Very simple actually! The meaning is exactly as the title of the post.
When you ask? Well maybe tomorrow, maybe in a week or even a month but maximum a month!
What’s the guarantee… None at all!
Well there might be one sure shot guarantee, You can hardly expect Apple to open as many as 5 retail stores in China (2 during olympics) and not open the online store… Never heard of before!
Apple has officially announced the launch date and time of its new MobileMe (not Mobile Me) SAAS. Apple Inc., let this slip through due to the announcement it made for .Mac subscribers to forewarn them of the .Mac inaccessibility on the 9th July at 6pm PT.
The folowing image details this:
MobileMe roll over
MobileMe is Apple, Incorporated’s latest SAAS (Software as as Service) which wil be replacing their current offering in the same genre known as .Mac. The new service, touted as ‘Exchange for the rest of us’ brings in many new features (or maybe not so many) the biggest of them being the ravishing new gorgeous and beautiful interface (built using the SproutCore Engine).
The sync feature of .Mac receives an upgrade in MobileMe by making the sync automatic (thus Push) rather than manual or timely syncs (yes a problem for people with slow or erratic internet) and immediate (as immediate as switching your computer or iPhone/iPod Touch on)
If you liked reading my post, please subscribe to my feed by pressing the RSS button in you browser address bar or by clicking here. Please comment on the posts. Your comments are really valuable and encouraging.
Please note, I have strong information that as of July 6th, Apple has already rolled out the service unofficially as a part of its beta testing to certain customers in the Japan, New Zealand, India and Spain and to select Media and Technology ‘Reviewers’ in the US! My post has been edited to acommodate the changes. [The beta testing is not being carried out through the "me.com" domain name]
Why, I say they are acting very calmly. Had it been AT&T, you would have found me outside their HO with a board in my hand. The rates are completely unjustifiable. Its as if Rogers Communication ,Inc. is holding the nation by its neck and seemingly they don’t have a choice!
And with Apple’s new ‘unlock’ prevention techniques, it seems that the helpless canadians will also be unable to look to something ‘other than legal’. (Not to mention, even if they manage to get something like that Rogers is the sole EDGE/HSDPA carrier in the country)
If you think that, “Ok well, what could be so bad?”, below is a table (courtesy: Andy Peatling) comparing the rate plans for the iPhone 3G from 3 different carriers in 3 different countries (Rogers and Canada being one of them, respectively):
From the above table, we can watch how the carrier, well known for its sky high rate plans, extorts and threats the nationals. A 3 year long contract, 400MB data plan, 75 SMS and just 150 voice minutes sum up to a $3,225 iPhone 3G. What’s more is that you have to pay $15 for caller display! And no, Im not joking.
If you want to do something for the helpless canadians raise your voice and click on the link below to help achieve the 25,000 petition goal.
Think no one’s listening? CNN Money and Reuters Canada are already there. And you can get many more by just putting in a little effort and time. Click the link above and comment on as many related posts as possible.
The Maxtor OneTouch IV Mini series of 2.5″ external hard-disk drives are, as the name suggests, manufactured by Maxtor, a subsidiary of Seagate Technology. Today, we’ll look at the Maxtor OneTouch IV Mini 250GB HDD, the tiniest (tiniest indeed) member of the current Maxtor product line up.
First lets have a look at the build quality and design. The external drive is designed and cased well using metal and rubber. Being a portable drive, and a good one at that, Maxtor has done well to make sure the drive can survive some drops and dents. Its really small and thin, fits beautifully in your shirt pocket and is lite enough to remain there for a long time. The body frame is covered with rubber and so is the bottom. The upperside is built of aluminum and if you press it, you can actually feel the cushion system implemented in the drive by Maxtor because the aluminum roof visibly gets pressed inside!
It definitely looks good and elegant and unlike the glossy MyBooks it doesn’t attract too many fingerprints, oil smudges and dust. It also does a great job of complementing my MacBook Pro and actually can easily blend in with just any cabinet and laptop because of its dual shade and perfectly done serenity.
On the length side of the frame is a Y type USB connector and on the breadth side is a bluish white activity light which also doubles up as the ‘OneTouch’ button.
Design and Build Quality:
Now coming up to its features and bundle. Not much to speak here since it doesn’t have many at all. One strange thing here is the connector cable provided by Maxtor. First of all, it has two USB heads (the normal ones with which you connect the HDD to your computer). One of them reads ‘POWER + DATA’ while the other one reads ‘POWER’. This can be a real problem because most laptops only have 2 – 3 USB ports to offer and all of them captured by the HDD can be irksome. Though the drive works fine with just the Power + Data cable connected, Maxtor recommends to connect both heads and they also recommend against using a flimsy one headed cable, like the one that comes with your digital camera. The second thing thats strange about the cable is its length. The 3 headed (2 USB & 1 Y type) cable which is already so short is linked with the Power + Data USB in between rather the Y type. This causes a strange loop formation if the USB connecters in your computer are close (which is usually the case). But even after the strange cable, it is really nice and helpful to get rid of the AC adapter!
The software which ships with the HDD is, in one word, pathetic. | {The HDD comes formatted in NTFS so Mac users might prefer to copy the data before initializing the disk} | The Maxtor self designed and manufactured software is amazingly inefficient and irksome. On the Mac, it simply fails to recognize the drive forget about everything else. On the PC things improve but only ever so slightly! It manages to recognize and register the drive with Maxtor’s website but beyond that its useless and a resource hog while performing stupefyingly slow and erratic backups. The only 2 nifty features of the software are the OneTouch button configuration and data encryption!
I would strongly recommend getting something like EMC Retrospect for performing backups on the PC and Mac (though there are some ways like the Automator to configure the button to perform a Time Machine backup instead!)
Features and Bundles:
And finally we come to performance. It is a really speedy drive, though not a monster, but far above average! With some excellent write speeds, it easily beats a majority of its competitors in the market.
The performance charts :
All figures are time (in seconds) Shorter bars are faster
Withe the fastest read speeds and equally blazing write speeds, its no brainer that the drive is a show stealer!
Performance:
Overall, the Maxtor OneTouch IV Mini HDD is a great external drive, highly portable and an excellent performer but unlike its cousin the Seagate FreeAgent Go, which bundles the stunning Creedo software, it fails to impress with its bundles! Whats more, at a price point of $99 (from BestBuy) for the 250 GB version its a great drive meant to both, stay on the table and in you pocket.
Price: ~$110
Overall:
Value for Money:
Good: Excellent performance, great looks and sturdy.
Bad: Horrible software package, strange irksome and short connector cable.
The iPhone 3G, a product of Apple, Inc., will be launched in India on this 22nd of July, I have heard from certain sources from Vodafone International!
Of note, both the Indian iPhone carriers are now starting to advertise and pre register for the iPhone 3G. Gearing up for the launch it seems!
Here are the pics:
* It has been verified that the pre registration forms have been put up about 4 hours ago on both Airtel and Vodafone sites!
** I accept no responsibility of the claims made here and myself cannot fully confirm the truthfulness of my sources!
