Ok so for this edition we are going to focus on the Apple Mountain Lion OS announcement.

We do know it will arrive this summer and will be even closer tied to the iOS in terms of messaging, contacts, and calendars, as well as notes and reminders in edition to many other features. Now for the bad news, there are a number of systems it will not run on (mine included).

Here is a video of 30 features in it.

Tim Cook sat down for an interview with the Wall Street Journal to talk about Mountain Lion.

Of course there is the official Apple video of features.

So that is the lowdown on Mountain Lion. I have downloaded Messages which is available in beta and replaces iChat at least in name. Love it so far as I can get texts from my friends and family that are using iOS 5 iMessage.

Back tomorrow with more news.

Hello everybody, I decided to separate the tech news from my daily blog and put into the TupeloGeek blog.

Shep Smith goes off on AT&T and data throttling. He is not a happy camper and even compares them to crack dealers.

This is a pretty good step by step on Enabling push notifications on Tweetbot. I have been using it for a while but notifications are not enabled by default. Now it is the most complete Twitter app for me.

Siri speaks Japanese, as well as a few other languages when it rolls out to those countries.

Downloaded the new Clear app for the iPhone. A review will be forthcoming, but here is a video showing an overview of what it can do.

Clear for iPhone – Available Now! from Realmac Software on Vimeo.

Ultrabooks suck, customers only want the MacBook Air. No surprise really, why buy a pretender when you can get the real deal.

Apple iPad Driving Accelerated Enterprise Transition Away from Printing. Makes a lot of sense really, why print when you have a device you can easily distribute into the field with live updated content.

Hello everybody and welcome to what I hope is the re-launch of Tuesday Tech Talk. Going forward it will be more of a review of a certain hardware or software app as opposed to a rundown of general tech news. So with that in mind I want to talk about a new app I am using on both my MacBook and my iPhone and iPad, it is called Day One and it basically allows you to jot down thoughts, updates, links and even YouTube videos as you go along through the day. They make a version for the desktop which runs $9.99 and for the iOS at $1.99 and the best part is it has iCloud built in as well as Dropbox support so whatever you record on one device will appear on the other.

I had seen it promoted on both the Mac App Store and the iTunes App Store but then my good friend Scott mentioned it to me as a way to keep up with my blogging, so I checked out their website and sure enough it is the missing link I have been looking for. You can star certain posts that you view as more important, in my case these are things I want to record into my daily blog I have started as a result of using it which you can see here. What I really like about it is how it handles HTML. For instance copying YouTube embed code will actually display the video within Day One on the desktop (I have not tried it on the iOS side yet). At the end of the day I simply copy and paste my entries into MarsEdit on the MacBook or the WordPress app if I am blogging from the iOS. One feature I hope they add is the ability to export your daily entry right into a blog app like ME or WP.

Overall I have to say I love using it and I highly recommend it to anyone if they are looking to blog daily or simply to maintain a journal and yes it does offer a passcode/password entry on both versions for privacy concerns. Best $12 I have spent! 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.

You may have noticed there has been a lot of discussion from your friends on social networking sites such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and many others, as well as from search engines and web hosting services such as Google and BlueHost. So what is this SOPA (House bill) and Protect IP (Senate Bill)? Well, here is a short video explaining the problems it may well cause to both users and websites and web hosts. Call your Senator and Representative and tell them to vote no on this unnecessary legislation.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

I’m asked a lot on where is a good source to both register a domain and host a website. It is real simple folks, BlueHost! They make it so easy. You can register a domain on their site and then setup hosting there too. Best of all if you have more than one website like I do (4 right now), they offer unlimited hosting as well as setting up personalized email accounts based on your domain. Best of all they have come out again SOPA. Their hosting makes it super easy to install a blog or whatever it is you want to do with your website using a variety of install tools available from their website. BlueHost can’t be beat IMHO!

So I have made a decision to make a full time commitment to Google+ effective the first of the year. What that means is my activity on Facebook will be reduced quite a bit. I will still maintain my account mostly to post photos of Savannah and to interact with my non-Google+ friends there.

I think 2012 is going to be the year of Google+, I see Google a lot of cool features to it to make it even more attractive. If you haven’t checked out Google+ you really should just for the benefit of Circles alone.

Finally, this will be my last blog post of the year so I thought I would share a Christmas photo of daddy and his daughter after we picked up the family Christmas tree. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

I know it has been a while since I last wrote. Just a lot going on to sit down and write a good blog post. I have been keeping up with tech news and the stuff I find interesting, I am posting it to both my Facebook,Twitter, and Google+ profiles. I am also launching a Google+ Page for the blog side of things. Mostly as a way to keep the tech news on one side and everything else in my life on the profile side. Once everything is setup there the way I like it, I will post the official link.

