The movie, which is based on a short story by Jean Shepherd, revolves around a kid who wants a bb gun for Christmas. That’s it. The rest of the movie is filled with “slices of life” moments that serve no purpose to the bb gun story and are only meant to fill in the gaps to turn what would be a halfway decent 30 minute special into a feature-length movie and also makes the viewer think, “Oh, my family is just like that.” In fact, the entire movie feels like a series of short stories (and it is) that are incoherently and clumsily stitched together. How is that good story telling?

Perhaps the reason why so many people in my generation love the movie is because they saw it when they were kids. We all like stupid things when we were kids, just look at the Ernest series, but how does it still hold up for my peers as adults? Do they just watch it for nostalgia’s sake? I guess I can understand relating to that one perfect present that you hoped and hoped for and either did or didn’t get it. But is an entire movie necessary to remind you of that moment. The Santa Clause with Tim Allen achieves the same thing (the dating game and the Oscar Meyer Wiener whistle at the end) and has a great story to tell on top of it.

In my opinion, if you’re going to spend a couple of hours watching a Christmas movie, there are much better movies to choose from. Here are my favorites, in no particular order.

It’s a Wonderful Life
Scrooged
Christmas Vacation
A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott version)
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Elf
Home Alone
The Santa Clause

I’m a recent Mac convert. I’ve only been using Apple products for the past 4 years or so. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t recognize the importance of Steve Jobs prior to buying my first Mac. Today’s news of his passing has me really upset. I can’t really express in words what his death means to me right now. Also, the fact that he died at the age of 56, two years younger than my dad, makes his death all the more scary.

Steve was a once in a lifetime type of person. There might not even be another person like him. He founded Apple, NeXt (which became the base of OSX) and transformed Pixar into what it is today. He was a great entrepreneur. He will be missed dearly. You can send your thoughts to on Steve Jobs to Apple.

A lot of people hate the new way of scrolling (and, for those people, Apple has made a preference to go back to normal scrolling), but I think, given time, they will see how much sense it actually makes. When you look at a computer screen and really think about it, scrolling the scroll bars really makes no sense. Why are you scrolling bars and not the actual content?

That’s exactly what Apple is thinking with their barless approach. The meat of your computer is the content. That is what you should be focusing on, and not the scroll bar. When you move your finger down on a scroll bar you’re moving the content up, just like you do on phones and tablets. You’re interacting with the content, not a scrollbar. In my opinion this is the way we should be looking at the computer. Computers are no longer tools that spit back information. They are interactive devices, and we need to start thinking of them that way. With multitouch devices such as the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, you really are interacting with computers in a whole new way.

After using the reverse scrolling for a couple weeks, I’m completely used to it. I did have some issues in the beginning because I use Windows 7 at work. Thankfully, someone on Google+ posted how to get reverse scrolling on Windows. It really is quite simple. Just place the script in your Startup folder and now you have reverse scrolling whenever you log into Windows. Scrolling any other way would feel unnatural now.

I have no problem with a piece of software I’ve used for a year and a half no longer being developed. It becomes more a problem when it’s software that I’ve paid for, but can certainly understand the circumstances surrounding the app’s end. Resources in a small business are limited and you have to devote them to the software that sells the best and/or is not a constant burden to keep running (I imagine keeping it up to date with all of Sony’s updates was probably more difficult than just launching the software and running it proved). Here’s my question though: If you can’t develop it anymore and aren’t going to sell it, why not release it into the wild? Let the open source community take control of the software and make the updates. I know there’s a need for the software out there, it would be best to let the people who are actually interested in it take control of the project. That’s not what’s happening though. They are just shutting it down completely. That’s a shame.

On the same subject, I did have to find a replacement for Rivet and that came in PlayBack. Looking at the app, it is pretty much the exact same app. The UI, the functionality, everything is the same. I don’t know if someone purchased the old Rivet code and decided to maintain it or if it’s just a complete rip of someone else’s work, but it suits the needs that Rivet used to fill. The downside is I had to pay $15 for what appears to be the exact same software I already paid $20 for before. Such is life I guess.

I will give you some insight into how I backup my important files.

First off, I backup all my important files and media to the “cloud” via CrashPlan. The data that I backup there includes mp3s, video files, documents, and pictures. It runs all day. Whenever it detects changes it encrypts the files and uploads the new file or new versions of the file.

All my entertainment media (video files and mp3s) are located on a 2tb external hard drive. This drive is mirrored to a second 2tb external hard drive. The mirroring process is handled by Carbon Copy Cloner and runs every Sunday. That way I have a local copy of all my media in case a drive goes down and I won’t have to download 400+gb from CrashPlan.

My iMac’s home directory is copied to the media drive every Sunday. This is done via CrashPlan’s backup to another hard drive feature. That way, when Carbon Copy Cloner runs, it also copies the home directory backup to the backup. Essentially, I have 3 local copies of my home directory: the original, the backup on the media drive, and the backup of the backup on the mirrored drive.

If that’s not enough for you, I have another backup drive that is used for Time Machine backups that only backs up my iMac’s hard drive (so it does not backup my media as that is all on an external drive larger than the Time Machine volume). I only back this up when my iMac warns me that it hasn’t been backed up using Time Machine in 10 days. I mainly use this in case something happens and I need to restore things such as preference panes and other machine configurations that aren’t backed up using my other methods.

Do you do backups? What does your backup plan look like?

