Today's iPhone tip explains the easiest way to go hands free in your car. You need 4 things to make this happen: An iPhone, a car with an 1/8" stereo auxiliary input, a Phillips iPhone Microphone Adapter, and a 1/8" to 1/8" audio cable. Plug one end of the audio cable into your car's auxiliary input, plug the other end of the audio cable into the iPhone microphone adapter. Plug the other end of the iPhone microphone adapter into your iPhone. Clip the microphone to your seatbelt chest strap, set your car stereo to the auxiliary source input, and you are ready to go hands free. Select some of your favorite tunes from your iTunes library and it will start playing through your car stereo speakers. When a call comes in, answer the call by pressing the button on the iPhone microphone adapter. The music will automatically be paused, and you will hear you callers voice through your car stereo speakers. You can end the call by again pressing the button on the microphone and the music will automically resume. For $15 in additional parts, and about 3 minutes of time hooking things up, this is an extremely simple and effective way to go hands free while driving with your iPhone. Now you have something to shop for on Black Friday.
11.28.2008
11.26.2008
Digital Music Sales Surpass Physical CD Sales
Atlantic announced that their US digital sales surpassed their physical CD sales last quarter. And here companies thought that digital sales would never be as big as they are now with piracy running rampant on the interwebs.
As if anyone needed proof that our world is becoming more digital every year...
I wonder if/when digital movie sales will surpass physical sales. I will be one of the last to go digital with movies! I love my hard-copies too much!
Facebook Demographics
Think you're to old for Facebook? Think again. For starters, my 75 year old father who knows enough about computers to be completely dangerous (and a pain the in butt to my tech supporting self) has been a Facebook user for over a year now. A friend over at Room214 sent me this Facebook demographics chart the other day. I was shocked that the core users are no longer college aged. Considering that Facebook started as exclusive to college students, it's amazing how the demographic has aged so quickly! Click on the photo below to see an enlarged view.
Hosting in the Cloud - Rackspace Geekfest
Last night I went to the Denver/Boulder Colorado User Group (DBUG). It was a neat event with a lot of smart folks getting together to discuss Drupal, my favorite open source CMS. I learned a lot very quickly and it proved a very worthwhile use of my time. The event was focused on Ubercart, an incredibly robust shopping cart module for Drupal. Once the Ubercart presentation completed, the floor was opened to general Drupal discussion. This was when the fun began. I was able to get a lot of my most basic questions answered, which was both eye opening and educating. It also forced me to take a look at the infrastructure we have in place to support our client sites. It was reassuring to find out that while we still have work to do, we are certainly on the right path. Mosso, our hosting company, recently made a number of significant acquisitions. The video posted below outlines those acquisitions and what they mean to Rackspace's (Mosso's parent company) cloud service offering. If you're a geek like me, you'll find it truly compelling.
Rackspace Cloud Event from Sparksight on Vimeo.
11.25.2008
What Happens to Used Computers?
Here is an interesting article on what happens to computers once they are used and disposed of. With computers being outdated so fast, it's no surprise the the tons of junky computer parts are piling up!
It's also interesting that out of all the PCs being resold, only 44% of those are actually used. The others are trashed, used for their working parts, or used for metals.
On a more depressing note, poor kids who are forced to break down computers for parts in "ghetto" chop-shops, being exposed to toxic chemicals!
