Ummm, you think you’re coming out with a TV that will challenge whatever Apple is developing? Well then… where the hell is the camera on that thing? Other then my voice, how is my TV going to recognize me? What if there is too much noise pollution and I want to change the channel or interact in some other way with my television? Am I supposed to pick up a remote? What am I, a cave man?

And what if I just want to have a quick video chat with my brother on his iPhone so that we can decide how to setup the room for the big game? You guys are forgetting what everyone went crazy over when the iPhone 4 came out in 2010: the front-facing camera. And then they put that on the iPod Touch and iPad. Smh… you really forgot about that already, didn’t you? Oh well. Maybe next time.

A camera adds so many more options to the way the TV can be controlled with face detection technology. Automated parental controls, personalized favorites (channels and such), built-in/downloadable games (and don’t forget, a bunch of developers already make games for iOS; imagine what they would do with this new toy. Bye bye Microsoft’s Kinect)… Did any of the TVs at CES include a flash or hard drive? Ugh. It’s like they don’t even want to try.

http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html#imessage

This might be another fanboy post or whatever you want to call it, but realize this: iMessages is going to be way bigger than it already is. What is it now? A way for iDevices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch) to communicate with each other over WiFi or cellular networks. On the iPhone, it works automatically when one iPhone begins to send a text message to another iPhone. On the iPad and iPod Touch there’s minimal configuration: choose an email address that others can use to send you iMessages. iMessages are sent quickly and give a status of whether the message was delivered and (optionally) read. Sweet, simple, like BBM, right? Wrong.

Like BBM, iMessage reliably delivers text messages, pictures, videos and locations between Apple devices… soon all of them! Apple has only made it available on iDevices, but what about Apple TV and notebooks and desktops running Mac OS X? And why isn’t FaceTime part of iMessage? My guess is all these things will come together in time. Imagine connecting a webcam or FaceTime HD camera to your Apple TV and having conversations on that huge 60″ TV you bought to watch the Super Bowl… And every Mac, with the exception of the Mac Pro and Mini, have come with FaceTime or iSight or whatever webcam you want to call it since forever. And FaceTime uses almost the same method as iMessage to communicate with friends: choose an email address.

iChat is nice but most of the people it connects  are using AIM, Google Talk, and Yahoo accounts. I’m sure Apple would prefer if you connected to iChat using your Apple ID (i.e. your iTunes account)? Everyone has one. I mean, anyone who has an iDevice has one, and allowing people to communicate with their friends from a MacBook or iMac seems like it would be very beneficial. It would even be a way for people to begin to use services like Ping and Game Center. These services haven’t made the impact that Apple typically makes with their products, and I think that may just be because something like iMessage integration hasn’t happened yet. Think of this: send a text from your iPhone to a friend’s iPhone that becomes an iMessage and that adds that friend to a list that can then let them interact with you in Game Center or Ping. Or even new features from Lion and iCloud like AirDrop and PhotoStream. Sharing files and photos with friends just got a lot easier.

I can see so much potential for iMessage to grow into a much larger service and I hope it does. It could even grow into its own social network with one stipulation: anyone without an Apple product need not apply (but you probably have an iPod or iTunes account so don’t worry, you’re in).

Will the original Google logo ever show it’s colors again? I know it will. But it’s just that it’s almost never there anymore. I open up Google Chrome and I’m greeted by an unfamiliar looking page. It’s my homepage. Home, as in a place that should be familiar and welcoming. I like seeing something new every once in a while, but when that something new is the original and you’re thinking “Oh yea, that’s what it’s supposed to look like,” then what’s up that?

They happen to find some reason, every day, to replace the original Google logo with some fancy or interactive image or game. Like, “Who the hell is Martha Graham, and why should I care? Click. Oh that’s who? Now why is this crap on my homepage?” I’m not mad at ‘em, I’m just saying.

I started writing this about a month ago so I lost my train of thought since then but I haven’t posted something in a while so here you go:

I keep reading that so many of the new features and UI changes in Mac OS X Lion are going to look, feel, and work like they do in iOS. And I don’t think this is a bad idea; Apple has been able to dominate the tablet market with the iPad and while so many numbers continue to come out about how the iPhone is doing, I can safely say it is doing well enough. So far, consumers have been generally satisfied with their smart phones and iPads (I left out Android tablets on purpose) and I think some of that needs to be brought to the desktop.

