The former planet Pluto which was demoted to “Dwarf Planet” status just two years ago has received a new moniker. Pluto and similar round cosmic objects that aren’t up to snuff in the Planetary scale are now deemed “Plutoids”. Mickey Mouse was not available for comment, but the poor pup has always been the “forgotten” Disney mainstay. I mean if Goofy was given the ability to talk and walk upright, why not Pluto? Now he’s classified with a name that rhymes with Hemoroids.

Info from: Space.com Read More...

Tags: space, pluto, planet, plutoid, dwarf planet, demoted, cosmos, astronomy

Now that the announcement is over and you can read all about what the new iPhone3G has at tons of sites (like Gizmodo, Engadget, MacRumors or ArsTechnica), the specs of what it DOESN’T have is what sticks in my mind.

• No second forward facing camera
• No native Video Conferencing over iChat or 3G phone-to-phone
• No A2DP Stereo Bluetooth Support (at least not yet)
• No Copy and Paste (at least not yet)
• No MMS (at least not yet)
• No iChat (at least not yet)
• No tethering to Laptops or other devices (use like a broadband modem)
• No upgrade pricing/deals from AT&T (at least not yet) for us iPhone early adopters

We’ll see how this pans out, especially the last bulleted item, when it becomes available on July 11.

UPDATE: Prices for upgrading to the new 3G iPhone? $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB with reset 2Yr contract. Yes, that’s the SAME price as it is for new iPhone buyers. I was hoping it would be the same as some European providors who are offering free/cheap upgrades, but I guess AT&T isn’t going that route. *sigh*
Info comes from CrunchGear. Read More...

Tags: iphone, apple, osx, mac, att

Is this the new iPhone 2? The photos look like they portray iPhones in Black and (RED) for the fight against AIDS. It also shows Video iChat over WiFi & video-chat phone2phone over 3G (and the pre-requisite forward facing camera), Macbook Air style nods, and stereo speakers in the rear. No word on any Cease and Desist Takedown notices yet, but if notices do go out, it’s just as good as Steve coming out and saying they’re real.

Photos were sent to MacRumors, CrunchGear, and AppleInsider (haven’t seen it posted there yet).

UPDATE: Engadget is already calling these fake.... we’ll see. If I remember correctly people were calling the “phatty” ipod Nano fake too, until it actually came out.
UPDATE 2: FAKE FAKE FAKE... now we know.



More photos after the break.
Read More...

Tags: iphone, ipod, mac, att, macbook air, osx

What is up with Twitter lately? It’s had more outtages than Con-Ed on a hot NYC summer day and now the Twitter Flash Badge has gone totally wacko. I had to remove it from my site because it stopped updating, threw up weird multi-color triangles, and blanked out the user thumbnails. I just switched my menu link to my actual Twitter page instead. It should make it easier for people to follow me on Twitter anyway, so no real harm done.

One thing’s for sure though... Twitter needs a huge overhaul.

Read More...

Tags: twitter, web2.0, tweet, flash, badge

New Ricky and Lucy at Play video uploaded to my YouTube Feed:

Read More...

Tags: ricky, lucy, pembroke, pet, chihuahua, corgi, video, puppy

Amazing music video created for The Bird and The Bee song Again & Again.



I liked it much better than the original music video (check the preview on iTunes here).

UPDATE: There's an interview with the director/film-maker/AdProducer responsible for this viral video, Dennis Liu. Also for those that were wondering, the Actress in the music video is Larkin Clark. Read More...

Tags: music, leopard, osx, mac, video

Another year and another Challenge. We've been hard at work on the latest CNBC.com Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. This year the prizes are more diverse. Even the weekly prizes vary now. Last year the contest consisted of a Fantasy Stock Trading Game. This year we've incorporated Fantasy Currencies Trading to the Fantasy Stock Trading and also gave the game application a lot more polish. Hopefully people with have fun with this year's edition.

Check it out at CNBC's Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge. You can register now, but the game doesn't actually start until May 12th.

Oh, and to my wife... no we're not eligible to play... sorry... Read More...

Tags: cnbc, cnbc.com, Million dollar, challenge, contest, portfolio, stocks, currencies, fxcm, thinkorswim

So I jumped on the Twitter Bandwagon. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/jedimstr or check out the Jedi's Lair Twitter page on the left Nav Menu.

