Hijinks Inc.

Category: Apple

  • Dear iPod

    Dear iPod,

    Why you got to be hatin’? Ours has been such a torrid affair, and while I understand that you make a living being all closed format and crap, I need more, seriously, I just want to rock my Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) encoded songs… maybe a little Ogg Vorbis on the side. Where’s the love, iPod? Where is the love?!

    I hate to do this do you, but I have have to install a third party boot loader on you. I just can’t live like this anymore. You see, Rockbox lets me play all sorts of codecs, even that accursed WMA, which I stupidly encoded so much of my music in when I was younger. Plus, I can even play Doom! Now that’s what I’m talking about. It actually gives me control over how I listen to my music, and with countless plug-ins I can do anything from install a Game Boy emulator to play some Pong.

    It’s over iPod. Your firmware is dead to me, Rockbox is the one for me now.
    (more…)

  • I’m not a Mac whore.. honest!!

    At least that’s what I’m telling myself. In truth, Steve Jobs has wooed me with promises of media capability and social standing. Yep, I just bought a Mac.

    A Macbook to be more precise. I’m starting school again in a little less then a month, so to allow myself a little more freedom in writing papers, doing research, and wasting time between classes, I decided I’d get another laptop. I’m a little leery of learning a whole new operating system, but Aaron assures me the biggest hurdle is figuring out all the functions of the command button. We shall see, we shall see.

  • Free Internet Anywhere (cell reception required)

    Today, I present to you, in it’s entirety, the quick and easy (mild case of nerdiness required) way to rock the free internet scene with your cell phone.

    And now, after building up your hopes… I shall cruelly dash them against the sharp rocks below! Here’s what you’ll need to get this to work.

    • Phone: Motorola E815, Razr v3, V710*,
    • Computer: Any Mac running OS X 10.4 with Bluetooth
    • Provider: Alltel (although rumor has it that a Verizon account/phone with mobile web service does the trick as well)

    Note: Verizon ships its phones with dial-up networking disabled, due to the fact they are jerks. To enable it, enter ##DIALUP on your phone. That’s ##342587. You’ll need to type it in as quickly as possible for it to work. The phone will show a confirmation once you’ve successfully enabled dial-up networking. As logic would dictate, doing this again will disable your new found dial-up networking. This only works with older versions of the firmware, so if you have a newer phone with current firmware you’re out of luck (unless you want to downgrade your firmware).

    (more…)

  • Apple shows some love… for homeschoolers?!

    I did a double take when I stumbled upon this page in Apple’s education store. Apparently Apple made a few policy changes not covered in their event yesterday.

    Homeschooling has grown significantly over the past several years, with current estimates of up to 1.5 million students now attending homeschool. At Apple, we have focused on building technology solutions for education for over 25 years. And now, recognizing the growing demand of homeschoolers, we are making the full range of Apple’s educational products and solutions available to homeschools.

    Translation: There are 1.5 million MORE kids out there that could be buying our products. Cash money baby!!

    Being a graduated homeschooler myself, I have to give props to Apple for cashing in on the movement. So what if they are just after our money? Respect is respect after all.

  • iPod touch

    iPod touchI have to complain, it’s in my nature.

    While the iPod touch just saved me from having to buy an iPhone, it’s not quite all I had hoped. While sporting all sorts of fantastic features, one simple little thing is missing, where’s my bluetooth at?! Wireless headphones, wireless syncing with your Mac… tell me that’s not a brilliant idea? With the ability to buy music on the go, it would make a huge amount of sense to be able to walk into the same room as your Mac and automatically have it sync those new mobile purchases with your Mac.

    Ahh well, it’s still bloody brilliant.