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Apple Store online customers are reporting Friday that their NVIDIA-based MacBook Air notebooks have begun arriving almost a week early. Included are some unboxing notes and photos.

Filed under: Switchers, Features

Last week, my dad started using a Mac mini, and I wrote about his experience -- positive, to say the least. If you haven't read the story of his first day with the Mac, you might want to read that first. Yesterday, one week in, I checked in to see how he's doing.

So far, Dad has nothing but positive things to say about the Mac. Even when I asked him specifically for things he dislikes, he had to think for a second. "It's such a breath of fresh air from what I'm used to, I can't come up with anything specific that I dislike." High praise indeed from the man who doesn't like The Daily Show because of its intro music.

He also just discovered that, in Leopard, there's a little light underneath each application that tells you it's running. That was his huge discovery yesterday, and something he was proud of finding on his own.

Asked about what he does like, he mentioned the ease of application installations. He loves Dashboard widgets, and installed the MySQL Health widget that comes with the MySQL GUI tools. He did this without my help, too, which is great progress.

Continue reading My Dad, the Switcher: Day 7

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Filed under: Hardware, Software, Open Source

By now, you've probably heard about Drobo. It's the ultimate RAID-like array, with USB and Firewire 800 connections, that allows you to store up to 6 terabytes using 4 hard drives (you get about 4.1 TB of usable space, since some of the room is used for RAID redundancy -- see the Drobolator capacity calculator for the details). Not too long ago they released DroboShare, a way to turn Drobo into a NAS (network attached storage device) with Gigabit Ethernet. If you have both a Drobo and DroboShare, you can now run DroboApps.

Because Drobo is built on a small version of the Linux open source OS, you are able to run these lightweight applications that can do some awesome things. There are currently around 20 applications that can create an iTunes media server (Firefly), or limit the total size of a Time Machine backup (Time Tamer), among other functions.

If you're a Drobo owner, you might want to check out these cool new applications. And if you're a developer, why not take a look at the Drobo development SDK?

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Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

If you enjoy Tap Tap Revenge and you're a fan of Nine Inch Nails, you're in luck. Tapulous has released Tap Tap Revenge Nine Inch Nails Edition (iTunes link). Featuring 13 tracks picked by NIN frontman Trent Reznor, it's the first game on the iPhone that had my wife playing through toothbrushing time with the kids. After getting the device back I discovered there's a giveaway that you enter when you post scores of 150,000 or higher online. The prize? A signed Les Paul guitar and tickets to the NIN show of your choice.

On top of all this, the game feels more responsive and flows better than the original Tap Tap Revenge. Tracks from Ghost seem made for Tap Tap, adding to the gameplay instead of distracting from it. The app costs $4.99, and is worth it if you're a fan of the later works of Nine Inch Nails or you love punching the screen with your index finger for hours.

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CNet reports that IBM has filed a lawsuit against former employee Mark Papermaster for accepting a job at Apple. Papermaster was IBM's vice president of microprocessor technology development but recently accepted a position at Apple to begin in Nove...

Apple recently recruited a top chip designer from IBM, resulting in a lawsuit that seeks to prevent the executive from taking his knowledge as "IBM's top expert in Power architecture and technology" to the Mac maker.

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Ready for Halloween on your iPhone? The App Store provides a quick fix for trick-or-treaters, and the offerings provide a little of each category. I happened to grab a random assortment of freebies (several were temporarily free) themed around Halloween. Here's a quick review of each. Hit the gallery for sample screens. All app names are iTunes links.

Bust-a-spook
A simple tap-and-score game using some gradient-heavy backgrounds and simplistic artwork to keep you entertained. The audio, like most of the Halloween-themed apps, is appropriately annoying. I found this one to be too hard and pointless to play with it long. When ghosts, pumpkins or bats are "busted" they grow larger and fade away. That's really about it, except for choosing levels of difficulty. Price: $.99

Carve3D
Clever way to carve a 3D pumpkin on the iPhone. You swap between "rotate" and "carve" modes and carve into the pumpkin by tapping corners. A final tap near the first point closes the loop and carves a hole in the geometry. As an interesting touch, the light actually shines through the geometry, so you can project the face you carve, though getting the camera in a good spot is tough. Price: $.99

Crazy Pumpkin
eZone has a slew of nifty, gimmicky apps (they remind me of the Johnson Smith Co. products). Around Halloween several went free, including Crazy Pumpkin. It's a very simple app: swap the eyes, nose and mouth of a virtual jack-o-lantern. I like the pulsing colors and the audio is well-done. Kids love this one. Price: Free.

Crazy Metal Head
Essentially a ventriloquist's dummy in the form of a chrome skull with fire in its mouth. You can toggle metal music on or off. The head bounces around, like a bobblehead. That's about all it does, but it still is fun if you do crazy voices and have no shame. Price: $.99

Crazy Skeleton
Another freebie from eZone, this time a skeleton with eyes that bounce around. You can control the mouth (like Metal Head), but shaking the device makes a random video play, animating the skeleton. There are maybe a dozen cute performances here, and my kids found this one the most entertaining. $1.99

More apps, keep reading...

Continue reading A handful of Halloween for your iPhone or iPod touch

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