Steven Michael Kudelko

My name is Steven Michael Kudelko. I'm a writer, an ex-boyfriend, and a friend.
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Posts tagged Apple

I can’t wait to own an iPhone again.  The iPhone and the Verizon network are the perfect combination.  I missed the iPhone… although the Droid was amazing in itself, and the only way to go safely through iPhone withdrawal…. but I didn’t miss the AT&T network, knew they hadn’t made ANY changes in the year and a half I’d been gone, and would NEVER go back for any reason, ever, at all, even if I lived in an area well covered by AT&T, because I’d be afraid of traveling into a poorly covered one.  I wasn’t expecting a Verizon iPhone during the 3G generation.  

To me, I didn’t think Apple would produce a product with so little market (compared to their usual products, which have a global market, the Verizon iPhone is limited to only people in the United States of America that have Verizon Wireless or no cell phone or who are willing to switch carriers, ONLY THOSE PEOPLE because of the hardware limits of the phone, where the AT&T iPhone 4’s market is anyone in the world (GSM, the technology AT&T uses, is a worldwide standard vs. CDMA, the technology Verizon uses, being limited to Verizon Wireless customers in the United States) who has a cell phone, has no cell phone, or is willing to switch from a select few proprietary networks (1%-3% of the total amount of cellular providers) to any of the 97%+ worldwide cellular providers that will support the iPhone).  I figured when 4G became standard (for early adopters okay with spotty coverage similar to current networks in maybe late 2011, early 2012…. for acceptable use for all mobile customers, regardless of their technology skill level, most likely late 2012 early 2013) Verizon and AT&T would be able to use the same device, as well as every single mobile carrier in the world except Spring, without different models delivered by Apple.  

That means one production line, one hardware design, for a product it can sell worldwide.  That’s of interest to a big company like Apple and is affected by the logistics and market pattern of the cellular industry.  Plus, by 2012-2013, we’d be ready for a new iPhone.  A really new iPhone, like a jump compared to the original iPhone straight to the iPhone 4.  We’d be getting sick and tired of obligatory purchase of a new device with minor, minor evolutionary changes, mostly just unlocked in software and not actually tied to the new device only, for the same outrageous out-of-upgrade price, even if we were bound to use AT&T and an iPhone data package until at least 2055 because of the signing of a new two-year contract each time we upgrade or add a new Apple iPhone device, irregardless if you’re replacing your current phone for a new device using the same number.  

I guess Apple’s marketing department thought differently.  Maybe they wanted to snap up every single customer they could get before going on hiatus for a few years, knowing there is no real reason to release an iPhone 5 next year, or for the next 3 years, because the iPhone 4 is just about as perfect as you could get using the technology that most customers will be just fine with for the next 3 years, aside from ridiculously early adopters and pseudo-geek wanna-bes that want a super-specific entirely unnecessary specification just to prove a fucking point.  Who knows?  All I know is that I’m buying the Verizon iPhone 4, replacing my Motorola Droid that I got when I first signed my Verizon contract, paying without upgrade eligibility, just because IT’S A MOTHER FUCKING IPHONE BITCH…. AND IT’S ON MY NETWORK, THE NETWORK THAT SUCKS SO LITTLE THAT IT WAS WORTH GIVING UP MY PRECIOUS APPLE DEVICE FROM SIR STEVE JOBS HIMSELF BECAUSE THE COVERAGE ON AT&T MADE ME SO SUICIDAL THAT THERE WOULD BE NO POINT IN OWNING THE DEVICE IF I WERE NOT ALIVE TO USE IT.  Yep.  I’ll see you in line… the long, long line.

This is absolutely awesome!  I f-n love Jimmy Kimmel now.  And I miss my black MacBook :(.  The ex-girlfriend got it as part of the breakup.

dbreunig:

How is this not an Apple plug?

The power went out in Jimmy Kimmel’s control room, so he filmed the whole show on his MacBook’s webcam. Airs tonight.

stellarola:

Office 2011 Beta 2

Hmm… the splash screen looks pretty, but after how disappointingly slow Office 2008 was, I think I’ll stick to iWork (Pages and Keynote) for most of my work.  If I need to run Office, I’ll do it on my Windows machine.  Office 2010 for Windows is some super sexy shit.

Apple Mac OS X 10.6.2 Update 

I just upgraded my machine to Mac OS X 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard).  Though I had not experienced any specific issues that are listed as resolved, I’m sure there will be general stability improvements that are always welcome.

If you’re running a Mac with Snow Leopard installed, follow the link to see what’s new/fixed in 10.6.2 and then run Software Update (in the Apple menu) to get the update.

