CHRISdotTODD

Just a few nights back after work, following a fairly normal routine, I accepted the iTunes request for an update to 7.7. Upon completion and plugging in my iPhone, I was prompted to update the firmware to 2.0.1. Again, I accepted. During the middle of this process, iTunes crashed. Upon clearing the dialog boxes, iTunes restarted (my iPhone was still connected). Only this time, iTunes had nothing in it's library -- no music, no movies, no Podcasts -- nothing. And then looking at my iPhone, it was cycling between the Apple logo and an image of a USB plug and the iTunes logo -- my iPhone had become an iBrick. Wow! In a bit of shock, I tried closing and restarting iTunes, and I tried shutting down and restarting my iPhone. Neither one helped. Here I went from a few casual, routine updates to a lot of unplanned for, and really unnecessary rebuilding. First, i had to figure out how to un-brick my phone. The best I could come up with was some instructions posted on ...my first tech blog

First it's Microsoft that bloats Vista with MPAA DRM protection software , and now PC manufacturers such as Dell are bowing down to the RIAA . These manufacturers seem to forget who their customers are, and are ripping off unsuspecting buyers. Can you imagine spending $1000 of your hard earned dollars on a laptop to find out later that you cannot record audio -- even though the sound card supports it? Of course teech savvy people like Chad are going to find a solution; and the real copyright violatetrs are going to as well. But the average consumer who wants to dabble in a little audio and video, perhaps for their church or their son's or daughter's sports team, are left with a bag of bolts. So next time you need a new computer, start with your objectives -- what do you want to use it for -- and then do your homework before you buy to make sure the hardware will support it. If you're thinking about audio, photos, and video, you might give Macs a hard look. Using their

On Monday we learned about the new 3G iPhone : lower purchase price ($199 for 8MB version), GPS integration, longer battery life, and more. A lot of the buzz was around the lower price, but if you look at the total cost of ownership you will find out that it is actually more expensive. Over the 2 year plan with AT&T, you're going to pay an additional $10 per month for data ($240) and an additional $5 for SMS messages ($120). So instead of a total cost of ownership of $1815, you will pay $1975. For the additional features, the price is probably worth it. In comparing against other smart phones, the cost is competitive too. Gizmodo has a more detailed breakdown that includes phones from Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. Speaking of new iPhone features, Gizmodo also has an article that discusses the new video conferencing add-on for the iPhone. There has been discussion from the community over the missing, built-in video conferencing features, but as you can read about there is a l

3G 8GB: $199; 16GB: $299 Available July 11th in 22 countries 2.8 faster than iPhone 1.0 on the Edge Network. Longer battery life GPS integration SDK Push email, calendar, ... Live contact searching Word, Excel, PowerPoint Bulk delete and move Save email images Enhanced calculator Asian language support, including character recognition MobileMe ( me.com ) App distribution through cell network (less than 10MB), iTunes, WiFi, enterprise (intranet), ad hoc (up to 100 authorized phones) Tech Specs SDK / Apps article

Friday may 2nd, Apple announced a partnership with the 4 major Hollywood studios where they will make movies released to DVD available through the iTunes store on the same day they are released on the shelves of your favorite store. You can buy the movie in electronic format, with Apples proprietary DRM for $15 or rent it for $3.99.When was the last time you bought a new release for under $20? Never. Of course watching it from your computer is not as comfortable as from your easy-chair. And, you need to wait for it to download into iTunes... unless you have Apple TV. With the release of Apple TV 2.0 in February, after a short buffer time, you can begin watching your new movie immediately while it finishes downloading in the background. With Apple already being the leading provider of music in the U.S., I'm sure this move has gotten he attention of retailers Wal-Mart and Best Buy, and of course Netflix and Blockbuster. Apple continues to make it easier and easier to avoid the cost o

I hooked up my new Apple TV on Wednesday, and have had a great time exploring all the content that it has opened up. Actually all the content was already available, but now I am spending the time to view it, because I can view it from the comfort of my favorite chair. And it took more no more than 5 minutes to get going. I like that I can easily view my favorite video podcasts (or listen to the audio ones) with just a few clicks on the remote. In addition, I can explore the iTunes store for new ones. Thinking about traveling to Europe? The checkout Rick Steves' video podcasts . Perhaps you want to see highlights from the Discovery channel , but don't have cable or satellite TV. No problem, there are video podcasts for that too. If you don't mind the low quality video of YouTube , using the Apple TV, it has never been easier to explore YouTube. I've watched many great clips from " Who's Line Is It Anyway? " to comedians such as Jeff Dunham and Jim Gaffiga

