You are looking at posts that were written in the month of January in the year 2008.
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STEVE JOB’S 2008 MACWORLD KEYNOTE COVERAGE:
Date: Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 9:00AM PST
As is usually the case all of the Apple geeks will be podcasting, blogcasting, etc. from the show. I’m sure the iPhones will be out taking pictures and relaying details.. Places to look:
- http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/15/live-from-macworld-2008-steve-jobs… Of course Engadget will have a live feed
- http://www.macrumorslive.com/ great site for Apple news will have a live feed. They note Apple posted the ‘Something in the Air’ teaser campaign on their website, and promises that you will be able to watch the keynote on Apple.com on Tuesday afternoon (pre-recorded, not live). The banners were originally revealed on Friday at Macworld Expo’s Moscone center.
- http://thedigitallifestyle.tv/Home.html 24 hour video podcast on the web - they will even give you a macworld keynote countdown widget for your dashboard
- http://www.macworld.com/article/… And of course Macworld itself!
Can’t wait to see what Steve has in store for 2008. "MacBook Air" anyone?
It looks like the battle between HD and Blu-ray High Definition DVD formats may be won by Blu-ray. In an article on AppleInsider - Apple is already behind Blu-ray and will include it in future computers. This article explicitly states that Universal Studios has an out in its HD contract and may be switching to Blu-ray and Paramount has also an out-clause so it looks like the only two backers are backing out. Warner already announced it will switch.
It gets better - CNET recommends that you not purchase HD DVD at all:
Editor’s note, January 5, 2008: Because of the recent news that Warner Bros. Entertainment will be exclusively supporting Blu-ray, CNET recommends refraining from purchasing an HD DVD player in the near future. Exclusive support of Warner Bros. Entertainment gives Blu-ray a large advantage in terms of studio backing, leaving only Paramount and Universal as major studios releasing movies exclusively on the HD DVD format. This guide will be overhauled after
CES to reflect this and any other news announced at the show.
Its a good article and explores how they compare to one another. Sony has always been behind Blu-ray - looks like the Betamax format wins this time! It will be nice to see a Blu-ray DVD burner come out for the MacPro - I’ll put one in my open slot and send high definition videos of the kids to the parents!
I wonder sometimes where the boys we watched turn into men end up. John broke all of our hearts as he threw his temper tantrums and wasted his talent. Glad to see he is still playing:
Maryland Basketball: Where Are They Now?: John Gilchrst Goes Back to Israel Again posted in this very useful weblog (though I find the spelling of John’s last name either wrong or an unnecessary abbreviation. Interestingly enough - we will have a new Gilchrist at MD next year - Augustus Gilchrist.
Interesting website - none the less. I didn’t know Nick Caner-Medley was with Gran Canaria Grupo Dunas (Spain), Ibekwe was with Gilboa/Afula (Israel), at least these men are seeing the world!
Ahh- Macworld. The future is next week. CIS has some cool
In an article in today’s WSJ Business Tech blog:
Apple chose today to announce two new high end computers the week before Jobs takes the stage
I love my Mac Pro - wish I had one of these. Ahh, the processing power, but FinalCut is working for me now, enough power. But still - to upgrade to a new processor - maybe I’ll hack someday. Can’t wait to see what Steve has for us next week. The blog Wingfield @ the WSJ wrote about that too. The wafer thin powerbook - I’m not excited about it yet. When they come out with a multi-touch OSX mac I’ll start pressing IT for one.
As for today’s Stock Tank!!! "Oh Apple, if there’s been a fool around - its got to be me." As I watched you tickle $200/share and now back to the November number of $171 - This happened last time you made a big announcement - iPhone’s in Europe. We are heavy in this one, in the IRA so we won’t sell but its painful. Makes me think to buy more after we just cashed in a bit to buy some Citi which also tanked. I thought it was the bottom for the financial sector but it’s not there yet. Countrywide may "go away" and the rest are suffering. Looked at it like a strong Dividend play - may still be for the long run, but if they cut that dividend - I’m all wet. Time to shift to even more safe stuff like more into P&H where we are already heavy and Coke where we probably didn’t put enough.