I have started to read “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson and I am 2 chapters in. I have so many ebooks to keep track of it is not even funny. Recently I got an Eye-Fi card for my digital camera but it has been giving me headaches in terms of uploading to the computer consistently. A new software update came out for Eye-Fi yesterday so hopefully that will help. We are taking the digital to a cabin in Dismals Canyon this weekend so I hope to have some great pictures. They say the place has limited to no cell phone range and the cabin has no WiFi. Real addicts call this withdrawal what I am about to go through with no internet access for 2 days. That will be a blog post in itself on how everything goes. I will be taking the Kindle with me though so I hope to knock out some reading at night. The cabin has a TV with satellite but I am going to try and avoid TV while there.

Other stuff going on, my mom had hip replacement surgery and she is doing great, she is already walking around better than before and she says she can’t wait to keep up with Savannah when she starts to walk. Mom has not taken up my offer to walk a 5K yet next year but who knows, maybe she will surprise us all and do one. Speaking of which, I need to work on getting back into shape. Ever since we had Savannah my workout routine got put on hold but that is mostly bad scheduling on my part than anything.

Well, I guess that is about it. I hope to get back into the habit of blogging on a routine basis again. See ya’!

Great video from CNN this morning with an interview with Steve Wozniak.

Trying out the updated WordPress app for the iOS which allows for more editing tools.

As you may have noticed I have not updated this space as much as I have in the past. There are several reasons for this, the biggest one of course is the new addition to our family. But there have been other factors as well. I have come to realize in my new role as a father in addition to that of a husband, that there are some bigger issues right now than tech news. I am becoming more concerned with the direction this country is headed in in addition to that of the world as well. These are things that are taking more of my time these days on following. I don’t know what direction this blog is heading toward yet, but I do know I want to be a part of the solution and not sit on the sidelines watching the wheels go round and round. So bear with me as I decide just what to do in the blogging world as it relates to getting involved in creating solutions for our world.

Rob

WOW! Had no idea Chris Farley was still alive!

Power Lines Fall on Crashed Vehicle, Driver Trapped: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

Appreciate your vision to technological revolution and transforming my digital world. Be well!

Howdy folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. Today we got our regular news round-up and after I have a product review on the new Roku 2. Let’s get right into things.

No Link between Cell phones and Brain Cancer according to study

I always thought the “cell phones will give you brain cancer” theory was nuts and now a European study backs up my opinion on this matter. But texting while driving may kill you and/or others, so don’t do that!

Microsoft and Google and the Great Patent Debate of 2011

Have to admit as an Apple fanboy, watching Microsoft and Google argue over patents is like watching Iran and Iraq go to war for 10 years, you don’t care who wins, you just hope they do enough damaged to one another to make it easier for your side. Of course Google has attacked Apple too but Apple is not having a public argument the way Microsoft is. It is also the reason Google is buying Motorola. Yes, we do need some patent reform in this country as well.

SiriusXM 2.0 Coming Later this Year

I am a SiriusXM subscriber and this sounds pretty cool, it is like bringing podcast style playback to the radio. Listen to programs on-demand and pause and rewind and what not. I like to listen to The Catholic Channel and in particular The Catholics Next Door where Greg Willits is always saying something witty that I want to hear again.

Billy Dee Williams defends Lando betraying Han

Allow me for a second to relive my childhood and one of the most painful memories as a boy…seeing Han put into Carbon Freeze in Empire Strikes Back…damn you Lando! Ok so Billy Dee Williams was at ComicCon this year and explains just why Lando did what he did. Enjoy!

Roku 2 Review

My wife and I have enjoyed our AppleTV on our main HDTV in the living room for quite some time now. One of the issues though has been how do we get Netflix on our second TV in the bedroom that is still a tube 4:3 standard-definition (SD) television. I have followed Roku for some time now and my friend Jeremy has one at his house to watch Netflix on. Recently, Roku launched a second generation of their media box devices and they have a much more AppleTV look to them and even a bit smaller and lighter on top of that.

So this past weekend after having lunch with my wife and daughter, we went to Best Buy where I went in and got one.

Let me just say it is even better than I thought it would be. I can’t get over all the channels it offers, much more than the AppleTV offers actually. Course it doesn’t have AirPlay so I can’t stream content from my Mac and iOS devices to it like I can the AppleTV, but it has Hulu Plus, Pandora, Amazon Instant Video, in addition to Netflix, also there is a free movie service called Crackle that it offers which is like Hulu in that it has free content with short 30 second commercials throughout the movie.

For hooking up to a SD television it comes with all that you need, RCA cables and it even comes with batteries for the remote.

You can also hook it up via an HDMI connection but you will have to buy an HDMI cable seperatley which is routine for most HDMI devices (AppeTV, Blu-ray players, etc.). It also has a Micro SD card slot for additional storage. As far as I can tell the Roku 2 is a cloud device much like the AppleTV 2.

After about 30 minutes of configuring Netflix, Hulu Plus, MLB At Bat, and Pandora, we were off and running with all it can offer.

It is an outstanding device and I can tell you without reservations if you are deciding between a Roku and an AppleTV and don’t care about AirPlay and iTunes movies and TV shows, get the Roku! Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video go a long way as replacements for iTunes Store although you won’t be able to get NCIS on the Roku I should point out.

