Geekfather.com

Reading with Reeder

If you aren't using an RSS reader, I have one question for you. Why not? They are a simple, free way to have articles about anything delivered to one place, so you don't have to check in with multiple websites everyday just to find out what's happening that interests you.

I use Google's Reader. It's simple enough, and because I like most things Google, it plays nicely with the other Google products I depend on, like it's Homepage.

Enter Reeder. It's a polished, yet simple platform to view your Google Reader content. The interface is straight forward and it has an awesome iPhone application, and just released for Mac, a beta version. 

Give Google Reader and Reeder a shot, let me know what you think. If you already have a method of scrubbing the wed via RSS that doesn't include either, tell me about it. 

Tough times in Windowland

Microsoft announced today it's laying off 5,000 workers, it's stocks plummeted to near 11-year lows. 

Google has even hit a rough patch.  But the story there seems to have a silver lining.

On a completely different note, Apple surprised many and posted better than expected earnings in the last quarter.*

* full disclosure- the geekfather and family own several macs and iPods, and the geekfather convinced his wife to buy a few shares of Apple stock several years ago.  Therefore, you should go out and buy a new Macbook ASAP.

The IBook lives!

My first Apple laptop was a white dual USB IBook I purchased in late 2001.  I used it daily until May, 2006 when I became the proud owner of a Macbook.

The IBook was pretty much toast by then, a problem with the logic board rendered it useless.  I was at the Apple Store in St. Louis and took it in to see if it could be salvaged and for around $200 it was resurrected.   It became a backup for when my wife or I needed to get on the Internet but the other one was using the Macbook.  Then came our IMac in the summer of 2008 and the IBook went untouched for months.  

Then one day my wife said she wanted to buy a portable DVD player so our 3 year old could watch movies while she watches TV at night.  

It hit me, the IBook.  I plugged it in, popped Finding Nemo into the DVD drive, and viola, my wife was free from forced kiddie moving watching at night, and my son had his first Mac.  

He can even work the space-bar to pause and play at will now, and he's pleased as a pig in mud to have a computer just like his dad.

Vive le IBook!

Macworld Keynote

I certainly hope this year's keynote, Apple's last, will be available for download shortly.  I'd like to play it before I sleep as I think it would be a great cure for insomnia.

ILife '09 is nice and all.  New IPhoto with some features that will surely frustrate me, a revised IMovie that sounds like a big improvement over the last version.

The best part of the suite sounds like Garageband which will now offer music lessons, even some for purchase by musicians like Sting and John Fogarty.

New Macbook Pro 17" with the unibody design.

Updated ITunes, the good news from it is that many more offerings will be stripped of the sound impairing DRM.

Where was the Mac Mini update, something new for the IPhone, a new device of some kind, something innovative?  In a way I'm kind of glad, I can't afford any new toys right now.

The keynote ended with Tony Bennett singing "The Best is Yet to Come."  I certainly hope so.

Christmas in January (the last Apple Macworld)

Tomorrow Apple will make it's Macworld swan song.  I don't know quite what to make of the situation.  The January Macworld is like Christmas to fans like me.  I remember waiting up all night wondering what Steve would bring on the morning of the first Tuesday in January.  Would it be a new laptop or OS, maybe a video Ipod?  

But all that Christmas like anticipation is over after tomorrow's keynote address.  And to add insult to injury The Jobs won't even be there.  I hope Apple creates a new event that geeks like me can look forward to, to fill the void the company's leaving.  

So what will it be tomorrow, the rumored Mac mini update, a 17" revised Macbook Pro?  I will leave a cup of Chai Tea and Alphapha Sprouts out for Santa Steve, hoping he leaves us something magical under the tree.

Switchers

I made the leap from the PC's about 8 years ago.  After years of frustration over registry problems and other assorted Windows conundrums I took the advice of a close friend and switched.  I haven't looked back since.  However I've felt like an outsider among many of my friends and coworkers since my conversion.  

That's starting to change as the more and more folks are starting to migrate from the oft frustrating and plain world of XP and Vista to OSX.  From late June to late September 2008 Apple shipped over 2.5 million Macintosh computers.  I think the masses are beginning to see the light.  

Over the past month, 4 of my friends made the jump and purchased Macbooks.  And I think by and large they are very happy with their choice.  

So have you ever thought of switching?  Why, why not?