For the Love of Geeks

Today MacWorld keynote was quite likely the worst in apple history.  It is now obvious why Steve Jobs didn’t bother showing up, he was afraid he would fall asleep giving the presentation.

I will give Phil some credit, he is a great speaker, and he did manage to get the crowd worked up over several of the features in the newest versions of iLife and the new threat to Google, iWork.  Really, though, neither of these products are worthy of headlining what was the most prominent of Mac days in the year.

Phil spent over an hour discussing these two pieces of software, which is more time then the original release of OS X got, and there are some really cool features which we will cover in detail later.

The new MacBook Pros, which I don’t think should be considered as new since they are just upgrades to an existing line of laptops. While these are obviously awesome machines, they’re are some glaring issues.

One major problem, no removeable battery.  Seriously?!?  I realize they are touting an eight hour battery life, but I still want to have the ability to carry an extra battery with me and switch them out.  It also lasts 1000 charges, which is about 3 years.  Now, the laptop I am writing this post on is 4.5 years old and on it’s second battery … so I guess I will a process to go through to replace the battery in a few years.

Also an issue is the lack of a glare free screen …  These high end MacBooks are not going to be used by people who want to watch DVD’s, some of us want to do real work on them, in coffee shops, and offices with windows during the day … I guess that will be a thing of the past.

The “one last thing”, was iTunes.  iTunes finally adopts a DRM free platform, and bring iTunes to 3G instead of forcing wifi.  Both of these things are very very cool, but also very very late.  This all should have been a part of the iPhone 3G release last year.  DRM Free had to come, but I am not sure it came in time to salvage iTunes place as leader in music sales, from competitors like Amazon and Walmart that have been selling DRM Free for some time now.

In the end, todays keynote seemed to be a waste of two hours, and dissapointed many.  Since this is the last MacWorld that Apple will attend, I was really hoping that they would have made more of an event rather then pushing out a random marketing exec, and leaving us with little more then a software update.

In no particular order :

1. [ Watchman ] movie will be pushed back and will end up being a Christmas blockbuster instead of the summer blockbuster starter they were hoping for. Thanks Fox for taking something beautiful and trying to crap all over it.  Just one more, in a long list of reasons to despise you as a company.

2. Nothing excitingly new will come from this years, and Apple’s last, MacWorld.  By the end of the year, Steve Jobs will have stepped down as CEO and will fill an emeritus roll of some sort.

3. [ Twitter ] will be overrun by malware, spam, and hackers making the service useless and a thing of the past.  We have already seen the start of this, and unfortunately the twitter API is full of security holes, and the twitter dev seems to have reactionary view of security instead of a precautionary view.  Since Twitter is finally starting to make it stamp in histories timeline of the internet, it will draw far too much exposure from unwanted forces.

4. Net Neutrality will finally get the political backing that it needs to become an actual reality, and yet somehow, the US gov’t will still think that they have the ability or the right to control content on the intertubes.

5. [ Wolverine ] will kick so much ass, that it will make us forget, at least for a little while, how pissed we are that [ Watchman ] still hasn’t been released.

Geo-tagging for the iPhone camera.

Yep, you heard correctly, Apple wants to give you the ability to Geo-Tag your pictures, in the same way you can find yourself on the google map.

Essentially, geo-tagging is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to media files such as latitude and longitude coordinates — or even names of places — so that those files can later be referenced, searched, and grouped based on their origin.

Side by side pics have been spotted online :

Location-aware services such as “Maps” and “Camera” on the iPhone v2 will ask the user’s permission before transmitting data used to identify their current geographical location.

In addition,  iPhone’s general preference pane will have a toggle that will allow users to enable/disable Location Services.

A lot of phones have this ability, so it is not blazingly new technology, but in true Apple fashin, I am sure it will be slicker and cooler on the iPhone.

Man can come up with some pretty cool stuff every so often, but nothing compares to what a Chilean Volcano has decided to spew forth ….

Yep, that is lightning coming out of that volcano… and that folks, is pretty freaking cool. Unless you live at the base of that particular volcano. Then it probably sucks.

I love this …. and it is so true!

