Updating Ipods cause frustration

I usually don't wait until late in the day to post my blogs. I feel I need to explain what has happened that has occupied my entire morning.

NEVER UPDATE YOUR IPOD!

With that being said, my reasoning is that ITunes erases all your music on your Ipod once you update it. I have a 16GB Ipod Touch which is my musical companion. I take it with me everywhere (except into water for obvious reasons). I primarily need it to work out (because without music I can't get pumped up to "feel the burn.")

What happened is, I updated my Ipod Touch from 1.1.3 to the new 1.1.4. Afterwards, all my music was gone from my Ipod + I lost space. The bar at the bottom showed "other"(the orange colored part) to be taking up about 10GB of my storage.

I spent countless hours looking online to find out if anyone knew what was wrong. I couldn't find out anything but I did find someone who had a similar problem. He suggested to go to Setting>Reset on the Ipod. Then hook it up to ITunes and hit Restore. After I completed this, I had a fixed Ipod which now had to be loaded with music. Putting music on my Ipod can take A LOT of time. This is what I have spent all morning doing. If anyone has an Ipod then I warn you to be careful about updating the thing. I don't know how many times I wanted to scream at my musical companion and throw it against the wall. The problem was that I have a soft spot for the little gadget. Regardless of the torture and time consumption it causes, I can't let go of it. If you notice the majority of people have this addiction to Apple products. Look around and you'll notice 95% of the society has an Ipod. Even the elderly have come to accepting the little ear controlling gadget.

You may have to wait until tomorrow for something more interesting or until my Ipod has stopped luring me into it's shiny smooth screen.

Is Blogging to die for?

For all you Mac users, I felt it was very important for me to share this link with you: "Secrets of the Mac trackpad." You can get a lot out of your trackpad, but you have to give it a chance to prove itself.

Getting to the news, a law may be passed shortly in Iran to give the death penalty to bloggers. I think that's a little harsh but it makes me proud to say that I am American and have the freedom to blog. Geek.com explains:

"The bill will make punishable by death, anybody that 'establishes websites and
weblogs promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy.' Apostasy is defined by
dictionary.com as 'a total desertion of or departure from one’s religion,
principles, party, cause, etc.' but in Iran it could have a wide-ranging net.
The government might simply use the bill at its discretion."

What I find interesting is that the Iran government tried to keep surveillance on bloggers a year ago by asking bloggers to register their sites with the government. Who would willingly register their blog when they know that if they do, they will most likely be put in jail or killed?

I think it's outrageous that they want to eliminate blogs. A blog is a freedom of speech in which people can discuss what matters to them. It can also be seen as a source of news. It has provided many companies a facet of communication that enables them to speak directly to consumers about issues or concerns they might have in real-time.

The next big search on Google will be how to hack the government's surveillance on my blog.

[Picture taken from Global Voices]

Back in Love, now give me Wall-E

It's been three days since I last blogged and a lot has happened. I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July. I wanted to share with you the fireworks from where I was located: (please ignore the background chatter)

Other than Fourth of July fireworks, I have missed blogging. I wanted to share the movie Wall-E with everyone but don't have enough money to pay for everyone to go. I highly suggest people to go see this movie. It has a little love theme intertwined but the main message is to become eco-friendly. I have nothing against a movie with a message that doesn't have to do with falling in love. I have seen enough movies in my lifetime to know that life is not all about falling in love.

Moving on, the reason why I am talking about Wall-E is the new Wall-E Gamecube case mod that makes me want to buy a Nintendo Gamecube.

I know this isn't very interesting of a blog post and I promise to write another today but I wanted to share something cute and fluffy. Am I allowed to do that?

I Dare You To Wake Up. . .

We all have problems getting up in the morning. Question is, does it affect our friends or people on our phone? If you purchase a Tyrant Clock by Alice Wang, then it just might. This clock calls someone randomly from your mobile cell phone every three minutes after the alarm goes off. You can stop it, IF you are awake enough to turn it off.

