FaceTime With A Friend

I've had a iPod Touch 4th gen for awhile now and I never have used FaceTime. When I first got my iPod I tried to call my friend Carol cause she was the only person I knew with a iPhone that could do FaceTime, but she was never near WIFI so I never got to do it and it just went to the back of my head. Until last night when I was talking to my friend Kimberly and she had a friend over that had a iPod Touch that could do FaceTime, so she called me. Its not like I have done a done a video chat before I have used Skype and even Stickam to do video chat. But when I used FaceTime it felt different then using Skype or Stickam. It felt more personal and more natural than other video chat programs. I hate to say it but it felt almost magical, I know that is more of a Apple term but they were right about that.

I think what is that makes FaceTime so much better then other video chat programs is that it works with mobile. You and the person you are talking to are not tide to your computer or laptop so you can move around and be comfortable like you might if you were really were hanging out with that person. I know that Stickam on iOS lets you stream from the iOS device but the people in the chat cant use there cam to talk back so its just a one way thing. Skype could at some point do this and maybe even bridge the gap so you can video chat with PC users and android users macs and anything else Skype works on.

Last night was a fun night talking to Kimberly on FaceTime and her friend. It just felt nice cause I have been talking to this girl for years we went back and froth on Myspace talking, then we moved on to talking on the phone and we know what each other looks like but just seeing each other move and seeing the facial expressions just meant more. I hope I get to FaceTime with her again soon.

Too Much COD?

Well just as a follow up after my post a from a few nights ago my best friend did come over. Though like I said that was not why I couldn’t sleep cause I didn’t sleep any better that night then I have in weeks. But we did have fun so that’s all that matters. So me and my friends like to play Call of Duty on Xbox live but to tell you the truth I hate Call of Duty. I only have it cause my friends like to play it and I want to be included when they play so I got it. Really I like halo a lot better, mostly cause its just point and shoot. Their isn’t any hiding around you just run and shoot the enemy, simple.

But since I have been done with school I have been playing lots of COD trying to get better so when I play with my friends im not the worst person playing and losing to me isn't an insult. But I can only be at the bottom so long until you get tired of getting your ass kicked by 12 year olds on Xbox Live. Now I know there is just as many playing Halo Reach, but I can at least finish first sometimes in team slayer or even just normal slayer. Though when I originally got my Xbox I had no plans to play anything other then halo. I got an arcade because I wanted to stream shows to my Xbox form my computer, which is what I still use it for and now I use Netflix as well so I never really turn on my cable box anymore. I got a hard drive for my Xbox when Wal-Mart had 20 GB drives cheap.

I told you that so I could tell you about how it died the other day. Well it died for a little bit. I hooked my Xbox to the HD TV in the living the day before then the next day I brought it back in my room hooked it up and then turn it on. It then asked me if I wanted to update my Xbox so I said yes, then it told me that their was no place to put it. I went to the memory manger and it would no show my HDD. I turned off and on I removed the drive and put it back in and it just wouldn’t see it. Finally I took it out again and blew on the connectors like an old game cartridge and it turned back on the Xbox and it worked and no update. So Am I playing too much COD maybe but my best friend isn’t helping cause she wants to play with me too the next time she comes over which kind of surprised me. But more on that latter I guess if you want to play with me on Xbox Live my gamer tag is samlikecoke90 which I’m thinking of changing soon. See you all on the battle field. Oh and FYI Modern Warfare 3 is coming out at some point and GameStop out on grant Ave got more posters in so if want to pre order it now is the time and I guess you get a free poster.

Sleepless Nights

Another night and I cant sleep, I suppose its cause I don’t do much in my days other then lay around and watch stuff or play games. …. Naa that cant be it so what could it be then. Could it be I haven't seen my best friend in week? It could be I do miss seeing her but its nothing she could help she needed to find a job. Hmmm a job could that be keeping me up at night? Theirs not much I can do about the job situation I called and the woman I talked to said she was not going to be there this week and she would be scheduling interviews when she comes back next week, so I need to call back then. Could it be school? I finished the semester and well if I passed the two classes I'm worried about it will be a metrical. I don’t think that is it I had no problem sleeping when I was doing horrible in those classes and I knew it from the start, it just was not a good semester.