You can order from Roku directly or buy them at Best Buy and Radio Shack. They have 3 different models, a $59, $79, and $99 model. The difference between those is this, the $59 model supports up to 720p, the $79 model supports 1080p, and the $99 model comes with the enhanced game play remote and Angry Birds as well as an Ethernet option if you lack WiFi. Of course you will need a high-speed internet connection to take advantage of the services it offers and hopefully your ISP is less crappy than mine is. I should also note that Best Buy and Radio Shack do not sell the $59 model.

It’s a great gift if you have a son or daughter going off to college as well.

Well, that is going to do it for this week’s Tuesday Tech Talk. See you all next week for more tech news and come back later in the week for Apple and Google news. Bye!

Apologies but due to Comcast being a worthless Internet provider, there will be no Googling Friday blog post today.

Hello everybody and welcome to this week’s edition of AppleTalk Thursday, a weekly blog about all things in the world of Apple, Inc. covering Macs to iPhones to the AppleTV. Let’s see what is happening this week!

Apple brings TV Show buying to AppleTV, future Netflix and Hulu killer service, and iTV Rumors

Apple this week brought the ability to purchase and watch TV shows on the AppleTV. Previously you could only rent TV shows but thanks to iCloud, you can now buy and watch right within the AppleTV allowing the show to be stored in the cloud. It works like a charm, I watched Robot Chicken, Star Wars Episode III with it and was able to watch instantly just like on Netflix streaming. This is why I think ultimately, this is why Apple will not buy Hulu. The update to AppleTV also brought Vimeo to it as well. This is a sneak preview of the upcoming iTunes Replay service for other devices. It could also mean that Apple may have a deal in place to rival Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon for a subscription-based movies and TV shows on demand service. Still even more speculation is pointing to Apple have a branded HDTV by March of next year.

PayPal goofs on Lion Purchases

If you bought OS X Lion via PayPal you may want to check your account. Several users are reporting multiple charges for the $30 cost of Lion, one user was even charged 122 times for a total of $3.878. To their credit PayPal is correcting the issue. No problems here but I didn’t use PayPal for my Lion purchase.

Lion and Gesturing

Google has released a new developer build of Chrome to take better advantage of the new gesturing features in Lion. No word on when it will be out for the general consumer as of yet. Among the fixes in it is the 2 finger gesture to move between pages (3 before). This is a correction to gesture changes in Lion of course and if you are confused about the gestures, you’re not alone and The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a good article on it.

Apple has more Cash Reserve than America

You know who has more cash on hand than the United States Government? Yep, Apple, as of this article Apple has $76 Billion in cash vs. $73 Billion. Course with the new debt ceiling bill recently passed I’m sure this has changed. But maybe America could take a lesson from the State of Alaska and invest in Apple?

Apple now World’s Largest Smartphone Maker

Apple surpassed Nokia to become the world’s largest smartphone maker in the second quarter of this year. In Q2 Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones to 19.2 million for Samsung and 16.7 million for Nokia.

On top of that news, Apple is now taking 2/3 of of mobile phone industry profits.

Then there is this little tidbit that if Apple were to pursue legal battles like they have successfully with HTC and Samsung in Australia, with other Android handset makers and win out, they stand to rake in an addition $30 billion in annual revenue and a 10% shift in marketshare for smartphones.

iPhone 5 Weekly Rumor Roundup

Here is the latest in this week’s next-gen iPhone rumors and tidbits. According to DigiTimes, Apple has ordered 10 million units of the iPhone 5 ahead of a September launch. The more news I hear the more it sounds like we will see a new iPhone in September despite one report that mentioned October as a month for its launch. Another report has 2 iPhones launching this fall, an iPhone 5 and a simplified iPhone 4 according to Chinese sources. Not sure I believe the part about a revised iPhone 4, just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me so I am skeptical on this report.

So what about the latest in rumored images of the new iPhone? Well, we have some of those too. The images come from Boy Genius, I think these are fakes but it adds to the “could it be?”. factor.

With all the news of the upcoming iPhone, it should come as no surprise that 74% of Verizon iPhone buyers are waiting for the new model rather than buying the current iPhone 4 according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. Additionally, Target and Radio Shack have cut prices on the iPhone 4 in order to help clear out stock for the iPhone 5.

PC vs. Mac News

Another week of good bragging news for fellow Apple Fanboys (and girls). PC  Ultrabook manufacturers seem to be having a hard time  of being able to match pricing of the Apple MacBook Air. Ultrabook’s are MacBook Air wannabe look-a-likes as noted in the image below.

Don’t know about you, but I will take the real deal and avoid using a crappy subpar operating system that is Windows.

In another bit of bragging rights, a Vancouver-based consulting group Aptiquant recently did an experiment in which they offered free IQ tests to 100,000 users, their study showed that users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had lower IQ’s than those that used Chrome, Firefox, and…wait for it…Safari! Obviously it is not a scientific study but some good humor tech news to share at the water cooler.

iCloud and iTunes News

As we get closer to the Fall season, we also near the release of Apple’s iCloud service. With the new iCloud service, Apple will be launching a new version of iTunes with tight integration with iCloud. Apple also has launched an iCloud login screen for developers to use as a replacement for MobileMe. They also announced pricing plans that are in additional to the 5GB free plan. Engadget has a look at the iCloud service as well as AppleInsider.

