by PunditGuy | Sep 9, 2014 | Technology |
I could easily point to this article on Engadget and be done. Go ahead an read it, because many of the arguments made there resonate with me. My honest thoughts are these:
- Apple Watch needs a separate charging plug. That’s just another I need to carry with me.
- The device requires an iPhone. Do you have to have it in your pocket? In proximity? Why wouldn’t I just pull out my phone instead of looking at my wrist?
- Aside from my wife, why would I want to send my heartbeat to anyone? And even with my wife, wouldn’t that get old after awhile? “Yeah, honey, love you too…ok, right…now, shut that heart beat off…I’m busy.”
- Won’t my arm start to ache after holding it up for long periods of time? Isn’t that the beauty of a wrist watch? You only have to raise your arm for a split second to see what time it is, then you’re done. Now, I’m going to be holding my arm up for how long? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? If it’s only a minute or two, that’s an expensive device for a quick look. Again, I should just take out my phone.
- Since when does anybody want a version 1.0 of ANYTHING Apple releases? Early adopters, that’s who. In a year, that watch is going to be half as thick. And you won’t need an iPhone either. And it will do more.
- I stopped wearing a watch 8 years ago. Why will Apple Watch make me want to wear one again? I really can’t think of a reason.
So, there you have it. My blog, my feelings. I’ll be in line for Apple Watch 2. Or…maybe 3.
by PunditGuy | Aug 29, 2014 | Technology |
Probably false, but, a delicious report nonetheless.
Billionaire to be Beats headphones founder Dr. Dre was questioned earlier today after a man apprehended for shooting Suge Knight says the former Deathrow artist paid him $100,000 carry out the hit.
“He gave me $50k upfront and promised me another $50k and lifetime supply of Beats headphone once Suge was dead,” said the man accused of shooting Mr. Knight at a party with singer Chris Brown and many other celebrities in attendance.
As of right now Dr. Dre has only been brought in for questioning to prove he’s innocent, but if sufficient evidence for a prosecution is provided he could face up to 15 years in jail.
Welcome to Apple.
by PunditGuy | Aug 24, 2014 | Technology |
So you bought your daughter an iPhone or an Android mobile device because, well hey, all the kids have them and it’s dangerous for kids to be outside the house without a way to communicate with you, right? What if there is an emergency? What if they’re in trouble and need your help?
What if they are sending nude pictures of themselves to other pre-teens?
A Dinwiddie mother got a nasty shock when she went through her daughter’s cell phone and tablet. The pictures she discovered were so disturbing that she turned the girl in to sheriff’s deputies.
The parents discovered their 13-year-old daughter, who is about to enter the eighth-grade, had been sending and receiving naked pictures of other teens using her tablet.
And the deeper they dug, the worse it got. In fact, things got so bad they called in the sheriff’s department to investigate.
“What scares me is, this is much bigger than we realize. How many others are doing this and you don’t realize it,” asked the Dinwiddie County mother of two.
Parents need to wake up. The $500 device you bought for your teen is most likely a conduit for pornography. It could be racy pictures sent by Snapchat and destroyed seconds later, sexting, solicitation, bullying or worse yet, full on child pornography. Don’t be naive. If you have teens with phones or tablets, it’s happening in your house.
Take charge and fix it. Put filters on your home internet. It’s easy and effective. Monitor the online activity of your child. Tell them the expensive device you gave them can be taken away as fast as they can delete a snapchat. Be informed. Look for ways to protect your kids. Go on — use Google and take action.
by PunditGuy | Aug 23, 2014 | Technology |
Have a Mac? Do this:
Press Command + Shift + G while in Finder to open the Go To Folder box, and then paste the following path:
/Applications/Pages.app/Contents/Resources/
In this folder you’ll see a file called Apple.txt. Open it. What’s inside? The full text of his famous commencement speech given at Stanford University in 2005. It’s in every Mac computer.
by PunditGuy | Aug 19, 2014 | Technology |
Although I’ve never had the misfortune of accidentally getting any of my iPhones wet, I’ve dropped a few. Lucky for me I have always had a good sturdy case to cushion the device from damage. I’ve heard plenty of stories of accidents where iPhones took a dip in the drink. Most of them ended badly. This story, though, ended differently.
Rob Griffiths was on vacation with his family, and as he was sitting alone in a boat on a lake he decided the scenery needed to be captured in a panoramic photo from his iPhone 5. He held the phone vertically, framing the shot, and then the…the horror.
I watched my iPhone fall, land on the back of the boat, then sickeningly slide off the boat and splash into the water. As it tumbled down through the clear water, the iPhone seemed to mock me: “Oh yea, you think you’re going to replace me!? Try living without a phone for a month, buddy!” Then, with a poof of mud, it came to rest on the bottom, at a depth of about 10 feet. The water was nice and clear, giving me a great view of the phone.
