Windows 7 Upgrade Tips

So a Friend of mine emails me and says the following:

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 3:34 PM:

Hey Rich,

I was in costco today and saw windows 7 home premium upgrade for $109. Then I saw something interesting. They had something called windows 7 home premium family for $129 that I didn't see online for download, and from what I can tell, it allows you to upgrade 3 PCs in your home. Given that I want to upgrade Jessica's laptop, as well, am I reading the packaging right and can I upgrade both computers for only $20 more?

I know you would prefer I switch to Mac OS Super Leopard Tiger XII, or whatever name Steve Jobs came up with to call it during a gay orgy, but since that isn't a possibilty, I would appreciate your advice.


Sent from my iPhone

This was my response:

Hey man, yes you can upgrade to Win 7 Home premium for $109 and yes they do have a family pack that allows you to install up to 3 computers. First a couple of questions, what OS is Jessica running? If she is still rocking Window XP upgrading to Windows 7 is basically a format and reinstall. So you'll have to back up all her data to an external drive and then re-install all her programs too no other way around this, so be prepared for at least a few hours dedicated to backing up, installing and restoring.

For you since you are already running Vista and going to the same version then your upgrade is easy you can just in an in place upgrade and retain all your docs and programs, however it is still highly recommended to back up all your data prior to doing so.

Another tip, once you are done upgrading you computer and Jess's computer, I'd highly recommend making a repair disk, it's a new feature built into Windows 7. Go to start/run and type "System Repair" then choose "Create a System Repair Disk", pop in a blank DVD and let Windows 7 do it's magic. This way if you ever get a system melt down or get a particularly nasty virus/malware you can always restore your system with this disk without having to reinstall everything.

Now see if you were using OSX then upgrades are a snap no matter what version you're upgrading from : ) and you don't lose your data or applications.

A follow up email:

Sounds like a snap to me!

Jessica is running Vista on her laptop, as well, so should have the sane upgradeability.

You said I should back up everything anyway, just in case. What is the best way to do that other than folder by folder, file by file copying to a USB drive or DVD?

A follow up Answer:

Awesome glad she is already running Vista makes things way easier, one other quick thing to check, is to make sure both of you are running the same version of Windows Vista. I think you guys are both running Win Vista Home Premium 32 bit edition, that way you'll be able to buy the one corresponding Win 7 Family Pack.

There are really only a few options to back up your data, the hard quick and dirty way, is to find all the files that you know you'll need or couldn't live without if your HD was pwned and then copy them to an external HD or CD/DVD. I would recommend backing up to an external HD, it's much faster and there is less headache in the burning process.

The more elegant & complete way, is to use a piece of software called Macrium Reflect, this is actually a free download here:

http://download.cnet.com/Macrium-Reflect-Free-Edition/3000-2242_4-10845728.html?tag=mncol

Don't worry it's free of spyware and malware it's from CNET's download.com, this software is cool because it takes a complete image of your old HD and you'll be able to restore it as if nothing has happened. The down side is that it will require a fairly large external HD to be able to image both yours and Jess's Drive. But this is the most complete and fail safe way of ensuring you don't lose any data just incase.

Otherwise you can go renegade and not back up anything and just upgrade and pray nothing goes wrong.

Mac OSX Snow Leopard Neat Trick

Most of you know by know that Mac OSX Snow Leopard has a new Quicktime X with a very cool new video capture feature, audio capture feature AND screen capture feature.

So now you can easily capture streaming video and audio for free using Quicktime X. However, by default you are only allowed to use an internal/external mic for audio capturing. You cannot capture audio from your mac itself (ie sound from a movie playing in your browser or music from a website). With the help of a free plugin, Soundflower, for Snow Leopard, we can in turn use Quicktime Player’s screen recording abilities as a very free and easy way to capture web video and audio. Props to http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/4587/snow-leoard-use-quicktime-player-to-capture-web-video-and-audio/ for the how to:

Requirements:

- Mac running Snow Leopard

- Snowflower add-on (download here )

1. Download and install the Snowflower add-on. The actual download link is a google code page. Once you install the add-on, i would recommend rebooting.

