busy girl thoughts

Crazy Apple Rumors Site » Blog Archive » CARS Announces New Books! This is too funny. I personally am sick and tired of people wanting get a piece of Apple pie, which is understandable, but at least have some decency to make up better reasons for it. Not be able to change the phone battery? Not be able to brick the phone? iPod is too loud? Give me a Br….

Take Control of Being A Whiny-Assed Apple Customer The Missing Manual for Dummies will show you, the whiny-assed Apple customer how to leverage your inherent ability to bitch, bitch, bitch. Whaaaah! The iPod’s battery runs out after five years! Whaaaah! Apple bricked my iPhone after I took a soldering iron to it and installed a bunch of crap I downloaded from a Nigerian web site! Sure, you already sound like fingernails on a blackboard to anyone within earshot, but how can you weasel your way up to annoying bloggers, members of the press and even Apple executives? Read the book!

This is too hilarious to pass up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRKIDdIaFyE

YouTube20-20zunePhone20ad

AppleInsider | Apple stirs controversy with iMovie’s ‘08 overhaul

Apparently the reason I was so impressed with the iMovie is that I’m not an advanced user. More experienced users are complaining that the new iMovie is lacking in features that the previous iMovieHD had, and that Apple should call this new program “iTube”. As a result, Apple offers free download of iMovieHD for those in need.

Note that installing iLife 08 doesn’t override the previous version of iMovieHD. It’ll replace it on the dock, but iMovieHD is still in your application folder.

Well, the new iMovie pleases users like me who just want to do youTube. I still have high hopes for it though. It shouldn’t be too hard for Apple to integrate the advanced features into iMovie, should it?

The new iMovie in iLife 08 completely blew me away. The previous version of iMovie was clunky at best. It took me 2 hours to create a 30-second video card for my mom with photos, video clips and background music. Voice-over was doable but not for the faint of heart. I had to first extract the original sound from the clip, and carefully align the voice-over on the timeline. The new iMovie (see demo) pretty much materializes our mental process when editing a movie. We can now easily skim video clips, arrange music and voice-over much the same way as editing photos. It’s worth checking it out.

Designers Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachi incorporated programmable light-emitting materials in everyday linen. The result is wallpaper that illuminate different patterns corresponding to change of environment, and duvet cover that naturally wakes you up with gradual lights. http:\\www.loop.ph

I found this great social website for bookwarms. I was just talking to a friend today about how I’ve become such a bookwarm and mouse potato that I don’t have time to talk to my friends or socialize anymore.

LibraryThing.com is a free website for you to maintain lists of books you’ve read. You can review, rate, add tags to the books you’ve read, and you can see other users who share the same books as you do and see other people’s comments as well. If you have too much time you can record details about when you bought the book, started and finished reading.

Here’s a link to my catalog. Only a few books there now since I just started building. It’s by no means the total number of books i’ve read all my life!

Google RSS Reader rolls out by ZDNet’s Dan Farber — At the Web 2.0 conference Google took the wraps off its RSS reader–Google Reader. Like other Google products, the RSS reader has a simple interface, makes good use of AJAX and shows how the company is scoping out all the kinds of applications and services that Web users will want to have. It’s beta and […]

I read yesterday that Google might provide free city-wide WiFi services for San Francisco. Google officials say San Francisco residents (and visitors) will enjoy a free 300 kilobits per second, always on connection anywhere in the city. As part of its proposal, the company says it will be offering wholesale access to other service providers, who will offer higher throughput connections to their customers. Google says it plans to use its own authentication services. (That explains the Google WiFi VPN client to some extent). The company is going to use San Diego-based WFI, a cellular network builder company to build out the WiFi network. Here’s more details.

What are google and City of SF’s motives of such a great public service?

I remember seeing free WiFi posters throughout Philly downtown a couple months ago while I was traveling, so I dug up old news stories related to that. It turned out to be a long and painful process.