A business associate of mine - Commercial Banker is retiring, had a nice conversation with him. He is one of quite a few I know in the past few years. At 42, its a leading indicator that I have to stay serious. So what happens when Steve Job’s retires - Bill’s on his way out, its only a matter of time.
And now to the politics. Can you believe this - all they talk about is change. Change CHANGE! even the republicans want change. The funny thing is, Bush can’t run again so there is going to be change 
regardless. So what I want to know is - change to what. I know we need it, I don’t like what the Dems are proposing, I don’t know what the Repls are proposing. Its all reteric now - I quite frankly don’t trust Hillary and Mit - they both have changed what they are saying so much - that thats all I can count on in regard to change from them. I fall back to McCain as that is about all I can do. I just wish I could get comfortable with a guy like Huckabee - but I’m Jewish and don’t know what that means to him. So we have some time - and time to change, my mind. 
Amazon MP3 vs. Apple iTunes: Where Should You Shop? - GigaOM Om Malik writes on GigaOM that “More than 1 million of the 2 million songs are priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. OK.” There are a lot of good comments (and some silly ones) here as well. My POV is that this is a good thing for people who want to save some money. The integrated iTunes application is good for me, a Mac user and the store built in is also good as it tracks the things I have purchased, but Amazon is the king of online retailers and will bring a lot to the table including buying history, integrating other’s reviews, better search engines, etc.
The fact is, Apple will win either way as long as it keeps making the best digital music players out there. Its always been about selling more iPod’s and we all know that the downloading world was crap before iTunes. Good points made in the comments about the continuing battle with the music studios. Anyone that wants to start slinging business ethics charges at Apple and Microsoft should really consider the real history of the music business - nothing ethical there. I expect that Universal and others will do whatever they can to create a model where they can raise prices or at least control things. Retailers like Amazon and Wallmart will be easier to manipulate.
I’m somewhat of an audiophile and feel there should be higher quality options when purchasing songs. After all, if I’m buying this thing for the music I want the best version of it. The record album and CD business were going this way before this all changed the game. Buying high-fidelity versions of vinyl records and SACD’s were on my list - I always had a “stylus” and CD player capable of playing them. The standard Apple files are incomparable. I can only agree with one commenter “Universal can pull all its music from Amazon in six months, as well as the DRM free music. It didn’t give the DMR Free music to Apple for a reason. If you recall, it was Apple that called for DRM free music, while Universal called the idea preposterous. Amazon didn’t say anything.” I do think this is a true example of who the unethical one is. Unless Amazon is using this as a loss leader to get you to the store; again - there are a lot of Retail Business practices that Apple has yet to get to. And again, the iTunes store was never designed to be a huge revenue generator, it was designed to sell iPods.
Last comment on Proprietary. Apple has always been proprietary in regards to its OS only working on Apple machines. Same with iPods. And the extension of making it hard to upgrade batteries and such on an iPod jive with Macintosh components. Most Apple machines are difficult to upgrade - its gotten easier in recent years, but only as integration standards improve. When USB, ATA and PCI became true standards that would plug and play for real then they came into play on Macintosh platforms. Apple controls things to make sure the user experience is consistent and a true pleasure. Its what we expect from them. Its what the iTunes store was all about. And we all “pay more” for this. Sacrificing “open” for this is a good thing; its a far cry from the opposite which is exercising market dominance by offering cheep prices/free goods for Monopolistic dominance. That’s why Wallmart dominates the small towns now, that’s why there is only MS Word and not Wordstar, Wordperfect, etc.
but then again, is iLife and iWork a move to do the same thing?
I am Χαρανής
This is my name in Greek letters. I’ve installed a new fckeditor editor in the Wordpress Admin. I’m irritated that editing in Safari doesn’t work well. It seems to delete <br> br tags. There are many other things I can do with this new editor. 
Just did a hard return. Should be a new paragraph. 
Here is some of the formatting. with many different colors and options
