Για πιο λόγο να βάλω Windows 7;

I keep hearing about how Windows 7 is going to be just the CPR that the ailing PC industry needs to get itself out of the hole it’s in. It seems that folks, both consumer and enterprise, are going to be flocking to their favorite OEMs and throwing cash at them in exchange for brand-spanking-new PCs running Windows 7.

OK, I like Windows 7. It’s a nice, robust OS with a jazzy up interface and a few new features. But here’s my question - what’s the Windows 7 killer feature that’s going to be pulling people to the PC stores in their droves to buy hese new systems? Sure, there’s always those folks that must live on the bleeding edge when it comes to technology (I’m one of those people), but when it comes to the masses (both consumer and business), I’m having a hard time seeing what would make people go out and spend money on new systems before their current system becomes obsolescence.

Διαβάστε τη συνέχεια εδώ.

Κοιτάξτε. Η απάντηση είναι απλή και δεν έχει αλλάξει από την εποχή των Windows 3.0 και του M$-DOS 3.0. Θα βάλετε Windows 7 επειδή δεν θα μπορείτε εύκολα να βρείτε να βάλετε κάτι άλλο και επειδή είναι θέμα χρόνου οι νέες συσκευές και προγράμματα να ΜΗΝ τρέχουν σε κάτι άλλο, παρά μόνο τα Windows 7. Αφήστε που όλοι οι νέοι υπολογιστές θα έχουν Windows 7 έτσι και αλλιώς.

Αν δεν πρόκειται να τρέξετε κάτι άλλο εκτός των Windows, η αλήθεια είναι πως είτε εκείνα τα Windows λέγονται XP είτε Vista είτε 7, πάλι Windows είναι.

Πάλι θα βάλετε registry cleaners. Πάλι θα βάλετε firewalls. Πάλι θα βάλετε antivirus και antispyware. Πάλι θα κατεβάσετε ένα κάρο προγράμματα ακόμη και για γελοία πράγματα όπως email και πλοήγηση στο ίντερνετ. Πάλι θα κάνετε ανασυγκρότηση δίσκων. Πάλι θα κάνετε format τουλάχιστον 2 φορές το χρόνο. Κλπ.

Τα Windows 7 είναι τα Windows Vista με άλλο παρατσούκλι. Αυτό που λέει κάποιο σοφό κομμάτι του λαού μας: "Άλλαξε ο Μανωλιός και έβαλε τα ρούχα του αλλιώς." ΤΕΛΟΣ.

ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΗ:

The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity. Over the years, we have taken different approaches to naming Windows. We've used version numbers like Windows 3.11, or dates like Windows 98, or "aspirational" monikers like Windows XP or Windows Vista. And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a date did not make sense. Likewise, coming up with an all-new "aspirational" name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows.

Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore "Windows 7" just makes sense.

We are very excited about the opportunity to tell you more about Windows 7 in the coming weeks, and show you how we have continued to build on investments begun in Windows Vista to deliver on the next release of the Windows operating system.

Από εδώ δια στόματος Mike Nash.

Στα ελληνικά με λίγα λόγια τα Windows 7 είναι η εξέλιξη των Windows Vista.

Sun VirtualBox

Όλοι γνωρίζουν το Parallels και το VMWare Fusion όπως επίσης και το Bootcamp. Λίγοι όμως γνωρίζουν το VirtualBox. Το παρακολουθώ εδώ και καιρό και από την 2.0 έκδοση και μετά είναι αρκετά καλό. Στην έκδοση 2.2.4 και ειδικά για Linux κάνει κάποια πράγματα καλύτερα από το Parallels και το VMWare Fusion. Πολύ σύντομα θα κυκλοφορήσει η έκδοση 3 που πιστεύω ότι για πρώτη φορά θα κάνει το ΜΠΑΜ στην πλειοψηφία του κόσμου. Το πιο βασικό πάντως που πρέπει να έχετε στο μυαλό σας είναι ότι το VirtualBox είναι ανοικτό-ελεύθερο λογισμικό και ότι μπορείτε να το τρέξετε σχεδόν σε όλα τα λειτουργικά συστήματα!!!

Μάθετε περισσότερα για το VirtualBox εδώ, εδώ και εδώ. Κατεβάστε το από εδω.

Δεν ξέρω για εσάς αλλά εγώ πάντως μια χαρά τρέχω το Ubuntu 9.04, τα Windows Se7en και το Leopard με τη βοήθεια του VirtualBox εδώ και λίγο καιρό.

Open Source ftw ;)

Firefox 3.5

Όπου να ναι θα κυκλοφορήσει το Firefox 3.5. Από στιγμή σε στιγμή. Όσοι δεν χρησιμοποιούσαν την beta έκδοση ή την RC καλά να πάθουν. Σε οποιαδήποτε περίπτωση μπορείτε να κάνετε συνέχεια κλικ εδώ μέχρι να δείτε ότι βγήκε η τελική έκδοση του Firefox 3.5 ή να ελέγχετε για νέα έκδοση μέσα από το ίδιο το Firefox.

Μέχρι να το κατεβάσετε μπορείτε να διαβάσετε το άρθρο του PC Mag.com εδώ που με λίγα λόγια λέει ότι ο Firefox απλά τα σπάει.

The folks at Mozilla have deemed the changes in this incarnation of the popular Firefox browser significant enough to skip the planned version 3.1 and instead bump up the release number to 3.5. And I agree—it's a big improvement. By its appearance, you'd be hard pressed to tell how Firefox 3.5 differs from 3.0, but it's what's inside that counts. The new version speeds up JavaScript performance and catches up with other recent browsers like Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, and Safari 4 by adding a private browsing mode. And 3.5 builds on everything you everything that made the previous versions of Firefox great, like the myriad extensions and themes and the "awesome" address bar for quickly getting where you're going on the Web. The result? An impressive piece of software gets even better.

Εγώ πάλι λέω ότι μέχρι να γίνει πιο Mac εφαρμογή μπορεί απλά να τρέχει δίπλα-δίπλα με το Safari, το Opera, κλπ.

Καλώς Ήρθες Firefox 3.5.

Βιομηχανία PC; roflmao

Desktop PCs have been in decline for a decade, and countless people have said their piece about it. But new evidence suggests the desktop tower's death spiral is underway—and we're not too broken up about it.

I say this as a guy who was baptized into the tech world with a desktop; who still obsessively follows the latest PC components from Intel, Nvidia, ATI and the like; who has built, fixed or upgraded more towers than I care to remember; and who, until a few years ago, was an avid PC gamer. As someone who would be, by most measures, a desktop-PC kinda guy, I just can't go on pretending there's a future for them.