2. After rebooting, you will need to set your audio preferences to output to the new Soundflower audio outputs. Go to System Preferences > Sound > Output and select the Soundflower outputs

3. Now, launch Quicktime Player ( Applications > Quicktime Player or via Spotlight, command+spacebar)

Go to File >New Screen Recording

Then on the recording window, click the drop down arrow and choose the same Soundflower output we setup in our previous step. (ie Soundflower 2CH).

4. Finally, now go to your website and get the video ready to play. Hit the Record button in Quicktime Player and then start your movie/video in your browser. Once your done, stop the recording and voila! You have an instant video capture.

HOWEVER, remember to change your output audio back to your speakers once your done capturing. ( System Preferences > Sound > Output ) or else you may wonder where your audio went. :)

TIPS/TRICKS:

- REMEMBER, your mouse is captured when your recording, so try not to put it over the video your capturing.

- You can easily capture web audio by just doing a File > New Audio Recording and again choosing the Soundflower input as source.

- If you want, you can even import the captured video into iMovie and then crop to the video frame itself. Makes it a cleaner video.

New cheaper iPods & some other cool stuff

So in case you didn't know Apple held an event today to talk about new iPods sort of. Some things were new and they definitely got cheaper but the only thing that is new is the new iPod nano, it got a very nice improvement most notably a video camera, mic, speaker, FM tuner and Nike Plus built in! So very nice.

I'm probably going to buy a new Nano and when I get my grubby little hands on it I'll post a review.

But there were a couple of other announcements too like iTunes 9 which looks very cool, most notably new Genius play list features, sharing music and apps directly from iTunes in your home and the ability to organize your apps in iTunes for your iPod touch or iPhone, finally. Also now when you buy albums you'll get really nice features like new cover art, lyrics, pictures and video. Oh and the store has been revamped to have a simpler cleaner look.

Overall very nice updates but not really a "wow" factor people were looking for. And another curious note the iPod touch doesn't have a camera?! I'd be willing to bet in a couple months they'll release a new iPod touch with a camera, the rumor was that they were having manufacturing problems and couldn't get the iPod touch out as planned.

Check out the full details and pictures here:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/09/live-from-apples-its-only-rock-and-roll-event/#continued

Got questions ask me: richmlee@gmail.com

Mac OSX Snow Leopard

So Apple released Snow Leopard on August 28th, their newest version of OSX. It has come with mixed reviews because a lot of the nerds out there were saying it really wasn't an upgrade it was more of a service pack. In my opinion it was kind of in between, it isn't exactly an entirely new system but it also isn't just at a level of a service pack.

There aren't any real huge improvements from a graphical user look all of the significant changes have been in the underlying code. Primarily because most of the key apps in OSX are written in 64 bit now. Like the Finder, Mail, Address Book etc. I've noticed these apps are a notch faster and snappier, in fact overall the entire system feels faster and more nimble. But let me start at the beginning.

I purchased my Snow Leopard DVD at the Apple Store, naturally I got the family pack with 5 licences for the bargain price of $49 ($29 for single license). Actually I got it for only $40 due to my Fox/PwC discount. But either way it was a steal.

I got home and I popped in the disk and let it work it's magic, on my Macbook Pro the entire install took about an hour. First it loads a lot of data onto your local drive, then it will reboot and this is where a lot of the actual install takes place. It's replacing a lot of the old 32 bit code with 64 bit code also installing Grand Central and Open CL, which are two of the main new "under the hood" features of Snow Leopard. I'll get into those a little later.

Once the system fully installed I got the familiar welcome video with the nice happy music and "Welcome" in a lot of various languages and I was ready to play around in my new system.

Like I mentioned previously everything felt quicker and snappier this could just be a placebo effect and a desire for me to want to think that it's faster because I just spent $40 on it but it really did feel faster.

I mean loading Safari, iTunes, Calendar, Address book everything seemed to be faster. Spotlight searches appeared to be quicker as well.

One big thing that Snow Leopard advertised to do was that it was lighter about 6 gigs lighter than Leopard, well I give Snow Leopard an A+++ because it actually saved me about 20 gigs of space. Very very impressive.

