Chad Hutchins

While the majority of people at work are having fun at Milsoft’s annual national users conference in Orlando, Florida, others of us are working hard to keep things afloat. In the process of trying to get a lot of work done while it is relatively quiet in the office, I got distracted with my new work-issued laptop. They got me a brand new MacBook Pro, and I love it. I have never used a mac (minus the Apple Store photo-op) for more than a few minutes at a time, but I have to say, Leopard is awesome. Besides a few Google searches and few questions to macbook pro pros regarding what free software to download, I have adjusted quite smoothly. The new computer is now my primary machine. I gave away the old pc to a co-worker who only had a laptop. In the process of switching machines, I had to move all of my files over. According to Microsoft Vista, I have quite a long time before I will be able to use my new MacBook Pro! Fortunately, it only took a few seconds. Glad to finally be on an Apple computer.

A few hours before writing this post, My lovely face was featured on this article over at www.ValleyWag.com. First off, I thought this was one of the funniest things I have seen of myself. It is an extremely goofy picture, and I am not quite an Apple fanboy. The iPhone is the first Apple product I have purchased. After receiving a Facebook message from Paul, the author, asking permission to use my photo, I did a little searching to see who this guy was. I found his website and noticed he was pretty legit. “Why not,” I thought. After I gave permission and he posted the article, I checked it out and thought it was great. I messaged him back a little later telling him of my laughter, and he made a comment about how “Some people are SO touchy” at times.

You know, I could have easily gotten real upset about it and threw a fit, but who gives? It was laughs all around. More visitors to my content-overloaded personal website (/sarcasm). What’s wrong with that?

Wow! Apple has definitely created another truly innovative product. Today, after waiting my relatively not-so-bad three hours at the local AT&T, I was able to pick up an 8GB iPhone. After using it for a few hours, it has lived up to all of its web hype, Apple’s marketing (genius, I might add), and my personal expectations. I am actually writing this post from the iPhone. Although, the pictures could not be uploaded directly to the website from the phone. As I was waiting outside the store tonight, I couldn’t help but to think how old even the latest and greatest Blackberry or other smart phone is beginning to look. The iPhone is stunning and sleek. It will take some practice to get completely comfortable with the new on-screen, button-less keyboard. But as you can see, I have managed this post. Not wanting to type more than I have too at the moment, the Google Maps app, YouTube app, and Safari (even though it is not the greatest browser) work extremely well as expected. I am eagerly awaiting the day Apple announces and releases their third-party API system, whatever it may be. Saying web apps will be the third-party way of creating apps for the iPhone is a cop-out. For the iPhone to reach its full potential, Apple must give non-Apple developers access to the phone’s core functions. To defend Apple, I believe AT&T is holding Apple from doing this. With the wi-fi capabilities of the phone and a release of some sort of API, who is to stop some clever programmer from creating a VoIP application, such as Skype, rendering the calling plan of AT&T’s service useless? To save you from more rambling, I will stop now.