iconogeek » Tech

Is the iPad’s 3G a waste of money?

Chuck — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:40:39 +0000

So, the iPad looks really freakin’ cool. And like a good little Fanboy, I sat on gdgt.com and watched the live update of the keynote. I was excited about the product, and it was pretty close to what I had expected. A larger iPod Touch with some hybrid features like productivity apps. Whether you can get some actual “work” done on it I’ll wait until I “feel” they virtual keyboard. Although, I used to NOT like the iPhone virtual keyboard, but I’ve grown to like it..so we’ll see.

Then I saw the price. $499 is the right price at the entry level. But the additional $130 for the 3G AND $14.99/month to get started? Sorry. No thanks.

It’s not like you’re carrying this thing around outside and going to bars, or being stuck in traffic. I see it more as a “sit on the couch” thing. Browse the net, do some email, maybe have some X-10 controls for your home (cool remote stuff) THAT would be awesome (Crestron are you listening????). Maybe, using it in hotels or airports – all of which have WiFi – so where’s the benefit of the 3G?

Commuters maybe? Just sync it before you leave for the train (like you do your iPod). Do you really need the LATEST news on the 75 min ride into Manhattan?

Oh, and one more thing. Would it KILL Apple to have some external memory? I know, this is their model, but they could have slashed the price more by just giving it an SD slot instead of onboard memory. and included a 16G chip to start. What if the iPad was $459 instead? Someone smarter than me can chime in about speeds of onboard memory compared to an SD card bus, please.

Even with these gripes, I was pantomiming having one last night as I watched Burn Notice and White Collar on USA. Would have been cool to have it on the couch during the commercials. So, any one want to donate to the iconogeek iPad fund

Posted via email from Chuck’s posterous

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Hey Steve, we’ll keep the light on for ya.

Chuck — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:03:25 +0000

So the news of Steve Job’s medical leave of absence has circulated and I just have to say that our thoughts are with Steve’s family and friends and we wish him a speedy recovery.

I will admit that I’m a fanboy, I make no bones about that. I credit Steve Job’s and Steve Wozniak with creating the method to my madness. I’ve always been into computers, having learned Basic on a PET and had a VIC20, Commodore64, and then my Dad’s Leading Edge which I programmed Lotus123 and dBase on. I mention the Leading Edge (which was MSDOS, BTW) because when he went down to the local computer shop to buy it, I was drawn to a Macintosh Plus (running MacPaint and connected to a LaserWriter) sitting right by the front window. Oh, it was beautiful. It didn’t look like any of the other computers, and It was the first time I’d seen a GUI, hell the first time I used a mouse. Even so, I sat down and within minutes had drawn out a rather impressive looking pirate that the salesman let me print out and take home.

From that point on, I wanted a Mac. They were too cost-prohibitive at that point for a teenager who needed a car, so I waited. I bided my time on the Commodore and then PC’s through college. SUNY Cortland (my alma mater) had a Mac lab, but it was only for a select few who knew the password. I was an art student and you just didn’t use a computer for art back then unless you were a photographer (I wonder what they’d think of Joshua Davis or Erik Naztke now) – and even then it was only used for plate making for Lithography. So I watched them through the glass like Ralphie watching his Red Rider BB Gun.

When I graduated college, I knew I needed to get a Mac, so I collected my funds from summer construction work and got myself a Mac IIvx. Thus lead the slow and steady slide into eschewing the pencil and plunging headfirst into digital design. I’ve grown nostalgic for pen, ink and paint; but when you begin to think Command-z will erase that line on the paper you’re just too far gone.

As I got deeper into the MAc, I proceeded to attend the east coast MacWorlds in Boston, NY, then Boston again and would make it a point to see the keynote every time. Steve just embodied this amazing enthusiasm for Apple and the work they were doing and I found it inspiring. The roar of the crowd when he stepped out on stage was exhilarating. The thought that this guy was a rockstar was crazy, he’s a company CEO, a geek. But nonetheless, he held the stage, commanded it, and you watched and hung on every word.

So will Steve be missed for the next 6 months? Sure. After all, it was Steve’s dream, chutzpa, charisma, and talent that helped propel Apple to what it is today and helped to create some of the most elegant software and hardware around. But it’s Apple’s cadre of super-talented people that enable Apple to do this. The notion that Apple will fail without Jobs is ludicrous. The great products will continue to flow and Apple will continue to drive the industry with innovation. Of this I am sure.

So Steve, rest up and get better. We’ll see you at the next WWDC.

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Get Lyrics and album artwork for your iTunes library

Chuck — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:23:47 +0000

If you’re like me, you’ve been slowly trying to organize your massive amount of music in your iTunes library over the past couple of years. If I’ve got 15 minutes here or there, I’ll go and get some album artwork and lyrics. The only problem is that it takes FOREVER…FORever…forever.

