Gah, I’ve been busy as hell for the past couple of weeks. Just getting out of a creative slump is tiring also. Anyhoo, just a quick post ... I am going to try and make a dynamic website from scratch that utilizes javascript, CSS, and all the good stuff. It will be for a music site [my own actually!] and I want the interactivity to be flawless. And as luck would have it, Veerle posts about it on her blog. Even if you are pretty web-savvy, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look!

The Internet is getting an upgrade! How much so? Well, how about being able to download a feature film ... in mere seconds. Apparently, the people who pioneered the ‘Net in the first place are trying to find out the theoretical particle that makes mass - the Higgs boson. I don’t know if this new Internet is gonna keep it’s name, but for now it is being called, “The Grid”. This sounds like a technological thriller in which all this technology starts developing a consciousness and deems us humans dangerous. Or, the second coming of the Matrix. I’d like to think of a more Ghost in the Shell-esque world. Whichever the case, you can check out the full story here.

Well, I just had an interview [or should i say “seminar” interview] with the new management team that is going to be heading the Apple Store to be opened on Boylston Street in downtown Boston. This was actually my second Apple Retail Store interview but I was really excited for this one. Besides the obvious cool factor, just having the chance to be a part of something as monumental as helping open a flagship store - the biggest in North America by the way - is just way to awesome to pass up. I got to the interview and met some cool people too. Of course, there are a bunch of people to compete against for a position, but it will be a pretty big store, so I’m pretty confident [and hoping!] that I get it. Oh, and I will be going for the Mac Genius position. A hell of a lot of training but I love gadgets and technology ... so this would be learning for fun. And I would get to do it e v e r y d a y. Who else can say that? I think that I have a second interview because I just checked my GMail and I got an email from an Apple representative about completing some background information. They wouldn’t need that unless they were going to hire you, right? d[^__^]b Wish me luck peoples!

And even if I don’t get it, I’ll just reapply. Tech is my verb, it’s what I do.

EDIT: After the interview I was actually able to get Rough Guide’s Macs and OS X 10.5 Leopard book at the local Barnes & Nobles FTW.
EDIT #2: I’m invited for a second interview! I am SO getting this job, just watch. Apparently, I didn’t have enough work experience to have the required “people skills” ... since when did jobs become the only way you interact with people? Don’t you do that everyday? Meh, whatever.

First of all, I didn’t even know what HDMI stood for [although the HD was obvious]. The only reason why I am posting about the Medusa HDMI Hub is because I wish all hubs looked like this. I mean, wow. It’s sleek, it’s shiny, and if I could change one thing, it would be that the brown part be made of wood [or at least look like it]. Check out the pic and the full story courtesy of Akihabara News [click on the pic!].

Also reported from Akihabara News, a talking voice-activated universal remote controlled robot for your desktop called ApriPoko is available from Toshiba [wow, that was a mouthful!]. I love peguins and this robot looks like one too! It understands your commands but I’m thinking that it understands Japanese only [it is made in Japan]. Check out the cool pic and story [again, click on the pic].

Well, once again I feel like I want to completely remodel this site [yes, probably for the 25th time]. There’s a really cool CMS called sNews and it’s extremely lightweight. I’ve actually known about this for quite some time, but only remembered it last week. Meh, I’ll remodel my Fresh Beats website to use with sNews. Oh, and by the way, you can get it here. Tell ‘em Paul sent you! ... actually, they don’t know me but try it anyway!

In gaming news, the long awaited and eagerly anticipated Super Smash Bros. Brawl has come out for the Wii but am I playing it? ... no. I want to play it [duh] but I don’t have a Wii [or even time to play it]. Oh, and for Megaman Starforce fans [yup, all 5 of you in the back], the second installment will come out this June [of ‘08]. A ginormous fan of MMBN, I was hoping to feel the same sort of fanatical enthusiasm for Starforce but it’s just not the same. Sure, the battle system, chip collection, and beating down bad guys and viruses are there but there’s no more Lan and Megaman. The Capcom team could at least throw in some hints and tie-ins as to how life was for Lan and Co. at the end of MMBN6 [the last MMBN game].