Apparently Mayor Street announced the plan in Sep 2004, and since then, it aroused heated debate and nationwide interests. At that time a specific budget wasn’t set, and it hadn’t been determined if the service would be for free or low-cost. A recent update from Ms. Neff, CIO for the city, indicated that it’ll cost about 15-20 million for the 135 square feet area. It won’t be FREE though. I think now the pilot programs in Philly are free, meaning there are quite a few hot spots throughout downtown philly. But eventually when the city-wide network is built, the city will charge the service for $20 a month, or $10 for low-income households. It costs about $60-70 for the device. This would especially benefit neighborhoods where the existing infrastructure is not capable of supporting broadband service.

Everything sounds wonderful, but the city is facing powerful skeptics. First of all Verison was pissed. Verizon lobbied the Pennsylvania legislature and had a law passed and signed that would “prohibit a government or any entity it creates from offering broadband for a fee.” [Philadelphia Faces Wi-Fi Woes PC World 11/23/04]. Comcast had somethig to say as well. “Because of numerous financial and technological questions about the city’s plans, and the substantial risk to Philadelphia’s taxpayers, we have not endorsed the city’s efforts,” David L. Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, wrote in an e-mail message. “Investment in a competitive, challenging and risky business like broadband is something better left to private companies.”

Ms. Neff’s defense against critics is that, it’s estimated by the third year, Philly will be saving $2 million a year on their $150 million IT budget by not having to pay Verizon for Internet access at their 24,000-employee city offices.

No that’s not good enough. Heartland Institute issued a paper on Why Muni Wi-Fi Is a False Hope (02/01/05). This largely argues that because prior attempts at wired networks failed and that gosh, it’s going to cost $75-150 to set up so they can’t afford it anyhow (never mind how much more it would cost to set up and buy broadband access from Verizon or Comcast), it shouldn’t be done. Cato institute (funded by telecom giants) conducted a study to attack municipal wireless services.

GIVE ME A BREAK.

Municipal WiFi was first started in Spokane, Washington. It’s only free for government employees but paid access is also offered. Many other cities have since followed.

Australia has turned all of Sydney into a high-speed hot-spot, and users get much faster broadband service than we do - for less.

I guess we should thank telecom giants for protecting the public from… um.. socialism invasion (free for all!)? Capitalism is the foundation of this country and let’s all pay wireless phone companies $79.99 a month for wireless connection. The poor telecom giants, after all, having been waking up in the middle of a night covered with cold sweats with the mere notion of cheap municiapl WiFi services.

I wish city of San Francisco the best luck.

I used to think about getting Dell stock since it appears to be cheap, until I came across this article on business week, here’s the excerpt:

It didn’t seem as if he was asking for much. When the CD drive on Peter Ulyatt’s Dell desktop computer failed this summer, he called the support crew at Dell (DELL ), where he’d bought the $1,600 machine nine months prior. Armed with an extended warranty that cost him an extra $300, the Pasadena (Calif.) retiree got on the phone and waited. After sitting on hold for 45 minutes, a technician whom Ulyatt could barely understand came on the line and diagnosed a “software problem.” Ulyatt’s call, transferred to the software technician, was dropped. Calling back, Ulyatt waited on hold another 45 minutes, asked for the software desk, and waited a half-hour more before hanging up. “At the moment, I’m not high on Dell’s service,” says Ulyatt, who plans to buy two new PCs in a year or so. “When I buy again, I will look at others beyond Dell.”

Ulyatt’s ordeal is not an isolated case. All tech companies have some unhappy customers, of course, but recent surveys suggest the ranks of frustrated Dell Inc. owners are growing. Complaints to the Better Business Bureau rose 23% in 2004 from the year before, and they’re up another 5% this year. … “We’ve never seen a drop like this,” says professor Claes Fornell, who ran the survey.