I really don’t know what is keeping me up at night I wish I could figure it out cause I'm tired of going to bed at 5 AM and then waking up at 1 PM. I wish I could remember  how to wake up at 9 AM or even 8 AM with out having to fight myself to the death. I don’t want to use something like Tylenol PM to make me go to sleep cause I don’t want my body to build an immunity to it. I guess I’ll know what it is that is keeping me up when I can sleep again.

Well in the mean time I took another pic. This time of the bleeding harts growing on the bush outside my house. Its I don’t think they are as good as that one I took downtown but I still like them.

 

This one right here is my favorite out of the two. I like how the water drops came out. The reason why I don’t really like these is just cause they look blurry. I think that happen cause it was raining when I took it and I used my cell phone camera again. But none the less they came out ok with a little Photoshop magic. Well its almost 2:30 so I guess I should at least try and go to sleep. Wish me luck.

Change Your Facebook Password

I’m watching Security Now Episode 300 Which came out this week and one of the story’s they talked about seemed kind of disturbing. The story was Facebook Applications Accidentally Leaking Access to Third Parties. To get to the point there is a good chance that your Facebook apps might be leaking the permission that you give it. For example if you have an app that asks to post something on your wall well that app could let others wright on your wall too, completely on accident.

Symantec says that the problem has been in the API for Facebook apps since 2007. They are recommending that all Facebook users change their password. Changing your password will reset the apps so they will need to ask for permission again to do things. Facebook did fix the problem as to why changing the password fixes this problem.

Also I wanted add you might want to also go change your passwords to other things like your e-mail, other social networks you are a part of, and even your online banking password. These passwords are not compromised but if you are going to change one why not change them all. You might want to get something like Keepass or Lastpass which are good ways to have good passwords and not need to remember really long and hard ones. So go download Lastpass or Keepass so you can have nice strong passwords. I just thought I would pass this little bit of information along.

Technorati Tags: Facebook,Password,Change,Lastpass,Keepass,Synmantic,Security Now,TWIT,Episode 300

Angry Birds

I was on twitter today and I saw a tweet form Cecily Kellogee on Twitter about Angry Birds coming to the Chrome Web App Store. I from what I see its been there for a few days now but I just found out about it today. I'm not too surprised that it is on the Chrome Store since Angry Birds is every ware. I'm just waiting for the day I can play Angry Birds in the shower… but that was probably way too much information.

Playing on computer feels a little weird. I know that there is a computer version for Mac and Windows already but I have not ever played it on a computer until now. But other than that it is the same Angry Birds know and love, with a few Chrome inspired levels. I have not seen these levels yet but I can’t wait to see them.

I do have one word of warning don’t play with a track pad I had to when I first played it and it was ok but it is way better with a mouse. I can only assume that if you have something like a desktop or laptop with a touch screen you will probably feel right at home with that. You can get Angry Birds on the Chrome Store or if you use Firefox you can go to http://chrome.angrybirds.com/ and it will work just the same and I can only imagine that it will work in IE 9 too.

Technorati Tags: Angry Birds,Chrome,Firefox,HTML5,PC,Mac,Web App

Microsoft Buying Skype

Last night I saw a report form Mashable saying that Microsoft was considering buying Skype. I woke up this morning and looked at Facebook and a saw a official post from Skype on their blog that said they will sell Skype to Microsoft for $8.5 billon. This kind of came to a shock to me this morning. Not that Microsoft bought Skype but that they didn’t drag this out and say the rumors were not true. Though if Microsoft was offering me $8.5 Billon I wouldn’t be screwing around either.

The reaction I have seen at least on Facebook hasn’t been all that good. I have manly seen people seeing this is not a good thing for Skype. I mostly agree with these people. My main concern with Microsoft buying Skype is Microsoft is just too big. There are many stories of good ideas being killed cause it conflicts with something else that Microsoft already dose. In this case that could be Windows Live Messenger. My greatest fear right now is that Skype might just get meshed in with windows live messenger. I think this would bad thing for many people and business.

Now this could be a good thing for Microsoft. Skype is in a lot of different places more places then Windows Live Messenger is, and they could use this to get on other platforms. But I think they can do hundred and one different things but what will end up happening is most of these idea’s will get caught in the politics internally at Microsoft and we will only see a fraction of what Skype could be with Microsoft backing them.