The State of the Industry
This is more than a hunch; a grim future is borne out by the numbers. A week ago, iSuppli issued a broad report on the state of the PC industry. The leading claim was predictable: The PC industry was experiencing lower-than-expected quarterly sales—down about 8% from the same time last year. This included laptops, and made sense, because the whole economy's gone to hell, right? People aren't buying computers.

Except that's not quite what's happening. In the same period, laptop shipments—already higher than desktop shipments on the whole—grew 10% over last year. Desktops were entirely to blame, dropping by an astounding 23%. That's not decline—it's free fall.

Stephen Baker, an analyst for industry watchers NPD, shared with me a wider picture of how retail PC sales break down. The way he put it made measuring the rise and fall of sales percentages seem dumb—there really aren't any sales to lose: "In US retail, 80% of sales are notebooks now," he said. "Start throwing in stuff like iMacs and all-in-ones"—which share more hardware DNA with laptops and netbooks than traditional desktops—"and it gets even higher."

Διαβάστε τη συνέχεια εδώ.

Γι άλλη μια φορά μπορώ να πω στην βιομηχανία των PC, καλώς ήρθατε στο παρελθόν μου.

Εδώ και πάρα πολλά χρόνια, ίσως επειδή είμαι χαζός, λέω όπου σταθώ και όπου κάτσω ότι τα PC φάγανε τα ψωμιά τους και ότι η βιομηχανία των παιχνιδιών PC είναι ένας μύθος από την δεκαετία του 90, αφήστε το γεγονός ότι από την αρχή το IBM PC και έπειτα τα συμβατά με τα IBM PC ήτανε σκατομηχανήματα με τόσα πολλά προβλήματα και ελλείψεις που είναι ΑΞΙΟ κάθε λογικής απορίας το πως μέχρι ακόμη και στις μέρες μας υπάρχουν.

Όπως είχε πει ο πρώτος Macintosh το 1984 "...never trust a computer that you can't lift..." ή στα ελληνικά "... μην εμπιστεύεσαι ένα κομπιούτερ που δεν μπορείς να σηκώσεις ...". Και όχι κυρίες και κύριοι, δεν μπορείτε να σηκώσετε το PC σας και ποτέ δεν μπορούσατε. Εκτός αν είστε ο Dr.Oc από τον κόσμο του Spiderman.



Τώρα θα μου πείτε: "γιατί μωρέ τι κακό έχει ο πύργος, η οθόνη, το πληκτρολόγιο και το ποντίκι; μια χαρά δεν είναι; όλες οι εταιρίες δεν βγάζουν τέτοια PC;" Εεεε... Συγνώμη αλλά έχετε μπερδέψει τους σταθμούς εργασίας και τα τερματικά με τους προσωπικούς υπολογιστές. Ή αλλιώς τα Micro που λέγανε κάποτε με τους Mini και τα Mainframe. Αν ψάξετε θα δείτε ότι ουδέποτε ένας προσωπικός υπολογιστής δεν ήτανε έτσι, παρά μόνο όταν η IBM μαζί με την Micro$oft και τις υπόλοιπες "συμβατές" εταιρίες, σαν τον φόρεσαν. Και σας άρεσε που σας τον φόρεσαν.

Επίσης, έλεγα και ακόμη λέω ;) ότι οι παραπάνω βιομηχανίες βγάζουν ΜΟΝΕΣ τους τα μάτια τους και ότι όλες οι εταιρίες είναι οι πουτάνες της Micro$oft με τσατσά φυσικά τον Bill Gates (τον Steve Ballmer πλέον). Τα πράγματα θα χειροτερέψουν γι αυτές τις βιομηχανίες και φυσικά για εσάς τους ίδιους ή μήπως ΑΚΟΜΗ πιστεύετε την ανοησία που σας πουλάνε δεκαετίες χρόνια ότι όποια εταιρία και να χάσει, εσείς οι καταναλωτές θα κερδίσετε; Κοιμάστε όρθιοι και πληρώνετε ξενοδοχείο κυρίες, κύριοι και αγαπημένα μου πρόβατα. Αν κοιτάξετε γύρω σας οι επιλογές τελιώσανε. Θα είναι ανόητο το να κάτσω να συγκρίνω τις επιλογές που είχαμε στην δεκαετία του 80 με το σήμερα για να σας δείξω το ΠΟΣΟ πίσω είμαστε στην πληροφορική στις "επιλογές" μας αλλά και στην "ποιότητα" αυτών.

Αν πεθάνει οριστικά αυτή η βιομηχανία των PC θα είμαι εκεί να σας θυμίζω ότι σας το έλεγα, όπως επίσης να στήσω ΤΟ γλέντι του αιώνα πάνω στον τάφο τους. Και ίσως τότε και ΜΟΝΟ τότε να σας πω ότι τελικά καταφέρατε και από πρόβατα γίνατε λύκοι. ΕΠΙΤΕΛΟΥΣ.

Μπορώ να φαντάζομαι και να ελπίζω όμως έτσι; Μου το επιτρέπετε αυτό; Γιατί μέσα στον αηδιαστικό κόσμο που ΕΣΕΙΣ δημιουργήσατε, μόνο αυτό έχει μείνει σε κάποιους από εμάς. Η φαντασία και η ελπίδα.

Και όχι. Φυσικά δεν είναι τα πράγματα χάλια μόνο στην πληροφορική. Παντού είναι. Και αυτό είναι το πρόβλημα. Είχαμε μία ευκαιρία με ένα νέο σχετικά τεχνολογικό κομμάτι να κάνουμε κάτι σωστά και ΠΑΛΙ σκατά τα κάναμε. Πχ. για την ιατρική μπορείς να πεις ότι δεν υπάρχει ελπίδα γιατί χιλιάδες χρόνια την έχουν διαβρώσει και ακόμη διαβρώνουν οι "ειδικοί". Στους υπολογιστές πως καταφέραμε και το κάναμε αυτό, είναι άξιο απορίας.

Το σύννεφο (ιντερνετ) είναι η τελευταία σας ελπίδα. Αν και αυτό το πάρουν στα χέρια τους οι "ειδικοί" τότε καλά να πάθουμε. Μέχρι τώρα πάντως στον αγώνα του ελεύθερου ιντερνετ ενάντια στο "ιντερνετ των ειδικών", οι "ειδικοί" κερδίζουν. Κάντε κάτι γι αυτό.

Twelve (12)

Unbelievable. A MUST see. Find this movie, somehow and watch it... NOW!

Full HD trailer here.

Another Vampire movie

Interesting.

Hammer

MC Hammer - Pumps in a Bump @ Yahoo! Video

Pwnage!

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

Say what you want about him but he surely changed the way we listen to music and watch video clips. As for his strange personal life decisions... I mean we call it a personal life for a reason, right? Besides who are we to judge a legend. A person who surely touched one way or another people around this wretched world for like 40 years!!!

Here is a piece from his work that I think I will always love till the day I will die.



