idano Blog Network » Apple

My Son’s iPad Was Delivered and I Get to Play with It

Dan — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:59:25 +0000

My son’s iPad was just delivered and I am “testing it out” to make sure that it is working properly.

The reason my son has an iPad is that he is speech delayed due to autism. He was able to get the iPad for free through some program my wife found. They have developed software that helps kids like my son communicate with the touch interface.

It is so awesome to see something that was intended to play games and edit documents be used to teach someone to talk.

Thank you Apple!

I Took the Acer Aspire One Back because of My MacBook

Dan — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:13:38 +0000

A few days after I got the new Acer Aspire One all installed with my software I came upstairs and my MacBook’s screen was locked up. This is the first time in the history of having this computer that this has ever happened. Horrified I restarted the computer and a terrible clicking noise was came from it which could only mean one thing – a dead hard drive.

I was not too upset about this as this was not the original hard drive that came with the computer. This was an aftermarket Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm hard drive that was over 3 years old. In fact I used this hard drive in other MacBook I had for a year before I got this Macbook. The hard drive was older then the computer.

To remedy the situation I headed over to Fry’s and picked up a new Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. 2 1/2 times the storage. Thank God I had a good Time Machine backup as I was able to get the computer back up and running in just a couple of hours.

So What Does This Have to do With the Acer Apsire One?

Well the first thing this has to do with it is that I got the Acer because my MacBook was running slow the last few weeks especially with Windows 7 in Parallels. After I put the new hard drive in it ran better then before it started to run slow. I could now run Windows 7 in Parallels without skipping a beat.

The second thing was that after loading everything on the Acer it ran slower then Windows on my MacBook so it kind of defeated the purpose. The biggest culprit for this was Dropbox which is a necessity for me. If I turned Dropbox off it ran pretty well, with it on it was a dog.

So having the Acer kind of defeated the purpose. I needed to check browser compatibility the quickest way possible and that was now with the MacBook.

The Acer was cool but it just didn’t quite fit the bill for what I needed.

Related posts to my journey of MacBooks and Acer Aspire One’s:

Butterfly at the Gas Station

Dan — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 02:00:02 +0000

A little fun with the iPhone 4 at the gas station. I edited this on my iPhone as well.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECOctgAyMr8

Bing’s Top 100 Songs by Year iPhone App

Dan — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 01:39:44 +0000

I just stumbled upon a fairly new app by Microsoft under their Bing label.

What you do is select the year that you want to listen to and the app serves up the top 100 songs according to Billboard that year. It plays them in a Pandora type shuffle to where you can only skip to the next song. You can click a button and see all the songs from that year but you cannot select a specific song to play.

The other downside to the app is that it puts up an ad for the main Bing iPhone app every 3 or so songs where you have to manually click next to continue with the music. I downloaded the app that they were advertising but the ads still come up.

They are advertising that this app is going to be $1.99 but is free right now. I would hope that they would remove the ads in you actually pay for the app. I guess we will just need to see.

Currently I am groovin’ like it’s 1993. Hip Hop Hooray! Ho. Hay. Ho.

Here’s a link to the app in the iTunes App Store – Top 100s by Year by Bing

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iPhone 3GS – I Got MY New Baby

Dan — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:42:30 +0000

I was going to wait until my birthday in July but the wife gave the go ahead to get my new Iphone 3GS this morning – so I did. I was fortunate to get to the AT&T store near me when I did because the place had a constant stream of people and there were [...] Related posts:

My First iPhone Amazon Kindle Purchase

Dan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:27:11 +0000

Cool! I just made my first iPhone Amazon Kindle purchase. I was in a book store and found a book that I was about to purchase when I thought “it would be realy nice to have this on my iPhone instead of luging this hunk of paper around”. So I jumped on amzon.com/kindlestore to check it and and sure enough they had the book. The best part was that it was 50% cheaper as a ebook then a real book. I did a quick “One Click Purchase” and was told that the book would be added to my iPhone the next time that I opened the Kindle app.

After closing Safari I opened the Kindle app and it said that it was syncing and in less then 30 seconds my book appeared. I opened it and the whole thing was there. I though that it would need to download for a while but it was actually pretty quick. The whole experience was pretty cool!

This has opened up a whole new world for me as having the book “in my pocket” will give it a much better chance of getting read. Good work Amazon!

- Posted from my iPhone, please excuse any typos!

The Allure of a New Mac Mini

Dan — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:27:40 +0000

Apple updated their Mac Mini line this week after almost a year of not touching it. The upgrade was not that significant other then the fact that it is now possible to use dual monitors via the Mini DVI and Mini DisplayPort ports. This has raised an eyebrow for me because I have wanted to use two displays with my present Mac Mini for quite some time.

My current Mac Mini is setup as the kid’s computer in our upstairs family room and the kids absolutely love it. I have a 22″ monitor and a hard drive full of movies on it. Across the room I have a 42″ Phillips plasma TV that at times I will hook my MacBook up to in order to watch something that is on Hulu or that is ripped to a hard drive. My ideal setup would be to have the ability to display the Mac Mini on the 42″ so that we could watch items off of it as opposed to having to setup my MacBook to do so. It would also be beneficial to the kids to have this setup as they could watch their movies and even surf on the big screen as well.

At $600 for the base version of the new Mac Mini it is not too expensive to make this change but in the current economic client I may have to wait a while. it is nice to know that this is now a native possibility though.

Trading in the Acer Aspire One for a MacBook

Dan — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:34:58 +0000

I have traded our Acer Aspire One for a 13″ MacBook.

While looking for a new Product Manager position I am stepping up my side business in Web Design and Development to generate some extra income. I tried using my wife’s Aspire One but it was just too small and underpowered. Therefore tonight I went to the Apple store and got a white MacBook.

Netbooks are great to travel with because they are so light. But unfortunately there wasn’t much more I could do with it that I couldn’t do with my iPhone. The MacBook isn’t full size but it is bigger then the netbook and is a reasonable price for the features. I used to have one that was issued by my company so I am already used to it’s size and performance.

Netbooks are cool but just a little too small for me to be completely usable. Your mileage may vary.

My Apple Keyboard Survived the “Spill Test”

Dan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:55:39 +0000

I thought I would energize my aluminum Apple keyboard yesterday by dowsing it with some Red Bull. The keyboard didn’t flinch but I sure did even though there wasn’t any sparks or explosions.

After unplugging it from my computer I placed it upside down so the Bull could flow out of it. After I wiped it down I plugged it in and it still worked. I used it the rest of the day without a hitch.

When I came in this morning I did not think about yesterdays baptism in the Bull until I tried to come to this website and was typing my name. The R was slow to some back up after being pressed and so I need to perform some surgery on my keyboard.

I ended up popping off the a Shift key, plus the T, R, and E keys. I rinsed each key and its little plastic spring with water and wiped the inside of the key socket. While those keys are now nice and responsive I have noticed that the G key is also acting sluggish so it looks like I will need to pop it off as well.

I wish I could just throw this thing in the dish washer and take care of it in one swoop.

P.S. This post has caused me to add a new category named "Doh!".

Funny – The Simpsons Take on Apple

Dan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:52:11 +0000

I have not watched The Simpsons for ages but they recently took on Apple so i had to watch. They do a great job of mocking Apple and Apple Fanboys (which yes, I am one). Sometimes the truth is just really funny.