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Recent Articles

  • TBR Goodies for Your iPhone

    I was a little bored yesterday with the snow slowing down western Washington, so I decided to finally make a new homescreen wallpaper for my iPhone. I made a TBR themed homescreen for my iPad a while back and really like it (not really ready to share that yet, needs a bit more tuning), but…

    I was a little bored yesterday with the snow slowing down western Washington, so I decided to finally make a new homescreen wallpaper for my iPhone. I made a TBR themed homescreen for my iPad a while back and really like it (not really ready to share that yet, needs a bit more tuning), but I really like the way the iPhone one came out – they are sized for the iPhone 4’s retina display.

    The light version looks like this (click the photo to download the background image):

    photo 1.PNG

    I am clever enough to know that not everyone loves me as much as I do – so if you just fill your homescreen with icons you don’t have to see the TBR logo.

    Now I really like the light version, but for those who like things dark I made this one also (click the photo to download the background image):

    photo 2.PNG

    Enjoy.

  • Adam Savage: TSA saw my junk, missed 12″ razor blades

    So they invade our privacy and our constitutional rights, and still they can’t catch a guy carrying 12″ razor blades through security? TSA should be really proud of strip searching that boy now.

    So they invade our privacy and our constitutional rights, and still they can’t catch a guy carrying 12″ razor blades through security? TSA should be really proud of strip searching that boy now.

  • Beatles albums sales top 450,000 on iTunes

    James Robinson for The Guardian: EMI has sold more than 450,000 Beatles albums via Apple’s iTunes store in the seven days since the band’s entire back catalogue was made available to download digitally. The music company said 2 million Beatles singles have also been downloaded. An EMI insider hailed it as “a pretty amazing achievement”.…

    James Robinson for The Guardian:

    EMI has sold more than 450,000 Beatles albums via Apple’s iTunes store in the seven days since the band’s entire back catalogue was made available to download digitally.

    The music company said 2 million Beatles singles have also been downloaded. An EMI insider hailed it as “a pretty amazing achievement”.

    That is apparently what happens when Apple plasters your band all over the iTunes store, emails its users and gives you a spotlight on their companies homepage.

  • T.J. Maxx Mystery Solved: A Marketing Strategy

    Called that.

    Called that.

  • Gruber on the Limits of AirPlay

    Interesting why it doesn’t work with your home-shot videos. I don’t have an Apple TV to test this, but I would guess that Gruber is right: this feature was omitted to meet the November release of iOS 4.2.

    Interesting why it doesn’t work with your home-shot videos. I don’t have an Apple TV to test this, but I would guess that Gruber is right: this feature was omitted to meet the November release of iOS 4.2.

  • Bear Any Burden … (Don’t Touch My Junk Edition)

    Josh Marshall on the TSA porno-scanners and pat-downs: Various constitutional protections dispensed with? No problem. And if you think it’s a problem get in the line marked “Pansy Weak-Kneed Terror Lovers” not the line for “Real Americans”. They’ll process you’re application there.

    Josh Marshall on the TSA porno-scanners and pat-downs:

    Various constitutional protections dispensed with? No problem. And if you think it’s a problem get in the line marked “Pansy Weak-Kneed Terror Lovers” not the line for “Real Americans”. They’ll process you’re application there.

  • LOL: TSA You Are Funny

    Look at this headline, TSA is so cute with their stubbornness sometimes. [via and created by DF]

    Look at this headline, TSA is so cute with their stubbornness sometimes.

    [via and created by DF]

  • Welcome Back Old Friend

    A hand written post for you today, click here to read it.

    A hand written post for you today, click here to read it.

  • ‘More Than Half Of You Will Be Checking Your Email Over The Holidays’

    I know I will be and I also know that it is futile to ask you not to. Instead let’s all make a pact that while we are sitting down to enjoy our Thanksgiving meals, or anytime we are sitting down to eat that we let our email accumulate unchecked. Deal?

    I know I will be and I also know that it is futile to ask you not to. Instead let’s all make a pact that while we are sitting down to enjoy our Thanksgiving meals, or anytime we are sitting down to eat that we let our email accumulate unchecked. Deal?