He got kicked in the back he said he needed that
He hot willed the face keep daring to motivate
He said one day you will see
His place in world history
He dares to be recognized
The fires deep in his eyes
How many victims must there be slaughtered in vain accross the land
And how many struggles must there be be before we choose to live the prophets plans
Everybody sing........
Every day create your HIStory
Every path you take you`re leaving your legacy
Every soldier dies in his glory
Every legend tells the conquest and liberty
Don`t let no one get you down keep moving on higher ground
Keep flying until you are the king of the hill
No force of nature can break your will to self motivate
She sais this face you see Is destined for HIStory
How many people have to cry
The song of pain and grief accros the land
And how many children have to die
Before we stand to lend healing hand
Everybody sing....... Evey day create your HIStory
Every path you take you`re leaving you legacy
Every soldier dies in his glory
Every legend tells of conquest and liberty
Every day create your HIStory
Every page you turn you`re writing your legacy
Every hero dreames of chilvary
Every child should sing together in harmony
All nations sing let`s harmonize around the world
How many victims must there be slaughtered in vain accros the land
And how many children must we see Before we learn to live as brothers
And leave one family ohh...
Every day create your HIStory
Every path you take you`re leaving your legacy
Every soldier dies in his glory
Every legend tells of conquest and liberty
Every day create your HIStory
Every page you turn you`re writing tour legacy
Every hero dreams of chilvary
Every child dhould sing together in harmony

From here.

Michael Jackson was THE music dance artist. Unlike anyone else.

Now, pump up the volume of your speakers. Don't be pussies. Pump it up!



We will never forget you Michael. Thank you for ALL of your moments. The good, the bad and the thriller ones.

R.I.P. Michael son of a Jack

Photo Manipulation

Aaron Nace kicks ass. Check some of his masterpieces here.

Here is his Flickr Photostream.

A sample of his work:

Micro$oft's new IE8 ad

W T F !?



Micro$oft at its best... Once again WTF?

The best handheld PC ever

If you like apps or the Internet, go buy the iPhone 3G S right now. The new model's improved processor and graphics chipset significantly boost the speed of everything from Web browsing to games, cementing the iPhone's role as the nation's most flexible handheld computer. No, it still isn't the world's best phone. But that's never been the true goal of the iPhone line: Apple is devoted to bringing handheld computing to the masses. And it's succeeding brilliantly.

In case you've been hiding in a cave since 2006, the iPhone is a combination video iPod, GPS, and pocket computer with an AT&T phone tacked on, almost as an afterthought. You interact with it using a touch screen, and its easy interface has been the standard on smart devices for years. Check out my review of last year's iPhone 3G, version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system, or our "All About the iPhone 3G" page for some good background on the smartphone that's become a cultural icon.

Read the rest here.

Once again, welcome to my past. But hey, better late than never.

Nah. Sheep are hopeless.

What's new in Firefox 3.5?

You can find the original video here.

The Last Airbender

At long last we have a teaser! The Last Airbender movie by M. Night Shyamalan is going to rock.

Learn more about Avatar: The Last Airbender anime here.

Video Volunteer

Video Volunteers

Substances that laugh in the face of Physics?

The universe is full of weird substances like liquid metal and whatever preservative keeps Larry King alive. But mankind isn't happy to accept the weirdness of nature when we can create our own abominations of science that, due to the miracle of technology, spit in nature's face and call it retarded.

That's why we came up with...

Read the rest here.

ΑΙ ΠΟΝΤ

Thanks to our friend Giota K. for pointing these ;)

Star Wars

Tips on what the MMO game will bring in its gameplay and not only.

Video Games | Star Wars: The Old Republic | GT Pop-Block: Jedi vs Sith Cinematic HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

David Lynch

On an irrelevant note just wanted to remind you about the amazing Interview Project of the Master David Lynch.

Except that the site being in Flash, which I hate, everything so far is an experience that only a Master like Mr.David Lynch could muster ;)

Love every single update on that project.

Experience the Project NOW!!!

David Pogue iPhone 3GS

Good stuff by the one and only Mr.David Pogue.

An open letter to Mozilla

Dear Mozilla,

The content of this letter is based upon this blog post at the hacks.mozilla.org initiative.

HTML5 video is coming, and a million web developers up and down the web will be soon looking for advice and sample code to make use of HTML5 video. Web developers vary massively in skill and understanding of the open principles of web development, promoted by yourselves via the Mozilla Manifesto.

We cannot expect all developers to understand the knock-on effect of code snippets that they are copy-pasting from people’s sites. It is one thing to educate people with a piece of code, it is another to communicate effectively the principles behind a piece of code. Some developers do not care, and never will—that is a fact of life.

In presenting a JavaScript-only method for using HTML5 video, you are promoting to developers a number of major drawbacks, counter-intuitive to the points outlined in the Mozilla Manifesto.

Read the rest here.

And please do yourselves a favor, you damned sheep and try to understand that you MUST lean about such things and make conscious decisions in the future because we are living in computing hell for the past 20+ years because you fucked up in the 80s. Stop fucking us all up and STUDY the computing stuff ffs!

Computers are like the Force and the Matrix. No matter what the fuck you think that computers are and/or will be, you MUST stop acting like damned sheep. Make a better world and not just the Micro$oft world. While you are there and some of you love the Mozilla, please do make sure that Mozilla too, will build a better tomorrow for us all.

WAKE the fuck UP!!!

Mythbusting the mythspinner aka M$

Microsoft recently launched a campaign promoting its Internet Explorer 8 browser, making some bold claims about IE8’s capabilities.

The campaign, called “Windows Internet Explorer 8: Get the Facts,” trumpets IE’s speed, stability, ease of use, safety and customizability. It also provides a chart and several data points intended to show how IE8 surpasses other browsers in these areas.

While IE8, which was released earlier this year, is certainly the best version of Internet Explorer yet, several of Microsoft’s claims lead us to more questions, overlook some obviously plain facts or simply leave us scratching our heads.
On the campaign website, you’ll see Microsoft listing eight reasons to install Internet Explorer 8 — it’s “faster than ever,” it’s more customizable, it recovers from crashes — all of which point out the enhancements over previous versions of IE. No harm there.
But in the next section, titled “Browser comparison,” things gets dodgy.

Read the rest here.

People? Its easy you know? You don't need to compare "point to point" in order to convince the damn sheep that M$ is lying. They know that and thats why the love Micro$oft and will continue to do so. Otherwise good job ;)

Moby vs RIAA

the riaa have sued Jammie Thomas-Rasset of minnesota for $2,000,000 for illegally downloading music.

argh. what utter nonsense. this is how the record companies want to protect themselves? suing suburban moms for listening to music? charging $80,000 per song?

punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business. maybe the record companies have adopted the 'it's better to be feared than respected' approach to dealing with music fans. i don't know, but 'it's better to be feared than respected' doesn't seem like such a sustainable business model when it comes to consumer choice. how about a new model of 'it's better to be loved for helping artists make good records and giving consumers great records at reasonable prices'?

i'm so sorry that any music fan anywhere is ever made to feel bad for making the effort to listen to music.

the riaa needs to be disbanded.

moby

Read more at Moby's site.