Flying MacBook Air

Finally, some good humor at just how light the MacBook Air is. Very creative video these folks put together. Enjoy!

Well, I know this was quite a lengthy AppleTalk Thursday but there is so much going on in the world of Apple right now that every day there is a new story out. See you all next week!

Hello everyone and welcome to the 100th edition of Tuesday Tech Talk! When I started writing this blog back in May of 2009, I had no idea that 2 years later I would be up to 100 editions! I love to write about technology and I want to thank you all for your continued readership. Now I know it is not Tuesday but with parenthood, my schedule is not what it used to be on the blogging front. So let’s see what is going on this week in tech.

Amazon Tablet to Support only 2 Fingers?

Interesting article here about Amazon’s much rumored tablet device and the possibility it will only support 2 finger gesturing. The iPad for example supports 10. I just can’t believe Amazon would produce a tablet that only supports 2 fingers but who knows.

RIM’s More Layoffs and Bad News

BlackBerry maker RIM (Research in Motion) has announced yet another round of layoffs and shuffling of executives. In addition Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has a new study out indicating that 67% of BlackBerry users are eying the Apple iPhone as their next smartphone.  Needless to say this has been a rough year for RIM and with iPhone and Android sales continuing to grow, it doesn’t look good in the long run for them either.

LinkedIn adds Apply Button on Websites

LinkedIn has added a button for various companies to use on job postings that allows people to apply for them and use the information on their LinkedIn profile, to apply for that position. This is a pretty smart idea, being someone that has filled out many job applications until I became a dad, it would be a whole lot easier if my information to the employer could just be based on my LinkedIn profile.

Fox to Limit Next Day Episodes on Hulu to Paying TV Customers

Fox is now limiting next day airing of its shows on Hulu to customers who pay for their TV services. Currently they only have a deal in place for Dish Network customers only.  This is cable and satellite companies last ditch effort to keep customers from canceling their services. In the long run though, the evolution of technology will win out, after all, when was the last time you bought a CD or went to Blockbuster to rent a movie?

AT&T to Throttle Unlimited Data Users

AT&T has announced that starting October 1st, Unlimited Data customers who exceed a certain threshold in data consumed, will have their network speed throttled back. How nice of these morons! These telecoms and cable companies are making great profits yet won’t re-invest  their money into building fast and more robust networks, instead they choose to punish the consumer. I hate that Comcast has a 250GB monthly data cap and I hate AT&T’s new data plan! Stop screwing the customers and build a better network that can handle the load or get out of the telecom business and let someone like Google or Apple in that will do it.!

Redbox adds Video Games to more Kiosks

Redbox is adding video games to 5000 more of its kiosks across the country starting this past Monday. This makes total sense but I am still curious as to how they get all those discs into their machines? It is almost like how Gibbs got the boat out of his basement on NCIS.

Adobe Embraces HTML5…Finally!!

Adobe has announced a new product called Adobe Edge which allows web designers to use HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS to design content with instead of Flash which I believe is a dying technology.

Angry Birds the Bra

Finally today SceeneShoes has designed uh, an Angry Birds bra. Yes, you heard me right, if your a woman and love to play Angry Birds you can now get a matching bra and if you are a man, well I really don’t want to know so keep it to yourself.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. See you next week for more news about technology!

Hello folks and welcome to a long overdue Googling Friday. We have a lot to catch up on in the world of Google as well as a review of their new social network Google+. So let’s get right into things!

Google made $9 billion in Q2

Google has announced that it had revenues of $9.02 billion in Q2 as well as $2.51 billion in net income. That is a 32% increase over the same quarter last year. Google’s various sites made up 69% of the revenues.

Netflix Expands to 24 Android devices

Netflix has updated its app to now support 24 different Android models, also of note it works on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Motorola Xoom tablet devices as well.

Google Says Goodbye to Google Labs

Google has announced it is winding down its Google Labs service. This was a cool place to visit to try out new things Google was cooking up. I enjoyed it as a geek but look forward to seeing how they might deply future projects for early test dummies…err…I mean  adopters.

New Gmail and Calendar look, enhancements to Google Voice

Google has taken the look of Google+ and added it to the look of Gmail and Calendar if you so desire to use that theme. Also a new feature to Google Voice is the ability to make simultaneous calls.

Google+ Review

So I have been using Google’s new social network, Google+ for about 3 weeks now and I must say that despite it being in beta status, it is quite impressive already. Right now the only way to join Google+ is by invite but as of now Google+ already has 20 million users which is nothing to sneeze at. My favorite feature by far is Circles, basically Circles is something you create and then add your friends to. It can be anything you want from something as basic as a Friends circle to topic based ones like Football, Politics, Tech, etc. The advantage here is you can post a message to only specific circles that might be of interest to your topic or you can post a Public post which anyone can see and I do mean anyone. If you just want to post to people you have in your circles you can post to Your Circles.

