UPGRADE TIME!!1!!!1!1!!!1!

YES! CHristmas is coming and it's time to upgrade my MacBook! Even though right now I am running exactly 20 windows (including Garageband) on my 1GB of RAM and Lola (yeah, I named my computer, so what?) isn't even breaking a sweat, I'm doubling my pleasure and picking up the 2GB upgrade kit. I figure, if it can do all this now, what can it do with double the volatile memory!? To support my ever-growing music collection, I'll also be upgrading to a 500GB internal drive. Since I can't imagine filling it with music, i's safe to assume that my collection of ridiculous software I really don't need (what is Shake for anyways?) will be growing. Of course, I'll be picking up Snow Leopard when it comes up, but that looks to be a long ways away. These upgrades should keep me content (and how) for now!

New MacBooks = OMG

Ok, so the new MacBooks/MacBook Pros, besides being sexy on the outside, have redefined sexy on the inside as well. The new MacBook Pro has two graphics cards. The higher end one has 32 cores and is the best notebook card on the market today. With the imminent release of Snow Leopard, those 32 cores will make it one of the most powerful computers out there. So there, PC users who only use Windows to play games. You are about to be dominated by a veritable gaming Mac. Now to get a copy of Crysis and watch the graphical goodness.

Finally...

Well, it has been a VERY long time since I posted my Mac-pinion, and much has happened in the meantime. I purchased an iPod Touch quite a while back, and I am still in awe of the technology. It's an 8GB model, which is a downgrade from my 30 GB iPod Video capacity wise, but certainly not in any other way. I seem to be able to fit all the music I really want to listen to on it. I did install Leopard (obviously) and it's amazing. The only thing I was wrong about in my last "expectations" post was that iChat would be the best ever. It may be very, very good, but on my system it seems to have problems with staying online, and as a result I'm still using Adium as my IM client.

The new iPhone 3G comes out in about two weeks, and with it the iPhone 2.0 software upgrade (which includes the App Store). I'm very excited to be able to direct download applications to my iPod Touch, but I'm a bit worried that there may not be as many free apps as people are thinking.

Mas OS X 10.5: Leopard

Ok, I should be installing the new OS within the hour, so I'm going to post my expectations:

-It will have hands-down the best IM client (iChat) with it's new abilities (Desktop Sharing, anyone?)
-Quick Look will be the biggest RAM-saver ever. Not having to open MS Word to look at documents? It's like a dream come true!
-The new Finder will be much easier to use, and hopefully won't make all those "ghost files" like it sometimes did before.
-The new iCal/Mail/Address Book/iChat combo will be a more powerful suite than the Outlook portion of Office.

Those are my hopes and dreams for this OS, and I know it won't disappoint.

Details on the results hopefully to follow later on tonight!

iPod Nano

HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW IPOD NANOS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

They're soooooo small! I'm seriously considering trading my 30 GB iPod Video for one of those!

I seriously had not realized just how thin they were. the screen isn't lacking, either. $200?

Worth it.

New iPod Line

I am SO excited for the new iPod family that just came out. A nano with video? Awesome.  An iPod with Multi-Touch that can download songs over the air? Awesome.  160 GB iPod Classic? Awesome.

Awesome.

I'll probably try to get my hands on the 16 GB iPod Touch soon enough.

To Address the iPhone

Ok, so the iPhone release was last Friday and the reviews are pouring in.  People are raving about the touch screen, the GUI, and pretty much all the advertised features.  There are, however, complaints:  it's too hard to use the keyboard, you can't remove the battery, and that thing about the activation process.  I will address these issues one at a time.

With regards to the keyboard:  are people really complaining?  Steve Jobs said before the release that the keyboard has an approximately one week learning curve, and people are still whining, "the keyboard is too hard to use!"  Well, you were warned.  And if you have a problem with a one week learning curve for new technology, consider this: a piano player is considering trying to play the guitar because he wants to venture into a more modern musical arena.  When he learns that it may take several years for him to become as proficient on the guitar as he was on piano, will he give up his pursuit of being a guitarist?  Probably not.  The point here is this:  any new technologyu is going to have a learning curve, and to progress you sometimes have to aquire new skills or learn new things.

So you can't remove the battery?  There is less to say about this because this could cause a legitimate problem, but is it really that bad?  the phone would lose much of it's charm if the design were comprimised to accomodate this, and, if you really need the battery replaced (you shouldn't have to if you know how batteries work and charge them accordingly), just overnight th eiPhone to Apple and they will replace it and overnight it back.  Apple has been known to service items quickly, even if they are out of warranty.

That last thing about the activation is AT&T's problem, so I won't really go into it, because it's largely fixed now and I don't much care for AT&T.

Overall, I think people should stop complaining so much about the iPhone and take it for what it is: a game-changing phone that is amazing for a first-generation product.