Here’s a sad one: the Google Maps car took out a baby deer, and it recorded the entire process for all Google Maps users to see. For shame, Google Maps car!

As you follow the street view scene down Five Points Road in Rush, NY, you can see the deer run out in front of the car, get hit and then see it on the side of the road before the car pulls over. And that’s the end of the Street View data for Five Points Road.

My question is, they know this happened so why in the hell would they leave the pictures on Street View???

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They plan or releasing the unlock on New Year’s Eve (2008). I’ll wait and see how everyone else fairs with it before jumping in with both feet!

The unlock will require iPhone 3Gs that have 2.11.07 baseband or earlier and jailbroken.

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OS X Kernel Panic

So, the grass is always greener. My new MacBook Pro has been having problems resuming from sleep on occasion. It is somehow less annoying then the Windows “Blue Screen of Death”, maybe because Apple is a little more stylish with their error message?

I made my first call into Apple’s technical supoprt Monday afternoon. One of the nice things about the way Apple handles their technical support calls is they give you an option to schedule a call back in lieu of waiting on the phone. Since this wasn’t a critical issue I opted for the call back on Tuesday morning at 9:15. This Tuesday, my phone rang promptly at 9:15AM, it was Apple. I was advised that a technical support represenative was waiting to assit me. After I pressed a button on my phone I was connected. The experience was pretty positive overall, while this is one of those issues that’s difficult to troubleshoot the tech made a valliant effort, although a little misguided in my opinion.

I attempted to re-create the issue I was expeirencing without success, and after the call I tried a few more times. I thought, maybe it was fixed. However Wednesday afternoon (yesterday) I received the same error. Last Night, while working on a report, I was greeted with the Update icon jumping in my dock letting me know there were updates available. Sure enough, new Apple EFI updates for reliability and sleep issues. Awwww yeah. Applied it last night, and let her go into sleep mode. This morning, resumed with out a hitch, maybe that was the fix? We’ll see… In any event, here are the deatils from MacWorld on the release of the patches.

Apple on Wednesday released updates for its newest line of notebooks. Separate downloads are available for the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air computers.

The MacBook Pro 15-inch SMC Firmware Update 1.2, MacBook SMC Firmware Update 1.2, and MacBook Air SMC Firmware Update 1.1 all address the same issues. The update improves the sensing and accuracy of the MagSafe Power Adapter indicator light, and the battery charge indicator lights.

MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.6, MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 1.1, and MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.3 all fix several issues to improve the stability of the MacBooks.

The proper update for your machine will automatically show up in the software update mechanism when it’s run. You can also visit Apple’s download section and choose your update.

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Apple In-Ear Headphones

I’ve always found the stock iPod/iPhone ear buds to be amazingly uncomfortable, they’ve always sounded great but I could never stand to wear them. The diamater seemed a bit on the large size and I had to shoehorn them into my ear canal. Like much of Apple’s design, despite complaints they continuted to manufacture them that way for years (much like the “we don’t need to mouse buttons” argument). It’s refreshing to see them correct some of these flaws.

I already invested in a Shure headset for the iPhone (really awesome set and good quality) so I probably won’t get to try the new Apple headset out, however I’ll update if I find any reviews out there.

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OS Market Share

Computer World has an article that illustrates the shift of clients moving away from the Microsoft Windows platform while Apple’s OS X has gained a considerable amount at %0.66 (8% total market share). And, ccoincidentally, I should be running OS X full-time before the end of today. Woohoo!

OS market share data is available at hitlink’s site.

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via Wine Libary TV

Gary Vaynerchuk has been working on this concept for a little while now and he is ready to unveil his 4 best wines with candy bars. Ever wonder what wine goes with a milky way or kit kat? Sit back and enjoy this very exciting episode of WLTV.

Nothing like a Hershey’s candy bar with a glass of Cantus Carmenere… I suppose…

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via Engadget

Few have been spared the satire of Matt Groening’s long running animated sitcom. Last night, The Simpsons took on Apple, or uh, Mapple for a full 6 minutes of lampoonery — a pretty harsh ride at a two-joke per minute pace. It all starts when the Springfield mall gets its very own Mapple store, “it’s so sterile,” gasps Lisa upon entering. Perhaps the best exchange comes from Bart’s dubbing of a Steve Mobs’ product announcement in front of a crowd of gaping nerds, “You think you’re cool because you buy a $500 phone with a picture of a fruit on it. Well guess what? They cost 8 bucks to make and I pee on every one!” A Mapple store employee then angrily responds, “Who dares question the boss we fired 10 years ago and then brought back!” Yuk yuk.

