Apple
Month of June
06/01/08 21:50 Categories: Life
Month of June is great because:
- June 7th the Eurocup starts (Holland plays June 9th)
- June 9th WWDC starts (iPhone 2.0)
- June 22 is my birthday
- June 22 Top Gear starts
- last and also least: Summer school starts June 2nd
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Trip to Hotlanta
05/29/08 20:56 Categories: Life
So I went to Atlanta two weeks ago and as a foreigner
I have seen Atlanta plenty of times (the airport that
is). I have never gone to Atlanta for the fun of it
except for one time visiting the Coca Cola museum.
Anyway, I had a list of things that I wanted to do in Atlanta and I have formatted this list to make it easier for you:
• visit Apple store.
As you can see I spend a lot of time making up this extensive list!
So we decided to leave at 10 in the morning and packed 2 cars with people and were on our way around 10:30ish or so. I was the chauffeur for car number 2, after winning with RockPaperScissors against another chauffeur contender, and drove that car for the remainder of the day (and night)
Our first stop was the Bass Pro Shop. I am a man and so I had to act excited about this huge manly store stuffed with manliness. Really I could care less about fishing, boats, camo and hunting for that matter. As a foreigner I (thankfully) missed the whole redneck stage but before you get angry I can see why it’s cool to hunt/shoot animals. Anyway my manly adrenaline soon was gone after walking into the store. It was replaced with another manly adrenaline which is called hunger.....luckily I was not desperate enough to try the fried catfish (blah). So after looking at all these manly equipment we decided to move on to our next target.
Our next target was called “The Cheesecake Factory” (good solution to fight hunger). While on our way there I looked up the address for the Apple store on my Blackberry (which I want to replace with an iPhone) and discovered something interesting. I found out that both the cheesecake factory and Apple were in the same mall (Perimeter Mall) so I could ease my mind while partaking of some delicious lunch.
The Cheesecake factory was great. I hate to give out ratings so I wont.....but if I was forced to it would be a good 8/10 stars. The waiter was excellent and did a great job of supplying me with a stream of Pibb Xtra (I always drink a lot while eating...like a lot a lot). Funny side story: I was wearing my Dr. Pepper shirt and asked for that first while pointing at my shirt but they didn’t have it since they were a Coca Cola place. I like Mr. Pibb the best but Coca Cola changed it to Pibb Xtra adding a little bit of cinnamon and cherry flavor to it. RIP Mr. Pibb. But really I could go either way with Dr. Pepper and Pibb Xtra. I try to stay away from soda/pops as much as possible but I don’t mind it once in a while. I have never been a straight up pepsi/coca cola drinker but don’t mind Dr. Pepper, Pibb Xtra, Mountain Dew or Sunkist. So anyway the cheesecake factory...I had a pork BBQ sandwich and afterwards split an oreo cheesecake with a friend. It was some good food..especially compared to the pizza slice at the Braves game that night which was somewhat good.
Anyway after stuffing ourselves with food we decided to hit the mall which includes the infamous Apple store. We hit a sport store first and I almost bought another UNC cap but they didn’t have my size (Yes someone ruined by current UNC cap). I also like to buy an NBA jersey on of these days. Not sure which one thought. Maybe if Detroit is in the finals I might pick one up. Right now I would actually want to buy a Holland shirt (van Nistelrooy). Anyway next stop: Apple store
Now just to give you a little background: I have been a Mac user for 3 years now and I am a fanboy! I love everything that Apple does and I don’t care if I am under Steve Job’s dictatorship.....I mean it’s actually a blessing to follow and do everything that he tells me to do including buying all his products ;-). I have also worked for 1.5 years at an Authorized reseller/service provider so I am deep into the Apple culture. But I have never been to an Apple store and so I really needed the experience to enlighten me even more in the ways of Apple.
