iPhone for Verizon

Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Verizon would get the iPhone in January 2011. Since they refused to name their sources, one must wonder how reliable this report actually is. However, if it is true that Verizon will get the iPhone in January, this will make several Verizon customers very happy and will make AT&T nervous that they'll lose customers as they switch carriers.

I tend not to believe any rumors regarding Apple until the official announcement is made, however I really hope this rumor is correct. I refuse to switch to AT&T for reasons I've listed before, however if Verizon gets the iPhone then I might actually buy one. Only time will tell, but if this is true, then it's right around the corner. Only another 6 months until January, let's see what Apple says in a future keynote.

Kindle Subscription

Do you own a Kindle? Would you like to read this blog on your Kindle? Now you can! We were accepted in the Amazon Kindle blog program. You can get your Kindle subscription to this blog here. I hope you all enjoy!

How to write EPUB books

EPUB (sometimes written as ePub) is an open-standard format for eBooks, which uses XHTML. You can write one using tools that came with your operating system, but that requires knowledge of the various markup elements. Most people prefer to use 3rd-party software to convert their books to the EPUB format. Some of this software is free, others you have to pay for.

I've tried several of the free option, and the one I like best is Sigil. It's an open-source eBooks authoring tool under GPLv3 (General Public License version 3). What I like about this software, is not only can you write your book using the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but you can also view the XHTML code and write the book directly from code (for the advanced users). Whereas most of the software I've been for EPUB books have consisted of converting PDF or .doc files, Sigil lets you write the actual book; you don't have to write it in another format first and then convert it. This also means that it's easy to make edits to a book you already formatted to EPUB and save changes without having to reformat again.

This software is useful for both professional publishers that want an easy way to make eBooks to sell, as well as the average person that just wants to add some content (such as a shopping list, or driving directions) to their iPhone. Yes you can add PDF files to your iPhone, but it's not as pretty as an EPUB book.

A new low for the village

The people in charge of the Village Hall in the Incorporated Village of New Hyde Park make it no secret that they hate the "townfolk," as apparent from their total lack of respect for anyone living in the town (not the village) of New Hyde Park.

Today, they decided to block off access to TOWN area for 3-4 hours. I can't leave my house because my entire area of blocked off, painted on the barricades is "VNHP" and the same thing is on some of the jackets of the people enforcing the barricades.

The village has no authority to do this, since the area where I live is outside of the village boundaries. Yet somehow they got away with it. When I asked one of the enforcers how long the barricade would be up, he laughed at me and said "maybe it will be down by one."

This is a new low for the incorporated village, they have no right to restrict access within the town itself.

Some terms that people commonly get wrong

et al. vs. etc.

Et al. is an abbreviation for et alia and refers to other people. Etc. is an abbreviation for et cetera and refers to other non-people, such as objects.

e.g. vs. i.e.

E.g. is an abbreviation e.g. for exempli gratia and means "for example." I.e. is an abbreviation for id est and means "that is."

For example, if I was to say "She doesn't like you, that is to say she wants nothing to do with you." I could write it as "She doesn't like, i.e. she wants nothing to do with you."

I hope this helped some of you out there.

3rd-party Web Browsers on the iDevices*

I've been looking through the App Store from time to time for new 3rd party Web Browsers to try out on the iPod touch for the sole purpose that I like testing out how various browsers respond to the web. While in the App Store I found a few paid browsers, which I haven't used simply because I didn't want to pay for a web browser. I have tried out almost all of the free browsers, the ones I currently have on my iPod can be seen in the picture on the right.

The browser that I really like the most is called VanillaSurf (pictured), and the main reason I like it is because it's just like Safari but with the added ability to go full screen without the bottom toolbar in your way. I still use Safari for all my daily Internet use on the iPod, however VanillaSurf is by far my favorite of the 3rd-party browser apps. Give it a try if you haven't already, and give the other browsers a try too; my opinion may not be the same as yours, and you may like one of the other 3rd-party browsers better.


*By iDevices I'm referring to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

iBooks vs. Kindle

I've spent some time using both iBooks and Kindle on my iPod touch, and this is what I have to say:

Both have their advantage and disadvantage. As far as accessibility goes, Kindle is the winner because you can use it on more platforms. iBooks is limited to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad; whereas Kindle can be on those three devices as well as BlackBerry, Mac OS X, and Windows XP/Vista/7, and their own Kindle reading device.

