Alba Gu Brath!

Gas as an economic engine?

What if the Federal and State gasoline taxes were "suspended," for the summer as some politicians had proposed?

Now that prices are falling would the added relief of a temporary tax suspension have acted as an economic stimulus at just the time it is need most?

We'll never know.

wwn

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Gizmodo: iPhone FAQ Update

Gizmodo has an update with pricing plans for all those contemplating an 3G iPhone. Worth a look before making the commitment.

iPhone FAQ Update [IPhone Faq]

We've just added a good bit of information to our iPhone FAQ, including more AT&T details, launch date info, and iTunes details. See all the new stuff below, or just go to the FAQ to see the monster in its entirety.

Is there a difference between buying the iPhone at AT&T and buying it at Apple? Only if you're a business customer. AT&T says that there's no difference between regular customers, and both stores can do things like transferring your number from another carrier. See here for more details.

What's the final pricing information for AT&T's plans? Here it is below.

What time will the iPhone be on sale on July 11? 8am, so if you really, really want one, you might have to camp out.

What new features are coming in iTunes 7.7, the update that's coming July 11 along with the iPhone 2.0 software and iPhone 3G? MobileMe stuff, parental controls for games, and various other features like using your iPhone and iPod Touch as an iTunes remote. Click here for video and screenshots.

Wait, did you just say that iPhone will be able to control iTunes? Yup. You're getting a free remote control App.

Is there a good reason why the enterprise data plan is more expensive than the standard one? A good reason? AT&T says it's because business customers use more data than consumers, so they charge more.

Is there an upgrade fee for the iPhone 3G on AT&T? Yes. $18, says AT&T.

[From iPhone FAQ Update [IPhone Faq]]

cellphones, gadgets, gsm, handsets, hsdpa, iPhone

My 1st phone based locational computing experience

 

Used the GPS on my ATT Tilt and Windows Live Search for Windows Mobile devices to get and map the cheapest gasoline prices.  $4.17 at the East  Ave and Winton Rd Hess station.

Good morning! Sunny in the 80s today.

A very nice holiday weekend in store.

Happy 4th of July

God Bless America

My moment backstage wth George Carlin. Circa 1987.

Carlin was simply the best.

Bad Phone News......

The long rumored iPhone seems to be on track for an announcement at the WWDC on June 9th. It couldn't come any sooner. My beloved AT&T 8925 Tilt is in sleep/wake-up hell. Once the device goes into sleep mode it doesn't want to wake up. I've done a hard reset, changed batteries, employed the tricks suggested on several forums and tried it without a SIM or memory card with no result.

Simultaneously, my wife's Treo 680 is in a permanent sync mode and thus unusable.

For the time being I'm getting a new (refurbished) 8925 Tilt via the AT&T warranty service. The Treo 680 is out of warranty and toast. For $43 I picked up a Nokia 2610 for a stop gap phone until the new iPhone news breaks.

With the exception of the lack of real MMS/picture messaging I'm liking what I'm hearing about the next gen iPhone.

wwn

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Coming Soon....More Videos.....

Soon there shall be more videos appearing on the site.

Several years ago I paid a company to transfer the old Super 8mm and 8mm film stock of our family movies onto digital tape. This company used a process known as direct video transfer. It involves using a machine that looked like a typical 8mm film projector but where you would find the lens was instead a CCD chip. CCD chips are the chips found on many digital video cameras. In effect, the films were being protected directly onto the CCD chip.

I've also spent a lot of time filming new video. I'm in the process of converting all of that out to hard drives.

Check back here soon for more videos.

Crappy day

The picture isn't out of focus. The weather is crappy and foggy. So much for spring.

Gizmodo's side by side of the MacBook Air and other ultraportables.

Macbook Air and The Usual Suspects [Line-up]:

We already gave you a spec-wise comparison of the Macbook Air and its prominent competitors, but The Usual Suspects—the Lenovo X300 (recently leaked), Sony TZ and Dell XPS m1330—are all back for a photo shoot. Jump for the fantastic line-up of the laptop bad boys bearing it all.

If the relative scale between the laptops still has you baffled to how small everything is, check the Coke can on the far right. Not only does it look like the Dell is a hard-ass, as it appears to have brought a Cola with it during its incarceration period, it also gives you more of an idea of how small these devices really are. The Macbook Air is unquestionably the thinnest, but the sexiest in picture? That's your call. Personally, I like my gadgets to match, and the last time there was black keys on a white Macbook, I almost threw-up, but hey, never say never, right?

Looks aside, we're wondering; is the Macbook Air the Kyser Soze of the bunch? After all, the biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he never existed, and he didn't succeed in his inconspicuous ways by being an obese portable computer. [Gizmodo's Macbook Air Coverage]