lifestyle The Pink Mac

No Apple Gift Cards for the iPad.

Today, I received some disappointing news related to the iPad. I had heard on the news that a woman had gone into an Apple Store planning to purchase an iPad with cash and was turned down. According to Apple’s iPad policy, only credit or debit cards can be used to purchase the product in order to help them track their 2 iPad per person limit. Now, we know why they have this limit in place- people have been purchasing iPads and distributing them overseas for higher costs and Apple doesn’t support this illegal trading of it’s products. I get that, but then why not put a system into place where a cash customer can show ID and their name and address can be used to track them so that they do not purchase more than the limit.
Now, what was doubly disappointing was that in the news broadcast, the reporter said that gift cards to are a no no for iPad purchases, which made me raise an eyebrow. They didn’t mean Apple Gift cards, did they? I have a $100 Apple Gift card that I received for my birthday this year, which I was planning to use to buy the iPad, in the event that I decided to purchase one. I have been saving it for just this purpose, and now it’s usability was being called into question. So, I decided to ask an Apple Expert via the Live Chat feature on the Apple website. This was the conversation, my messages are in pink.
As you can read in the conversation, apparently Apple Gift cards cannot be used to purchase the iPad either, unless you are doing so online. Again, I am disappointed that Apple doesn’t have a better method in place for situations like these, especially since my $100 Apple Gift card would not be the sole payment method for an in-store transaction- I would use my credit card to cover the difference. This makes me not want to buy an iPad!
tech The Pink Mac

Cousy’s Vid of the Week 5/14

As most of you that spend more than 3 seconds on the internet know, the web is a great place to find cool and funny videos of whatever your heart desires. The web as provided a great breeding ground for artists and comedians to share their work with the entire world. That’s why the Pink Mac wants to share with you some of our personal favorite videos we have found on the interwebs in the past 7 days.

This week I am proud to show you a music video by The Guild – an online webshow that is the recipent of many awards and fanfare. The Guild follows the lives of a group of online gamers in an MMO similar to World of Warcraft. Every season they make one extra video, usually a musical number. This was last seasons and it was and still is amazing. The Guild has recently been picked up for a 4th season and will be online sometime later this year. If you haven’t seen the show yet head over to WatchtheGuild.com and catch up on all three hilarious seasons!

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Bonus Video of the Week!

With the release of Valve on Mac this week, I couldn’t pass up this fan-made parody of the day in the life of a character in the game Portal. Don’t forget, you can download the Valve software game database for free and you can get Portal for FREE until May 24th! Check out our post: This is a Triumph – on it for all the info.

Note: If you haven’t played Portal, this video won’t be as funny to you. So… go play Portal!!!

The Pink Mac

This is a triumph

I’m making a note here: HUGE success!

Today Valve along with Steam released their software for the Mac! Finally after years of Macs being substandard in the gaming department we are given access to a gaming engine with over 1,000 brand new exciting games! Well, not at first anyway. All 1,000+ are not available for the Mac yet on launch day. Today the section for Mac games contains a total of 64 since not all older games have made the conversion. But, with time, more will be playable on Macs and most important of all is that any new games released by Valve will be playable on both PCs and Macs. The first game that Valve will release for both will be Portal 2, the highly anticipated squeal to Portal. Portal is a first-person puzzle game that revolutionized the genre and swept the gaming nation by storm. Oh never played it before? Seems likely since it wasn’t available on Macs in the past. Well like so many Mac gamers I wanted to have this game on my Mac when I stumbled across this…

No. Way. That’s right, from now until MAY 24th ONLY, you can download Portal for FREE. Download the Steam software, go to their store, and download this game for free. They are giving away for 12 days one of the greatest computer games ever made. How good is it? Here are a few of the awards it won:
  • Game Developers Choice Awards – “Game of the Year”, “Innovation Award”, “Best Game Design”
  • IGN.com – “Best Puzzle Game” for PC/Xbox, “Most Innovative Design” for PC, “Best End Credit Song” for Xbox 360, overall – “Best Puzzle Game” and overall – “Most Innovative Design”
  • GameSpot – “Best Puzzle Game”, “Best New Character(s)”, “Funniest Game”, and “Best Original Game Mechanic”.
  • Penny Arcade – “Best Soundtrack”, “Best Writing”, and “Best New Game Mechanic”
  • Eurogamer – Won first place in the Top 50 Games of 2007.
… it is a REALLY good game. I highly recommend you get the game while you can. And if you don’t like it, at least it was free. So go on over to Valve and follow the steps until your playing this amazing game. And remember to think with portals!
The Pink Mac

Perfect Guy Case.

