buffawhat.com

Should you wait for the iPhone?

For the past three months, I’ve gotten so many “are you getting and iPhone?” and “Ooh Man, I wanna get an iPhone,” that my response has been memorized and dropped to a single word…

Wait.

I’m a Mac and a PC.. just call me Boot Camp or Mister Parallels… there is no PC1337 or mac-fanboy in me.. I just love good tech. Apple always manages to come out with a great product and wow the world with innovative user interfaces and intuivity(is that a word? is now). The only issue is that Apple will do everything in its power to control the quality of its product and to ensure compatibility across the board… hardware is locked down.. forcing you to deal. The upside is you get updates most of the time once a year on hardware and software updates spaced in between.

Hence what is going to happen with the iPhone.

Click here to continue reading this on WNYMedia.net

Step into the footure

Almost nobody enjoyed my little blast to the past with the ASCII theme I’ve been running for the past month… Some wanted the gay back, all wanted the black gone, and most of ya wondered why the hell I haven’t posted much but SNAP!’s lately.

WNYMedia.net is re-launched… finally.. got a lot o bugs to work on and content to start posting over on.. but I’m gonna cross post a lot and start to build up the tech cred.. hence the title of the Technological Homosexual.  Its my moniker for WNYM and seems perfect name for my site.

I know its all hopes and promises that I’ll start posting more, but really I mean it this time. Look, i put some flickr pictures down yonder to the right, my twitter tweets are on the left, recent comments, posts.. not to mention I spent a few good hours hacking up the wonderful (but green) theme created by FarFromFearless.com.  Still got a bit more to do.. but ya get the point.

I also have an idea for a new blog thats a bit… well… lets just say its called “Letters to my Gay Sons.” My gay sons… you know what it is…

Digg Button Kit - the Parts

Digg Button Kit - the Parts

Originally uploaded by Buffawhat. Taken 27 Apr ‘07, 12.29pm ADT PST.

Here’s all the parts that come in a pretty anti-static bag for the low low (actually kinda expensive for a do-nothing toy) price of 19.33 shipped. Now, off to Grumpybear’s this weekend to use his soldering tools.
Get your own Digg Button Kit from Adafruit…

Cerwin Vega Drops 21-inch active woofers to help loosen that ugly wallpaper

Blogged for the grumpybears benefit…

Cerwin Vega, the leader of all things loud and 30Mhz, announced the launch of their new 21-inch (and an 18 incher too) Active subwoofer. Whats so special besides the 1200 watt amp packaged into the selfpowered earthmover is that the box itself will be no bigger than what would hold a 18 inch sub from some other company.

You’ll have to shell out a hefty 2 grand for 21 inches of pure face shattering power, or a meager $1499 for the 18 incher.

Click on for the full press release

Via fosfor Gadgets

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Raleigh’s “LED City” not only cheaper, but brighter and safer?

I’m a Buffalo boy now, but sometimes I just have to pat my old state (NC) on the back when they do something good…

When Raleigh officials announced in February that they were rolling out an LED lit city in hopes of using less energy, little did they know that the lights would also make people feel safer.

In a recent survey from Cree, the local RTP based company who created the LED’s for the city, results showed that an overall feeling of safety from commuters was increased by %76 when the new lights were installed in a parking garage.

the people of Raleigh also felt for the most part that the lights were brighter and made the parking deck look cleaner. I’m gonna call up the old ex in Raleigh and ask him what he thinks.

Via Engadget

iTunes rolls out Complete My Album

99cents a song isn’t bad, but that 9.99 an album can often be a deal. But, what happens if you already own a few of the songs from that album, and now you want the whole thing?  Before, it was that little inner struggle… get the whole album, save money and possibly hate the rest of the songs, or just get the music you want and risk spending more dough if later on you want it all. Ok, maybe just me, but it gets annoying. Obviously, I’m talking about iTunes and the iTMS…

Today, Apple announced a solution to the song rebuy dilemma with “Complete My Album.”  If you own a song from the album list, iTS will credit you $0.99 towards the purchase of the album….  Here’s my example…

 I own “Dancing Box (Featuring TTC)” from Modeselektor’s “Hello Mom (iTunes Version)” release.  Regular price on the album is $9.99 (for 14 tracks.. which is the deal in buying the albums). However, since I own a track already, iTS tells me I can buy it for $9.00.

Notice the experation date, Apple only gives you 180 days to change your mind and get the discount… If you need more than that to get into the rest of the Hello Goodbye album, you prolly won’t like it.  Of course, Apple also gives you the undeniable right to buy the whole album at full price at any time, as well as letting you know which songs you already own.

From the press release..

