Warren sent me a link to this terrific new service.
… flight search service Hipmunk just updated its iPhone and iPad apps to show you which of the flights you’ve searched for have Wi-Fi on-board….
LifeHacker – Hipmunk Flight Search App Shows Which Flights Have Wi-Fi
Hipmunk has by far the best interface for seeing what flights are available. Sadly, however, I’m finding the actual results worse and worse over the past few months. The best deals are not showing up.
I don’t begrudge giving Steve Jobs a big chunk of my limited income. But why can’t Apple design decent wireless headphones?
Yeesh.
I may be driven to try these – Outdoor Technology Bluetooth Tags
($70 – $80)
Making Bluetooth headsets “cool” is the mission of Outdoor Technology, a southern California-based active sports and lifestyle accessories maker. To this end, they have unveiled OT Tags, their stereo Bluetooth headsets which function like conventional one-ear “business” headsets but look like and are music headphones in the earbud style — mating the style of wired headphones to the convenience of wireless. …
Click PLAY or watch a review on YouTube.
Looks like my iPod touch is compatible. But it not, I can make it so with a $30 Bluetooth Transmitter.
There are at least 3 fake Apple store in remote Kunming, China.
The fake Apple store in China so convincing that even its staff are fooled
(via a blogger in China – BirdAbroad)
UPDATE: This story has hit the fan in China – Customers angry, staff defiant at China’s fake Apple
Let’s say you’re a hiker in Lausanne, Switzerland in July. Those mountains look very appealing from Lake Geneva.
Would you go … HIKING? … Or pop in to the nearest Travel Agent to buy an expensive flight home. (Double the cost of the same plane flying the other direction.)
If you have the MacBook Blues …
Steve Jobs and Warren Long are of the same era.
If Warren was not so involved in Gymnastics at Berkeley, he might have found himself at the Homebrew Computer Club, hanging out with Steve Wozniak and the other Bay Area geeks.
Stephen Gary “Woz” Wozniak (born August 11, 1950) is an American computer engineer and programmer who co-founded Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.) with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne. His inventions and machines are credited with contributing significantly to the personal computer revolution of the 1970s. Wozniak created the Apple I and Apple II computers in the mid-1970s.
I read his charmingly simplistic (2006) autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, transcribed by writer Gina Smith.
It’s quite a different telling of the founding of Apple than any other I’ve heard. And you really get to love Woz after hearing the tale in his own words.
Wonderful are the stories of him and Jobs being pulled into a police car in their phone phreaking youth. Of their struggles to get together any money at all to pursue their passion for their dream of the personal computer.
Woz really did personally invent the ancient ancestor of current laptops. I believe him.
Wozniak discusses his main reasons for finally writing his autobiography was to dispel several myths that surround his history, and that of Apple Computer. Including:
He developed the Apple II almost independently, not with a lot of help from Jobs
He didn’t leave Apple; he is still, in fact, officially employed by Apple
He didn’t have a “falling out” with Jobs (except right after the development of CL 9) and is still friends with him
Wozniak ends his book with advice to others, particularly the youth, on how to develop their own inventions and encourages them to ignore the mainstream and follow their own passions and ideas.
Of the many thousands of Silicon Valley missed opportunities (including some for Warren) the success of Steve, Steve and Apple I attribute to:
– the excellent partnership of Steve and Steve
– Woz getting more things right in the earliest days than anyone else
When Woz was developing those first 2 Apple computers in his spare time, he worked for HP. They did not invite him to work on the HP prototypes. Idiots.
At the same time Steve Jobs worked for Atari, who did appreciate his skill set. Years later I was to buy my first computers, Atari. I had friends that bought Apple, but I couldn’t afford them at the time.
Warren bought the other competitor – the Commodore Amiga. Actually, Warren was mainly an Atari guy too. I misremembered.
Leave a comment if you’ve any personal nostaligia to add.
Creativity isn’t magic. Part three of this four-part series explores how innovations truly happen.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Arguably the printed word has been the most critical invention in history. Yet paper will be a quaint throw back soon, I feel.
That epiphany came to me watching an airline employee hunt and peck my details into a computer with two fingers. He couldn’t type.
