Being as I was getting tired of putting these little rubber tires on them so they wouldn’t fall out of my gaping ears I decided it was time to find some new headphones. I wanted in-ear because those fit me best and have always given me a great experience. After shopping around for a while and reading different reviews, I opted for MEElectronics’ M9P for the iPhone. For a nominal $20+ I picked up the set from Amazon.

I’ve been using them for a couple of weeks now and am really impressed. The first music to come through these headphones was Beastie Boys and I was not the least bit disappointed with them. I had never heard bass like this from little headphones. I felt like I was in some pimped out little Honda cruising down the Vegas Strip with bass booming and girls ooh-ing. It was wonderful.

The construction is grand. The cable is encased in a thin plastic coating so you don’t hear the sound of the cable rubbing on your clothes vibrating in your ears. There’s a handy clip to keep them from flopping around too if you use that. The accessories that come with the headphones are also stellar: a semi-hard case, airline adapter (YES!), and several sizes of earbuds for a custom fit.

My only complaint about these headphones is that the single-button for music and phone control is a little funky. I don’t know if it needs to be broken in or if this set has a faulty connection. It works, but it doesn’t always do what I want it to the first time. The microphone works perfect and I haven’t heard any complaints about it from anyone I’ve spoken with while using them.

If you’re in the market for a new set of earphones you have to check out MEElectronics products. They make great headphones. While reviewing their webpage today I noticed they have a promotion called Operation Gratitude M9. For every special M9 headphones you purchase they send a set to our troops. How cool is that?

Apple held a press conference today regarding their issues with the iPhone antenna. Jason Snell of Macworld did a great job covering it and you can read it here. You can also watch the video here.

I didn’t believe this was a real engineering problem, but did think it could be a PR issue based on Apple’s lack of response prior to today. It was the first time I’d followed and major problem Apple had faced and am pleased with their response. I believe it’s in line with my other experiences of the company and enjoyed Steve’s statement about its customers, “We love our users. We really love ‘em. And we try very hard to surprise and delight them. We work our asses off for them. And it’s great. and we have a blast doing it.” (via Jason Snell’s coverage)

Reading this gave me the same feeling I had when I walked into an Apple store the first time, used my first iPod, and was able to demo the iPhone before the rest of the world as an employee. Apple does it right. If our government was run with such passion and purpose…

If you’re not familiar with the issues Apple has been having with it’s iPhone 4 reception issues by now then you need to be caught up. There’s been enough written on it already that I’m not going to rehash here, but rather want to focus on how I believe this event can be a fulcrum in Apple’s success.

For the last couple of years Apple has enjoyed rock-star status in the computer industry. The iPod pulled them out of obscurity, and made them a major player in the electronics market. Since then, Apple has started using Intel in their computers, jolted the cell phone market out of its apathetic stupor, and has created a tablet computer that is rocking another industry. Prior to this they were catering to an exclusive market of die-hard fans who loved the product, but the company was not seeing any significant growth or making a serious impact in the computer world.

I switched to Mac in 2005 with the purchase of a 13″ iBook. While it took a couple of weeks to get a feel for, I fell in love with the hardware and software experience so much that it changed the way I perceived technology (much to my wife’s chagrin) and got me interested in learning how computers work. I believe this is the same thing that has happened to people all over the world as they’ve taken hold of Apple’s panache and zeal for perfection.

Enter iPhone 4; Apple’s ultimate creation of industrial design for a mobile phone. Once again they’ve shocked the industry into catching up with the best innovator in the land—except when it comes to reception… and this it seems could be the company’s Achilles heel when it comes to how they deal with the problem.

Apple holds tight control over its public image and doesn’t like to be seen in a negative light. All of the attention they’ve been receiving over the new iPhone’s reception problems have not been settling well with them. From a “you’re holding it wrong” email from Jobs, to “it’s a software problem” acknowledgement, to finally outright deleting message board thread on their support site, Apple is not handling the problem with dignity, but rather showing themselves to be rather immature and childlike.

Look, every company goes through a crisis at one time or another. It’s just the way the world works. When it happens, this gives the company the opportunity to really show what it believes and how it truly feels about its customers. So far, Apple isn’t showing much love. Apple enjoys a high margin on its hardware and software and works hard to deserve its position as a high-quality product.

In the 80s, IBM entered the PC market and Apple welcomed its competitor with open arms. That mentality nearly caused its ruin. In the mid-90s Steve Jobs came back to a company that was on the verge of closing its doors. Instead of being lackadaisical, Apple got aggressive and slowly turned the ship around, steering it not only to safer, but more enjoyable waters. The past several years Apple has been the example of technology and customer service. Now is Apple’s time to shine again, acknowledging the problem with iPhone 4, and doing what’s right for its customers. It’s only going to succeed by showing the same passion and flair for excellence in this minor mistake (it’s only a cellphone after all), and not being lackadaisical in its customer service at this critical juncture.

