Digital Impulses

New Apple Notebook for me: Yes!

Anticipating a visit to the Apple store in Manhattan Beach at some point during the day, I worked from home this morning instead of driving to the office in Carson.

I first had breakfast with Reyna at the Denny’s in Hawthorne off of El Segundo Blvd.  Breakfast was fine and I discussed with my wife the options I had for my purchase of my new Apple laptop later today.

After breakfast, we drove back home and I continued to work from my office until noon.  At around 1000, I started calling the Apple stores in my area, hoping to determine current stock levels on the MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Without fail, the Apple employees that answered the phone all told me to call back between 1300 and 1400.  No one would give me any information about current stock and so I had no choice but to wait until the early afternoon.

At 1230 I left my house and drove over to the Manhattan Village Mall to the Apple store located there.  I walked in the store at 1246 and found that it was very busy for a Wednesday afternoon.

With one thing or another, I had to wait nearly 20 minutes before I could get someone to help me.  The kid that finally became available seemed a little hesitant and unsure of the answers he was giving to the questions I posed about the differences between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro.  I must have gotten an Apple Rookie, I guess.

Eventually, I decided on a MacBook Pro, in the following configuration:

15" Widescreen
2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
4 GB RAM
250 GB hard disk
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB dual video cards

With the RAM upgrade, the grand total for the notebook was $2,135.20. 

Now, I realize it's like three times the cost of a reasonably well-equipped WIntel notebook, but I plan to run Vista under either Parallels or VMware Fusion so I will have the best of both worlds, regardless.

Unfortunately for me, the current level of work at this stores service desk meant that they were going to have to keep my new MacBook Pro for 48-72 hours to complete the RAM upgrade.

Paying for the laptop was another ordeal that took almost 10 minutes, due to the fact that the kid at the register was extremely distracted. He kept having his attention pulled away from my transaction by other store employees either asking him questions or tasking him with things to do.

Eventually, I was able to pay him and leave the store. Now I wait for them to call me and let me know when my new MacBook is ready to be picked up.  Here’s hoping for sooner than later.

Life

Worked from home today. 

Had breakfast at Denny's and then paid a visit to the Apple store in Manhattan Village Mall to see an Apple Genius about getting my Time Capsule to work correctly.

Speaking with an Apple "Genius"
He explained to me exactly what I needed to do to get the 1 TB hard disk recognized all of the time and it made sense to me.  Hopefully, this will take care of the issue with the irritating "iPhoto cannot locate your library" pop-up that I get on occasion because the Time Capsule is asleep and Zeus does not know it.

After the Apple store visit, I had lunch with Isa, stopping by Best Buy to buy the Sex and The City: The Movie DVD for her.  She was very happy to get it. It's always a great feeling when you give someone a gift and they really like it.

Setting up an iPod for Isa

So the evening after work today was consumed entirely by going to Best Buy with my sister, buying her a set of speakers, going to her house, installing the speakers and then getting to work on setting up her brand new green iPod Nano.

Installing iTunes 7.7: NOT
The first snag I encountered was that my sister's PC is horribly put-of-date in terms of MS security patches and service packs and was still running XP SP1.  So, the iTunes install failed immediately because it needs for XP to be running a minimum of SP 2.

Getting Windows XP Service Pack 2
Upon hitting the MS Windows Update web site, I was informed that my sister's copy of Windows XP was "not genuine* and thus Service Pack 2 could NOT be installed. I was then offered a link to a web site where I could purchase a *valid* Product key for $149.00 instead of the regular $299.00 that MS charges for a retail, boxed copy of Windows XP Pro.

I clicked on the link, filled out the form, provided a CC and purchased the valid Product key.  Once the transaction was authorized, I was re-directed to a web site where a tiny applet was downloaded and installed on the computer that upgraded or "legalized" the copy of XP Pro currently installed on my sister's PC.

Once all of that was done (MS will be shipping me a CD of Windows XP Pro SP2 for the cost of the product key I just bought, btw), a reboot of the computer followed by once again visiting the MS Windows Update web site allowed me to being the process of downloading and installing Service Pack 2.  about 15 minutes and 75 MB later, the download finished and the process of updating XP to SP 2 began.

That took another long while but eventually finished without incident.  Of course, REBOOT YET AGAIN, and this time i was able to launch the install of iTunes (+ QuickTime, of course) 7.7

Installing iTunes 7.7: Yes!
This time, the install of iTunes proceeded without a hitch and all was well with the world.  Once the install completed, it trundled for a little while and then was ready to be used.  I created an account for my sister at the iTunes music store and then gave her a quick demo / tutorial of using the iTunes music store.

Connecting her iPod Nano
Once iTunes was ready, I connected up her Nano and it was recognized without a hitch. iTunes synced it up nicely and my sister was able to listen to the demo songs that were put on her Nano by iTunes.  From there it was just a matter of ripping a couple of my sister's music CD's to her PC so that iTunes could put some more content on her Nano for her.

