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Nano, Nano

With 20 shopping days left before my 23rd birthday, Steve Jobs introduced a new iPod that was sure to please my picky taste. I've already bought myself one as my birthday present to myself (does it matter that I don't have the money to spend?).

The iPod nano totally replaces the iPod mini. A flash drive replaces the old internal HD, a color screen is now standard on all iPods (excluding the still screenless iPod shuffle). It offers the fastest fully-charged time with 3 hours (as compared to a 4 hour shuffle and a 5 hour regular iPod). My favorite part is that the iPod now comes in black (but for my birthday, I need the white one). From the 2 and 4gb flavors (remember that the old mini came in 4 and 6gb), I'm picking up a 2gb nano to complete my iPod collection.

Other Apple updates include the new version of iTunes (finally updated to version 5 even after iLife 5 was released with this flagship program still in version 4). iTMS updates include the addition of the Madonna catalogue (and I hear that Jobs even iChatted with her during his speech). iTMS is also the proud new home of the Harry Potter audiobooks--and I have to admit that I have searched for them before. I might buy them now (even though I just broke down and bought the hardbacks a few weeks ago).

The iTunes phone, the event's main attraction (except not for me because I have Sprint), was finally unveiled. Cingular is going to be the homeplace for this wireless edition of iTunes, and the phone will be available in the US by this weekend, in the UK by mid-month, and the rest of the world soon after that.

An Apple a Day

What a wacky world this is.  Last week, I'm blogging about OSX Tiger, today Apple decides to make me cry inside a little bit by making some improvements to their iMac line.

While I've been plugging away on my freaking old Dell Dimension 4550 (I bought the 2.4ghz P4 refurbished with a 15" LCD monitor for $500 two years ago), I've been pining away for a maxxed out 20" iMac.  A year ago I bought myself a 12" PowerBook and a 40gb iPod and promptly decided that I was a Mac lover.  Then Apple Computer decided to redesign their "lampshade" iMac and replace the series with the iPodesque model pictured on the side.  I realized that I hated the redesign, it didn't look like a funky strange computing device and I wasn't going to stand for it.  Then maybe six months later I saw the machine up close and personal.  And it was on.

I was going to blog a little bit about the fabulous features of the OSX update, but my OSX weekend turned [tragically] into a SolitaireXL weekend.  I will say, however, that I am loving the Dashboard (although other bloggers are reporting that it's too slow) and the RSS reader in Safari.  Since I don't know anything about RSS readers (I use LiveBookmarks in FireFox and the RSS aggregator in Thunderbird), you may not care that I think Safari's update is the best thing since the last thing that was so good I had to blog about it, but it is.  I don't really care for the blue/white design, but I love that you can read just the title of the post, or see the entire thing, or click on the post and go to the webpage, or click "RSS" in the URL and go back and forth.

Dashboard is freaking giving me a heart attack every five minutes.  Here's the screenshot I just took:

In addition to the calendar, dictionary/thesaurus, translation tool (and I can get Japanese and Chinese on that bitch, take that, Google), converter tool, calculator, iTunes remote, world clock, weather widget, stickies, and the stocks in my watchlist, there's a flight tracker widget, yellow pages, address book, and a tile game.  You can also download plenty of others here.  If you're a Konfabulator user, the good news is that you have to hit F12 to get to Dashboard, and K-fab is always on the desktop, so you can mix and match your widgets.  Since I'm cheap when it comes to software, I never paid my $25 K-fab dues (why would you if you knew Dashboard was coming).

I'm glad it doesn't taste like gel.

While I can fit a nice amount of widgets all up in my 12" screen, I found out that the 20" iMac that I want just dropped $600 in price.  I'll try to do some more Mac OS explorations this week and check back in soon (maybe I'll whip out the PowerShot so that everyone not in this crap rainy 40 degree weather can see what we're up against).  Blame it on my cellphone.

And I'm out.

Happy Tiger Day (Almost)

This morning I woke up and it was like Christmas.  I read my email, opened up Firefox, logged on to Federal Express dot com, and waited.  And waited and waited.

During the waiting period, I backed up my system, did some hella yoga (with special emphasis on the back since I intended to be hunched over my laptop for the rest of the day), I backed up some files I forgot to back up the first time around (fonts are my Achilles heel), went out to lunch with my sister, returned some bottles, came home, backed up to iDisk, watched DOOL, watched Passions, checked FedEx about a thousand times, read every Apple blog excitedly document their own Christmases in April...

And here I sit, at almost 5pm, almost closing time.  And FedEx promises me that my package is still on time, to be delivered at around 4:30pm.  Apple shipped 2-day shipping on Wednesday, and I've been waiting and waiting, my hope for an Apple-filled weekend slowly reducing down to nothing.

And this isn't the first time I've had FedEx issues.  I've signed a handful of releases to have the courier leave packages at my door, but I keep getting that door hanger--you know the one, the one that says that if you don't sign for the package the next time they try to drop it off, they're going to send it back to where it came from.  I ordered from wine.com earlier this week and I was scared half to death when an unmarked white van parked itself in my driveway for five minutes before I realized that it was a FedEx van (if it's FedEx, freaking put "FedEx" somewhere on it, people!). 

