Geek

I was looking around the iPad app store last night and I saw that Microsoft (actually MSN) has an app called MSNOnIt. It’s an online magazine designed for guys, featuring cars, beautiful women and things that guys care about. It’s free so I decided to download it.

I’m a little surprised to say that I actually like it.

The front page of this electronic magazine features a scantily clad Bridgette Bardot which was alright, but once I started flipping through it I found some other interesting things inside: recipes from Men’s Health (much like the recipes in a book my friend dave gave me for Christmas), dating advice, geek and tech toy reviews and the like. Though I have to admit I don’t ever remember reading a Playboy in my life (I’ve never been interested in anything that tame when I’m looking for that sort of thing), I suppose this is like a PG-13 version of Playboy and that you’re actually encouraged to read it for the articles. The software pulls the information in from the various traditional men’s magazine (Men’s Health, Popular Mechanics, etc) so if you’re so inclined I say give it a try. You can always delete it and as they say, hey it’s free, so what do you got to lose?

It’s rather exciting times for a computer geek. Apple has announced that they will be announcing their new Cloud service next week at their developer’s conference, WWDC. The new cloud service is called iCloud. Some speculate it’s iTunes in the sky mixed in with MobileMe, all in an effort to make your data available everywhere in the world. Great concept and I hope it does what they hope, because the previous incarnations of Apple’s cloud offerings have been lacking in comparison to the rest of their product line. Personally, I love Dropbox because it works across all computing platforms. I love it so much that I pay for premium space on the cloud. I highly recommend it if you have multiple machines.

Apple is also expected to share much more information on OS X Lion. Who knows, they might even release it to the masses at the conference. Lion is going to blur the line between OS X on the desktop and iOS on the iPhone/iPad/iPod so that they’re more like each other. They want you to swipe all sorts of ways on the big glass trackpads built into their MacBooks.

The various Linux folks are trying to find a new paradigm for their desktops to make this year become the Year of the Linux Desktop. I’ve been reading about the Year of the Linux Desktop since 1999 or so and it hasn’t happened yet. We are getting closer to it though, but various flavors of Linux are changing the rules on a periodic basis so who knows what will come to fruition. Unfortunately, the openness of Linux that I love tends to make it fragmented and without focus. This is good for innovation but in the long run I feel it’s not the best thing for the end user. I wouldn’t ever feel comfortable putting Linux on a family member’s desktop. It’s not there yet.

Then we have Windows. A sneak peek at Windows 8 was announced yesterday and it looks like they are radically overhauling the interface in the next incarnation of Windows, making it more like the “Metro” interface found on their Windows Phone 7 smartphones. I haven’t had a chance to play with a Windows 7 Phone yet, but I do find them intriguing if they work as they promise. The Metro interface features tiles of information; you have a “dial” tile which shows the number of missed calls, a “Facebook” tile which shows what your friends are up to, etc. It’s a nifty idea and I’m interested to see how this extends to the Windows desktop. I know that Microsoft is banking on touchscreen monitors for all, which is a natural extension from tablet and iPad like devices, but as an iPad user, I can tell you that the smudges on the screen, especially after enjoying some non-tots (hash browns) from Dunkin’ Donuts, can get old fast. I do think that Microsoft is on to something here, and I wish Linux (particular Ubuntu) would get it’s act together a little faster to go this route, but now it’ll be just a copy.

One of the issues that Microsoft suffers from is the missteps of the past and the bad press it gets from time to time. Actually, most companies suffer from this. If people would just look at a new product with a fresh perspective instead of saying “it’s just like Vista! Gasp! Horror!” when it’s not, the new product just might have a chance. I was speaking with a geek a while back about how much I love using my MacBook and iPad, and he pooh-poohed me, telling me that Macs weren’t even capable of multitasking, which they’ve been able to do for the past decade or so. Old information doesn’t translate to today. More people need to remember that about technology. Even more people need to remember that about life.

So it’s an exciting time in the geek world and I, for one, am looking forward to what everyone has to offer and dabbling in a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Now I just need a finance advisor that can tell me how to accomplish all this.

