Archive
Transporter Unboxing
A friend of mine and I backed a Kickstarter project for the Transporter.
The Transporter is a device that you can put on your network (or the network at your office or a friend or relative’s house) and basically create your own cloud.
We backed a two-pack of Transporters and they arrived this week.
Today, I’m going to share pictures of the unboxing. Over the next few days, I’ll talk more about how the devices and the software that goes with them work.
Read more…
How Apple Lost its Way and Found it Again
We all know Steve Jobs saved Apple. How did he do it? Well, it was a lot of things, actually. But the one I think was the biggest can be seen by looking at the number of different computer models Apple was releasing.
Apple started with one product. The Apple I. Steve Wozniak built this computer and was basically giving the plans away at the home-brew computer club meetings. Steve Jobs saw that people didn’t have the time or patience to build them and proposed that they sell the boards to make it easier. They started Apple Computer and started selling bare boards that could be combined with a keyboard and a TV and turned into a computer.
Read more…
Digital Video Content
I know from past experience, that Apple really is not interested in pretty much anything their users have to say. They dictate, and we meekly accept whatever they deign to allow us to do.
But at least for the short term, there is a huge problem (from a consumer standpoint, not so much for Apple) with the way they are making video available.
Video on the iTunes store is HUGE!
I was in Vegas on a business trip. The hotel I stayed at had pay per day Internet, and it was per device and was not WiFi. I brought my Verizon MiFi with me, so opted not to pay the $14 per day for in-room Internet. This was fine for everything except getting a new movie on my iPad for my trip home. My trip home was going to take 10+ hours, and I would have actually preferred 2 movies, but there was a problem with that.
Video on the iTunes store is HUGE!
Read more…
My feedback on Donatos Web Site
Wow. I don’t know where to start. So, you pop up a box after I order asking if I want to tell you about it. I get a survey monkey web site tab. No survey, I have to sign up, and then it wants me to create a profile and tell it how much I watch movies and eat out, then asks me about the economy and barack obama. What does any of this have to do with pizza. I cancelled that and deleted my account, but I’m sure they won’t send me useless e-mail and other spam. Thanks a lot for that. I know surveys are so hard to build on your own, that you decided to “outsource”, but maybe you could have chosen a site that doesn’t maliciously accost your customers.
Then, I come here to complain about that, and you make me supply name, e-mail address and mailing address. I mean, it frickin’ says “Welcome back Todd Whitehead” at the top of the page!!!!!!! How do you not know my name????
I wanted to fill out the survey to tell you that your ads really suck. The coupon codes are tiny and in a font that was clearly not chosen for usability. Go ahead and pick up one of your ads and tell me that the last digit of the coupon code for the $5 off online order isn’t barely distinguishable between a 3 and 5.
Oh well, I’m sure no one will actually read this, so I’ll just post it on my blog, FaceBook and Google+ where at least I’ll get the satisfaction of my friends sympathy.
A Collection of Tweets About The Rapture/Judgement Day
Top 7 Most Interesting Radio Edits
Ever since the Janet Jackson Super Bowl Nip Slip incident, and the subsequent crack down by the FCC on anything that might be considered offensive, radio stations have had to go through their record collections with a fine-tooth comb to make sure all of the offensive language (and ideas, apparently) has been removed from their songs.
Clothes just don’t last as long these days. They don’t make things like they used to
Read more…
Teamviewer gets it right!
Using your phone to control your home computer seems like it would be terribly useful. Recently, the place I worked started allowing the iOS and Android Citrix clients for remote access to work. The Citrix client displays the screen of the application you are interacting with, and you tap where you would normally click the mouse. As you can imagine, this works pretty poorly on a small phone screen. It was usable in a (very desperate) pinch, but it really pretty much sucked.
Like most technically savvy people, I have a number of computers that I have adopted tech support duties for. (Yeah, that sounds better than saying support of these computers was forced on me…)
No matter how much I wear this, no one takes the hint
Read more…
Flash
Steve Jobs was at least mostly, if not completely wrong about Flash on mobile devices. There. I said it.
Let me start by saying that I don’t care about Flash. I am completely indifferent about Adobe and anything they do or have done. I feel the same way about flash as I feel about HTML, High Def TV, 3D movies or speed limits on highways. They exist, they serve their purpose, and we have to live with them. Does Flash cause problems? Sure. Would the world be better off if Flash had never existed? It’s a moot point, because it does exist. Does ignoring flash make it go away? This is a resounding “no”!
Read more…
Smoke Detectors – A Rant
[With Apologies to Dennis Miller]
People’s lives are saved by smoke detectors every day. This is a good thing. But, how many people’s lives are inconvenienced each day because of smoke detectors?
I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but the people who design smoke detectors must be smoking something. Here’s a vital piece of your house, one that can save your life when fire threatens to destroy it, and most of them run on the same battery that powers your TV remote control. The battery powering these things has a life expectancy that is typically shorter than the people the smoke detectors are designed to protect. So, the genius engineers have worked to devise a way to warn you if your batteries are starting to die.
Read more…
aucontrary 