So anyway I walked into the store and it was an instant cloud 9 for me. They had at least three of each product set up in the store and the first thing I really wanted to play with was the Macbook Air. I have seen and touched it before but not in an elaborate fashion. So I checked out the MBA and the only good thing going for it is its size. Everything else is not a positive thing. In my mind the only way I would ever buy a Macbook Air is if it has a bigger HDD (which there is a 160GB iPod) and if it were cheaper. I would consider buying one if it were $1500 with a 160GB hard drive. But I don’t have that money at this point and right now it is $1800 with only 80GB of space. The second thing I did was played with the iPhones. I have played with the iPhone before so there was nothing new. But somehow it never grows old which I am sure it will if you were actually an owner. I have determined that I don’t like my blackberry and I will actually save some money switching to AT&T so it’s worth considering since a lower bill each month will help out, especially when I’m back in school (yes I will have to justify the iPhone purchase somehow ;-)). After that I did want to buy a couple of accessories because I am in the Apple store so I decided to pick up a Nike+ sport kit for my iPod Nano and a remote control for my Macbook. I recommend everybody buying the nike+ ipod sport kit if you own a nano and run! You don’t have to buy the special Nike+ shoes because you can just order a little pouch that you can tie to any shoe through your laces! So anyway I have tested it out once and it’s awesome! After you run you can sync it with the website online and it keeps track of all kinds of data including mileage, calories, times etc. And you can see a nice graph of how you did compared to your last runs.
After picking up the two aforementioned items a lady came up to me and asked if I wanted to check out...I said yes and she came with a little wireless card swiper (I recommend it for Church) and we processed my credit card right on the spot where I was standing. Of course I wanted a bag with my purchase or else it wouldn’t be a complete Apple store run. Overall it was a good experience and a lot of helpful people there to accommodate all the shoppers. Obviously I don’t have to tell you how smart it was for Apple to build brick and mortar stores besides their slick online website!
After that the boys and girls split up. The boys wanted to go to the Braves game to watch the batting practice. The girls wanted to go to Ikea. Well you can guess what I decided to do....yes I went to Ikea with the girls. I love Ikea. Ikeas are all over Europe (no duh it’s Swedish) and so I felt at home when going through it. Everything is set up just like the European store and even the products were all the same. Not sure about the price differences but it was nice to look at all the stuff and have an idea of how not to design the interior of your house :P. Of course sitting on some of those comfy chairs was very nice. We kind of had to rush out at the end since we didn’t want to miss too much of the ball-game that we paid for.
So getting to the stadium was.....painful. But we did make it and only missed the first two innings and we did order some good tickets earlier that day in the Apple store :P. I couldn’t care less about baseball but it was fun to cheer for the Braves even though they lost by one point. That night we drove back and I got home at 2 in the morning. I was tired....but still made it on time to Sunday School the next day :P. Good times in Atlanta and I definitely wouldn’t mind to go back again and visit the Apple store :P (Although Charlotte is a lot closer so I might have to make a trip up there first).
Anyway, I had a list of things that I wanted to do in Atlanta and I have formatted this list to make it easier for you:
• visit Apple store.
As you can see I spend a lot of time making up this extensive list!
So we decided to leave at 10 in the morning and packed 2 cars with people and were on our way around 10:30ish or so. I was the chauffeur for car number 2, after winning with RockPaperScissors against another chauffeur contender, and drove that car for the remainder of the day (and night)
Our first stop was the Bass Pro Shop. I am a man and so I had to act excited about this huge manly store stuffed with manliness. Really I could care less about fishing, boats, camo and hunting for that matter. As a foreigner I (thankfully) missed the whole redneck stage but before you get angry I can see why it’s cool to hunt/shoot animals. Anyway my manly adrenaline soon was gone after walking into the store. It was replaced with another manly adrenaline which is called hunger.....luckily I was not desperate enough to try the fried catfish (blah). So after looking at all these manly equipment we decided to move on to our next target.
Our next target was called “The Cheesecake Factory” (good solution to fight hunger). While on our way there I looked up the address for the Apple store on my Blackberry (which I want to replace with an iPhone) and discovered something interesting. I found out that both the cheesecake factory and Apple were in the same mall (Perimeter Mall) so I could ease my mind while partaking of some delicious lunch.
