"I'm uncomfortable outside my state of perpetual connectivity."
My digital identity can officially be classified as a nomad. After 2 or 3 blogs and countless social networks I am tired. So I have created my own website in hopes to consolidate all of my digital bits in one place. Just follow the yellow brick road to www.theappleeffect.com
And thanks for the offer, but no house warming gifts are necessary 
I wanted to start writing about another “addiction” I have – that is not Apple related.
While I may not be able to strum a guitar or sing an audible note, I still consider myself a music lover. I always prefer to have some tunes playing while I am doing things at home, work or while driving. I am also on the look out for new artist and/or sounds. Well, at least new-to-me. So today is the start of a regular section devote to the new music I have come across so I can share it with you. Now I will not push my review of any album on to you. Everyone’s tastes are different. So while you may not like every band I post; I am sure you will find a few gems. So on to the first one…
Kings of Leon have been around for some years and have established quite a following. So I was a little late to this party. After first hearing them I rushed out to grab their first three albums - Youth and Young Manhood, Aha Shake Heartbreak and Because of the Times. Now it needs to be said that I have a soft spot in my musical heart for albums that are great as a whole; instead of a collection of singles. Needless to say Kings of Leon did not disappoint.
Well, the boys (three brothers and a cousin) from Tennessee have released their fourth studio album, Only by the Night, today. Sex on Fire and Crawl are the singles playing on the radio. Check out the band’s Myspace page or iTunes and take a listen.
Well, Apple’s annual iPod refresh has come and gone – with little surprise. In uncharacteristic Apple fashion the announcements were leaked out weeks in advance, so I watched the event just waiting for something truly new. No such luck really. A new rainbow of “stick” Nanos, updated iPod Touches and iTunes 8 were officially announced. These were pretty much givens by Tuesday morning. As a fanboy, I feel some what ashamed to be such a downer about the event. I kept waiting for “one last thing” to no avail. I guess I was a little bias because I really have no need for a new iPod. My iPhone is still amazing and my trusty 5th gen 60GB iPod is always with me in the truck. While it is not able to hold my entire collection, it always has more than enough to choose from. So I guess I was not the primary target of today’s event.
All was not lost though. After I was able to digest the event as a whole I found a few gems. First is the new HD TV shows. With the package of my HD TV, an Apple TV and the jump in dsl speed I have become, what my buddy Morgan proudly proclaims, a “HD whore”. The ability to have HD content (whether it be TV shows, movies or vidcasts) without a dependency on cable or dish is great. Having access to the shows shortly after their air date also lets me stop watching them online. So I can now use the $$ that cable/dish would cost to buy my own – commercial free – HD versions that I can have forever.
Now it is not to say that this is the perfect setup. I will still have to watch new-to-me shows online before I start paying for them. My wish would be to have the ability to rent all shows so I can try new ones and then only buy my favorites. But it is still early in this development, so we will see where it goes.
Two other highlights were the much needed iPhone 2.1 update and the “Genius” aspect of iTunes. The 2.1 update should be out by the end of the week and comes with the promises of faster sync/backup and stability. I have my fingers crossed! As for the addition of Genius to iTunes, the jury is still out. It is supposed to give me recommendations for other songs/bands every time I play something in my library. As I am writing this, it is just a bit past half way with it’s scrubbing process. I will update this post after I dig deeper into iTunes Genius.
So the summer of Apple comes to an official close. It has been a crazy one but I have enjoyed helping many people get on the iPhone bandwagon. Now if Apple would release those Macbook and MB Pro updates!!
Watch the keynote – “Let’s Rock”
While I do not give tours of my closet, most of my friends and coworkers know that I am a big Polo fan. There is something about the style, fit and quality that keeps me coming back for more… and more… and more. Now most guys will not say much about their clothes but we all have a good amount of money invested in that “pony” brand.
The reason I profess my love for Polo is to set the stage for my new find. Southern Tide is a semi-local company out of Greenville, SC that makes clothing tailored to the college/frat/prep guy with an emphasis on a sport fishing theme. It reminds me of Vineyard Vines. Their main focus is polo shirts right now. However, they do offer ties and hats, with plans to rollout an online store with many more new items in September. Oh, did I mention the coolest part… the founder/owner is in his mid-twenties! A former student at USC that left before his senior year was finished. Crazy I know.
I started with an orange polo and quickly added two more polos. I am looking forward to some shorts, khakis, oxfords and dress shirts. Now I will not leave my beloved Polo but I will have to make some more room for the Skipjack! Please check out the website below, read up on their story and find a retailer near you to give this company a try. Trust me you will get hooked.
