at least at this point there are very limited options when it comes to cases for the new 11″ macbook air. i had been looking at sleeve cases at sfbags, but at almost $50 kept looking.

At only $12.21 shipped, the CaseCrown Double Memory Foam Sleeve with handle and front pocket sounded worth a try. I received it today and the fit is perfect. Originally designed for the Acer Aspire 11.6″, it’s extremely thin and the front pocket is perfect for the charger and some other random stuff.

i’ve always been a pc guy. two of my best friends long ago went the way of the mac and i shunned them for it. my mom has a mac, hipsters have macs, and now i do too. when the new 11.6 macbook air was announced i pretended not to care but it was too sexy not to. it wasn’t much bigger than my iPad that was seeing limited use anyway and was a full functioning sexy as all hell computer. i bought it with the excuses that i could sell my ipad to eat a third of the cost, write it off on my taxes for another third and learn mac osx operating system to broaden my computer knowledge. if i hated osx i could just run windows 7 on it and still have the amazing apple hardware.

i’ve had it for less than a week and i’m still in awe of it. the build quality is unlike any other laptop i’ve ever owned. like all apple products the design is very svelte, it’s extremely light and impressively sturdy. osx is a breeze to use and at this point i have no intention of even installing windows on it. the multi-finger gestures on the trackpad are so intuitive and useful – when i switch back to a windows laptop i’m left fruitlessly swiping my fingers in every which direction.

while the the 1.4Ghz processor is slow by current standards, the “instant on” features of the ssd and faster osx make the laptop feel faster than my 2.8Ghz dual core dell. i’ll post an update after the honeymoon period starts to fade, but i have a feeling that the macbook air will be a the gateway drug for me into the cult of mac.

(photo courtesy of engadget)

i was on the fence, leaning pretty strongly towards not getting the new iphone. when i loaded the 2.0 software on my iphone 2.5g, i thought that that was going to be all i needed to keep my geekdom at bay, but on friday when i saw the gps feature on ben’s phone (that he waited in line for 8 hours to get) i was sold. i figured that the madness that the new iphone owners endured on friday would have died down on saturday and that i’d be able to just walk in and pick one up. so on saturday, eric and i rolled over to the manhattan beach apple store, only to find a 5 hour long line. we decided to wait and just go to the gym instead.

now at this point, not being able to have an iphone 3g was making me want one more than ever. so on sunday, i lined up at the apple store at 8am (it opened at 11), #35 in line, and once the store opened up, it was 1.5 hours later until i had my shiny plastic phone in hand. the wait really wasn’t all that bad, the people i was next to were all very entertaining to talk with and the time went by quicker than one would imagine. but no matter how you look at it, i’m a dork who stood (sat) in line for 5.5 hours to have a phone that i wasn’t really dying to have in the first place.

the new phone is great, but not amazing-great. the faster internet and gps is rad, and the new software is incredible, a “game changer” as eric keeps calling it. but the new software was available for my old phone (now taka’s new phone), and the plastickyness of the new back is cheesy in my opinion, but i’m sure i’ll get used to it. the new shape does feel better in my hands, and audio quality for phone calls is noticeably improved.

i drove by the apple store today at lunch, and there was still a 3 hour line to get an iphone. on a monday! apple really screwed the pooch with their registration system, making the purchasing process far longer than it should be. as far as i know, none of the apple stores have sold out of iphones yet, and it seems unlikely that they will. as of today, apple has sold 1 million iphone 3g’s worldwide, and that’s *with* insanely long lines, or at least here in the united states.

not much is going on this week, so i thought i’d continue on this stupid new cell phone law. i bought my mom a bluetooth headset, and so far she’s more excited that she can gab on the phone and wash dishes at the same time. my dad said he’s just not gonna answer calls when he’s in the car since he’s always been uncomfortable using the phone while driving (taka’s the same way, it’s like asians know they don’t need to make it any harder on themselves).

i’ve seen lots of people wearing bluetooth headsets, and while i still think they look like a douche, it got me to thinking that maybe this new law is going to make wearing a headset trendy. if everyone has to wear one while driving, i imagine that more companies are going to follow aliph’s lead and make really good looking technology and market it as “ear wear.” eventually the tech will become so small that most of the headset will probably be inside your ear… or maybe something new will come out to replace headsets all together.

i actually saw a guy pulled over on the side of the road, and the cop that walked to his window pointed to his cell phone (or maybe it was guns or drugs, but he pointed to something in his car). ben mentioned he’s seen a couple of people pulled over, but i wonder if the cops will care as much in a few months. i think it’d be entertaining to drive around holding an old fashion telephone to your head, or a banana or a burrito and see what the law has to say about it.

here’s a funny vid i found i giz:

in the pursuit of all things web 2.0, i signed up for a twitter account and installed the twitter widget on the sidebar of this blog. i also installed an app called twinkle on my iphone that uses the tower positioning to automatically identify my location and upload my “tweets” and images more easily than using the standard sms mobile function.

i figure this will be perfect for random things that aren’t quite blog post worthy but that might be interesting to some, nonetheless.

what the hell is up with people (usually my brotha’s of a darker persuasion) that use the speakerphone feature on their cell phone but hold it right up to their face so they can hear it? why not just use it like a normal phone? it just ends up making them talk louder, and i imagine the conversation more difficult for both parties.

i just upgraded the blog software, so let me know if anyone notices any problems.

i don’t know if my cable company is just kinda stupid or if this works with everyone, but every 3 months, i just switch to their current promotional package. the 3mb/s package is normally $60, but $20 for the first 3 months, and the 5mb/s package is normally $70, but $30 for the first 3 months. so every 3 months i just switch between the two, and have been paying the promotional price of either $20 or $30 for over a year now.

one time i forgot to switch and was charged the full price. i called saying that i was told the promotion was 6 months and they went ahead and fixed my current bill and kept me on the promotion plan for another 3 months. sure it’s all kinda scandalous, but an easy way to keep one of your bills low.

high definition hasn’t been kind to many newscasters, but the one that bothers me the most is 50 year-old dorothy lucey on fox’s morning show good day la. she has freckles all over her body, which is fine. the problem is she wears super white tv makeup on her face (which doesn’t work right in HD), contrasted by dark eye makeup and always wears these low cut shirts to show her large freckled boobs.

this picture doesn’t do her (on the left) the scary justice i’m talking about, but i figured if i did a screen cap of the show i’m watching right now i might get into some copyright issue if someone sees this post. 42 year-old jillian reynolds (on the right) also acts and dresses like she’s 20, but she’s still pretty good, so i’m not complaining.

i’m sure hd is cutting lots of news women’s jobs short. thank god for technology.

when i switched from my original tivo to the scientific atlanta charter dvr a few years ago, i was pretty dissapointed. the system was slow, the interface looked like crap, and it would re-record shows that it still had on it’s hard drive. things got a bit better when i went to the hd moxi box by charter, but it was still too slow, only held a few shows when recording in hd, and the interface was no tivo.

the last 2 months being back with real tivo has been great. i’ve been using it solely with ota hd, but it has dual cable card support, which will soon support two way communication with the cable companies, to allow on-demand and greater bandwidth because it won’t have to always send all of the channels, only the channels you’re watching. when the tv season ends this fall, i’ll probably get the cable cards and service since there won’t be anything worth watching on network television.

the best thing about tivo that i just bothered setting up is tivo-to-go. from any pc on your network, you can access your tivo and download the shows to your computer. and the very best part? i set it up to auto convert to h.264 to play on my iphone. i doubt i’ll start watching that many shows on my phone, but it’s nice to have that option, and an easy way to do it when i want to.