Another feature is Hangout, Hangout is a video chat with up to 9 other people, you can also watch YouTube videos together in Hangout. If you use Picasa for your photos you will be happy to know that it is integrated right into Google+, but if you are like me and a lot of your photos are on Facebook, there is a way to port them over to Google+. Course any social network site has to have a mobile app these days and Google+ is no exception supporting both an Android and an iPhone version (unfortunatley there is no tablet version at this time.), both are free and support the same features. The Mobile version also allows for mobile photo uploading and checking in like Four Square and Facebook Places. Unique to the mobile versions is a feature called Huddle which allows you to do group IM to any particular user(s) or circles.

So, is this a replacment for Facebook? At this point, no, certainly Facebook has huge user base of 550 million users at last count, but there are some compelling reasons to use Google+ over Facebook. Eric Schmidt has also stated he would love to have more integration with Facebook and Twitter and if you are a Google Chrome user, there is an extension called Start Google+ that will allow you to cross post and read you Facebook and Twitter feeds from within Google+.

So my recommendation is yes I would totally get a Google+ account and if you are not a member yet, I have the ability to send out invites, just send me your email address if you want one. It is a great service and Circles is just awesome when you don’t want to share to the entire world. If you want to add some cool Google+ icons to your blog or website here is a great source for them.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Googling Friday. See you all next week for more news from Google. Have a great weekend!

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of AppleTalk Thursday. In this week’s edition we’re going to go over some Apple news and then I am going to give my first impressions of Lion. So let’s get right down to things.

Editor of Windows Magazine now Apple Fanboy

In a great article on Cult of Mac, Mike Elgan former Editor of Windows Magazine, gives a testimony on how he saw the light and became a fan and user of Apple products. I like the last line in his testimony, “If Apple can turn the editor of Windows Magazine into a fanboy, no one is safe.” So true!

Official Star Trek PADD app for iPad

If you are a fan of Star Trek and own an iPad then there is a must app for you! Giving you a touchscreen access to all sorts of Star Trek information. This one is the official app to top things off.

HTC loses to Apple on patent infrignement

The U.S. International Trade Commision recently ruled in Apple’s favor regarding a patent violation by Android handset maker HTC. If the judgement is made final, HTC could be banned from importing their phones into the US market. Here is what I think will happen, HTC will wind up paying a roalty to Apple setting a presecednt for similar touchscreen smartphone makers to make similar payments to Apple basically meaning that for every Android or Windows Phone 7 sold, Apple gets bank. Course Eric Schmidt is trying to spin things a different way, but the truth is Apple did patent the technology and even said they had the patent pending way back in 2007 when they showed off the iPhone.

iOS-based Universal Remotes Reviewed

There are a lot of options these days to control your living room entertainment with your favorite iOS device. Question is which one to choose? Well, The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a break down of the options available. It is a good article if one is thinking of buying one of the choices out there.

Apple Store coming to Grand Central

Apple has announced it is building its largest retail store on the balcony at Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

iPhone Weekly

Time for more iPhone news roundup this week.

AT&T Sold 3.6 Million iPhones in June Quarter

AT&T announced that they sold 3.6 million iPhones for the June Quarter. The number trumped that of what Verizon sold which makes sense as AT&T has the $49 3GS which Verizon doesn’t carry so that may account for the big numbers.

iPhone 5 to Launch September?

Another rumor hinting that the next generation iPhone will arrive in mid-September and that AT&T is preparing for a launch of the phone, this according to Boy Genius Report.

iOS 5 Rundown

Of course it would make sense that when the iPhone 5 (or 4S), is released that the iOS 5 will also be released around that time. I am looking forward to a lot of features in iOS 5 and 2 of my favorites are going to be the new notication system and iMessage. AppleInsider has an inside look at these new features, I like the idea of a receding keyboard for iMessage myself. Here is a look at notications and iMessage with a receding keyboard.

I like that the corresponding app icon now appears next to the notification.

Part of the problem when writing a message is the keyboard takes up so much space. With a receding keyboard, this reduces that issue.

Yet another cool feature is Over-The-Air updates and Delta updates which means you no longer have to sync to a computer to get the latest OS update. Here is a video that shows how it will work.

iOS 4.3.5 Update

Speaking of updates, Apple this week released a minor update to address a vulnerability with certification violation.

Apple Forces Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WSJ to strip out of app purchasing link

As expected Amazon, Barnes & Noble, the Wall Street Journal, and several others have updated their apps to remove an out of app purchasing link. What this means if if you use the Kindle app for example, you can no longer buy books from within the iOS devices but instead have ot manage it via Amazon’s website or through an actual Kindle. From there just visit the archive list on the Kindle app to download new books. This is one issue that quite frankly Apple is being a butt-head on!

Facebook iPhone App Flaws

I have had a problem with the Facebook app on my iPhone for quite sometime and apparently I am not the only one.  A lot of times the push notifications won’t work and comments to my photos won’t show up on the post even though I have a notification that someone did comment on it. Facebook needs to scrap the app and rebuild from scratch!

