You heard it here first… I am coining the phrase “Dumb Rational & Mentality” as referring to DRM, or digital rights management. I was able to break my eBook DRM without even trying. Without any tools except a print dialog box. How sad.

I am taking an online course this semester, and one of the requirements was purchasing an eBook. I have never purchased one, and found that the software I need to use it was Digital Editions, by Adobe. So I downloaded the free software, then bought the book ($14.95), and indeed I was able to read my digital book.

The software didn’t look all that great, it was functional and let me read my book. Lack of zoom features were something I noticed right off the bat and it’s unintuitive scroll bars never let me jump “to here” as do most scroll bars for applications that I use. Anyway, it worked.

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Just sitting here eating Honey BBQ Flavor Twist Fritos and watching the AVGN review of Bible Games. One of the games has Noah picking up animals and placing them in his Ark. In watching the gameplay, and loving the delivery of the review, I got to thinking… if Noah had no use of the Ark *before* the big flood, how in the hell did he get to each continent to gather up all the animals? I mean, how in the world did he get over to North/South America, Antarctica, Australia, and all points thousands of miles from his ship yard?

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With the release of iPhone 2.0 firmware, applications can now be run on the iPhone (legally). One app I love and see room for even more functionality is the remote control app, released by Apple. It allows you to control your Apple TV library and iTunes library. Once your library is added, you can visually see a list of all content, and can choose it just as you would when watching on your iPhone, except when hitting play, it will play on your source (Apple TV / iTunes Player).

I was hoping for a full replacement of the current Apple remote, but there is no option to replace the buttons found on the Apple remote, specifically the menu, play, and directional buttons (volume up/down, rewind/forward). So as it is now, I have to use my “real” remote if I want to move around in the menu system of the Apple TV, such as changing preferences or searching. I was really hoping to be able to search YouTube much easier on my Apple TV. Hopefully the next version will bring all my wants to the app.

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Fo Rilla? Yup. So I was working yesterday (for 11 hours). About the 5th hour, I noticed by MacBook Pro was sagging a bit in the middle, as it was sitting on a flat glass surface. So I, the quick thinker I am, decided to “bend” it back into shape. My bending job was great. When sitting on a flat surface, the middle was now parallel. There was just one problem… the small metal strip that above the screen release button popped out. I could see that it was glued to the sub-surface and I just @#!*$# it up. I’ve seen this happen on another MacBook Pro. Now where was that…

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I recently purchased VMWare Fusion for Mac. This virtualization software allows me to run Windows XP right from within Mac OS, without having to boot into Windows. I used to use BootCamp, which required me to logoff Mac OS then boot into Windows. It was time consuming and I hated it.

Fusion allows me the best of both worlds, well at least one best world. I only use Windows for school. Not to get off-track and into a review of Fusion, I just want to mention “Unity,” which allows me to run Windows “windows” right on my Mac desktop. Cool stuff.

Now for the reason of the article. Windows Update.

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Let’s see if I can get this straight. Release the long-awaited iPhones 2.0 software, new iTunes software, launch the MobileMe service, and have a bunch of new (and old) iPhone customers signing up for service… all on the same day… all at the same time.

To put it nicely, it was a nightmare.

Welcome To The (NOT) Working Week

I woke up at 5:00 am, feeling refreshed. I usually don’t get up until 7:00 am, so this was early. Maybe it was because I was anticipating the long awaited iPhone 2.0 firmware and the MobileMe launch. I already updated my iTunes and MobileMe software, so all I was waiting for was iPhone 2.0. From about 7:00 am until 8:00 am, I was in the Apple Discussion forums, talking with all the anxious users. It was almost like a sporting event. I had the TV on in the background and they were broadcasting live from the Apple store in New York City. I was getting more excited by the minute. ETA for 2.0 was 8:00 am. It was one minute to go.

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After watching the WWDC keynote, and hearing Steve Jobs boast about about the new iPhone (and its lower cost), I was surely going to buy one. However, after doing some research, I came to a rather different conclusion.

Boy, Is This Great?

First, the real reason I wanted the 3G iPhone was because of all this great GPS “stuff” they were adding. I even went out and sold my Magellen GPS unit (which I loved) to get ready for the iPhone. I figured that Apple would include some fancy turn-by-turn GPS software built-in, since they have been working with Google and Google Maps. What I learned later was that the best they could do was offer some blue dot that follows your general location as you move. This was hardly what I expected, and my plans for upgrading were forever dashed.

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