A week ago, Steve Jobs revealed the new iPhone 2.0. I put this post together to point out what my thoughts on the new device are:
No more recessed headphones jack. That means I can use any of my old headphones. Actually, I don’t have any good old ones and I keep buying and losing my regular white Apple headphones. Not a big deal for me.
GPS. Good. Do I desperately need it? Probably not. It would be a good thing to have but it’s not a tie breaker for me.
Price dropped to $199.00 for the 8GB version, $299.00 for the 16GB. And to think that I paid $499.00 for a 4GB one almost a year ago (yes, I am one of those rare people who have a 4GB iPhone). Apparently this time you will have to activate the phone in-store. AT&T seems to be subsidizing the phone now so they won’t let you pay 200 bucks so you can go jail break it and activate it on the Tmobile network. Which brings me to my next thought.
Jailbreaking is going to be a lot harder, but since we will have an App Store and Tmobile’s 3G network is not as good as AT&T, why bother! (Verizon and Sprint have faster and better 3G networks than AT&T).
App Store? Cool. Looking forward to it.
I agree with almost all of Brian’s post on iPhone 2.0.
Black? Yeeeah. White? No way. I can see how a girl would want a white one, but I don’t think it looks good at all. The fact that it has a plastic back worries me a little, since I have dropped my 1.0 version in numerous times and apart from being scratched, it works just fine. Some people say that the plastic back will help with that ugly interference noise you get when you are listening to music and a call is coming in.
Mobileme. If it does what it promises, it will be a great tool. I was never a big fan of .Mac but last December I became a member. The fact that I will be able to sync wirelessly with all my computers is a great thing. It’s still not clear if I will be able to do that with a regular POP email account or just a .mac or .me account.
Will I upgrade? Maybe, maybe not, I haven’t decided yet. The fact that it’s only $200 might help me make the decission easier. Brian said he probably won’t but who is he kidding? I can totally see him, Stacie and I in line at the apple store on July 11th recording a podcast.
Brian, Stacie and I have this crazy podcast going on called Webchurch Podcast. Why crazy? Because it’s supposed to be about technology, church and internet campus. I think it’s just an excuse to get together and talk a lot about a whole bunch of things. I have fun doing it, give it a try and you’ll see how you will have fun listening to it. This week we posted 2 episodes because we want to catch up; we had been posting episodes a week after we taped them. We are now publishing the episode the week of (hopefully I’ll be able to publish it the day of). On Wednesday we published episode 7 where we talked about twitter and did our predictions on Steve Job’s keynote, and on Friday we published episode 8 with special guest Mindy Vasil. Mindy is an amazing blogger, I learned so much about how to be an effective blogger by spending an hour with her. We also shared our thoughts on iPhone 2.0 and a lot more. Subscribe via iTunes here or listen to it online here.
If you have something to say and would like to join us in the recording of an episode, let me know (although I’m not in charge of booking guests, let’s hope I can get you in). Until then…Stay Connected!
Lately, Twitter has been going down a lot. But sometimes it bugs me that I don’t know if it’s my internet connection (firewall) that’s not being able to access it or if twitter is really down. Well I found this site where you can actually find out if twitter is down: www.istwitterdown.com. Do you ever wonder if another of your favorite sites is down? Don’t worry. Go to www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Here you will be able to type in any url and it will tell you if it is down or it’s just your computer.
Alexandra Alter, reporter for The Wall Street Journal, wrote a story on our church. It is coming out on today’s paper. You can read it online here. It is a good article; I love the fact that she is thorough and I have to admit, she said things even I didn’t know about our Lima campus. Describing our logo, she writes: ‘a white cube bisected by a black curving road’. Still not sure if it’s a compliment or not. In the end, I am very proud of my church, its people and the vision God has given us trough Pastor Troy and our leadership team. Go God!
Oh, and yeah, I am in a tiny little picture in there, playing the bass, not a big deal; I’m still buying the paper in the morning though. It’s not like I’m in the Wall Street Journal all the time.
For the past couple of months, we have been enjoying one of the best set of lights at Flamingo Road Church during worship and teaching thanks for the most part to Yoel Torres, our new lights director. He has been doing such an amazing job, but this past weekend was off the chain. He did the best strobing lights for the intro of ‘The Time Has Come’ I have ever seen.