Technorati Tags: Skype,Microsoft,Acquire,Windows Live Messanger

Took A Walk

It was such a nice day here and yeah I spent most of it in side the house. At one point I had to go and do some things around town and get something for dinner at Wegmans. It was fun I used the my tacks app I got for my phone to see how far I walked. I walked about 1.72 Miles today. I took the long way to ware I had to go. I also took a pic wile I was walking downtown.

It just caught my eye today as I was walking downtown. Went to Ride aid after that and walked back downtown to get my dinner at Wegmans a sub which are amazing. When I got home I took the photo and edited it with Photoshop express on my cell and got this.

I liked how it came out I just played with the colors and used a filter to blur out the background of everything so the cars don’t show up as much. So that was my day I will probaly be in bed soon I didn’t sleep well last night I hope I sleep better tonight. I have to do stuff tomorrow like cut my grandparents grass. All my family will be at my grandparents house doing things out side for them. So being sleepy would not be a good idea.

Guiles When You are away (Originally a Post on my Guild’s Forums)

UPDATE: Since I have writen this post Blizzard has come out with a Android App for guild chat. It will be free till 5/10/11

Hey I hope you everyone is having a good brake from wow. I couldn’t really stay away I just been trying to level hord toon, I got lazy and just paid for a faction change and changed my pally into a torrent pally. In the last few days I found something cool that I wanted to share with all of you. If you have an iPhone Blizzard updated the mobile armory to include guild chat as part of it now. I’ve known this was coming for a while and when I saw on wowhead that it had finally came out I couldn’t download the update fast enough.

Like I said before this update makes guild chat available on your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). I’ve been using it now for a few days to talk to peegs hord guild cause I’ve been to lazy to really log on and I’ve loved it plus just the shock from people when I say im using guild chat from my iPod that’s always fun too. I started talking to someone and they said there was a app for vent too so I looked high and low for this app but I couldn’t find nothing. I was told it was called ventaphone. I googled it and it turns out that it got taken off the app store.

For the hell of it I looked at the android market and I found an app called Ventriloid and it works perfect. I can now use vent on my cell phone witch made me happy. I should probably mention that all these apps are free. So if you have an iPhone mobile armory for guild chat, get wile guild chat is free. Also Ventedroid for android users. I have the links at the bottom of the post.

Links:

Mobile armory

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/world-warcraft-mobile-armory/id321057000?mt=8

Ventriloid

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jtxdriggers.android.ventriloid&feature=search_result

The End is Near (The End of The Semester That is)

In a few weeks my second semester will be over and I cant say I’m all that happy about this. This whole semester I’ve been saying it has not been my semester and I have been right. I started with 4 classes and I ended up with 2 by the mid semester. 2 classes that I was failing and it never got much better. I wish I could blame something other then myself but that’s all I can blame is myself. I should have studied more and all that junk.

So what have I been up to instead of studying? Well its been a mixture of girls, video games, and friends. Well the girl one is mostly Kelly and Kimberly. Kelly being my ex GF of a week I think it was and Kimberly being a weird friendship thing. Video games I've been playing a lot of fable 3 and The Sims3. Friends well mostly my friend Kate. I've been hanging out with her a lot lately, like almost everyday. I think what its is, is after everything with Kelly I just wanted to be around a friend who else better then Kate since she is my best friend and the only friend I truly worried about losing. She's also the only person I can think of that I don’t ever get tired of being around.

So really that is all that is going on with me lately. I take my finals in a 2 weeks and then I'm done till fall semester. I will be trying to get some type of tech post up sometime soon I hope and I also have been streaming little bit on ustream.tv look for that on my twitter stream.

I Have The Site Back

As of today 3/14/11 I have back Mikes World of Tech but I’m going to do something's different this time. When I originally got this site I had the idea that maybe I could use this site as a way to make a few bucks and write about something I love technology. I had a year off and nothing else to do and well I did make a few bucks just not enough for Google to cut me a check. I stopped working on this site because I started college and I just didn’t have time to write anymore. Well I still have classes I'm not done yet but I keep listening to TWIT and when they do their ad of Squarespace Leo always talks about controlling your personal brand online and that you should have your own space on the web. Yes its nice to have a Facebook page or a twitter account, but those aren’t really yours if Facebook goes out of business tomorrow now you no longer exists on the internet.you have no identity now. Well at least if you have your own website you have control over yourself on the web and if Squarespace goes out of busniss I can move my site to another server and keep going I'm not reliant on squarespace I have control. So what I’m getting at is this site is going to be a little bit more personal but there will be tech post still as well. So I hope everyone will like the changes that I will be making to the site. As always if you need anything you can e-mail me using the forum on the left column of the site.