Apple and Starbucks just started (October 5, 2007) a new service in participating Starbucks stores. Using your laptop, iPhone , or iPod touch , you can get free access to the iTunes site and review and buy up to the last 10 tunes played in the Starbucks store. When using your iPhone or iPod touch, you will also be able to get the song on your Mac or PC for no additional charge. I learned about this today when I went into Starbucks. As part of the promotion, you can get a free, new song every day in Starbucks through November 7th. The first artist was Bob Dylan and has include greats such as Gloria Estefan and Mavis Staples; upcoming releases include Herbie Hancock, Dave Matthews, and John Mayer. Personally, I think this is a great combination of two great products, coffee and music, brrought to us by folks who know how to do it so well, Starbucks and Apple. That'll be a triple-grande-latte for me.

Well I downloaded and used Safari Beta 3 for Windows tonight... it looks and feels a lot like iTunes. Of course the first question is, "Do I really need another browser?" My first answer was "No." But upon reconsidering, I wondered if it might be a good alternative to testing sites for users of Macs and possibly the iPhone. So maybe for that reason, it's a good idea. I already have IE7 and Netscape in addition to Firefox. I also have a Linux VM with Firefox for test too. With that in mind, I decided to test the popular sites I frequent. Here's my results: This blog -- no problems Authoring the blog -- failed: couldn't get the cursor in the Title field eBay -- warned me to upgrade my browser, but worked PayPal -- no problems Gmail -- no problems Google Calendar -- no problems Last.FM -- no problems Pogo -- failed: couldn't load a game My company website -- no problems (includes Flash movies and apps) My bank -- no problems del.icio.us -- no problem

Do you like those commercials? Well in addition to finding them at Apple's website and parodies on YouTube (including Linux), you can also find parodies at TrueNuff TV! In case you haven't had enough, here's one more.

I viewed Apple's iPhone demo on their website, and despite a few quirks, I'm hooked. As they say, their best iPod ever -- it sure looks that way. Of the many features , I'm not sure if it is the touch-screen controls, the great interface, or some of the nice features such as how voice mail and Google mail is done, but my next cellphone will be an iPhone -- that's assuming I can afford AT&T. If you're not sure, checkout the demo , I think it'll sell you.

Apparently if you are a user of Symantec's security software, and have not kept your software and virus definitions up-to-date, you have been vulnerable to Spybot -- malware that will use your computer in malicious ways. In November of 2006 , Spybot (a varient of the original Spybot from 2003 ) started showing up on machines with Symantec security products; and a fix had been available since May . Clearly there is an issue with folks not keeping their security software up-to-date. Unfortunately if you are a Windows user, your machine is much more likely to be under attack -- hackers looking for vulnerabilities. And the general user population just want to use a computer, not be a technology geek, which seems to be the requirement. I think it is worse than owning a car. With a car, the buy-in cost is much higher, so in general terms, there is more recognition that maintenance is required. Further, there is an infrastructure in place to make it easy to keep up on basic maintenance.

LMH (an unidentified hacker) and Kevin Finisterre have started publishing a new Apple bug each day this month (January 2007) in order to bring attention to that fact that Apple software has security bugs too. This is similar to a browser bug a day that H D did in July of 2006. H D did give the vendors advanced warning before releasing each vulnerability, though LMH and Kevin Finisterrre will not. I believe if Apple really wants us to switch to their platform, some proof that they know how to deal with security issues is important. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds. LMH and Kevin Finisterrre claim their goal is to make OS X a better platform -- I hope they are successful.

I was not the first to find this article, but it is worth passing on. Business Week wrote a great article on Jonathan Ive , the Apple Senior Vice-President for Industrial Design. This is probably one of the few guys that has been actually able to work closely with Steve Jobs, and the results have been great over the last 10 years. This line really resonated with me, "He talked about focusing on only what is important and limiting the number of projects", because I see too often people trying to do too many things at once. But what should really get you to read this is we rarely hear much about Apple's people , so this is a rare glimpse of Jobs' partner, who has helped to raise Apples stock over 225% in the last 10 years.