I am an avid Mac user and possibly fanboy. I am already pretty happy with how well integrated Mac OS X is. I recently used Windows 7 for a while and was pleased with it and the integration of Windows Live and Security Essentials. But who says that Apple and Microsoft can’t take things a step further? What am I talking about? I mean why can’t your desktop integrate with Facebook a little more: downloading contact information and storing it in your address book, have one-click access to post status updates, use a good, integrated photo manager to upload and organize photos, etc. Facebook might not be that important to some, but A LOT of people use Facebook extensively, and some even exclusively on their smart phones and netbooks (remember those?). And I wouldn’t mind getting all of my email in my bundled mail program, but Mail.app stores every email in my account onto my desktop when set up as IMAP, WTF? I don’t need over 1GB of space on my harddrive to be taken up by archived emails. Live Mail and Mail.app are pretty good mail clients, they do what they’re supposed to, but if there was a way to keep all of the data online until it was needed, then downloaded temporarily, that would be awesome.

Maybe integration with select web services like Flickr, Twitter and YouTube are all “necessary”. People now, more than ever, use their desktops and laptops to share and access media that they and their friends create. And web browsers get the job done, but on my iPhone I record a video and just select “Send to YouTube”. We’re getting there, slowly, with programs like iPhoto and Live Photo Gallery. And your computer is already pretty smart, automatically opening up programs when you plug in a camera or prompting you to transfer photos from your SD card when it’s inserted, but I feel like there is more that can be done.

Desktop OSs should be able to detect what you’re trying to do next and give you an integrated solution for doing whatever that is. Like the paper clip from Microsoft Office 97 that could tell I was trying to write a letter (I joke, I joke) or something like that. Most laptops and all-in-one desktops are equipped with microphones and webcams, why can’t an integrated OS solution log me in by facial or voice recognition? Or why can’t I just talk to my computer to begin a web search or post a tweet?

Maybe a lot of the desktop is moving onto the web and Google’s Chromium OS has the right idea, but I don’t think most people are ready to make that jump yet. I think we still want “apps” that let us do things quickly and we want those apps to be native programs that run faster than web based ones that rely on connection speed, server loads, and browser compatibility. I don’t want to click on an icon on my desktop that loads a web browser that then loads a “web app”. Integrate my services!

January 22 was my last post, that’s almost a whole month ago. I have some time today and a few ideas for some posts so I will be updating the site soon. I have also been busy with work and assisting a friend in creating his own blog. Check out DOLOINC.com. Mikey Amor is going in on a few tracks and putting up new tracks every day. A few other topics of discussion: filing income tax returns and Turbo Tax, basketball and basketball sneakers, and UI changes to websites like Facebook.

It’s not a program. It’s a website. So many people who were used to using LimeWire to obtain music are now wondering what they are going to do to get new music. I would first recommend iTunes or Amazon.com for downloading your music, because you’re stupid (sorry) and this is the easiest thing to do. Yes, they are charging you to download songs on those websites. Everything you downloaded on LimeWire was illegally downloaded. Lil Wayne and Lady Gaga actually want you to pay for the music you put on your iPod. That is the legitimate way of obtaining music.

But maybe you’re not that stupid and you want to continue getting your music illegally. I’m here for you as long as you can follow simple instructions. So think of a song that you want to download… hopefully you know the actual song’s name, otherwise go to iTunes or Amazon.com and find it by previewing the songs there. Now buy it. See I told you you’re dumb. Actually, type the song name into Google and add hulkshare to the end of it. Voila! Now you can not only hear the whole song before clicking Download File, but you can download that song illegally again . If you want to get a little more advanced, use ‘site:hulkshare.com’ to ensure that you’re results will come from hulkshare.com .I’m not going to help you get the song into your iTunes library though, you can click here for that. Look below for a detailed step by step guide.

• Find the song you want to download. You can use iTunes or Amazon.com to find and preview music.
• Go to Google.com.
• Type in the name of the song you want to download.
• Add “hulkshare” or “site:hulkshare.com” to your search like the images below.