This seems like the best alarm clock. Sean Fallon agrees and suggests they add message playback:

"Something like automated drunk dialing—only more devastating. For example, record:“Hey sexy, it's me. Listen, I had to call because I had another dream about you last night. I can't get you out of my mind.” The horrifying thought of that message being delivered to your father at 6:00 in the morning is enough to
get anyone out of bed."

I think this alarm could also be dangerous. The worst thing would be if it dialed numbers that are not in your contact list but are numbers that you have previously answered or dialed. For example, you met a guy last night and put his number in your phone. You're not in the least bit interested but you felt bad for the guy and put his number in your phone. You plan on deleting it but forgot to before going to sleep. The next morning, your alarm clock goes off and starts dialing. When you FINALLY wake up, you have ten missed calls and a stalker. (Am I exaggerating? )

How would you explain to people (or your ex) why you called them at 5am in the morning? "I'm sorry, my alarm clock called you! I swear! Why would I call you? . . . No, I don't mean it that way . . . I just. . . I gotta go, my alarm clock is e-mailing people."

If I call anyone by accident from now on, I'm putting the blame on my alarm clock.

[via Engadget]

Bike to the Future!

If the gym isn't your place to work out and you don't enjoy running then bike. Unless you're concerned about getting hit by a car. Wait! We have a bike to prevent that from happening!

The Aeris Urban Cycle made by Hope, is the bike of the future. It has "indicators built-in the handle bars" to prevent you from collision or cars cutting you off. (Just wondering, what happened to humans having eyes and ears as their indicators? Last time I checked, I am capable of seeing a car coming at me.) Another feature of the bike is that it is made out of Hybrix, "a material that's supposedly so tough, it's comparable to stainless steel but lighter than aluminium. " (Next, we will start making bikes out of recycled plastic rubber.) The bike will be coming out in the fall for a mere 5k. (Are you kidding me? Why would I spend $5,000 on a bike! Does this mean that bikes are soon going to be the cost of a car?)

I would rather buy a pull wagon and use it like a skateboard than spend that much on a bicycle. Unless, the inventor adds a Knight Rider GPS to the handlebar, a miniature stereo system and cargo space. Then we might be in business. Any other ideas?

Airports collect laptops. Are we to blame?

A new study released Monday by Ponemon Institute LLC found 637,000 laptops are lost in airports every year. (I am astonished. I understand laptop's being stolen, but how can you lose a large rectangular thing that can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars? It's not like a cellphone that can easily fall out of a bag without making a lot of noise.)

The worst part is that laptops are commonly lost at security check points. I don't understand. At the security checkpoints:

1. You take out your computer
2. Put it on the conveyor belt
3. Go through the metal detector
4. Walk to the conveyor belt to get your shoes
5. Your laptop at this point has gone through and you put it back in your bag
6. Then walk away (with your shoes on)

Please explain to me how, during this process, 10,278 laptops are lost every week at 36 of the largest airports and 2,000 from mid-size airports. (I'm not done. It get's worse.)

"About 77% of people surveyed said they had no hope of recovering a
lost laptop at the airport, with 16% saying they wouldn't do anything if they
lost their laptop during business travel. About 53% said that laptops contain
confidential company information, with 65% taking no steps to protect the
information."

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! If I lost my laptop, (which would never happen because I'm not THAT blonde) I would be calling that airport to the point that they would give me a new computer just to stop calling. (They would probably give me one of the many lost laptops sitting around).

I am also wondering why people don't put password security on their laptop accounts and "confidential company information." It's not that hard to do, but for those of you that it is we have a solution. Absolute Software Corp. created a tracking device called LoJack that reports it's location via Internet connection. The other option is to get a Dell that has GPS technology and "data protection services" that enable you to remotely delete data on a hard drive and recover data from failed hard drives.

What I was really thinking about after reading this article was what do they do with all the lonely and lost laptops sitting around? Do they auction them off to employees? Do they give it back to trolls that steal them to sell them on eBay? (which could explain how the airline companies stay in business with rising fuel prices) OR are they collecting all the laptops to make a super laptop to take over the world. (A little out there, but we should never rule anything out.

On that note, maybe I shouldn't rule out that it could be human error on our part.