I have sort of fallen in love with this Hard Graft sling sleeve and extras case (125 euros) and have decided that it is the perfect guy laptop accessory. Made of felt and leather, there is something luxurious yet masculine about the cross bands that hold laptop and accessories together in one secure bundle. I think it reminds me of British schoolboys or something; very old world parochial. Alas, I am so tempted to get it for my boyfriend, but he doesn’t find it practical. Why is it that guys and girls can never see eye to eye on accessories?

tech The Pink Mac

Cousy’s Vid of the Week 5/7

As most of you that spend more than 3 seconds on the internet know, the web is a great place to find cool and funny videos of whatever your heart desires. The web as provided a great breeding ground for artists and comedians to share their work with the entire world. That’s why the Pink Mac wants to share with you some of our personal favorite videos we have found on the interwebs in the past 7 days.

This week we are featuring a “commercial” that Ellen DeGeneres showed during her talk show. She got in a bit of trouble for ripping on Apple for this one though because it makes it seem like the iPhone is hard to use. But I get what she was going for. She wasn’t making fun of the product but rather the incompent person behind the camera that doesn’t understand technology. Watch it and judge for yourself.

So what do you think? Was this a spoof of the iPhone or the user? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!!

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Bonus video of the week!

I just couldn’t pass this one up. A personal favorite of mine are videos by a person named Christiaan Van Vuuren… better known as The Fully Sick Rapper. Quick back story: Christiaan is from Australia and he took a vacation to South America, where he contracted Tuberculosis. For the past FOUR months he has been stuck in a hospital quarantine room. To pass the time from going insane he has been making comedy rap videos. I love his stuff and if you like this one check out his Youtube page to see more. (Oh and the fashion show thing up right now is too weird to try to explain, just skip those ones for now lol)

tech

The Million Dollar Winner

UPDATE! A few months ago I posted my first article on the Pink Mac about how a video game, MLB 2K10, would give away a million dollars to anyone that could pitch a perfect game. (If you haven’t read it yet, shame! Here’s a link to read it: The Million Dollar Game)

Well as it turns out after weeks of practicing, a man down in Alabama actually did it. He pitched a perfect game and won a million dollars for it. 24-year-old Wade McGilberry, of Alabama played the game so well and got so good at it he was able to be the first person to pitch a perfect game. Of course he had his wife’s consent to play so much. In fact she even suggested he leave his job so he could focus on playing more. Despite that proposal, Wade kept his job and in his spare time played enough to where he could win. In an interview Wade said that with the money they are going to pay off the house and now start a family. Aww, see what video games can do ladies? Congratulations Wade, and enjoy your reward!

Here’s the interview Wade game to the CBS Early Show:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

tech

Cousy’s Vid of the Week 4/30

As most of you that spend more than 3 seconds on the internet know, the web is a great place to find cool and funny videos of whatever your heart desires. Whether it’s seeing a cat playing piano, a cat acting like a person, a cat napping… okay there are a lot of kitten videos out there. But besides that the web as provided a great breeding ground for artists and comedians to share their work with the entire world. That’s why the Pink Mac is announcing a new series, where each week we share with you some of our personal favorite videos we have found on the interwebs in the past 7 days.

Here’s our first video, hope you enjoy!

