A Mini Revival

The MAc mini has seen its fair share of haters out there but Cnet, through a horrible article seems to think that it is going to make a return. Although the little scrumptious thing is a throwback to the Mac cube, it seems like it would be a fairly powerfull beast in the right hands. Sure it is not going to run your "run of the mill" high end games, cad software, etc but if you want a machine that does repetative tasks (ie torrenting) then these things would probably bring the house down. Actually I have been searching for a little box just like this to do all my home needs and a revision would sure be intriguing. However, in terms of dollars it would be much cheaper to throw some simple components in an ubuntu powered Shuttle and call it a day. Anyway, long live the mac mini and a great entry level computer for the pocket starving mac user.

While You Were Out

All us techies have been bombarded with the idea that our jobs are in danger just because quite a few companies are doing percentage layoffs. To be worried that you will be fired is a pretty common human mechanism but, and I have a bit of experience with this, it is a very good thing. It allows you to pursue different avenues, meet new people and even learn things that you never thought you would do. Cnet put together a fairly good article that concerns these very thoughts. So instead of me regurgitating you go read.

A Truly Great Game

Most of us disliked the blocky, heavy, and homely design of the original xbox. Moreover, most of us simply thought it was designed to play the ridiculous and overly hyped Halo. However, in doing so you would have missed a great game known only as Fable. Eventually, it did come to the PC which is where I played it over the course of a winter break from college. I absolutely fell in love with the game, the decisions and all of the repercusions that came with them. On the 21st of this month Fable 2 was released for the much sexier, much sleeker, much more powerful xbox 360.

Fable 2, just like the game it preceeds is an absolute gem! These RPGs are from from the Japanese RPGs or the famous World of Warcraft. Fable 2 will do something that none of these games will do; it will put a huge smile on your face and keep it there throughout the emntirety of the game. There is no tedious grinding, instance running, etc which makes it a great game in it's own regard. Fable 2 extends the idea of consequences through actions and anything you do, any decision you make has a repercussion somewhere during the game. I could go on and on about the beautiful world it is, the intricate details, your dog, the fighting system, etc but what needs to happen is you need to go and play it. Sure it is not WOW but it never tries to be either. A game that you can play and smile about is rare, real rare and threrfore worth the time to go find a copy.

US Unhappiness

In most cases when someone refers to the word "us" they are talking about the group of people they are around. In this case we are talking about "US" meaning the United States. Seth Godin, who in my mind is a mastermind when it comes to marketing and the economy at hand blogged here about how Americans never seem to be fulfilled in their lives. This want drives us to desire more and more or simply just negates our systems from ever being satisfied. To tie this all together, Cnet wrote an article here describing how Google, Facebook and Yahoo are having a difficult time selling their website changes.

The most amazing comment from the Cnet post was from someone complaining about the vertical tab bar in the new iGoogle home page:

"Google has decided to unilaterally change the layout of my page. If I can't find a hack or a Greasemonkey script to undo this, good-bye Google, hello Yahoo!"

It is wonderful to see people and their passion accumulate onto the internet but do you (mainly the new facebook hater) really think that everyone else who uses facebook, or in the above case iGoogle, feel the same way as you? Another post found on 10.21, also at Cnet mentioned some designer who had refused to upgrade his software and was still designing on software that was more then 10 years old. All of these posts prove that we panic when there is any kind of change in our lives and when there is little change we tend to want more and more. I say find great easter eggs in web site change, accept that software will change so change with it, have fun, be happy, and be flexible.

A Teetering Divingboard

We all know that we are heading strait into the red with an imminent recession. However, most of you only know this because of what you hear on Fox News day in and day out. This is not a shot at your intellect but simply a huge shot at how much this word is thrown around the newsroom and into everyone's willing ears. So with the, so called troubling times ahead people are worried about the longevity of certain .com business.

Cnet has recently posted an interesting article on several web 2.0'ers that are bound to close their doors when the real recession floats their way. On the very top of the list is everyone's favored Twitter which has actually been in the news lately for it's unknown business model along with its CEO founder swap. I will come to the forefront and say that I simply adore Twitter and everything the little micro blog who could has done for connecting people in the internet's community. Without Twitter on this list I would have simply looked over it as another pot shot on what will disapear in the iCommunity. So how do you all think we can help Twitter and the other folks in the web 2.0 world that we love?

Well I am going to put it out there that we off load some of the server space onto our own homes. There has been plenty of talk about taking the business away from the office and saving the world through telecomuting with your peers. So why not help these companies out by telecomuting their server space? What would happen if a bunch of us got together, asked for static IP's, opened up some ports, and put some big hard drives in a Ubuntu LAMP box? Let Twitter or whatever have remote access to it and simply let them offload some of their problems onto the people who love them. Open it up to a true community (of course it would take a lot more work then what is described but is very doable). The economy might beheading south for a bit but that does not mean we need to sit idly by and watch our most beloved web 2.0 die in our face.

Office for the Economy

Microsoft office is a key dominator in the world of office suites. Everyone knows what anyone is getting on about when they refer to the term “word” and everyone has created some kind of material on it in the past years. One thing that we also know is that it is incredibly expensive, bloated, and if most haters have their ways, the new iteration and the ribbon is rubbish. Well if you hate it so much why not move to an open source, free alternative.

In walks OpenOffice. A suite that has always been free and has been hanging around for many years. As of late (Monday actually) there has never been a Mac native OpenOffice. It has always been ported over to the Mac under the name NeoOffice. Well, time to rejoice my Mac loving comrades, OpenOffice 3.0 will work spectacularly under the Mac Intel architecture. Actually, this entire post was written in OpenOffice just to see how stable it was under a simple test. It opens faster then Word 2007, it has all of the basic word, excel, powerpoint, access functions, it does not cost a single dime and is completely customizable. The world of paying for expensive suites, especially when it comes to Mac specific clients, is over. Recommend it to your friends or simply download it here.

Net-er-riffic

One thing that we are not too keen on here at Tkubed is lack of horsepower. If your technology or even your car (extends to bicycles) does not include a lot of rampaging horse powers then it is far from getting this blogs paltry seal of approval. I have actually decided to call give the seal, perhaps in hopes of raising its own sexiness and usability, some kind of acronym. Any good ideas out there? Shoot me a response and maybe you could WIN...maybe not but anything could happen.

Anyway, getting back on track, horsepower is not an absolute, it can be easily substitutued with a hefty amount of sexiness or sex. Worth mentioning: depending on the amount of sexiness a lot or a little is needed to substitute horspower (case by case basis). All of this babbling brings us to the point of Netbooks. They seem to be a very cool concept, expecially with a flavor of the linux month club. However, they seem to be a real let down when one surpasses the need for simple email, word, and internet surfing. Personally, they seem to just be a simple macbook air which after their last update blows most netbooks out of the water with it's bigger screen, thinness and horsepower all packaged quite nicely (please refrain from flaming about this concept, I know the Air is not a true nebook). Enter the Asus Eee C s101. It is a simplistic, sexy (who does not love the color brown?), and powerful little pc. With its 32gig ssd (16 for windows) and expansion slot for more memory you have a powerful little pc with a heaping amount of sexiness. Props to Crave.uk for a great preview.