Recently, I decided to start looking for a nicer pair of earbuds that I could use while working out. One of the major problems with earbuds is their tendency to fall out while moving a lot. I went on Best Buy’s website and started looking at earbuds to see what I could find. That’s when I found the Bose MIE2i earbuds. They have a patented Stay Hear feature that provides extra support in the ear so that they are less likely to move around and fall out. I asked around on Twitter and read the reviews and saw mostly positive things about them. Everyone I talked to said they love the sound quality. I decided to bit the bullet and buy these as they were the only ones I could find that looked like they would provide a durable, comfortable fit.

As soon as I tried these bad boys out I was not disappointed. I get it now. I understand why people opt for the high quality equipment. The sounds produced by these tiny buds were amazing. The basses were deep and I heard other tones in my music that I’ve never heard before. It was like experiencing some of my favorite music as if it were my first time listening. I knew right away that I would not feel bad about dropping $130 on earbuds. I should note that I use my earbuds a lot as I use them while working out as well as pretty much all day at work. Best Buy even ran a sale on them this week so I took my receipt back and got $13 back, so these great earbuds are now even more worth it. Even though I’ve only had them for a week, I definitely recommend them.

Last year, local station KSDK aired some of the games. At the end of the season last year, the Cardinals announced all games would be broadcast on FSMW this season. Fast forward 6 months or so and we Fox Sports Midwest wants additional carrier fees because they have 20 additional games. Most major companies are willing to comply because Cardinals have some of the most watched games in baseball. Charter, all satellite providers, and many smaller cable companies paid the fee. AT&T’s Uverse did not.

So, Uverse customers will now miss 20 games (17 to go) of Cardinals baseball because UVerse and FSMW could not reach a deal. So, what can you do? You can call both companies to complain, but I highly doubt Fox Sports will listen. Uverse customers are just a small percentage of overall viewership. No, if you really want your voice heard, contact AT&T and complain or even cancel. If you really want to hurt AT&T’s business, cancelling is the best thing you can do. Some people might not want to flat-out cancel though. If that is the case, call and complain and demand a discount. I’ve seen them give $15 off a month for 6 months to some customers. When I called and complained they offered $25 off a month for 6 months. I would start there. Demand the discount. Hurt their bottom line. That is the only way they will listen.

Earlier this week my payment to Rackspace did not go through. Curious as to why this is the case, I logged into the control panel and started a live chat with one of their support representatives. Because it was a billing issue, they suggested I email their billing department as they couldn’t help me. This type of thing is frustrating, but common with most companies. Since I had support on live chat I decided to inquire about Google Chrome support. I opened a ticket the previous day about this issue but had not heard back from anyone. Over 24 hours to reply to a ticket is not the type of support I was used to. On the live chat, I was told that Chrome wasn’t officially supported. This kind of shocked me. Chrome is now the #3 browser and is already at version 10. It’s hardly a beta product. It should be something that they support. I was left kind of disappointed.

Since I got my answer to my ticket in live chat, I went in and closed the ticket I had opened. When closing it you get to rate the helpfulness of support. Since no one bothered to reply to the ticket, I gave it the lowest rating possible; a 0 out of 5. I did have to go out of my way to get an answer to an already submitted ticket, after all. Within an hour of closing the ticket I receive a call from an unrecognizable number. It happened to be Rackspace. They wanted to make sure I was satisfied and apologized for my dissatisfaction with the ticket I had opened. They gave me correct information about Chrome (it’s a problem with Chrome and Windows 7 when you have new email sound notification enabled, it freezes the browser) and apologized for not responding to the ticket and making me seek support from the live chat.

Needless to say, what started out as a bad customer experience turned out to be a good one. Rackspace knew I was dissatisfied and they made up for it. After rating tickets and surveys and performance with just about every company that asks for them, I honestly was not expecting anything to come from that low rating. Nothing ever does. To my surprise, Rackspace did. It shows they are willing to go the extra mile to make sure they have happy customers.

Kudos Rackspace.

First off, let me say I do not regret my purchase. The iPad is every bit as awesome as I thought it would be. I’ve used it browsing the web, reading my RSS feeds, reading books, and playing games. I use Reeder for feed reading. The app is great on the iPhone but the iPad reader is extraordinary. I thought it would take some time to get used to reading books in iBooks, but it hasn’t. I actually enjoy it. The app that I use, and love, the most is Zite. It’s a news app that creates a personalized newspaper for the user. The interface is great and it incorporates so many different news sources you will always finde something interesting to read.

The keyboard will take some getting used to. I try to type without looking at the keyboard, but because the keyboard is smaller than a physical keyboard it does make it difficult to do at times. Once you get in the rhythm of the layout, it becomes easier and easier. The web browsing is surprisingly fast, thanks to the changes in iOS 4.3 and the dual core processor. I’ve not played any graphics heavy games, but I’m sure that will change with time.

The smart cover is also an ingenious product from Apple. The stands it creates are perfect for typing and watching video and it does protect screen. I do have to minor issues with it. It tends to leave bars down te screen where the creases meet the glass. This can be solved by wiping it with a soft cloth, but it is still kind of annoying. The other issue is that it does not protect the back. I’m not interested in protecting the back from damage, a smart cover would not do that. It would be nice if it protected it from dirt though.

Anyway, I love my new iPad and am so glad I finally got one. I can’t wait to see what other apps and uses I can find.