I posted a while back on how difficult it was to find a simple macbook case. At the time I was looking for a very simple sleeve, without even a zipper or velcro. I couldn’t find that so I gave in and went to the apple store to buy the simple zipper incase sleeve. Well, they were sold out of the 13″ sleeve in black so I decided to look at some of their other products. A very similar incase bag immediately caught my eye. It is just a little larger than the sleeve, but it has a small compartment on the front and back, handles, and a removable shoulder strap. To me that meant I could use it like a normal sleeve normally by removing the shoulder strap and tucking the handles in, but if I ever wanted to just carry my computer and a few small things I can pop on the shoulder strap and go. It also seemed to offer a bit more protection than the plain sleeve. It was twice the price and I probably wouldn’t have bought it if the sleeve I originally wanted had been in stock, but I am very glad things worked out the way they did. I definitely recommend this case. I know it is expensive. It is more money than I would normally spend on something like that too, but I would do it again in a heart beat.

Here is a link to the case in the apple online store.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/TL996LL/A?mco=MTIzNjQ3OA

I haven’t setup my voice mail since I switched to tmobile 4 years ago, and I don’t miss it one bit. It is so much easier to just send a text message if you can’t get someone on the phone, and I want the whole world to know this. I sometimes feel bad when I hang up on people’s answering machines, but it is a waste of both of our time for me to leave a message. When you see on the caller id that I called, just call me back. If it is a cell phone, and the problem is urgent then I can send you a text message letting you know what is going on. A voice message would be slower and less precise than both of those methods. How many times do you get a voice mail that you have to play 3 or 4 times to get all the information down? With a text message that will never happen. So please don’t expect me to leave you a voice mail, and don’t try to leave one for me because it won’t work.

I got my first chance to use Digg’s recommendation engine today and I have to say I am impressed. I found out that I was selected as a beta tester first by seeing a new sidebar that said something like “Popular Stories Recommended” or something to that effect. I had been seeing articles about Digg unveiling this new feature so I knew what was going on and headed straight to the upcoming stories tab which had the “beta” tag just like they said it would.

Now normally when I check the upcoming stories tab I see about 1 thing per page that I am interested in. Today, with the help of the recommendation engine, I consistently saw 2-3 things per page that I was interested in. Now you may think 2-3 things per page isn’t all that great, but I have only dugg a few stories so the engine has very little to base what I like on. I can only imagine how accurate it will become as I digg more stories. Like I said, I am very impressed and I can only see this getting better. Thumbs up digg!

I am looking for a sleeve for my newly acquired macbook so it doesn’t get scratched in my backpack, and I am having a hard time wading through all of the options. Prices range from $10 to $50 and while there are plenty of reviews, I haven’t found a single comparison type review. Also, I would just like a basic sleeve with plenty of shock protection. By basic I mean no pockets, zippers, or straps. I think I found what I want at foof bag but it doesn’t make sense to me that the most basic sleeve I have seen is also the most expensive at almost $50. I don’t know that to do - maybe i’ll just grab the $10 ebay sleeve.

According to Kotaku Microsoft is considering allowing third party manufacturers develop Xbox 360 consoles. I honestly cannot see this happening. I can understand that Microsoft may be interested in allowing other companies to sell the Xbox 360 console, which is currently sold by them at a loss, but I cannot understand how any other company would think they could possible produce the console for less than Microsoft is able to, which is what they would have to do in order to profit from these systems.

Lets say Microsoft takes a loss of about $50 on each console (No one really knows exactly how much they lose on each system sale, but it is certain that they do lose money). They are okay with this, however, because they take a portion of the income from each game or peripheral sold, which over the life of the console more than makes up for the initial loss. Knowing this, it is easy to deduce that if Microsoft could make the same money from games and peripherals without that initial $50 cost they would.

The issue comes in with finding another company that is willing to develop a “clone” Xbox 360 that meets Microsoft’s standards and can find a way to make a profit doing it. That means a company who would not be able to buy in as large of quantities as Microsoft (at least not right away) would have to find a way to cut at least $50 from the cost of the system. That doesn’t mean cutting $50 from the “you and me buy it at best buy for $400″ cost, that means the cost they sell it to the retailers for, which of course it quite a bit less than we pay for it.

That, in my opinion, is why we will never see Xbox 360s manufactured for a profit by anyone but Microsoft. Of course this whole story could change if Microsoft plans to pay some other company for each console they manufacture and sell, but then that would negate advantage of saving money for Microsoft. Again, it isn’t going to happen.

I am really getting tired of seeing articles on Digg that promise the “next big thing” in computing, when these things are just ideas in some guys head and not even close to production. There is an article on the front page of Digg.com right now about someone miniaturizing a refrigerator to fit inside laptops. I know about alternative cooling for computers and that it is real, but why use the words “miniaturizing a refrigerator”?

There is a new processor breakthrough every other week, and new ram technology coming out on the weeks we don’t hear about the new processors. I just wish people would stop digging things that are so far into the future that it won’t effect our next computer purchase, or the one after that. Some of these things won’t even be in your third computer purchase from now if you aren’t the early adopter type.

Dear Diggers,

If you don’t think a product could come to the market in the next two years, please do not digg an article discussing said product and how it will revolutionize the computing market.

Your Friend,
Josh

whoisjosh.net

I have had my Black Macbook for about 2 weeks now and I think I have gotten enough use out of it to write a quick review. I am using the standard configuration for blackbooks which right now is 2.4 ghz core 2 duo processor and 2 GB of ram with a 250 GB hard drive. I want to start the review with a discussion of how well OS X works with the macbook. Of course you expect they work well together because they are made by the same company, but I never realized how many problems there were with windows XP and my last laptop until I used this macbook. First off, sleep mode is excellent. You close the computer and it is asleep in a second and it wakes up just as fast when you open it. With my last laptop I would often leave it open just to avoid sleep mode, but now when I am leaving the computer for any length of time it is closed because I don’t have to worry about how long it will take to wake up.

Another note on the OS integration is the keyboard key shortcuts. I often listen to itunes in the background while I work, and it is great that my keyboard shortcuts to change the song or volume work no matter what I am doing.

Moving on to the overall construction; I really like the keyboard. It takes some getting used to it, but now that I have used it for a while I don’t make any mistakes and it really is the best laptop keyboard I have used. I also really like that they use a slot-loading cd drive rather than a standard pop-out drive. There are no latches to hold the screen down, it is done magnetically which is nice because I have seen many sticky, or worse, broken latches on laptops. The power plug is also held in magnetically which is a built in protection against someone tripping over the power cord and pulling the computer off the desk.

This is my first computer running OS X, and I have to say I am impressed. I really like how all of your applications stay open so they are ready to go when you need them. Even large programs like photoshop have no problem staying open and opening instantly when I need it, which is great considering photoshop took a decent bit to open on my windows box. I also really like the dashboard widgets. I particularly like the sticky notes and use them for everything from quick reminders and to-do lists to daily planning.

No laptop review would be complete without a discussion of the battery life. I have experienced excellent battery life, with my meter never reading less than 4 hours total time and usually around 5 hours. That is with wireless on but I do keep my brightness on the lowest setting (one tick above black screen). That is plenty of brightness for me.

As you can see I am very happy with my blackbook and I was able to get it new for about $1300 after taxes thanks to some great apple student discounts going on right now which made it a great deal even compared to windows based laptops.