imnuts’ Home

Just last week, the Mac world was overjoyed looking to see what news would come from Steve Jobs and MacWorld, where "something was in the air". Unfortunately, many were disappointed when all that came was the ultra-portable laptop that everyone was basically expecting, and not much else. Yes, there were product updates, a new wireless access point/NAS device, and a handful of other things, but the big iPhone update didn't happen, and as such, people are disappointed. Now they have something else to be disappointed about, the MacBook Air isn't really that good of an ultra-portable either.

While Apple fans will say that Macs are the best thing since sliced bread even until their dying breath, just looking at the specs of laptops in the same category, one that has the ability to think reasonably and unbiased can quickly see that the MBA (MacBook Air, not Masters of Business Administration) doesn't quite stack up against the competition. The only thing that it really has going for it is the fact that it has the thinnest point on any laptop I've seen yet, and a nice touchpad. Outside of that, other systems have it beat. Read more »

Recently, a news article came up stating that Sprint has been losing tons of customers. Many find it shocking that the company is losing people faster than expected, especially during the holiday season where many people likely sign up for service due to discounts and special promotions. Unfortunately, these people must not look around for reviews of wireless carriers and believe that the troubles Sprint is having extend into the other big carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon as well.

If one would search around the net for a minute or two, you could likely realize why Sprint is having problems. They reportedly lost over half a million contract customers in the final quarter of 2007, almost twice the amount that was expected. This is causing several people to lose their jobs and several stores to close to help the company cut costs and reduce expenditure. While it's sad to see people lose their jobs, Sprint really needs to change something or just go out of business. In that short searching you may have done, it was likely difficult to find reviews of their service that were good. Read more »

Earlier this week, Time Warner released news that it may start charing people whom use its cable internet connections excessively. There are currently few details about what the limits may be set at before you get charged, and the rates one will be charged at if they go over a preset limit, but this likely will not go over to well with many of its customers in this ever increasing digital world. There was speculation that they will use similar rates and limits that are currently in use by ISPs in Canada, our neighbor to the north. If that is so, people subscribing to Netflix to watch movies on their computer, or Apple's new movie renting service are likely to be in for a big surprise on their bills.

While it may seem like a good idea at first, especially for people that just check their email and surf the web, it could hurt even those that are intentionally abusing the connecting. What they are likely trying to curb are people using various P2P programs, such as BitTorrent, from uploading and downloading excessively in an effort to limit illegal downloading of copyright material. However, with more and more services out there offering streaming video and rental movies online, the odds that normal users will be effected is even greater. If the limits were set at something unreasonably high, where only abusers would be affected, such as 200GB, people that watch online movies would likely never be affected. They could probably watch a high definition movie everyday for a full month and never reach the limit. While that may be an extreme case as one movie a day would give you little time for other things, it may be possible, especially when kids are at home. Read more »

You could hear the collective sigh from the crowd. When Steve Jobs unveiled the newest member of the Macintosh fold, the skinny MacBook Air laptop, the Mac-faithful sighed with pleasure. But it was just a momentary exhale. Once the magnetic effect of Jobs' personality wore off, even fans who had lined up by the thousands at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco to hear Jobs Tuesday morning were groaning. "Lame," said software developer Jukka Laiho, when asked for his opinion of the keynote address.

It didn't help matters that Laiho was one of hundreds of attendees who arrived early, only to be shut out of the keynote as the show's organizers tried to suck in a long line of people. "I woke up at 5 o'clock this morning and stood three hours in queue, only to miss the first 50 minutes of it," Laiho groused. One man even burst into the press room following the keynote to shout out his displeasure. "There are 10,000 people gathered outside and they're only printing out a badge every three minutes!" the man shouted, before scuttling down the hall. "You guys should get up off your Powerbooks and cover that." Read more »

The European Union has filed yet another lawsuit against Microsoft for being a supposed monopoly. First, it was for including Windows Media Player with the operating system, then for the server operating system line for being "too efficient" with its memory utilization, and now, for including a web browser with the operating system. To me, it seems more like the European Union wants to just shut down Microsoft than anything else. The lawsuits that they are filing are just down-right ridiculous.

First, there was the N-editions of Windows XP, and now Vista, that were released to comply with the first ruling on Windows Media player. The odd thing is, that despite the ruling about it being unfair to other companies, the N-editions have seen very few sales in Europe the last I knew of, and most people are continuing to purchase the original versions that have Windows Media Player bundle in with them. I guess there is a real worry about preventing competition on the part of the European consumers. Read more »