Who made “4″ the unlucky number?

Well, it has been nearly a week since I sold my iPhone 3G for an iPhone 4. I am not sure why all these articles are going around about the phones less than moderate reception, and “death grip”.  I have not had issues as of yet holding it in the lower left hand corner, nor worse reception than I had before with the 3G phone. I believe this is more of an AT&T network issue than of a hardware issue with the antenna.

I am thoroughly enjoying the phones new features. I believe I was a bit more paranoid after reading all the articles out there about the phones flaws. It could be just the congested areas of New york City and San Francisco that has network and reception issues which is causing the iPhone 4 to drop calls consistently however, that is my opinion.

Time will tell how well my phone will behave itself; crossing my fingers is the only thing that may be working at the moment.

I do believe this is a great device as much as its predecessors were.

New way of computing “The Future”

I had all of this long weekend to play with the iPad. It is a fascinating and enjoyable experience; I do not agree with some of the statements that this device is an oversized iPod Touch, it goes far beyond what you would expect an ipod to do. The keyboard is very comfortable to type on while in. landscape view for typing long documents in pages, or writing a long winded email. the battery life is living up to what is expected even with running iTunes most of the time or watching a movie or a YouTube Video.

Thus far, i do not have a negative comment for the product other than I should have gotten the bigger sized model. We will see what will be in store for this product in the near future, for something looking at a computing experience that doesn’t go further than email, Internet, video, music, and reading ebooks, this maybe a perfect solution for the living room coffee table.

I’ll be writing more soon when i get more of a chance to work with it.

Dull-ville Population: Me

Life is getting a bit more dull day after day, especially this weekend. Other than having some fun ripping up 3 layers of floors at Dougs, things are back to their normal dull self in my life at the moment of unemployment. It has been a while since I have been challenged or found pride in the work I do. I think that is one of the biggest problems I have had since leaving Hempfield and Memorial Hospital.
It is very hard to find new endeavors in this economy especially since I am still working towards a degree; fingers are crossed however, I am hoping a few things turn out. If not, I will need a double dose of medicine, haha.
I am also working on a 3rd shift sleeping schedule, and it kinda sucks, I am not sure why I cant relax and fall asleep like a normal person, I end up sleeping until about 3-4pm in the afternoon, I still feel exhausted but, I still cant sleep. My ideas on that matter are running out.
On a more exciting note, the iPad is scheduled for release on the 3rd, very eager to get a hold of one to play with, I wanna see how well it can handle RAW images right from a SLR camera SD card. Thats all for now, I should get a doctors office visit scheduled maybe? haha

My life; reflecting on, “Thinking Different”

I just gave a speech on  ”thinking different” to about 30 people and how it reflects my life. We had to use a visual aid and the object I decided to use was my Macbook Pro.

I basically explained what Apple, Inc.’s manifesto is, what it stands for, and why apple exists. I then went on to explain how most individuals that “think different” are ones that are sometimes individuals who can suffer from a traumatic past, individuals that are artists, entertainers, or even inventors.

My “life story” after my parents divorce is a big part of why I am the way I am today. I explained, that my imagination is the biggest part  of beginning to “think different”. I was told I did come across being very emotional, and explains why I am the way I am.

I wont go into the the specifics of my speech because it doesn’t really have the same effect that it did in front of an audience.

The speech this evening was a huge change to what I usually end up talking about, i.e. technology or other gadgets. It was a huge step to actually talk about my life and who I am.

Another website..

I am working with Conway Charters, a fun new client from Fort Myers, Florida. It is a very exciting project to be working with people outside of PA, It really opens the doors to more potential clients in the future. The site is being built as I create this post, however it is coming together quite quickly. I will post more soon when the content is in place.

Got another inherited G4.

I also inherited a Mirror drive G4 tower from a former colleague at Hempfield. I am working on a project for school and this is a perfect machine to turn into a server.

This picture here is what I have however, I have a 17″ Apple display not a 23″. I have 2 17″ lcds in fact, the one is with the G4 Cube.

I also inherited an original 15″ LCD that apple produced. I may use that for the server project. The cube can handle a dual 17″ display setup but I need an adapter. So I am excited to get this project started. I think my room is started to get a little warm with all the computers and monitors that are on and running. Thank god the cube has no fan.

