Boys (Executives) And Their Toys
I’ve noticed a trend recently since the iPad has been released… before it’s release executives, VP’s and managers were running around with net books since they are lighter and have a battery life of up to 8 hours or more. These actually are a great deal with a price around $299 for the person on the go and stuck in meetings a lot. These net books come with Windows 7 installed so all you need is Office and your up and going in no time including doing presentations.
What I don’t understand is why these same people who as recently as less than a year ago were snatching up these net books like crazy are now doing the same with the new iPad? First off, their net books are not even that old (some of us are dealing with five-year old computers). Second off they are pretty much useless in the Microsoft Windows and Office dominated business world! All they can do is surf the web and read email for the whopping cost of $499 to $820 (without accessories and service plans).
If you tell them their iPad is a toy or a waste of money they say that they can “remote desktop” into their office computer to do work. That’s right folks, they can dial into their $1,000+ office computer with their $500+ iPad to get work done! Am I the only one that finds this a total waste of money during a recession?
Keep in mind that they are spending this money on iPad’s when budgets are tight and while the people that really need new computers or updated computer hardware are not getting it.
Boys and their toys.
Save Some Cash On Apple Products
I should have whipped out my Amazon.com iPhone app right at the store and checked but totally forgot. Amazon.com offers a full line of Apple products including laptops for up to 6% off from what I could tell. If you spend $25 or more, shipping is free! So if you don’t need something right this minute and want to skip the crowded Apple stores, check out Amazon.com.
Parallels Screws Up Version 4
Recently Parallels released version 4 of their virtual machine software which I have been using for many years now and have been recommending to everyone I can. I use the MAC version so I can run Vista (even tried Windows 7) and until this version it worked like a charm! But after upgrading to version 4, spending 12 days emailing tech support back and forth the performance is much worse than version 3! Here are just some of the issues I was having besides the terrible performance:
- Takes 4 minutes to boot the image.
- While running,
programs run slow in the virtual image AND on my MacBook Pro! Clicking
on programs etc. sometimes does nothing for up to 30 seconds. - Network (internet) runs very slow in the virtual image AND on my MacBook Pro!
- Takes 4 minutes to shut down image.
Tech support was very helpful and tried every trick in the book to get my vm to run faster, which it did, but still was too slow. Why should it take 12 days of emails to get it to work better, shouldn’t it just work like that when I start it?
So my recommendation is do not use this version until these issues are worked out and I will not be recommending it anymore. Sorry Parallels.
Backgrounds
This is a really cool application for your iPhone, especially when you have some time to waste waiting in your doctors office. It allows you to download thousands of iPhone backgrounds (wallpaper) from Flickr. Here are it’s features:
- Search over 50,000 Backgrounds
- Browse over 5000 unique backgrounds
- Choose from over 30 categories such as: Movies, Cars, Funny, Animals, Christmas, Models, Guys, Space, Cute, Sports, Games, Beaches, Water, Messages, Night, Hearts, Swirls, Explosions, Buildings, Cities, Fantasy, Sunsets, Technology, Flowers and many more.
- 100% Free
It’s average rating on iTunes is 3.5 stars. I can’t give it 5 stars for these two reasons:
- Every time I download a background it tells me how to change my background. I think once a session is enough, don’t you think?
- Graphics are downloaded into the Camera Roll folder not the Wallpaper folder. Not sure if this is a security issue with the iPhone.
You should definitely check this one out.
GPS Mapper
The iPhone application GPS Mapper from InstaMapper LLC is a free real-time GPS traking service. You can use it to track an iPhone online, share your location with friends and family and record tracks for later analysis. Sounds cool, but even after a few updates, this application never seems to connect to the GPS on my phone. It did work the first time but after that it never did. I would not waste your time with this one. It’s average rating on the Apple App Store is 2 out of 5 stars.
Sudo Randomness with your iPod
Yesterday I wrote a note on Facebook on how frustrated I am that even thought I have a 20GB iPod, it keeps playing the same songs and groups over and over again. I know there are thousands of songs on it that I never hear. One of my friends came to the rescue with what he does. He creates a Smart Playlist in iTunes that includes songs that have not been played in x number of days. Below is the Smart Playlist that I created:
