The Apple Tax

Paul Thurrott has posted at his blog a very nice article or note about what Microsoft calls Apple Tax. 

There are two tables created by Microsoft to illustrate the whole concept. After checking those tables the only thing that I can say is that with the same amount of money that you spend in a Mac, you buy a really powerful PC. Just in HDD you get twice the space for the same money. You get 30% of more RAM and in one case even a Blue-Ray Driver or a TV Tuner.

VIA - SuperSite Blog

Windows Mobile New Year’s Resolutions

Just before I spoke with Chris about joining Mobility Site, I had written an editorial about what Windows Mobile could do to get some respect, called Windows Mobile New Year’s Resolutions.  It’s fairly long, so I don’t want to repost it here, but I discuss the following areas to improve:

• User Interface
• Web Browser
• E-mail & Messaging
• PIM Applications
• Phone Applications
• Media Player
• Other Applications
• Synchronization
• Hardware

Check it out and let me know what you think.  Would fixing all of those issues be enough to win back former Windows Mobile users?  Are there other things you’d like to see improved?

Christmas Cheer for Acer and Asus

It seems Santa left a lot of Aspire One and Eee Netbooks under trees, which has resulted in vendors Acer and Asus continuing to drink the good egg nog regarding their 2009 sales figures.

According to Digitimes, Acer moved 500,000 8.9 inch Aspire One-series Netbooks in the US alone during the month of December. Based on that, and with the release of the new 10 inch Aspire One supposedly just around the corner, Acer is projecting sales that exceed 12-13 million units in 2009.

A similar carol is being sung at Asustek. Based on strong sales of the Eee 1000HA and 900HA during the holiday season, Asustek now plans to ship 7.1-7.3 million Eees in 2009.

Strong sales projections, linked with anticipation over new models due to premier at CES and after should keep confidence rising in the Netbook niche, while sending further chills through Intel and other vendors still staking their futures on high margin Notebook sales.

Sling Media to Show SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone

Forget the SlingBox HD steaming on a Mac, big news is SlingPlayer Mobile on the iPhone. Wow. Just Wow. I wish I still used my iPhone, really I do. I am bringing it as a 2nd Alternate for CES though. This will be unveiled tommorow at Macworld.

For more info, check out SlingMedia or read on for the Press release…

MacBook Wheel - MacBook With No Keyboard

This new innovation can go 19 minutes without a charge. The video sneak peek is below.

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Read on for full specs…

All Your Worlds Are Belong to Us

In the wake of Psion’s stated intention to start a campaign to take back the term netbook even though they had apparently forgotten about their trademark for a year or so, more “day late, dollar short” tech lawsuits are cropping up.

Worlds.com, a company that produces stand alone virtual worlds primarily for corporations and celebrities is suing NCsoft, maker of several big-time MMOs such as City of Heroes, City of Villains and Guild Wars for patent infringement, even though those games are now all several years old.

To be specific, the patent…

relates to computer architecture for a three-dimensional graphical multi-user interactive virtual world system… which provide a graphical representation of the player’s character (avatar) wherein movement of the character in virtual space alters what the character views.

Just in that snippet, and being no lawyer, I could think of dozens if not hundreds of companies and games that could be sued over that patent. This is similar to Microsoft trying to patent Hotkeys.

Lest you think Worlds.com’s own legal department is handling this, the company handed the matter over to Patent Infringement headhunters General Patent Corporation who seem to specialize in “David vs. Goliath” lawsuits such as this one, or put another way, they try to use broad and poorly worded patents to fleece companies who are actually doing something with the technology on behalf of those companies who simply know how to game patent law.

Of course, how they missed such Virtual World giants as Worlds of Warcraft and Second Life I am not really sure. Perhaps the exact ‘architecture” they are referring to differ in some indescribable, elegant way…or they didn’t think they had a hope in hell of taking on Blizzard or Linden Labs in court. One of those.

Z-Day: The Morning After (More or Less)

OK, now we all know that the problem was connected to the leap year, and that almost all of the Zune 30s are now indeed debricked. The world did NOT end, no black holes were suddenly formed at the Earth’s core….oh no, wait…that’s the Hadron Collider Thingie, the busted one. Well, umm…nothing REALLY TRULY AWFUL happened due to a day without Zune 30s…did it?

So what EXACTLY went wrong?

Well, thankfully Yahoo Tech News is here to explain it all to us, with an impressive assist from AeroXperience’s Bryant Zadegan.

Apparently the code that did the dirty deed was…..