PowerMac G4 Cube, ahead of it’s time?

I just procured an old PowerMac G4 Cube this past week. This machine was debuted in 2000 and then was laid to rest in 2001.

Overall it was a great machine for it’s time; the latest G4 processor, cd-rw or dvd-rom, up to 1.5 gigs of ram, and no cooling fan so its really quiet.

Another cool observation to mention, the design itself to get to the “guts” of the machine, you unlatch a handle and the entire machine comes out and is all grafted to a cube shaped skeleton. It makes things very easy to access (memory, wireless card option, hard drive, and logic board).

The problem was, the price. It was priced around $1499 and for that the consumers would rather put $1500 into a G4 tower with dual processors.

The machine itself is great, and saves so much desk space. If the price was different back then I believe it would have been as successful as the Mac Mini is today. I will utilize this machine until the day it dies. I may even pay to get a third party processor upgrade to a single 1.5 ghz G4.

This truly was an innovative computer design ahead of it’s time.

Adobe CS4 Design Suite

After working with Adobe Creative Suite CS4 for the mac in the  last 2 weeks, I have to say I am very impressed with the updates they have made to the software. The interface is a bit cleaner, it gives it a “apple” look to it.

I was truly excited about the tabbed interface and tabbed project windows. It saves a lot of desktop space even with use of Spaces and Exposé in Mac OS X.

All the apps are a bit more  integrated with each other which makes it easier to work on a project in one application and move it to the other to create a final product. I will post more in details about these applications once I spend more time with each of them.

Active Directory and DNN

I have another project in the works right now at Memorial, We have to create a form for our Department heads to fill out what application access their new employees will need. When the form is complete they will submit and It will get emailed to us in MIS. The trick is, I need the form to have the AD username attached to the form so we know who it is coming from as a “safety”. So I worked on binding and getting DNN to work with AD today. It was quite fun… broke DNN then fixed it, then broke it again, and again, and fixed it again. So now it works and now I need to test it tomorrow. Wish me luck !

Weekend Packed Full of Busy, Insanity, and Fun.

So after a long week of not a lot, I was looking forward to the weekend. I spent most of the weekend working on two videos and they are both finally done (except for burning the project out).

Friday afternoon I helped Derrick with getting his new Macbook Pro setup and files moved over. He was quite happy to finally have his own laptop now. He was going on a Boy Scout …thing this weekend and he borrowed my Nikon D60, so I’m excited to see what type of pics he got to update the NE-6B site with.

Friday night I ended up watching Brenden for most of evening. He is to the point where is can walk he just afraid to let go and walk without help of anyones hand, or something to hold on too. He is also now saying my name, and a bunch of other words. He knows to say “up” when he wants you to pick him up, and he says “out” when he wants to go outside; it is really funny. I know he is gonna be a trouble maker since he already loves to play with everything in the house other than his toys; i.e.,  stove knobs, ceiling fan chains, climbing on the couch to look out the window, wondering what is behind the couch, smacking people on TV, playing the piano, and not to mention, he is now a master of going up and down the stairs all by himself.

Saturday was my first golf outing to the driving range since about, ohhh, 7th grade. I suck; Watching Mike and Doug hit the damn golf balls out on the range made me wanna compete to see if I could gloat; but no, I missed on the first swing and caught nothing but air. so screw that game, Im glad I have jury duty tomorrow.

After golf I hung out with Doug and family, Sammi is growing up so fast; she is so much fun to listen to when she talks. Doug also got me interested into more shows on the Food network like usual; The show “Chopped” is amazing, they had some pretty crappy chefs on apparently, according to Doug.

I have not been sleeping well the past week at all, I have been up way to late and not being able to fall asleep, so mornings are hell. I had to get up and get the video to my former church this morning before the first service. I am really tired today, however I know I probably wont get sleep tonight either because I just haven’t been sleeping; so we’ll see.

The video went over very well for the congregation, the church is in their transition phase of traditional vs. Contemporary. I am going to help a friend who works on their new developed “Technology Board” so we can come up with a “that be nice” “will needs” and “could use” lists to move forward with the churches transition. It will be interesting.

Im excited to get back to  work this week to see what projects come my way, so we’ll see.