“Music fans can now round out their music collections by upgrading their singles into complete albums with just one click, and get full credit for those songs they have previously purchased from iTunes,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “Complete My Album is a wonderful new way that iTunes helps customers grow and enjoy their music collections.”

“iTunes continues to revolutionize the digital music industry by offering music fans innovative ways to explore and enjoy new music,” said Thomas Hesse, president, Global Digital Business and US Sales, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. “With Complete My Album, iTunes is giving music fans the best of both worlds—the ability to discover great new music by buying just the single and a credit toward the purchase of the complete album.”

Fine, Fine, I’ll Twitter Too

So, the latest bandwagon is Twitter: the new form of “ZOMG! WHT RU DOIN? ORLY? K THX!” for the web, your phone, or your OSX Dashboard.

Twitter is based around tweets, which are short (14o characters max) bits of information relevant to whatever you are doing at the time. You can text or IM your tweets, as well as updating from the Twitter site itself. With the API tools released, Twitter now makes it possible to send a tweet from anything.

Enter in your mobile number and Twitter instantly becomes a tag-your-it game of “this is what I’m doing, what are you doing” with sms notification from everone that you are following tweets from.

I’ve dropped a plugin to display my latest tweet on the sidebar under that cute picture of me.

Sign up and start following my tweets!

The Optimus Maximus: for $1500 makes you total 133t, and poor

The folks at Art.Lebedev gaves us some new pictures along with an updated pricetag to the vaporphillic and newly named Optimus Maximus Keyboard. $1490 will get you 114 fully customizable 32×32 pixel OLED keys that can be customized with anything you want.

Keys are replacable for ten bucks if you break one, but to help prevent that, the key is a clear cap that slides over the OLED to help minize wear and tear.

The Optimus will be able to store your keyboard layouts internally. The included software easily lets you change functions for every key and change images as well.

Ten extra function keys have been added to allow you to access some of your most favorite prgrams, information, or whatever, without having to sacrifice any of your standard key layouts.

Art.Lebedev will start to take pre-orders at the end of the month. Can’t afford the $1490? The Optimus will also be released with less customizable keys for less money… but why not go for the gold? You’d never forgive yourself would you? You have time to think, ships in dec.

Office Shopping!

Nothing better than raiding your old boss’s office for loot and goodies… We miss you Susan, but the ruler and Sharpies make it all better.

The loot:

1. Box(8 left) of PaperMate Flair felt tip pens - a must for our documentation duties.
2. Six Sharpie Markers - Brown, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, Red (no Black) - Almost had to fight Kirk for these.
3. Small Pocket Flathead Screwdriver - shit breaks sometimes, and sometimes I like to break shit.
4. Westcott Wooden Ruler with metal inlay - a rare find is an ruler with twelve inches here, kinda like trying to find a guy over 6 inches in Buffalo
5. Acme Value Stainless Scissors - It says “Acme,” so they must be good.
6. HP Glossy Laser Photo Paper - I don’t have a color laser printer, but I know where one is…
7. Card Organizer with index cards, divider, and case - No need for this, but it makes my desk look important… Makes me look important and busy… busy means people leave me alone.
8. Two Packs of Avery Big Tab Dividers - Once again, no need.. but adds to the important-busy-left-alone thing
9. Piece of 8×10 Acrylic - It was shiny, I wanted it, do I have to explain myself?

w00t…

Use Paypal Security Fob and Protect Your Account

Since I don’t have a hot chick (or some beefy stud ) to show of my gadgets, the snowbot has been taking on the task with quite skill. Today’s item is the Paypal Security Key, and extra measure of protection for those who use Paypal and Ebay to purchase online.

Here’s how it works…

• Goto https://www.paypal.com/securitykey and order one. Costs five bucks one time, but free if you have a merchant account.
• Wait 7-10 days.
• When it arrives, open the mailer package… root through all the nice but tree-wasting (but really who cares about a few Canadian trees anyways?) documentation for a little white box.

  

• Wrangle out the keyfob and go to https://www.paypal.com/securitykey again.
• Click on “Activate Now”

  

• Follow the rules and click activate!

If you want the security added to your Ebay account, its the same process, just go here instead. From now on, unless you deactivate the service, your login process will come with an extra screen.

Press the button on the fob and enter the six numbers (it regenerates every 30 seconds) you see. There, now even if someone has your account name and password, they can not login unless they have the fob. This doesn’t mean you can be less careful; never give out your information to anyone, not even to a Paypal email (it isn’t from them, they don’t ask for it in an email, ever).

One extra tip: you can skip the extra screen alltogether by simple appending your current password with the six digits that the security key enters.

PayPal Security Key