Plenty of people are going public with complaints. … Web sites such as ihatedell.net have popped up. …

Could such sentiment lead to trouble for the world’s largest PC company? Over the past decade, Dell’s dependable support, combined with competitive prices and build-to-order convenience, made it the default choice for millions of consumers. Its market share continues to rise overall, and it holds 28.8% of the U.S. consumer market,…. However, a sagging reputation could slow sales, … In the most recent quarter, Dell missed its sales target, one reason its stock has dropped 18%, to $34, since the start of the year.

….Other key PC makers are increasing the pressure on Dell. Apple, which consistently ranks high in customer surveys like Michigan’s, recently decided to start using chips from Intel Corp. (INTC ), making it a more direct competitor to Dell. And Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ ), Dell’s biggest competitor, seems intent on distinguishing itself with customer service.

Over the past year, HP has launched several initiatives to build loyalty. One lets HP employees key in information on product glitches they hear about from customers, who then are supposed to receive a call from a rep within 48 hours. Another is a diagnostic tool HP developed to help consumers figure out what kind of problem they have, even if it doesn’t involve HP gear. Dell won’t help customers with non-Dell problems unless they pay extra. “Given today’s digital lifestyle, it’s vital,” says Diana L. Bell, HP’s senior vice-president of total customer experience. “We have to do more than say, ‘here’s the product, and catch me if you can.”

Somebody ran an iPod Nano stress test. http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/3

Apparently the reason they ran the test is that many critics commented that iPod Nano won’t do well because it’s so small and fragile, that it can be easily broken if you accidentally sit on it. I thought it’s pretty funny that the only attack they can come up with is that ‘oh, it’s too small. I couldn’t find it, and what if i sat on it?’

Check out the link yourself, it’s pretty hilarious. If you’re lazy to read the full post, they basically came up with the following plan to break the Nano:

To simulate everyday accidents that could result in a broken iPod, we came up with a few situations that we felt would ultimately leave the nano lifeless:

1. Sitting on the iPod nano
2. Dropping it while jogging (4-6mph),
3. Dropping at various speeds: 8-10mph (slow bicycle), 15-20mph (fast bicycle), 30mph (slow car), and 50mph (fast car)
4. Dropping the nano from various heights.

After the above steps, they FAILED to break it and Nano, although scratched up, was still playing the music. They were astonished and determined to figure out a way to destroy Nano. What did they come up with? They decided to run it over with a car.

The heart was still beating.

So they ran it over again. (not the most creative bunch).

Nano was still breathing and humming songs.

Finally,

In a final act of desperation, we decided to expose the iPod to a catastrophic event that would certainly destroy it. Lacking a really high place to drop the nano from, we decided the throw the nano as high as we could, say 40 feet into the air, and let it land—hard—on the concrete. Alas, the iPod nano finally gave up the ghost. In addition to the display showing nothing and the backlight being perpetually stuck on, the music finally subsided. The nano had journeyed to the Land Where Consumer Electronics Are Eternally Blessed.

Steve Job did a great job presenting Nano, especially at the moment when he took it out from the inner pocket of his jeans. Watch the webcast here.

I’ve been using various blog sites on and off, but I never found one I really liked. At least that’s the excuse I gave to myself not to continue blogging (which is a shame because I’ve been to so many exciting NY restaurants and done lots of travels).

Today thanks to Bunny’s Test Space blog, I found this current blog site. It has a lot more features than blogger.com since it’s WordPress powered. The only drawback is it doesn’t have a lot of technical help. The only support blogsome.com offers are links to other resource pages. I actually enjoy it because I love digging up answers myself, and probably most of you paperclip⁽¹⁾ haters out there agree with me. I spent time learning WordPress and CCS style, and i’m refreshing my memory on basic HTML language. It’s fun, and I know i’ll be wasting numerous days ahead of me to tweak my pages.

MSN My Space is very user-friendly. I almost would’ve gone for it if weren’t for the following reasons: 1. It doesn’t let you assign multiple categories to a posting, and it doesn’t support sub-categories. 2. It doesn’t support blog-rolling. 3. Too limited in custom settings.
MSN My Space is excellent for beginners or people who care less about customization.