It also advertised 50% quicker sleep and shut down time, in my experience I noticed a marginal speed increase but it wasn't dramatically faster.

Then I started to check to see if all my apps worked, which they should have because I checked in my system profile that all my apps were intel or universal so no surprises there. Although on my iMac I still had Office 2004 and that was a power PC app and that no longer worked, it required Rosetta to be installed which is not a standard install of Snow Leopard, partially why you save HD space. But no big deal I'm waiting for the new Office of Mac to come out so I should be good.

The other cool improvement is Quicktime X, it has a slick new interface and you can crop videos on the fly. Also you can do audio and video capturing without having to pay for Quicktime Pro. I tried this and it was quite easy to use. Also it has easy buttons for exporting to iPod, iPhone, Moblie me or Youtube. So it's convenient. I did hear that they excluded some of the features from the previous Quicktime 7 Pro that some people who are power users have complained about but for the normal user Quicktime X is a vast improvement. But you still have the option for Quicktime Pro if you want it's included on the install disk as a separate install.

Also big in this release is full Exchange support so you can use your Mac on corporate enviorments running Windows Server 2007, not really applicable to a lot of us but it is nice to have.

Other smaller improvements are improved stacks, cover flow with page preview built in, and an enhanced expose that allows you to "expose" groups of Windows of similar apps vs all of your windows a very nice touch.

The bigger improvements are native 64 bit support as well as legacy 32 bit support. So now with 64 bit you can potentially use up to 16 exabytes of RAM. You're probably wondering what the hell is a exabyte, well one exabyte is one billion gigabytes so 16 exabytes is 16 billion gigabytes, that's a shit load of RAM : )

Now to the more techie stuff, first there is Grand Central, this new piece of software built in OSX Snow Leopard will enable programs to more efficiently use the multiple cores that most newer Macs have from the dual core Macs to the 8 core Mac Pros. Grand Central Dispatch (GCD) in Mac OS X Snow Leopard addresses this pressing need. It’s a set of first-of-their-kind technologies that makes it much easier for developers to squeeze every last drop of power from multi core systems. With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance.

Now a new technology in Mac OS X Snow Leopard called OpenCL takes the power of graphics processors and makes it available for general-purpose computing. No longer will graphics processors be limited to graphics-intensive applications such as games and 3D modeling. Instead, once developers begin to use OpenCL in their applications, you’ll experience greatly improved speed in a wide spectrum of applications.

Recommendation:

For $29 bucks it's definitely worth the upgrade the snappier performance plus the future built in support of GC and Open CL will be awesome once more software is written to take advantage of this.

That's about it, got any questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

Dell Mini 9 --> Apple Netbook

So I got my Dell mini 9 over the weekend and with a lot of work I was finally able to install a stable OSX onto my Dell mini 9 and everything works! It's an awesome little Mac Netbook. It took me a while to figure out the install process but I eventuality got it to work. I also managed to install it on my girlfriend's Dad's Mini 9 as he wanted a Mac Netbook as well. Here are the pics:

I stuck an Apple logo sticker on it to make it a little more authentic : )

I'll post another entry as to how I did it but just wanted to post that I did it and it worked : )

Windows 7 Blues

Windows 7 runs free without activation for 120 days with simple command

We know how it is: you've paid $300 for your brand new copy of Windows 7, but what a hassle to enter in that activation code! Well, you don't have to worry about it now for a good four months after install: Microsoft has given its sort-of blessing to a simple hack to keep that non-activated copy of Windows 7 humming for a full 120 days before full-on nag mode sets in. All you have to do is enter "slmgr -rearm" into the command prompt at the end of every 30 day period, and your copy of Windows gets a whole new lease on life -- an action that can be repeated three times. The same command is available to Vista users, and we have to say that Microsoft has come a very long way since its unforgiving WGA kill switchdays.

From www.engadget.com

Make your own Mac Netbook!!

Want a Mac Laptop but don't want to spend $1,000 on the cheapest Mac laptop? Well why don't you build your own? That's right build your own! The easist way is to buy a Dell Mini 9 or 10 and just install OSX Leopard on it, also you'll need a retail copy of OSX not the one that comes with a Mac, the retail version is the one you buy at the store. So for about $400 to $500 you too can have a Mac laptop!!