On the other hand, iBooks offers a better reading experience. It offers color pictures and a nice "page flip" animation. When using Kindle on an iPhone or iPod touch all you get is a boring old page scroll.

The biggest advantage that iBooks has over Kindle, in my opinion, is the ability to add custom cover art and the ability to read PDF files. If Kindle has this ability, I have yet to find it.

• Via iTunes on Windows or Mac, you can "Get Info" on any book and change (or add) then go to the "Artwork" tab. This is useful for books that don't provide any artwork such as books provided by Project Gutenberg which provides several older books for free on both Kindle and iBooks. I have downloaded a few to Kindle some time ago, and although I already have them on my iPod, I still downloaded them again on iBooks once that app became available just so I could add cover art to the books.
• Another thing that gives iBooks an advantage over Kindle is the how you can browse your library. It can be hard to find the book you want to read at times on Kindle because the title is too long. On iBooks however, this is not a problem because you can find your books by their artwork. The most disappointing aspect about Kindle on the iPhone is that almost right after iOS4 was released, with the ability to use iBooks, Amazon released an update to Kindle. People might thing "Hey this is cool, Amazon will add some of the features of iBooks to make it more competitive." This is farther from the truth, the update added nothing with regard to functionality.

As much as I love Kindle for it's cross-platform availability, I must conclude that iBooks has killed it. Although the paid books tend to cost more on iBooks, the overall user experience of iBooks makes up for it. Color, page turn animation, PDF functionality, custom artwork – all mean that I will be using iBooks a lot more than I will be using Kindle.

Another good thing about the iBooks app, is it's not limited to only books sold through the iBookstore. Any book formatted as EPUB can be read by the iBooks app. Barns and Noble has a eReader app for iPhone and it scrolls much like the Kindle app does. I took one of their books, put it on my iBooks app, and magically the page turn animation was present as if it was any other iBooks book. That's more reason to love the iBooks app!

(If you're wondering, the reason I didn't include the B&N eReader app in this post, it is because there wouldn't be much to say. It's a cross between the Kindle and iBooks, its only useful feature is Coverflow when you rotate it. And the Desktop version of their eReader is just horrible.)

Microsoft needs to stop adding "bullying" code into their software!

Often Microsoft bullies people into doing what they want, and this often results in people turning away; this again seems to be the case.

I have Windows 7 installed into a Boot Camp partition on my iMac, which I can then either boot into natively or run alongside Mac OS X in a virtual machine via VMware Fusion and their ability to detect operating systems on other partitions.

Yet when I try to run Windows 7 in a virtual machine, it complains that it's not valid software just because the hardware changed. The "virtual hardware" of the virtual machine is different from the actual hardware inside the computer, which is usually the case and nothing to be concerned with. However, Microsoft views a change in hardware as pirated software.

So what is the result? My background wallpaper is disabled and a message is forced in a corner saying "This copy of Windows is not genuine" and I get a pop-up ever few seconds telling me to buy a genuine copy. After getting this message in the virtual machine, I boot into Windows natively via Boot Camp, and the message goes away, my wallpaper is back, and Windows says that yes I am genuine.

Microsoft, if you took all the energy you put into policing would-be criminals, and put it into making your operating system better, then you wouldn't have the operating system that is ranked as number one for most likely to get a virus! Stop bullying your paid customers and go after the actual criminals. 90% of all people Microsoft attacks are actually not criminals. The ones pirating their software know enough to patch the parts of the code that check for genuine verification. So the only ones Microsoft is actually hurting, are the honest people.

If I wanted to download a pirated copy of Windows, I could, just like millions of other people could, very easily I might add. However, I choose to do the right thing and get a valid copy of Windows which includes a license that lets me install it on a single computer. No where in the agreement does it say "You can't use a virtual machine to grab Windows from another partition and use it side-by-side with another operating system" so Microsoft, you are 100% wrong in this. And what happens if your computer ever dies and you need to get another one? Try installing the same copy of Windows on it and it will say it's not genuine, unless you call them up and get a new license key. This is such BS. Microsoft should adapt the "honor system" like so many other companies have done, where they trust their customers to only install on a single computer.