  • Reason and Logic Missing from TSA

    Amazing they also require backscatter machines to get back into the U.S. This needs to stop. Wake up Obama, this is absurd. Luckily this guy kept a cool head. Something of note is that every account of a police officer being involved that I have heard has stated how professional and logical the cops are.…

    Amazing they also require backscatter machines to get back into the U.S. This needs to stop. Wake up Obama, this is absurd. Luckily this guy kept a cool head. Something of note is that every account of a police officer being involved that I have heard has stated how professional and logical the cops are. Clearly the break down in the system is with the lack of training TSA agents get – this needs to change.

    [via Gruber]

  • A Personal Demo from Steve Jobs to a 9 year-old

    David Sheff for Playboy: “But more revealing was the scene after the party. Well after the other guests had gone, Jobs stayed to tutor the boy on the fine points of using the Mac. Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed…

    David Sheff for Playboy:

    “But more revealing was the scene after the party. Well after the other guests had gone, Jobs stayed to tutor the boy on the fine points of using the Mac. Later, I asked him why he had seemed happier with the boy than with the two famous artists. His answer seemed unrehearsed to me: ‘Older people sit down and ask, “What is it?” but the boy asks, “What can I do with it?”‘”

    I wonder who this man is that got this demo, and if he remembers it.

    [Updated: 12/6/10 at 7:14 AM] Please be aware that a reader has reported this link taking him to Playboy picture spreads instead of the intended article, it appears to be a problem with mobile web browsers, best to visit on your computer then.

  • AirPrint-compatible printers

    I recommend you buy none of these. Honestly you should wait.

    I recommend you buy none of these. Honestly you should wait.

  • Ars reviews the Maylong M-150

    I stopped reading when Jacqui Cheng wrote this: And good luck with the stylus that came with the tablet, too—if you haven’t already lost it because there’s nowhere to store it, you’ll find that it’s not significantly better than using your finger. You still have to mash it into the screen a bit in order…

    I stopped reading when Jacqui Cheng wrote this:

    And good luck with the stylus that came with the tablet, too—if you haven’t already lost it because there’s nowhere to store it, you’ll find that it’s not significantly better than using your finger. You still have to mash it into the screen a bit in order for it to work.

  • How Mobile Phones Jump-Start Developing Economies

    Antonio Regalado for Technology Review: Entrepreneurs say mobile wallets are feasible thanks to the rapid expansion of cell-phone use in poorer regions of the world. In the past five years, operators have added more than two billion mobile accounts in developing and poor nations, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union. That compares to…

    Antonio Regalado for Technology Review:

    Entrepreneurs say mobile wallets are feasible thanks to the rapid expansion of cell-phone use in poorer regions of the world. In the past five years, operators have added more than two billion mobile accounts in developing and poor nations, according to data from the International Telecommunication Union. That compares to 435 million new accounts in wealthy nations (see chart).

    A great story about how companies are setting up business that are profitable while helping out people in developing nations.

  • Holy Crap

    A concept of a Facebook Adidas shoe. Seriously.

    A concept of a Facebook Adidas shoe. Seriously.

  • Gruber on TSA

    John Gruber: Here’s the question for Pistole, and anyone else who argues that these new TSA procedures are an appropriate response to that incident: What happens if the next guy hides his bomb up his ass? That should prove to be a “fun” experience.

    John Gruber:

    Here’s the question for Pistole, and anyone else who argues that these new TSA procedures are an appropriate response to that incident: What happens if the next guy hides his bomb up his ass?

    That should prove to be a “fun” experience.

  • MobileMe Gallery joins Find My iPhone as a free service

    Very cool – I encourage people to use both features I use them all the time and they are great.

    Very cool – I encourage people to use both features I use them all the time and they are great.