This guy has an awesome website and guides on how to do it props to this guy:

http://osx.mechdrew.com/guides/oldguide.shtml

I just bought a Dell Mini 9 on eBay and I can't wait to get it so that I can "Hackintosh" it. I'll post my impressions and hopefully a video about it.

Check the site after the weekend for first impressions assuing I get my Dell Mini 9!

questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

iPhone Apps New with 13% more awesomeness

I downloaded some new apps today and I'd like to share the awesomeness considering they were all free apps.

Pixel Perfect - Very easy and quick way to add effects to your pictures, black and white, sepia, super easy to use, try it out for free!

Polarize - Very cool app that lets you add a retro flare to your photoes by adding a poloroid boarder to your photo and letting you write a caption at the bottom.

Mover - This app is very cool! It's a very easy way to share photos and contacts with someone else. When you have two iphones or ipod touches near each other you litterly flick the picture or contact over to the other iPhone or iPod touch and they'll receive it! Very cool. Only limitation is that it only works if you guys are on the same WiFi network.

Bump - The one you've seen in the apple commercials, you just have two iPhones/iPod touches near each other and you just gently bump together and you'll swap contact info, really cool!!

So get out there and DL these apps and enjoy!

Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

iPhone/iPod Touch Apps

So a lot of people have been asking me what apps I have on my iPhone so here is a list of all my apps and a quick descriptoin of what it does, I've bolded the best ones:

These are all FREE apps:
Bank of America - iPhone portal into your BofA account
DoBot ToDos - A cool simple to do list
1Password - Keeps track of all your passwords and logins for your accounts it's a password protected
Shazam - ID's any song on the radio
Amnesia - A cool game just like "Simon" where you repeat the colors and sounds
Live Poker - Texas Holdem live poeker
CannonGame - Fun little cannon game
Labyrinth LE - A cool fun balancing game with a ball
Tap Tap Revenge - Sort of like guitar hero for iphone
S.deadbeef - Fun little space airplane game
Pac-Man Lite - Free version of pacman
Pandora - Free internet radio and picks songs based on the kind of music you like it'll find more just like it
midomi - a cool music app that finds music based on what you type a part of the lyrics, artist, song name, sing, or hum into the phone.
Now Playing - A cool app for finding movie times and theaters
cooliris - it's like the 3d picture browser plug in for fire fox
Facts - a cool facts slide deck with 100's of random facts

Skype - Make Skype calls!
Google - all google functionality and Speak to search, you just talk into your phone on what you want to search and google will find it
iheartradio - a cool app that lets you listen to local radio stations like KIIS FM Los Angeles etc
AIM - it's AIM
iPint - free cool little beer game
Lightsaber - a cool nerdy star wars light saber that makes different noises as you swing your iphone around like a light saber
mandarin - a cool audio mandarin phrase book
mobile news - AP News wire
Mr.Trivia Lite - cool little trivia question game
Ruler P Lite - cool measuring app by where you take a picture of something and it'll measure it for you, the light version only works on stuff 14'' or less
SnapTell - The app i used to find the COD5 price for cheap
Converter - converts units of measure
Urban Spoon - Cool restaurant app where you shake your iphone for restaurant suggestions
WeDict - a cool english to mandarin dictionary
Wikipanion - iphone app for wikipeida
i.TV - Tells you what's on TV
Yelp - It's Yelp for iphone
Currency - Currency converter with auto updates of the latest exchange rates
Take me to my car - cool app that records your location of where you parked your car so you know where it is
Zippo - a little zippo lighter app
Dashbuster - a cool app that lest you see what is in your blockbuster queue the free version only lets you view your que the paid version lets you update and change your queue
IGN - Cool video game reviewer app
PayPal - Iphone interface to your Payapl
Weather Bug - much more detailed weather than the default weather widget
Around me - based on GPS or cell tower triangulation it'll tell you the nearest things such as gas, atm, pharmacies, hotels etc
Balance - a simple little app that helps you track your personnel expenses
iSteam - app that lets you draw on steam

MySpace/Facebook - Social Networking

Wall Street Journal - Free articles from WSJ

Amazon.com - My Favorite online retailer, great app for searching and buying stuff on Amazon.com on the go.

