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The Lights Are Back On

January 18, 2012 thoughts No comments

So it’s been 12 hours and for the most part the blackout against SOPA is done. Though boingboing and wikipedia are still black. Other sites played their part and with non dramatic methods. Some sites had a splash page of black others blacked out the logos. I did see a lot of blacked out twitter avatars. The best protest I saw was what TWiT did. They shot all their video podcasts in black and white. Well played.

I work the 3rd shift so I was asleep for most of this blackout. I ask you this, how did it affect you? Did you learn something new today? do you understand the issues here?

What to learn MORE?

My Favorite Apps Of 2011

January 12, 2012 apple, iPhone, Tech No comments

2011 gave us all some great app for our iDevices. It also gave a few people brand new iDevices. I’d Like to highlight 7 great app you should get that came out in 2011. So for fun and some for reference.

Flipboard was only available for the iPad. Now its on the iPhone and iPod Touch for FREE. Basically it will personalize news for you. You can add all sorts of news and social networks like Facebook, twitter, Flickr and instagram among others.

Roku If you own a Roku you’ll love this app. Not only is a remote control for the Roku but it lets you browse the channels and has a keyboard in it. it’s FREE

PicFrame This is that app that let you place multiple pictures into one. We see this a lot on instagram. Lot of borders and patterns are there to choose from. Lots of sharing options including email, twitter, Facebook and instagram. cost $0.99

Instacast  This is a great audio/video podcast app. If you like to watch or listen to any podcast you know that you can’t download them via iTunes when you’re not on wi-fi. This will solve that.  It also has show notes to follow, background play and a large library to browse. cost $1.99

Jetpack Joyride  This is one of those addicting games. Easy to play, just tap the screen to jump around. There are so many goals to meet that you’ll have a hard time putting it down. Basically what you do is see how far you can get with out crashing. Lots of fun power ups and skins to buy with the coins you earn in the game. Just when you think you are finished with the game it just keeps going. It’s a great quick game to play while waiting around and its FREE!

Temple Run This is another one of those quick games i love to play. It looks like Indiana Jones  except that you are being chased by scary monkeys because you stole their golden idol. You guide the guy thought this maze of obstacles like pits, fire and narrow paths. It uses the tilt feature to move from right to left. If you collect enough coins you can improve power ups and collect characters. right now its FREE.

Can I Stream It  This is a very useful app if you’re to stream movies on your tv or computer. Just type in the movie that you’re looking for and it will show you if it’s available on Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Instant, VUDU, Crackle, YouTube and Blockbuster. (Wow there’s more service around than I thought.) It will also show you if you can rent and buy them as well. You can also set up reminders and push notifications.

So there it is my favorite released Apps of 2011.

Cheers!

 

The iPod Recall Hookup

December 22, 2011 apple, Music, Tech No comments

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*update 1/12/12* Got a package from apple last week. i opened it up and there was a letter telling me that the did indeed run out of replacement 1st gen nanos. Under that letter was a new 8GB iPod nano.

 

About a month ago I got an email from apple stating that there is a recall on 1st gen iPod nanos. I signed up for it and about a week later I got a box to ship it back to them.

I was quoted 6-8 week return time for my replacement. No big deal on time it’s an old 2GB iPod I hardly use. It sadly collects dust on a self.

The news is out now from mashable that Apple ran out I replacement units and is now sending people a 6th Gen nano. Most likely the 8GB ( the smallest size for that model) but it has no warranty, all those nanos were out of warranty anyway.

So that’s a hook up. I basically traded up with no fees but I’m kinda bummed. The thing is I already have a newer 16GB nano. It does make a great watch. I’m going to miss that classic click wheel iPod. I also has a few accessories that only fit the 1st gen model.

Installing Star Wars: The Old Republic

December 20, 2011 Games One comment

12/23/11 Update

I tired for 5 days. No such luck. I looked into every option that could be on my end. Firewall, router ports windows updates and still having installs fail. I also have to hit the repair option multiple time while downloading.

I have a few options left. My brother got that game installed fine so I think I’ll bring over a HD and copy it. If that doesn’t work I can try a torrent. Last I will try call customer service.

what do I do? I doubt I can get my money back.

Update 1/9/2012

Well getting a copy o the game worked until the latest patch. Now I’m back to where I can’t patch. More failing errors and messages to repair the launcher with no success.

I was surprised when I called customer service and got through in about 10 minutes to only find that they were stumped. That’s not a good feeling.

So I wait, perhaps I’ll grab another patched copy of the game from a friend

On the night of release of Star Wars: The Old Republic I finally decided to buy the game. I was hearing too much great things. I had to get it. So I coughed up the cash and did it.

The sign up and download was painless. As far as the patching the game…ick what a mess. I work 3rd shift so I sleep during the day. I started patching the game before I went to bed around 8am. I slept like a kid on Xmas eve. I was so excited to wake up and play with my new game. When I woke up it was like Santa shit in my sock. The Patch fail. So I tried again, fail. This happened over and over and over. Best part was it was failing on a video file. Every time I pressed the repair button the launcher crashed.

While I was repairing files and setting permissions and closing all other programs I was also searching to see if I was alone on this issue. Oh no….many others had this exact problem. The only good thing about that is that I knew it most likely wasn’t my PC. Searching the forums only made me more upset. Just the thought of all these other people out there who probably took the day off to play this game only to fight and fight with it.

I figured it was a server load issue but I still continued to try to download and apply the patch. I guess I really wanted to go to bed aggravated and I did. It is a new day though, most players are most likely in game now so today might be a better day to try again.


Incoherent twitter updates: That can be my next tweet

December 12, 2011 Fun stuff, Tech No comments

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The web site is yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet

It’s good fun. Basically it grabs random words from your past twitter updates and makes a sentence or two. A very incoherent sentence. They read as If you just learned English.

There is an app for ios and android. I grabbed the iOS app and well it’s need help on the posting to twitter part but for .99¢ it’s a good time. You’ll laugh and laugh at the updates it produces.

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