  • Hearing Loss in the Military

    Joh Pavlus for Technology Review: The $450 price tag makes sense when you consider that the EB15 is a state of the art hearing aid and earplug at the same time. “Adaptive attentuation” circuitry detects incoming impulse noise like gunfire and RPG explosions and electronically morphs into a 15-dB earplug before your eardrum takes a…

    Joh Pavlus for Technology Review:

    The $450 price tag makes sense when you consider that the EB15 is a state of the art hearing aid and earplug at the same time. “Adaptive attentuation” circuitry detects incoming impulse noise like gunfire and RPG explosions and electronically morphs into a 15-dB earplug before your eardrum takes a beating. It does the same thing if ambient noise rises to a damaging level for a sustained amount of time. Otherwise, the EB15 lets the user hear well enough to detect sounds normally and pinpoint their locations, or even boost the signal for enhanced situational awareness.

    Very cool tech that essentially removes the danger of hearing loss from explosions and gunfire – while still allowing troops to ‘hear’ what they need to hear. I hope the troops actually get these.

  • What to Expect: iOS 4.2 on the iPad

    Now that iOS 4.2 is available to the public I thought it pertinent to fill you in on an iPad running iOS 4.2 (I have been using the betas since they came out). This is a rather quick look at some of the things I like, for an in depth look I recommend looking here.…

    Now that iOS 4.2 is available to the public I thought it pertinent to fill you in on an iPad running iOS 4.2 (I have been using the betas since they came out). This is a rather quick look at some of the things I like, for an in depth look I recommend looking here.

    There are two immediate things that most every one should take note of and one major annoyance that will surely give you some troubles.
    What you will love:

    • Multi-tasking.
    • Folders
    • Unified Inbox

    What will drive you crazy:

    • The lack of an orientation lock switch.

    Multi-Tasking

    This is what most people are going to care about – I have some bad news, unless the App is already setup for multi-tasking it will be painfully obvious that it isn’t. During the beta period the only apps that worked properly for multi-tasking were the ones that were universal and had an iPhone counterpart that was already multi-tasking ready. Except for Twitter’s app – that was a horrendous problem.

    Other than that multi-tasking works as expected, double tap the home button to switch apps. Though exiting the app and launching another works the same as a double tap, it just adds a few steps.

    I have found that I use my iPad for a lot more ‘switching’ than I do my iPhone so multi-tasking is a welcome addition. We will have to wait for some iOS devs to get their apps updated, but my guess is that most will be done before Thanksgiving (U.S.).

    Folders

    Ah yes, folders are in my opinion the best addition that iOS 4.2 brings. The larger screen size that the iPad holds over the iPhone makes flipping through pages of apps tedious. Folders help reduce the number of pages, and in my case I went from 5 to 2 pages. I love folders, all you need to do is drag an app icon on top of another and iOS will create the folder.

    Better yet, use iTunes to organize all your apps as you can do it much quicker there.

    Unified Inbox

    Still to this day I do not understand why a unified inbox was not a part of iOS from the beginning. That said it is finally a part of the iPad in iOS 4.2 and it is a very welcome addition to the OS. Basically you get to see all of your emails in one inbox at the same time – yay.

    One thing that I would like to see disappear is the fact that you have the options for ‘all inboxes’ and a single inbox for each account, in addition to another list for each account, where you can click and then see the inbox for that account yet again. The listing of just the individual account inbox tabs seems a little cumbersome and cluttering to me.

    Orientation Lock

    What used to be the orientation lock switch is now a mute switch just like on the iPhone. This is extremely annoying and should not have happened. You will see why soon enough.

    You can still lock the screen orientation you just need to double tap the home button and swipe your finger to the right to reveal the software switch. Really cumbersome. The iPad is less an audio device that it is a reading device, orientation is greater than audio on the iPad. Add to that the volume rocker which already quickly mutes the device if you just hold it down.

    Overall

    iOS 4.2 is yet another great upgrade – don’t hesitate to do it. In fact go upgrade now. Apple also announced that find my iOS device is now free, set it up and use it. What a great feature to make free.

  • Today: iOS 4.2 Software Update

    Update available today, most likely at 10a PST. Find my iPhone/iPad is now free to all users – that’s a big shot over Android’s bow.

    Update available today, most likely at 10a PST. Find my iPhone/iPad is now free to all users – that’s a big shot over Android’s bow.