Ebay - I love selling stuff on ebay so this is a great one.

SnapTell - Take a picture of any DVD, CD, or Video Game and it will scour local retailers based on your locaiton and give you the best price.

One of the few paid apps I have is Fieldrunners it's a very addicting RTS game when you need time to kill, only $2.99 but def worth the price i've played it for 100s of hours already.

Good Luck and welcome to the world of apps!!

Burn an iso in Mac OSX

I totally ripped this tutorial off this other website so credit goes to: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060619181010389 How to burn ISO disc images Thu, Jun 22 2006 at 7:30AM PDT • Submitted by vocaro

Disc images are a fairly common packaging standard for large software programs. If you want to try out a new Linux distribution, for example, chances are you'll need to download a disc image in ISO format and burn it to a blank CD-ROM or DVD. But ever since I began using Mac OS X, I've been perpetually confused about how to burn ISO images. I'm used to disc burning utilities that have an obvious, explicit command like "Burn ISO Image to CD." To make life even more confusing, OS X's Disk Utility does have a Burn command, but it becomes disabled when you click on the blank disc you'd like to use for the burn. The problem here is that most Mac disc utilities, including the built-in Disk Utility, take a different approach when it comes to image burning. Instead of telling the program you want to burn an image, then choosing the file, you're supposed to do the reverse: You choose the file, then tell the program you want to burn it. So, to burn an ISO image to disc, here's what to do: Insert a blank disc. Start Disk Utility. From the File menu, choose Open Disk Image and select the ISO to be burned. In the list of volumes, you will now see an item representing the ISO file. Select it. Click the Burn button and follow the instructions. That's it! Sure, it may seem simple enough, but when you've been using Linux and Windows utilities for years, these steps can be a little perplexing and hard to remember. [robg adds: Yes, for those who've been on the Mac for a long time, this is an obvious hint. However, I've been confused when trying to use Windows and Nero to burn discs, so it seems the opposite would also be true for those new to our platform of choice.]

Have iPhone, won't respond

Have an iPhone that just has the Apple Logo on start up and does nothing else? You tried the hard rest and still no dice? Then you need to do a little DFU trick and restore your phone.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-put-an-unresponsive-iphone-into-dfu-mode-259739/

Install Windows 7 RC for FREE on your Mac (until March 10, 2010)

So you have an Intel based Mac and you want to know what all the hoopla is about Windows 7 or you need to run some windows programs on your Mac. Well there is a 100% leagl and FREE way to do it!

You'll need two things, 1. a copy of the FREE Windows 7 Release Candidate and a copy of the FREE VirtualBox software for your Mac.

Get Windows 7 RC here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Get VirtualBox software here:

http://www.virtualbox.org

This is a limtied time deal, you only have until August 20th to download Windows 7 RC AND on March 1, 2010 your machine will beging shutting down every two hours and finally on June 1, 2010 Windows will just no longer work. But you'll have from now until June 1, 2010 to user Windows 7 FOR FREE on your Mac.

I could tell you how to do it and type it all out but the people over at CNET.com has posted a video on how to do it.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/virtualize-windows-free-mac/9742-1_53-50072669.html

It's easy, legal and FREE!!

Got questions? Email me: richmlee@gmail.com

Photoshop on-line FREE

Adobe Photoshop has a really cool and free web app that allows you to do some simple editing of your photos to give it that extra snazzyness. It's a very easy to use and has a slick interface.

You get 2 free gigs of space to store your photoes which is good for about 1,000 pictures. You can create albums and share your albums with friends and family by sending out a link to your gallery.

What you can also do is publish that album to your favorite photo sharing site like Facebook, Flicker, Photobucket, Picass etc.

It's a great way to uplaod, share and edit your pictures for free. Try it out it's pretty cool and easy.

www.photoshop.com

Got questions? Email me: richmlee@gmail.com

Jailbreak and Unlock your iPhone 3G

The good people at the Dev-Team have brought you the tools to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone 3G from the clutches of the evil empire known as AT&T.