If only sheep would listen to Moby's advice. If only.

FBI Deep Throat Investigation

MIAMI – When the FBI investigated the landmark 1972 porno movie "Deep Throat," the case touched the highest levels of the FBI, even its second-in-command W. Mark Felt, the shadowy Watergate informant whose "Deep Throat" alias was taken from the movie's title.

The FBI documents newly released to The Associated Press reveal the bureau's sprawling and ultimately vain attempt to stop the spread of a movie some saw as the victory of a cultural and sexual revolution and others saw as simply decadent.
Agents seized copies of the movie, had negatives analyzed in labs and interviewed everyone from actors and producers to messengers who delivered reels to theaters.

"Today we can't imagine authorities at any level of government — local, state or federal — being involved in obscenity prosecutions of this kind," said Mark Weiner, a constitutional law professor and legal historian at Rutgers-Newark School of Law. "The story of 'Deep Throat' is the story of the last gasp of the forces lined up against the cultural and sexual revolution and it is the advent of the entry of pornography into the mainstream."

Read the rest here.

God of War ]I[

Video Game - E3 2009 - Videogames

Stephen Colbert unveils the Microsoft XXBOX

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bears & Balls - Tobacco, Project Natal & Graveyard Bids
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

What can I say? Couldn't have said it better myself...

Mr.Steve Jobs had liver transplant

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

Mr. Jobs didn't respond to an email requesting comment. "Steve continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there's nothing further to say," said Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton.

In order to read the rest you must subscribe to WSJ (Wall Street Journal) if not already a subscriber.

/salute Steve Jobs

Black Widow

A YOUNG Russian woman, a devoted collector of horror films and spiders, is on trial for sedating and raping 10 men.

The police were shocked that 32-year-old Valeria K., a quiet good-looking woman from the city of Tambov, was the mysterious rapist who abused 10 local men after poisoning them with clonidine, Life.ru reports.

Valeria, who has already been nicknamed the Black Widow for her love of spiders, would get acquainted with men and invite them to her place.

She gave them drinks with clonidine, which almost immediately sent them to sleep for almost 24 hours.

After that, she undressed her victims and raped them, tightening a rope on their male organs to keep them erect.

Read the rest here.

I mean. WTF!?

Mythbusting the mythbuster

Over the last 12 months or so I was starting to like Microsoft a bit because of their efforts in trying to connect to the users by opening up IE and Windows7 developers blog and taking inputs from everyone on what features and improvements they want to see on future versions. That takes some balls considering the fact that many people were furious with IE & Vista in general. They took a lot of these user suggestions and implemented on Windows 7 and IE8 (not enough). So, lets give them credit where its due: Windows 7 is the best Windows yet (unlike Vista) and IE8 is the best IE yet (unlike IE6-7). They are not better than the alternatives but its their best effort yet.

Recently they doubled up on their efforts on IE8 promotion. First the Browsing For the Better promotion where MS will donate 8 meals for each IE8 download (partnering with Feeding America). Even though its a bit shady, I am not going to sit in the comforts of my home and criticize something that will help those in need. Their second effort is in the form of an online competition dubbed “Ten Grand is Buried Here”, where you download and install IE8 and follow their twitter account to play a treasure hunting game. You get hints to look for the location of $10k somewhere hidden online, apparently it only works with IE8. Another shady move, but even on this one I am prepared to give them a pass, a lot of companies use this kind of promotions to get users.

But, then came the LIES.

Microsoft recently (few months?) started IE8 mythbusting on their IE8 ‘Get The Facts’ campaign.

Read the rest here.

I mean wtf? Why on hell, earth or space ANYONE in their RIGHT mind would believe anything Micro$oft is saying? When M$ didn't lie? Name ONE thing! I dare you. Fuck that. I FUCKING DOUBLE DARE you!

Windows? XBOX? Zune? WHAT? Do you people even FUCKING remember M$ Bob or M$ DOS? What the fuck about the FUCKING security of their products?

Damn sheep! I don't fucking need to make anyone not use Internet Explorer. Sheep are using it and will keep doing so until M$ will cease to exist or something. As for the IE alternatives since day 1 of the internet browsing thing, they were ALL better than IE. Fuck that. M$ wasn't even there in day 1. They came like 2-3 years later on. Nothing has changed and nothing will. Sheep are sheep.

Micro$oft is so damned scared of the Open Source and Apple that is damn funny in my eyes. You cannot possibly imagine how funny. roflmao @ M$ and their fans.

Activision VS Sony

Bobby Kotick and a partner bought the once-struggling Activision for $440,000 in 1991, at a time when it was losing $30 million on $10 million in revenues. Now the world's biggest independent computer games company, it has a market value of $16 billion (£10 billion) and operating profits of $179 million in the first quarter on sales of $981 million.

Activision overtook Electronic Arts last July when it was in effect taken over by Vivendi of France in a deal where Vivendi injected World of Warcraft into the company for a 56 per cent stake. With such success, Mr Kotick, who runs the business from Beverly Hills, can probably get away with saying anything, which, soon enough, he does.

The target is Sony, the once-dominant hardware maker. “I'm getting concerned about Sony; the PlayStation 3 is losing a bit of momentum and they don't make it easy for me to support the platform. It's expensive to develop for the console, and the Wii and the Xbox are just selling better. Games generate a better return on invested capital on the Xbox than on the PlayStation,” he says.

It is not a very subtle hint, although Mr Kotick says his company paid $500 million to Sony in royalties and other goods last year, which “probably still worked out at 400 per cent of the profit they made”. Actually, Sony's games division lost $597 million last year, and Mr Kotick seems to think it may have to risk more losses if the £299.99 PlayStation 3 is to develop.

“They have to cut the price, because if they don't, the attach rates [the number of games each console owner buys] are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony.” Ask when and he says: “When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console — and the PSP [portable] too.” Sounds like Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's chief executive, is going to have to call Mr Kotick pretty fast.

Read the rest here.

This may be a good thing for Sony if they will play their cards correctly. However, Sony messed quite badly with the Blu-Ray platform, even while playing alone in that area for a year now. Then they messed with the internet and their fans because of the supposedly music and movies piracy. Now, they mess with the PS3 developers. Way to go Sony.

/cheer @ Sony

No matter how many bad things I can say about Micro$oft and its business, at least they seem to go VERY aggressively into the gaming markets. Sony please do take notes from M$ ;)

The Force is strong in Apple

From the day it launched two years ago, Apple's iPhone has been a tornado of disruption ripping through the wireless phone market. With the release of the iPhone 3G S and, at least as important, a new version of the basic software for all iPhones, the upheaval will intensify and spread to new markets.

