AudioBoo: Spill Disasters

This is just another quick AudioBoo recording in which I describe my beverage spilling woes.  Very exciting.

Apple updates!

Yesterday Apple updated a bunch of products.  Most were just hardware updates (CPU speed bumps, graphics card updates, more RAM etc.) and there are so many to mention that I’ll just have to refer you to Apple.com or MacRumors if you want to see the nitty-gritty details.  Just know that if you were in the market for an iMac, Mac Pro or Mac Mini now’s probably the time to take the plunge.  I’m just happy because the iMac wasn’t significantly updated, no aesthetic redesign or anything, so I’m still pleased with my 24″ 3.06ghz iMac from last July.

What I did find interesting was a lesser-noted addition to Apple’s product line: the new wired wireless keyboard.  It’s basically a wired version of of their wireless keyboard which means that it’s shrunken down and has no number pad.  To me this is pretty odd.  The justification of forgoing a number pad on my wireless keyboard was that it was exactly that: wireless.  Who’s going to buy the same keyboard but now it has a wire and no numpad?  Dunno, like I said, it just seems goofy to me.

What most excites me about these updates is what wasn’t updated.  This smacks of “clearing the road for WWDC” to me.  With these updates they can get all of their spec-bumps out of the way and save the flashy stuff for WWDC.  After all, announcing a new iMac that looks just like the old iMac but is slightly faster doesn’t really excite audiences at a keynote.  Instead they can roll out the new version of the iPhone, which I’m hotly anticipating.  We might even see something a little more over-the-top like the iTablet everyone’s talking about these days.  Honestly though, if at WWDC they just spend a whole 2 hours talking about a new rev of the iPhone and how cool all of its new features are, I’ll be happy.

If you think about it, the iPhone is the perfect product for WWDC.  At a developers conference you should talk about what developers are developing for, right?  Increasingly that’s the iPhone.  How many millions of applications have been downloaded from the App Store?  Sure, standard desktop applications are still important but iPhone apps are the new hotness right now.

Using Boot Camp for gaming on an iMac

Okay, so the video didn’t end up being about Boot Camp so much as the games I’ve been playing on the iMac and some Games for Windows Live news.  Ah well, can’t blame me for trying!  A video should be up tomorrow with my first review of an iPhone/iPod Touch game, so check back. =)

iMac “Review”

So at this point I’ve had the iMac for a few days, and I figured I’d post some of my opinions.  I went back to the video format for this post as well, you can find those after the text.  Everything’s going great so far, I haven’t run into a single problem that I can think of.  Leopard is awesome, boot camped Vista is awesome, basically everything’s going well.

The second part of the video is more of an update on the iPod Touch.  Since my first video I’ve applied the Invisible Shield and also toyed around with the App Store a bit.  I go over both in more detail in the videos if that sort of thing interests you. =)

I’m thinking about making my Saturday posts videos from now on…I find doing the videos easier than writing and linking a post, and I figure I can just as easily talk into a camera about whatever subject matter the post would have contained.  If you have any opinions one way or another feel free to leave a comment!  Anyways, without further delay:

iMac “review”
 

Part 2 – iPod Touch update

Now Playing:
Machine Head – Desire to Fire
Eternal Sonata

Taking the plunge

So I finally did it.  It’s finally done.  That is to say it was done a few weeks ago when I ordered my new iMac.  That’s right, I’ve made the switch to the Mac platform.  I suppose that’s only half-true, I still use Windows on a daily basis, but it’s true that both my primary desktop and laptop computers are Macs.  Of course both run Windows, but the hardware at least is all Apple.  I kind of feel like a shill typing this to be honest.

With the massive swell of people getting in line to bash Microsoft lately I’ve always tried to be the one person showing off their strengths and attempting to quell some of the misnomers going around.  I still think Vista is a solid upgrade to XP, and when I’m stuck in XP there are features from Vista that I miss.  If you asked me to sit behind one of two modern computers, one running Windows XP and the other running Windows Vista, I’d gladly use the Vista machine.  I also love the Live services, I use Office as my primary desktop application suite, and my primary gaming platform is my Xbox 360.  So then, why the change?

I’m not going to beat around the bush and try to come up with some deep-rooted philosophical reason for why macs are superior to PCs.  The truth, and I’m not afraid to say it, is that macs are prettier.  The hardware is prettier, the software (including third party apps in general) is prettier.  I’m a sucker for a slick interface I suppose, and for that reason coupled with a refreshingly simple computer purchasing experience, I went mac.  As I’ve said before, when I get a new machine it generally means I’m ordering a ton of different parts and then spending a day putting them all together and troubleshooting.  I have to be up on specs, component speeds, what the best CPU for the price is and so on.  With my iMac the hardest decision I had was deciding between a wired or wireless keyboard (I went wireless).

Enough of that though, I’m sounding like a switcher commercial!  I guess the point is that I’m still interested in all platforms despite the fact that an Apple product is sitting in front of me right now.  I still use the Microsoft software I mentioned above including Windows, I’m just doing it from a mac.  So far everything has gone pretty smoothly,  the 24″ screen is beautiful and I couldn’t be happier.  I also picked up an iPod Touch along with my mac so I’ve spent some time playing with that as well.  If you’d like to see more about that you can watch my first video from the iMac’s iSight camera, a video that I took last night only a couple hours after it was delivered:

Like I said in the video please leave some comments with software recommendation for both the mac and the touch!  I might start doing these videos a little more frequently too, so look out for that in the future.  I’ll also do my best to refrain from posting about my mac too frequently.

Now Playing:
System of a Down – Radio/Video
Eternal Sonata