512 Pixels

Thomas Brand:

Will I come back next year? You bet, but with two other full marathons planned for 2013, maybe I should run the half instead. The St. Jude is an amazing race that I encourage every long distance runner to experience. Memphis may not be the most exciting marathon course, but the feeling you get encouraging all of those kids to grow up, and run big, more than makes up for it. It was an honor running for St. Jude, and I want to thank everyone once again for letting me experience it.

My thanks to Thomas for running, and to everyone who made this possible. As of this writing, our team has raised $15,109.

This is an impressive hardware mod.

I’ve taken every single generation of iMac apart, and I can tell you, this thing is a very different beast inside.

Using glue to hold the LCD in place is lame, and I worry about how iMacs that have been taken apart several times will fare. That said, with just one fan (instead of the previous machine’s 3) and so many SSD options, the new machines have far fewer moving parts, which are always more prone to failure. That said, Apple’s choice to use laptop hard drives makes me sad.

(Interestingly, the 27-inch iMac seems to house a 3.5-inch drive.)

Unlike previous reports, iFixIt’s teardown shows that the RAM in the 21.5-inch model is not soldered to the logic board. Getting to it, however, requires taking the whole damn thing apart. I don’t know why Apple didn’t include the service door on this machine like it does on the 27-inch iMacs, but I hope it’s something they add in a later revision. I can deal with non-replaceable RAM in notebooks, but in a desktop machine, it’s a serious WTF decision, as desktops often have a longer lifespan than notebooks.

Looking through this report, I’m impressed at what Apple has done with the new iMacs. Apple’s been shipping the same basic design since the iMac G5, but the company keeps re-working the internals to make everything thinner and more power efficient.

However, these machines look like they are more difficult to repair than previous models, and while I’m no longer taking apart sick Macs for a living, I feel for those who do.

This YouTube playlist includes all of the 485 ads Apple has aired on television.

In an interview with Om Malik:

I am over laptops and the posture that comes with them. I am coding a lot less, so I use my computers a lot less. I still want to simplify even further and carry just one device. So, I want to try the iPad Mini with cellular antenna as my only device and as a phone replacement, and use Skype and/or Google Voice instead.

Who needs an iPhone? Not this guy.

via Shawn Blanc

Colugo is the easiest way to share photos privately with your friends and family.

Colugo is a simple solution to a simple organization and communication problem. Colugo doesn’t use gimmicks like other apps do. No “magic” albums or location based sharing or other features that may sound cool in theory, but when you actually use them you find they are not very useful (at best), and a privacy nightmare (at worst). Colugo is private photo sharing done right.

Want to share some of your photos publicly and others privately - in a single app?

With Colugo you can! Make one album for the world to see, and “publish” it. Keep your other albums private, viewable by only those you invite.

Tired of returning from a party and having to contact all your friends for pics?

With Colugo you won’t have to. Partygoers can take pictures directly into a party album you create and you all share.

Colugo. Simple. Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

Apple Support:

This update addresses an issue with the 27-inch LED Cinema Display that may prevent sound from playing back through the speakers on the display.

Please leave your 27-inch LED Cinema Display attached to your Mac during the update process. Your screen may go black momentarily while the update is installing.

Just ran this on my display with no issues. Hopefully it fixes the bug, which has driven me crazy for months.

Starting at $1299 for a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 8 GB of RAM and a spinning hard disk, the new iMacs are now for sale. The 27-inch models ship in a couple of weeks. For $4,249.00, you can load up one of the bigger machines with these goodies:

• 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
• 32GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• 768GB Flash Storage
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5

I ordered 5 entry-level models today for work.

I know this is safe to do, but looking at these photos makes me so uncomfortable.

In my Nike+ Fuelband review, I wrote:

Over the last few months, I’ve seemed to fallen out of love with the FuelBand. It’s a little too bulky for my taste, and it’s rather limited in what it captures, not to mention it doesn’t seem to be holding up well.

I closed my review saying I had pre-ordered the Fitbit One.

They are very different devices, the Fuelband and Fitbit One. Here are my thoughts.

(Insert the DUN-DUN music from Law and Order here.)

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The Fitbit One is a small device. It’s probably best used in the rubber case it comes with, as it includes a sturdy clip to attach the Fitbit to a pocket.

It weighs next to nothing, has a nice screen and it easy to handle.

I’ve been using it out of the case, in the little iPod nano pocket on my jeans.

The downside of the size is that it’s easy to lose track of the device. I started putting the wristband on my night stand, reminding me to make sure the Fitbit isn’t in the hamper with my pants.

The wristband is comfortable, which is good, as it’s how the Fitbit does its thing while you sleep. Pop it in, press and hold the button to enter sleepy time mode and the device will track your sleep.

In my few weeks of usage, this has become my favorite thing about the Fitbit. I don’t sleep all that well, and it’s been fascinating to see that on a chart.

Past the sleep tracking, however, the Fitbit One doesn’t do all that much more than the Fuelband — on its own.

While the Fuelband basically stands alone, the Fitbit is just part of an entire system — one that can track your weight, food and water intake. While the Fitbit is useful without this information entered on the website or iOS app, it really shines if the time is taken for all this input.

And that’s why the Fitbit One isn’t for me. While I bemoaned the Fuelband’s simplicity, I’ve come to miss it. In fact, I’ve given the Fitbit to my wife, and I’m wearing the Fuelband now.

Go figure.

On this week’s Amplified, Jim and Dan talk about their growing businesses. The Loop is an awesome site, and this episode is a great look behind the kimono.

Spoiler alert: there’s a badass beard in there.

It’s available now for some in Software Update the Mac App Store.