Rants and Raves of a Techno-Geek, v2.0
Prop 8 Overturned!
Aug 12th
Image via CBS News
For now of course.
Today at approximately 12:30PM PST, Judge Walker has lifted the stay on Prop 8, which, for now, makes gay marriage legal in California!
This news came against the wishes of Prop 8 supporters outside of city hall this afternoon. Supporters of Prop 8 where holding signs such as “How can something morally wrong, be a civil right?” while the other side was holding up signs that said “We Deserve Marriage” that were changed to “We HAVE Marriage” after the announcement.
The Prop 8 supporters have until the 19th of August to appeal to the 9th circuit court, and at that time, if they have not managed an appeal, the fight for gay marriage can continue even further!
Make sure to visit CBS News and Twitter for the latest updates!
[via CBS News]
Why I love Apple
Jul 16th
Apple is a company that’s been around longer than me and all my life I’ve been a fan of their products. One of the first computers I ever used was an Apple Macintosh LC back in my early years of life. I moved on from that to a Performa 6400 in about 1996. This was over 10 years ago and Apple’s products have changed quite a bit, but the way the company operates and treats its customers hasn’t.
Read on to find out why I love Apple today.
Apple’s New FaceTime commercials
Jul 13th
Apple has recently debuted it’s newest set of commercials that detail it’s newest iPhone phenomenon, FaceTime.
Most people have already seen the original video that’s about one minute and length and features the deaf couple, the graduate being shown to her grandparents, the two friends discussing outfits, and more.
Apple’s come up with more now, and they’re just as good as the original. They’re not so much tear-jerkers as the previous, but they still get their message across. Hit the break to read about Apple’s newest commercials.
Apple acknowledges iPhone 4 reception issues, Cali falls off globe.
Jul 2nd
So, just Wednesday actually, I finally received my shiny new iPhone 4 courtesy of Best Buy and the awesome rep, Whitney who processed the upgrade with me.
But what’s this, people are having signal issues with the iPhone 4? No way!
Yes way! In an open letter from Apple, they admit that there seems to be an issue with the way the iPhone calculates how many signal bars to display on the screen, displaying sometimes up to two extra bars that the user never should have seen in the first place. Apple is saying that this is what is causing the extreme signal bar loss when holding the iPhone a certain way, because the user never actually had that much signal to begin with, therefore, the slight drop made the iPhone recalculate to a more accurate, albeit lower, signal bar reading.
Hit the jump to read the open letter from Apple.
Review: Twilight: Eclipse
Jul 2nd
Two nights ago, I had the pleasure of going went to see Twilight: Eclipse. The scratched out that line because, I don’t really feel it was a pleasure overall….
Let’s find out why….
Having not even read the books, I can tell it’s watered down and has lost a lot of the detail that Stephenie Meyer intended to be in it. I was hoping this movie would be different than most “books-gone-movie” experiences and that they would have kept a lot of the detail in it, but the movie feels fast paced without attention to as many details as I would have liked. Keep in mind, I haven’t read the book, I could be completely wrong here. If I am, please by all means, call me out on it. I would rather be fair than not.
Expanding upon that, it seemed like the only purpose for Taylor Lautner in the movie was to be shirtless 99% of the time and attract people to the movie. I do think he is a great actor, but I think too much detail was focused on his appearance. I do know that there is a lot of Jacob shirtless in the book, but there is an overabundance of it in the movie that almost feels like they just wanted to throw it in there hardcore. I understand the reasoning behind this. Hollywood is a for-profit idea. They make movies that will sell. And let’s face it, sex sells. I’m also by no means dissing Taylor, he has it, so he flaunts it. That’s the exact same thing you or I’d be doing if we were in his place. If you say you wouldn’t, you’re lying, and we all know it.
Some of the special effects in the movie were amazing, but then there were others where you just sit there and go, “that seems fake”, which I don’t expect to be saying when I just paid $12 for a ticket to see this movie. Even though the special effects were sometimes subpar, most of the acting lived up to what I expected, and that’s what has kept me from completely despising this movie. I’ve seen both, Twilight and Twilight: New Moon, and enjoyed them a lot more than I did this part of the movie series. Both prior movies just seemed to be more into the plot (and I’ve confirmed this with people who’ve read the book as well) and less about the flashiness or sex. I also take into account though, that technically, the characters are older now, and at the point where sex is more relevant to them. Even thought, being 17 when the series started, I’m pretty sure sex would have been pretty relevant to the characters as well.
Here’s to hoping that movie number four is better!
How’d you feel about the movie? Am I full of it for dissing on the movie or am I head on? Lemme know!
iJustin is iPhone Ready!
