hipster animals.

Just for fun...

and check out http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/ also!

cb

tunes of the week 4/14

I am going to try and start posting some of my favorite songs every week! Below is my first shot at it. Enjoy!

1.Fiona- The Low Life

2. Let Love Rule (Justice Remix)- Lenny Kravitz

3. Graduate- Third Eye Blind

4. My Moon, My Man- Feist

5. Boy With a Coin- Iron & Wine

6. Porcelain- Moby

7. Rehab- Frankmusik

8. Don't Dream It's Over- Crowded House

9. Daylight- Matt and Kim

10. Xavia- The Submarines

11. You Get What You Give- New Radicals

12. Warning- Incubus

13. How Bizzare- OMC

14. Tapp- 30H!3

15. Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) [Piano and Human Beatbox version)- Lady Gaga

cb

iPad?

So as everyone on the planet knows, the iPad by Apple debuted this Saturday. Obviously, some of the initial jokes (iTampon, etc.) were forgotten as over 300,000 units were purchased. I am still very wary of this product, and while many are calling it the 'Laptop Killer,' I honestly don't see how it is possible for it to replace my wonderful laptop (which is also made by Apple).

First of all, I really hate when companies create competition for themselves. Why on Earth would Apple want to have one of their products completely replace and reduce the need for some of their most successful products, the Macbook, Macbook Pro and Macbook Air? I understand the uber-rich who want a desktop, laptop, and now the iPad, but...those people are far and few between. This reminds me of a couple of examples. Here in Lawrence, there is a hotel, The Eldridge that is known as the most classy and expensive hotels in town, and it is also a historical landmark. In the past two years, they have completed building The Oread, another hotel very similar to The Eldridge, except it is bigger and better in almost every way. How can The Eldridge survive when the managing company wants The Oread to succeed? I also heard about a similar situation with Sprint. Apparently, Spring came out with a 4G mobile hotspot that essentially is a box that creates wifi for up to 8 devices near it. Then...a few weeks later, they are creating a 4g mobile hotspot that does the same thing, but it's also a phone! When companies keep topping themselves, they may be forgetting about their most stable products.

So after my "research," I have laid it out this way:

The Pros of the iPad:

-Cool

-Pretty

-Straightforward and simple to use (like most Apple products)

-Small, Light compared to laptop

-Super long battery life

-Cool innovative fun apps already being made for it

-Ideal for web browsing, watching movies, and reading

-Fun! I think anyone would love to play with this. Now would everyone love to drop the cash for it? I'm not so sure...

The Cons of the iPad:

-Expensive

-Need to buy a real keyboard or get used to the touch-screen keyboard

-For readers used to a Kindle, iBookstore has small selection

-No Alarm Clock app pre-installed like iPhone and other Apple products

-Reviews seem to say, after playing with apps they already have on their iPhone...people are left thinking, what am I supposed to do with it?

-Cannot use multiple applications at once (This is the big one for me, as I usually have a minimum of 4 apps open at once)

-Heavy, compared to newspapers, books

-Like an iPhone, fingerprints get everyone, whereas on laptops, just on keys.

-Weird things don't work that work on a computer; opening a youtube link from an email,

I also wanted to point out some really weird Apps or devices coming out to support the iPad:

The iCade, which turns your iPad into an arcade seems pretty cool-

Perhaps the most important point of this is that I have never seen one or played with one. Maybe when I do, my mind will change. For now, I don't see myself buying one anytime soon; and if you have one, let me check it out!

Enjoy this fun video about the iPad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

cb

****Update!

Since this post, I have in fact played with an iPad. A friend of mine generously donated his to me for a few minutes. There is no doubt it is a good looking product. I loved the screen and size, but it was heavier than I imagined. I was also surprised to find out that the wifi wasn't working on KU's campus (which would be a huge issue for me since I'm on campus all day).

Long story short, I opened all the apps, and was still thinking...OK, now what? If I had the money, I would definitely buy one, but I would need tons of apps to keep me entertained. I think the best reason/purpose of it is reading and sitting with it to read books, newspapers, magazines, or watch movies.

Also- even cats enjoy the iPad !

I will also add that the next day I heard about the HP Slate, a very similar product to the iPad. The biggest differences are the obvious PC software, but also it has a webcam. The cost is predicted to be similar. When I first heard about it, I thought- what about the app store? How will I do anything? HP has done something very interesting. Instead of needing app stores, they have integrated flash into the product. This means, when you want to play a game; instead of downloading or buying an app, you can just play on the website directly. If you want to watch an episode of Glee, just go to hulu and click play. Very interesting. We'll see how it goes!

cb

April Fools!

Well obviously, I write on this blog all the time. I'm trying to get back to it, my goal being 3-4 posts per week. While I have been thinking of fun and interesting topics to blog about, it took this long for me to get enough free time to write!

April Fools is a fun excuse to play pranks on your friends. I remember when I was younger, I went to extraordinary lengths to fool my parents. Some of my

favorites were creating a fake math test that I had "failed" and having my dad sign off on the grade, or pretending to injure myself (although with the frequency of my current clumsiness that's not so funny). Today I (and the billion of other people who play on the internet) foun

d a particularly clever one.

I knew about a month ago about a strange Topeka, Kansas and google connection. I had heard through the grapevine (which is quite small considering I live in Kansas) that Topeka had officially changed their name to Google. I could never figure it out, what was the point. Then today when I got onto twitter and noticed Topeka was a trending topic. I was shocked to see that Justin Bieber was not a trending topic today (jk).

Long story short, google.com has changed their title page to read Topeka!

hilarious. I'm sure I'll hear more pranks going on today, but hopefully

none will be done to me!

and hopefully I will write more than once every 2 months!

cb

*UPDATE

woah woah woah...I was a little behind the times. Here are some even better/worse April Fools pranks:

funnyordie.com has changed its entire site to justin bieber related things! I love this one.

On the other hand, this one hits home a little too much...

ouch foxnews...ouch.