The latest moves seem designed to wreak havoc on the competition. The iPhone 3G S hardware is a relatively modest update of the current phone, but the changes address the few areas where Apple (AAPL) lagged rivals. For example, the mediocre camera has been replaced with a 3-megapixel autofocus unit capable of quality video recording. A faster processor boosts performance, and storage is doubled, to 16 or 32 gigabytes. For this, you pay either $199 or $299 with a two-year AT&T (T) contract. Battery life is significantly improved when you are on a Wi-Fi network, but not when you are on 3G. And you can not only voice-dial but also use speech to control many iPhone functions. At the same time, the existing 8GB iPhone'3G remains in the lineup at a market-threatening $99.

Competitors have at least as much to fear from the new software, which is free for the original iPhone and iPhone 3G and a $10 upgrade for the iPod Touch (a Wi-Fi equipped iPod you can think of as a phoneless iPhone). Apple moved to match and, in many cases, leapfrog the competition. You can now cut and paste text in any application. The on-screen keyboard works well in both vertical and horizontal orientations. A technology called push notification can be used to wake a sleeping app, such as an instant-messaging program. And app publishers can sell add-ons such as extra game levels, or content such as e-books, from within their programs and bill the purchases through the App Store.

Read the rest here.

2012

Is "no comment" a comment?

Out of nowhere

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you, once again, the Master of the video song craft, Mr. Jack Conte!



/bow

The Horror... The Horror...

Official Site.



Official Site.

I can't wait for these two horror movies. You can forget anything you know about horror movies...

However, we live in Greece where like anything and everything else, we suck. Even at such simple things as importing movies for rent, sale and/or theaters.

Smoking loves you

Lovely eh? I mean its got to be lovely because why else there would be billions of you still smoking?

In any case I hope you enjoyed the above video. It suits you.

Apple is the bad guy?

Maybe it’s me, but I don’t get why everyone seems to be bent out of shape over Apple’s decision to block the Palm Pre from synchronizing with iTunes.

Here’s what’s important to remember: iTunes is free software provided by Apple to manage the music - as well as movies, TV shows, apps and so on - that plays on an iPod and iPhone. Apple sells iPods and iPhones and they want to keep selling more. If they suddenly opened iTunes - along with all of the content that could be purchased there - to other devices, what incentive would there be for consumers to stick with Apple’s devices?

Just to be clear: I’m not saying that Apple’s approach is right or wrong. I’m just saying that I understand why Apple would push out a software update that would block a competing device from synchronizing with iTunes. With that said, if I were an Apple shareholder, I’d have serious concerns if Apple didn’t take action and just allowed another company to come in and use another Apple product to compromise iPod or iPhone sales.

Palm went out on a limb to sell the idea that the Pre could sync with iTunes. You would think that they had cut some sort of partnership with Apple to make that happen - but, clearly, that wasn’t the case. Now, Palm is trying to save face by telling Pre owners that they can continue to sync with iTunes by declining an iTunes software update.

...

Please. That was a horrible response. This isn’t Apple’s fault. This is Palm’s fault. They marketed a feature of a new phone without having any control over that feature - and now they’re trying to make Apple look like the bad guy.

Read the rest here.

WWDC 2009 growing pains?

Programmers are finally unpacking their gear after last week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco and blogging about the experience. Some noticed rough edges in the community. Or even sharp edges.

The divide between longtime Mac developers and the iPhone newcomers was noted by Neven Morgan, the iPhone developer of OneTrip and Quip, the daily quotes machine. In a blog post, he said that the success of the iPhone could cause some dissension in the family.

Read the rest here.

First of all, never forget that you can please some of the time some of the people and you can never please all of the time all of the people.

Now, with this out of our face, I call the above article a bah or a meh. Still, an interesting read simply because of the back and forward on negative and positive comments pulled out of their hats based on their soap opera needs.

Clever ads

and at least that. Some of them are quite old and perhaps you may have seen those enough times already.

In any case here they are.

Don't jump


Then again with the current global economic crisis.


Hey you must start working out, don't you think?


On the other hand are you afraid of the darkness or something else?


Hey. July is just around the corner. People supposedly will stop smoking in public places and such. Let me help you by letting you know what you can do when you will go out in public spots :D


While doing so please don't put that smell of yours anywhere near wannabe saint people.


Now, while you are at it, you can go for a walk or something! 300m.


100m.


50m.


And last but not least, 5m.


Quite nice eh? ;) Peace!

iPhone 3GS review

Assessing the 2007 and 2008 iPhone models was an excruciating experience. You were torn in half — between your heart and your head.

Your emotions were swept away by everything Apple does so well: beauty, polish, elegance, simplicity and the thrill of interaction. (Those were not, ahem, phrases typically used to describe existing cellphones.)

Meanwhile, your brain kept waving its little hand in the back of the classroom. “But the camera’s terrible!” it would say. “It can’t record video! There’s no voice dialing! No copy and paste! The iPhone can’t even send picture messages — even $20 starter phones can do that!”

But 21 million iPhone sales later, it’s become clear that the heart usually manages to shut the head up.

With the iPhone 3G S, in stores Friday, Apple is finally throwing your head a crumb. After two years, the iPhone’s designers have finally gotten over whatever weird objections they had to providing those basic functions.

Better yet, Apple intends to give many of those features, and dozens more, to everyone who has ever bought an iPhone.

Read the review here.

Micro$oft is SO desperate

or knows its damned sheep better than the damned sheep know themselves...

Look at this.

That is an OFFICIAL M$ website. Picture of that site below just in case they will pull that away or already did (by the time you are reading this) because of public outcry or something.



What the fuck? Get lost if you are using Safari? roflmao @ pathetic Micro$oft and their sheep.

iPhone 3.0 & iPhone 3GS reviews

The one-word summary for iPhone 3.0 should be "subtle." But don't go thinking that subtlety means boring—the changes that come with Apple's latest mobile OS are plentiful and hidden in many corners of the device. Apple previewed iPhone OS 3.0 to the world in March of this year and again in June at WWDC 2009, but there's no greater experience than playing around with the software and discovering all the surprises yourself. We did just that with iPhone OS 3.0 and discovered that while the cool big changes may get all the press, there are also numerous updates to smaller details should be anything but ignored.

Sure, the iPhone 3G S is exciting—who doesn't like new hardware?—but more important than the hardware itself is the software that runs on it. As a bonus for all iPhone users, iPhone OS 3.0 won't just run on the new iPhone 3G S; it will run on iPhone 3Gs and even the original iPhone. There are elements to iPhone OS 3.0 that only run on the iPhone 3G S, however, and we will address those in our iPhone 3G S review. This part of the review, however, will focus on features that are generally available to all iPhone users (but focused mostly on the iPhone 3G, since that's the device with the widest reach at the moment).