What is Windows 7 Service Pack 1?

Windows 7 SP 1 beta was released Monday for people to download and try out. Most people are asking what it changes. The answer to that is nothing… nothing at all. Service pack 1 for Windows 7 is just a roll up of all the updates since Windows 7 has come out. This just makes it easier for when you are reinstalling windows, you don’t have to download 33+ updates you just have to download one big update. That’s about it.

Now I have a question. Should Microsoft be adding something with SP1? I think they should. They need to add something to SP1 to give people a resin to get it. Even if it was new wallpaper, they need something so that when people update to SP1 they know that they did it. In Windows XP SP2 there were a lot of resins to update to XP SP2 like a stronger firewall and the security center. These things made Windows XP a little safer and gave people a resin to update to XP SP2. They were also physical changes that the user could see.

Service packs have always been just update roll ups in the past, with the exception of XP SP2. But shouldn’t that change shouldn’t they give people the incentive to get service packs so that they can stay safe and up to date?

If you want to see the screen shots of the install process you can see them here.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Service Pack 1,Windows XP SP2,Microsoft,Firewall

Momentum Shift

The iPhone4 was release a week or so ago and has brought Apple a lot of money and a lot of problems with the phones reception. Apple has said that they are coming out with a fix iOS 4.0.1 which is not really a fix for the reception it is more of a fix for the bars. The bars are like the cake it’s a lie. Here is what Apple had to say about the problems:

“Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.”

You can read the whole letter at Apples site here. What theses 2 paragraphs are saying is that the iPhone bars have been lying to us this whole time, and that there fix is going to make it tell the truth as to how many bars it really has. I feel as if Apple took a gamble on the iPhone4. They had to have known the problems with the phone before it came out, but they decided to not delay it. This gamble just will not pay off for Apple in the long run.

The Droid X will be coming out next Thursday and as long as the Droid X doesn’t have the reception problems of the iPhone 4 it should be another good Android phone that can be added to the long list of Android phones. Android has been gaining momentum now for a while and these issues with the iPhone4 will help Android gain even more momentum.

It will be like Vista there was a few little problems that only affected businesses for most people Vista would have been fine. But Apple ran the Mac VS PC ads and got people to Switch to Mac or in some cases got them to just not upgrade to Vista.

Google might be able to do the same to the iPhone. There many people reading and seeing these issues with the iPhone this may scare them off. They might instead just sick with their phone or they might get some other type of smart phone. Either way if Apple wants to stop with shift they better pull a rabbit out of there hat soon.

Technorati Tags: iPhone 4,Momentum Shift,Android,Droid X,Mac VS PC,Vista

RIP KIN

Yesterday Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing the KIN. The KIN was a phone Microsoft made amid towards the tween crowd. It was small cute, and seemed to work well with social media that kids in that age group would want. The KIN was only out for a month or so before this announcement the other day.

Why did the KIN fail? I think the big problem for the KIN was most parents are not going to spend $80+ a month for a single plane for their kids. Verizon just does not have cheap plans unlike T-Mobile that has planes for smart phones that you can get for $60 with no contract. The problem with that plan is you would have to pay full price for the phone and I’m sure parents are not going to pay $400 for a phone for their kids either.

So from that view KIN was doomed from the start. Another problem people had too was, what OS the KIN was running? We all know that Microsoft is coming out with Windows Phone 7. KIN form what I came to understand from watching Windows Weekly was running a stripped down version of Windows Phone 7. So KIN was not a smart phone it was a glorified feacher phone. Kind of like the T-Mobile Side Kick. That is probably because some people form that team helped make KIN.

The final thing I feel kind of killed the KIN was the ad’s for the KIN. They just never made sense to me and one kind of is a little creepy I think. There is one ad for the KIN that gets played a lot. The kid is visiting everyone in his social network and oh look he ran into his ex (turn and just walk away kid) the girl friend doesn’t seem to be too happy to see him and so he takes a photo of her and they show off the Studio and talk about that for a bit. To me this ad seems creepy. It seems Microsoft wants no one to see that ad I looked all over YouTube to find it.

