Monthly Archives: October 2010

VLC free video player for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Get it now (while you still can).

So a nice free video player came out for the iPhone (which also works on the iPad and iPod Touch) called VLC Media Player;
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it’s the video player for Macintosh and Windows (IMHO).

What’s great about this program? It lets you play all sorts of video files on your iDevice without converting them first. The other bonus is that it lets you delete them when you are done, freeing up space for photos and video. It plays more than a few formats, but if you try some high-def Blu-Ray files it’s not going to have enough power to play them.

Here’s the problem, it might get pulled from the iTunes store due to some weird legalities*. So download it now. I actually think it’s been out for the iPad for a while, but it just came out for the

* Short answer with small words – The (source code) software is free and the program can must be freely distributed, but technically the iTunes app store puts on protection, so technically it’s not freely distributed, you must have an iTunes account.

Verizon to start carrying the iPad. Only $20 for 1GB of data a month!

So Verizon will start to carry the WiFi iPad and sell it with a MiFi wireless access point for $130 more. What’s interesting is that they’ll sell it for $20 a month for 1 GB of data (and no contract). This is an interesting pricing plan as AT&T charges $15 for 200MB and $25 for 2GB, so it’s an interesting sweet spot for the data. Apple iPad MB292LL/A Tablet (16GB, Wifi) Apple Computer Verizon’s next jump is $35 for 3GB and $50 for 5GB (see the FAQ). Plus, they’re legitimately buying them from Apple (and they sell them just with WiFi too). So you can use the MiFi with other WiFi devices too, but you’ll obviously use more data (duh!)

I just thought it was some interesting competition for AT&T…

Ten Ten Ten

10.pngToday is 10/10/10, even if you’re somewhere else in the world the date and do day/month/year or month/day/year it’s still 10/10/10! I just think this is kind of fun.

Anthony pointed out to me that 101010 in binary actually adds up to 42, which we all know is the secret to Life, the Universe and Everything (if you happen to be a Douglas Adams fan).

Aimee Mann Concert at The Ark

So I saw Aimee Mann in concert last week in Ann Arbor at The Ark. If you don’t know who she is, you might remember her from the 1980s when she was part of ‘Til Tuesday and did the popular song Voices Carry; that video is a little bit old, here’s the current Aimee Mann site. I’ve seen Aimee Mann twice before, once on the pre-Lilith Fair tour (when they were trying to prove that people would go to a all women concert festival) and a few years ago in Ann Arbor.

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The show was general admission so I had picked up a ticket while I was there for some other show. I didn’t get anyone else to come* it turned out there was a empty seat right in the middle of the front row! It was awesome! She’s great and does one of my favorite things, she talks

The Forgotten Arm Aimee MannShe’s actually writing a musical based on The Forgotten Arm that was a concept album she did a few years ago, she actually did some of the narration and played some of the songs for us, it was pretty fun. It’s kind of a dark story with drugs, debt and relationships (and boxing).

If you haven’t been to The Ark, it’s a great little theater, about 700 seats, and I’ve seen a lot of shows there. It’s general admission so if you get there earlier you get a better seat, tickets are generally pretty cheap generally (although I think Aimee was $40, much more than I usually pay there) but those on-line fees get the prices up there fast.

*Most of the time it doesn’t bother me to go to concerts alone (it’s that ride and the wait that I don’t like). So if concerts are general admission and I know I want to go, I’ll pick up a ticket and mention it to a few friends; some times there’s a few of us and sometime it’s just me.