Read the review here.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it -- right? We know countless reviews of the iPhone 3G S may begin with that cliché, but there's little chance you'd find a better way to describe the strategy that Apple has just put into play with its latest smartphone. In many ways, the 3G S is a mirror image of the iPhone 3G; externally there's no difference. It's inside where all the changes have happened, with Apple issuing a beefed-up CPU, new internal compass, larger capacities for storage, and improved optics for its camera. More to the point, the release of the 3G S coincides with the launch of iPhone OS 3.0, a major jump from previous versions of the system software featuring highly sought after features like cut, copy, and paste, stereo Bluetooth, MMS, tethering, video recording, landscape keyboard options for more applications, and an iPhone version of Spotlight. At a glance, what Apple seems to be doing is less a reinvention of the wheel and more like retreading the wheel it's already got (and what a wheel, right?). So, do the iPhone 3G S and OS 3.0 tweak the details in just the right places, or has Apple gone and gotten lazy on us? Read on to find out.

So, go ahead and read the review here.

What's the point in buying a new iPhone if it looks exactly like the old one? Because once you start using it, the speed of the iPhone 3GS will amaze you.

There's a reason why Apple called this the iPhone 3GS for Speed and not the 3GC for "compass" or 3GV for "video recording." Speed is the central upgrade here, and probably is the single biggest reason you would upgrade to a 3GS from a 3G. And if you're coming in as a virgin iPhone user, there's definitely no question: The 3GS is worth an extra $100.

That declaration may be weird to most of us since we usually look for features, and not specs, when we're evaluating phones—and iPhone 3GS doesn't blow us out in the feature department. Instead, it's like getting a bigger TV or a faster car. Your old machine works just fine, but once you've tried the new one for a week, you'll never want to go back, even if it costs you a little extra.

Read the review here.

Turn-by-turn directions, MMS, and tethering—these are all big features that we simply can't access at this time due to lack of app or carrier (cough, AT&T) support, but we'll be looking forward to trying out each of the features later. AT&T has confirmed MMS for late summer, but has not named a date for tethering availability at this time. (When it does come, it will undoubtedly come at additional monthly cost, and most of our readers are still pretty wishy-washy on whether or not they'd use it.)

With the new firmware, the iPhone's biceps have never been bigger. Spotlight Search is a powerful, industry-leading tool. And functions like Find My iPhone—for paying MobileMe subscribers only—will surely become standard practice in the mobile-connected world of the future. It's just a shame that most other improvements feel like defensive maneuvers rather than a true watershed software revolution—most of this stuff should have been here already. Now that the phone's critics should be mostly silenced, we're interested to see where Apple goes from here. Let me guess: Multitasking?

Read the review here.

Can any new phone be as revolutionary as the original iPhone? Absolutely unprecedented before its appearance and endlessly aped afterward, its power, simplicity, and outright eagerness to please doesn’t really beg for a revolution. Even the phones that have refused to ape the iPhone (such as the G1 and the Palm Pre) set their agendas by the iPhone’s example.

The iPhone 3G S continues to build upon what’s come before. Strengthening old features, adding in some hardware abilities that maybe should have been there from day one, and above all adding the processing speed that’s going to become increasingly necessary as iPhone apps make more and more demands upon resources.

Read the review here.



You can also read the review here and here.

What can I say other than... Where is my iPhone 3GS? >:O

O:)

PC Gaming industry. Roflmao.

The NPD Group, the top game-industry research firm, released its list of the top 20 PC game titles this past week for the month of May. The month's most popular title was World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, overtaking both The Sims 2 Double Deluxe and World of Warcraft: Battle Chest as expected.

Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for Blizzard Entertainment's 12 million user strong massively multiplayer online role-playing game was just one of five games in the World of Warcraft series to claim a spot on the chart. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest claimed 3rd, World of Warcraft claimed 4th, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade claimed 11th and Warcraft III Battle Chest claimed 18th.

Read the rest here.

What can I say? I think that the list over at that site makes me happy for proving that once again after all those years, I was right. One thing is that Blizzard rocks and I was telling you that for the past ~20 years. And that your gaming industry being so superior to video game consoles and Apple's Mac platform (even Linux) is an absolute bullshit mythos. Scrap that. Shitty lies. Damn lies and statistics.

Look at those sales charts (not only from the linked article) for the last couple years if not more. Blizzard almost has like half the games market (7 out of 20) and the rest are some of the most whatever games compared to what consoles are offering. No wonder Micro$oft tries SO hard to enter the consoles gaming scene THAT FAST and THAT STRONG with its XBOX 360 and Zune HD platforms.

I'm starting more and more to be a myth buster with you, the damned sheep, instead of just being a Mac Culturist.

In any case you could be sure that I will be there to remind you that: I TOLD YOU SO!

M$N messenger

On July 22, 1999 Microsoft launched what would become the world's most popular instant messenging service, currently with over 330 million active users every month. Previously named MSN Messenger, it was released to work on the Windows operating system platform for users to instantly chat over the Internet using Microsoft's .NET Messenger Service.

Microsoft later re-branded MSN Messenger into Windows Live Messenger to merge it with its other Live services back in December 13, 2005. Windows Live Messenger (WLM) has gone through significant protocol changes and face lifts over its many versions in the last 10 years, ending up at Windows Live Messenger 2009 (designated to be called 9.0). Even though it was officially rebranded Windows Live Messenger in 2005, it's still referred to as just "MSN" by most people.

Windows Live Messenger has seen communities rise up with customization solutions from web sites like Messenger Plus! Live, Mess.be, msgstuff.com (from Neowin's very own Sean Bradford) and many more. The Messenger team has made significant improvements over Windows Live Messenger in the past years adding in web cam support, customizable backgrounds, emoticons, animated display pictures, file sharing and much more.

Read the rest here.

What can I say? Once again you damned sheep made another crap M$ software a success. Congratulations. You deserve that piece of crap software. You are suited for each other. You complete each other. Long live the Windows Live MesSHEEPnger.

At long last Micro$oft

did the right thing. No, they are not abandoning Windows for Linux or Mac. They at long freaking last, releasing some time later this year an AntiVirus product. Something that even I was begging Micro$oft for.

Ever since Microsoft discontinued its "OneCare" Anti-Virus suite, gossip has been flying that Microsoft would be releasing a free Anti-Virus\Anti-Spyware tool codenamed "Morro".

The software product, codenamed "Morro" after a beach in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is already being tested by Microsoft employees and a trial version will be made available "soon". Microsoft has stated that Morro would be available by the end of 2009 at the latest.