As my patience wears thin, and Friday Night at AJ's gets closer and closer, I make a  silent vow to request UPS whenever possible.  I'm going to go take a shower to unwind before a House of Flying Daggers extravaganza ensues (AJ and I are going to watch the movie), and I'll post again when FedEx stops dangling faux holidays in front of my face.

Wired of the Week: Green is Green

I always like to keep on top of the new hybrid news.  If they just cost a few thousand less, maybe I'd be driving one right now.  So when Wired released the electronic version of the hybrid article I'm sure they're publishing in paper format, I knew I had to pass it along to you guys. 

I didn't learn anything new from the article; I've test driven several Priuses (Pri-i?) and have been extremely satisfied with the feel and the comfort of the vehicle.  You don't have to tell me the Honda Insight is butt ugly, because I already know that too (and am quite frankly disturbed that they've gone this many years without a massive redesign).  I even knew that most of the hybrids in production today license Toyota's hybrid technology (I learned this when I was researching the Hybrid Escape a few months ago). 

So I skipped over that article and focused on this one, pointing out and rating the best of the hybrid community.  And I maintain that the Insight is the the ugliest car I've ever seen.

And speaking of ugly cars, I thought of AJ when I read this.  The New York International Auto Show just wrapped and it seemed to be a big deal.  Even though I live in the Detroit area, I've never been to an auto show.  And I love cars!  I can't understand why I've never been. 

But automakers unveiled some pretty interesting concept cars in NY that we didn't get here in Detroit.  My personal favorite concept car is the Scion t2B, and the only reason I think it's my favorite is because I know AJ will love how ugly it is.  If you click on the pictures from the Wired article, you'll see that it's got a built in iPod dock and it somehow looks like a dance club on the dash.

I want to know why concept cars remain concepts.  I would totally buy this mess of a car just to have the chance to dance on the dashboard.

Uh Oh

I can't believe it.  This is actually happening to me...

Not the banned part.  The social isolation!

I take my iPod Shuffle with me everywhere I go.  And at my job, where I work 10 hours 4 days a week, I haven't said more than two words to anyone for the past two weeks because my earbuds are noise canceling and I don't hear them and they just hear me bopping along to the playist du jour.

(Small French steps, people.  Small.)

Something New

I've been reading the I, Cringely weekly column since I got back from Arizona, trying to broaden my tech news horizons.  I read a lot of tech blogs, a lot of online newspapers, and a lot of press releases from the companies themselves, but I look forward to every Thursday afternoon when I can read a thousand-or-so word editorial from some smug writer on the PBS website.  If you're interested in the world of high tech or technology commentary in what I find to be a pretty smug sounding tone--who am I kidding, this is what I wish my editorials would sound like.  (Maybe if I didn't spend a measly 20 minutes jotting the first thing that comes to my mind they would.)  The point is, even if you can't RSS it, add it to your bookmarks like I do and check it out when you get the chance.

Sometimes the articles are pretty dry.  Last week's VOIP discussion was particularly dry for me, but maybe it's because I just got Vonage and don't want to see any down side to my decision.

Yesterday's article, however, was a delightful read (and probably even to those who don't care about tech news).  We're focusing on the change up at Sony.  And when I talk about editorial, I mean it.  Cringely says things that you don't consider, and certainly wouldn't hear from a newspaper article.

Here's an excerpt of him describing Howard Stringer, the new and first non-Japanese CEO of Sony:

"When you talk about Stringer to people in Japan, the things they mention aren't what you'd expect.  He's very tall, for example, and they like that.  Stringer's wife is a surgeon and the Japanese really like that for some reason."

He gives an interesting perspective on where he thinks the company is heading and how it's getting there, as well as a history of Kutaragi's role in the company.

Wired of the Week: Well Thank You, NASA!

I've never used this service, but I like the idea of being able to, and comparing it to other services like Keyhole and what I believe was MapQuest but I can't remember where I used to get those aerial pics from...

Wired of the Week: Thinking About Hybrids

I get excited whenever I hear about hybrids: how popular they are and how popular they will be, and especially the trends to be seen!  I love the fact that I can find this simple pleasure in an issue of Wired magazine.

See more progress on: own a hybrid car

How Many?

A new blogging website launched on January 1st.  43 Things is a new way of looking at blogging: where some personal blogs become stagnant and interesting entries are harder and harder to come up with, at 43 Things you simply publish a list of up to 43 goals, then you blog about your progress toward each goal.

I'm thinking of starting one, just because as I browsed a few pages on travel, I found that I wanted to go to Paris, and so do some other people.

A former executive at Amazon founded 43 Things and Amazon just announced the purchase of this young company. 

More details as I figure out what I'm doing.

blog . tkach de Diana . com

My new favorite internet toy is any translation tool ever.  However, I am totally in love with Google's translation tool.  What sets it apart? 

You can translate entire webpages.

Welcome to the translated (apostrophe's be damned) blog . tkach de Diana . com.