The Cheesecake factory was great. I hate to give out ratings so I wont.....but if I was forced to it would be a good 8/10 stars. The waiter was excellent and did a great job of supplying me with a stream of Pibb Xtra (I always drink a lot while eating...like a lot a lot). Funny side story: I was wearing my Dr. Pepper shirt and asked for that first while pointing at my shirt but they didn’t have it since they were a Coca Cola place. I like Mr. Pibb the best but Coca Cola changed it to Pibb Xtra adding a little bit of cinnamon and cherry flavor to it. RIP Mr. Pibb. But really I could go either way with Dr. Pepper and Pibb Xtra. I try to stay away from soda/pops as much as possible but I don’t mind it once in a while. I have never been a straight up pepsi/coca cola drinker but don’t mind Dr. Pepper, Pibb Xtra, Mountain Dew or Sunkist. So anyway the cheesecake factory...I had a pork BBQ sandwich and afterwards split an oreo cheesecake with a friend. It was some good food..especially compared to the pizza slice at the Braves game that night which was somewhat good.
Anyway after stuffing ourselves with food we decided to hit the mall which includes the infamous Apple store. We hit a sport store first and I almost bought another UNC cap but they didn’t have my size (Yes someone ruined by current UNC cap). I also like to buy an NBA jersey on of these days. Not sure which one thought. Maybe if Detroit is in the finals I might pick one up. Right now I would actually want to buy a Holland shirt (van Nistelrooy). Anyway next stop: Apple store
Now just to give you a little background: I have been a Mac user for 3 years now and I am a fanboy! I love everything that Apple does and I don’t care if I am under Steve Job’s dictatorship.....I mean it’s actually a blessing to follow and do everything that he tells me to do including buying all his products ;-). I have also worked for 1.5 years at an Authorized reseller/service provider so I am deep into the Apple culture. But I have never been to an Apple store and so I really needed the experience to enlighten me even more in the ways of Apple.
So anyway I walked into the store and it was an instant cloud 9 for me. They had at least three of each product set up in the store and the first thing I really wanted to play with was the Macbook Air. I have seen and touched it before but not in an elaborate fashion. So I checked out the MBA and the only good thing going for it is its size. Everything else is not a positive thing. In my mind the only way I would ever buy a Macbook Air is if it has a bigger HDD (which there is a 160GB iPod) and if it were cheaper. I would consider buying one if it were $1500 with a 160GB hard drive. But I don’t have that money at this point and right now it is $1800 with only 80GB of space. The second thing I did was played with the iPhones. I have played with the iPhone before so there was nothing new. But somehow it never grows old which I am sure it will if you were actually an owner. I have determined that I don’t like my blackberry and I will actually save some money switching to AT&T so it’s worth considering since a lower bill each month will help out, especially when I’m back in school (yes I will have to justify the iPhone purchase somehow ;-)). After that I did want to buy a couple of accessories because I am in the Apple store so I decided to pick up a Nike+ sport kit for my iPod Nano and a remote control for my Macbook. I recommend everybody buying the nike+ ipod sport kit if you own a nano and run! You don’t have to buy the special Nike+ shoes because you can just order a little pouch that you can tie to any shoe through your laces! So anyway I have tested it out once and it’s awesome! After you run you can sync it with the website online and it keeps track of all kinds of data including mileage, calories, times etc. And you can see a nice graph of how you did compared to your last runs.
After picking up the two aforementioned items a lady came up to me and asked if I wanted to check out...I said yes and she came with a little wireless card swiper (I recommend it for Church) and we processed my credit card right on the spot where I was standing. Of course I wanted a bag with my purchase or else it wouldn’t be a complete Apple store run. Overall it was a good experience and a lot of helpful people there to accommodate all the shoppers. Obviously I don’t have to tell you how smart it was for Apple to build brick and mortar stores besides their slick online website!
After that the boys and girls split up. The boys wanted to go to the Braves game to watch the batting practice. The girls wanted to go to Ikea. Well you can guess what I decided to do....yes I went to Ikea with the girls. I love Ikea. Ikeas are all over Europe (no duh it’s Swedish) and so I felt at home when going through it. Everything is set up just like the European store and even the products were all the same. Not sure about the price differences but it was nice to look at all the stuff and have an idea of how not to design the interior of your house :P. Of course sitting on some of those comfy chairs was very nice. We kind of had to rush out at the end since we didn’t want to miss too much of the ball-game that we paid for.
