UGN Info Manager
UGN Info Manager
According to tvpredictions.com, Blu-ray HDTV DVDs sold almost twice the number of HD-DVDs in January. Including Playstatino 3 units, there are about one million Blu-ray players in American homes. So Sony is already claiming victory. Of course, HD-DVDs really haven't gotten to market much. I think the battle is still going on, although I will agree that it appears to be an uphill battle for the HD-DVD folks. Full story at: www.tvpredictions.com
CompUSA will close over half of its 229 stores. This will mean a reduction in the number of apple outlets as well. Perhaps Best Buy will pickup some of the slack.
I will be losing my neighborhood store as well as all the stores in our county. I believe this will leave only the Guitar Store as a Mac dealer in Fort Worth. We do have an Apple Store in South Lake, which is about 25 miles from my home. Maybe Best Buy will pick up some of the slack. (Read More)
According to NPD, Mac sales are up 8 percent in January over 2006 sales. This increase is the result of 194 per cent growth in notebook sales. (Read More)
Apple has announced that they will have an event the day before NAB starts in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, a PC Magazine article stating that Apple was planning on competing with AVID in the high end market with a new version of Final Cut with price tag of from $10-30K. (Note: article written by ThinkSecret.com ) www.pcmag.com
MacWorld UK has reprinted an article from Computer World about how Macs are good for small businesses and why. Also they analyze why more businesses are going to Mac. www.macworld.co.uk
Of course someone is going to rip people off in the iPhone craze. This eBay seller taking advantage of the buzz and selling a cardboard model. The current bid stands at $150 with over 50 bidders so far. Here's the picture See: www.mad4mobilephones.com
You'll remember our 12 week series on stock spam, and pump-n-dump schemes which ran back through the summer. For the longest time the stock scams dropped to just a few a day. Well they're back, and with a vengence.
If you follow the news and the stock markets you'll already know that China has had a real surge in their stock market. So, we've been tracking them again. Of course you already know not to buy stocks from spam, right? So we won't run another series. However, in last weeks 200+ stock scams hitting the UGN honey pots, we tracked 80% directly back to 'new' Chinese stocks trying to get off the ground. We believe the Chinese stock market and stock pump-n-dumps are closely related and that too many Americans are getting ripped off by these bogus stocks. Chinese or otherwise.
Michael Kaye from Vancouver, BV, Canada writes in to say:
"Just read thru your Mac vs PC article and wanted to let you know about the Switching to Mac Website and their "tattoos" article."
Fun stuff: see: www.appletattoos.com and www.theapplecollection.com) I found it reported at: www.switchingtomac.com
O.M. From Pensacola writes in to say:
"I am an avid animator looking for an animatin group in the Pensacola area. I work with FLASH and TOONBOOM STUDIO and own Maya 7 as well as ANIMATION MASTER. I'm interested in working on a group project and trading informatin and ideas on 2D animation. If you have any knowledge of a local group, I would very much appreciate a contact."
Sorry, no animation groups have registered with UGN. If you can help this reader just let us know.
We made the comment in a recent InfoManager that we'd like to learn more about hands-on activities in the Singapore MUG. Well Michael wrote back to send us all to their online article demonstrating a number of these sorts of activities. Thank you ... homepage.mac.com/mvallance/
The Mac has been blocked from many available software structures since the beginning. This new development enables Mac OS X users to join Microsoft AD environments that require two-factor authentication via smart cards. (Read More)
MacObserver, has an article about how Apple has adapted its "Get A Mac" TV ads for each local culture. Unfortunately most are also in the native language so most of the US audience can't appreciate the difference. But the ones from the UK are funny. See the UK ads at: www.apple.com Read the article at: online.wsj.com
Brad Bergeron on "Brad's Blog" posted this article last fall. But Stumble! just showed it to me this past week. Sounds like something that a Mac tech could use for trouble shooting. Of course, the tech might need multiple copies and drives, depending on which mac needs to be booted. This does require at least a 1 GB flash drive, but I would recommend at least a 2 GB one. The 1 GB one only had 11.6 MB available after his installation. See the full story...
I bought my G5 iMac 10 days before Apple introduced the same machine with a faster processor and standard Bluetooth and Airport cards. So I know how it is to get my timing off. In the old days, it was possible to say "MacWorld Expo will be coming up in a few week, best to wait to buy." But of course that is one reason why Steve Jobs wanted to do Apple Events so upgrade times wouldn't be so predictable. Here is a web site that tries to predict the likelihood of a upgrade soon. (Read More)
Here is a web site that collects Podcasts. These are collected under such categories as: Arts & Culture, Audio Book, Foreign Language Lessons, News; Information, Science; Technology, University Podcasts and Business School They keep links to the Podcasts on the site making it easy to subscribe. See them at: www.oculture.com
This is a web seminar ("webinar") -- 2007 Economic Outlook Webinar with Dr. Joe Webb veteran of the graphic arts industries, he was the developer of the influential TrendWatch information service See the full story...
Design Management: Managing Design Strategy, Process and Implementation, by Kathryn Best - This book should be required reading for all senior design students (Read More)
This highly versatile graphic elements font -- "POP" -- is designed for creating unlimited numbers of graphic patterns. It's a commercial font, but is very cool! ... UGN Library
Boy, I tell'ya, I love that Gadgets site. Watch the movie in this page and see an awesome look at the future! In this week's UGNN blog
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself..."
- Benjamin Franklin
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
- Aristotle
"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."
- Walt Disney
Have a great week... (See last week)
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