About two weeks ago, my GF got a refurbished iPod Touch from the Apple online store. The refurb was pretty cool, but it seemed to have a really low battery life. I made an appointment with the Apple Store App for the Genius Bar and the guy who helped us was really cool.

We explained that she just bought the refurb and it was pooping out after like 3-4 hours of use. The guy showed us some battery saving techniques (like lowering the screen brightness and turning off location services, etc). At this point I was like, “come on guy, I already know that!” Then he just gave us some paperwork to sign and a new iPod! YESSS.

The awesomeness here is that he didn’t question us like we were total idiots and assumed we were right. He didn’t make us do any stupid diagnostic tests to prove we were telling him the truth. This is what set the experience apart from others, like when I call the cable company and they make me turn my modem off and on, etc. Thanks, Apple! The only thing I would’ve changed is that I scheduled the appointment for like 7:30 and they didn’t get to me until around 8.

The new iPod is working a lot better, so I’m glad we went in to do the switch. In other news, I am thinking of getting an iPad, because (gasp) I was wrong. In the future I should probably forego the knee-jerk assumptions for new products before I actually try them out. I can probably just say I did it for the lulz again and go on to become the next John C Dvorak. The iPad is actually quite neat. Understanding the iPad HIG goes a long way toward appreciating it. I also wrote an iPad version of my other app, so I’d like to actually try it on a real device at some point.

So… IBM is making a ThinkPad with a screen, AND ANOTHER SCREEN INSIDE OF IT!

While the extra resolution might be kinda handy, I think it’s a bit much to put this on a notebook. Plus check out the thickness of the border between the screens. Definitely not very pretty. If they were designing the extra screen specifically for this device, couldn’t they have integrated it a bit better?

Also, I think this is a hoax, even if it shows up on the IBM website. I won’t believe it until I see it in person!

More than two years ago, I wrote a post about how I wished that Nintendo would release a lime green ds. Strangely, this post has received a lot of notoriety on videogame sites since some people couldn’t understand that I just photoshopped a DS to look lime green and pined for a real one. At the time of this writing, that post is #1 on a Google search for “green ds” and probably a few other similar searches. Probably not for long, though.

I just learned today that Nintendo really is releasing a lime green DS, but it’s in Europe only. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some way to snag a lime green DS. Maybe through ebay or something.

Right now I’m using a Dell 24-inch screen with my hand-built Windows box. But I also have a 13-inch Macbook that I’ve been using for school and software development (Unix is simply a nicer environment than Windows). I’ve been wanting to get the Mac on the 24-inch screen, but I only have a mini-dvi to DVI adapter. So I was thinking of getting one of those nifty KVM switches that let you use one set of input devices for multiple computers.

A KVM switch that supports DVI video inputs costs like, $175! Why so expensive!? I’m not an electrical engineer (or computer engineer even), but it doesn’t make sense that the hardware can cost so much. Couldn’t you just rig something up that just physically “switches” the wiring? Maybe the switch requires some power, but I can’t imagine the logic being that terribly complex. In comparison, a lot of the VGA KVM switches I’ve looked at cost maybe $25. What’s the difference, besides a few extra signals being re-routed?

So my short term cheapo fix will probably be to buy a $19 Mini-dvi to VGA adapter for my Macbook. My monitor has multiple inputs (VGA, DVI, Component, Composite, S-Video) so I can just switch from VGA to DVI for Mac to PC. The video quality might suffer, but I probably won’t be able to tell the difference anyway (my older brother claims he can).

So Apple announced the Macbook Air today. I was hoping for something like a major upgrade to the Macbook Pro, but this is kinda cool, too.

It’s thin, which is really nice. I used to have a Dell 300m that was about 3 pounds. I liked it a lot for the portability; unfortunately the build quality wasn’t great and the screen developed some issues.

But basically, that’s all the Macbook Air is: a thinner Macbook with less features that costs more. Unless you’re a weakling, the benefit of having a slightly lighter computer isn’t really worth all that you’re losing. Sure, there’s stuff like the multi-touch and um… isn’t that about it?

I was totally ready to buy whatever new awesomeness Apple had ready for the Macbook Pro, but I guess I’ll forgo buying one until they do get an upgrade. At this point, I can buy a refurbished Macbook Pro for about the same price (or less) as a new Macbook Air. But I don’t really need a Macbook Pro since my normal Macbook is still chugging along nicely…