I got an email from Netflix just the other day that upset me more than an email should. It read:
We’re sorry to report that since Tuesday we’ve been experiencing issues with our shipping system, so many of you have not received DVDs in a timely manner and many of you have not received emails letting you know we got a DVD back from you.
“We pride ourselves in delighting you, and we’ve let you down. We apologize and are working around the clock to restore normal operations. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we’ll be automatically applying a credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we’ll automatically extend your free trial.
Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible and to keep you updated. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience we’ve caused you and thank you for your patience.” – Netflix
The reason that I was upset by this simple email was that I did not realize how fun it was to get those “little red envelops” in the mail. Even though I usually knew what disc was inside – I still got excited. Now that the system is down I started to miss them.
While I am bummed that my DVDs are delayed, I am very impressed by Netflix being proactive in admitting fault before I even noticed the delay. I read some news stories about the system delay after receiving the email to see if there where any details that were left out by Netflix. Shockingly there wasn’t. And since they were upfront and honest from the moment the problem hit most of the news and blog coverage was neutral. No one was bashing Netflix or threatening to cancel their subscription over this. Netflix even beat those extreme customers by giving credits on everyone’s account – and the user did not have to do a thing.
Even though Netflix will never read this blog post I wanted to say kudos to them for handling this delay so well.
And for those of you who do not have Netflix; what are you waiting for? Stop driving to the movie store just to try your luck with the limited choices. You will wonder why you didn’t join sooner.
UPDATE: I noticed that my latest auto-pay to Netflix had the promised discount already applied. While it was just only $5, I was not disapointed. I already rent enough movies or TV shows each month that it more than pays for the membership. Thanks again Netflix!
A quick scroll of my blog, Facebook or MySpace pages will show you that I am a hard core Apple fanboy. So it was not a surprise (if not expected) that I would drive down to Charleston for the grand opening of the Apple retail store on King Street. Come on, it was the first Apple Store in SC! My poor girlfriend agreed to go with me not knowing what she was getting herself into. I owe her big. Anyway… we walk up to the store around 8:30 am – the store will not be open for another 1.5 hours – and I estimate that there was 200 people in line already.
Me (in the green pants) talking to Philip.
So here we are waiting on what felt like the hottest morning on record and the line was still growing. The Apple employees came out to handout room temp water and kick the crowd’s energy level up a few notches.The videos on the left paint a better scene than my words can.
Once the doors were opened the non-3G iPhone buyers were allowed to go right in the HUGE store. It is easily double the size of the South Park NC store which before today had been my only reasonably close Apple store – still 1.5 hours away! I had no plans to buy anything at the store (read – Ashley confiscated my wallet) so we made a quick lap around the store and grabbed two of the coveted t-shirts.
1 of 1,000
All the fanfare, fuss, waiting, and heat for ten minutes of bliss. Yeah, I would call it a nice way to kickoff a Saturday.
My buddy Philip was smart enough to snap some shots so I hope to post a few of those soon.
pulled from jmjordan's flickr set
Now I know that thousands of people are addicted to their “crackberries” so the idea of a person constantly emailing, texting, web surfing and etc is nothing new. There are actually treatments to cut the chain between people and their mobile phones. Well if I did not have at least a minor case of mobile ADHD before… the iPhone and the App Store have pushed me way over the edge. There are hundreds of applications to download from the App Store and the list grows almost hourly. Currently I have 35 apps on my iPhone – with the majority being games. I should also note that all my apps were free. I do not believe that I am a cheap ass but I have yet to come across a paid app that I just have to have. Plus there are usually multiple developers for the same type of app. So until they figure out a way to demo the pay-for apps I will stick with the free ones to get an idea of what I want out of my apps. I could easly spend over $100 on apps to findout that I only a few do what I want them to.
There are a few that I am anxiously waiting for. An app to use Skype over Wi-Fi would be a defiant choice. Also, I read about DataCase [direct link] that will allow me to use my iPhone as a wireless storage device for Mac & PC via Wi-Fi and FTP. This would be great since my home Apple-centric system and my work PC do not share well.
However, with the rate at which apps are being created I am sure a crop of great ones will rise to the top and force all the other half-ass attempts out of the store. Come on, how many tip calculators and sudoku games do we need?!?
Please forgive the post dates that are way off. I have transfered over some of my Blogger posts so that I can use WordPress only.
I promise to keep this post short due to the overwelming coverage of the new 3G iPhone. I just wanted to post my 2-cents (hey, its what blogs are for!) as an classic original iPhone owner. While the 3G speed and GPS are nice additions the rate increase AT&T are adding is a deal breaker for me. So I will wait not-so-patiently for the 2.0 software update and all the cool apps to follow.
iPhone 2.0
Twitter.com/willimac