I never thought much of Microsoft in the past, but now I think even less of them (if that's even possible).

More reason why Jawbone is unethical

Following my last post about the Jawbone contest being unethical they now decided to block certain ISP networks because of "abuse." Not individual IP addresses mind you, but entire ISP networks. Why punish everyone for the actions of a few? My ISP is blocked, and my friend who lives more west, her ISP is also blocked. I use one of the most popular Internet providers in New York, and she uses the other. Which means that Jawbone effectively blocked about 80%-90% of New York State!

Way to go Jawbone! This just adds to your unethical behavior, and is your fourth strike! Your first three strikes I mentioned in my other posting here

I recommend everyone to just Boycott Jawbone, I for one will no longer buy any of their products.

The Jawbone company failed to respond to my request for a comment.

UPDATE:
June 10, 2010

After not haring back from them for my last email (which was yesterday, they had a whole day to reply and didn't.) I sent the following message to them:

Why won't you reply to my other message stating that you blocked a larger area that you thought you did, and that people that never visited your website before are now also blocked.

Also, I submitted my video 2 weeks BEFORE any videos were posted to your website, so why did you lie when you said that the videos were released in the order that they were submitted?

Let's hope they reply this time. In their last email they lied and said the videos were posted in the order they were submitted, yet it took 3 weeks for my video to be posted? Plus the fact that they blocked people that never visited the website before.

Why I hate AT&T

For anyone that has had this conversation with me, they know my feelings toward AT&T. Certain "uneducated" consumers try to make the argument that AT&T has good wireless coverage in their area, and either my complaints are because I get dropped calls or that I'm joining a "bandwagon." Neither of these are the case, I simply don't like AT&T because of their sketchy past.

I won't go into much detail, because I feel that YOU should do some research, and stop relying on others to tell you everything. I came across one person who goes by the handle "empowermac" on YouTube who refused to believe anything I said about AT&T, stating that "With over a million iPhone customers, you're wrong." Then he had the nerve to block me from ever contacting him on that site again. What is wrong with some people? Is the lack of intelligence so overwhelming in America that people are more comfortable believing total nonsense then the actual truth? He refused to believe that AT&T was ever involved with radio, he also refused to do the research and read the same books that I'm going to recommend to you all in this blog post.

These are two really great books, which detail the history of broadcasting very well. They are also reasonably priced, so there is no reason not to pick them up if you are interested in why I dislike AT&T. One is called The Television History Book and the other is Television Industries. Although they are titled for Television, they deal with all of the broadcasting media of the early years, including radio.



Look for the points in the books that detail AT&T and their involvement with radio, how it used to be free until AT&T stepped in and started charging; and how the government had to step in and force AT&T to leave, so radio could go back to being free (which is still to this day is free for over-the-air AM and FM).

Read about the business practices and ethics of AT&T before you again ask someone "why do you dislike AT&T?"

Jawbone, your contest ethics are horrible!

The company Jawbone is currently holding what they call a "Stimulus Funny Video Contest." However, the way they go about picking a winner, and also the way they posted the videos on their site, are totally irrational and unethical.

1) Rather than being judged on originality and overall quality, the videos are judged based on the number of views a video received. Since web views can be faked, this was a horrible way to judge the videos.

2) Jawbone posted a group of what I like to call their "favorites" on their site, then a week later posted the others. This is both unfair and unethical because it gives the first batch of videos a week longer to gather views. If they read this, then try to justify it by saying "we posted them in order of how we got them," let me explain to you why that argument would be false. I submitted my video two weeks before the first batch of videos were posted on their site. Yet my video wasn't posted to their site until the second batch, a full week after the first batch, were. By the time my video was on their site, ready to be viewed, the top videos from the week before already had over 9,000 views!

3) By paying people to "share" the videos on their site with others, people will end up sharing ALL the videos to earn the most cash, rather than just share the ones they like the most. This means that even videos people hated will be shared because of greed. This is again, no way to run a contest.

Jawbone, as far as contest organization goes, you fail! You are unjust, unfair, and unethical with this contest of yours.

My Jawbone Contest video

Everyone please view this video and rate it 5 stars. Plus, click the "share this video" button on the site and share it on both Facebook and Twitter.

The more views and shares my video get, the more points. Video with the most points wins.

Thank you!