In conclusion, it’s my perception that the way Apple handles this problem is a turning point in it’s success. If Apple steps up and does the right thing for its consumers then it will continue to see exceptional growth and popularity. If it continues to hide the elephant in the room saying “nothing’s wrong and I don’t know what you’re talking about”, then I think the bubble will be burst. All of the people hypnotized by its beautiful products and services will suddenly see they’re just like any other company that is ultimately out to make a buck and in the long run doesn’t care much for the consumer… at least not more than is necessary to remain profitable and make the shareholders happy.

So come on, Apple, Steve, step up and be a man about this. Acknowledge the flaw, fix the problem, and move on. Tell people what’s really going on with your product. Keep showing that you’re better than every other computer company out there and make us proud. We still have choices. Don’t forget that.

What are you paying for in this Sony? A 128GB SSD. If you add the same thing to the MacBook Pro you’re only looking at $1549. Okay, so you’re asking about the difference in processors now? Both are Intel’s new i5. The difference between them is .13GHz in favor of the Sony. What will you see in performance difference? Nothing. That level of difference is marketing to make your mouth water. Both notebooks sport 1066GHz SDRAM, though you’re paying for 1x4GB stick in the Sony to have an extra slot for more RAM.

Overall, what kind of performance advantage will you have between the two? Both of these notebooks are consumer tools. They will both support all of your email, office, and browsing needs, as well as hobby photo and video editing. If you go with the Mac you get iLife included which will support your photo and video editing (you have to buy your own with the Sony), plus you will get iWeb for creating your own website, a DVD creating program, and GarageBand for creating music. If you go with the Mac you don’t have to worry about getting viruses and you don’t have to subscribe to anti-virus software. Basically, you’ll get a better notebook, with more software, a better user experience, and for nearly $400 less.

Now tell me that Macs are more expensive. Here are a couple of screenshots to see what’s going on in this comparison.

Lala will be discontinued as of May 31, 2010

Perhaps Apple is going to do something with it now? Maybe we’ll see iTunes.com and will be able to do many of the same thing with iTunes? Maybe nothing will happen?

Let the speculation begin.

Personally, I’m looking forward to folders. Multitasking will be cool once Mog gets their iPhone app. Otherwise, I don’t imagine I’ll be running several apps at the same time, but we’ll see!

What are you looking forward to, or what wasn’t implemented that you wanted to see with this OS?

Google being the gift that it is, I was quickly able to find the problem and the appropriate solution. I read this great article by Randy on SupremeTechs and found the solution required changing the fragmentation and CTS/RTS settings on my wireless router. Reading the comments I soon learned these settings are not available on the Airport Extreme. Being the tinkerer that I am, I let loose a fury of tinkering such as has not been seen in this world, and after a few resets seem to have discovered a comparable solution for those of us who use Apple’s wireless router.

You just change your multicast rate from the default 2Mbps to the higher 5.5Mbps or 11Mbps. This may shorten the range of your wifi signal, but it has not had any noticeable difference on mine. Here’s a short screencast showing you how to change this setting yourself.

This change in my advanced settings has resolved the problem and we can now stream YouTube to our iPhone and Touch. I’ve also noticed faster browsing in general on these devices and even on our iMac and MacBook Pro. It is my assumption this will also prove to be a suitable fix for any issues you may experience with the iPad, though I’ve not been able to try one on my home network as of yet.

Thanks for reading and please take a moment to let me know if this worked for you, or if you know a better way to solve the problem.

Just go to Monoprice and search for iPhone or iPod and buy your necessities. I’ll tell you that there are not a lot of frills here. A few cables, some cases, and a couple of chargers… really it’s just your basics. But the price is so great on these that you would be a fool to buy these basics from anywhere else ever again.

I discovered it about a month ago and ordered a couple of syncing cables. It cost me about $5 for a couple of cables and that included shipping. I think I got a Cat5 cable too…

If you like screen savers (and this is what I’m really excited about) then they have the best ones I’ve seen since the brand sold at the Apple store. They cost about .86 for 1, and it gets less the more you order. I just bought 5 and with shipping it is just over $5. If you buy $5 at Apple you’re going to spend about $30. Yep.

If you’re on your iPhone a lot you can get a fancy leather charging case for about $20. It’s the same thing as the $100 fancy pants ones at the Apple store. If you want to pay more please email me and send me the difference, but buy it from Monoprice.

So go to Monoprice and shop for your cables and basic needs. Great products and excellent prices. Seriously. Do it. Do it now. Get to da choppa!

After opening my boxes and plugging everything in I to learned it wasn’t as easy as I initially thought it would be. That said, it wasn’t difficult either. Rather than laying down directions, I’m going to refer you to this excellent article by Alan Zisman that gives clear directions to set up your Airdisk.

The most difficult thing in the process is waiting for the backup to complete. Why? When your Mac makes its backup folder on the Airdisk it creates a sparsebundle image. I tried connecting my 1TB drive to my iMac to do the backup directly, but the sparsebundle image is not recognized this way. I’m sure there’s a technical explanation for it, but I didn’t bother looking for it. So to the airwaves I went and it took my 1st gen Intel iMac about 12 hours to back up 74GB over my wireless network at 802.11g speeds. The good news is it was a solid connection the entire time and it completed without a hitch. My newer MBP with 802.11n completed a 65GB backup in about 5-6 hours doing around 10GB an hour. Be sure that you do not let your Mac go to sleep during this time as that could disrupt your network connection depending on your settings. Make sure your sleep settings are off and just use the screen dimming feature instead. Once the backup completed, I installed TimeMachineEditor on both Macs to change the default one hour backup to something more realistic for my needs.

