Apple – iPhone 4 Press Conference Fri

Engadget and others are reporting Apple will be holding a press conference on their corporate campus this Friday, July 16, at 10 AM pacific time to discuss iPhone 4.  No other details were given.

This should be interesting.

Consumer Reports on iPhone 4

It’s official. Consumer Reports’ engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone’s lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you’re in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can’t recommend the iPhone 4.

More here: http://cl.ly/1dZW

Thoughts on iPhone 4

I’d like to preface my post with a small description of what I do for a living, alongside being a full-time student at Robert Morris University (RMU) in Pittsburgh, PA.  Freshman year through senior year of high school at Fox Chapel Area High School, I worked as a student employee alongside the network and systems administrator and help desk staff to provide end-user support and training to teachers, administrators, faculty, and staff.  I continue to work there today providing the same services as before, but I also am now more involved in assisting the network and systems administrator with more complex projects.  Fox Chapel has over 40 Xserves and 5,000 Macs in the district.  I also work at Robert Morris University as an IT Student Associate Systems Administrator supporting Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server.  I manage most of the Macs on campus, most of the Xserves, and OS X deployments and the associated network services that go along with the authentication and collaboration of the Mac users.  In a nutshell: I know Macs and Mac OS X pretty darned well, Mac OS X Server decently well, and I absolutely love Apple and its products.  Why did I mention all of that?  I’m not usually one to complain about Apple.  I’m not just the normal flamer who’s overreacting about the issues with the iPhone 4.  And, when issues arise, I’ve always trusted and will continue to trust Apple to make those issues right for its customers.  That all having been said, here’s my thoughts on iPhone 4. (more…)

WWDC 2010 Keynote Predictions

Tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific Time, 1 PM Eastern Time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs will take the stage at the Moscone West conference center in San Francisco CA to kick off Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 (WWDC 2010).  The keynote isn’t a general media event just to launch new products.  The entire conference is for developers to interact with one another and Apple engineers to learn more about developing for the Mac and iPhone OS platforms.  There’s workshops, lectures, and a whole host of other things going on at the week long conference.  However, one of my best friends, Kyle Van Essen, is attending and is representing his company Vibealicious along with his coworker and friend, Joel Levin.

Even though the keynote isn’t mainly focused on releasing new products, Apple generally uses WWDC to announce a few things.  Here’s what I think we’ll see tomorrow: (more…)

Twitter Announces Ad Platform… Or Not

Today at SXSW, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams was rumored to finally be announcing an ad platform and/or future business model for Twitter.  Instead, he threw the audience for a loop and announced a new platform called @Anywhere.  @Anywhere will allow website administrators to add better Twitter integration into their sites.  Essentially, anywhere there is a Twitter username, if a user hovers his mouse over it, he’ll see a mini “hovercard” containing the user’s Twitter information, including the most recent tweet.  Publishers will be able to integrate their own Twitter profiles in a more effective manner, making it easier for their readers to follow them.  Implementation will only take a few lines of javascript, and on launch Twitter already has partners such as the Huffington Post, New York Times, Meebo, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Bing.

You can read more about it on the Twitter blog.

So when will Twitter be announcing a future business model and/or advertising platform?  For now, according to Mashable, “Williams says Twitter is still mainly focused on creating the best experience for users and businesses.”

Guide: Using Mac OS X Server as a PDC

Mac OS X Server can act as an NT-Style Primary Domain Controller through the use of Samba (SMB).  The Mac OS X Server can provide file and print services as well as host user profiles and home folders and provide authentication services for the domain.  Even complex user and group policies can be implemented through the use of a logon script.  Again, all of this is accomplished through OS X Server’s implementation of the open-source Samba package which is a free software re-implementation of the SMB networking protocol.  Please note this guide focuses on Mac OS X Server 10.6 and Windows XP Pro SP3 clients.  Vista clients (Edit: Windows 7 clients are not supported. See this article.) should work equally as well with a few tweaks (outlined later). (more…)

What’s all the buzz about Google Buzz?

Google announced yesterday its newest public project, Google Buzz.  Google Buzz lets you, “Go beyond status messages,” allowing you to, “share updates, photos, videos, and more.”  It enables you to “start conversations about the things you find interesting.”  Google has placed Buzz as a link inside of Gmail.  To say it best, Buzz is like the lovechild of Twitter, Facebook, and Google Wave.  From the Twitter perspective, Buzz allows you to post status messages, or microblog your life. From the Facebook angle, it allows you to post content, like photos and videos, and share it with your friends. The Google Wave functionality ties in because all the status updates are real-time with no need to refresh the page.

(more…)

Apple Announces The iPad

Today, Apple’s CEO and Co-Founder, Steve Jobs, took the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, CA to announce the product that everyone has been waiting for – the Apple Tablet.  Er, the iPad (Yes, that is the official name).  This device was perhaps the most anxiously awaited-for device in all of modern consumer electronics.  The Wall Street Journal said this past week, “The last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it.”  After the event, however, equally as many people left awe-struck as highly disappointed.  What is it and what does it do?  Is there anything super special about it?  Are there any shortcomings?  What are the tech specs?  Read on to find out. (more…)