So getting to the stadium was.....painful. But we did make it and only missed the first two innings and we did order some good tickets earlier that day in the Apple store :P. I couldn’t care less about baseball but it was fun to cheer for the Braves even though they lost by one point. That night we drove back and I got home at 2 in the morning. I was tired....but still made it on time to Sunday School the next day :P. Good times in Atlanta and I definitely wouldn’t mind to go back again and visit the Apple store :P (Although Charlotte is a lot closer so I might have to make a trip up there first).
Leopard
10/27/07 22:20 Categories: Techbit
No, it’s not my new pet. It is actually the new cat
that Apple released yesterday. I have been using it
for a good day now and I say it is maybe worth the
$130. There aren’t any big features that stick out
but it is the small little improvements that make the
overall computing experience so much better. One
thing that I like the best is spaces. Now I know that
there were/are 3d party applications for Tiger that
will do a similar thing but Apple just makes it so
much better and since I only have a 12″ screen it is
perfect to have iTunes, Mail, iCal on a separate
space. You got to see it to appreciate it. Anyway
overall Leopard is just a little bit smoother with a
lot of small tweaks….it still wont wash your dishes
so don’t expect a huge difference between Tiger and
Leopard.
In conclusion if you get a student discount on Leopard go for it….if you have to pay $130 for it I would say just wait till you get a new Mac or try it out before you buy it.
In conclusion if you get a student discount on Leopard go for it….if you have to pay $130 for it I would say just wait till you get a new Mac or try it out before you buy it.
Why I Love Apple
09/06/07 21:32 Categories: Techbit
Now I understand Apple is a business company. They
want to be profitable and make money. They want you
to buy their products! But despite of them being a
company I still love them! And here is one of the
reasons why: As you all know 61 days ago Apple on
June 29th introduced their iPhone. For $600 you could
get the 8Gb model iPhone. The early adopters went
ahead and cashed out $600 for one. Yesterday Steve
Jobs (CEO of Apple) had a big press event and
introduced a whole new line of iPods and after that
he announced a $200 price drop for the 8GB iPhone.
Now everyone that spend $600 on an iPhone seemed to be upset even though they agreed to spend $600 on it. Now Apple as a company has no obligation to show any sympathy towards those people (Only the people that bought it within the last 14 days are able to get a refund on it). But Steve Jobs himself wrote an open letter here basically saying he will give back a $100 store credit for anyone who bought the 8GB iPhone. Now I understand that people can only use that $100 in the (online) Apple store and people will probably spend more then that but nonetheless Apple is not obligated to give any money back. And do not forget that Leopard is coming out sometime next month and a lot of people are planning to buy that anyway so why not save a $100 on something you were going to buy anyway?
To conclude my long post here. I don’t own an iPhone (yet ;) ) cause 1. I still have a contract with verizon and 2. I didn’t have $600 for an iPhone and I still don’t have $400 for an iPhone :P. But nonetheless, it is still one of the many reasons why I love Apple :).
Now everyone that spend $600 on an iPhone seemed to be upset even though they agreed to spend $600 on it. Now Apple as a company has no obligation to show any sympathy towards those people (Only the people that bought it within the last 14 days are able to get a refund on it). But Steve Jobs himself wrote an open letter here basically saying he will give back a $100 store credit for anyone who bought the 8GB iPhone. Now I understand that people can only use that $100 in the (online) Apple store and people will probably spend more then that but nonetheless Apple is not obligated to give any money back. And do not forget that Leopard is coming out sometime next month and a lot of people are planning to buy that anyway so why not save a $100 on something you were going to buy anyway?
To conclude my long post here. I don’t own an iPhone (yet ;) ) cause 1. I still have a contract with verizon and 2. I didn’t have $600 for an iPhone and I still don’t have $400 for an iPhone :P. But nonetheless, it is still one of the many reasons why I love Apple :).
Here I Go
07/28/07 21:16 Categories: Work
Well yesterday was my coworkers last day at work. So
I am the new “head” of the service department here at
iPlace. I think I can handle it ;). But the next step
in this “transition” process is getting myself
certified. So August 8th and 9th I am going to take 3
exams total. I am going for my Apple Portable
Certification, Apple Desktop Certification and Apple
OS Certification. Just pray that I will pass all 3
exams because that is kinda essential in my line of
work ;). But meanwhile I got to study…