Confused about all the different versions of Windows Vista?
So is Microsoft!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Engadget is featuring a new online-only ad from Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign, which had previously only been a television campaign. It's just as good as the tv ads and possibly more clever since it kinda knows it's on a web page.

Georgia Tech researchers demonstrate blowable user interface - Engadget

This new user interface will blow you away!

I took this picture with my phone last night at the AmWay Arena. The Orlando Magic were playing the Seattle SuperSonics and ended up winning 103-76. It was t-shirt night, too, which meant that everyone got a free, blue Orlando Magic t-shirt coming in.

Geeks and college students rejoice! Technology has finally been brought to your favorite food. Here is the world's first laser pizza cutter!

With all the complaints about people's iPhones (hacked ones, that is) being bricked by firmware updates, here's an interesting story about a guy who purposely bricked his iPod... and still got it to work!
(I know, it sounds like a paradox. Just click on the link and you'll understand.)

A man in India married a dog to atone for killing two dogs when he was 18.
[INSERT JOKE HERE]
"Selva Kumar had been hounded for 15 years by the memory of a horrible act he'd committed as a teenager."
Pun intended?

Ok, let me explain my first post this morning about setting up my new phone. Last Friday my wife and I finally upgraded our phones to the Samsung SGH-A737, their new slider for AT&T. It's nothing terribly exciting, but for the price (with new contract or extension of current contract if you're in your upgrade period) it does offer all the main features you'd expect from the higher-end phones in its class. We still need to set up my line for multi-media messaging and internet access, so until then I'll only be able to post text here from my phone. As soon as I get the media access set up I'll be able to post pics here directly from my phone like I did with my old phone last week.

You know, you hate to stereotype people of certain professions, but this doesn't help the image most people have of construction workers!

I'm setting up my new phone to work with my blog.

Google posted the following video, demonstrating its Android operating system, on YouTube:



Notice on the home screen that there is a "dock" much resembling what Mac OS X has had from the beginning. It especially resembles the 2D version of the 10.5 "Leopard" dock:

Here is the James-Bond-gadget-wannabe of the day.

Speaking of cubicles (see my posts from Monday of this week) here's a video you might enjoy if you work or ever have worked in a cubicle:

Set your phasers on Geek!

Ich bin ein iPhoner!

Well, I hate to say it, but this Mac fanboy has actually purchased two albums from Amazon MP3 that I could have purchased from iTunes. The reasons? First of all, songs and albums are cheaper from Amazon than from iTunes, are better quality (256 kbps vs. 128 kbps) and are DRM-free, meaning they don't come with built-in copy protection. Secondly, competition is good for everybody. If Amazon can do well in their venture then that will encourage iTunes to improve the quality of their encoding and continue to lower prices. That leads me to my final reason. Since Amazon is selling their music for less and without copy protection, their success will send a big message to the music industry that this is what consumers want and if they want to discourage piracy then more labels need to agree to selling music for less and without DRM. That will give other vendors like iTunes more leverage to be able to convert more of their library to DRM-free tracks with lower prices.

Now for my review. When it comes to user interface and sheer volume, iTunes is the clear winner and I don't know of any online music service that can even come close. But, as I said before, Amazon does sell their music at a higher quality, DRM-free, for less per song ($0.89) and album ($8.99 on average). Amazon does have lists of most popular songs and albums, like iTunes, and also lists of featured artists. Browsing isn't quite as user-friendly as in iTunes, so you'll have a better experience if you already know which artist or album you want, as was my case. Once you find the song or album you want, you'll want to set up your Amazon account for 1-click buying for the most convenient download experience. The first time you go to buy a song or album you'll have to download Amazon's stand-alone program for downloading mp3's. I must say the application is very well written except for the fact that it does not allow simultaneous downloads of multiple tracks; tracks are downloaded one at a time, which takes longer, whereas iTunes will download up to 5 tracks at a time, I believe. The best feature of Amazon's downloader application, to me, is that it automatically adds your purchases to your iTunes library. That saves a lot of time and to me is a pretty big deal. So like a lot of people are doing now, when I want to buy an album I find myself checking the iTunes store and then checking Amazon to see if they have it, cause if they do it will definitely be cheaper.

So I hope this encourages the record labels to let iTunes lower prices and offer more DRM-free tracks, and I hope it encourages iTunes to offer higher-quality, 256 kbps encoded tracks.

Ok, I know the post below with the picture of my cubicle is kinda random but it really does serve a purpose. I had to send something from my cell phone in order to set up mobile blogging, so I decided to take a picture of my cubicle. Now that it's set up I won't be taking random pictures and posting them unless they're of particular interest. So stay tuned... who knows what interesting, weird stuff I might be able to post from my phone now!

My cubicle.

In case you haven't heard, the Leopard team at Apple decided to take a small jab at Windows. When a Windows PC joins a network with a Mac running Leopard, the Finder on the Mac shows an icon of a PC monitor with the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" from Windows. It's kinda like that kid from the Simpsons saying, "Ha-ha!"

As you can see, the first performance took place last night. Notice that the Orlando Brass Quintet is featured on the concert poster. We are playing two pieces as a quintet, one of which I wrote specifically for this program: Fanfare & Hymn for Peace. Hopefully I'll be able to post a video clip soon!

Photos: Children of the corn maze | CNET News.com

"It is open through at least November 5, and takes at least an hour to walk through."

I'm thinking it would take until November 5 to walk through!

UC Berkeley creates radio out of a nanotube | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Can you imagine dropping this thing and trying to find it?