Rob figured the phone was instantly killed after it spent 5 minutes submerged in the clear lake water. Once retrieved, his suspicion was validated. The phone would not power on. Although he was upset at what happened, he tossed the wet iPhone aside knowing he had an old back up iPhone 3G.
Long story short — Rice and compressed air brought the previously dead iPhone to life. In fact, it’s so alive that it works as good as it did before it took the plunge. Rob’s fix isn’t for wimps. It took a lot of work, risky work, but he was successful. All the details can be found here.
If your iPhone gets wet, really wet, don’t automatically assume it’s permanently dead. With effort, it can come back to life and work as good as the day you bought it.
by PunditGuy | Aug 16, 2014 | Technology |
This is great.
Parents in the Tri-State and around the world can relate: Trying to reach your teen by phone, only to get ignored. One frustrated mom decided to do something about it.
As CBS 2’s Alice Gainer reports, Sharon Standifird, was livid the day she called and texted her teenagers and they didn’t respond.Once she knew they were safe but ignoring her calls, she got an idea, Gainer reported.
“We need to develop an app that just shuts their phone completely down and they can’t even use it,” Standifird said. “And I started — literally just started researching how to develop an app.”So after months of design and working with developers, “Ignore No more” was born.
With one tap, a list of only parent-selected contacts come up. The child can call, get the password and unlock the phone.“Bradley needs to call me because I’m the person that has the unlock password,” Standifird said.
“It takes away texting, it takes away the gaming, it takes away calling their friends. The child will always be able to call 911,” said Standifird.
In my house, the only way to get the teenagers attention is to shut off the WiFi. Once it’s down, they come running. This app is a must have for me, since I can only control my own WiFi right now. Too bad the app is only available for Android. We’re an Apple iPhone house. I’m sure it will just a matter of time before an iOS app will be available.
by PunditGuy | Aug 4, 2012 | Technology |
Do you use the same password on multiple computers? Have you kept using the same password for years? If the answer to both of these questions is “Yes”, then you’re asking to be hacked. But wait, you say, why would anyone want to hack me? I don’t have any secret information that anyone would want.
You’re right. You don’t. People could care less about the first picture taken of your newborn baby, your music folder, or the last episode of Mad Men you just downloaded and watched. You know who does care?
You do. And you would hate it if all of the stuff you love to save, a decade of photos, your entire music catalog, your banking information, your tax records, and your email archive went “poof” into thin air.
Forget about the rule of backing up. Few people really do it well, or do it at all. Apple’s Time Machine has helped, and now the cloud services from Google, Dropbox, Skydrive (and a slew of others) have made it easier to store things so you can get access from multiple machines and locations. Yet for all the advantages of simplicity, the only thing standing between you and someone whose main interest is wiping your devices clean is that password you thought up years ago. You know, the one that starts with the number 1 and ends with the number 6. Or the easiest password to remember — the word “password”. You’d be amazed how many people use “abc123”.
I’d like to say that my devices and online services have been completely secure for years. They haven’t been. I’d like to say that I’ve used distinct passwords. I haven’t. All of this changed today after I read this:
Yes, I was hacked. Hard.
This is the story of one Mat Honan, a recent employee of Gizmodo. Mat’s iPhone was reset, then, one by one, his other devices were wiped. Then his Google account was deleted. Then, his Twitter account was taken over.
All in a matter of minutes.
Read his story. Then, run out and enable 2 Step Authentication for your Google account. Change the passwords in the services you use to something other than “monkey”. Do it now. If you’re an IT geek, read up on Two-Factor Authentication. The wikipedia article should keep you busy for awhile.
Don’t be Mat.
MORE: Gizmodo story
by PunditGuy | Jun 11, 2012 | Technology |
I just got through watching an Apple demo video that spends time talking about fans. That’s right. Fans that cool the machine. But this isn’t just everyday cooling. No!
“Air is pulled into vents and propelled through sculpted cavities by fans with asymmetrically positioned blades.”
And I was mesmerized!
Magic.
by PunditGuy | Jun 9, 2012 | Technology |
Needs a kickstarter. But first, how about an excellent plea video?
by PunditGuy | Jun 8, 2012 | Technology |
It begins.
Apple WWDC: 8 Things to Expect
What will Apple announce on Monday?
Apple WWDC preview: What the analysts are saying
Apple’s WWDC is coming: Here are the 7 things that actually matter
Why do we care so much? Geeks care; we know that. And I’ll admit – for the past few years, I too cared – about the next iPhone, the iPad, etc. But now that we are pretty much fully conditioned to the stuff Apple brings to market, why do we continue to swoon? Is it left over mystique from the Steve Jobs era? Without Steve and the magic, isn’t Apple just another tech company?
