scollins.org

I find myself more and more being not excited after Apple announcements as I have in the past, and I think I have realized why.

Now that I am firmly entrenched in the world of Apple and have my home set up the way I like it, I find myself only caring about product updates that effect ME.

Three years ago, the iMac introduced yesterday would have me itching in anticipation, but having decided to be a laptop guy, I look at it, say “That’s cool.” and just move on. Not even digesting all of the information, because I know I won’t be buying one.

I do however use iLife and was anticipating ‘08, even though I thought we would be waiting for Leopard for the update, and I think I’ll be picking this up for iMovie alone. It’s a fundamental rethinking of what iMovie is for. iPhoto stores my photos, iTunes stores my music, why doesn’t iMovie store my movies? Well, it does now.

Although, I wonder how it will interact with the movies that iPhoto has taken to catalog. Will iMovie move them over? Will I need to do it manually? Will iMovie recognize the movie on my digital camera and move it into iMovie while iPhoto takes the pictures?

The other updates to iLife seem minimal, although jamming in Garageband may be fun.

I must confess I don’t use iWork, although my wife loves keynote, so I will probably pick it up so she can play with it.

The .Mac updates continue to be unimpressive to me and give me no reason to use it. Maybe if I didn’t already have my own domains I would try it, but with so much available out there already I need something more than an @mac.com email address to make me switch.

And what’s up with the new bluetooth keyboard. Maybe it’s just me but the lack of an actual number keypad is an immediate deal killer for me. Nothing slow me down as much as when I have to use the top of the keyboard to input numbers. Maybe it’s just me, because I see people around me at work who never touch it, but who knows?

Tags: Apple, Apple Keyboard, iLife, iMac, iWork

Well, we are now about an hour away from the special event where most people are expecting a revised iMac and an overhaul of the .Mac service. And as usual I will be glued to the computer awaiting each and every morsel of information.

I came with in about an hour of buying a brand new iMac last week, but we actually changed our mind at the last minute.

We currently have a Powerbook G4 1.67 which has been running great for us and is a real trooper considering how much it has been through physically.

You see we got a puppy back in September, pictures are in the Flickr sidebar to the right, and I would guess, on the low end, that since we got the puppy that laptop has flown off the table and on the floor no less than 15 times.

And that’s just the Mac. The Dell laptop hits the ground even more.

The keyboard stops working occasionally, the power chord socket is very unreliable, and there are quite few dents in it. To put off the purchase of a new computer we bought a 22″ flat panel Acer monitor, and Apple keyboard and a Logitech mouse.

All told it cost us about three hundred dollars. We set it up on a desk in a location that the puppy won’t bump into and I wouldn’t be surprised if we got 5 or 6 more months out of the computer.

And while looking at it on the table, I realize I am glad that I didn’t get the iMac. I would have really missed the portability when we took trips and such, and I can set it up in this docking station like environment whenever I feel the need for a desktop situation.

So, I think I’ll probably be replacing the G4 Powerbook with and Intel MacBook sometime early next year.

As far as .Mac is concerned, I really hope it gets the attention it deserves. It seems to do a few little things really well right now, but no where near enough to warrant the cost, especially when web mail is so much better right now and web hosting is so cheap and common.

I’m not sure what I am looking for from the service, but if they put together an attractive package, I will be more than happy to support it.

Tags: .mac, Apple, iMac, PowerBook

I think so. I’ve decided that I really like to segment my online life.

This started a couple years ago when I ran a website where I frequently expressed my political views and through another site of mine, a movie review site, someone at my company realized I had a lot going on online.

Now I was able to move and hide things quickly enough that there was no issue, and in reality there wouldn’t have been an issue, but it made me realize that there were certain people that I didn’t want to be able to connect me with my sites and thats how it all began.

It’s not an issue anymore. I only run 3 sites right now and none of them would I consider inflammatory in any way like politics.

They would be this site, which will become my personal/freelance gateway to the web.

Elton Chords, which is a resource for piano players that contains almost EVERY single Elton John song with the respective chords. A great reference for piano players.

And Motion Defined, which is my movie review site.

They vary in traffic with Elton Chords being in the hundreds per day and Motion Defined being in the single digits per day. Elton Chords is falling in traffic now with a lack of updates, but when new albums arrive, the traffic jumps back up. And Motion Defined is always slow, except during SXSW, when the early movie premiere review can bump me to dozens of hits per day.

Here are my elton stats which I always share with the readers of the site if anyone is interested - http://www.eltonchords.com/mint/.

Anyway, I hope someone can find something interesting here or on my other sites, and I hope to be able to communicate for a long time to come.

Tags: EltonChords, MotionDefined, SXSW, Website

At least, I suppose I am. I’m not really sure how you go about launching a blog since it’s actually been live the entire time I have been working on it, there’s just been nothing to read.

Except some Lorem ipsum.

There is still a lot to be worked out here, especially in completing the feel of the blog, but for now I think I have it laid out and functioning in a way that I am happy with, and the feed should be working now without any issues.

If anyone notices a problem, please feel free to email me.

Tags: Day One, Website

This willl be short because I can’t sit here and tell you that this was a good movie. I don’t think anyone, even Robin Williams, could.

But, much like RV, it had funny parts. Yes, it’s pretty much every thing you expect, a bad, stupid movie, but if you know going in that it’s a bad movie with some laughs you might enjoy it a little bit.

One game with the movie that you could play is “Spot the actors from The Office”. I counted four.

Technorati Tags: Robin Williams, John Krasinski, Mandy Moore, comedy

Tags: Movies