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Beer Brewing Bender

Simon Jansen from New Zeland is my hero. Not just for ASCII Star Wars or his Jet Powered Beer Cooler but mostly for his Beer Brewing Bender. I’ve always been a long time Futurama fan and Bender is far and away my favorite character. Here Simon has created a beer brewing Bender (much like the Microbrewing Bender from The Route of All Evil) with all the details. As he mentions, Bender’s CPU is reported to be a 6502 processor (Apple I, Apple II, Commodore PET, Commodore VIC 20) so he takes that to heart and actually builds an audio controller using a 6502 processor (+10 geek points).

Aside from all of the geek technical details, he does an excellent job with the overall fit and finish. He’s really inspired me to build my own Bender (something else to put on my “Someday Maybe” list). Although, I’m not into brewing beer I’ll have to figure out somehting else it can do, any suggestions?

You should really check out Simon’s project, truly a masterpiece. Hopefully I’ll have one in my office someday, God knows the wife would never allow something like this past the garage. The wife said she’d love to have this in the house, I know she’s the coolest wife ever but this pretty much confirms it! Love you honey!

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It appears as though Richard C. Davis was successful in proving A&E owed him royalties based on a verbal contract, which is a tough case to prove. However after 5 hours of deliberation a federal jury sided with Davis. This quote from the The Post and Courier really shows how sincere Richard and his crew are:

Davis put his right hand over his eyes and sobbed from his chair upon hearing the decision. His employees and reality TV co-stars Ginger Alexander and Dawn Nosal cried together from the second row behind him Davis’ attorney, Frank Cisa, argued in his closing remarks that his client should receive more than $7.5 million in damages from three seasons of “Flip This House.” Only the show’s first season, in which Davis was credited as a creator, featured him and his Trademark Properties team. After splitting with A&E, the crew joined competing network TLC for the series “The Real Deal.”

The celebration may be too early, however, as A&E plans to appeal the decision.

With luck, the decision will stick. It serves A&E right, the Trademark team is what made “Flip This House” a success. The clowns that attempted to follow in Trademark’s foot steps were sleazy, shady, and didn’t appear to know the first thing about running a successful organization.

I’d love to see their show move to the Internet and let their true style come through. TLC did an ok job with it, however some parts just didn’t feel like Trademark.

Oh, and I have a request to Richard C. Davis and Trademark properties: Please invest in a good web designer or Internet marketing company. I love you guys to death but your websites are horrible.

For the full story see The Post and Courier: A&E told to pay Davis

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Q: Oh yeah, what site? CNN? Fox News? CBS? BBC?

Me: Nah, twitter…

Q: Twitter!?

Me: Yeah, I get most of my news from Twitter…

Okay, the irony here is; I was alerted by the attacks on twitter, however it happened to be by the “cnnbrk” twitter account. I never visit “cnn.com”, in fact the last time I was on that site was probably a year ago, however they do reach me on Twitter.

I just don’t have the time these days to go looking for news, it usually has to smack me upside the head. Sites like twitter, FaceBook and the like usually deliver, although I don’t use them for that purpose it’s just easier to keep up with family, friends, and technology through these sites. Of course, your next question might be, doesn’t that take up a lot of your time, checking in with those sites? The answer, of course, is no. I use a plugin for Pidgin called microblog-purple. Anyway, I digress…

More and more traditional media outlets/MSM struggle to cover current events, where social media and non-traditional coverage (a.k.a. blogs) flourish. This has to be taken with a grain of salt, however, as traditional media outlets typically have trained staff who check and verify facts as well as being upheld to a “standard”, whereas your social media and blog sites are not encumbered with such restrictions. Of course, even the most “respected” MSM outlets still publish fictitious, unverified, or poorly verified stories. Just look at the incidents with Jayson Blair and the New York Times or The CBS / Dan Rather George Bush Killian Documents Controversy.

It’s apparent that the MSM has caught on to the popularity of these sites, and you’ll see many of them now with Twitter as well as other social networking/microblog accounts. Some of them do a good job, others just don’t get it.

The risks of false/misleading information, either intentional or unintentional, are higher with these nontraditional sources, however if you’re one of those who really want instant gratification there’s no better source. Of course, you have to make sure you filter your input appropriately and just remember you can’t believe everything you read.

Links to various social reportings of the Mumbai attacks:
Vinukumar Ranganathan’s Bombay Blast Photoset
YouTube Mumbai Related Videos
Google Maps Plot of Attacks
Twitter #mumbai topic search

That being said, I’m a strong supporter of these non-traditional outlets and I believe they are the future.

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