Apple Possibly Coming Out With Subscription Based TV Service
Earlier today while surfing around the net I came across an article at Apple Insider discussing a rumor going around that Apple is pushing around the idea of releasing a $30 based TV subscription program. There obviously aren't all that many details floating around, but it got me thinking, would I give up some of my cable bill to go to an Apple based subscription service?
Currently I get my Cable, Phone, and Internet through Cox. There internet service is up and down like many other cable providers and there cable setup is rather archaic. The menu's on are DVR are downright pathetic, and of course the quality of the HD programming isn't all that red hot. We currently spend $30 extra a month for our DVR service, if I could continue getting basic HD content from Cox for sports, and then get all my TV shows for $30 from Apple I for one would probably quickly make the switch even if that meant a $200-$300 up front cost to buy a piece of hardware to run it.
I think it is a really interesting proposition if Apple really does go forward with it, obviously the big question still remaining to be answered would be how much TV content would be available. Would Apple be able to get CBS, NBC, ABC, & Fox to jump on board? Not to mention some of the other cable channels? It's an interesting proposition and one that I look forward to see how it plays out.
5 Tech Gadgets I Would Like to Buy in 2009
So as many of you have undoubtedly have heard, I am getting married in September, and with that means Jenn and I are going to be getting our own place. Although we eventually will buy a house we are going to more then likely to start with an apartment which gives me a little extra breathing room when it comes to spending money on gadgets. So with that being said lets check out five items I would like to purchase this year. Will I actually do so? Probably not, but its always fun to dream.
#5: DirecTV HD-DVR
This is one item that I can almost guarantee I will be purchasing, unless the place we move into doesn't allow DirecTV, if it does this is a for sure must have. Jenn has a standard DVR and I have an HD-receiver right now and it seriously time to combine the two into one box. I love watching TV and Jenn does to so we often like to watch our shows on the weekend, especially when work gets hectic so having this ability especially in High Definition will be critical. Can you say two of them? One for our master bedroom and one for the living room!
#4: Roomba Vacuum
So I don't plan on Jenn and I having that large of a place and I know one of my duties around the house is going to be to vacuum. Why Vacuum though when you can have a Roomba do it for you? Now I have heard stories that these do and do not work. I am willing to invest the $200-$300 to test this theory. If this gets me out of vacuuming for a month or two that will be money well spent. Plus if it does work for a small apartment then all the better, our apartment will stay nice and clean!
#3:Nikon D40: Digital SLR
Jenn loves photography. I am more of the point and shoot variety. But if you ever travel with Jenn to Europe she likes to take her time to line up her photos and since I have known her has wanted a Digital SLR. The Nikon D40 is our choice right now and I think it would be a great starter for us. I have a nice pocket size Sony digital camera that Jenn got me for my birthday before last year's Europe trip and I thought it took really nice photos but after seeing what the D40 can do I am convinced that for our honeymoon we should take this camera for a whirl.
#2: Apple iMac 20" (With iLife 09)
Jenn and I are both Mac users. I took the switch 2 years ago and Jenn last year and I can tell you I don't lan on going back. I love my Macbook, I love OSX, I have fallen in love with countless Apple products. My Macbook is hitting the end of its lifetime, at least for me. My battery is starting not to hold that long of a charge and my daily activities on the Macbook are starting to get a bit slow. I need a computer thats going to give me a lot more power to do my daily updates for Darkstation.com and to store our pictures and movies. The iMac is both sleek and powerful and I really hope we decide to buy one. I am just skeptical that if I buy one they will come out with a new model the next week.Regardless I can't wait to buy one and try out the new iLife 09 suite which has a lot of features that I really want/need.
#1: LCD TV 40"+ (Brand Not Decided)
Right now I have a 37" Toshiba 720P LCD and Jenn and I are going to be using that for our bedroom. I would like to get a 40"+ for our living room that is in full 1080P. As I mentioned in a previous post I have started to invest in some Blurays and I would like a TV that can nativley display the picture in its full glory. If I was going to buy right now Best Buy has a good deal on a 46" Samsung 1080p LCD which is pictured below. I am not all that picky on brands, although I have heard the best things about Samsung. This is another must have for our new digs.
Apple Officially Announces the 3G iPhone
I was really looking forward to today, among being one of my last days of school (1 final today and my last on Wednesday) I was more interested in finding out what Steve Jobs had to say at WWDC. Most of the conference that I heard on Twitlive.tv was rather slow and unlike many other Steve Jobs conferences I have watched. I have said that I would look forward to apps on my iPhone and I truly am. However what stole the show was the already given fact that the iPhone 3G was announced. Some of the new features is a nice new black or white coat of paint on the back, the Me service which is hopefully going to do much better then .Mac and GPS.
Do I want to upgrade to the 3G version of the iPhone? I actually am very content with my current iPhone, besides a nice crack in the screen that I happened to cause last week. I just don't want to be locked in to another 2 years of AT&T which has given me spotty service since August of last year when I first switched to them. More over it seems like they are going to be doing yearly updates (at least in my opinion) of the iPhone and although the GPS and 3G sounds fantastic I am not sure its worth putting another two years on my plan. Whatever the case its always excited when Steve Jobs gets up to talk, and it makes me very excited and hopeful that we will see a new Macbook and Macbook Pro this holiday season.
What is Wrong with Time Machine?
So for those of you who use Mac OSX Leopard, you know how great and useful Time Machine can be. For those who don't know what Time Machine is, it is a built in backup system for OSX which synchronizes your data at specific intervals to an external drive. It's great for someone like me who does a lot of writing, and e-mails and doesn't want it all to go away with one bad save or trashing of a document. When I first upgraded to Leopard I had no issues running Time Machine, I bought an Iomega 500GB External Drive from Apple, and felt as though I was not going to have to worry about my backup any longer. Well I reinstalled OSX a few months back because I was feeling the clutter of a year old notebook, and I had my data backed up and when I reinstalled OSX I recovered all of my data and began to use Time Machine like nothing had happened.
One day out of no where I got an error message saying that Time Machine failed to complete my backup, I thought it might be a fluke so I tried it a few more times with the same results. I read online that people were having similar issues so I followed their advice and reformatted the hard drive. Two months later and 30 different methods later I am still not able to use Time Machine. If anyone has any idea why I can get only 50% or so of my backup done followed by an error message that would be great. All I know is that its frustrating as heck. I am trying to be good, I want to backup, I have been foolish in the past, and even when I want to be good Time Machine won't let me!
UPDATE: As soon as I posted this my next stop was at Digg.com, and low and behold there is a Mac 10.5.3 update that was released today that was suppose to help reliability on Time Machine! When I get home today I will test out the new update (which I have already installed) and see if that helps my Time Machine predicament.
UPDATE #2: After installing 10.5.3 which was to fix some areas of Time Machine I am still having the same issue, it is still telling me that it unable to complete my backup. Back to the drawing board.