I just bought the network adapter for PS2 so I can play FIFA 2005. Of course, I bought the a headset so I can talk to whoever is beating me.

The headset has a USB connection. So of course I had to try it on my iBook!
I was very surprised to see my mac (running 10.3.6) recognize it for both input and output. You can select it in iChat too!

Not too bad. I’m tempted to try a better headset now. Anybody tried the more expensive, stereo, noise-canceling models?

Today I got the following email:

Dear Marcos,

Thank you for being a part of the first year of .Mac! We introduced .Mac in July 2002 as the set of Internet essentials for your Mac, giving you tools to share, protect, and access your important data. Since then we’ve made enhancements to every major service and introduced new ones like .Mac Address Book and .Mac Bookmarks, both with built-in syncing. We’ve also provided access to over $150 worth of additional member benefits, such as award-winning Mac OS X Jaguar training. And there’s much more to come.

Your membership is scheduled to expire on October 16, 2004 PDT, and we hope you have already decided to continue your service when the time comes. To make sure that happens, click here, log into your Account Page and click the Credit Card Info page to enter your up-to-date credit card information and check the Auto Renew option. Your card won’t be charged until your current subscription expires.

Thank you again and we look forward to another year with you.

Hmmm… should I renew? I only use the iDisk for moving files around (but it’s a pain because my iDisk is almost full and they provide a shamefull 100 MB) and some backups. I use the Homepage feature for photographs (great iPhoto integration!) and the iSync/AddressBook synchronization (which I really like). I don’t use the email.

With Tiger they will introduce .Mac Sync but that’s still a year away.

What should I do?

[UPDATE September 28, 2005] I renewed using a retail .mac box from Buy.com ($69.99). I’m a sucker.

I sent my iBook to get checked about a potential glitch. I figured… I’m going to be out of town for four days, so it should be back by the time I’m back. When on the phone with the AppleCare guy, he offered to switch my internal 8x Combo Drive for a 24x Combo Drive… at no cost.

Of course, I said yes.

Now, my iBook is sitting in a warehouse a couple of miles from my apartment (I think the Apple repair center is in Austin) waiting on a back-ordered combo drive.

Without a computer, I haven’t been able to post pictures from my trip to Monterrey last week (most of them, taken by my cousin Debbie). I’ll do that as soon as I get the computer back.

Check out this job description.

It seems like Austin will finally get its own Apple Store. About time! Maybe that’s where I get my iPod mini :).

More info at ifoapplestore and at Norman Richards.

Here it is. “1984”, the original, side by side with “1984 – iPod Edition”.

Enjoy!

[Update 9:58 AM]: Thanks to MacSurfer’s Headline News and iPodlounge for linking to this post. We should see some improved traffic now 🙂
Continue reading And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like “1984” →

Yesterday morning Steve Jobs delivered the Macworld 2004 Keynote (there’s only one Macworld a year now…).Here are my thoughts on each of the announcements:

Twentieth anniversary of the Mac
They posted the famous 1984 ad, except the girl is now wearing an iPod… funny. They released a poster. I bought it at eBay already. No new Twentieth Anniversary Mac????

Final Cut Express
This is just to see which Pro features have trickled down to the Express version. Yawn.

XServe G5
About time.

iLife ’04
iPhoto: Lots of nice things… but the only important feature: It’s not painfully slow. GREAT!
iMovie: It’s not slow…. GREAT! Unfortunately, I have no use for iMovie. I’ve used it before and enjoyed it to no end. iMovie was groundberaking and it’s getting better.
iDVD: Another awesome program, which I’ve never used, as I don’t make iMovies nor have a DVD burner.
GarageBand: This is another awesome program, might be as groundbreaking as iMovie. They could sell it standalone for $100 and it’d be still a bargain. But I don’t play any instruments. I have no use for it.

iPod mini
It’s truly awesome! but… still… expensive. Or at least not cheap enough to make me just order one. However, I understand that:
– Apple wants to make more money, not sell more units.
– Margins is where the money is at
– If they sold out all the other more expensive models last month, why make them cheaper?
On the other hand, as someone who paid dearly for an Optio S camera, I value the size on these portable things. It’s hard to say how much the smaller size is worth (as it’s hard to say how much the better GUI is worth when comparing Macs and PCs). It’s not like comparing Megabytes or Megahertz. But it’s valuable. We’ll see how they sell.

Bottom line: iPhoto is no longer free and it’s the only application, besides iTunes (which is still free) that I use on a regular basis. But… can I justify paying $50 for iLife if all I want is iPhoto to be faster??? I think no. We’ll see.

And where are the faster Macs????

Fortune magazine has a iPod clone: the Dell DJ.

this sums it up: “Musicmatch is my favorite Windows-based online music service—that’s like saying a prostate exam is my favorite invasive procedure”

Dell DJ is the Bizarro iPod.

Yesterday, Apple released its iTunes for Windoze.

Well, of course that made me happy… since I use Windoze at work, it means I can drop that piece of junk player I had to use (WinAmp) and can now use iTunes, which is, by the way, exactly like the Mac version down to Aqua scrollbars and Rendezvous music sharing(!). It also means I can finally listen to the music I bought through the iTunes Music Store at work.

Except… you can only authorize three computers to listen to the music. And it seems like I authorized some friend’s computer during one of my demos (this was a Music Store demo) in addition to my iBook and my brother’s iBook. I’m trying to track this friend down (it wasn’t Gustavo’s Powerbook… it might be Jaramillo’s iBook) in order to deauthorize it and then authorize my PC at work.

Annoying.

Anyway, blinded with the Reality Distortion Field, I also bought a .mac account.
We’ll shortly see how that goes.

Update [October 20, 2003]: We’ve checked Gustavo’s and Daniel’s computers. They were not authorized with my iTunes account. My apologies to them. The hunt for the third computer continues.

Today at Apple Expo Paris, Mr. Jobs himself introduced a new 15″ Aluminum Powerbook. Small speedbumps for the 12 inch and 17 inch machines were also announced. Overall, I’m not impressed. The Powerbook line is now so far behind in performance to the Power Mac G5 line that it’s not even funny.
This could change soon.

They also introduced a wireless keyboard and mouse. This is the coolest Bluetooth one-button mouse ever :). If only my iBook had Bluetooth….

Check out this link: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4888423.htm.
A couple of DJs made a prank call to the president of Venezulea Hugo Chavez. During the conversation Chavez said something about “it all happening on Tuesday”. Well, unless Hugo Chavez is a Mac user (tomorrow is Steve Job’s Keynote at MacWorld San Francisco 2003) venezuelans are in for something tomorrow. No more political commentary for now.