ipod, iphone, apple

We're just a few days away from DrupalCamp Colorado 2008 and things are becoming more and more tangible by the minute. Just now I got a package in the mail at the new offices.

The stickers just happen to be 2"x4" which is exactly the right size to emblazon them on the back of your iPhone. Ever since lijit gave it to me my phone has rocked a lijit sticker:

but now...at least for the next week...it's a DrupalCamp phone:

About quarter of the calls I get are organizing the camp so it seems only fitting.

If you're not convinced by these stickers that this will be a rocking weekend, here are the sessions.

Also, my best to the sticker's designer Don Hajicek and to the other logo designer amytremper.

lijit is a pretty awesome company. I've written about them and potential implications and other uses of lijit in the past, but I just have to write more about them today :)

So, when I saw the iPhone I got all excited and wanted to have one. Then I learned it would be locked down to Cingular's network. That won't work. I'm going to Argentina/Chile/Uruguay for about a year leaving in September of this year. So, if I get a new phone it had better work in Argentina.

Then, a few days later I read about the OpenMoko on Doug Turners site which I get as a result of having Planet Mozilla in my feed reader.

Now, I read the OpenMoko timeline. They're going to start selling the thing March 11th. Yeah, March 11th of 2007. I know, crazy! Before the iPhone! Before Cisco and Apple even have to figure out what they're going to do with their stupid trademark problems, OpenMoko will already be out there!

The thing has MicroSD Flash memory (up to 2GB currently) so I imagine that it will work as an MP3 player for those who want a 2GB mp3 player.

Man oh man, I can't wait for this thing!

I recently purchased a new Dell Inspiron E1705 machine. It's got a nice intel dual core processor, 1GB of fast RAM, a 60GBSATA hard drive, and most importantly a bright 17" screen. Fancy smancy.

At the time I was debating about getting a MacBook pro - basically the same set of specifications, but about $1000 more money.

One concern I had about the Dell was I heard that their support had gotten worse recently, so I purchased the extra 2 year support contract.

I really wanted a Mac - the OS features are great now that they've got BSD underneath it all and with Intel processors it seemed like it would be speedy yet battery friendly. Turns out that MacBook owners are not the happiest bunch of folks.

First, I read about how crappy apple support can be which is really sad. If it were the Dell he would have known that he was purchasing a specific level of support. My level of support - for something like $70 - got me 2 years of next day on site service. I have a problem, I call, I run through troubleshooting over the phone, if it's still busted (like his) someone is in my house the next day to fix it. None of this "sorry, genius bar is busy goofing off".

I've also read about heat problems on the MacBooks - those are pretty standard complaints about it at this point including this guys point that if you don't have a lap tray it will burn your nuts. Sweet.

Finally, today I got sent a link to this video of a MacBook Pro that refuses to come out of sleep. The best thing about that video - it's hosted on a mac.com homepage. Priceless.

You: One of the 20 million people who got an iPod or other digital music player for Christmas. You have tons of CDs, limited time, limited computer knowledge, and a little jingle in your pocket.

Me: A guy with so many computers in the house that his wife screams at him.

Together: We can make sweet, sweet music.

iTunes is the best music player/ripper

Version to use:4.7 EDITI'm not sure which version to recommend - new versions offer podcasts but take away from your ability to use the media to the full extent of the fair use provisions. That's lame. Songbird is probably going to be my new favorite, as soon as it's released. Sign up for their mailing list and you can be in on releases, too.

If you use MP3 or AAC or WMA as your main type of music,iTunes is pretty unbeatable. If you want to rip MP3s from CDs, it also does a very good job. You will need a fast machine because iTunes is a resource hog, but the "smart playlist" and "party shuffle" features are pretty unbeatable. It sets the standard that every player is shooting for except for foobar2000(since foobar2000 just wants to be "lightweight").

iTunes includes some privacy and DRM features that I disagree with. But these only apply to AAC/WMA formatted files and I use MP3. Just be sure you understand what you are signing up for before you start using it. I wish I could use OGG Vorbis, but that won't play on my iPod...what's a gadget nerd to do?