All in all, it was a long and boring and (expensive) process, but my sister now has a modern MP3 player that I think she is going to get a lot of pleasure out of.

Good for her.

An iPod for iSa

This afternoon after work, my sister came by the house and we drove to Verizon to have her exchange her ear piece for her cell phone.  She bought another one and HATED IT immediately.  She decided to return it right then and there and we ended up spending more time on it than she wanted.  Isa left the Verizon store very frustrated.

Dinner at Islands
After Verizon, we drove over to Islands to have dinner.  The food was OK, but the service was so,so, with my sister's chicken sandwich not being cooked to her specifications.  The ensuing complaints and mini drama was par for the course.

A visit to the Apple Store: Isa get a Nano
After dinner at Islands, we walked over to the Apple Store to look at the iPod Nanos. After a little shopping , my sister decided on the green 8 GB iPod Nano and I took it up to the front to pay for it.  Now it's a matter of setting up the iPod for my sister and introducing her to the world of iTunes, the iTunes music store, rented movies, tv shows and other media.

Purchasing the Apple iPhone 3G

Holy Shit.

Mother of God.

What do you say?  Really?  I arrived at the Manhattan Village Mall this morning to anticipate a long line waiting for the iPhone 3G to be sold at the Apple Store inside the Mall.  Little did I know that I would spend the next 8+ hours waiting in line under a grueling sun to get into the Apple store to buy the phone.

I arrived at 0638 and there was already a long line that snaked around the side of the mall and down around the Macy's store across the parking lot from the theaters.  Not long after I arrived, an Apple store employee came out to count people and hand out pamphlets.  He informed me that I was # 227 in line.  He did *not* tell me how long a wait I could anticipate.

So I waited and waited and waited and waited.  Inching along a few feet every 15 minutes or so.  Around 1130 or so, my wife came by mall and brought me some food and a bottle of water.  The Apple store people ahd been coming around with water, coffee and Popsicles, also.

As long as the line was, it was made a little more bearable by the guy in front of me who turned out to be an old-school Mac programmer and kept me entertained with stories of the bad old days of programming for the 128K original Mac.

Eventually, around 1345, we had made it to the front doors of the mall and then inside to the relative coolness and comfort of the mall, just outside the Apple store.  After another 15 minute wait outside the Apple store, I was eventually allowed inside the store to actually buy the phone.

Here is where I found out WHY I had to wait in line 8 plus hours.

It was taking an average of 25  to 30 minutes PER PHONE SOLD to process each sale due to problems with the ITunes activation servers.  Also adding to the delays was the fact that AT&T was having issues also with their servers.

As it was, when I attempted to actually pay for the iPhone 3G, the nice Apple Genius that was helping me told me that he could not sell me a phone because I worked for a corporation that had a discount in place and as such, I needed to go to an AT&T Store to purchase my iPhone 3G.

This after waiting in line over 8 hours.  Well, that was not going to happen, so I told the guy to call AT&T and do whatever he needed to do to process my transaction.  He did just that and AT&T suspended my discount in order to allow his POS terminal to process my iPhone 3G sale.

So this is the story of the day I was christianed as a true Apple Fan Boy by waiting 8+ hours in line to pay $300 for a cellular phone from Apple .  Mind you, this from a guy that had a perfectly good working 8GB iPhone 1.0 in his pocket that he paid $600 for just 10 months earlier in September of 2007.

And you know what?  After all was said and done, I had a good time and I will do it again next year when the iPhone 3.0 is released.  It's kinda of cool knowing that I am one of the few hundred people in all of Southern California (really, the greater Los Angeles Metro are) to get his hands on an iPhone 3G.

I am SUCH a GEEK.  :=)

Test blog post from the new TypePad app from the Apple App store

This is a test image upload from my iPhone.

iPhone 2.0 Released

So.

Like the other 11 Bazillion blog posts that will be made about the news coming out of Apple's WWDC 08 today, here is a summary of what Steve Jobs unleashed upon the world today:

First the new iPhone:

Pros:

• 2 models: 8GB and 16 GB
• Price: 8GB = $199 and 16GB = $299
• Maps with full-on GPS (Yes! Yes! Yes!)
• 3G speeds on the AT&T 3G Network
• All plastic back available in two colors: BLACK and WHITE
• Flush microphone jack

Cons:

• Camera untouched: Same 2.0 Megapixel camera (major letdown)
• No front-facing camera
• No way to record video
• No Video chatting via iChat
• No new iChat client
• No UNIVERSAL Search function
• Only 16 GB capacity mentioned so far
• No mention of having added support for cut and paste

iPhone 2.0 software update:

• Support for MobileMe
• Contact Search in the iPhone (Finally!)
• App Store to purchase, download and install 3rd-party applications on the iPhone
• Better email management (support for mass delete)
• Email attachment viewing support
• New Scientific calculator (launch the calculator and rotate the phone to launch the new calculator)
• Additional Language support: Full dictionary support for 20 additional languages, with more to follow, I'm sure.
• Support for MobileMe
• Full-on support for Exchange in the Enterprise

So, in a nutshell we have:  New iPhone, 8 and 16 GB,  3G speeds, integrated GPS, two colors, support for MobileMe, App Store, Exchange Support and all of this for HALF THE PRICE.

