Well, as you all know, I recently purchased a brand new Macbook Pro, The new fall 2008 model. Well, as I was installing Leapord, I registered the new Macbook Pro with Apple. To my supprise once I got it up and running I opended up Mail to find a “Thanks for registering your iPod touch” email.

Strange, I guess Apple is not all that prepared for these new Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Anyone else encounter this?

I just purchased a brand new Fall 2008 Macbook Pro. This is the newly redesigned model released yesterday at October 14th, 2008. I have attached high res images of the unboxing and the computer itself.

The Unboxing

Well, it was a big day for Apple fan’s such as myself. Apple made 3 major announcements today at the Apple Cupertino campus event. The event was titled “And now the spotlight turns to Laptops” so it is no surprise that there were minor and significant refreshes across the line for Apples many laptops.

I have received a couple of emails from my readers asking my thoughts on what to expect this Tuesday at the confirmed Apple Macbook event. Many rumors have been talked about in the months leading up to now, so I want to lay everything out as to what is fact, and what is rumored. I will also chime in with my 2 cents on everything.

The Facts

• There is an Apple event on Tuesday, October 14 and there are going multiple sites live blogging from the event. (MacRumors, AppleInsider, Gizmodo, and Engadget)
• With the Macbook 36 days over its average product life cycle, the Macbook Pro 34 days over its average product life cycle, and the invitation issued hinting at an aluminum Macbook, you can expect to see complete and major redesigns to the current models.
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I have received a couple emails from my readers asking me what plugin I use to generate my archives page. Well, truth be told, my archives page is not a plugin. I hard coded that page using Wordpress’ built in template tags. Since there is a lot of interest in this page, I decided to post a walk through of how you can recreate my archives page on your own blog.

All of the code below is show via images for posting reasons. Click the images to view the high res versions of the code. If you would like to cut and paste code, find the link the the text file containing the full code in step 10. I would advise against cutting and pasting because this code is specific to my custom templete and will not display correctly on your blog. It is better to understand everything below so you can customize it to your site.

1. The first step to creating your archives page is to understand how the Wordpress template system works. I would recommend your read up on the Wordpress documentation before you proceed. http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes
2. What you want to do now, is locate your template directory which is normally at: http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme
3. We now need to create a new file called archives.php and upload it to this directory. This file should be blank, but have the name and extension of archives.php.
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I had heard rumors that this might occur, but it as been a while since I hard heard anything so I thought they decided to scrap that idea. Well, to my surprise, this morning I had an email waiting from Netflix saying:

Dear Chris,

As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies. As a result, we’re going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.

The additional charge for unlimited Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for $1 a month more, you don’t need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.

If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.

-The Netflix Team

As far as I am concerned, $1.00 is nothing, and I am going to pay it monthly so I can still get my beautiful Blu Ray films on a monthly basis. HD quality movies are just to good, so $1.00 is nothing!

What are your thoughts?

Empire Magazine has just published their 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, the result of “the biggest movie poll of all time. The list was collected by 10,000 Empire Magazine Readers, 150 of Hollywood’s Finest (including Quentin Tarantino, Sam Mendes, Mike Leigh, Guillermo Del Toro, Pedro Almodovar and Cameron Crowe), 50 Key Film Critics. I have included the top 50 below, click the link at the bottom to see the whole list.

1. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
3. Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner,1980)
4. Shawsank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
5. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
6. GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
7. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
8. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952)
9. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
10. Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
11. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
12. The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
13. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
14. Once Upon A Time In The West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
15. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2007)
16. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
17. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
18. Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
19. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
20. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
21. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
22. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977)
23. Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
24. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)
25. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1967)

Just a quick video updating you all on everything that has been going on the past few weeks. There is lots about Webmaster Jam Session 2008.

After a long search, I have found the perfect external hard drive for a laptop only owner. With that being said, I would like to introduce you to the Newer Technology Mini Stack v3 External hard drive. This little external hard drive offers plenty of additional features beyond just being an external hard drive.

Specifications

Hard Drive: 750GB Bootable, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache
Dimensions: 6.5″ x 6.5″ x 1.5″
Bridge Chipset: Oxford OXUF924DSb
Interface Ports: 1 x eSATA, 2 x Firewire 800, 1 x Firewire 400, 3 x USB 2.0/1.0

Thoughts

The Mini Stack v3 is an external hard drive with a built in powered USB/Firewire hub. It offers 3 USB 2.0/1.0, 1 Firewire 400, 2 Firewire 800, and 1 eSATA ports. I searched on google for over a week looking for a external hard drive solution that has a built in powered hub. When I stumbled upon this bad boy, I was so happy to see that not only did it have a USB hub built in, but it also had firewire and eSATA ports built in.

I just ordered a new external hard drive from an online store. My order shipped out with a UPS tracking number. When I received the email with the tracking number I went straight to UPS.com to see what the expected delivery date was. The item shipped on Thursday and was expected to arrive Monday. This was what I was expecting as a decent shipping time. Well, Friday afternoon I decided to check it again, and to my surprise, it was already at my UPS sorting center (DORAVILLE, GA) here in Atlanta, GA. I was thinking great, if it is there Friday, I will be out for delivery on Saturday, a few days earlier then expected.

Well, Saturday came, and no package so I decided to check the tracking again. What is this, it was sent to another sorting facility (ATLANTA, GA). This surprised me because most of my packages are delivered out of the Doraville sorting center which is closer to my house then the Atlanta one. I thought this was strange, but I was not to worried, I figured it would be delivered out of the Atlanta facility, no big deal.

I know UPS doesn’t deliver on Sundays, so I was like “oh well, it will be here Monday as schedules.” Well, I checked the tracking on Sunday when I was bored, and “WHAT THE F**K???” the package was shipped back to the sorting facility it had already been to (DORAVILLE, GA).

Was UPS delaying my shipment because I didn’t pay extra for the 2 day shipping? It took exactly 24 hours for my package to go from Illinois to Doraville, GA, but it took 4 days for my package to make it from Doraville, GA to my house in Atlanta, GA which is only 10 miles away? That is really strange!

I am guessing UPS is just to quick for themselves, so they intentionally delay packages that arrive early, to convinse people to purchase the quicker shipping next time they use UPS.

Has anyone ever had this happen?