Technology

Ipod Classic

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I know, my recent posts have been all about new gear. I like writing about it. It is my guilty pleasure. So sue me. Well, actually don’t sue me. That would be bad! As readers of this site know i am perpetually upgrading. Some things more often than others. My iPod has been one of those things that I haven’t needed to upgrade in almost 2 years. (2 years in November). I had a nice basic black regular iPod 60 gig. The 80gig wasn’t that much larger than my 60gig to warrant an upgrade, and no other new wiz bang feature came out to get me to upgrade so my trusty iPod stayed with me. When Apple announced the new iPod Touch i was tempted to go with one of those, but at 18gig I wasn’t sold, but when I heard about the 160gb classic. That was another story. I can keep all my photos, music, some movies and all my documents on that.

Today i checked apple’s website and saw that the 160gb models were now “available to ship within 24 hours”. That is a usually sign that they have them in stock at the store. I swung over to the 5th Ave Apple store on the way home and within 10 minutes i was walking out with my new classic 160gb iPod (silver). Apple sure knows how to get people in and out of the store if they are buying a popular item and are willing to get an email of their receipt (credit card’s only). I don’t mind, it is faster and i am down with it.

I am now syncing the new pod with my iTunes. Then it will be time to load up the drive with my docs and stuff. After that I need to wipe my old one and get it up on ebay!

Oh, and a shinny easily scratch-able iPod is not complete with its nice protective mylar case. My new Agent 18 clear case is now on order. I just hope i don’t scratch the pod before i get it. The old case on my 60gb served me very nicely so i have high hopes for this new one! And yes i will pimp products if they actually do what they are supposed! These Agent 18 cases are awesome. My old iPod looks brand new since it has stayed in that case.

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VMware Fusion

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I haven’t written about it for a while, but I am still heavily relying on virtualization on my Macbook to do almost everything. There are several work programs that must run in Windows, plus Quicken for my personal stuff, etc. I am sorry to admit that I upgraded to Parallels 3.0 right before VMware announced the pricing and pre-ordering of Fusion back in June. When VMware announced pre-order of Fusion I also got that. Lets face it i haven’t settled on either product just yet.

I have been using Parallels since they announced their product, and upgraded since I couldn’t wait for the final version of Fusion. Parallels 3.0 has some nice features, like multiple snapshots (like VMware Workstation, but not Fusion), and the ability to open windows files from the Mac OS. That is the dilemma. Now that Fusion is out, I am running it. I will admit it is noticeably faster (to me) than Parallels. That and the fact that i can use all the existing VM’s i have (and i have allot) is very compelling. I just wish Fusion could do some of the things Parallels can do (multiple snapshots and launching programs from the Mac OS). If it had those two functions it would be the perfect product (for now). Even with those shortcomings, i will say that Fusion is the only virtualization software currently running on my Macbook. Parallels has a new beta out that addresses some of their performance issues and other features so i may switch back, who knows.

With all my existing VM’s, my use of VMware Workstation on windows, and ESX server at work I am firmly wanting the decision to use Fusion over Parallels to be good a no brainer! Right now that isn’t the case, but the performance difference (to me) keeps it running on my Mac.

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France Trip Recap

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Wednesday and most of Thursday were taken up by work at one of our companies offices near Lille. It was a massive place. It is weird getting used to going to a place like that when the office I work in only has 90 or so people. Thursday night we ended up heading back to Paris on the TGV and walked around the area by our new hotel until we found a sidewalk cafe to have dinner at.

My boss and I also had to figure out a way to get on a conference call with our team back in NY while at our hotel. The call could have turned into an hour long thing, so mobile phones and hotel phones would have been very expensive. We ended up using my macbook and skype to call our conference bridge. It was an interesting use of the technology we had at hand. The hardest part was getting the high speed connection in the hotel to work. Connecting to Skype worked flawlessly once we were online.

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Friday the morning was spent trying to go sight seeing but work took priority so we didn’t get out of the hotel until the afternoon. We hit the Louvre and got lost walking around there for a few hours. Then we walked to the Eiffel Tower. It was crowded so we didn’t go up. The line was really long. I got some decent pictures though.

Redcats Paris Trip Friday Louive - 009 Redcats Paris Trip Friday Louve From Darwin - 127 Redcats Paris Trip Friday Louve From Darwin - 128 Redcats Paris Trip Friday Louve From Darwin - 129

After that we had a decently hard time finding a cab back to the hotel. We hit dinner near the hotel at another cafe, and then at night meet up with some people from work who were finally in Paris from Lille.

