Archive for category Tech

RIP Steve Jobs. 1955 – 2011.

Shocked and saddened by the news of the passing of Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs tonight. Despite his illness and his resignation as CEO just a few weeks ago, this still has affected me greatly. I had to excuse myself from dinner to compose myself and acknowledge my feelings when I learned of the news tonight, via a push message from CNN’s iPhone app of course. As US President Barack Obama put it, “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.”

From Apple.com:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

Mac vs. PC Infographic

Great looking, amusing infographic from the Hunch blog comparing survey answers of Mac users to PC users. Don’t read the comments on that post if you want to continue thinking humanity has a chance.

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Apple Helping Microsoft Convince Windows XP Users to Finally Upgrade

Microsoft themselves had tons of trouble getting their customers to upgrade from Windows XP, but now maybe more people will finally take the plunge to the actually very good Windows 7 thanks to Apple and iCloud. Straight from the Apple press release: “Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars.” If you want to use all the new features of iOS 5 you’ll have to upgrade to an operating system less than 10 years old.

My work laptop was finally upgraded from WinXP to Win7 just a few months ago so I no longer have any computers running it but there are still plenty of office computers out there still chugging along on XP.

Source: Engadget

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The Difference Between the Top 10 iPhone & Android Applications

Maybe the best example of the differences between iPhone users and Android users is the difference between the top apps for the respective devices. Here are the lists of top apps from Retrevo:

Top 10 iOS Apps
  1. Angry Birds
  2. Angry Birds Rio
  3. Tiny Wings
  4. Fruit Ninja
  5. Where’s Waldo?
  6. Tetris
  7. Words With Friends
  8. The Sims 3
  9. Cut The Rope
  10. Plants Vs. Zombies
Top 10 Android Apps
  1. Beautiful Widget
  2. Rom Manager *Premium*
  3. Root Explorer
  4. Fruit Ninja
  5. Better Keyboard
  6. Robo Defense
  7. SetCPU
  8. Weatherbug Elite
  9. Titanium Backup Pro
  10. Power AMP *Full Version*

As much as Android fans love to tout how customizable their phones are, I think the fact that the top apps are almost all ways to change CPU settings, manage RAR archives, and other random hardware tweaks is a little crazy. I’m not sure what a normal Android user thinks when they first check the app store and sees this kind of stuff.

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Why Mobile Apps Will Soon be Dead

A great article talking about the many advantages of the mobile web. A couple of great notes from the article. First, on the reach of the World Wide Web compared to the app stores:

One word: distribution. There are 2 billion web users versus 50 million iOS users.

And what’s in it for developers…

With web apps, developers could code once and be reasonably confident their app will work on any object — phone, tablet, laptop, etc. — with a standards-compliant browser. The implications for developer time and resources are profound.

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Another example of why QR codes are dead on arrival.

A QR code on a cup from Taco Bell. The explanation text on what to do with it is six times as big as the QR code itself and requires two URLs for help. This is way easier than just showing a simple URL to type in.

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Toyota releases, pulls down iPhone theme for jailbroken phones

Toyota Scion theme for the iPhone

Toyota Scion theme for the iPhone

There are lots of reasons to jailbreak your iPhone. Getting this official Toyota Scion theme is no longer one of them. It wasn’t actually good looking or useful, but it was interesting to see a big company like Toyota putting something out of Cydia. Of course Apple didn’t like that, and has forced Toyota to pull the theme down and it is no longer available. (via MobileCrunch)

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How free conference calling services make money

In short, the FCC allows rural telecoms to charge long distance companies higher interchange rates. The local telecoms then split the fees with the free conference call providers.

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Join the Adventure! Use Color, the latest iPhone MMPRLMG.

Color app store review

Awesome review of ColorTM (yes they have the nerve to trademark the word ColorTM) found by Mike Cohen.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Looking for new bags for my MacBook Air

Tom Bihn Ristretto bag for 13-inch Macbook air

Heard good things from Dan Benjamin on both the Tom Bihn Ristretto and STM bags. Might order one this weekend as a larger, more functional bag for my laptop. My current one is nice but I can’t even fit the power cable in their comfortably.

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