Yearly Archives: 2012

Moving your iTunes library to a NAS

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A new article on Ars explains how to move your iTunes library to a network attached storage device. Useful if you’re hitting the storage wall on skimpy SSD devices.

iExplorer – Transfer Music from iPhone and iPad to iTunes [Sponsor]

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iExplorer makes a great gift this holiday season for any iPhone or iPad owner. The app’s one-touch music transfer seamlessly copies all your music and playlists from your device back into iTunes. Its messages feature allows you to search and export all your messages to PDF files or other formats. The app also offers access to your device’s voicemails, photos, and much more.

How to track Santa this 2012 Christmas Eve

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Mashable:

For 62 years, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has been tracking Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, as he makes his way around the world delivering gifts to all the good boys and girls.

This year, the tradition will continue, and now there are even more ways that you and your little ones can follow Father Christmas’ progress. A stunning 25 million people from around the globe are predicted to follow Santa in real-time online, on mobile phones and tablets, by email and phone.

Apparently, NORAD has dropped Google Maps and is now working with Microsoft Bing to follow Santa’s worldwide progress. Insert your own Apple Maps joke here.

What’s the difference between Holland and The Netherlands?

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Have you ever wondered what the difference between “Holland” and “The Netherlands” is? Of course you haven’t – not many have.

But just in case you have even a mild interest, this video by C. G. P. Grey does an amazing job of explaining this odd little quirk of geography. And, for even more explanation of geographic and historical anomalies, check out his “The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained”.

iExplorer – Save your iPhone’s text messages

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From texts, to music, playlists, photos, and everything else — iExplorer lets you access, transfer, and copy everything from any iPhone or iPad. If you’re getting a new computer, iPhone, or iPad this holiday season, iExplorer is a must-have app to help you get everything backed up off the old device so you can get going with your new one.

Flickr offers free Pro accounts

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Flickr is offering all users a free 3 month Pro account upgrade. Just go to the site and sign-in and the offer will be waiting for you. I haven’t used my Flickr account in years, but I decided to give it another try. My username is jdalrymple if you’re interested.

Appreciating nice things

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What Apple understands and its critics did not (and still do not) is that many people, from all walks of life, simply appreciate nice things. They accuse Apple of pretension and elitism, but it’s they, the critics, who hold that the mass market for phones and tablets is overwhelmingly comprised of tasteless, fickle shoppers who neither discern nor care about product quality.

I think Apple and the buying public have proven Gruber right. People do want nice things and they are willing to pay for quality.

Samsung Galaxy S III bricks itself

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The issue appears to be related to the NAND becoming corrupted and killing off the Galaxy S III’s mainboard, which causes the phone to essentially “brick” itself.

Well, there’s a feature the iPhone doesn’t have. Merry Christmas Samsung users.

CBS to livestream Super Bowl XLVII

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Super_Bowl_XLVII_logo
Broadcasting & Cable:

The NFL announced the league, along with broadcast partner CBS, will livestream Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3.

The game will be available on both CBSSports.com and NFL.com. Tthe stream will have extra features, including additional camera angles, in-game highlights, live statistics and other interactive elements.

Last year’s game was most-streamed single game with over 2 million unique visitors…representing 6.2% of total downstream Internet traffic at 9 p.m. ET for NBCSports.com.

The Super Bowl is one of the few “Event TV” broadcasts left even if many tune in just for the commercials. It will be interesting to see how CBS leverages the internet to enhance the game on your “second screen”.

EU slaps Samsung with Antitrust suit

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The European Commission confirmed on Thursday that it will be formally charging Samsung in its antitrust investigation related to the company abusing its market position by filing for Apple product sales injunctions over patent infringement claims. Samsung withdrew it injunction request earlier this week, but the EU is still moving forward with its case.

Merry Christmas Samsung.

Amazon copies AppleCare trademark verbatim

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Janko Roettgers:

Now that’s a coincidence, if there ever was any: Earlier this month, Amazon filed for two trademarks for extended warranty and servicing under the Kindle brand. Turns out that the description of these services was lifted verbatim from Apple’s AppleCare trademarks.

Surely they could have come up with their own wording.

Nike – “Hockey Is Ours”

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Yeah – it’s a Nike spot but it certainly captures how many Canadians feel about the game and its importance to our identity. Thanks to SlyM for the link to the video.

Apple achieves highest ever smartphone market share

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The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows Apple has achieved its highest ever share in the US (53.3%) in the latest 12 weeks*, with the iPhone 5 helping to boost sales.

This is for the US market, but what must be scary for the competition is that Kantar expects Apple’s growth to continue through December.

Instagram fucked themselves

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National Geographic has posted an image on its photo feed saying it was “suspending new posts to Instagram. We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service.”

It’s one thing when individual users stop posting to Instagram, but when an organization like National Geographic stops, you’ve got problems.

Safari was almost called “Freedom”

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Don Melton:

I don’t recall all the names, but one that stands out is “Freedom.” Steve spent some time trying that one out on all of us. He may have liked it because it invoked positive imagery of people being set free. And, just as possible and positive, it spoke to our own freedom from Microsoft and Internet Explorer, the company and browser we depended on at the time.

I just love these types of stories.

300 films in 7 minutes

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Amazing amount of work went into this edit particularly when you realize it holds up as a mini-movie all on its own.

The creator, Genevieve Ip, has helpfully posted a list of all the movies and music included in the piece.