Apple

I was recently looking for a little diversion, so I fired up my iPhone and looked up the top free games. It's not uncommon for this list to contain limited demos and other apps that try to sell you on premium, paid version, but usually a little time on the free demo is enough for me.

This time I decided to download a game called GodFinger which is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game with a cute, drag-and-drop interface. The reviews weren't stellar but I thought I'd give it a try.

Over a year ago, I started to play around with using my MacBook Pro as a media center. I had bought a new HDTV a couple of months prior, and wanted to see how I could get the most out of its display capabilities.

I started with VLC, which worked OK, but at the time it was incapable of 5.1 surround output. The next application I tried was MPlayer (using the GUI version), which did everything I needed but all the commands required a keyboard, using arcane commands.

Last Tuesday saw yet another Apple product release, and once again the fervor of Apple's fan base worked against it. Apple released new hardware with some impressive new features, but because the rumor mill had raised the expectations even higher, the announcements have been greeted with a cool, and at times hostile, reception.

To be fair, some of the rumors were probably unrealistic to begin with. For example, the $800 price point that had been rumored. Apple has never been known to be aggressive with their pricing, and dropping their prices that low would be a major shift.

So the big news this week for Canadian Apple fanboys like me was the announcement that the iPhone is coming to Canada July 11. I know, there are already lots of iPhones in Canada, but I'm hoping I can get my office to pick up the tab, something that's unlikely with a black market device.