Nice!  Apple has once again just ROCKED the Cellphone industry.  It is a good time to be alive, folks.

The birth of Zeus, my new 24" iMac

So.  Unable to wait any longer before unpacking and setting up the Apple iMac that I would christen Zeus, I arrived home from work determined to clean up some stuff in my office to allow a table to be used as the official 'Unpacking Area' for my brand new iMac.

Having cleared out the area that I needed for Zeus to come to life as it were, I proceeded to open the box and locate the items inside.  As usual, it was pure Apple porn.  There was a white box that contained the keyboard, mouse and documentation (including some software DVD's), a power cable and the computer itself.

After struggling for a bit to get the computer out of the box, I did finally and I was surprised at how heavy it was.  thinking back on it, I really should not have been that surprised, considering that it is an ENTIRE computer all in one enclosure.

Once I had everything out of the box and realized just how truly elegant and simple this beast was going to be to configure, I placed it smack dab in the middle of the desk that was previously occupied by my now-evicted Vista franken-box that I built about 2 years ago.

It was all cake after that:  Plug in the power cable, attach the network cable and plug in the various USB docks and cables that would be in faithful service to Zeus after being relocated from my Mac Mini.

Below is a picture of Zeus in his full glory:

So, now comes the fun part: figuring out the most efficient way to transfer my data from the Mac Mini over to Zeus.  Fun times ahead, for sure.

Zeus Arrives: 24" iMac is mine, Baby!

So.

After much haggling and negotiating (including the turning over of all income tax checks for 2008), the wife and I arranged for me to receive an early Father's Day present in the form of completely tricked out 24" iMac from the Apple store in Manhattan Beach, at the Manhattan Village Mall.

I waited around on Memorial day for my wife to get home from work and then she eventually prodded me to go ahead and skip on over to the Apple store to make the purchase. Of course, I had already scoped out the configuration that i wanted on this bad boy and decided on the following:

• CPU: 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
• SCREEN: 24" Glossy widescreen LCD
  
• RAM: 2 GB 800Mhz DDR2 (I will purchase an additional 2 GB somewhere else, much cheaper than Apple sells it for).
• HARD DISK: 500 GB Serial ATA.  (My current Mac Mini has a 300 GB External Seagate and I have an additional 500 GB external Seagate HD waiting (unopened) in a box on the floor next to the Mac Mini.   that will give me a grand total of 1.3 TB of local Hard disk space attached to this machine).
• VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS w/512MB GDDR3
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
  
• Airport Extreme
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
  
• Apple Mighty Mouse
• Apple Keyboard
• Accessory Kit

The way I figure it, this is a machine that I need to use for a minimum of 3 years.  So, I went ahead and maxed out the CPU speed and available video card because those are the 2 items that I cannot upgrade easily.  I can always up the RAM and the hard disk size is unimportant becuase i Have TERABYTES of local hard drive space available to me in my local network.

All of my decisions were confirmed by the local in-store Mac sales rep and he sold me the machine as we configured it on an existing IMac on display inside the store.  Once I had decided on the configuration, he went to the back of the store to get the machine and told me to just wait up front at the register to go ahead and pay for the beast.

Also, with the purchase of the machine, I picked up a subscription to .mac for $69.00 (a $30.00 discount off of the retail price).  When I registered the .mac subscription, I was told at the .mac web site that my account would be upgraded (the extended subscription will kick in, in other words) when it expires in October of 2008.

Walking out of the store with this tricked out iMac, I was surprised at how heavy it was.  It was quite the trip back to the car to put it in the car and drive back home.

Now to disassemble and retire my piece of crap, 30-month old built from parts Vista box and clean up the desk where it was to allow the GLORIOUS ZEUS to take his place as the rightful king of my local office network.

God, I can't wait to set it up and put it through it's paces.  This is BY FAR, the fastest machine I have ever owned.  MUCH FUN to be had ahead,I predict.

YES!

Buying Aperture 2

This evening, while having dinner with my family at Olive Garden in Manhattan Beach, I walked over to the Apple store at the Manhattan Village Mall and picked up Aperture 2.

I paid $215.42 for the full version and got a little red sticker put on the box that said "lucky you". 

I look forward to installing the software on my Mac Mini tomorrow and putting it through its paces.  I am a little worried at just how well this software is going to run on my Mac.

We'll see.