Jun 14th
iJustin viewed on an iPhone using WPTouch
iJustin.org is now iPhone ready thanks to the amazing work of BraveNewCode (http://www.bravenewcode.com/) and their nifty WordPress plugin, WPTouch. They recently released version 2.0, which does cost $29 CAD. Even though it’s $29, it’s still definitely worth it though if you have a WordPress blog and want to let your readers enjoy your posts on the go!
The setup is simple and understandable, yet very powerful and customizable. The paid 2.0 version even supports WebApp, which makes it so that if your users save your site to their home screen, it loads up and looks like an iPhone app!
Other benefits of using WPTouch include faster load times for your mobile readers as well as custom styling and the ability to automatically add in AdMob or Google AdSense ads to continue to make money off of your mobile site.
Go ahead, open iJustin.org in Safari and click the “+” icon and click “Add to Home Screen” and then add it. Now you can enjoy iJustin on the go! You’ll also notice the custom loading icon while you wait for the site to load while using WPTouch in WebApp mode.
The $29 price tag does include support and upgrades so visit http://www.bravenewcode.com/ today and buy it!
*iJustin.org is not affiliated with BNC and was not paid to endorse this product.
(mt) Media Temple
Jun 8th
I wanted to take this time to write about a company that I’ve recently had the pleasure of starting to do business with.
About a month ago, I felt the need to leave my current hosting provider as they just weren’t cutting it anymore. Now I by no means run any site that is highly visited or processor intensive but it seemed that the current servers couldn’t handle the load of running my websites which include:
- iJustin.org
- Club-Mobil.com
- M73.me
- ImgShaq.com
- Gay-Youth.net
While all those sites each do receive hundreds of views, they in no way hog any resources. I was tired of slow response times and loading, horrible download times, and other problems with my current provider, so I went on a search to find a new provider. I happened to find out that iJustine (http://ijustine.com) hosts her site using (mt) servers. iJ’s site gets ALOT more traffic than I’ll ever see so I knew (mt) could handle my sites.
I read around for a bunch of reviews of different hosts and found that (mt) always had great reviews and was even recommended as a provider by WordPress, the blogging software I use. So I got out the debit card and headed to (mt)’s website expecting the hosting to be a lot more than it was. I got away with only paying $20/month for more than enough resources to host all my sites and more.
Within 12 hours, I had all of my sites ported over to (mt)’s servers and had the new versions of the sites up and running.
The service and support has been fantastic! When I have minor issues, I just send an @ tweet to @mediatemple and they look into it and respond, pretty much 24/7. For larger issues, I submit Support Requests in the AcctCenter and I typically receive contact back within 1-2 hours, even on Sunday mornings.
For now, (mt) serves all of my hosting needs and I can’t wait to continue on with them as my hosting provider of choice.
Go ahead, give them a shot, they have a money back guarantee** even though I’m sure you won’t want to go back with any other provider after you use (mt)’s service.
*All iJustin domains are hosted on (mt) Media Temple’s (gs) Grid-Service hosting plan, which at the time of this article is $20/month with no setup fee.
**Check (mt) site for details and terms.
UPDATE: Due to the awesome graciousness of Media Temple, iJustin is now hosted free of charge on their (dv) server until June of next year! I was lucky enough to win free hosting for a year last month (http://m73.me/mtpl) from (mt) and have moved all of my sites from the (gs) to the (dv) server.
UPDATE 2: Corrected misspelling of iJustine. Sorry iJ!
WWDC 2010
Jun 7th
Today marked the start of Apple’s WWDC for the 2010 year.
At 10AM sharp, Steve Jobs walked on to the stage to welcome everyone to the 2010 Keynote.
And boy, he had a lot to say!
Humanity… Really?
May 31st
Okay, so this story really makes me laugh and fear for humanity all at the same time.
Everyone knows about the cool Google Maps feature and how it can give you driving directions, public transit directions and even walking directions.
Well, so does Utah resident Lauren Rosenberg who downloaded Google Maps onto her BlackBerry and got walking directions to another part of town. The walking directions had her walk onto a highway… a highway that hasno sidewalk. So Lauren tried to re-route and avoid the highway, right? Wrong, she followed the directions and walked right onto the busy interstate and was greeted by a car slamming into her.
Lauren is now suing Google for approximately $100,000 because of the faulty directions. Because, instead of using common sense which would tell most people, “Hey, I should probably be careful or just avoid this all together”, she chose to go onto a busy interstate. Brilliant.
It should be noted that the app does warn, “Walking directions are in beta. Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” With that warning, who really thinks Lauren stands any chance in court?
I think of it as a sign that humanity is putting way too much trust in technology and that we are losing the ability to think logically for ourselves. I love my GPS, but I know that when there’s construction, even if my GPS tells me to continue straight into this large concrete barrier, I should probably find a way around it and then worry about re-routing on my GPS to get back on course, but then again, that’s just me.
Click here to read the original story.