What a waste of time. Thumb typing on a mobile device? … We’ll laugh at the absurdity of that era (2011) soon.
Ed Bott is a Microsoft fan boy extreme. I read his blog once-in-a-while just for laughs.
He can spin anything pro-MS.
Microsoft has been making money hand over fist in the current recession. That’s why I was so astonished to see Ed post this – As Microsoft’s monopoly crumbles, its mobile future is crucial
He’s right, of course.
Google and Apple just might crush all other competitors in mobile. Even Nokia is vulnerable.
Microsoft is gambling big on Windows 8.
… The company (Microsoft) can take some small encouragement in the fact that the overall share for mobile devices is still small. That means it’s possible to overcome the late start. Android proved that a newcomer can make a dent, going from zero (literally) to roughly a third of the share of iOS over the past two years. …
I finally saw one of the new Microsoft stores in California, by the way. Surprisingly well done. I was impressed.
Mac Malware is finally here. I’ve had 3 suspicious incidents, so far.
A recent phishing scam has targeted Mac users by redirecting them from legitimate websites to fake websites which tell them that their computer is infected with a virus. The user is then offered Mac Defender “anti-virus” software to solve the issue.
This “anti-virus” software is malware (i.e. malicious software). Its ultimate goal is to get the user’s credit card information which may be used for fraudulent purposes.
The most common names for this malware are MacDefender, MacProtector and MacSecurity.
In the coming days, Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove Mac Defender malware and its known variants. The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware.
In the meantime …
If any notifications about viruses or security software appear, quit Safari or any other browser that you are using. If a normal attempt at quitting the browser doesn’t work, then Force Quit the browser.
… read more on this issue from Apple
Apple was slow getting this information out.
Still, Apple MacBooks top all Consumer Reports laptop categories.
This is an update of an old post.
____ original from April 10th, 2011:
I’ve been a Boingo member in the past.
… a private company that provides global Wi-Fi services at more than
125,000325,000 Boingo hotspots worldwide – including hundreds of airports, thousands of hotels, and tens of thousand cafes and coffee shops. …Though signup is seamless, canceling the service requires a call into customer services. …
It works. But there are some deceptive billing practices. At times you THINK you are logging into your Boingo account, but in reality it’s some ‘premium’ partner. … At the end of the month you find you’ve been billed extra. Without warning.
UPDATE:
Baochi from Boingo responded instantly to this post. (They really do have superb customer support.)
Due to complaints like mine, Boingo has improved the notification that you are going to get DINGED for an extra (unknown) amount. It now looks like this:
The premium locations that incur additional charges are available by default. … Perhaps they should be OFF by default, and only turned on by two or three clicks.
Certainly every month Baochi gets complaints from customers charged more than their expected monthly total. Most cannot recall clicking on any premium locations. They were in a rush, and didn’t pay attention to that text.
If you travel, you could get good value. … On the other hand, since Starbucks went free, I’ve not needed a paid subscription. And don’t plan to get one in future. Starbucks has a strong WiFi signal 99% of the time. Many Boingo hotspots cannot stream a YouTube video.
However, Boingo’s now released a brilliant FREE service that I recommend for everyone.
A FREE app that helps you find and locate FREE and Boingo hotspots at thousands of locations worldwide.
Click PLAY or see how it works on YouTube.
Download it here.
Choose Windows, Mac, iPhone / iPad, or Android.
Every time you open up your computer in a new location, the app will tell you if there’s free Wi-Fi available.
Brilliant.
After testing it the past couple of weeks in California and Nevada, I’m getting about 70% false positives. The app says there is free WIFi … but that’s not true. I’ve deleted the app on my laptop.
__________________________
For example, in the case of Starbucks (log-in required) it gets it wrong.
I have to find the Starbucks log-in page. And log-in, as usual.
Macs almost never get a true computer virus.
But there is a scam reaching Apple computers right now. I saw it go by once.
Ignore and it’s not a problem. They’re trying to get your credit card number and/or master password.
Fake “MAC Defender” antivirus app scams users for money, CC numbers
Rick McCharles 