I made a replacement icon for a program called Celtx [which you can get here]. I won’t get into the whole explanation of what the application does here since I’ve provided the link but if you are a script writer or do production for plays and such [or if you’re embarking on a highly ambitious MMORPG project ... like myself], then you will find it most handy. Anyhoo, back to the icon. When you create a project file, the icon for it looks rather bland, and I was tired of seeing it, and so I made one. I emailed the Celtx team and they liked it so, hey! Maybe this will be the start of some freelance work?

Now there’s even more reason to stay at your computer, surfing the ‘Net [or working on lots of projects like myself]. The company SANWA has made a kind of USB powered coaster that will keep your drinks cold or keep them hot. Even though SANWA is in Japan and cool stuff like this is usually kept over there, popular geek site GeekStuff4U.com has it! It can be yours for $42.03 ... why is there an extra three cents?

I was a bit surprised to find out about this last night, hehe. Supposedly, IE8 is playing a whole lot nicer and Microsoft wants to help lead the way in establishing web standards. But with these standards constantly changing, who knows if this will keep up ... it’s a good start though! Currently, this site’s post titles are enlarged and look pretty awkward in IE7. I’ll post a screenshot if anything changes.

EDIT: Okay, so I had to restart my computer [well, didn’t have to, but y’know] and once I did that, I fired up IE8 right away. Of course, it asked me if I wanted it to be my default browser. Mmmm ... no. Anyhoo, let’s get this analysis on the road! [Click for a bigger picture]

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This is what IE8 looks like when it starts up ... not bad I must admit. It looks more or less the same as IE7, but take a closer look at the title bar. You will see that the main domain is the one that’s in black text and everything else is in a light gray. It’s a pretty slick look. Also, when you are typing URLs, they will be preceded by the text “Go to” which is also light gray.

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This is what the “New Tab” screen looks like. Bleh. But it’s still in beta, remember that. The tabs looks slightly better but they’re not smooth. You can still see vertical lines where they shouldn’t be.

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But of course, I wanted to see if my site would display correctly ... and for the most part it does. But the words are oddly smushed or cut off. And my smilie looks like he needs a vacation. The funny thing is, the title “Internet Explorer 8” displays perfectly fine. Huh. All in all, the experience wasn’t too bad. I noticed also that IE8 loads webpages a whole lot faster than IE6 and IE7 but I can’t guarantee that for everyone. At the rate IE8 is going though, I think Microsoft won’t have to worry about losing to Safari. I’ll still use Opera though, although not as exclusively if IE8 meets or exceeds my expectations. To read about all of the new features and features to be implemented, you should definitely take a look.

... to Mac users anyway. The iPhone SDK is in dmg format which PCs cannot understand ... however, I have a dmg2iso converter so maybe it’ll work, and maybe not. It’s a 2GB download though. If I can’t get a working program, then maybe I can get something out of it. I’ll update later. In case anyone didn’t know how to get the SDK, you can go here.

Maybe you’ve heard of Microsoft Surface ... it was announced last year (well, that’s when I heard about it). It’s like a tabletop touchscreen that has multi-touch capabilities. I don’t want to spoil any more if you haven’t seen or heard about it yet so I’ll just give you a link so you can see for yourself.

Well, as per usual Google makes a version and not surprisingly it is very intuitive and easy to use. Hmm, that sounded like an Apple-like pitch for a second. Maybe they should team up ... they would be unstoppable. Anyhoo, check it out for yourself. You can also visit Google Operating System for screenshots and a more thorough explanation of the technology. At the rate Google is going with all of these free and easy to use web apps, one would think that they are on the path to making an online operating system. Who wants to bet that they’ll announce one in the next 3~5 years?

Well, they were supposed to release it this month but it seems as if the iPhone SDK is to be released sometime next month in March. Ah, this is quite exciting! Definitely be on the look out for PW Software iPhone apps.

According to the Financial Times, Google has seen 50 times more searches from the iPhone than any other mobile device. Google’s head of operations Vic Gundotra didn’t believe it himself.

We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again.

How’s that for success? In other [rumored] news, there is a lot of speculation as to what Apple’s next unveiling will be and insiders and anaylysts have marked February 26th as the date of the rumored unveiling(s). Some think it is a 3G iPhone, others say the MacBook line could be updated with the new Penryn processors and a multi-touch/gesture trackpad (the MacBook Air already has this). I personally hope it’s both. We’ll just have to wait and see!