Todd Clarke's Technology Corner v2.0

Over the weekend, I dropped my iPhone twice – one on the asphalt from about 3′ high – I watched it slide across the street. A bit of scuffing, but no real damage.

Then Sunday night, it fell out of my pocket as I was getting ready for bed – fell from less than a foot, BUT, bounced on the corner, spiderwebbbing the glass.

So today, via www.fix-iphones.com my iPhone 4 returned…all angelic in white!

And has a slew of new features including:
– 1/3 thinner – its now thinner than an iPhone 4 (with same 10 hour battery life of iPad 1)
– magnetic clip on cover case that doubles as a stand (thanks engadget)
– front and rear facing camera
– faster dual core processor
– built in gyroscope (helps with maps)
– HDMI output (possibly mirrored which would help for those of us who teach iPad classes)
– prices will be the same as current iPad (check Craigslist if you don’t need these new features, as I’ve been watching used iPad prices drop during the last week)

Additionally, Engadget mentions that Apple has sold 15 million iPads, and 100 million iPhones…in 2010! They’ve also sold over 100 million books via iBook (thanks engadget.com).

Thanks to my two favorite gadget blogs www.gizmodo.com and www.engadget.com for their live coverage today.

UPDATE: Apple has just updated their website and has photos, specifications, and info on how to order.

Engadget has an update with a hands on look – they are very impressed with the speed!

Apple has just added a video of yesterday’s keynote.

Very excited – as of 5 minutes ago, our iPhone app to help client’s calculate their property taxes for commercial properties in Bernalillo County went “live” in the iTunes store! It is only 99 cents, and if you provide us feedback to improve version 2 and leave feedback, I’ll gladly send you a buck!

If you own a commercial property in Bernalillo County and you would like to compare your property’s value against the resolved cases from 2010, click here – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/taxessor/id419811562?mt=8 to try it out.

The App is only $.99 and if you leave us a review and email me feedback at tclarke@nmapartment.com so we can improve version 2, I’ll gladly refund you a buck.

Thanks to Mark and Jamii at SWCP for making this happen.

Support for the app can be found here – http://www.taxessor.com .

Technology and Social Networking Tools for Today’s Real Estate Professional
This 1-day course, taught by Todd Clarke, CCIM, teaches how to implement the latest technology and social networking tools into a real estate professional’s day-to-day business and add value to clients. Participants will review the latest hardware available, including smart phones, iPads and netbooks, and find software and data storage solutions. In addition, develop a business strategy for using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, through hands-on exercises.

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

Course location and pricing
Chicago, IL ~ April 5, 2011 ~ 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Levine Learning Center
430 N. Michigan Ave Suite 800 ~ Chicago, IL 60611

Members $295 Non-members $395
Instructor: Todd Clarke, CCIM

Click here to register

Good morning! I’ve got two laptops for sale today:

SOLD!
Light weight Sony TZ90s – about the size as macbook air – unique custom design – has 32 gigabyte ssd drive for running windows (fast!) and a 2nd internal 500 gigabyte drive for holding all of your data – more info can be found by clicking here– only $479.

SOLD!

SOLD!
I also have a larger, more powerful Samsung R480 laptop also for sale – recently purchased from BestBuy – includes 500 gig harddrive and blu-ray player – more info here only $399.

SOLD!

After over almost a full year of rumors, it looks like it will be announced this coming Tuesday. Thanks to the Gizmodo guys for hanging out at CES to cover this!

Update: Gizmodo has a full breakdown on the differences between a Verizon iPhone and an AT&T iPhone – the key difference (for me) is that the Verizon iPhone can’t do voice and data at the same time (so you can’t talk on your headset and look something on the web).

Update 2: are you a current AT&T user and curious what it will cost you to switch? Check out Wolfram|Alpha widgets tool.

In the never ending attempt to protect you from yourself – Microsoft has added another level of annoyance – not to compete with the infamous “clippy“, but certainly close. If any of my files have been received via email (even from myself) or shot across the internet (from myself), Microsoft Office will let me “view” the file, but not edit it – a major annoyance, if you touch type and you get a paragraph in and the warning box is still waiting for you to verify that this is indeed your file.

Fortunatlty there is a way to shut this feature off – click here to see it step by step.

Thanks Lifehacker and Digital Inspiration!

Yes its true, I’ve migrated into a MacBookPro for my primary laptop.