"Morro" is likely to be targeted to compete with the low end of anti-virus products from other providers, and it will not have much of an impact on sales of full-blown security suites. According to Janice Chaffin, president of Symantec's Consumer Division, "Microsoft's free product is basically a stripped down version of the OneCare product Microsoft pulled from the shelves. A full Internet security suite is what consumers require today to stay fully protected."

Read the rest here.

Windows Se7en?

So far, I feel that Windows 7 has had a pretty easy ride, both by tech pundits and tech enthusiasts. People who see and get a chance to spend time with Windows 7 seem to like the OS. There are even Mac fans out there willing to admit that Windows 7 is pretty good. But let’s take the gloves off and get down to the nitty-gritty and ponder a question that anyone who is considering upgrading an OS should be asking themselves - What’s really new in Windows 7?

...

Another thing to bear in mind is that Microsoft will one again try to create artificial stratification within the Windows 7 ecosystem by removing some features from lower versions. For example, if you want to be able to access your PC via remote desktop, you have to stump up the cash for Professional. But consider whether you really need to spend extra cash for a feature that you can add for free. Similarly, you can add features such as DVD playback support to Starter edition using freely available software. Remember, Microsoft relies on naive users being dissatisfied with the lower-specced editions of Windows to boost revenues.

I’m not going to make any silly claims that Microsoft will be dethroned any time soon, but I do believe that unless the Redmond giant can align user expectation with price (in a market where technology prices are falling at an incredible rate), their seemingly unstoppable upgrade train could well be headed for the buffers.

Read the whole story here titled "What's really new in Windows 7? The answer, not much!".

Once again... Welcome to my past. Damn sheep.

iPhone isn't a SmartPhone?

Now that I've had a couple of weeks to play with Palm's new Pre, as well as a week to digest the iPhone OS 3.0 news, I see how wide a gap Apple has opened up between itself and the rest of the pack. In fact, Apple watchers and those in the smartphone market need to rethink what Apple is really doing. It's possible that what the company has built is not a smartphone but something very different altogether.

When Apple introduced the iPhone two years ago, most analysts concluded that the company had redefined the smartphone—that it was on the way to becoming the gold standard. And indeed, that has happened. At the moment, all smartphone vendors are trying to emulate the iPhone in one form or another. But after looking closer at the new OS and the changes in the phone's electronic guts (which now include a compass and a video camera), I believe we need to start thinking of the iPhone not as a smartphone but rather a serious personal computer. A PC that just happens to fit in your pocket.

Read the rest here.

Hey PC Magazine, welcome to my past... I have been saying this since the first time we saw the iPhone 6 months before it was even released, like 2 and 1/2 years ago!

And still saying this: iPhone is NOT a SmartPhone let alone a mere phone. Its a mobile computer. And hey sheep? While you are there, welcome to my (and Apple's) past once again! Aka welcome to the real world.

How to shave your manhood

Straight from the Gillette HQs...

If you need to make that tree look bigger or something that is ;)

Analysts covering Apple can suck it

At last weeks WWDC, Apple unveiled a slew of upgrades and price cuts across its MacBook Pro line, with one of the more interesting announcements being the introduction of a new 13-inch MacBok Pro for under $1200. Apple also slashed $300 off the price tags for the MacBook Air and the 17-inch MacBook Pro. And on top of that, battery life on the new MacBook Pro’s are said to be through the roof.
But now, and I suppose it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, analysts are now worrying that Apple’s new price cuts will adversely affect its margins. Admittedly, lower prices typically result in lower margins, but here’s why analyts are a bunch of BS artists. When the cost of Apple products are high, analysts clamor together and say that Apple needs to make its products more affordable if it wants maintain growth. Then when Apple lowers its prices, those same analysts jump in and say that Apple’s margins will take a significant hit.

Well, which one is it?

Read the rest here.

Tutti Frutti

I love this ad.



70s ftw!

Shhh its coming...

www.appleseedgreece.com

Choose your side

For the Horde!

MacBook Pro 2009 Review

The revamped 15-inch MacBook Pro pairs excellent performance and Apple’s stellar design with a new battery that delivers more than 8 hours of endurance.

This past fall, when the 15-inch Macbook underwent its stunning unibody redesign that added an edge-to-edge LED-backlit display, a multitouch-enabled touchpad, and dual graphics cards, we heaped plenty of praise upon it; but lamented its lack of a memory card reader, and its hefty price tag. Apple has seemingly taken our gripes to heart, and has re-introduced the 15-inch MacBook with a number of noteworthy changes, including a lower starting price ($1,699 vs. $1,999), an SD Card reader, and a long-lasting lithium-polymer battery that delivers more than 8 hours on a charge. We wish there were more USB ports on board, but you won’t find a more powerful 15-inch notebook that’s this easy to carry.

Read the rest here.

Nixie

Get more of this amazing woman here. Geek female hotness ftw!

<3 Linux btw ;)

AnandTech loves the new MacBook Pro

There’s no other way to say this. If you care about battery life and portability at all, buy the new MacBook Pro. Go to the Apple store and buy one. While I only tested the 15” model, I’m guessing the 13” model should leave a similar lasting impression.

Ever since I first looked at the power consumption specs of Nehalem I thought it didn’t make any sense to buy a new, expensive notebook before Arrandale’s launch in Q4 2009/Q1 2010. While performance will definitely increase considerably with Arrandale, Apple just threw a huge wrench in my recommendation. The new MacBook Pro is near perfect today. If you need a new laptop now, thanks to its incredible battery life, I have no qualms recommending the new MBP.

The only thing you have to come to terms with is knowing that if the roadmaps still hold, that in 6 - 9 months there will be a much faster version of your notebook on the market; most likely at the same price. Combine the performance and power efficiency of Arrandale with the battery advancements in this new MacBook Pro and you’ll have one beast of a notebook.

Today I am more than comfortable saying that this is the best Apple notebook I’ve ever laid my hands on. The build quality is excellent, the base specs are solid and of course, the battery life. There’s no doubt that it could be better; toss in an SSD or drop the price even further, but as it stands the new MBP is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a Mac laptop.

Obviously, you can attain the same battery life with a cheaper notebook and one or two spare batteries. But there’s something to be said for increasing battery life by at least 50% without increasing the bulk or weight of the system.

I’m not sure there’s much else I can add other than Good Job, Apple.

WOW. The PC lovers fell in love with Apple. Thats a first... Not! ;)

Read the rest here.

Nude Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci, in a Renaissance version of Mad Magazine, may have painted his famous Mona Lisa in a number of ways, including nude. Now, a painting has surfaced that looks much like the original, sparking debate over just how far the master took his iconic painting.

The newly revealed painting, hidden for almost a century within the wood wall of a private library, shows a portrait of a half-naked woman with clear links to the famous (and clothed) Mona Lisa.

The work, which documents suggest was at least based on never-seen similar work by da Vinci, is now on exhibit at the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci, where da Vinci was born in 1452.