And that’s not just my opinion. A writer from the Wall Street Journal has been doing a story on multi-site campuses and he decided to visit Flamingo. Not just our south Florida campuses, he flew down to Lima and spent 5 days with Steve Guschov, our campus pastor down there, getting to know what Flamingo is doing in that area. He also visited our Cooper City Campus and while interviewing Pastor Troy, he said that by far our church has the best set of lights he has ever seen in a church. Is that awesome or what? The article is not yet published, I will keep you posted.
So, Yoelito se la comió! Congratulations to Yoel and Peter. You guys rock.
So Robert posted how he discovered that in the Season 4 Finale of Lost, they used a Korg metronome as a prop for what’s supposed to be a heart rate monitor. What would a fake Heredes look like with a heart rate monitor? Something like this:
P.S.: Thanks to Yoel for modeling. This prop is not a Korg metronome, it’s a Fender tuner. If you look closely behind Yoel, you will see a painting of Ben hughing Locke and Jack. Just kidding!
This happened a couple of years ago, but it’s still impressing. U2 went around New York City, the city of blinding lights promoting a secret concert under the Brooklyn Bridge. Wow, I have no words! Enjoy.
Spoiler Alert: If you are not caught up with Lost to this point, please don’t read this post.
Last night, I witnessed another great Season Finale from Lost. It is definitely my favorite show on TV. It’s like I get to watch a movie every week (13-16 of 52 weeks of the year anyway) and last night was a confirmation of that. Here’s some of the information I gathered around the web and also some personal thoughts on last night’s episode:
General
During the airing of Part 3, a commercial for Octagon Global Recruiting aired. This organization is looking for applicants for the DHARMA Initiative. Their recruitment drive begins in San Diego on July 24th – 27th, 2008. This is the same date as ComicCon ‘08.
Each year the producers have a special name for a secret scene in that year’s finale. This year’s special name turned about to be literal – “Frozen Donkey Wheel”, referring to the frozen wheel Ben has to turn to activate the teleportation of the island.
During her flash-forward dream sequence, Kate receives a garbled phone call. When played backwards, the message states: “The Island needs you. You have to go back before it’s too late.”
The logo of the Hoffs/Drawler Funeral Home includes a Black orb, reminscent of the white Pearl station logo.
As the Oceanic Six arrive on Sumba, the scenery of Sumba’s shore seems identical to Elliot’s second flashback from Lost: Via Domus, even the camera angle and position is the same as the game’s.
Production Notes
This is the second time an episode of Lost features footage filmed outside of the United States. The London scene between Sun and Charles Widmore was filmed in London due to Alan Dale performing on stage in the West End production of Spamalot during filming of the second block of Season 4. The first time was during The Shape of Things to Come.
Two alternate endings were also shot with Sawyer and Desmond in the coffin. These were aired on Good Morning America on May 30, 2008.
Facts
The Oceanic Six lie about what happened during and after the plane crash.
Desmond and Penny are reunited. Awesome moment.
Michael dies and Jin’s fate becomes unknown in the freighter explosion. I think he is alive. He’s too good a character to die.
Charlotte has been on the island before. I think she is gonna be a key character next season because no babies are born in the island.
Kate dreams of Claire after she is off the island. The spookiest Claire scene ever.
Ben claims that the person who moves the island can never come back.
Sun tells Michael that she is pregnant. Can the writers please stop insinuating that Sun and Michael had an affair please? Seriously!
Hurley lies to Walt about Michael’s death.
Michael hears the whispers before Christian appears. Spooky but good!
Keamy and the mercenaries hear the whispers before the others attack them.
Sawyer whispers something to Kate on the helicopter before he jumps out. Sawyer is asking her to perform the favor that causes Jack to become angry in the future.
Great Quotes
“So?” – Ben after Locke castigated him for dooming the freighter
“Checkmate Mr. Eko” – Hurley ”If you do it [lie to the world] half as well as you lie to yourself, they’ll believe you.” - Locke to Jack “See you in another life, brother” Jack to Desmond ”Goodbye, John, sorry I made your life so miserable.” Ben
Want more? Here’s a couple of places you can read/listen to some more:
Hey guys, check this out. Pastor Brian, Stacie and I have been working hard putting together this audio podcast. We are passionate about church and also about technology. We get to talk about both and a lot of other things. Check it out. You’ll find 4 episodes posted already, so you need to catch up. Subscribe via iTunes.
A friend of mine told me about Inside Steve’s Brain. I want to read it but I found another similar book online and I don’t know what to do. Which one would you read?
See Ballmer go crazy on stage here and get egg treatment here.
