CCI Company Picnic

We had a nice turnout last Sunday for our company picnic at Idlewild Park in Ligonier,PA. We had the opportunity to meet and get to know a lot of the family members we hadn’t met before. I have posted the pictures that I took and will be posting Nick’s shots as well shortly. Hope you all enjoy the camera shots.

    

 

 

Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS Security Flaw Patch

A security vulnerability has been fixed by Apple to close the a Security Flaw on your iPhone.

Security experts explained Thursday at the Black Hat security conference that a series of hundreds of invisible SMS (short message service) text messages could be used to embed code into the system's memory and run a malicious executable file.

Users would only notice a single message with a small square in it.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/01/BUME192BCE.DTL#ixzz0MvYKhrVX

To run the update on your iPhone, open iTunes, click on Help and Run Updates…

iPhone 3GS: Initial Impressions

In this article will detail my experience with our new iPhone 3GS’s. As the next few days progress and I get to work with the phone some more and take it through its paces, I will be adding some more bullet points to the sections below.

Pros:

• I have to say that I just love the interface. Once I got used to it and new what to expect, moving around the interface became pretty easy.
• Screen Keyboard-I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this but it is working out pretty well. I would rather have some tactile feedback but the letters popping up real big make it easy for these old eyes to see what I am typing.
• I loved how easy it was to setup the tethering and how well it worked with the 3G connection.
• So far I have seen a pretty strong connection in this area with the phone coverage. I will get back on this as I travel around the country side.
• The guys at the local AT&T store have been extremely supportive. Not only in the sales cycle but also in the post sale time frame where we are beginning to push the units into service. I wouldn’t have expected anything less, but its nice to see that happen.
• I was really impressed with the tight integration between my Garmin and the iPhone. Everyone in my phonebook is searchable easily on the Garmin to give me a heads up display to dial from. I am completely hands free once the call is made. From my initial calls with Nick from the car, it performed well even with the top down and moving along the highway. More testing will tell this tell more completely though.
• The number of applications available to enhance the iPhone’s capabilities is incredible. Whether you need a news aggregator, messaging device, car mileage tracking for work, or WiFi phone service the choices are all there. Most of the apps are either free or at a low cost.
• Got my Audible Books over finally. Had to click on the folder that they were stored in. Then I had to delete them from the iTunes library, those I didn’t want uploaded. Pretty lame that way.

Cons:

• Battery life – this is the one thing that I would have liked to see better. The caveat though is that while I am in the car I can have it plugged in, or if I am using it to tether my notebook, it will also be getting power. The only time it won’t be getting power is when it is in my pocket or when I am roaming around with it. In the next few weeks I’ll see if this becomes an issue for the way I am using it or not.
• I don’t have enough connections in my car for all of the gadgets I am plugging in. I’ll have to see if I can come up with a solution for that.
• There are some video incompatibilities with some of the video podcasts that I view. Initially I have seen this because the podcasts were downloaded using the Zune software. If I download them through the iTunes store they will probably be in the right format.
• The Zune Software and iTunes Software cannot be up and running at the same time. Just a comment. Not surprising though.
• Because you are carrying around a connection to the world’s information sources at your fingertips, if you are an information addict like me you will spend “way to much time” with this little device instead of the time with your loved ones. Be careful, it is addictive.
• Don’t like the earbuds that come with the phone. They hurt my ears.
• I have started loading up content on the iPhone with podcasts and my Audible books. I don’t have a way to connect this back into the car radio easily. Shane has come up with a solution… I’ll comment on this in another post after we have it installed. Thanks Shane.

Back to School – Should you get a Notebook or should you get a combination Netbook and Desktop?

We have been discussing this kind of configuration internally for a long time and I have personally been using this type of setup for myself. I have desktops both at work and at home and I have found that for the times that I need to have a little bit more mobility that a Netbook is filling the need just fine. I feel the netbooks, because of their lightweight design, probably will have less chance of being dropped then a large notebook and will not break your child’s back as they are going from class to class. The 10 inch size screens give you a pretty good display and for the things that they would be used for primarily they will probably fit the bill just nicely. Then if you student is needs the use of a more powerful workstation or larger screen display the desktop will be there for them in their dorm room. Moving data between systems has become even easier with the online cloud storage available from so many sources. So as long as you have internet access you have access to all of your data.

Pricing? A notebook will cost you between $700 and $1500 depending on the model and configuration you choose. A Netbook starts at $300 and you can get a decent workstation for between $500 - $900 dollars. This gives your student the best of both worlds.

Summer 2009 Xbox 360 dashboard update

CNET Reviews took a quick look at this summer’s update to the Xbox 360 Dashboard. I’m not real big in the avatar creation and dressing but this is one of the areas that they have added. You will now be able to purchase add-on clothing and other accessories(yawn…) but there are some other features that might be cool for those of you that have a lot of contacts through the Xbox Community. The picture above taken from CNET, shows how you can share a movie from Netflix with online friends. This is called Party Mode Viewing but not all of Netflix’s movies are available for this. As I see more updates come along I will be sure to pass them along.

Yahoo and Microsoft finally signing on the dotted line…

How long have we been hearing about the relationship trials and tribulation of Microsoft and Yahoo getting together. Well finally they are doing something but what is it?

On the right you see a picture of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer uses a giant pen to sign the 10-year deal, alongside Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, on Wednesday at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The industry says this is a ploy to join their forces to go after Google, of course it is….

"In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo search while Yahoo will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers," the companies said in a joint statement. The deal is expected to go into effect in 2010 and improve Yahoo's profitability, though not its revenue, the companies said.

For more information read CNET’s Ina Fried’s article at:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10298303-56.html?tag=nl.e404

Ziibii – Newsreader?

I wasn’t sure what I was going to get into with this application but I find it really interesting and can be used as a news aggregator for any sites that you want to follow that have an RSS feed. Ziibii describes itself as a way to:

Enjoy a fresh new way of staying in-touch and in-the-loop
with your friends, photos, and the world around you with Ziibii.

Ziibii blends Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube
- plus your favorite web content - to deliver an iPhone
experience unlike any other. Ziibii is easy-to-use,
fun to explore, and offers plenty of great features.
Ziibii also works hand-in-hand with Twitter and email.

The first few minutes of using it I was completely enthralled watching the information flowing through the screen. You can associate your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and any Web Feeds that you wish to program in. As the summaries are flowing by on the screen just tap on the image of the message and it will display it for you in all of its glory. Once setup I can see you wasting hours upon hours staring at the information passing by. It certainly held my attention.