Thus far I am entirely pleased with the process. I like knowing I don’t have to remember to connect my FW drive for my notebook and my data is still protected. It’s also a nice feeling to know that I now have 1,000GB of storage for a plethora of backups available.

UPDATE: If you’re using this solution with an Apple notebook, be sure to eject the drive before you go mobile. Otherwise, you will corrupt your sparsebundle image and have to start over from scratch.

With all of the hype that has built up for this mythical device over the past several years the iPad has delivered miserably. Such is the way things go when you build them up for so long. Ultimately sales will be the judge, and I’m quite positive that Apple is going to rock the computing world with the iPad. Here are my thoughts on the iPad and why I think it will do well.

First, the hardware
Traditionally, Apple is on the bleeding edge of design. If you haven’t noticed, other computer manufacturers are mimicking Apple’s design for their desktops and notebooks. We’ll see a similar thing happen with the iPad we did with the iPhone; manufacturers will kind of copy the form factor of the hardware, but will do it with less style and aplomb. You’ll see similar items from Dell, ASUS, and others that look decent, and maybe even attractive, but when it comes down to it the hardware will feel cheap. For instance, only two touchscreen phones on the market today use glass like the iPhone: the Blackberry Storm and the Droid. Everyone else uses plastic. I believe that as soon as you pick up the iPad all other products will feel inferior. You’ll judge the others by the way they feel in your hands. The feel is important because it is what you will experience the most.

As far as looks go, the iPad is beautiful. I can’t wait to pick up this thing and feel it in my hands. It’s going to be wonderful. The brushed aluminum back is stunning and something I wish would be brought back with the iPhone. Apple’s aluminum feels good. It feels right, like a piece of my soul is resting. The large glass touchscreen is going to be a joy to use. I’m never going to get anything done on it because I’ll be meticulously cleaning off the slightest smudge.

The A4 Chip
I’m excited about this chip. If you read the tech sites you’ll know that other chip companies are saying this is nothing special, but it is special. If you know Apple you know that they control what hardware goes into their machines. They engineer it for the best performance. They don’t make purchases based on the lowest bidder. They’re not cheap, and that shows. It’s the same thinking with the chip. Maybe it’s nothing special as far as power and performance goes, but it’s special in the sense that it’s made to work with the rest of the hardware. It’s not a mod on a manufacturing line, it’s the only one in production. That squeezes out every last bit of power, and that is special.

Finally…
Just like Steve mentioned in the keynote, hundreds of millions of people already know how to use it. Thank you, iPod Touch and iPhone.

Now for the software
This is the area that will rule the iPad. Just like the iPhone, we didn’t see much when it was first released, but everyone was amazed. The iPhone revolutionized the cell phone industry, and continues to do so not with hardware, but with software. As the iPad matures we will see new and amazing features. For the most part, everything is the same as the iPhone with the exception of iWork and iBooks. It’s cool to see a full-featured office suite on the iPad, but I really want to focus on the iBook software.

iBooks
Giving props to Amazon during the keynote, Jobs said the iPad stands on the shoulders of the Kindle. As with anything Apple does the UI looks beautiful and I’m sure is a joy to read with. What I want to know is what features will be available.

I have not made the switch to ebooks yet because I prefer a real page. I enjoy the smell and feel of a book. Are there features of an ebook reader that draw me? Of course, but nothing has had a great enough pull to change my mind. What I want in an ebook reader is the same thing I have in real books–the ability to dog-ear pages, highlight, and write on pages. I enjoy marking up my books with the things that stand out and the things that I want to easily find later. When iBooks has features and functionality that I can turn into practical, everyday use, then not only will I be on my way to purchase an iPad, this little guy will revolutionize books the way the iPod revolutionized music.

Conclusion
If you’re a fan of font design, even moderately like myself, you know that the ultimate purpose of good design (in all things actually) is that the item you’re using becomes invisible. You don’t notice a beautiful font and that’s why helvetica is so enduring, it steps out of the way for you to enjoy what you are reading. You don’t see it, you read it. I believe the same is true of good hardware; when you use it you don’t notice it because it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

I don’t notice my MacBook Pro. It flows in and out of my life when I need it. It does exactly what I need, when I need it to do so. I notice my PC at work. I notice it when I wait for it to open a new mail message. I notice it when pages freeze. I really notice it when I wait for an unminimized page to redraw.

You won’t notice the iPad; you’ll use it. You’ll appreciate the iPad. It will become a piece of your technology life. You’ll notice it when you need to use it and don’t have it. You’ll notice it when you use a substitute. That is good design. That is attention to detail. That is how Apple makes its products. To get a real feel for this engineering miracle (as much as you can right now anyway), watch the 7 minute video on Apple’s site. This makes it all come together.