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The Censorship Age

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I was a bit ticked off to read that the US government is now trying to regulate what they think is indecent on Cable TV. The last I checked the government only applies standards on broadcasts used on the public airwaves such as the big networks. I don’t understand how they can apply broadcast standards to cable channels that I pay to have, that DO NOT go over the public airwaves. If you want to edit content that kids can get to why don’t parents take some control of their kids lives, or maybe get a V-Chip and use it. My mom was a teacher for like 30 years and agrees with me on this one. Instead of regulating how to be a good parent, get people to parent their kids and let adults watch what they want to watch.

I have heard about this legislation before, but it looks like it is becoming more of a reality now. I wonder what else the government thinks they need to regulate since they think i am too stupid to think for myself.

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The Old 20″ Display

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After puttering around for a while I finally put my Apple 20″ Cinema display up on Craigslist to be sold. I have been lazy about selling it, and frankly it would have sold on ebay in no time but i didn’t want to deal with all the shipping and fees, etc. So i tried Craig’s list. I was about to give up hope, when after a few days someone replied to the posting, and the awesome flat panel now has a new home. I mean it was awesome. I just wanted even bigger, so I have my 23″.

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The Curve

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I have only had the Blackberry Pearl for a short time, but it is now out! I now have a Blackberry Curve from work, and I am very happy. Yes the Pearl is really small, but the Curve is not much bigger. It is only slightly wider. The rest of the dimensions are the same, and it has a full keyboard. That makes all the difference to me. That means my Pearl goes up on Ebay!

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Now My Mac Knows its Location

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My Macbook is getting smarter every day. With the help of some nifty new free software it now knows where it is. What is even better is now I can program rules based off of where the Macbook is. It is all because i tried out MarcoPolo. I have seen other products that do similar things, but this one is just so simple and cool. Based off of what IP, IP range, USB devices, available Airport or Bluetooth networks, etc MarcoPolo decides what location you are in. Once you train it to figure that out you can tell it to do things when you switch location. I for one have my default printer switch from my work printer to my home printer. I also have different applications i almost always open when i get home and when i get to work. Now i have MarcoPolo do it. That works out well when for example i have a different Skype USB phone at home than i do at work and each one has its own application that needs to run in order for the phone to work. Now based on the location the correct device launches.

This is some really cool software that just makes my computer experience easier. Isn’t that what software is supposed to do?

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Blackberry Pearl Hard Reset Update

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Apparently RIM is not as smart as other hardware vendors. When you do a hard reset of a Pearl you don’t actually get all the programs refreshed to the factory default. I would argue that it isn’t a hard reset, but whatever. It boils down to the fact that when you mess up an install you can’t fix it. It took me a while, but i was able to get the lost applications back after following the instructions from this forum post.

My issue isn’t even 100% resolved since i lost the new AT&T phone theme i had with my Pearl and instead have the older not as nice looking Cingular theme on the phone since the software I was able to get the restore to work from must have been older than what was on my phone. In any case I am all better for now.

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Skype Caller ID

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So close, yet not yet. That is what I am thinking about Skype’s new Caller Identification. This has been one feature I have wanted on Skype for some time. With it, I can finally think about using it as a true phone replacement for my current Broadvoice home phone. Now all I have to do is wait for them to enable the service for use in the US.

I also realized that it would be really cool if Skype passed through caller ID info from a caller when you use call forwarding. Right now I see the same crazy 0012345678 show up on my forwarded calls as people see when I call them. Maybe this Caller Identification resolves this also? I hope it does.

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Blackberry Pearl

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After being fed up with issues on my Treo 680 I went out and bought a Blackberry Pearl. This was an impulse buy, since it is a short term solution until work upgrades my Blackberry for me. Until then I am using the Pearl. My first impression is that this phone is small. It is the size of a regular phone. It fits in my pocket. That is nice. The call quality is good, and the screen is nice and bright and sharp. I am still getting used to the keyboard, so the jury is still out on it.

In the long term I will use the Pearl for my work email, and maybe get a larger screen PDA phone for my personal mobile. I know, why have two? Well I can’t port my personal number to my work account, and I don’t want to give up my personal mobile number. I really like it, and everyone knows it. Right now I have been forwarding my call from one phone to the other so I can keep one phone in my bag and not have to carry it all the time. But as good as the Pearl seems, it doesn’t do tasks very well. I like the Windows Mobile or Palm for that so I might get some other device. I just know the 680 is not that device. It crashes and is too dam slow just too often. I am eyeing the Apple iPhone, or the Windows Mobile 6 Treo with the newly announced Blackberry emulation software running on it that might come out this fall. I guess I am always on the hunt for the perfect PDA/Phone. So close, but not there yet!

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