Theology of iCloud

One of the cool things certain to arrive with the iOS 5 is the iCloud service and Andy Ihnatko has a good article on MacWorld that should check out.

Apple has How Much Cash?

We all know Apple is doing well these days, but just how good? Well according to MacObserver, it has more cash on hand than 2/3rds of the world’s countries. That is pretty astonishing! It is also expected to surpass Exxon very soon as the world’s largest market cap company.

So just what will Apple buy with all that cash? There is speculation they maybe in on a bid for Hulu. Stay tuned!

Owensboro, Kentucky students to get 2200 MacBook Airs

Students and faculty in Owensboro, KY will receive 2200 units of the new MacBook Air laptops. Lucky!

Microsoft Admits to bugs in Office for Mac under Lion

Microsoft has admitted that there are indeed bugs with their Mac Office suite under OS X Lion. Here is my question, why would it have bugs? Microsoft as a software developer had access to the beta editions of Lion to see what issue may arrise and to push updates out for Office prior to Lion’s release. Once again Microsoft fails big time!

Lion Reivew

Ok time fior the OS X Lion review. As many of you know, Lion arrived last Wednesday in the Mac App Store for $30. I downloaded it that morning and it came in at about 3.5 GB download size and luckily my internet proider was feeling generous that day and it downloaded in about an hour. At that point it asked me if I wanted to install which I did, the install part took about 30 minutues so all in all, expect about a 60 minute upgrade process between the download and install, of course your mileage may vary based on internet connection.

Once installed it is of course a very iOS look to things with gesturing and what not. What I would recommend is getting the Magic Trackpad to take full advantage of the gesturing features such as swiping from full screen app to full screen app. I love using Safari, Chrome, Mail, and Mars Edit in full screen, didn’t think I would be excited about this feature but I am and it just about makes the 11″ MacBook Air look appealing with this feature.

Safari 5.1 is really cool as well, I love the Reading List feature which is like bookmarking a page in a way to read later. Think of it is partial bookmarking and partial starringan article in Google Reader. Course I discussed how it does full screen as well. iChat is about the same but it does bring Yahoo IM to the party so I have now tossed Yahoo Messenger to the trash and just use iChat to talk to mom, the only person I really chat with on Yahoo these days. It also allows you to specifiy a different status message for each service, for example I can have one status message on Google Talk, another for AIM, and yet a third for Yahoo IM. Pretty cool.

Course there is Mission Control which allows you to see all your apps running on multiple desktops and create new desktops. Launchpad is cool as well as you can see your apps via icons and scroll through pages like you would on an iPhone or iPad.

Now here are some tips and tricks. Ars Technica has a very in-depth review of Lion and really gets under the hood. MacWorld has a look at what’s new in QuickTime and Preview,  Safari 5.1, and Address Book.. Also Cult of Mac has a step-by-step how to on making a Bootable Install Disk of Lion.

Overall I would highly recoomend upgrading to Lion, the price is really cheap and the features you get are just awesome! I mentioned gesturing but did you know there are some hidden gestures as well? Check out the article on them here for a good laugh.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of AppleTalk Thursday. Be back next week for more Apple news, I think I am caught up on Apple news after my absense from this space. See you next week!

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. We are one shy of the big 100! Can you believe it? Well let’s see what is going on this week in tech news of the non-Apple and Google world.

Netflix Jacks Prices on DVD’s, Universe Explodes

Netflix has come under massive fire for going to a streaming pricing + DVD pricing plan starting 9/1. Under the old plan the streaming service was included in your DVD plan but that will no longer be the case come the first of September. Coincedently, I had just finished up the last of The Mentalist in my DVD queue which were the last discs in that queue. I have been using the steaming service so much more anyway that I decided to just cut out our disc plan and just have a streaming only plan so for me my bill will be cheaper. But I understand how others will be quite upset with the new pricing structure.

Amazon Kindle 3G gets Ad Supported Model

Like its WiFi only sibling, the Amazon Kindle 3G now has an ad supported model at a reduced price of $139, this is the same price as the WiFi only non-ad supported model. As someone that has the WiFi only ad supported model, I can say the ads are not a big deal and never appear when your reading content, it is just on the home screen at the very bottom and on screen savers.

Pandora ditches Adobe Flash

Yet another company ditching old technology for HTML5. Pandora the popular music streaming service is dropping Flash support in its web-based player in favor of HTML5. I have said for a while how I think Flash is an old technology and that HTML5 is really where the migration needs to move to. It is why I laugh at these so-called “iPad killer tablets” can support Flash, notice they don’t mention battery life in association with using Flash which can be very processor taxing. Good job Pandora and just in time to take on Spotify too!