I've posted a video on how to do it on my Youtube page. It's actually quite simple you just need a couple of tools which are totally free.

Hit the link to view my video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suYsmgqKDoI

Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

Streaming Video Capture

So have you ever wanted to capture some video on screen of some videos you're watching on any ebsite? For example my girlfriend's Uncle was on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and I thought it would be cool if I could capture the video and share it with friends and family.

But I know I have but there's no computer VCR to just click record on. However there are some interesting solutions and one of the ones I like to use is Camstudio.

It's a free Windows based program that you can use to record video. It's pretty easy to use and best of all it's free. Here is the link to their website and to download it.

http://camstudio.org/

It's a nice program with some limitations it only records in .AVI format so you'll have to use another program to make it iPod/iPhone friendly. But .AVI is perfecly alright for youtube.

I know what you're thinking, what no Mac version? Right now no, but I'm scouring the internet for a good Mac streaming video capture software.

Got Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

iPhone 3G vs 3Gs app load speeds

I compared two iPhones with the same apps and firmware 3.0 but one is the 3G and the other is the new 3Gs and you'll notice that the speed of the 3Gs is much faster that the 3G even in normal apps.

Check the link for a video and you'll see the iPhone 3Gs smoke the iPhone 3G!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BXBF1Vs6Dw

Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

iPhone 3G vs. iPhone 3Gs

Hey everyone,

Ok I've had my new iPhone 3Gs for the first weekend and so far I've been impressed with it. It's still the same quality phone as the iPhone 3G but just faster.

This short blog will focus on the speed of the Internet browsing. A few things to note.

1. I was comparing my iPhone 3G vs my iPhone 3Gs which were identical in the software, apps and pages so I was making the best comparison apples to apples, no pun intended.
2. I cleared both phone's Safari cache, cookies and history so that were were on a level playing field
3. I updated the iPhone 3G to software version 3.0 recently so it was a fresh install
4. Since I no longer have services on my iPhone 3G, I couldn't compare 3G Internet surfing speeds, I hooked both of the phones up to the same wireless network and did that test that way.

Check the video for the results!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzEfqIu6Ykk

Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

iPhone 3Gs - Yes I got one...

Yes I got an iPhone 3Gs today and I'll write a lot more about it later but first impressions are that it's fast and works great and yes it looks EXACTLY like my iPhone 3G but now I have 32 gigs. More later....

iPhone 3.0 Software - Full Review

Ok so I've updated my iPhone with the 3.0 software and I've been playing with it or a few days now and it's been really impressive. I'll go down the key features and give my thoughts:

First up the 3.0 Software:

• Cut, copy and paste - works as advertised I was able to cut, copy and paste just about everything that is a native Apple app so Text messages, mail, safari, notes etc. It's basically really easy to use and one cool thing is that it doesn't just copy text, it'll copy images and whole chunks of text in websites, which other phones can't do. So it's a little more advanced than just copy and paste. Also the "shake to undo" function is really cool and easy to use.
• Landscape keybaord - Works very well and it's nice to type emails in land scape, I don't use land scape with texts much becuase my texts are usually short, but with email it's nice you can type pretty long emails.
• MMS - Awesome, but it doens't work yet stupid ATT.
• Spotlight search - Works great. Originally I wasn't exactly 100% sure the depth of the search, for example on one of my tests I know in an email of mine I had written to my friend about his puppy and when I typed "puppy" it came back with no results, weird huh? But I tried it again and it came up so not sure how that works. But it works awasome for quick access to contacts, apps, notes and it does come up with email searches but it's not 100% fool proof, we'll have to test it out some more to see.
• Native Voice memo app - This is cool, you can record memos and then categorize them and email them and as soon as ATT supports MMS you'll be able to text voice memos too.
• Improved exchange support for your Calendars - Didn't try this I use mobile me.
• Download movies, tv shows and audito books direcly on your iPhone (WiFi only) - Was able to browse all this and music videos pretty cool now I can download stuff when I'm at the airport. ESPECIALLY now that ALL iPhone users have FREE access to all of ATT's WiFi hotspots!!
• Improved Safari for better speed and autofill names, PWs etc - Safari is faster and the autofill is nice so is the built in WiFi authentication.
• Internet Teathering via bluetooth or usb - Can't try this feature as ATT doesn't surpport it yet.
• Stereo Bluetooh! - Didn't try this don't have a BT Stereo
• Sync notes - This worked great and it's cool now that you can type notes on your iPhone and sync them over to your Mac and vice versa.

