In case you can’t read the caption:

“9:54AM – All the players are here.  Cook, Forstall, Mansfield, Schiller.  No Ive, though, at least not from where we’re seated.  Maybe he’s back up in the balcony.  With a monocle.”

If you aren’t familiar with who Jonathan Ive is, he’s the designer responsible for the iMac, aluminum and titanium PowerBook G4, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  He’s also English, hence the monocle.

Be sure to “friend” me on gdgt.com as well.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

First, Steve jobs got on stage and specifically mentioned a huge problem that I’ve had with the latest version of the iOS, the slow (devastatingly so) performance of version 4.0 of the operating system on the iPhone 3G.  In the past couple weeks Steve Jobs did one of his infamous couple line email responses and said as much, but it was nice to hear that they are putting some work into making my phone, the 3G, perform more like it did with the 3.x verion of the OS.

Second, the iPod Nano.  I own a boxy, fat iPod Nano, not the latest two versions, but one a couple revisions back.  Jobs announced a new version of the player with a new touch interface.  Sweet!  It responds to multitouch, looks to be about the same size or smaller than my current version, and now has a clip.  What it doesn’t have is the video camera that the previous model had.  Boo!  They had a huge announcement about this feature, and now it’s just gone.  No mention at all.  What was also not mentioned, at all, was video playback support.  Now that screen is pretty dang small, even on my fat Nano, but it is nice to be able to watch a movie or video podcast on it once in a while.  The thing has incredible battery life.  I’ve never run out of power while watching video or listening to audio (my default use.)  Turns out, the new Nano doesn’t support video.  A look at the specifications shows no mention of video at all.  A further look at the comparison page of all the current iPod models also shows no battery life estimation for video playback.   Now, instead of paying $149 for a device from Apple that does video playback or records video, you have to purchase an iPod Touch for $229.

Apple can do what it wants to with it’s products.  That’s their right.  But I for one am done.  First my phone is partially disabled with a half baked iOS 4.0 that slowed down my phone so much it became almost unusable even to make phone calls.  But now they’ve neutered what I thought was the sweet spot in their product line, the Nano.

• It was affordable.
• It had great multimedia capability.
• It was the right size.

Well, it was affordable.  As a multimedia device with video and audio capability, it was affordable.  Now, it’s a single purpose device.  It does audio only.  There are more affordable audio players on the market.  I’ve owned them and when my Nano dies, I will be purchasing one of those instead of the Apple product.  One positive, it’s still the right size, small.

Finally, on the iPod comparison page it asks the question, “Which iPod are you?”

My answer, in light of all the changes, has to be NONE OF THE ABOVE.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

Kiss My Face! – Funny Gifs by Senor Gif’s Animated Gif Kittens.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

Love this!

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

Dropbox is a service that gives you a 2GB online storage site. Each computer you install the Dropbox utility on syncs with the online repository. The Dropbox utility also keeps all computer that use the same account synced with the latest version of your files. Anytime you turn on your computer, those files are there and ready for you to use.

Wait! It gets better. You are also able to share your files with others. Just input an email address and Dropbox will make those files available to that person. They don’t have to be Dropbox users themselves. The files are available to them on the Dropbox.com website. They will have to join dropbox to access the files, but then they get the benefit of the service if they choose to install it on their system.

Wait! Again! There’s more. You now have a personal web server with Dropbox. There is a public folder that you can share files from. Simply copy the files to the Public folder and then copy the public link and share it with the world. The Public folder will not execute server code, though you could use Javascript along with HTML and CSS to create a nice little site.

There’s even more to the service. And the best part of all this is the price. It’s free for the 2GB service. If you’d like to have more storage then you can upgrade to one of their pay tiers for 50GB or 100GB.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

When I got there, she explained that she had been on the phone with Verizon for something like 4 hours that day and finally called me.  Why she didn’t call right away, I don’t know.  Anyway, I ran through my battery of tests and everything seemed to be configured correctly, Netgear router, Westell 6100 modem and Windows XP were communicating correctly.  I could ping my office computers by IP address, but when I used pinged them using the domain name I would get some other IP address  And, when I tried to get on a web site I would be redirected to Verizon to “authenticate”.  Verizon had hijacked the connection.

I exhausted what I could do.  Nothing was wrong.  I called Verizon and got a tech on the phone.  He started to run through his spiel and I cut him off and told him what problem I was having in terms that he knew, that I knew what, what I was doing.  He then immediately asked me to log in to the modem and type in this URL:

http://192.168.1.1/verizon/redirect.htm

I did that and was greeted with a warning that this was a “Verizon Only” page and that I had to be authorized to access it.  Also on the page was a single button that said “Disable”.  The tech asked me to click on that button and the connectivity was restored.

Apparently when the power goes out on the modem for a long enough time, the bit on this redirect is switched back to deny access until authenticated.  The tech that my customer didn’t get this during her four hour ordeal with the previous Verizon tech.  She is certainly capable of typing in a URL, but the previous tech had her install all the Verizon crap like toolbars  in Firefox and IE during the troubleshooting process.  Complete unnecessary and the first thing I uninstalled when I got there.

Why post this?  I had not come across this particular problem before so it’s mostly for a reminder to me.  But also, to save you time and money.  If you have Verizon Internet service and have a power outage and suddenly find yourself locked out of the Internet, give the above URL a visit and save yourself a couple hours of headaches.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

I was reminded today of the Max Skate Bike. My dad came home from work with one of these one day. Apparently someone was riding one of these down in Belmont Shore where his barber shop was located. They probably sold them at Jones Bicycle, which is why that day he came home with it.

It was at a time that I was looking to get an upgrade on my regular BMX style bike, rather than something new and weird. Looking back, it was weird, but it was really fun as well. I’d like one right now to scoot around the neighborhood, down to the corner mailbox or follow the little one around the block on their bikes rather than getting my own bike out for just that small bit of riding.

Enjoy the 80′s, day glow nightmare that is the Max Skate Bike commercial.

YouTube – Max Skate Bike.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

I’m going to give it a try and file it under “Things That I Try That My Wife Thinks Are Pointless”.  Which is pretty much full of anything that is Internet related.  But this one she’s almost definitely right on.

If you see me, let’s chat and don’t “Next” me.

WARNING: Chat Roulette is NSFW and random strangers penises or breasts (not same person) may be visible in chat window.  Not mine.

This article was written by Russell Turley from Running in Flip Flops. “Running in flip flops is dangerous. Don’t do it!”