Spotify Arrives in America

So since we last gathered in this space, Spotify the European based music streaming service has finally arrived in the USA! I have used it since day one choosing to go ahead and pay for a subscription plan rather than wait for an invite to the free service. It is just what I had expected and much more! Unlike Pandora where you can put in an artist or a song and you get a similar artist or song to it, Spotify will play the actual song if it is part of their library and for the most part, they do have those songs in their service. Do a search for Johnny Cash or Frank Sinatra and you will know what I mean. There are some artists of course who are not part of it as they are other services like Garth Brooks and Bob Seger for example and you won’t find The Beatles there since they have an exclusvity with iTunes right now. The biggest advantage of Spotify is it allows you to listen to full songs you wouldn’t buy on iTunes like you know, playing Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice…not saying I have done that…but I’m not saying I didn’t either. They have downloadable clients for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. Here is a look at their paid plans, I recommend the $9.99 plan though.

Facebook Video Chat Review

In the last edition of Tuesday Tech Talk I talked briefly on how Facebook and Skype got together to create 1-on-1 video chatting. I finally got to use the service with my wife with her in the iMac and me on my MacBook as we sat 10 feet apart from each other. It is a nice service and there is a brief one time download of a file that each computer must do to get it to work but once installed it works pretty well. My only criticism of the service is it is only 1-on-1 where Hangout in Google+ allows up to 10 users to chat for free. Skype offers group video chat but charges for it.

Roku 2 is Here

Roku has come out with the second generation of its TV content streaming service hardware. The new models are much smaller much like the AppleTV 2 model and even offers a Wii style remote to play Angry Birds on. Pricing on the new models is the same as the first generation at $59, $79, and $99, you can buy from the Roku site directly or find 2 of the models at participating Best Buys.

Verizon Flips the Switch on 28 new LTE Markets

Verizon last week added 28 new markets to its LTE network bringing it to a total of 102 markets. So if you have an LTE capable phone, your browsing just got a lot faster if you live in those markets.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. I will see you later in the week for AppleTalk Thursday where we will be discussing the latest Apple news and my first impressions of OS X Lion. Then Friday we will have Googling Friday where I will have an extensive review of the new Google+ social network service. See you then!

Hey everybody and welcome to a way overdue AppleTalk Thursday. I have had a lot going on in my life as you can imagine but I am looking forward to getting back into the groove of things. Oviously the biggest thing is the new Lion OS for the Mac, but I will hold off on my review until next week as I have a ton of news about all things Apple. So let’s dive right into things.

Apple ranked Fastest-Growing US Retailer

USA Today recently ranked Apple as the fastest-growing US retailer in the first quarter this year, yes even more than Walmart and defintley more than the Microsoft store (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

T-Mobile home to 1 Million iPhones

Did you know that AT&T and Verizon aren’t the only ones that can brag about having an iPhone on their network, oh sure they have the official blessing from Apple and all but T-Mobile now says there are 1 million iPhones on its network.

Final Cut Pro X Debuts to Mixed reaction

The long awaited FInal Cut Pro X has finally arrived via the Mac App Store but to say it is wowing a lot of people would be far feched as it has drawn a lot of criticism as being unfit for professional use while many iMovie users who upgraded to it, love it. Apple product managers are addressing the issue though. Will be interersting how they handle the complaints as any fixes requested by professional users would be more of an upgrade than a slight update. On the positive side of things, MacWorld did give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Skype coming to the iPad

It appears that Skype is finally coming to the iPad in native form. They accidently leaked a promo video for it but not before it was ripped by a user sans audio. Have a peak and let me know what you think.

The Pope Tweets from an iPad

The Vatican recently launched a news site and as part of its promotion, Pope Benedict using an iPad, sent out a tweet telling people about it. As both an Apple fan and a Catholic, I thought this was pretty cool!

State and National Parks on Your iPhone

It is summer time and a lot of folks take that time to go traveling across the country and explore this great country of ours. Did you know there are several apps to help as guides to our beautiful parks in this country? MacWorld has a nice list of some, full disclosure my friend Raymond wrote the National Parks Explorer app. But check out the list they put together.

iPhone Roundup Weekly

Welcome to the blog within a blog, a brief rundown of all things iPhone related.

iOS More Secure than Android

According to Symantec, the Apple iOS offers more protection to its users than the Android OS. This comes as no surprise as the Apple App Store is more closed than that of the Android Market and each app is checked to make sure there is no malicious code in the app. In the past Android has had apps that did have such code in them and to Google’s credit, those apps were pulled quickly.

iPhone vs. the Android World

While we are on this topic, according to Neilsen, the iPhone is growing while Android is flat. Another survey from ChangeWave Research, found similar results as well. Then of course there is the fact that Verizon carrying the iPhone has also played a key part in that as well. Then you have the number of developers bolting from Android to iPhone. Course if you look at actual individual phones the iPhone is now the top selling smartphone now surpassing Nokia. With iOS 5 coming in the Fall, it will be interesting to see how things adjust in the market.

Wedding Shot with iPhone 4′s

So just how good is the camera on the iPhone 4? Well, apparently good enough to take pictures and video of a wedding. Check it out!

iPhone 5 (or 4S) and iPad 3 in the Fall?

