have not had a chance to check out their version, but I will and get back to you soon with a review) here is what I would like to see Apple's version accomplish, perhaps my wants are greater than they are willing to give but here it goes: 1-dont just put the metadata for the music on a cloud, let us ACTUALLY put the music/video on there. Otherwise we are still forced to keep a version on our hard drive and this defeats my main objective of freeing up hard drive space.2- allow us to put any ripped cd or video on our account, not just itunes purchases. Most people are probably not like me and have a life savings worth of itunes music/ video on their computers, I would imagine a lot of people's library consists of some itunes tracks and or videos but a whole lotta ripped music. I dont want to be limited to remote access of only the tunes I HAD to download off itunes, I want access to my 10k plus library at all times anywhere. that brings me to #3, and this is unfortunately might be the deal breaker for most. Make us pay a little something for this.I know i might have just lost my audience on this point but this might help keep the riff-raff from uploaded entire years worth of jersey shore episodes which will undoubtedly cause the servers- no matter how massive the farm is- to be bogged down and not perform as im dreaming they will. Also I have grown accustomed to giving Apple some money every year for mobile me so if they incorporate that into the cloud, i wont even notice having to cough up a little to have what I truly consider one of the coolest things that will come to fruition in the next few years. Everyone hold onto their hats or they might just be blown into the clouds:)