Share Your Hard Drive - My Latest MyFirstMac.com Article

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Shhhh....!

It appears Apple may be under a negative whisper campaign. David Morgenstern over at ZDNet has an interesting piece about how an acquaintance "heard" that Apple makes great looking product, but they're not all the reliable. Where the heck did that come from? Crazy. Apple ranks number 1 on most if not all reliability surveys.

So if you hear a whisper about this - pass along the reality. Apple is more reliable than all computers.

Nuvi Phone

Garmin announced yesterday that they've entered the smartphone market with their Nuvi Phone. If you're not familiar with Garmin, they're one of the most popular GPS makers out there. The Nuvi is their top seller. As you can see by the photo, the design is definitely inspired. I might just be used to the iPhone design, but dare I say this looks better? It definitely has a high-end look to it. Looks thicker and heavier tho.

Let The Music Play, Worries For Another Day

Some Jim Henson properties come to iTunes - The complete first seasons of Fraggle Rock (Doozers RULE!) and Farscape. The Fraggles are fun but I'll admit I've never seen the Farscape series which rahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifn from 1998 to 2002.

More episodes will be available soon.

(via TUAW)

RIP Netscape

This Friday, AOL will officially kill off the web browser that started it all. Netscape will cease to be. Ah, memories. I remember 1995 and in those days Netscape was not a free download. But if you downloaded the betas, it was. Good times. Not surprisingly, AOL is recommending Firefox, the browser which Netscape actually launched.

iTunes Movie Rentals - A Review

So I was in Jersey City, NJ this week working with E*TRADE and had an opportunity and reason to try out the new iTunes Movie Rentals. I am impressed. I rented "Superbad", which is a frickin' hilarious movie. I rented it on iTunes and seamlessly moved it to my iPhone to enjoy on the flight back home. Awesome. It took all of 12 minutes to download the movie. It took all of 2 minutes to move it to my iPhone. Awesome.

I also just hooked up my new Apple TV. The new software update to bring computer-less movie rentals to the Apple TV has not yet been released, but I'm still impressed. It is syncing with my iTunes library right now, but so far I've enjoyed a few music videos and TV shows that I previously downloaded from iTunes. Awesome.

Did I say awesome? I'm extremely happy with both the rentals and the Apple TV.

Update I'm now listening to my music collection on my TV and watching my iPhotos stream across - AWESOME. This is cool. You need to get one. Now.

Best. Quarter. Ever.

Apple posted revenue of $9.6 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion for the first quarter of 2008 (in Apple's financial reporting, that ended 29 December.). Compare this with revenue of $7.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $1 billion.

- 2,319,000 Macs shipped (44% unit growth and 47% revenue growth)
- 22,121,000 iPods shipped (5% unit growth and 17% revenue growth)
- 2,315,000 iPhone sales

And how does the stock market react? Apple stock plunges around 15%. Huh? I don't get it. This is on Apple's second quarter guidance that revenue and sales may slow a bit due to uncertainties with the economy. That I understand - but they said slowing, not decreasing. With the growth and profits Apple is seeing, they'll still have one heck of a quarter. And 45% of the quarter's sales were International. Other economies aren't going into the shitter like America's.

In the interest of full disclosure I am an extremely(!) minor Apple stock holder. And I'm not going to over react and sell them. Yet.

Pole Position for your iPod

Those of a certain age will fondly remember the arcade classic Pole Position. Race your car around the track and enjoy the scenery. My personal favorite was the sit down version.

Well, relive your glory days on your iPod. Download it today!



(via TUAW)

iPod Touch Fee Legally Required?

Engadget has a piece that the iPod upgrade fee is possibly due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Hooey. Hooey if it's due to some crap-ass accounting act (thank you very much Enron and Worldcom). This world's out of order. YOU'RE out of order (what movie?) Hooey. Just hooey.

Early Adopters Screwed Again?

Criticized by Way2Poppy immediately following the Keynote, other Apple fans are also feeling pissy about Time Capsule.

Be careful, Apple. Treat your best fans best. Unfortunately, this is becoming a trend.

Ouch! LOL!