#define ORIGINYEAR 1980 BOOL ConvertDays(UINT32 days, SYSTEMTIME* lpTime){ int dayofweek, month, year; UINT8 *month_tab;

//Calculate current day of the week dayofweek = GetDayOfWeek(days);

year = ORIGINYEAR;

while (days > 365) { if (IsLeapYear(year)) { if (days > 366) { days -= 366; year += 1; } } else { days -= 365; year += 1; } }

Clear?

All Greek to you (like it is to me)?

After the jump, see the explanation Yahoo Tech News offered we laymen (and laywomen).

CES 2009 - Connecting with Us

CES is a massive consumer electronics show. It’s an important show, but unless you plan to cover all facets of the show, it’s not a must attend for what’s on the massive show floor. What does make CES a must attend are the shows within the show. Digital Experience, a press only event held the night before the CES show floor opens, is a must attend for me. I have been going to and loving the Pepcom events along side CES and CTIA for 5+ years. Recently, another event at CES that has become a must attend is Showstoppers. These and seeing fellow site owners, MVPs, and Mobius members is the main reason I go to CES. The social aspect is one that stays with you for months. Of course the show is great too, but it’s the side shows, the social aspect, and the parties that make it worth all the hassle. When I say hassle, I mean hassle.

Anyhow, Jack Cook and I will both be out in Vegas this week. If you would like to connect with us, I will provide a mini schedule. Please contact me via email asap to let me know to look for you as well. I chose to skip a bunch of individual company meetings this year to have more time for the show floor and for meetings with friends. Read on for the schedule.

The Skinny on Jobs

Everyone’s been wondering if Steve Jobs, the head honcho at Apple, is sick again.  He previously had pancreatic cancer.  The rumors ran rampant again recently, when Apple decided to cancel their appearance at Macworld.  People were wondering why Apple/Jobs didn’t address his situation, feeding the rumor mill even more.  But finally, as reported by Yahoo!, Mr. Jobs has discussed his health:

Jobs, 53, said in a public letter that his thinness had been a mystery even to him and his doctors until a few weeks ago, when “sophisticated blood tests” confirmed that he has “a hormone imbalance that has been `robbing’ me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy.”

Jobs said he will undergo a “relatively simple” treatment and will remain in charge of Apple.

Why is his health so important to everyone?  Simply put, the stock price of Apple depends alot on the confidence consumers have in the company.  With Jobs at the helm the company has done very well.  But fears of his possible departure due to illness would likely cut the stock price severely.  But with the news of his treatable illness Apple stock rose from $3.92, 4.3 percent, to $94.67 in midday trading.

Glad he’s ok.

T-Mobile Shadow 2009

It’s not the T-Mobile Shadow II as you would expect, it’s going to be called the Shadow 2009. When the original T-Mobile Shadow came out, it was kind of ground breaking. It was one of the 1st Windows Mobile phones to radically change the default UI. It took some criticism, but it also took in a good deal of praise. Well, BGR has some info about the Shadow 2009, but a big problem is looming for it, no 3G support? I realize T-Mobile’s 3G network is young and not widespread, but they are doing themselves no favors if they leave 3G out alltogether.

Anyhow, here are some specs from BGR…

Not-so-fresh Meat

Just letting everybody know that the “Bubba” is now going to give this a shot. I’ve been developing software for 30+ years and using PPC’s for almost 10, so hopefully I can contribute to the best site on the web! Stay tuned …

The Ultimate iPod Accessory

I’ve been thinking about my drive to work.  It’s one to one and a half hours each way.  My factory car stereo, as most, is mediocre at best, so to make my drive more palatable I upgraded the speakers.  It was pretty easy to do so, and not very expensive.  I also installed a $30 Scosche FM modulator so I can listen to my iPod.

To install this I had to remove the receiver, plug the car’s antenna into the modulator, then plug the modulator’s antenna into the back of the receiver.  I then tapped into the power cord of my cigarette lighter for a power source.  It took about 1 hour and was fairly simple.  The FM modulator, like wireless FM modulators, converts the sound of the iPod into an FM signal.  There is a plug that connects into the iPod’s headphone jack to provide music.  This was fine for a few months, but the problem is that the FM sound band is far less broad than a cd player’s sound.  According to Crutchfield,

Answering this question relies upon two technical specifications: signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and frequency response (FR). SNR is a measure of signal strength compared to background noise in the signal or equipment. A higher number, in decibels, is better. FR is a measure of how much of the audio spectrum, from bass to treble, gets reproduced. It’s measured as a range in Hertz, and the wider the range, the better.