• Use your judgement and click on a link to get to the Hulk Share page that you think is going to contain what you’re looking for. If it is at the top of your Google results, that’s because more people have linked to that file than any of the other files within those results, so it’s probably your best option.
• Review the source of the file, usually people tag it with the originating web adress and some are more reputable than others. You might want to visit the site and see if they upload other music you like.
• Preview the song by clicking the play button in the black box, if it’s the song you were looking for, just click the Download File button beneath and you’re done!

Other sites that people share music on:

• zSHARE | “site:zshare.net”
• MediaFire | “site:mediafire.com”
• Hotfile | “site:hotfile.com”
• fileserve | “site:fileserve.com”
• Easy Share | “site:easy-share.com”

And remember, other people shared with you, so maybe you should share with others too.

… post some queer, lovey-dovey, trying-to-be-romantic status update/post about how much (as if there’s some type of meter) you “love” someone else. For example, the post that sparked this rant:

• Outt of work on way home to make dinner for babe and I….I love you babe…so happy I got the girl the rest of the world isn’t lucmy enough to know….

I guess I shouldn’t care. It’s your Facebook status update and your feelings, but it just seems so gay to me that this is what you post online. If you sent this as a text message to her, I wouldn’t have to make fun of it (I don’t have to make fun of it anyway, but I chose to do so) because I would have never known. The only person who needs to know you feel this way is you and her. And I’m going on about this why? Because if you post something like this and you really mean it, you obviously have some ulterior motive for sharing it with every one of your Facebook friends and anyone else who has access to seeing your status updates. Perhaps you want to make someone else jealous or prove to other people that you’re happy (to make them jealous), or you’re just a total tool and you want to give me gas for my flames. The only acceptable reason for posting crap like that is that it’s your only means to have sex. In which case, you can’t really defend yourself in a manly manner; your defense can only be “you’re just mad that i have a girl that i really love and you don’t”, otherwise there goes your sex. In which case, I guess I’m not mad at you, but I still have to rant on. Here’s a similar post that doesn’t trigger any emotions in me and actually serves a purpose:

• i have the best man ever.our home is so clean thanks to him.love ya babe boy…

She loves her boyfriend because he cleaned the house. She loves him either way, but at least we know why she’s being queer about her post so it’s excused. She also won’t post something like this tomorrow, and there wasn’t a similar post the day before. Guy from the first post; this is a regular occurrence. You can’t post the same thing every day without expecting to get flamed. Sure your girlfriend thinks that you’re such a great, sweet, romantic guy, but your guy friends will just make fun of you when you’re not around, and then to your face when they see you.

If you really want to make your girl feel special:

• Make these posts less frequently. When she sees these posts only every once in a while, 3 times or less per month, it will actually seem like you really mean it and you’re not just saying it. It will probably make her appreciate it more when she hears it (reads it) less often. I love Red Lobster, but if I had it every day I would probably be sick of it; you see what I’m saying?
• Post when she does something that really reminds you of why you love her. Just because, doesn’t cut it. Maybe she did something with her hair (girls like when you notice that), or maybe she made you a dish you really like. It may seem like I am only trying to encourage good behavior, but my point is just to make it meaningful.
• Post it on her wall or include her name using Facebook’s @ feature. We could probably find out who your “baby” is by looking at your profile and seeing who you’re currently in a relationship with, but if you’re going to proclaim your love, attach a name to that love.

I’m not an expert on love, obviously. But I found something to rant about and did. Now comment on it and let me know how much of an asshole I am.

One cool thing about Android is how often it is updated. Two horrible things about Android is how often it is updated and how long it takes that update to reach your phone. Android 2.2 Froyo has been on devices since Summer 2010. Why hasn’t it reached popular phones in the U.S. like the entire line of Samsung Galaxy S phones? That horrible UI overlay that Samsung has applied? Probably. But then again, carriers have to support the transmission of these updates over the air. I’m not sure why the updates can’t be applied through a download and connection through a computer, but either way, wtf? An OS update that has been available since May (SDK)… Look at this picture:

Android 2.1 can be found on more than one third of all Android devices. That’s too many. Too many users missing out on awesome features like Adobe Flash 10.1 support, USB tethering and WiFi Hotspot capability, better Market app with auto-updates and tons of other features and speed improvements. And look at how many devices are enjoying Froyo… That would be awesome, except now the newest OS is Android 2.3 Gingerbread, available for over a month now and only seen on Google Nexus S (you know, the “Pure” Android experience). Handset manufacturers, carriers, and the Android dev team need to get their acts together and quit it with all of this fragmentation.

