Archive for April, 2010
April 26th, 2010 | 
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Volcano plume, my ash…
Holy Hand of Zues: the planet is erupting! And its effuse is DISrupting flights all across Western Europe as a result. The volcano known as Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland has cast an ash plume so large that it’s wreaking havoc thousands of miles away on another continent. Here’s a shot of it from space: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/ash-plume-from-space/
Severe earthquakes constantly lately, volcanoes erupting hither and yon, the planet’s temperature increasing exponentially…. keep an eye out for four guys on horses.
Apple Launches New MacBooks – again!
So Apple’s not content to rest on its iPad laurels: they’ve announced the launch of new and improved MacBooks today. With very similar physical configurations to its previous release (13″, 15″, and 17″ sizes in a solid aluminum case) it’s what’s on the inside that’s newsworthy here. Touting their new New Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, Integrated memory controller, and Next-generation graphics from Nvidia, they look pretty sweet!
All MacBook Pros now start with 4GB of RAM and on bigger models you can choose between the i5 and the i7 processors, namely the Core i5 2.4GHz, Core i5 2.53GHz and Core i7 2.66GHz. The smaller models come with NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics, while the 15.4″ and the 17″ Pros bear NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics with 256 or 512 MB of video RAM.
Screen options for the 15.4″ Pro now come in 3 options: Glossy Widescreen Display (1440×900 pixels), Hi-Res Glossy Widescreen Display (1680×1050 pixels) and Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display (1680×1050 pixels).
Improved battery life is also on the list of coolness: Apple now promises 10 hours on a single charge for the 13” models, and 8-9 hours for the 15.4” and 17” MacBook Pros.
As far as pricing goes, the 13″ model start at $1199, the cheapest 17″ version now starts at $2,299 — $200 cheaper than before — and the least expensive 15” model is now $1799.
Here’s the story from Apple: http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
Google Docs gets a major overhaul
Goole Docs released a major update to its web application this morning. For those of us that rely heavily on the application, this is a boon to productivity and scalability, and opens up all kinds of new doors to collaboration. It took some time for the learnings from Google Wave to trickle down to live applications, but it appears they’ve picked the right fruit from that learning tree and applied it very intelligently – natch – to Docs.
From the Google Docs blog:
“They say a house is only as good as its foundation, and we believe the same holds true for web applications like Google Docs. With our old foundation, we could continue delivering most features you wanted quickly, but over time it became clear that some just weren’t possible. So we decided to rebuild the underlying infrastructure of Docs to give us greater flexibility, improved performance and a better platform for developing new features quickly. Today, we’re pleased to announce preview versions of the new Google document and spreadsheet editors and a new standalone drawings editor, all built with an even greater focus on speed and collaboration.”
For a comprehensive listing of all the newness, point your browser here: http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/04/new-google-docs.html
Pre Posterous Posting
Setting up Posterous couldn’t be any easier… this is my first post via Posterous to the Zabierek Designs site. One email to my Posterous account and this posting is recorded at Posterous and automatically and sent to all of the services I choose: my blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr… the whole ball of wax! It’s like a social networking intern, except it won’t get you coffee.
Hello Earth!
Howdy Folks,
We’re just getting under way here, and we’ve got plenty to blog about. Stay tuned for our integration with Posterous to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in our world. Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers,
Paul