Today’s Apple Announcement Including My Rumors

So today is the big Apple announcement of the super, over-hyped Tablet, iSlate, iPad, iHypeMachine… I’m actually less concerned over that as I already have an iPhone and an iPod Touch. What is super interesting to me is the iPhone exclusivity coming to an end. As a iPhone jailbreaker with T-Mobile, I would love to hear that I can’t unjailbreak my iPhone and not have to worry about it bricking anymore.

I am also curious as to the rumors of the iPhone 4.0 software being announced. I’m hoping that it includes the ability for apps to run in the background. That is something huge and I’m okay with taking a hit to the battery if that’s what it takes. I have a charger that I use everyday.

There’s also the tablet. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not really all that interested in it but I am curious as to what it will be other than a huge iPod Touch.

So as to my rumors about the event:

• The tablet of course will be announced. It will essentially be a huge iPod Touch with at data plan and GPS. I agree with the other rumors that it will need a contract with Verizon for 3G connectivity. I don’t think AT&T will be a provider for this.
• Apple will move away from AT&T and open its iPhone to multiple carriers but only announce a partnership with Verizon today for the iPhone and the tablet.
• Announcement of iPhone/iPod 4.0 firmware update. This will include background apps and better memory usage.
• Twitter will go down about 28 minutes into the announcement. Facebook will soon follow.
• New Macbook Pros will be announced using the new Intel i5 and i7 chips. Usual upgrade of features while staying at current prices.
• Updated iTunes.
• Updated Apple TV firmware update.

Those are a few of my ideas/wishes. I guess I’ll find out if I’m right or wrong in an hour or so. What do you think?

Why you should give up coding for IE6

Lately there has been a lot of talk about whether or not to have web sites support Internet Explorer 6. Personally I think we should get rid of it NOW. Out with the old, in with the new is how the phrase goes. Well in my mind, there is only one way to make users who haven’t yet switch to make the switch: force them.

We can easily get the browser info when a visitor comes to your site so I say if it’s IE6, tell them they can’t view the site until they get a real browser *COUGH FireFox COUGH* and try viewing your site again correctly. Or if that’s a bit too harsh, still code for something better than IE6 and give visitors a message to upgrade and show them the crappy version of your site.

Nothing will change until it is forced onto people. They will stay with IE6 because they are scared to upgrade, too lazy or some other asinine reason. Well enough! If everyone stops making sites that work in IE6, people will change. Plain and simple. Please join me in my crusade to rid the Internet of this horrible beast. Then maybe we can move to get rid of IE in general but that’s a rant for another time.

Gearing up for WWDC Today

Today is the first day of the WWDC in San Francisco and the web world is all abuzz about what might come out.  I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to announce as I have recently joined the ranks as a Mac user.  I still have my Blackberry Curve and I love it but the iPhones are just so damn sexy that I want one of them too.

Hopefully today they announce a way for me to get one.  I doubt it but I can dream right?  I just read a rumor that the new iPhones might just be available today after the keynote so that would be pretty cool.  With all the buzz surronding this, I can’t tell what might happen.  I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what the next 2+ hours brings.

Let me know what you think and I’m surely going to post my thoughts post-keynote as well.

Phoenix .NET User Group Experience

Last night I was lucky enough to attend my first Phoenix .NET User Group meeting and enjoyed it.  Microsoft is nice enough to let them use a room in their Phoenix office and gave away a keyboard/mouse set, a web cam, and a few books.

Tim Rayburn started it off with an Intro to WCF Services and for a guy who has barely touched these, it was very informative.  Tim did an excellent job presenting and made it easy to follow along.

Rob Paveza followed up with a discussion on a new Facebook API that he has developed.  I worked with Rob at Terralever and know that he does an awesome job whenever he has the chance to run wild in code and from the looks of it, this isn’t any different.  It’s not released as of yet but it will be found here by the end of the week so check it out.

Thanks to Scott Cate and Rob Bagby for helping out with this.  I hope to check out a few more of these in the future.

Is Twitter the Digg Killer?

For the longest time, all I heard about was whether or not some up-and-coming site would be the “Digg-Killer”. And site after site failed at that. But in my mind, we’ve had it around for a while now. Twitter. At around the time I really got into Twitter, I began to cut my time with Digg. I don’t really know why. I was an avid Digg user. I used it constantly.

But as Digg began to have articles that I didn’t care about take over the front page, I grew less and less interested.  But I also noticed that articles that I did care about started to show up in my Twitter stream.  As I found a good group of people to follow that were interesting to me and from them, I got the news and articles that were important to me.  I didn’t need Digg and all of its LOLCATS pictures that I see as a waste.

I also started to find that most of the Digg stories that I clicked on came from the same group of sites.  So I just took out the middleman.  I still think that Digg is a great idea but now, I know that an article is really good if it’s re-tweeted to me by multiple Twitter friends.  I’ve removed the politics behind the front page of Digg by following people who I trust will submit interesting stories to me.

What do you think?  Am I completely off here?  I’d love to hear what you have to say.