Archive for the 'geek' Category

Weaksauce

I was all set to upgrade to Leopard tonight, but M-Audio hasn’t updated their drivers yet. Whisky Tango Foxtrot. Is M-Audio so broke they can’t afford to join the ADC and get the developer seeds? Hell, grab a bittorrent client and your favorite tracker and ANYONE could have them. It isn’t like the announcement of Leopard’s release came as some big shock to the developer community. I don’t understand why at least SOME progress could not have been made on the drivers.

So, basically, I could update my MacBook Pro, but then my UC-33, Axiom 25 and FireWire 1814 could quite possibly be rendered useless. As I have some music I need to work on, I can’t exactly take that risk so I’ll just have the shrink wrapped Leopard box taunting me until M-Audio pulls their head out of their ass. My next gear purchase will certainly be Korg.

Also, I can’t find the totally awesome mask I was going to make my cats wear.

I’m going to go watch a movie or late-night television or something and feed the cats some treats. Then back here to record an angry evil psytrance mix.

Jokes for Nerds!

Exploits of a Mom

Loves it! xkcd is one of my favorite web comics.

Now back to catching up on my TV downloads. Finished Season 2 of Rome, nearly caught up with The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and Kitchen Nightmares.

Also tapered my earlobes back out to where they were a while back. I’ll have to take them out or wear smaller jewelry in client-facing professional situations, but I’ve missed the larger jewelry.

I’m trying to think of a good domain name for a great site idea I’m working on with some friends. This is challenging nowadays. I remember when I bought ryptide.com ages ago, I paid a great deal more than one does nowadays, but I could basically have my pick of anything. Had I been a wiser man, I would have pounced on several more and sold them at a premium later.

I think I’ll sleep soon.

Uh Oh… Bad news for iPhone Unlockers

Apple said in a press release today that programs like iPhoneSIMFree used to unlock iPhones to run on carriers other than AT&T will “will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.” and goes on to add that “he permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone’s warranty.”

I haven’t unlocked mine, as I’m fairly happy with my service on AT&T. I have installed third-party applications, however. Thankfully there is no indication that this refers to those programs, but only to the programs that modify the firmware to allow the device to operate on a different carrier’s network. I should be ok. I will say however that I’m really seriously hoping that an SDK is released to help improve the quality of third-party applications. The web applications are useless without data, and I have definitely seen a drop in stability with my device since I installed a few applications. A full restore takes me back to factory settings so I am not to concerned about it, but I’d like to see improvements.

I received an email from the Apple Developer’s Network today about some new Tech Talks regarding developments for the iPhone. It only mentioned web applications, so I’m not sure the SDK is any closer at all. It could be that Apple just wants to let someone else deal with it via crowdsourcing that they aren’t necessarily supportive of, but not overtly against either. They’ve kind of taken a “do it if you want but we make no guarantees” stance with the third-party non-unlocking applications.

Go Apple!

An open letter to iPhone Customers

… even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

Some folks are saying this was planned all along… Get folks riled up, then come out like a saint, etc etc… Regardless, this is freaking awesome. I wonder if we’ll be able to use the $100 in the iTunes store.

As a rule, Apple “gets it” — and that is why I consistently support them.

Heh, maybe I could figure a way to use the credit to buy a share of Apple, then wait until after Christmas and dump it ;]

Screw you, Early Adopter! ~ Love, Apple

Today, Apple got rid of the 4GB iPhone, and dropped the price of the 8GB model by $200. This comes just over two months since the product launched in the first place. That has to be a record for fastest price-drop.

Basically, now I can go to an Apple store, and purchase an 8GB iPhone for $100 less than I paid for my 4GB.

Gah!

They also announced some other stuff, including an updated iPod Shuffle in new colors (including a Product (RED) offering), a new iPod nano (affectionately dubbed by some, the “fatty”) which supports video and the WiFi iTunes store you can access from the iPhone soon and from the new iPod touch which is basically an iPhone without the phone. The disk space on all the models got moved around too. Looks like the 8GB nano comes in all the colors now, not just black, and looks like the price came down a bit.

On top of that, they announced a partnership with Starbucks which will allow Starbucks customers to instantly buy songs that are playing in Starbucks locations. Kind of neat, but I wonder what T-Mobile thinks about that. T-Mobile provides the WiFi access inside Starbucks locations, but does not carry the iPhone, which is exclusive to AT&T. So, in a round-about way, T-Mobile has a partnership with a company that does not benefit T-Mobile in the least.