A great Explanation video about Twitter from Common Craft:


Twitter doesn't just let you track your friends, people you know or want to know; through it's Public timeline (the msg threads are called timelines) Twitter will allow you to know what's happening on the web, and essentially around the world. Big event happening in Europe or in Asia, you may just see Tweets about it real-time. From Breaking News to what your friend just had for Breakfast, Twitter taps into the digital conversation.

I'll be using Twitter through my site (Flash Twitter Page), Twitterific on my Macbook Air, and PocketTweets on my iPhone. UPDATE: Switching to Hahlo for the iPhone. It's seems better than PocketTweets and much more "feature rich."

The first group of people I started following on Twitter reads like a "Who's Who" of the Web 2.0 Revolution (or like a TechTV Reunion). From This Week in Tech, Tiki Bar, DiggNation and GeekBrief.TV regulars, to Henry Rollins, MC Hammer, and Snoop Dogg. I'll add real people I know as soon as I find any on Twitter Read More...

Tags: twitter, web2.0, social, network, tweet, pockettweets, twitterific, hahlo

So my Macbook Air is back and it's as good as new! In fact, it's with a new LogicBoard (and corresponding new Serial Number) and a reinstalled OSX, they might as well have given a full swap. Not that I'm complaining mind you; Apple service at the Garden State Plaza store was superb as always. My only complaint was that I wasn't contacted when the Air was ready for pickup. I found out through the Apple website Repair Tracking and by the Voicemail system they have. One day turnaround is pretty damn good though. Well, actually 3 days if you include: 1st for the initial appointment, 2nd to drop the Air off once they had the part, and the 3rd for pickup. Some other computer makers take weeks to do warranty repairs, especially ones as dramatic as a full LogicBoard replacement.

Once I got the Air back, I tested it out a bit in the parking deck of the mall to make sure it wasn't kernel panicking anymore. It was definitely solid! After I got home, I immediately started the relatively long process of restoring from the Airdisk's Time Machine Backup. This time I used the latest backup (the one taken during the panics) in hopes that it was actually a good backup. Worst case scenario I could have restored again from the next oldest backup afterwards. But that's something I didn't have to do. The last backup is working perfectly and I've had no panics or crashes since! One thing I did have to restore from a separate stored copy was my VMWare Virtual Machine XP File. I just used the one from my Mac Pro as the source. Read More...

Tags: apple, mac, macbook air, kernel panic, genius bar

Everything was going swimmingly with the new Macbook Air until this past weekend when things took a turn for the worst. I started getting Kernel Panics randomly. Empty the trash... Panic. Run Disk Utility's Repair Permissions.... Panic. Startup a WinXP VMWare session... Panic. Reboot... immediate Panic. Definitely something wrong.


At first I thought maybe my SSD drive got corrupted, so I tried a full wipe and Restore from Time Machine... Panic. Booting from Remote Disc OS Install was an exercise in frustration when previously it worked very well and quite often. I finally got one boot and Restore from Time Machine working (picked an earlier Time Machine slice to be sure there wasn't any corrupted files) and it still Kernel Panic'd like crazy. Now the Air didn't want to stay solid for more than a few minutes. Just trying to right click (actually dual-finger click) and it started to Panic.

So I finally broke down and travelled to the Apple Store yesterday after work. Unfortunately it was half an hour before closing and they couldn't take a look, so I made an appointment for this morning. I arrived early before the Mall was even fully open, knocked on the glass Apple Store doors, and talked to the Genius at the G-Bar. After a little diagnosis, he concurred it was a hardware issue and from the Panic logs, it seemed to point to bad memory. Unfortunately the memory for Macbook Airs is soldered to the Mother/Logic Board so after checking with his supervisor, authorized a Warranty Repair. The new Logic Board is on order but don't know yet if it is going to be back-ordered or if there will be any available tomorrow. I get to keep my non-functioning Air until the part comes in; small consolation. At least it is a free Warranty Repair, but it would have been better if it was a straight swap.

Another Consolation, I have a new bag for my currently non-functioning Macbook Air: The Waterfield HardCase. It's a magnificent bag, exhibiting both sleeve-like and messenger bag-like features in its sleek lines. I'll have a full review at some point after the whole Kernel Panic situation is fixed. Read More...

Tags: apple, mac, macbook air, kernel panic, waterfield, SFBags, hardcase, Sleeve, bag, messenger bag