I believe that the monthly charge for this phone is what killed it. Microsoft did say that the KIN team was going to now be a part of the Windows Phone 7 team. You have to think that they might take some of KIN’s strengths and put that to use in Windows Phone 7.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,KIN,verizon,creepy ads,Windows Phone 7

First Look at Windows Live Essentials 4 Part 2

Live Movie Make:

Windows Movie maker has been around in Windows since Windows XP and it never really changed much at all. Well with the last releases of Windows Live Essentials 3 Movie maker was finally added to the suit. They gave it a much needed facelift and made it easier to use. The problem was it came out latter then the rest of the suit. It was in beta for a long time, so it was not really integrated like the rest of the applications. Well in Live Essentials 4 they make Live Movie maker more integrated with Photo Gallery now. Movie maker is really a good slide show maker and good for making quick edits to YouTube videos before you upload them. I made a slide show of the photos I took a month ago as sample slide shows enjoy.

The sample slide show I made with movie maker.

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Live Sync:

I think the last thing that has a big change to it is Windows Live sync. I’ve been using Sync to sync my photo between my laptop and my desktop computer for wile now. I’ve always found that it was a little difficult to do. You had to do everything on the Windows Live Sync site, and the site was vary clunky I thought. Well now it’s all in the app now you just click the icon and you get a nice simple interface just tell it what folder you want to sync and what computer you want to sync with and it just dose it. A few other things that have been added are you can now sync your IE 8 bookmarks between other computers and also you can sync Office documents. They even now add SkyDrive as a place you can sync your documents and photos to, the catch is they only give you 2 GB out of your 25 GB for your SkyDrive sync. This might be something they open up more someday. Despite this it is still worth using if you have files you need on all your computers.

These tools I wish they could just put this in with Windows like Apple dose with iLife, but sadly Microsoft cannot. For most people who buy new computers Windows Live Essentials 4 will come with their new computers since Microsoft has deals with HP, Dell and other. If you want it now go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta and read the system requirements because there is no Windows XP support for the beta.

Technorati Tags: Windows Live,Wave 4,Essentials,Live Sync,Live Movie Maker,Microsoft,iLife

First Look at Windows Live Essentials 4

Last week Microsoft realest the public beta for Windows Live Essentials 4. For you Mac people that’s the Microsoft version of iLife. So the new version is in Public beta this means it’s not finished yet there could be some changes between now and when it comes out officially. Also this means it might crash a lot for you so I’ll give you the disclaimer your mileage may vary.

Windows Live Photo Gallery:

Windows Live Photo Gallery was the first thing I looked at after I installed the suit. Photo Gallery is the App I use the most out everything else in Live Essentials. Why is that? Well for a long time I’ve been looking for something like iPhoto but for Windows. I tried things like Picasa and it just didn’t feel right to me. Then wile listing to Windows Weekly on the TWIT network they were talking about this Windows live thing and went to the site they gave to get it and installed it. The first version was not 100% what I wanted but I knew it would get there one day. Today I feel Windows Live Photo Gallery is right where I want it.

The Ribbon UI has been added to all the applications this time around and it is done very well I think.

As you can see from the screen shot they have added things such as batch tagging, and a few more options built in to upload your photos online such as Facebook and SkyDrive. One of the improvements I saw right off the back was a better way to brows photos by people that you have tagged. On the home tab there is a thing called quick find if you have photos that you have tagged people in, their face will appear there. If you click a person’s face it will find every photo you have of that person instantly. Photo recognition is not new in Photo Gallery but the ability to use it to find peoples photos quicker is new. There is so much more like being able to crate photo slide shows easier, and tons of other things that I will get more in depth on when it comes out of public beta.

Windows Live Writer:

Windows Live Writer was the second thing I checked out since it’s the second most used app in the suit that I use. There isn’t really to many changes to this app. This time around it seemed like it was more about simplicity. I found that finding tools that I use in there for the site was a lot easier to find and use. I also noticed some stability updates such as when I add a photo from my computer it doesn’t lock up like it used to and same for adding YouTube videos. Those are all the changes I really could find with Live Writer.

See Part 2 tomorrow.

