Futurelawyer

Apple Wants Microsoft To Stop Airing Ads - Is It Hypocritical?

DailyTech - Apple Begs for Mercy, Asks Microsoft to Stop Airing Laptop Hunters Ads. Apple has allegedly sent Microsoft a request to stop airing its price competitive ads because it has "lowered" its prices $100 to $300. Amazing. After Apple aired ads for over a year depicting Microsoft users as clueless idiots, it takes some arrogance to complain about largely truthful ads that highlight the fact that similar computing power costs a lot more from Apple. Of course, neither company is above sales "puffing". I like some Apple products, such as the iPod Touch, because there isn't a comparable product at a better price. However, it is the height of hypocrisy to complain to Microsoft about the laptop hunters ads, after some of the crap that Apple has been throwing out there for a long time. I wonder if Apple would be lowering its prices if Microsoft weren't airing the comparative pricing ads? Isn't this what competition should do? The principal beneficiaries of this little spat will be the consumer. Hooray.

Take Two Camera Sensors And Call Me In The Morning

More Powerful Than Facebook Or Twitter - Forbes.com. CMOS sensors, costing less than a dollar, are now being designed into everything. Cheap video cameras in cell phones and the like are documenting revolutions, weddings, and just general walking around stuff. Now, we are told that CMOS chips built into pills can be taken orally, and can photograph the interior of the human body on the way down. What they photograph on the way out is something that I would rather not see. This all begs the question; if nothing is private anymore, will we adjust our public conduct? I think not. Humans are able to forget that they are on camera, even in situations when the cameras are obvious. All of which will create all sorts of evidence that lawyers can argue about. What evidentiary tests will be applied to surreptitious video taken with cameras the size of a fingernail? Perhaps discovery requests must now take this into account; ie., State the number and location of all CMOS sensors in your possession at the time of the accident. Or, please provide copies of all video taken within your body between January 1st and July 1st of last year. Lord, give me strength.

Hard Drive Heaven - More Storage Than God Needs...

Fantom GreenDrive 1TB USB 2.0 and eSATA External Hard Drive - 2 Year Warranty! - GD1000EU - Buy.com. I remember my first hard drive purchase, back in the late eighties. It was a 10 Megabyte drive for my Toshiba Portable Computer. At over 10 pounds, portable was a euphemism. However, the drive cost $900. My comment to my buddies at the tech convention was that "This is more memory than God needs". I know, old joke. However, now that you can buy a Fantom GreenDrive, with a TERABYTE of data for a hundred bucks, perhaps we are getting into God territory. There are 1,000 megabytes in a Gigabyte, and 1,000 Gigabytes in a Terabyte. That means the early hard drive would cost 90 Million Dollars in today storage dollars. Ouch. Anyway, I don't know whether you can call something green because it uses a few watts less power; however, I do know that 100 Gigs for a buck is a pretty good deal. Oh, if my math is off, remember that I was an English major in the Sixties, and we didn't spend a lot of time on our math back then.

Jumbo Kindle? Papa Bear On The Way?

Possible Jumbo Kindle Coming Wednesday: Print Media Savior? - PC World. Does the world really need a bigger Kindle? For some of us, the pocketable iPod Touch or iPhone is enough of an Ereader for most situations.  A one-trick pony like the Kindle requires yet another device to put in the briefcase in order to read stuff that the iPhone and iPod Touch can provide for free, plus all the other stuff they do. Now, Amazon is going to provide the Big Bear of Ereaders, supposedly to supplant newspapers and magazines. Uh, guys, newspapers and magazines are already being ported to the web, and you can read them on any web device. I guess that everyone has their own preference; are any of you interested in buying this thing?

The Frugal Lawyer - How Big Is Your Monitor? Size Matters

Westinghouse TX-42F450S 42-inch LCD TV | Wired.com Product Reviews. I love a bargain. I don't have a lot of money. Both of these attributes make the FutureLawyer spend a lot of time mining the Internet for cheap prices on great products. Yes, occasionally, a bargain isn't a bargain due to the lack of quality of the product. However, bargains can be had. One of my best purchases was a 37 inch LCD TV at the old CompUSA for $622 a couple of years ago. It serves as my computer monitor at the office, and my old eyes love the big screen for working all day on legal documents and research. Now, if you live near a Costco or BJs warehouse store, you can get a 42 inch LCD TV with computer inputs for $700. If you still haven't increased the size of your desk monitor, you need to take a look at these.

First Android Netbook to cost $250

Report: First Android Netbook to cost $250 | Crave - CNET. Up until now, the rapidly exploding Netbook market has been populated by Windows XP and Linux machines. Google, not a company to let an opportunity pass by, is going to be leveraging its mobile OS, Android, in that market later this year, or early next year. Apple is fond of dissing the netbook market; however, millions of users beg to disagree. When a free, popular, Google Android machine becomes available, and reduces the price of these little guys by $100, watch out. I still prefer XP on my netbook, as it makes software and syncing and use paradigms consistent. I am used to XP, and have its configuration down to a science. However, for users not married to the XP or Linux OS, who just want an email, browser, and word processing machine, these new netbooks could become very popular.

The Frugal Lawyer -Get a Netgear 802.11 Draft-N router for $25

Get a Netgear 802.11 Draft-N router for $25 | The Cheapskate - CNET News. If you are still using a G router to send wireless Internet signal through your home or office, because you don't want to pay over $100 for a wireless N router, this is the one for you. A real Netgear Draft N router for $25. Will it work? Who knows? Who cares? It is certainly by a known manufacturer, and $25 is worth the risk, don't you think? Even if it is boxy and ugly.

iPod Touch Is Apple's Sleeper Hit (AAPL)

iPod Touch Is Apple's Sleeper Hit (AAPL). Ok.  Apple is arrogant. The dismissive rant by Apple about netbooks was over the top. However, give credit where credit is due. The iPod Touch is a massive hit, and is now approaching more sales than the iPhone. No wonder. It is a marvel of tech, and, if you already have a competent cell phone, you don't need an iPhone. You can get the best of iPhone without monthly charges. The Touch will continue to be my PDA of choice, when I can't do something better on the  Centro.

Apple Hates Your Netbook - Forbes.com

Apple Hates Your Netbook - Forbes.com. My first reaction to this story was that, if Apple hates something this much, it must be a threat to Apple. That, by itself, is reason to buy something, so that Apple won't end up with ALL the money in the world. Then, it occurred to me, that maybe Apple was worried that many people in the world just wanted an inexpensive, competent machine to do email, Internet and document processing. It can be fat, if it is small. It needs to be less than $400, and less than 3 pounds. Can Apple make something that performs the same functions as a netbook for less than $400? Mr. Cook, I have a netbook, and it doesn't suck. It fits nicely in my briefcase. It tucks under my arm. It browses the same Internet that you do. It connects just fine, and it brings my email to me. It even helps me to create documents when I need them.

Wouldn't It Be Nice?

Verizon Sniffing Around iPhone 4G? | The iPhone Blog. A Verizon branded iPhone? Wouldn't that be nice. Of course, I probably wouldn't upgrade my Palm Centro to the iPhone even then, since you can't use SlingBox with it, and you can't score major league baseball with it, and you can't sync Quicken with it, and it doesn't have a QWERTY hard keyboard, and, well, you get the picture. However, a 4G iPhone on the best cell phone network would be very tempting, and, if the other problems were solved, it would prevent having to carry two devices. Of course, all of this depends upon Verizon not getting the Palm Pre anytime soon.