I’m also a huge fan of automation, I’m big on Photoshop actions to make my life easier, so when I found Doug’s Scripts for itunes, I was suitably interested. Essentially, this guy has written a shit ton of automated applescripts for iTunes and boy I found a doozy for my lyrics and album art hunger. First, you need to get “Needle Drop” and install it- what this does is let you play the tracks in your library for a specified amount of time, then move on to the next, and so on and so on.

Next step is to grab “GimmeSomeTune” from Apple’s site. This is the program that allows you to download art and lyrics for a playing song (among other things). Together, these two apps let you quickly run through your library and download the lyrics and artwork if the song doesn’t have any.

Here’s what to do:

Install Needle Drop – just follow the directions
Run GimmeSomeTune, you’ll see a musical note show up in your menu bar
Click that music note and choose “Preferences” and click on the “Artwork/Lyrics” button
Click the “Fetch Cover Artwork…” checkbox (I chose to keep the album art with the audio file. Not sure the difference, other than increased file size, which at current storage prices really doesn’t matter)
Click the “Fetch Lyrics…” checkbox
Close the Preferences window
Look for the “S” logo between the Window and Help menus in iTunes – that’s where you access the Needle Drop script (and any other scripts for that matter). Click it and select Needle Drop
Choose “6″ seconds for the duration of the play and “0″ for the starting time.
Watch and enjoy.

Mines been running all day, just make sure you check on it every once in a while, the GimmeSomeTune app seems to stop running for no reason (maybe it’s sleep, I’m not sure yet). But, it’s performing as promised, very cool

********************* UPDATE 10/12 *********************

OK, I came across a bug when doing this. All of the artwork while displaying correctly in iTunes, was all wrong on the iPod. Sometimes is would match and sometime sit wouldn’t. Even on artwork I had previously set myself and for purchased items. I re-synched but that didn’t help. The solution, I found, was to restore the iPOd to the factory settings (just dock the iPod, select it in the left hand column in iTunes, and click “Restore” on the Summary page). That did the trick!

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Why should I hire you to be my Vista salesman?

Chuck — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:51:50 +0000

Look, I don’t have as much ire for the Microsoft ads starring Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates than everybody else seems to. I did get a chuckle out of them. If taken a face value (and in a world where Justin Long and John Hodgman don’t exist), they were OK. Not $10 million OK, and not kick off a $300 million campaign OK..just OK.

Trying an image campaign like this is tough. Apple has succeeded in making Windows Vista look like a pathetic mess through its MAC/PC ads. Curiously enough though – Microsoft Office seems to fair pretty well in image from those commercials. This campaign is obviously trying to play on the hipness of the MAC/PC campaign, but it just can’t match it. When it comes to marketing Apple has always been the lead horse – ever since the 1984 ad, they haven’t stopped (They couldn’t, their market share was so small relatively – and still is – that they needed to separate themselves to survive). I am sure Cesar or Jason (my Windoze-using fellow iconogeeks) will chime in here about the virtues of Windoze, but me and Brett (my fellow MAC-using iconogeek) know the truth…if you use a Mac, you’re just, well, “cooler.”

Trying to make Microsoft look hip by admitting it is out-of-touch with real people just makes it seem desperate. Microsoft is an enormous company with tons of bad-will over the past years and to get past that by dropping Seinfeld in the mix just doesn’t make sense. The fact that Microsoft pulled the ads and is now laying some bullshit about an intended “teaser campaign” is ridiculous. They yanked them because they aren’t working. It doesn’t matter if I felt they were kinda clever, the bottom line is that they didn’t work, and they won’t work. Maybe Microsoft should just concentrate on releasing an OS that doesn’t suck, instead of dropping $10 million on a latex salesman.

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Get a grip and Frag those Mother Scratchers!

Chuck — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:22:22 +0000

Holy shit, I just came across this on the Times website. I’ve always been a fan of gaming (of course) but especially anything that immersed you more into the game. My absolute FAVORITE was at Jillian’s in New York. It was a Mech game in which you (and 5 other friends) climb into pods as if you are actually the pilots of the Mech. It was a completely immersive experience with small TV screens with different views, booming sound effects and force feedback. Insane.

Well, THIS thing looks to bring a whole new experience to home gaming. Take a look at the video below:

If anyone has direct experience with this thing, let us know! Not sure how much it costs, since I don’t think it’s available in the US yet… but can you really put a price on fun?

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Our robot overlords ARE coming…and they’re quadrupeds.

Chuck — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:51:16 +0000

This is so cool, it’s freakin’ creepy. Our friends over at Gizmodo posted this video of Boston Dynamics’ BigDog quadruped robot. Keep watching the vid and checkout when the guy tries to kick it over AND when it slips on the ice. Duuuuude, it’s creepy.

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