Category: rant

  • John Markoff needs a new job or at least a new beat

    Ever know someone who got laid off or otherwise had an involuntary job change mid to late in their career and ended up feeling re-energized and renewed at their next job? Happened to my dad, thanks to Newt Gingrich becoming Speaker of the House, but that’s another story. It’s that time for New York Times…

  • Fantastico or who won’t let me upgrade WordPress

    It’s a real “hmmm” moment with my just-installed WordPress 2.5. There are a couple of annoying bugs, as I mentioned yesterday, so I want to upgrade to version 2.5.1. But my web hosting service, Bluehost, uses a program called Fantastico De Luxe to give me the capability to install and upgrade WordPress on their server.…

  • Three friggin millimeters, Steve Jobs, is all I ask

    (Updated 1/25) The more I think about the new uber-thin Macbook Air, the more confused I am about one design decision in particular. I can get over the lack of ports, the add-on optical drive, the wimpy graphics. But I keep coming back to the dreadfully small hard drive which maxes out at 80 gigabytes.…

  • Thin is in but I’m not sure why

    Steve Jobs had a couple of widely leaked “surprises” to unveil at yesterday’s Macworld show. As we’d all read everywhere for the past few weeks, Apple added rental movies to its iTunes download store. The selection is a bit small and the 30-day delay from DVD release to rental seems ridiculous but, hey, these are…

  • Leopard upgrade? Not today, baby

    Excited about Apple’s new Leopard OS X upgrade? Me, too. It’s got plenty of desirable new features, great and small. Did the Fed-Ex guy just drop it off and you’ve ripped open the box and got the shiny disk right in your hands? You’re drooling as you read the back of the package and start…

  • Anyone wanna buy a used Airport Extreme?

    Had to expect this but, still… “Two peripherals also reached the Apple Store on Tuesday without a separate announcement. AirPort Extreme revision The AirPort Extreme Base Station introduced in January now adds gigabit Ethernet without a price hike ($179).” (via AppleInsider)

  • Netgear’s confusing power play

    I was reading the latest issue of the excellent Mac newsletter Tidbits this morning when I came across an article comparing the performance of a wifi network to one of the new powerline networks. Ah, I thought to myself, I remember when I hoped that powerline, which runs ethernet over the electrical wiring in your…

  • Doh, hit by a MacBook Pro revision

    So after advocating avoiding the first iteration of new gadgets and programs, I finally ponied up for the latest revision of Mac laptops, the Macbook Pro with Intel’s Santa Cruz Core 2 Duo chip. It also happens to have a new generation of video controller chips, Nvidia’s GeForce 8600M GT. Ho hum…or not. One reason…

  • Don’t rush out for an iPhone (really)

    (Updated 6/21) With the release of the undeniably super-cool iPhone just around the corner, I have a plea for gadgetistas everywhere: Please don’t camp out, queue up or generally make a fool of yourself on the evening news in front of an AT&T wireless store next week. Like I’ve said over and over, there’s no…

  • Why I stopped watching Battlestar Galactica

    (Updated 4/4/07) So…turns out it was a ruse concocted by Mister Moore. More here from the L.A. Times (With apologies to Thomas Jefferson) When in the course of television events it becomes necessary for one viewer to dissolve the entertaining bands which have connected them with a show and to assume among the powers of…