Why?
Was it the allure of Mac OS X? no.
Was it the sex appeal of a sleek machine? no.

It was simply, the best built machine money could buy. After decades of taking apart my Sony VAIO’s and Toshiba Tecra’s, Portege’s and Librettos, I’ve come to realize that the design of these machines is grossly inferior to the MacBookPro. Within the first few months of owning a laptop, I often end up pulling it apart to upgrade the memory or hard drive. Some of my favorite machines are Sony’s (TX, TZ, P), but I am appalled at how difficult it is to replace simple components like the hard drive. Unlike my Acer netbooks that I can replace a hard drive in minutes (or my Samsung, that has an external access port), I can spend hours on a Sony, carefully taking pictures as I remove each layer, only to find some “switch” or button has been booby trapped to make reassembly very difficult.

When my Sony TZ needed a windows reformat and redo, I realized its hard drive space was just too small, so I upgraded to a Samsung R480 (now for sale)

which offered a 500 gig harddrive, and a blu-ray drive that would allow be to read my backups.

Unfortunately, the Samsung just ended up being to big and clumsy to take to meetings, and although I had removed the Blu-Ray drive and added a 750 gig harddrive for data, I was concerned about jostling the machine, so I ended up restore the blu-ray and resetting the machine to its original settings and then set off on my quest to find a durable long last machine.

I wanted a machine that could easily hold all of my data and media (i.e. iTunes) – check
I wanted a machine that could be my hub for synching the iPhones, iPad iTouches and iPods, in our family.
I wanted a machine with enough USB ports and a SD Card reader to be helpful – check
I wanted a machine that felt solid to travel with – check
I wanted a machine that had a large high resolution screen (1680×1050)
I wanted a machine that was fast enough to be my main machine during the day – which means a lot of multitasking (which ruled out most netbooks) – check
I wanted a machine that was well built and easily upgraded – check
I wanted a machine that would let me create apps for the iPhone and iPad – check

While I liked the idea of a Mac Air, the hard drive and processor speed ended up being a limitation.

I purchased the 15″ model with the Core i7 and 4 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig hard drive. I had the hard rive replaced with the 750 gig model and had the superdrive (thats a DVD to PC users) replaced with another 750 gig for a toal of 1.5 Terabytes.

For the first time in a long time, I can carry ALL of my data around with me.

(this photo shows the now replaced Superdrive with an additional hard drive above the existing hard drive.

What was appealing about the design?

Start with the original concept – instead of a series of plastic parts held together by a bunch of screws (if you’ve taken apart an Acer, Asus, Sony or Toshiba you know what I mean), the MacBookPro starts out as a solid aluminum brick:

and then they carve the keyboard out of the top,

followed by the computer innards out of the middle, leaving a small sheet of aluminum on the bottom to seal the machine in. In short – remove ten screws and you have access to the elegance of design of the laptop and easy upgrades to the harddrive, memory and DVD-drive.

Word of advice on upgrades and using Bootcamp: don’t move the DVD drive until after you’ve installed Bootcamp – I spent easily a day of time trying to figure that one out. Also if you plan to run Parallels (Macs version of allowing you access to Windows while running the Mac, as opposed to bootcamp which switches between the OS’s on bootup), install bootcamp first, then windows, the install all of your software, and BEFORE you activate, go back into parallels, install it, run it and then tell Windows (office, etc.) to activate- this will save you from having to repeatedly activate for what is essentially the same machine.

Finally, for those CCIM instructors, Designee’s, and candidates, you should know that the new Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac now works with Macros for our CCIM spreadsheets.

Has the upgrade been seamless? Not quite, but I have enjoyed it and I love the laptop. I still use my Sony netbook P for meetings during the day, but I prefer the MacBookPro for all other tasks.

I think my new Mac, fits right in – how about you? (bottom right of all the monitors)

Acer has announced their Iconia line – a dual screen laptop

While the hands on review of the Acer Iconia indicates that the virtual keyboard is tough to use, I’d turn this laptop on its side, and use Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard instead.

We’ve written about the need for this many times:
– paperless office
– travel
– productivity
and I hope laptop manufacturers are starting to pay attention to the needs of the power users.

By the way – if you are curious – here is my current multiple monitor configuration

And some past incarnations can be found here

Thanks to Engadget for the headsup on this new release