Google Chrome + Spell Check

It’s pretty sweet that Google Chrome on Windows has built-in spell check.  Wordpad and Notepad don’t have this feature, nor does Internet Explorer, but here I am using Google Chrome, and updating my Tumblr, and red lines are appearing underneath words spelled incorrectly.  That’s pretty nice.  It really makes me feel a little bit more home on Windows, even though I’d be using Safari instead of Google Chrome when I’m on my Mac… but I would have built-in spell check.  The more I use Google Chrome, the more I really REALLY like it.  I doubt very much it’ll ever replace Safari as my default on the Mac (especially since I have yet to use a Mac build of it, and also because I rely heavily on MobileMe to synchronize my bookmarks), but it could very well become my default browser on Windows machines.  I will probably be able to rig up some sort of bookmark synchronization system that’ll synchronize my bookmarks between Firefox and Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, and then I’ll let the Windows MobileMe conduit sync my bookmarks with one of those browsers (unless Apple updates MobileMe to synchronize with Google Chrome…. unlikely, especially since Google Chrome is a much more real competitor than Firefox or Internet Explorer, and since Google Chrome has a very small market share and they’d be writing code that maybe only a few percent of MobileMe users will benefit from.)

This is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  I’m also a computer geek and haven’t been sexually active in a while.  But still… check this out.  It’s pretty sweet.

Joe Wilcox

When I first started reading Joe Wilcox’s blog, it was right after he had gotten laid off / fired / let go from his previous writing job.  He had a refreshing insight into the computer industry, and he was humble.  There was very little activity on his blog, maybe 5 comments per post maximum, and it was surprising to me that he had been a professional writer elsewhere considering his presence on the internet seemed like a ghost town.  Then, he started to get popular, and now he has a job….. he’s also a fucking douchebag.

Joe Wilcox used to write good pieces on Apple.  They weren’t “fanboy” pieces, and they didn’t give Apple credit when the company didn’t deserve it, but he also didn’t write awful things about the company, and write with a tone of complete and total disdain for anyone who uses an Apple product.  Now, he does.

I didn’t realize that in order to have a writing career, Joe Wilcox had to turn into a fucking asshole.  I guess he did.  This piece I’m linking to is ridiculous.  He’s unprofessional and angry and mean for absolutely no reason.  He’s just a fucking dickhead.  I hope that faggot gets fired again.

http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Mac-fanboys-should-get-a-life-and-some-Windows-7-common-sense/1255464046

Holy crap

Apple has 35,000 employees.  Microsoft has 93,000 employees.  5,000 of those employees are working on Microsoft SharePoint.  Microsoft has 1/35 of Apple’s entire workforce dedicated to just one product.

Who cares?  I’m a geek.

Fedora on PowerPC

Yesterday I installed Fedora 11 on the old eMac that’s in my office.  It’s a PowerPC machine, so I was pretty limited in finding alternative operating systems to Mac OS X that would run on the computer.

I originally tried Yellow Dog Linux but it didn’t support the eMac’s video card, so I installed Fedora 11.  It took forever to install, and the system runs kind of slow.  There is no audio driver, so I don’t have any sound, and the display resolution is limited to 1024x768, so it’s kind of annoying.  Firefox is running slow on this machine.  I’m pretty disappointed, because I know this is still a good machine, even though it’s 5 years old, and I really was under the impression that Linux was supposed to run on older machines and keep them useful.  That doesn’t seem to be the case.

I’m going to try a PowerPC build of Ubuntu and see how it runs on this machine.  I’m selling this machine soon, but I wanted to play around with it and use it as a machine just for writing and browsing the internet.  Unfortunately, because it’s a PowerPC machine, there are no Flash plugins, or really any other plugins, for the computer, so I’m pretty limited in what I can do with it.  I might be going back to Mac OS X, but I wanted to play with Linux for a while first.

MobileMe for $79.00

Apple’s awesome-possum MobileMe service is usually $99.00/year if you order it directly from Apple.  It’s heavily discounted if you purchase it with a new Mac (and you can add that to your purchase even if you already have a MobileMe subscription… when your subscription is up, just enter the code you received on the box that came with your Mac).

Amazon.com usually has the service sold at a discount (the only down-side is that you don’t get the subscription digitally.  You have to wait to receive the package and then enter the code on the box.) but this is the cheapest that I’ve ever seen the subscription.  It’s only $79.00.  The product is marked “OLD VERSION” but that doesn’t matter, because it’s an Internet-based service.  You can even purchase a retail copy of .Mac (MobileMe’s predecessor) and the authorization code will still work.

If you’re in the market for a MobileMe subscription, or have some spare cash to pre-order a subscription to have when yours expires, check it out here:

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MB824Z-A-MobileMe-VERSION/dp/B001BY45QO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1256514919&sr=8-2

Amazon.com also offers discounts on the MobileMe family pack.

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