If You want these apps now just go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta to get the public beta. Just to note you should look at the system requirements before you install. Also from what I can see there is no XP SP3 support for Essentials 4 so your out of luck XP users.

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Essentials 4,Wave 4,Microsoft,Windows,Vista,Windows 7,Live Photo Gallery,Windows live Writer,SkyDrive,Facebook

Welcome to the New Mikes World of Tech

Welcome to the new layout for the site. I’ve wanted to do a new layout for wile now; the old one seemed a bit too much for the eye. I scaled back and just did simple colors. Thanks the Sqarespace’s editing tools it only took me about an hour or so to do all this. Now I want to point out some changes from the old site versus the new one.

The first one I would like to point out is the Search. You now look for older post that I have done by going to the search page on the top navigation bar. I’ve done many tips and how to post threw out the years so use search to find them.

Item number two that I want to talk about is really two things. I moved the side bar to the left I just felt it looked better then on the right. The other thing I wanted to talk about is I have a new RSS feed for the site you can subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/MikesWorldOfTech this can also be found at the bottom of the side bar.

The last thing I want to talk about is I’m starting a monthly newsletter. You can subscribe by going to the Newsletter link at the top of the page. I will send a post about what I think was the most important tech story of the month and we can talk about it.

I hope you enjoy the improvements and subscribe to the RSS feed so you are always up to date about what is going on in the tech world also you can follow me on twitter.com/mikeswortldoftec. Also check out my new blog I started googleplexcity.blogspot.com for all things Google.

Getting To know Mozilla

A few days ago I sent a few questions to Mozilla to have answers. I felt there are a lot of people out there now that use Firefox everyday and probably don’t know much about the company it’s self. Today I got a reply back from them here are the answers to my questions. Enjoy!

1. How and where did Mozilla start?

The Mozilla project was created in 1998 with the release of the Netscape browser suite source code that was intended to harness the creative power of thousands of programmers on the Internet and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the browser market. More information on the history of Mozilla can be found here.

2. How did Mozilla come up with the name Firefox?

See the FAQ "Why Change the Name" for details on why the name Firefox was chosen

3. Dose Mozilla have an opinion about Flash vs HTML5? If so, what is it?

Mozilla believes that the future of online applications lies with web standards, including HTML5. Fundamental web technologies should not be encumbered with patents or closed and proprietary.

4. Do you have any predictions about the future of the direction the web is going? Do you think it’s going to be the Mobile Web, Cloud Services, or something else?

Mozilla is a public-benefit organization dedicated to making the Internet better for everyone. We would like to see the future of the web incorporate a better experience for users everywhere, more control by users over their experience, and improved customization and extensibility of individual browsing experiences.

5. Now that Opera has gotten on to the iphone, will we ever see a mobile version of Firefox for the iphone?

We have been working on an application for the iPhone based on the Firefox Sync (formerly Weave Sync) technology. The app is called Firefox Home, and it gives iPhone users instant access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks and the set of tabs from their most recent browser session. For more information see the blog post: Firefox Home Coming Soon to the iPhone.

I have to thank the people at Mozilla again for getting back to me so soon. I hope to do more quick little Q&A type interview again. I would also like to add you can follow Firefox on Twitter @firefox.

Technorati Tags: Firefox,Mozilla,iPhone,interveiw,get to know

Is the Mac Dead?

Last week Apple silently updated the Mac Mini. Giving it a unibody case and a HDMI port on it so it can be used with a TV, which kind of kills Steve Jobs hobby, the Apple TV. At WWDC there was nothing in the keynote about the Mac. This worries some people and it probably should. Steve could have said something about the Mac, but there was nothing. Does this mean that the Mac is dead?

I think it is. Now I don’t think that they are just going to stop making Macs, but I do think that they aren’t going to be updating the Macs unless they have to. Some updates might be putting faster CUPs and more RAM in their computers, but I don’t for see anything new coming to the Macs anytime soon. The Mac line is just going to sit and collect dust, I feel. They can’t really get rid of the Mac line up completely, because there would be riots in the streets. They may not care much about the Mac community, but I don’t foresee them just purposely pissing them off either.  I would say Mac has a good long life ahead of it, but it just might be a sad lonely one.