I do not however like [ wordpress ] CONSTANTLY changing how images are handled in posts…

So, I decided that I couldn’t wait for my May 1st DMV appointment and decided to brave the elements and visit DMV unannounced.   Generally, that means that for the rest of the day you get to hear a woman, who sounds lie she is calling a bingo game, say “Now serving B130 at window number 21″.   Of course the B130 changes each time… sometimes it is a G or a C.  What is funny is that for some reason when they get to the number right before me, they always seem to switch to a different alpha.  So today I was B193… and when they got to B192 I was all excited.  I was prepped and ready to stand up and scream “BINGO!”, but the next number ?  G205.  Then G206… Then G207… Then C234.  Then C235..  Then G208.  Very frustrating…

Of course as soon as I stop paying rapt attention, they call me.   WooT!  I was fortunate.  It was a VERY slow day at DMV and I was in and out in under 20 minutes.  UNHEARD of.  and no, I will not tell you which DMV office I go to, since I am not ruining it.  The Bellflower DMV, even with an appointment, is a guaranteed 4 hour visits.

So Anyway… now for the unveiling.  Here is the DMV lady happily showing the plates. :  As soon as I snapped this photo with my iPhone she realized that I would likely stick it up online… I assured her that her face is barely visible..

Here is the beautiful plate on my car :

ROCK!  So when you see me buzzing around the greater Los Angeles area, give me shout out with the horn….

Last night I went and saw [ Bear McCreary ] play at The Roxy. Words can not explain how cool it was…. so here are some pictures.

These were taken with my iPhone so I apologize for the less then perfect quality.

Here is Brendan’s Band rocking out for the opening act..

James Callis MC’d the event and smiled at me when I asked him to bless my baby…

Bear ended up right in front of me working his mixer board and orchestrating the band… he got this look of sheer enjoyment on his face when the music would rise and fall at his command.. it was so cool watching him.

Here is some of the band…
Starting from the left
Paul Cartwright on the violin
Steve Bartek on lead guitar
The guy on the irish pipes, I didn’t catch his name…
Brendan McCreary on vocals and rhythm guitar.

Bear on Keyboards

James Callis sing “Spooky” a song he wrote…

Another of James

Another of the band

And finally …

Here is a pic of the beautiful Raya Yarbrough who sing the Sanskrit lyrics in several of the songs… She sang barefoot, and danced beautifully, and was just simply amazing…

One word to describe meeting Chuck and Audra from the GWC crew. Woot!

Last Friday, after work, I cruised down to San Diego and met up with Chuck and Audra and a few others from the GWC forum.  We had a blast.  A few beers at the poolside rooftop bar at the hotel they were staying at, then off to the Tin Fish for dinner, and to cap it all off, desert at Mary Jane’s coffee house, where we hung out until 1 AM talking SciFi and other geek topics..

So much FUN!

Here is pic taken by Barb (bkitty)..

So I did.  Last Thursday, after work, I jumped in my car and drove to Vegas.  There is something very serene about the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, especially when you are by yourself.

I was only in Vegas overnight, since Friday morning I flew to Sioux Falls, SD.  I was great being there though, even for just one night since I got to hang with a buddy of mine who appreciates the finer beers as much as I do.  So we spent a quiet evening drinking some brew and catching up.. Quiet and SHORT since I had to get up at 4:45 AM to catch my flight …. ugh..

<Rant>
Allegiant Air -  cheap, direct flights to Sioux Falls from Las Vegas.. Great Idea .. it really is.. but.. could you please reset the flight time to be like 9 AM or something…
</Rant>

I went back to SD to see my friend and his family [ Kevin and Crew ].  It was a lot of fun, and it was great seeing the kids again.  What did they think of their Uncle Steve coming out?

We had a good time.

While I was there I picked up a Guitar.  I know some of you are thinking:  “huh?  A guitar?!?  But you
don’t play the guitar”.

You’re right, I don’t.  However, I have a list of things that I want to accomplish, and learning to play the guitar is high on that list, so while I was there I was looking around and found a very nice Squire Standard Stratocaster ina Cherry Burst color.  It sounds very tight … especially when someone who knows what they are doing gets a hold of it.

For now, I just hack on the thing and drive my wife nuts.   I have a call into an instructor that I feel comfortable with and after I have my first lesson, I will post more about that and even a picture of the guitar.

Also on my list is learning to ride a motorcycle, and purchasing said motorcycle, which I am hoping to accomplish sometime in the next few months.

All in all, it was a very relaxing few days, and a trip that I sorely needed…

So I am walking through a parking lot heading into an office, and I saw this ….

I was so excited that I had to go in and find out if the driver had that plate as a reference to the final five cylon, because let’s face it… that would be the coolest plate in the world to have… LOL

Unfortunately the owner had NO idea what BSG was, let alone a cylon, and likely thought that I was the biggest freak on the planet, but it was still a great sighting, and in my dream tonight the plates will be on my super cool flying car that exists only in my dreams…