Of course Da Vinci and his pupils would do that. Who isn't loving the naked human body? Especially the female one? ;)

Read the rest here.

Clint Eastwood respect

Clint Eastwood has become a living monument of Hollywood. He is to film what Chuck Norris is to roundhouse kicks: the founding father and ruling king. His squint alone has the ability to make lesser filmmakers renounce the craft altogether and his gravelly snarl has made plenty of punks reassess the status of their luck. But everyone knows he’s a badass, and everyone knows he’s as talented behind a camera as he is behind the trigger of a .44 Magnum. But there are some things you might not have known about him.

Read here The Top 10 Awesome Things You Didn’t Know About Clint Eastwood.

SuperKid

Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.

A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.

The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million - but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.

He said: "At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand."

"Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."

"The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards."

"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," he explained.

Scientists are now studying the pea-sized meteorite which crashed to Earth in Essen, Germany.

"I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic," said Gerrit.

Chemical tests on the rock have proved it had fallen from space.

Read the rest of this amazing story here.

MacBook Pro 2009 Review

After all the whining, the bickering, and the constant remarks about how Windows-based laptops have this and that and cost so much less, Apple, a company known to make its own rules, is finally letting down its guard. The lovable MacBook Pro 13-inch (now with the "Pro" moniker) has brought back the FireWire port, lowered its price, and for the first time in the company's history, added the elusive SecureDigital (SD) slot. Mind you, we're not ignoring the bigger and now-nonremovable battery, which scored an admirable 4 hours 44 minutes on our battery tests, but the other improvements are signs that Apple is finally paying attention to its suggestion boxes. Indeed, it's a great time to be shopping for a new Apple laptop—especially this one, which earns our Editors' Choice.

Read the rest here.

MacBook Pro 2009 "review"

You know those Microsoft laptop hunter spots? Apple may already have responded with TV spots of their own, but these MacBook Pros strike back at Microsoft better than any ad can: by doing.

Apple did two things simultaneously that are usually contradictory; they lowered the price of their entire MacBook Pro line while at the same time bumping up the specs. The 15-inch version now starts at $1699 and caps out at $2299, down from $1999 and $2499. What's even nicer is that the 13-inch MacBook—which previously didn't have a Firewire slot or a "nicer" screen—got absorbed into the MacBook Pro family and is now virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the Pro line.

...

So is there anything bad to say about the new MacBook Pro line? No, not really. It's cheaper, faster, has more consumer-friendly features and now even has a 13-inch option for people who need slightly more portability. Those people who were waiting for the second-iteration version of a new hardware design (a pretty smart rule to follow with Apple products in general) before upgrading can safely do so now—and get a better deal in the process.

Read the rest here.

Develop for iPhone OS you damn sheep

Clearly by now, iPhone and iPod Touch devices are not irrelevant in market figures. I mean in WWDC 2009 Apple stated that 40 million (YES MILLIONS) iPhone OS devices have been sold.

This is how the 40 million iPhones and iPod touches, a figure given by Apple at the WWDC Keynote, stack up against actual consoles.

Even though the iPhone has the distinct disadvantage of being a platform that's not purchased just for gaming—pretty much every person who buys a PSP buys it to play games, for example—it's still a pretty damn huge market. Combine this with the fact that the faster graphics support in the iPhone 3GS is going to make it a pretty damn good gaming device, you've got a juicy target for game developers to hit.

Note: sales data was taken from Wikipedia, and in some cases the figures are from as far back as March 2009. There shouldn't be a huge jump between March and May/June numbers, so it's close enough for the ballpark chart we're showing.

Get the original post here.

PS3 and XBOX 360 what?

Stunning Typography Inspiration

Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading, tracking and kerning.

You can get your inspirations here.

Love at first sight :)

NIN ftw

It's been an interesting experiment over the last couple of years or so. Faced with leaving the infrastructure of traditional record labels and figuring out what the right thing to do is in this new world - I found myself realizing that for me to have any concept of how to interact with the community and know what they might want / what they find appropriate, I need to immerse myself in that world and live it for a while.
The reason no record label knows how to market anything to new media is they don't live there. They don't get it because they don't use it. What you've seen happen with the marketing and presentation of NIN over the last years is a direct result of living next to you, listening to you, consuming with you and interacting with you. Directly. There's no handlers or PR people here, it's me and my guys - that's it. There's no real plan, even - it's just trying to do the right thing that respects you the fan, the music, and me the artist. That's the goal - a mutual and shared respect.
When Twitter made it's way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality. I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there's a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I'm not what you projected on me. All expected. I'm not as concerned about "breaking" your idea of NIN at this point. It is what it is and I am what I am. The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven't noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived.
The problem with really getting engaged in a community is getting through the clutter and noise. In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist. It's tedious and feels like wasted energy doing that shit, but some people exist to ruin it for others - and they are the ones who have nothing better to do with their time. Example: on nin.com, there's 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 - 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again. Yes, we are implementing several changes to address this, but the point is it quickly gets very old weeding through that stuff.
Back to Twitter. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and "human". I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I'm in love and it's all I think about and that's that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you've projected on me, fair enough - it's probably time for you to leave. You are right, I'm not the same person I was in 1994 (and I'm happy about that). Are you?

Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don't know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I've ever come across. It's populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn't stop there - hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).
Cutter's tip for my friends there: remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff.
So when you see the new accounts that pop up daily on Twitter spewing exactly the kind of thing I just discussed, usually from picture-less creatively named profiles, spewing hate at Mariqueen and I, take a moment to visualize the sad couple people behind them.
A few years ago some people tuned me in to that world and when I figured out who these people were, I was amazed that I'd been seeing them in the front rows of the shows for months. I really don't understand what kind of "fan" spends that kind of time and money to travel across the country seeing a band, to then dedicate an incredible amount of time and energy into non-stop hate diatribes online. That one puzzles me a little.

Anyway, I'm bored on a long bus drive and there's no real moral to the story here, just writing. I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it's participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you're conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you'd have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC's heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I'd value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs's "opinion". Know what I mean? Anyway, we're in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

With all of that said, I have business in the real world to attend to including wrapping up the live version of NIN, DOING some cool new shit and spending as much time as possible with the most amazing woman in the world.

You can find the above post in its original form, here.

My favorite line on his whole wall of text?

I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

Thank you, Mr. Trent Reznor. You are 100% correct!

WWDC 2009

OMG.

New MacBook Pro line
Upgraded MacBook Air line
Snow Leopard
New iPhone 3GS
The final Safari 4 version

Along, with the silent (again) MacBook White upgrade the other day, the new Apple laptops are kicking ass but taking no names.

Watch the keynote here.

Sorry Micro$oft, Nokia, Palm, et al people but here is a video clip by MC Hammer for you and your fans:



Cheers.