Well I have gone and done it, I snagged a 80gb iPod “Classic” - I weighed the pro’s and con’s in my head, and in the end it really just will be fine, no use in going back to the last get, going to use my change jar to get the TV cable when it comes out, but it is nice to be able to watch video and such now - plus the new UI bits are nice too, heck even came with 3 free games - so a full review of my takes on it in a few days.
All in all a good day today, got the ball rolling on a few things, some new job bits pop’d up over night, so work at least I’ll have tunes to enjoy while working and can leave my evil master “iTunes” and save 25% CPU & 25MB ram - anywhoo back to watching House! Have a Good Night Folks!
So going threw my feeds this morning, TUAW reported on a bit about the new iPod’s - they don’t support video out without a special $50 cable from Apple, I am hoping this is just a bad bad bad joke, or the new cable best support something REALLY fancy, that is one of the things I had hoped to do with a iPod, take some of the flicks I have and watch em on my TV, but if that is not possible with the new model, and the cable I currently own won’t work, then I am leaning towards CompUSA’s recently discounted 80GB last gen iPods, as it’ll still work there.
So far the press conference has been rather dull - the usual dribble from his Steveness - but below will be my upkeep of things:
Impressed
Refreshed Nano - Not Wonderful.. but ‘ok’
iPod Classic - Cheaper 80gb.. nice
Not Impressed
Ringtones for $0.99
Shuffle Colors - yay?
Colors of iPods
iPod Touch - Storage vs. Price
Final Update
Honestly, the biggest thing I was happy about is the “iPod Classic” refresh, 80GB for cheaper is nice, actually makes my budget happier, but the iPod Touch has a ways to go before it’s on my radar at all, as cool as it’s features are, just not up to par with the cost, and I don’t need widescreen video watching, iPod hooks up to the TV, got the cables, no worries.
So there it is, out of all the things they gave today, really only excited about the cheaper 80GB iPod and it’s enhancements to UI - so there ya have it… and for the record, I like posting blogs from Textmate - pretty simple
Well another day, another apple press conference - if there’s no iPod’s announced, then no big deal, I think I’ll still go snag a 80gb one - but then again, I may continue to wait a bit, not 100% sure, but such is my life as of late.
Had a nice chat on the phone yesterday about work, trying to nail down exactly what I am doing for the kMan, and make sure that I am not falling short of what he’s wanting but at the same time that I am not picking up more work than I should be, as there is a lot to do lately, and in the end my time as of late is very rare for free time it seems, but that in itself is a good thing.
New Billing system is going to be officially “purchased” this week, it’ll allow me to merge both billing and support into one package - I think though, I am going to keep myTT for doing 3rd party support long term, but if that isn’t really “jumping” then I am going to call that a wash and let the domain sit for a while as I think, all in all though the new billing system looks good, I want to do some more testing before I start importing folks, as well as make a universal simple theme for it aside from the built in one, something I never did with Modernbill, but the lucky billing system change is WHMCS - simple, clean, good customer access, and something I have been really wanting, customer affiliate system - I know there are add-on’s for ol MB but the move from 4.x->5.x looked to be a pain, and I just don’t want something TOO involved, while granted I am going to be doing a full audit and import folks one by one, it’s a needed thing that with any billing system I was going to need to do.
Anywhoo - writing this blog from Textmate, finally got around to playing with it’s blog feature (only owned it what 2 years now?) it’s pretty slick, granting when I hit post it posts I’ll probably post more once Apple’s press confrence is in motion or over, so we shall see what happens! Donations still welcomed!
Well my old old old old (insert additional old’s) keyboard was having some issues, just seemed to take more and more to get the thing to type, things like oh I don’t know “spacebar” decided on occasion not to work, or the E key would simply not work either - so after thinking about it and watching CompUSA (wanted to see it first) I decided to venture down and give the new Apple keyboard a demo, the feel is actually rather nice, I saw the new iMac’s and I must say - still not impressed, Apple makes nice stuff, but at the same time its the iMac, I had hoped for some innovation in the all-in-one design, but at least it had the keyboard attached for demo.
It is very nice, still haven’t done the apple keyboard update, requires me to reboot, and I have things running for a while, so I can’t really shut down just yet, but probably tomorrow - but all in all, it is a nice feel, sleek look, and things plug in really nicely. Now I just need a Mac Pro and 2 big monitors, and I am set!
Tomorrow flags a new day, some things on the todo include - some CSS, working to make a little “Client Preview” app to replace the ol static HTML, everything will run off a txt file and let me do updates a LOT faster vs. by hand editing some HTML code, all formatting will just work, once it’s done, its easy to update and then some - also the more pressing project is to finish the first run of the sign-up app, still fiddling with AJAX to do dynamic username lookups, but I may ditch that and do a secondary screen after failure that says “Your name was taken” and have them choose another, or simply pick the username first before they re-enter passwords and such 30 times.
So! I am going to wrap it up and call it a night, as much as I’d love to stay up I want to try and keep a semi-regular sleep schedule, granted it’ll be ruined tomorrow with the eclipse, and mars, but hey such is life but tomorrow I have a lot to get done, and more fun playing with the new billing system which I think will become the new backend for billing/support on FH - and soon will do the same for TN - joy joy
Anywhoo - have a good week folks, thanks for the prayers, im’s and kind donations - who hopefully this week will go well, and who knows, in time that ol iPod may be mine again. Night!
Well today two of my devices gave up the ghost.. a fond farewell to the following:
Jarba Bluetooth Headset (no longer charges)
HP+iPod 40gb (Dead)
So I am going to order a new headset from Newegg, but not sure about the iPod, as much as I’d like to have it, dunno if I can afford to get the 80gb one and keep to my budget *sigh* ah to be responsible. lol.
Anywho - going to go help cook dinner now… more later.
Well as much as I would love to slap down nearly $2,000 for a MacBook Pro and replace my HP Laptop - I think I am going to prioritize the money to go towards the friends server. The great thing about the friends server is allows me to clean off Business Servers of Friend stuff, but also allows me to give friends more space, more access, more.. well everything.
That is the one thing I miss having servers off-site, is the “hands on” aspect, really getting to play with the system, upgrade hardware as needed without having to pay a 3rd party to add ram, drives, do diagnostics, which at some level is a lot more entertaining than just remoting in, and poking around - but instead if I need to do some in-depth checking, I can go down, have a direct terminal, and make some magic happen.
So while I would love to be completely Mac in the realm of laptop/desktop (as the primary OS anyway) sadly that isn’t the plan it seems, moving forward to the friend server will be helpful, and some good folks have put in some good donations that’ll help cover a bit of the cPanel licensing, but I am going to make up the rest, thus putting the MacBook on hold, till probably after the new year, unless someone drops a project/cash in my lap, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Anywhoo - been 3 hours since I started writing this, and just now found it’s tab still open in firefox, so must mean it’s time to get going.
at least I’ll have tunes to enjoy while working and can leave my evil master “iTunes” and save 25% CPU & 25MB ram 
- anywhoo back to watching House! Have a Good Night Folks!
