A Bout of Luddism

The Yngwie Strat ain't so bad, but I'd rather take my Martin

I’m leaving today for a week’s worth of medical convention in Düsseldorf. Deciding what pieces of gear to take with me has been an interesting debate with myself.

Leaving the Walled Garden

Drinking the Hacker Kool-Aid

I’ve finally had it with Apple

Lion Loses Windows

Go Full-Screen!

So, Mac OS X Lion was released two days ago. Reviews are mostly positive, but they miss the big game changer that came with this newest iteration of Apple’s OS, it’s full-screen apps.

FaceTime Family

My mom’s mobile phone had finally thrown in the towel.
A week ago here in Germany, the Deutsche Telekom had lost exclusivity for selling the iPhone 4. They now can be bought on contract from Vodafone and O2 and without net- or provider-lock from many other sources.
After the last Apple keynote, FaceTime for Mac had come out in beta form.
Need I say more?

This is bizarre!

Google Legos

Twins separated at birth:

Lego Mindstorms NXT

Google Android Blocks Editor

Now, don’t be so elitist, Apple. Bring out something similar for iOS!

Give me back my Filesystem

Aperture doesn't support this Picture Format?

Apple’s Aperture all-in-one photo software has a nasty bug in it’s latest version (3.0.3). Update: The problem is solved and I got my filesystem back

iWatch

2010 iPod nano as a Wristwatch

I’ve always wanted a watch that

Apple’s Blue Man Group

Christian, Workshop Instructor at the Hamburg Apple Store

Out of sheer curiosity, I visited an Apple Store for the first time today. The Apple Store in Hamburg is located in a mall at the northern outskirts of the city. It’s not so large and flashy as Apple’s latest openings, but right from the start it was brimming with customers and employees in blue t-shirts. They quickly found each other using a ticket system for sessions that needed a lot of advice. Off the shelf purchases were quickly accounted for by blue men (and women) prowling the store with mobile terminals.
But I didn’t come to buy something (originally …),

Freakishly Good HDR, from a Phone!

My Desk at Night, iOS 4.1 in-camera HDR

Updated, more photo examples after the jump!

I’m mostly unimpressed with what was announced at yesterday’s Apple Music Event. Still prefer my 80 GB Clickwheel iPod, it’s a design classic now. Feeling no need to rent TV crap and get it streamed to an AppleTV. iTunes morphed into a textbook example of creeping featuritis with “Ping”. “Let’s graft a social network on it” seems to be the motto of this update. Can’t be good for stability. And I’m still a bit miffed that they overloaded the name of a network utility. Now even less people are going to understand you if you tell them “Wait, I’m going to ping your mailserver for you.”
The one improvement announced yesterday is the iOS 4.1 update.

iOS vs. Android, Round One

One for the In-Crowd, one for the IT Crowd

For development purposes, I got a HTC Legend smartphone running Android 2.1. Setup and the first days of using it provided interesting comparisons to my iPhone 4 (iOS 4.01)