For many years, Steve Jobs has said that the PC is dead and that mobile computing was the future. Well, he was a little ahead of his time when he said that, but it does look like he was right. More and more we are seeing OEMs like HP, and Dell making phones and tablets. Why is that? It’s because they want something that is close enough, if not better, than an iPad type device. The PC will probably never go away but I do see a day where a PC or any type of desktop device is more of a business thing and things like the iPad and iPhone are what people use at home to surf the web and do home tasks. Let’s face it, for most people an iPad would be just enough for them if there was just a good way to print from it. You could replace a laptop or desktop computer with it. Unless you have special needs. Things like the Mac and OS X are and have always been too much for the normal person.  An iPad is just right.

So let’s recap. The Mac line up I feel, is dead when Apple does updates now to the Mac they're silent updates or just nonevents. While all the focus is on mobile devices like the iPhone and the iPad.  I would not replace my Desktop computer or laptop just yet with an iPad. It’s just not there yet because I still have needs that a desktop fulfills.

Technorati Tags: iMac,Apple,OS X,Mac mini,Apple TV,iPad,iPhone,iOS

Miso

There are so many location base games out there like 4 square which kind of started the whole location game movement. I find there are two problems with these games, or at least for me there are two problems with these games and that is you have to go places. I don’t go many places, maybe a friend’s house now and then but I just don’t like to go out. The other problem is they require a phone with GPS and I don’t have one. So what is someone like me to do… well I do like to watch TV and that is ware Miso comes in.

Miso is kind of like 4 Square in a way. Miso lets you tell everyone what you are watching on TV or what Net casts you are watching. There is an iPhone/ iPod Touch app to make it easy to check in to the TV shows you are watching.

Miso has many TV shows already in its data base so it is not hard to find what you are watching. But if it is not there you can add the show that you are watching. Like I said before there are badges that you can earn from watching TV shows.

There are also social things going on with Miso you can have friends or if you want to see if any of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers have it you can have Miso look for you. You can even plug Miso in to your Facebook and Twitter account so when you check in to a TV show it sends your check in to those accounts and your friends can see what you are watching. You also get more points for plugging Miso into those accounts so to get badges faster.

Now ok I know Miso is really a stupid thing and it really has little value but every now and then it is kind of cool to see what your friends are watching. It’s fun to do and if you want you can find me on Miso I’m samlikecoke on there. I do recommend this app. I should also note there is a web site gomiso.com . Check it out and join today.

Technorati Tags: Miso,Game,Reveiw,iPhone,iPod Touch,4 Square

iPhone 4

Yesterday was the WWDC key note and alot was talked about one of things was saw about a month ago thanks to some tech blog. There were new apps that were talked about such as Netflicks for iPhone, Framville for iPhone, Guitar Hero for iPhone, and iMovie for iPhone. These were all nice anouncements but once Steve said iPhone 4 that was it. So what is new in iPhone 4 well let me tell you.
iPhone 4 has a new look to it. I could try and describe it but they say a pitcher is worth a thousand words so I'll let the the photos talk for me.

You might be able to see form this pic that the iPhone 4 is thinner than other smart phones. Apple clams that the iPhone 4 is the thinnest Smart Phone in the world. The display on the iPhone has gotten an upgrade it is the same size, but it displays 326 pixels per inch. There calming that the screen is better than most OLED screens on phones. As you can probably see form the photo there is a front facing camera on the phone for iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 chats which they are calling FaceTime. Steve Jobs did say that FaceTime will be opened up as an open standard today. I would think that would mean that 3^rd party apps like Skype could use the front camera so you can do video Skype calls but who knows with Apple they might have some kind of restriction. I should also note that FaceTime calls can only be made on WIFI. The way Steve put it; it might be just a matter of time before you can do it over the cell phone network.

The iPhone for will be available on June 24^th it will be in two colors black and white. AT&T will let you out of your contract for your current phone if your contract expires anytime in 2010 if you renew with a 2 year contract. iPhone OS 4 has a new name it is now iOS 4 and that too will available June 24^th and it will be Free for all iPhone 3G and up users and it will be free for iPod Touch 2^nd gen and up users.

My final thoughts on the iPhone 4 based off the keynote is if you didn’t get a 3G because there was nothing new well you made a good call I do think the iPhone 4 will be a grate upgrade for you. If you just had to have the 3GS well if you can get the iPhone 4 it seems to be a good upgrade all around.

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Apple,iOS 4,iPod Touch