Could an iPhone 5 and an iPad 3 be out in the Fall? While the iPhone is due for an update soon with a possible lighter and thinner design according to the Wall Street Journal and yet another source claiming a similar design to the current iPhone 4 and carrying the iPhone 4S title.  Apple rolled out the iPad 2 in Februrary so another iPad this year seems kind of far fetched to me. Although I would love to see one with the much antipicated retina display similar to the iPhone 4.

Apple has Best Quarter Ever

Apple released its sales numbers for the third quarter and they are huge! Profits rising nearly 125% to $7.31 billion on record quarterly sales of $28.57 billion. Mac sales came in at 3.95 million a 14% unit increase over same time last year numbers. iPhone sales were up 142% over same time last year at 20.34 million units for the quarter and 9.25 million iPads which was a 183% increase. There is no recession in Cupertino, CA.

New MacBook AIrs and Mac minis and Thunderbolt Display with Thunderbolt, Goodbye white MacBook

On the same day as releasing Lion to the general public, Apple updated its popular MacBook Air models and also updated the Mac mini desktop computers which both feature Bluetooth 4.0. Also announced is a new 27″ Thunderbolt Display. The MacBook Airs now start off at $999 which of course means the white MacBook has been discontiunued and is only an option for educational institutions. This has been the speculation for a while and comes as no surprise. In addition, the MacBook Airs offer a backlit display keyboard for those dark room times of productivity. Yes, I want one too!

OS X Lion

Of course the biggest news is the new OS X Lion is here and it had over a million downloads on the first day of release. It is $29.99 and you can get it here if you want to take the plunge. I can tell you so far that I am very impressed with it but like I said at the top, I am going to wait until next week to give my full review on Lion. It is worth the upgrade though.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of AppleTalk Thursday (even though it is Friday). I hope to be back in the regular groove of things and posting reguarly again and we are enjoying our new bundle of joy! See you all next week!

Howdy everyone and welcome to a long overdue Tuesday Tech Talk. If you follow my blog on a regular basis you would know that my wife and I have a new edition to the family and our little baby girl is doing great! Now let’s get caught up on some tech stuff!

DirecTV Heads to the Hotels with Anti-germ Remote

DirecTV has announced they have begun testing at several hotel chains its new Residential Experience for Hotels program, offering over 100 HD channels at hotels across the country later this summer. It also comes with an anti-microbial remote control as well. I have to tell you that as a DirecTV customer myself, this is very appealing as if we had to check into a hotel I wouldn’t have to see where my favorite channels were as they would be the same ones as home.

FourSquare hits 10 million users

FourSquare now has more than 10 million users. For those that have never heard of FourSquare, it is a service where you can check in with on your smartphones at different locations. If you check into one place enough times you can become the “mayor” of that place or you can oust someone else as mayor there. Also with each check-in, you get points so if you have enough friends on FourSquare you can compete on the weekly leader-board in points, kind of like NASCAR. The idea is to get out of mom=s basement and go somewhere for geeks…not that there is anything wrong with staying in your mother’s basement.

Facebook to Pass Yahoo as Top Seller of Online Display Ads in 2011

So you know those little ads on Facebook on the right hand side that annoy you? Well they are not going away anytime soon as they are quite the cash cow, so much so that they are posed to surpass Yahoo (remember them?) as the top seller of online display advertising. Earning it about $2.19 billion in revenue for the year…that is a lot of ads!

What is 4G?

You hear a lot of talk about 4G phones these days from different mobile carriers. Most people think 4G is just something faster than 3G but according to the international body responsible for setting the standards, 4G is actually 100 megabits per second, a far cry from what Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile “4G” phones are getting. So basically when these carriers toss around the term “4G”, it is pure marketing talk and not so much actual specs. Also AT&T’s 4G or as they call it LTE, is different than Verizon’s 4G speed so in this case, the mileage definitely varies. James Temple of the San Francisco Chronicle is a great column on this that is worth reading.

Amazon vs. the State of California

So California has a problem, it has spent too much and after the over inflated real estate market bubble burst there, their tax revenues are WAY down. So what does a left wing controlled executive and legislative office do, raises taxes of course! As a result, CA has passed a bill that taxes purchases made on Amazon even though Amazon has no office or distribution center in Cali. So how is CA justifying taxing the items? By arguing that Amazon’s affiliate program represents a presence in the state for affiliates that live there. As a result, Amazon has terminated the affiliate deals with CA residents effecting about 25,000 affiliates. This should be a good fight and I am on Amazon’s side 100% here, take the fight to these big government bullies!

Spotify Coming to America

The popular European music streaming service Spotify has announced it will soon launch in the United States! You can check out there site and register your email address to be notified and get an early invite to the party.

Facebook introduces Skype Video Calling

Last week Facebook announced a partnership with Skype to bring 1-on-1 video chatting to its social network service. Just to burst its bubble Google+ announced its own social network which includes Hangout which can support up to 10 users in a group video chat. Advantage Google! I will have much more to say about Google+ on Friday in my Googling Friday post.

Well, that is going to do it for this week’s Tuesday Tech Talk, be back next week for another edition of tech news and stop by later in the week for AppleTalk Thursday and Googling Friday! See you then!

Happy to report I will be once again blogging this coming week! See you then!