(via Digg)

Apple TV On The Way

Okay - I've been wanting Apple TV for a while, but it was one of those things that I didn't really NEED. But now that there are rentals available - I need it. I don't watch that many movies - but when I do it's spare of the moment. So Netflix and Blockbuster are out. Apple TV will give me what I want. It should be here in the next few days - I'll update my experience in the future.

Is Apple Screwing With Us Again?

For iPod Touch users, the keynote on Tuesday was bittersweet. On one hand, they can now get the same apps as the iPhone - Mail, Stocks, Weather, Maps, and Notes. On the other hand, it costs them $20.

This is pretty crappy in my opinion. I will say I am not an iPod Touch user, but I did get caught in the iPhone price reduction fiasco. I personally even didn't care too much about that even - the cost of early adoption, etc. But this is a disturbing trend. It would be one thing if the cost of the iPod Touch went up $20 to accommodate the new features, but that's not the case. So early adopters of the Touch now pay $20 more than what someone who buys a brand new iPod Touch.

I'm not saying that Apple isn't deserving of the $20. It costs money to develop software, host it, sync it, etc. But at least make it fair. Or logical even.

Mac Uses Have a Superiority Complex

Mac users are more liberal, less modest, and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large. True, but so what?

Via Engadget

If Only I Had the Resources to Pull This Off

Very good. A couple quick thinkers mocked up a vinyl and fleece manila envelope as the perfect case for the Macbook Air. You had to see it coming, but this was fast! Only $29.95 (hey, it's not a real envelope - these are handmade!)

(via Engagdet)

MacBook Air is the Perfect Machine

You're Dumb. And I agree.

iTunes Rental Details

Engadget has put together a handy and comprehensive chart of what is possible with the new iTunes Rental service. Ya just gotta love DRM!

In Case You Missed the Keynote

Impressions of Macworld Keynote '08

Well, it's that time of year again. Time Capsule is cool if you don't already have a base station. But they need to just allow the same functionality if you have the "standard" Airport Extreme with an external drive. I want wireless backups, but I don't want to plunk down $500 for it. I've already got the Airport Extreme and a hard drive hooked up, they need to just let me use it that way.

The MacBook Air is awesome. Some interesting things left out of the Keynote is that the battery is iPod/iPhone-esque - not user removable. Personally not a big issue, but some will be frustrated with the inability to swap batteries. The Sony that he kept comparing things to may be thicker, but it also has a built-in optical drive, larger hard drive and the ability to have the solid state drive and hard drive at the same time. But the Air certainly has the sex appeal. It's not for everyone but it fits in nicely to the product line - MacBook for home, MacBook Air for highly mobile executives who really just need the basics - email, web browsing, office apps (esp. presentations) and MacBook Pro for those needing video and image editing, content creation, etc.

iTunes rentals is awesome. I want an Apple TV now. We use the cable on demand movie rentals all the time which is great, but the selection is very limited. NetFlix is great, but we're too spare-of-the-moment movie renters - Netflix/Blockbuster require too much planning and thought. Having 1000's of movies available at a touch is awesome. I will likely buy an Apple TV.

iPhone update is pretty slick. Makes me really excited about 3rd party apps for the phone. The "current location" functionality is pretty slick although here at home it locates me in the ballpark but not very close. But if you were trying to find something or you were lost, it will be close enough to work.

Keynote - The game.

This is very funny and clever. Play a Pac Man-like game where you're Steve and you have to collect your stuff before the Keynote address. But don't run into anyone and reveal your secrets!

SteveNote Expo

Microsoft - The Board Game

Microsoft - the board game.

Warning: iPods Can Cause Death

C'mon. iPods don't kill people. People kill people. In an effort to reduce the deaths from dumbasses too busy listening to their iPods and paying attention to other things while crossing the road, they ran a contest for a campaign. This is the outcome. Extremely clever ad I must say.

via Engadget

New Macs

Apple surprised everyone by announcing two updated products ahead of next week's Macworld today. The new Mac Pro sports 8 core processing, insane graphics capabilities (you can run 8! 30 inch cinema displays at once!), new system architecture and a whole lot more.

The XServe gets updated as well with 8 core processing, new system architecture, 3TB of internal storage and unlimited Leopard client licenses for under $3k. Not bad.

Can't wait to see what Apple has in store for us next week!