File under mostly nerdy:
For years now, Mac faithful have “celebrated” iCal Day. The default icon for the iCal program was the 17th of July, as long as the program wasn’t running. When you started the program up, the icon would reflect the current date.
Now, with the release of Leopard Apple have updated the program so that the icon when iCal is not running has the current date.
Vale iCal Day. A short, but bright life.
Got an iPod Touch? Visit jailbreakme.com in Safari on your iPod, click on the button at the bottom, wait for a bit and then boom, you’ve got root access to your iPod and you can start installing apps all over the place.
If you hunt around a bit you can get some of the apps from the iPhone that aren’t on the iPod (such as Mail.app, Google Maps, Stocks.app and Weather.app) and you can pretend like you have the convergence device you’ve always wanted.
And you get to end up with a screen like this:
So very cool.
TIP: To get Australian stocks into Stock.App, use the 3 letter ASX code for the company followed by .AX e.g. BHP.AX. Actually, that tip will also work for the Stocks widget in OSX as well.
With the introduction of the new iPod Touch and the addition of the iTunes Wireless Store for both the new iPod and the iPhone, does that mean that there’s an update for the AppleTV coming soon that will let us browse and purchase music/tv/movies online? Surely that’s got to be the ultimate. Sit on your couch, purchase an album and listen to it within 3 minutes, all using a remote.
So I bought a new Nokia N95. Rather sweet indeed. Apart from the 5 megapixel camera (!), the wifi, the HSDPA and the huge screen, it’s got a GPS! A freakin’ GPS. Which of course means I now walk around a lot with my phone out in my hand, looking like I’m watching a portable TV.
I got the phone through 3, mainly because of their data packages ($30 for 1GB). I’ve not really cranked it up though. A year on Telstra has made me fear doing anything other than call people … mainly because of the enormous bill that you receive at the end of the month, just for trying to check your email every now and then.
Of course, the iPhone is due for release soon (in the USA at least) but it’s over 18 months away in Australia, and unless it gets a fairly major specs upgrade in the meantime, it’s going to be one of those “nice, but only if it had … ” types of things. I mean, a 2MP camera? That’s so 2007.
In preparation for having to be able to work while in the US in December (we’re going for xmas and such … a plane trip with a 5 week old and a 2.25 year old … mmmm, fun), and I priced out a MacBook Pro. It came to AUD$4613, which is a little pricey, but hey, it’s a sweet machine.
As an experiment I went to the Apple US website, and priced the same spec machine. And what do you know? It comes to AUD$3818 at today’s exchange rate. $800 difference. Just because it’s in Australia? Even when you factor GST into it, it’s still about $400 cheaper.
So, guess what I’ll be buying in the US?