So all and all very great new updates and the 3.0 software is a hit as far as I'm concerend and it really makes your iPhone 3G like a new Phone. If you have an iPhone you're dumb not to update it, first it's free and second you get all of the cool new features.

Got questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

iPhone 3.0 Software - Intital Review

Ok so I finished updating my iPhone 3G with the new 3.0 software and it's pretty impressive I'll give you my first takes on all the new key features:

iPhone 3.0 Software is here!!!

Ok I just started to download and install 3.0 onto my iPhone 3G, pretty excited to see all the new features in action. I'll update a new post with first impressions but the download is complete and it's about half done with the install!!

New Macbook Specs!!!

With the big announcements of iPhone there were some announcments on Macs, specificlaly the Macbooks.

Here are the highlights:

• Price drops all around!!!! From $200 to $700!!!!! Very nice!
• Updated Specs all around faster processors and bigger harddrives
• 15 in Macbook pro looses the express slot and get a built in SD card reader
• Rebranding of the the 13 in Macbook to Macbook pro (Still not a pro to me becuase it does not have a discrete graphics card only has the NVidia M9400)
• 13 in Macbook pro gains fire wire 800 port yay!!!
• 13 in Macbook pro gains the nicer screen similar to 15in Macbook Pro
• Support for 8 gigs of from for Pro notebooks
• All Pro notebooks get the new 7 hour battery with up to 1000 recharges
• BAD: All new Pro notbooks do not have a user replaceable battery and don't have the handy removable try to easily swap HDs and batteries.

Pricing summary:

15 and 17'' Macbook Pros:

• Starting at $1,699 (down from $1,999 in prior lineups)
• $1,699: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $1,999: 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 320GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $2,299: 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT graphics, 500GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• 17-inch unibody MacBook Pro remains the same specs-wise (it's the only Apple laptop left with an ExpressCard slot), but it's getting a price cut to $2,499.

13" Macbook Pro:

• $1,199: 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 160GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard
• $1,499: 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 250GB HDD, SD card slot, no ExpressCard

Macbook Air:

• $1,499: 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 120GB HDD
• $1,799: 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB DDR3 RAM, GeForce 9400M graphics, 128GB SSD (whopping $700 drop!!!)

You can still get the White Plastic Macbook or less than $1000.

But all in all very nice upgrades and if you're looking for a new Macbook now is the best time to get one!!

Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com

New iPhone 3Gs Horray!!!

So the new iPhone has been announced and it's coming out next week June 19th and for those of you who know me I'm really looking forward to it. I've already reserved mine at the Apple Store and I'll have one on June 19th and I'll post a review then as well.

But as far as the announcemnet goes there are two big announcemens for the iPhone. There is the new iPhone 3Gs (s for speed) and iPhone OS 3.0 which brings a lot of improvements on the iPhone itself.

So the first question most people ask is should I get the new iPhone 3Gs if I already ahave an iPhone 3G. For most people the answer is no for a couple of reasons the first is cost. Although they say $199 and $299 for the 16 and 32 gig iPhones that's only for New ATT customres and "Qualifed" customers. So if you have an existing iPhone 3G you got earlier this year you'll have to pony up $399 and $499 for the 16 and 32 gig versions, ouch! Second while the new features are cool a lot of people who have the iPhone 3G won't find it all that compelling to drop 4 and 5 hundred bucks to get a new one espeically when the 3.0 upgrade will give them so many new features over 100 new features on the 3.0 upgrade so it'll almost be like getting a new phone.

However there will be people like me who need to have the bleeding edge of tehcnology and yes I will be dropping $499 for the 32 gig version of the iPhone 3Gs.

So lets talk about the new features of the iPhone 3.0 software upgrade and the iPhone 3Gs.

