talkingDigital

Podcast: Play in new window

In this episode we discuss….

The wild popularity of Firefox 4

The wild unpopularity of IE 9

Netflix in Firefox 4

Flash vs. Silverlight vs. HTML5

You don’t have to be handsome to be a cowboy

What we like about Firefox 4

Nintendo 3DS discussion – is it as revolutionary as the Kinect? No.

Email answers

Farmville problems in Internet Explorer

Amazing tax advice

Fax test

Google Voice Search for Android – it’s cool

The hassles of Android updates

Password protection on smartphones and tablets

How to get into Labs in the new Gmail interface

Everyone should know about Google Labs
http://google.com/labs

We been Tweeting before Tweeting was cool

Streaming problems on MacBook in London

Keep your plug-ins updated

New coupons scanners can read barcodes on cellphone screens

Much much more

Related articles

• Castellini on Computers 016 – iPad2 and ChromeOS reviews (talkingdigital.org)
• Castellini on Computers 015 – Charlie Sheen and iPad 2 Announcement (talkingdigital.org)
• Castellini on Computers 014 – Thanks a million (talkingdigital.org)
• Castellini on Computers 012 – We hung-up on Steve Jobs (talkingdigital.org)

I am giving this story publicity as an example of what not to do in troubled economic times.

If I were an employer – I am not sure this would motivate me into hiring this guy. It reminds me of when I was teaching high school classes of the moms who would come in and try to talk me into upping their kids grade.

Is his wife going to show up at work and make sure he is eating a good lunch and being treated nice by the other workers? I think she just used this as an excuse to by a MacBook.

The $1200+ could have been used to directly benefit her husband’s job search.

Wife to employers: Hire my husband, please – CNN.com.

OK, It’s been two weeks since my laptops were stolen, but I still haven’t completely gotten over it. What makes it slightly worse, is that I had just setup a Mac to take over as my primary desktop computer.

The Mac didn’t actually make the problem worse, but in order to set up the Mac, I had to move my PC to another desk. I didn’t get rid of it altogether.

I was fully prepared to use my Mac for all of my day-to-day functions but turn to my laptop around the house for email, Internet and other projects. I didn’t realize how much I had depended on my laptop over the past few weeks until they weren’t there anymore.

I have have been putting most of my computer time into making my life universal and compatible with all formats. I use Zoho.com for my document creation, NVU for my web editor, Firefox as my browser, Gimp and Picasa for photos and Thunderbird for my Mac and Ubuntu email app. I still use Outlook on the PC but I can’t remember why.

In the past month as I have been using my Mac almost exclusively as my home computer, I have found that it is a habit forming device. Concepts that are difficult concepts on a PC, like keyboard shortcuts and file management, are almost intuitive on the Mac.

When I tell people that I am migrating away from Windows in my personal life, I always get the same response, “Why?” They ask the question with an almost betrayed tone in their voice as though I have told them that I am leaving my wife.

I explain how easy the transition was and how I don’t have to mess with antivirus, spyware. disk cleanup and other utility functions that almost exclusively belong to the PC.

Their next thought is, “Maybe I should do that.”

I am not on a mission to turn people to Mac, but when faced with the option of moving to Vista or moving to Mac, I can’t form much of an intelligent argument for going with Microsoft.

Very soon, the only Windows machine I will be using on a regular basis in my personal life will be a MacBook with Vista loaded as an alternate OS. I still need Windows for when I am teaching my Basic Computer classes via the projector. Other than that, I can’t see myself using Windows personally for any practical reasons.

I have becoming fluent in speaking the language of Windows, I would like to one day speak, just as fluently in Mac, Linux, Google and Windows Mobile. I still don’t want to speak geek, I just call it talking digital.