McMahonWeb

I am a big fan of video podcasts. I watch them whenever and wherever I have a chance. Sometimes this is on my computer, sometimes on my iPod, and more recently, on my iPhone. The one thing I noticed about watching video in these places, is that I really do not like to watch for long periods of time. Unfortunately, some of my podcasts are almost an hour. Bad combination.

At my computer, I have a 20″ screen that I am only 1-2 feet from, and sitting upright in an office chair (not great TV viewing). On my iPhone, it is smaller, and I have to hold it the whole time. Read more…

In the ever-changing world of portable computing, are laptops going to soon become a thing of the past? It wasn’t long ago that having a laptop was an indispensable part of my day, even after work. Now, not so much…

A few months ago, we decided to buy a new iMac. We wanted a decent home machine to use for photo editing, and a place to put some learning games for my son. (He just turned two and is addicted to computers, so we figured we would start to take advantage of it).

Subsequent to getting this new machine, I began to debate whether or not I needed a laptop any longer. Well, I decided that I didn’t need my Macbook Pro. Read more…

When Apple announced the release of the new .Mac galleries, with neat new ways to view photos and direct integration with iPhoto 08, I was pretty excited. I do not personally use iPhoto, but my wife does.

I was also sort of hoping that initial support in iPhoto could potentially lead to support in Aperture.

I could not wait to try this out, and as soon as I upgraded the version of iLife for my wife, I immediately published several sets of photos as a test. The initial sync took quite a while, and after a couple failures, it finally did publish.

What was to follow, was a perfect example of a really neat idea, delivered poorly. Read more…

I am admittedly a slight audiophile.  Definitely not an extremist in the area, I just like things to sound good.  All of my music in iTunes is ripped lossless (from CD) when possible, although there are a few 256k and tracks in there (mostly from the iTunes Plus music thanks to gift cards).

Of course, all that time and space spent getting high quality audio into iTunes is pointless unless I can get good sound out through nice speakers or headphones.  I have had good speakers for a long time at home, but I never purchased a decent set of headphones.  I have had a set of Sure in-ear monitors for a long time, which do an OK job.

I went on the hunt for good headphones many months ago.  I worked through a list of manufacturers that I already knew made headphones, reading reviews, and going to a couple local shops that actually have them out to listen.  In the process of researching, I stumbled upon a brand I had no experience with – Grado. Read more…

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This is a debate that has gone back and forth since the day Firefox released and was supposed to sport less vulnerabilities than IE. Today, while browsing on Bink.nu, I saw a link to an article by Jeff Jones, where he discusses actual numbers and types of vulnerabilities in each browser. Surprisingly, Internet Explorer actually looks better on paper when it comes to simple numbers of high and medium vulnerabilities. Read more…

Windows Mobile 6, I am unimpressed. I have not used a Windows Mobile or Pocket PC device in a couple years. I switched to a Blackberry (8700C, then 8800) a while back, and am currently on an iPhone. In the past, I was never excited by Windows Mobile, however, I was not disappointed either. As a phone, and for reading email, it worked fine. The integration with Exchange via wireless ActiveSync is something I have always liked (having my email, calendar, tasks, and contacts always in sync, even on the go).

A couple days ago, a customer of mine switched from Blackberry (using BES on the back-end), to a Windows Mobile 6 device, called the Tilt. The phone is pretty slick, and has a lot of features. 3MP Camera (with digital zoom), GPS, a nice QWERTY thumb pad, and nice performance. I quickly set it up using the wireless ActiveSync, and these days “push” is available through Exchange 2003, so we set it up for that as well. Again, ActiveSync worked perfect, as my experience usually has been. Read more…

I really love the internet. The number of times people have written articles about the demise of a tech company, based on no real information, is incredible. Some of these people consider themselves tech journalists. If so, it is another sign of a decline in journalistic value. This year, those informed individuals have predicted Microsoft’s death and irrelevance. Yes, that really big software company that dominates desktops around the world. That company whose products others compare themselves to – they are dead. Read more…

When the new Apple Airport Extreme base stations were released this year with 802.11N support, they peaked my interest.  The “N” support, combined with the USB file and print serving, and gateway/routing abilities are what interested me.  I had a firewall that was dying, and I had a WiFi access point as well (which worked fine).  I also had a file server.  I was looking to consolidate devices, reduce the total footprint, and reduce power consumption.

This is where the Airport Extreme seemed to effectively fit those desires.  I eventually went out and purchased one, and worked through setting it up to handle all those various tasks.  Everything setup without a hitch, which exactly as I expected, having almost all Mac computers for clients.  It has now been many months since that transition, and I have had a more complete experience with the Airport Extreme.  Here are things I have noticed, good and bad. Read more…

I have daily perused many of the Apple-related news sites for quite a while now (years). I usually enjoy much of the content available, although I sometimes have to filter out the excess fanboyism (yea, nice word).

Since the release of the iPhone, there has been a shift in the focus of a few news sites. While I anticipated a lot of swirl around the iPhone shortly after its release, I didn’t anticipate it would last so long. A good example of this shift is The Unofficial Apple Weblog. TUAW is a great site that I have followed for years. Since late July, there have been many days when I wondered if there was any non-iPhone news in the Apple world. Read more…

I just spoke with a local small business that I do some consulting with. They have been debating on whether to go with Blackberry or Windows Mobile for their staff. The staff has been interested in iPhones, but the company currently uses Verizon, which they would need to cancel the contract on in order to go with iPhones.

Today, I got a call from them. In that call, he told me that their Verizon rep said that they would have iPhones available tomorrow (11/20/2007), and the price for his business was $250 per phone. He was as shocked as I was that the Verizon rep said they were getting the iPhone.

I have no direct proof on the validity of this info, as I do not work for Verizon. But I do know the information was given to them from their Verizon representative. Could this really happen? I thought Apple and AT&T were tied at the hip on the iPhone right now. The$250 price tag would be awesome.

Anyway, thought I would pass it along.

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Update:

It’s the 20th!  Oh look, no new iPhone on Verizon, as expected.  Turns out the Verizon reps are being a little bit shady with customers, and they are trying to sell their new iPhone competitor, which did launch today.  It’s called the Voyager…..