I have an iPhone. When Apple updates their OS, I plug into my computer, launch iTunes and a few minutes later, I’m up-to-date. I don’t think this anything revolutionary or difficult to implement. If it is, someone please explain it to me.

http://images.apple.com/ipodshuffle/images/hero2_20100901.jpg

Has anyone who has ever purchased iPod headphones for $29 from an Apple retailer ever noticed that for just $20, you can get an iPod Shuffle? $49 gets you a Shuffle and $29 gets you headphones. WTF? I’m not saying the Shuffle is well priced, nor the headphones for that matter. It probably has to do with people just wanting to get headphones that match their devices, or headphones that allow iPod Touch and iPhone users to adjust their volume and control their music and those same people are willing to pay $29 to get those headphones. But why not just spend an extra $20 and get an iPod? I know, there is no display and that makes it difficult to select exactly which song you want to play, but I think they have made some advances with the VoiceOver technology and it should be pretty usable, I’ll let you know when I get mine on Thursday.

My mom lost her headphones and she can’t have mine because she’ll just to lose those too, so I had to buy her some new ones. I ordered an iPod Shuffle from Amazon.com for $44.99 (free Amazon Prime student membership with 2-day free shipping, $4 less than Apple’s price and no tax kicks ass) and I’ll be giving my mom the headphones from there to use with her iPhone. I don’t know what I’m going to use the Shuffle for yet, but there’s the possibility I could use it to go to the gym, or use it in my car, where it doesn’t matter that I don’t have a screen because my Pioneer head unit let’s me control my playlists and song selections. And that’s really my point with this whole post. If you can plug your Shuffle into another unit that let’s you visually control your song selections, then the omission of the screen from the iPod isn’t a big deal. It’s cheap. It works with iTunes just like your other iPods or iPhone. So why not?

http://chicagoist.com/attachments/Marcus%20Gilmer/2009_08_28_ferris.jpg

I’ve heard a couple of stories of people being seen out and about, enjoying life, after calling out of work for being sick. And sometimes they just lose a day of sick pay or lose a sick day and the pay, and other times people are just terminated. Needless to say, sometimes the fun you have outside of the office isn’t worth it when you get caught. With the Internet and people’s addictions to Facebook, Twitter and FourSquare, it’s even easier for companies to find out what their employees are doing when they’re off from work. I’m not saying you should stay away from Facebook and the likes of social networking when you’re playing sick, but there are a few things you can do to increase the chances that your boss will believe you when you miraculously recover the next day and walk into the office in such a great day:

• Why does everyone get sick on Fridays and Mondays, especially Mondays that follow big events like the Super Bowl? Sometimes you will be sick, from drinking, so to this I say don’t update your friends via social media for every drink you intake. Posts like “im sooooo fd up, how did i lose my pants?” will probably hint as to why you’re unable to make it into work. So try not to call out right before or after weekends, it just makes your boss more suspicious of your activities.
• Be careful of getting snapped in pictures. Even though they may not be uploaded immediately, they may be online eventually: dated, and tagged with you doing something stupid either the day before (like above), or the day you’re playing hooky.
• You wouldn’t even have to worry about your tweets and status updates if you have your privacy settings in order. Make sure you’re only allowing your friends, who don’t work with you or wouldn’t snitch on you, to see your updates and info. Remember Facebook allows you to change the privacy settings for each status update.
• Don’t check-in on Foursquare or Facebook when you’re supposed to be home, sick, unless you’re checking-in to your bed (although you might be laying it on a little too thick). Also remember, you might be allowing co-workers to follow you on Google Latitude.

Ferris Bueller would have never been able to pull it off in 2011. There would have been a video of him parading on a float on YouTube and pictures of him enjoying a baseball game on Facebook and Flickr. He was in high school though, and I don’t think he would have gotten into too much trouble. But you, you’re an adult with a job, and if you want to keep that job, make sure you’re not getting caught on your day off.