First up the 3.0 Software:

• Cut, copy and paste, it's about damn time, but it's seems very easy to use and it works accross all native Apple apps and it's an API free for developers to use in their apps. Also there is the cool "undo" feature where you just litterly shake your phone to undo any copy, cut and pastes.
• Landscape keybaord for email, texts, and notes, nice feature should have been in 1.0
• Finally MMS but still have to wait. While 3.0 update gives everyone MMS!!! ATT customers will have to wait until the end of summer to be able to MMS....Lame, ATT you totally suck this was your bad, you should have been ready for this.
• New text featues like Texting video, text contact info, text forwarding, and another very cool featuer texting your position.
• Spotlight search, very cool feature to search ANYTHING on your iPhone just with a touch of a few letters, searches your email, apps, notes, calendars, everything!
• Native Voice memo app, keep those reminders handy and you can email and text them to yourself or others.
• Improved exchange support for your Calendars
• Download movies, tv shows and audito books direcly on your iPhone (WiFi only)
• Improved Safari for better speed and autofill names, PWs etc.
• Internet Teathering via bluetooth or usb BUT not for ATT yet and will prob come at a cost
• Stereo Bluetooh!
• Sync notes! Finally
• PLUS lots more but these are probably the most significant ones

As you can see the list above will turn the iPhone 3G from a great phone into an even better one. So it'll almost be like getting a new phone!

iPhone 3Gs features:

• MORE RAM double from 128 to 256 which is very welcome
• Clained double the processor speed, but I hear it's only going from 400 mhz to 600 mhz ARM processor
• Double the storage copacity from 8 and 16 to 16 and 32 gigs for the same price
• New 3 megapixel autofocus camera with video recording
• Voice control, dial, control your ipod and make reqeusts with your voice
• Compass, better for Maps directions and better positioning with GPS
• Increased battery life, up 1-6 hours in various usage scenarios
• Pluse all the features above in the 3.0 software update.

So you can see that the new hardware may not be worth it for most people but people who are upgrade eligible or are new/switchign to ATT there's no question in getting the iPhone, like I've always said it's not the perfect phone but it's the best phone out there.

Questions? Email me.

New iPhone...can't wait...who want's one!!!! I do!!

So by now you probably have heard about the new iPhone that is suppoed to come out and we're close enought to the June 8th Apple World Wide Developer Confrence that I can start to make some predctions.

1. The new iPhone will have the same basic shape and same screen size, however there will be a matte black back casing that will give you better grip and be a bit more scratch resistent as well as the silver bezel will be gone it will be a black bezel. **EXTRA rumor that the iPhone may have an OLED screen which will be brighter and more battery friendly maybe have higher resoulution.
2. The new iPhone will have a new 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus that will support video recording
3. Support for native video editing and being able to email the video to family and friends
4. The new iPhone will have twice the internal RAM from 128 to 256 for faster cashing.
5. The new iPhone will have a faster processor going from 400 mhz to about 600 mhz, which means faster web browsing, faster app loading and faster games. **EXTRA rumor that the iPhone may use the advanced multi core processor but may not be until the next generation. With both the faster processor and more RAM this will make the new iPhone significantly faster.
6. Bulit in magnometer, or digital compas
7. FM Tuner
8. Up to 32 gigs of meomory for music, pictures, tv shows, movies, apps etc. EXTRA rumor, there will be a 4 gig, 8 gig, 16 gig and 32 gig iPhones with the 4 gig being some sort of iPhone lite or something at at $99 price point with the 32 gig being $299, not sure where that puts the 8 gig price point.
9. NEWST RUMOR - FRONT FACING CAMERA!!! For wireless iChat with other iPhones or Macs - This would be so freaking sweet.
10. 3.0 Software upgrade will include:
11. Cut-Copy-paste
12. Global search
13. Turn by turn gps directions
14. Locate my iPhone
15. Type email in landscape
16. MMS, or native picture texting
17. Peer to Peer connectivity via bluetooh or WiFi, have you and your friends iPhones talk to each other
18. Native Voice recording/memos
19. Stereo Bluetooth
20. Rumor release date JULY 17th!!

Who's Excited to get one!!!!

Questions email me: richmlee@gmail.com