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iPod Touch: To Jailbreak, or Not to Jailbreak

August 13th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Apple, computers, iPhone, iPod

Because of a bank hold, I’m not going to be able to access my inheritance until August 20th. One of the big things I do plan to spend some of it on is an iPod Touch. I’ll probably do some sort of an auction or raffle to win my existing 5th generation 30gb iPod video.Apple Online Store

I’ve been reading a lot about all the cool things you can do with an iPod touch, and my old roommate had Jailbroken his iPod Touch. The new apps store makes that not completely necessary, and some of the apps are free, even. However, there are still some apps on the iPod Touch that can only be had through Jailbreaking.

(For those of you not familiar, Jailbreaking your iPod Touch or iPhone is a way to load custom third-party applications by “hacking” the phone’s firmware. Everytime Apple releases a new firmware for the device, the Jailbreaking has to be re-done, and usually you have to wait until someone updates the Jailbreaking software to work with the update.)

So my question is simple: When I get my iPod Touch, should I Jailbreak, or not? What apps are absolutely essential to you that can only be had from Jailbreaking your iPod? Let me know your opinions in the comments.

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Which Apple Should I Get?

July 24th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Apple, Daily Life, My Life, Tidbits, online shopping

Last night after work, I had an appointment with a new Raging Tech customer (my in-person consultation & services business) about 20 minutes out of town from where I work (in the opposite direction of my home). They ended up being some of the nicest clients I’ve had so far.

I was able to resolve their issue with their Macbook and Airport Base Station and printer, and I gotta say: I really like the feel of the Macbook laptop. The interface is nice (the screen is a bit small though), it’s speedy, and the airport is nifty as well. I really like that you can print wirelessly or hook-up a USB hard drive (like ad-hoc Network Attached Storage!). I always though the airport was kind of gimmicky, but now that I’ve seen one, they’re not too bad.

With that said, I also really like the iMac. I use one everyday at work with an extra screen attached. But the downside to that is, my computer is in my office at home, and I hardly go in there because that’s where my unpacked boxes are, and it’s too depressing!

So, while a laptop would be really nice, I like the size of the screen and the graphics processor of the iMac. Then there’s also the Macbook Air, the really thin computer you may have seen on TV that Apple sells that will fit inside a manilla office envelope. I think that’d be really nice to have, something light-weight and not a huge burden to tote.

Finally, there’s the Mac Pro (I’m not even considering the Mac Mini this go round), which is hecka expensive unless I buy one refurbished. But they do have 8 cores, lots of memory slots (very upgradeable), room for several hard drives, and nice video cards.

I look to you, readers: Which Mac should I get if I decide to get one? Leave me a message in the comments.

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Consumerist: 7 Confessions of an Apple Store Specialist

Consumer watch-dog website Consumerist has an informative article about things every consumer that shops in an Apple Store should know.

My favorite part:

1. If you fill out the survey and rank us 6 or lower, a manager will call you the same day or the next, corporate policy.
They usually will ask why you had a bad experience, and offer to make it better, usually by discounting something or another for you.

Check out the other 6 confessions over at Consumerist, and be sure to bookmark their site. It’s one of my favorites that I read from time to time.

I can also tell you, as a former hardware technician that dealt with Apple a lot, your Apple Care does NOT cover accidental damage. If you trip and fall and break the screen, you’re out of luck. If you accidentally spill coffee on your MacBook, you’ve just lost a lot of money. If you accidentally knock over your Mac Pro desktop and something comes loose and hits a logic board component and now it won’t boot - too bad. Apple Care only covers hardware failure by faulty part.

My recommendation: if you do buy a Mac laptop, put it under your home owner’s insurance, and make sure you keep back-ups with Time Machine or some other back-up app.

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iMovie Festival 2008

Last night I attended the first annual iMovie Festival at the university at which I am employed. It’s not the first ever held, just the first one here. I have to say, it was pretty enjoyable.

I was expecting a series of more and more horrible films, and maybe a few shining-star examples that would probably win it all. Instead, I found a quirky set of five films that all had to include the phrase “over at the UC” (short for University Center) and at least one Apple product.

The first film was about a couple of guys hanging out and deciding to go get some food, then go up to a cliff to hang out and talk about serious life-goal type stuff. And of course, some kids are rolling along, and one guy is drivingĀ  while texting and he ends up hitting them. It was all very dramatic.

The second film was about “Urban Parkour” - although I suspect either these guys were very bad at it, or just mocking it. It wasn’t quite clear enough to be “laughed with” instead of “laughed at.” There was also a lot of really annoying slow-motion and bad techno music behind it.

The third film was called “Mozzerella Mahem,” about an undercover sting operation to bust an illegal cocaine-disguised-as-cheese ring based out of a pizza parlor. The cop is of course, discovered, and when the dealers try to run away, he busts out into an overly-elaborate action movie fight scene. Which, I might add, was really bad, but really funny.

The fourth film was by the campus Apple student rep, who did a film about possible meanings for the letters “UC” - it was okay. Some of the parts of this film were funny, at least. It was mostly just him looking into his iSight camera on his Mac and talking. The black & white filter and stylings were nice. Not terribly impressed though. I give him points for creativity.

The fifth and final film was probably saved for last on purpose. It was pretty awesome for what it was. The production value was nice for their budget and equipment. It was kind of a “Deadman’s Curve” meets “The Ring” meets every other film where they use that ghostly black-hair-over-the-face girl that crawls around really fast in stop-motion. But still, the makers of this film did a really good job.

And rightly so, because they won this competition and an iPod Touch - while the runner-up got an iPod Nano and the rest of the competitors got Shuffles.

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