just an asterisk

In truth, I get it. The idea is so simple: click a button, pay $100 for a year and receive your push mail, contacts, calendar, storage for your photos and files, plus a “find my iphone” application all in one handy interface to your computer. However, it forever irks me when I’m told about these services as if they are the only game in town. I mentioned my doubt to the Mac Store genius a few days ago and was told “yes but MobileMe is seemless and far less complicated”…

That sounded like a challenge to me, so I wrote out my alternative to MobileMe system.  I thought it would take longer, but it’s actually quite simple.  Here are my choices: Read more »

Dear reader,

In a discussion about possible posts with some colleagues, I realized that there were subjects that you might want to know that I either don’t want to or simply shouldn’t write about.  I say shouldn’t because it’s not an area of expertise or more realistically – someone has already written about it better than I ever could. This post will be a mishmash of links to sites that do what I don’t.  Hopefully, it will provide useful reading.

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Does your wireless ever drive you nuts?  Having trouble understanding why you get perfect signal in the kitchen but not in the bedroom?  I often promise that knowing a few geeky tricks will make your life easier.  In this case, I’ll prove it to you.  We’ll perform a few geeky moves and make your wireless woes disappear (or at lest help you understand them).

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There is a purity to the idea of music as the primary goal for the iPod (the phrase “it used to be about the music” always reminds me of Almost Famous and this scene above).  I’ve written about the feature craziness of the iPhone (here), but recently got an iPod Touch for Xmas, so I thought I would try an experiment.  You see, the iPod touch really has only two features – it plays music and video, like any iPod these days, AND it has a WiFi connection, a feature that leads to all sorts of mischief.  I wondered what I could get up to with only the WiFi connection.  Would the device still be useful if it were not about the music at all?

The results were entertaining.  I spent my vacation downloading apps and trying to get as much mileage out of the Touch as I could.  In fact, I’ll give you a preview of the ending: it was a lot of fun.  Let the games begin…

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