I decided to install a new theme for the blog to spruce things up a bit. Perhaps the starkness of the original theme was just a little too stark.

I would love to hear your comments on the new digs.

A while back I used to share videos on this blog thingee, but time constraints with the new job prevented me from having the time to get these videos of the camera and into a computer and then into a format the most people could see and then uploaded up onto this blog.

Whew.

Enter socialcam.

I discovered this app a couple of days ago and so far I’m liking it, though it doesn’t feel very social because I don’t know many people using it. It’s kind of like Instagram in that it makes it wicked easy to share videos (like Instagram does with photos), but the cool thing is that the app is available for the iPhone/iPod/iPad AND Android devices, so even if I was still a Droid user, I’d be able to enjoy this nifty little app.

It’s free and simple to use: fire up the app, record a video and hit share. You can share the same videos with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the like. Plus, you can upload videos to your Dropbox, if you have one.

I just posted my first video a little while ago and even over Verizon’s 3G it uploaded fairly quickly. Color me pleased.

Who knows, I might start making little videos again.

Here’s a link to the video I just made: http://socialc.am/j3HJqZ

So they were having this great deal on these little Asus Eee PC netbooks at work and I decided to jump in on the saving. Four weeks later, my new little netbook was sitting on the front porch waiting to be inducted into my little geekdom.

I dubbed it “scout-tux”. All of my Linux machines have tux in their name.

scout-tux came with Windows XP. I found this surprising, because not only is Windows XP 10 years old, but everyone has been telling me how wonderful Windows 7 is for these little machines. I decided not to care and loaded Ubuntu Maverick Netbook Edition on this little guy instead. Everything worked out of the box and he seems to be purring along nicely. Battery life was promised to be around six hours; he’s clock in around 3.5 hours. I can deal with that. He’s going to be a little test machine anyways, I use my iPad when I’m out and about on the road.

The built in webcam worked without any tweaking. I found this to be quite nice. The picture has that grainy quality of 2001, just like Windows XP, but I still like this little guy.

The Commodore 64 is coming back!! Everyone can start up a collection because I will even sell a Mac to get one of these machines into the stable.

From Digital News Report:

Digital News Report – Commodore USA, LLC has announced a Commodore 64 computer that may look like the 1980’s model, but has all the fast new technology that you would expect in today’s computer systems.

Fond memories of the Commodore 64 still reign with many. The 1980’s brought the Commodore 64 personal computer into the homes of many families for the first time. The company went bankrupt in the 90’s but there was still some rights to the name that were purchased at the end of this computer companies operations. Commodore USA LLC has licensed the rights to recreate the Commodore 64 into a new product.

The new computer has a Commodore 64 emulator that comes with it so you can run some of your classic favorites and see the command line prompt that you haven’t seen in years.

The operating system that comes with the new Commodore 64 is Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Linux based OS, but you can buy and install Microsoft windows operating system on it if you so desire.

The Commodore 64 updated model is expected to ship between middle part of May or early June. The company’s website at www.commodoreusa.net, said that the price for the Commodore 64 basic system starts at $595 and goes up to $895 as they upgrade hardware components. If you are a do-it-yourself computer system builder you can buy the barebones Commodore 64 keyboard chassis case and card reader for $250.

Barry Altman founded Commodore USA, LLC in April of last year to bring back the nostalgic memories of Commodore and Amiga branded computers. There is also plans to bring back the Amiga computers.

By Victoria Brown

Look at Kmart doing the Apple thing and e-mailing me my receipt. This is because I used my “Shop Your Way” rewards card and apparently an e-mailed receipt comes along with the other benefits.

I’m holding out hope for Kmart and Sears, we need more choices outside of just Wal*mart and Target.

For the ultra geekish, though Sears and Kmart (both owned by Sears Holding Company, which was formed when Kmart bought Sears) both have the same registers at their checkouts, they are not running the same software. Sears is running custom software that was written back in the late 1980s when a company called Compu-Add got their big break by providing all the computer equipment for the chain. Kmart is running the generic IBM retail application (I think it’s still called Retail Application). I know, I’m a dork.