Strange & Charmed

This morning I decided that I wanted to watch the movie The Dark Knight, but since I lack a membership to any video rental stores in the area, I decided that I would give the iTunes store a try and rent the movie that way. It cost me $3.99 for the movie, since it is a new release- I assume that is on par with Blockbuster and other video stores? Anyway, I made this short video documenting my experience as I watched the movie download for something like 35 minutes! I am not sure if that is a normal download time for movies on iTunes, but the quality of the video was great and I have watched the movie twice so far today! So, enjoy this little video I made that I hope expresses the boredom I felt as I waited for my movie to download!

iTunes Dark Knight Rental from Miss Trenchcoat on Vimeo.

I have had my old flash drive for about 3 years now and I am beginning to think I might need a little upgrade. First of all, its only 512 MB, and I can just hear you all right now gasping in horror as to why a tech femme like myself would go for so long with such an inferior product, but, honestly, I almost never use it. It just sort of sits there on my desk, waiting for the day when I will actually need to transfer some files onto it to take with me somewhere. Now, I blame the sparse use of my flash drive on two things: the fact that I rely heavily on a portable external hard drive that I can easily fill with pictures, movies and music to take with me in my bag, and that I am now no longer in college and no longer need to travel with documents on a tiny backup drive.

Well, I think it is time for me to upgrade my flash drive and I have found the perfect little thing! Fruitshop makes a line of flash drives called the Bone Collection that come in fun animal shapes! They have apparently been one of the most popular booths at Macworld this year and I think it is obvious why, no one can avoid cute gadets! Actually, the concept behind these little guys is rather interesting. Basically, the way it works, is you buy one of their flash drives naked, and then buy one or more of the silicone covers that come in animal shapes to protect the drive. The best part is, you can use the same drive and put it into one of many different covers. Some fun ones I liked were the Panda and the Penguins. Imagine, these little fun drives would look much cuter sitting on my desk than a simple flash drive. They are like little tech pets!

They also come in bone and dinosaur shapes! So check them out here.

This past year, I did a lot of traveling about on mini vacations! Of course, if you read my other blog, Black Alligator, you know this because I usually make sure to post while I am off on these wonderful adventures. Now, being someone who loves to blog, even when on the road, I usually don’t find it difficult to get myself some internet access. Usually, all the places I visited had Wifi or wired (ugh!) internet connections. The problem for me came, however, when I would have to share the one wired connection to the internet with a friend who also brought along their laptop! What is a girl to do in that situation? Well, get an AirPort Express of course! So, yes, I mentioned that my father bought me an AirPort Express for Christmas in a post a few days ago and I did promise to tell you more about it later, so here goes. {By the way, this is not a review of the product itself, as I have not yet actually gotten a chance to test it out, but a product review should follow in the next few weeks after I have had a chance to test the features!}

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the AirPort Express is a wireless router, made by Apple, predominantly for use on the go. That’s right! You can take this little gadget with you and anywhere you have a wired internet connection instantly create a wireless network. It is super convenient for travelers like myself, but it is also powerful enough for use in the home. It has 802.11n wireless connectivity, so it is the latest and greatest technology, and it is basically the size of my laptops power brick. It also comes with a few other useful features: Airtunes and a USB connection. Airtunes makes it possible for you to plug your wireless speakers into the router and play music wirelessly into any room of the house, a very fun feature that I am unfortunately never going to use! I will be using the second feature, however, the USB connection, so that I can plug my USB printer into the Airport Express and put my non wireless printer onto my wireless network! So, basically, with this little gadget, you don’t need to have a wireless printer to print wirelessly, you just plug in any USB printer and set up your network for wireless printing! I am going to LOVE that feature! By the way, the AirPort Express works with both macs and pcs, so if you are a Windows user who travels frequently, you might be interested in this gadget for yourself– don’t let the fact that this is an Apple product scare you away!

For more information or to purchase Apple’s AirPort Express {full retail $99}, click here.

I just thought that I should remind everyone that tomorrow begins the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, also known as anti-Macworld! Haha, oh, but I jest! I, of course, will be following the updates for CES and sharing with you any news I hear pertaining to amazing must have gadgets, great geek products, etc. For more information, you can head over to their website and take a look at the different speakers and vendors participating in the event this year!

In case you were interested, Apple has put up the streaming video of the Macworld Keynote from this morning. Now you can watch the Philnote yourself here. Enjoy!

So, I am pretty sure I am not the only person disappointed by the Macworld keynote this year! You would think that this being Apple’s final keynote at the event, they would have spiced things up a bit, but really, the best part about it was the performance given by Tony Bennett. Let us review, shall we, the 3 big things Phil Schiller revealed to the public this morning, and also that one final thing!

First of all, Phil gave us a software update, iLife ’09! Now, I will be honest, I think this version of iLife looks pretty cool and it apparently has fixed a few of the issues that came up with the last version of the software. iPhoto has new face sensing technology and geolocation tagging for pictures, iMovie has become even more user friendly, and Garage Band gives you music lessons for different instruments– all really cool.

Then, the next thing Phil gave us was…well… another software update, iWork ’09! This update includes things like easier to use spreadsheets, mixed chart types, new menus, iphone/itouch remote keynote application, ect. Sorry Phil, but this is totally boring and about to put me to sleep even typing about it, so I am just going to move onto the 3rd thing.

Finally, the last thing Phil gave us was the new 17 inch Macbook Pro! This is a little exciting, since it is new hardware and I think we have all been confused over the lack of a 17 inch laptop in the Apple Macbook lineup. Just like its smaller macbook counterparts, this new model has the unibody, magnetic latch, thinner body, ect. The most impressive, yet upsetting, update to this new mac, however, is the extended life battery that is more powerful than anything Apple has previously made. Downside- you cannot change the battery yourself, it just stays in there! Cheers and boos simultaneously!

Now, that one final thing we all need to know before Phil ends this, the most depressing of keynotes? Itunes! Well, obviously iTunes is still number one above WalMart and Best Buy, but in new news, Apple finally acquired those DRM-free songs that were being withheld for such a long time! Oh, and one final piece of news, if you are an iPhone owner, the iTunes music store is no longer Wifi-based, you can download your music right through the 3G network same as if you were using your Wifi connection!

Queue the music, quick before a riot breaks out! “The Best is Yet to Come” sang by Tony Bennett, I am totally feeling subliminal messages from this song choice. Thanks Apple, for reassuring the masses that although this Philnote was no Stevenote, we should look forward to some amazing things this year!

{Images via Apple}

According to this article in the Huffington Post, the Twitter accounts of Fox News, Barack Obama, Britney Spears and others were hacked yesterday leaving funny but false tweets for thousands of their followers. What has the world come to when our twitter accounts are no longer safe from hackers! Well, I guess if you’re a nobody like me it’s not a problem!

One of the most exciting, not gadget related things I am looking forward to during the Macworld Expo is the premier of not just one, but two Mac documentaries; MacHEADS the movie and Welcome to Macintosh. Both of these documentaries will be shown on Wednesday as far as I know, but being that I am on the wrong coast this week, I am obviously going to have to wait for them to hit theaters or at least iTunes!  Here are the trailers of each for your viewing pleasure!

So, I am totally excited beyond belief because Macworld 2009 began today and tomorrow is the keynote by Phil Schiller that I will be following via live blog here. Don’t worry, I will of course be posting/commenting on all the Mac news here on my blog, but in case you were wondering the Keynote begins at 9am pacific time, which means 12pm eastern time for me! I cannot wait, this is totally like Christmas to me, except all the presents I have to buy myself, and trust me, Mac purchases will be made this year!