Impossibly Small is Just the Beginning

Believe the news people. Yesterday marked my first hands-on exposure to the iPod nano. All I can say is that there are some things that just don’t seem natural. Pick it up and you expect it to weigh 4x more than it does. Activate the screen expecting Timex, you get HDTV. Hold it in your hand and play with it for a while and crazy ideas about sliding it in your wallet alongside your Mastercard emerge. Yes, yes, and yes, it really is that “impossibly small”.

In fact, I did some research and guess what… remember last year’s standard of “thinness” in the tech world (Motorola’s uber-swank Razr phone)? Consider this…

iPod nano’s 1/2 the weight of the Razr
iPod nano’s 1/2 the thickness of the Razr
iPod nano’s battery runs more than 2-3x as long as the Razr’s

Full flavor. Zero fat. Make no mistake about it geek peeps, this is the Jenny Craig of the iPod world. I’m warning you… don’t pick this baby up unless you’re ready to throw down.

iPod nano = geek lust incarnate.

— Clif @ 9:53 pm

Podcast Addiction

As one of my first posts, I thought I would share a little addiction I have. Ever since the release of iTunes 4.9, I have been absolutely hooked on podcasting. Most activities of my day lately are accompanied by one of my many subscribed podcasts.

In the morning, my iPod and my JBL OnTour speakers provide my shower/get dressed podcast. Next is typically another podcast via my iPod while I walk to class. I try to find an especially good one to help me take my mind off of the fact that I’m even at school over the summer. I usually play my last podcast for the day straight out of my PowerBook while I check my email and such for the night.

One of my other secret passions is online gambling. the absolute best resource for finding online casinos is Hypercasinos.com, but anyway, this post was about podcasts, so I won’t go into deatil about that.

If you haven’t tried out podcasting yet, I highly recommend it. It puts you in control of what news you want to hear, and there are a lot of talented radio personalities behind many of these shows. This is a concept that is here to stay, and I am pretty excited about it.

— Maurice Cheeks @ 9:34 am

Sharing Time

Budgeting your time, in college it makes or breaks you. As an undergrad my entire life revolved around spending the first week of classes placing every exam, test, and homework assignment carefully into a weekly planner, then going back highlighting key dates on the mini-months for quickie test-checks.

The thing is that planners are great if all you want to do is budget your own time, but these days we’re connected with others in ways never dreamed of even a couple years ago. Our network is key. To succeed as one, we must let fail none. Hey, if I’m going to spend the time to put all my class exams, dates, and assignments down in a calendar, why not share the wealth a bit with the other 30 or so pour souls in my class, right?

This is exactly why I really love Apple iCal. iCal’s so much more than just a planner, it’s also the absolute best way to share the wealth with others, get your classmates in your network, and earn serious brownie points when you’re looking for that ace-in-the-hole study partner come midterms.

To get started, create a new calendar for each class you’re taking this semester. Put in all major exams/assignments. Proceed the same way with each of your classes. When finished, use the FILE -> NEW CALENDAR GROUP to keep all your classes together. Now your secret weapon… use the CALENDAR -> PUBLISH… command to share out each of your class schedules. Send the links provided to each of your classmates. If you don’t have a DotMac account, check with your school to see if you’ve got any web space assigned to you and how to access it. Most schools tie this in with your email account and you can use your email login/pass to post to it via iCal. You won’t get all the great web publishing functions of DotMac, but don’t forget… even Windows users can access the ical file format using Netscape or Mozilla’s Calendar or Sunbird projects.

Get organized, give the best gift: time, and get that Bio 101 geek on your side from day one.

— Clif @ 9:33 am

SweetToothBlue

So I just picked up my first cell phone with Bluetooth last week and after getting it paired up and running to my Mac and headset I have only two things to say:

Bluetooth Rocks.

I’m on the road 3 hours/day and having a wireless headset with voice-activated dialing is just insane. Press a button the side of the headset, “Say a command”, “Call Jane McFane at home”, “calling…” Talk about a great way to stay focused on the road - every phone should do this!

Better yet, click in the menubar, choose send file, and I’m popping my favorite mp3’s to the phone as ringtones and pics as picture ID’s… I can browse all the photos, videos, or voice memos I’ve recorded on the phone, then just drag them to the desktop to save…. All my Address Book contacts are immediately on the phone… All my iCal events synced up perfectly… And the real clincher? I can even dial-up to the internet on my laptop wirelessly while the phone’s still in my pocket at speeds rivaling DSL.

I don’t how they do this on Windows, but no way there’s this level of integration and ease of use. Next time someone says buy a PC if you want the latest and greatest, ask them how to show you how to setup a Bluetooth phone that sync contacts, events, music, and photos with a manufacturer that ships every one of their laptops with Bluetooth built-in and ready to rock with zero driver downloads or hassle whatsoever.

— Clif @ 9:33 am

It’s about that time again.

This time of year always spurs some seriously conflicting emotions. The summer has grown boring, but school seems so unappealing. It’s hard to decide which is more fun sometimes; having a full time job and making money, or lavishing in the poor yet carefree lifestyle of a college student. Alas, it is back to school time. It’s time for a fresh start, new classes, possibly a new living situation, maybe some new gadgets to play with.

It is fun to come back to school and see what things have changed, and what things will never change. This year my campus has been renovating a ton, so that’s pretty exciting to see. Plus with renovated buildings comes new computer labs, which is always fun for those of us who get excited about that sort of thing.

In any event, this should be a great semester to start a great year. Make it your best yet, I know I plan to.

— Maurice Cheeks @ 9:33 am