Month: May 2010

Nashville Water Supply ‘Critically Low’

⌘ Permalink

Nashville is still reeling from massive flooding that has leveled much of the city and surrounding areas. Today, the news from the city got worse. NPR’s Lee Hill:

City officials in Nashville say the area’s water supply is now “critically low” after a weekend storm dumped a record 13 inches of rainfall over two days.

Because of potential shortages, the city’s Metro Water Services utility urges residents to cut down on taking showers and is now directing its customers to “use water for drinking and food preparation only.”

AT&T Lowest in Customer Satisfaction; iPhone Keeping Customers From Leaving

⌘ Permalink

ChangeWave:

As in previous ChangeWave surveys, Verizon remains the clear industry leader in customer satisfaction – with nearly half of Verizon’s customers (49%) saying they are Very Satisfied with their cellular service. We note that Sprint/Nextel (35%) is now second in terms of customer satisfaction, with T-Mobile (23%) and AT&T (23%) lagging well behind.

And:

AT&T’s low churn rate – despite its relatively poor Very Satisfied rating and its high percentage of dropped calls – is attributable to the huge advantage it continues to maintain as the exclusive U.S. service provider for the Apple iPhone.

No big surprises here.

FCC to Overhaul ISPs

⌘ Permalink

The Wall Street Journal:

Phone and cable companies opposed the FCC reclassifying regulation of Internet lines under Title 2 of the Communications Act, which was written for traditional phone networks and includes provisions such as rate regulations.

Internet providers fear the agency could try to impose rate controls or require them to share their networks with rivals and warned the decision could prompt them to stop investing in new Internet lines. FCC officials say Mr. Genachowski’s proposal won’t suggest that and that the agency will propose only applying some parts of Title 2 rules to Internet lines.

Hopefully this will end up being a mark in the ‘win’ column for net neutrality.

Mac Pro Audio Update 1.1

⌘ Permalink

Apple:

This update addresses an audio anomaly that some customers may hear coming from inside their Mac Pro computer when using FireWire audio devices.

I know of at least one machine doing this — hopefully this update will address it.

Cupidtino

⌘ Permalink

Cupidtino, a new online date-finding service for Apple fans:

Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products! Why? Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common – personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and of course a love for technology. We believe these are enough reasons for two people to meet and fall in love, and so we created the first Mac-inspired dating site to help you find other Machearts around you.

Dear God.

Microsoft Kin Dissapoints

⌘ Permalink

Joshua Topolsky:

The Kin wasn’t designed for early adopters of the most cutting edge hardware – that’s obvious. What it was designed to do, however, was work really well doing a couple of key tasks, most of them centered around social networking, photos and video, and some overarching concept of capturing your mobile / digital life in a whole new and easy manner. Lofty goals indeed for a product like this, and unfortunately for everyone, Microsoft misses the mark by a long shot. It’s not even close.

Microsoft would have been better off not shipping these devices and spending the time and resources on Windows Phone 7.

The Deal on H.264

⌘ Permalink

Engagdet blogger Nilay Patel breaks it down:

There’s a crucial difference between “open” and “free” here. Although H.264 is an open standard, in that it was developed by a consortium of companies and anyone can make and sell an encoder or decoder, it’s not free — you’ve got to pay for a royalty fee to use it, and the rates are set by the MPEG-LA, which collects payments and distributes them to its members.

If you care about this subject at all, it’s worth the time to read it.

MarsEdit 3 Released

⌘ Permalink

Shawn Blanc:

It is here, and it is stunning.

[…]

Daniel is an absurdly talented developer for the Mac, and MarsEdit 3 is a rock solid piece of software. It is one of the most-used, most-important, and most-beloved applications I own.

Indeed. I’ve used MarsEdit since I launched ForkBombr, and upgraded this morning without a second’s hesitation.

1 Million Served

⌘ Permalink

Apple PR:

“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”

Most impressive.

iPad Jailbreak Released

⌘ Permalink

spiritjb.com:

On iPad, all this is still sort of beta. Some packages in Cydia, not designed for iPad, might screw up your system and require you to restore. Be careful. (And no, Cydia’s appearance is not final.)

When it comes to jailbreaks, this seems even riskier than normal. I won’t be going down this road quite yet.

[via Engadget]