Please leave a comment on if you enjoyed this and let us know what other types of videos you would like to see!
The Pink Mac

Hands on with the Nook Elves.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that yesterday I went to Best Buy to check out the Nook, which is now being sold in there stores. I thought this would give me a good opportunity to compare the functions of the eReader, which has recently piqued my interest due to the addition of a web browser and games to the nook software. Without a doubt, the Nook is light, sleek and slim. Out of all the eBook readers out there, this one takes the cake for form factor. Once I awoke the Nook from its sleep mode, however, I discovered something odd. When the screen changes (because of page turning or application switching etc), instead of a seamless pixel change, it looks like little Nook elves are drawing an Etch a Sketch of the page for you. The images and text slowly come together in a grainy mix until the page is fully loaded. Now, I wasn’t sure if this was normal, or some sort of error on this device, so I went over to the Sony eReader display and found the same issue over there. Now, I realize I am a little behind on this eReader thing and perhaps some of you knew that the page rendering on these devices is reminiscent of 1980’s displays, but I wasn’t, and furthermore I am a little shocked that these devices are doing so well when they look so low tech. I suppose it’s the eInk display that causes this. I know the displays use less energy and make it easier to read for long periods of time in any lighting but when you compare them to even a cellphone or iPod touch display, they seem soo outdated. I don’t mind that the display is black and white, although a touch of color wouldn’t be bad, but I am bothered that the rendering of the screen is so rough.

With that being said and all things being equal on behalf of the screen rendering of eBook readers, I did enjoy the ‘mouse pad-like’ touch screen at the bottom of the device, although I did find myself trying to touch the actual eInk screen in an attempt to move the page or select something (totally embarrassing lol)! The web browser was nice, a little slow, but I always find the Wifi in Best Buy stores to be slow. It was a full web browser too, no flash of course, but still full pages with images, ads and text. The other thing I was disappointed about was that there are only two games for the nook, Sudoku and Chess, but this is an android based operating system so I suppose more games will be coming. Overall, I think this could be the most functional eReader, mostly because of the addition of the games and the Wifi for web browsing. I didn’t get a chance to test the mp3 player but I am sure that works fine as mp3 players seem to be in every device these days. If you have the Nook, let me know how you feel about it. I would love to get the opinion of an actual day to day user of this device!
lifestyle The Pink Mac

Happy Earth Day!

If you couldn’t guess from the title of this post, today is Earth Day! Perhaps some of you will let this day pass without notice, but to the few of you who may actually be interested in the planet and would like to make a small difference in your day to day lives I have something for you! Today, and today only (until Midnight) you can get FREE SHIPPING on your order from Baggu! I took advantage of this today, and it equates to $4 off your purchase ($4 is the standard flat rate delivery from the USPS). Just use the code earth10 at checkout!

Now, if you have never heard of Baggu before, you are in for a treat. Baggu is a line of handmade, reusable shopping bags made from 100% ripstop nylon and each regular sized Baggu is the equivalent of 2-3 plastic bags from the grocery store. I LOVE these bags, and actually, I am sort of obsessed with them because they are so useful in so many ways. The philosophy behind the bags is to use products that have more than one use, so you can ‘own less stuff’ as they say in their literature, and these bags do just that. I own a few sizes of the Baggu including the backpack- not only are these products well made and durable, they do function in multiple ways. I keep a Baggu with me whenever I leave the house and they are great for not only grocery shopping (where I get 2 cents off my purchase per bag I use and the bags each hold up to 25lbs so I no longer worry about them breaking on my walk home) but I have used them to carry wet clothing and shoes in my luggage, to cover my head during a rainstorm, to store linens in, as a laundry bag, as a lunch bag, and probably a few more ways I can’t remember right now. They are washable and come in a nice little carry bag that is made from the scraps of fabric left over when they make the bag itself- so these bags are really well thought out and well designed. They also come in an array of colors so I am sure you will find one you like.

Like I said, I’m obsessed, but I think this is a good obsession. These Baggu’s have taught me to look for multipurpose products helping me to reduce my consumption and, happily, my spending. For someone who lives in a tiny apartment, owning less is a philosophy I can get behind! So, seriously, check out the website. I know this isn’t a tech gadget, but I think that Baggu is a company with products that embody the promise of technology: to enlighten and simplify our lives.

On this Earth Day, go and do something good for yourself and your planet, even if it doesn’t involve online shopping!