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June 27, 2009

Michael Jackson Posthumously Dominates iTunes Charts.

Michael Jackson posthumously dominates iTunes Top Songs and Top Album Charts shortly after the news of his death.

Jackson died from cardiac arrest on Thursday June 25th, 2009. Dr. Conrad Murray was with Jackson during the whole incident, and Murray is reportedly hiring a Houston-based law firm to represent him.

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June 27, 2009

iPhone 3GS: The First Seven Days

iPhone 3G S officially went on sale on Friday June 19th, 2009. Three days later, Steve Jobs is reported to clock in for work for the first time after his medical leave of absence. Strangely, the iPhone 3G S was renamed to iPhone 3GS on the same day. From this then on, it shall be known as iPhone 3GS.

Things that I discovered after using iPhone 3GS for the first seven days:

The iPhone 3GS in general is much faster than the iPhone and iPhone 3G.
iPhone 3GS renders a considerably complex web page faster on 3G than iPhone/iPhone 3G on a Wi-Fi. I was on a fast network. This shows the processing power of the iPhone 3GS CPU. This makes web-browsing a much more pleasant experience on iPhone 3GS.
I really like the “tap-to-focus” feature. This is one feature that should be implemented in digital camera and camcorders.
I never cared for recording video using any phones before. Now I can’t stop using it on the iPhone 3GS. OK, I was wrong before.
The Compass doesn’t work well in the car. Too much electromagnetic interference.
Battery life is noticeably better than the iPhone 3G.
There are still some lags when switching from landscape to portrait and vice-versa. Could it be the hardware design that caused this?
The speaker is noticeably louder.
Voice Control works well with the phone but not with the iPod function.
Physically iPhone 3GS is identical with iPhone 3G, so all the cases and screen protectors can be used with both.

June 27, 2009

Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Build 10A394 is Seeded to Developers.

Friday June 26th, 2009 Apple released Mac OS X Snow Leopard build 10A394 through Software Update. This update weighs in at 655.3MB.

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Build 10A394 brings the Exposé to the Dock.

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June 25, 2009

Anything Goes: June 25th, 2009 Edition – Part 2!

I had such a tiring day and don’t feel like going anywhere else anymore. Actually I still have two more things to do. I was planning to go to Hollywood Improv to meet a friend, but at this point I’m to tired too care.

Obituary:

Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies (CNN) | Farrah Fawcett had been battling cancer for the last three years of her life. Fawcett is best known for her role in Charlie’s Angels TV series.
Michael Jackson, pop music legend, dead at 50 (CNN) | Michael Jackson was reported to have cardiac arrest. Jackson was preparing for his “This Is It!” Tour at the O2 Arena, London UK. Jackson is one of the biggest names in the Pop Music History.

…and in other news:

Supreme Court rejects school strip search (Reuters) | “By an 8-1 vote, the justices upheld a ruling that the school and its officials violated the U.S. constitutional right that protects against unreasonable search and seizure.” 8-1 vote? Apparently Judge Clarence Thomas thinks that it is OK to stip search a 13 year-old girl (NYTimes).

June 25, 2009

Anything Goes: June 25th, 2009 Edition.

Woke up this morning, read some emails and figured some silly settings for Entourage to connect to Exchange Server 2007. I then setup the Entourage remotely. In addition to that, I re-encoded a movie short through iChat Desktop Sharing.

Ahmadinejad compares Obama to Bush (Yahoo! News) | It is obvious that both Barack Obama and George W. Bush are Presidents of The United States.
Transformers 2’s $55 million breaks Wednesday opening record (SCI FI Wire) | It is really impressive for a movie that is getting such bad reviews here, here and here. The reviews at Rotten Tomatoes confirm this. Then again it doesn’t matter because it has a great opening day and they’re working on Transformers 3 for 2001 release even before Transformers 2 was released; allegedly. More giant transforming robots and explosions!
RIAA settles suit where defendant had no PC (MacNN) | Yesterday’s news, but it is still worth mentioning. In the eye of RIAA, everyone steals music. The term “PC” refers to “personal computer” regardless of the operating system. It’s not about the whole “Mac” vs “PC” things.
Pirate Bay Retrial Denied (Wired.com) | As usual, the Pirate Bay responded in their blog. What would the Pirate Party do in the European Parliament?

June 24, 2009

Anything Goes: June 24th, 2009 Edition.

I had quite a crazy morning with Outlook and Exchange Server. Then I went to the Apple Store to get a 15-inch MacBook Pro Battery replaced. It only has 70 full-charge-cycles and it lasts about 5 minutes of charge.

Bunch of letters and numbers and punctuations from the series of tubes:

Unimaginable Horror In Tehran Today (ThreatsWatch.org) | Video is from CNN. Contain graphics picture.
Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter account hijacked, pushes Windows and Mac malware (ZDNet) | Twitter users have been victims of account-hijacking for quite sometimes now. This is not the first time certainly won’t be the last for a foreseeable future. Obviously this is the same trojan aimed at Mac and Windows users. It is way too obvious that ActiveX plugin on Mac OS X is a trojan. Please be careful no matter what operating system you’re using.
SPINAL TAP: ‘Back From The Dead’ First-Week Sales Revealed (Blabbermouth.net) | It sold 10,000 copies on its first week of release. Buy this CD from Amazon.com! (read disclaimer at the end of this post.) It is better than majority of music released this year so far.
Panasonic Begins To Lock Out 3d-Party Camera Batteries (SlashDot) | Printer manufacturers have tried doing something similar. Then again there are a lot of poor quality third party batteries being sold.

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Disclaimer

If you bought anything through Amazon link above, and I get some kickbacks.

“If you buy Spinal Tap: Back From The Dead CD, I can buy this Canon Vixia HV40 HDV Camcorder” to paraphrase the great Robert Schimmel.

June 24, 2009

Steve Jobs: The Opera (June 2009)

One of the biggest news about Apple this week is none other than the Co-Founder and CEO of Apple Steve Jobs having liver transplant. The news was first broke by Wall Street Journal shortly after iPhone 3GS (formerly iPhone 3G S) was released and the stock market closed. It is speculated that WSJ was informed from within Apple’s own since WSJ did not mention their sources which is a little bit out of the ordinary.

Steve Jobs was then reportedly back in Apple’s Cupertino Campus on Monday June 22nd, 2009. Anecdotally, it was reported that Jobs’ first order of business is to correct the nomenclature of the new iPhone, striking the extra space. Thus the iPhone 3G S is now known as iPhone 3GS.

In the meantime, many questions Apple’s practice in keeping secrets about Steve Jobs health. Some even believe that Apple broke the law for failing to disclose Steve Jobs’ liver transplant. There is Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple Inc., a publicly traded company and there is Steve Jobs a private citizen.

On Tuesday June 23rd, 2009 Metodhist University Hospital confirmed Steve Job’s liver transplant in a PDF statement. As stated in press release Steve Jobs gave the permission for such information to be made public. Thus further the speculation that WSJ’s source is none other than Apple itself.

I for one am glad that Steve Jobs is back and I wish him the best.

More articles about the return of Steve Jobs: