The reason my son has an iPad is that he is speech delayed due to autism. He was able to get the iPad for free through some program my wife found. They have developed software that helps kids like my son communicate with the touch interface.

It is so awesome to see something that was intended to play games and edit documents be used to teach someone to talk.

Thank you Apple!

If that wasn’t enough they actually have an iPhone app that not only has these podcasts but videos and articles as well. I have found a new, educational, time waster. The app is awesome and can be downloaded here – How Stuff Works iPhone App

I was not too upset about this as this was not the original hard drive that came with the computer. This was an aftermarket Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm hard drive that was over 3 years old. In fact I used this hard drive in other MacBook I had for a year before I got this Macbook. The hard drive was older then the computer.

To remedy the situation I headed over to Fry’s and picked up a new Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. 2 1/2 times the storage. Thank God I had a good Time Machine backup as I was able to get the computer back up and running in just a couple of hours.

So What Does This Have to do With the Acer Apsire One?

Well the first thing this has to do with it is that I got the Acer because my MacBook was running slow the last few weeks especially with Windows 7 in Parallels. After I put the new hard drive in it ran better then before it started to run slow. I could now run Windows 7 in Parallels without skipping a beat.

The second thing was that after loading everything on the Acer it ran slower then Windows on my MacBook so it kind of defeated the purpose. The biggest culprit for this was Dropbox which is a necessity for me. If I turned Dropbox off it ran pretty well, with it on it was a dog.

So having the Acer kind of defeated the purpose. I needed to check browser compatibility the quickest way possible and that was now with the MacBook.

The Acer was cool but it just didn’t quite fit the bill for what I needed.

Related posts to my journey of MacBooks and Acer Aspire One’s:

• I Picked Up Another Acer Aspire One Netbook
• Trading in the Acer Aspire One for a MacBook
• Acer Aspire One – The Perfect Vacation Computer
• Blogging from the Acer Aspire One Mini Laptop

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECOctgAyMr8?

What you do is select the year that you want to listen to and the app serves up the top 100 songs according to Billboard that year. It plays them in a Pandora type shuffle to where you can only skip to the next song. You can click a button and see all the songs from that year but you cannot select a specific song to play.

The other downside to the app is that it puts up an ad for the main Bing iPhone app every 3 or so songs where you have to manually click next to continue with the music. I downloaded the app that they were advertising but the ads still come up.

They are advertising that this app is going to be $1.99 but is free right now. I would hope that they would remove the ads in you actually pay for the app. I guess we will just need to see.

Currently I am groovin’ like it’s 1993. Hip Hop Hooray! Ho. Hay. Ho.

Here’s a link to the app in the iTunes App Store – Top 100s by Year by Bing

After closing Safari I opened the Kindle app and it said that it was syncing and in less then 30 seconds my book appeared. I opened it and the whole thing was there. I though that it would need to download for a while but it was actually pretty quick. The whole experience was pretty cool!

This has opened up a whole new world for me as having the book “in my pocket” will give it a much better chance of getting read. Good work Amazon!

- Posted from my iPhone, please excuse any typos!

My current Mac Mini is setup as the kid’s computer in our upstairs family room and the kids absolutely love it. I have a 22″ monitor and a hard drive full of movies on it. Across the room I have a 42″ Phillips plasma TV that at times I will hook my MacBook up to in order to watch something that is on Hulu or that is ripped to a hard drive. My ideal setup would be to have the ability to display the Mac Mini on the 42″ so that we could watch items off of it as opposed to having to setup my MacBook to do so. It would also be beneficial to the kids to have this setup as they could watch their movies and even surf on the big screen as well.

At $600 for the base version of the new Mac Mini it is not too expensive to make this change but in the current economic client I may have to wait a while. it is nice to know that this is now a native possibility though.

While looking for a new Product Manager position I am stepping up my side business in Web Design and Development to generate some extra income. I tried using my wife’s Aspire One but it was just too small and underpowered. Therefore tonight I went to the Apple store and got a white MacBook.

Netbooks are great to travel with because they are so light. But unfortunately there wasn’t much more I could do with it that I couldn’t do with my iPhone. The MacBook isn’t full size but it is bigger then the netbook and is a reasonable price for the features. I used to have one that was issued by my company so I am already used to it’s size and performance.

Netbooks are cool but just a little too small for me to be completely usable. Your mileage may vary.

After unplugging it from my computer I placed it upside down so the Bull could flow out of it. After I wiped it down I plugged it in and it still worked. I used it the rest of the day without a hitch.

When I came in this morning I did not think about yesterdays baptism in the Bull until I tried to come to this website and was typing my name. The R was slow to some back up after being pressed and so I need to perform some surgery on my keyboard.

I ended up popping off the a Shift key, plus the T, R, and E keys. I rinsed each key and its little plastic spring with water and wiped the inside of the key socket. While those keys are now nice and responsive I have noticed that the G key is also acting sluggish so it looks like I will need to pop it off as well.

I wish I could just throw this thing in the dish washer and take care of it in one swoop.

P.S. This post has caused me to add a new category named "Doh!".

When moving into the new house the new iMac was placed in our room on my wife’s desk. At the time I did not have my office downstairs because my brother-in-law was staying with us. About a month after we moved in he moved out and I had my office back but opted to get a 22” monitor to hook up to my laptop from work. I used the iMac from time-to-time upstairs but never really got to play with it.

As mentioned before I purchased my wife an Acer Aspire One and for convenience I hooked it up in my office to my 22” monitor so she could use it down stairs. While it was usable the Acer Aspire One is a Netbook and obviously is no where as powerful as the iMac. In talking to my wife she thought that maybe it would be better to switch the two computers so that the iMac is downstairs in my office . Sure babe we can do that I told her .

That conversation took place on late Wednesday night and you know the first thing that I did when I got home last night – yep, I switched the computers.

I have to say that it looks so nice sitting on my desk. As good as the performance of the iMac is it is also a beautiful looking computer. The other thing is that is awesome about it is that the screen is huge. While it is only 2 inches larger then the monitor I had there the 22” monitor was wide screen so it was not as high. The iMac is not a wide screen so the height of the screen is much more noticeable.

Now here comes the true confession. One of the real reasons that I wanted the iMac in the first place was in order to play games on it. I have Boot Camp setup with Windows XP and have Call of Duty 4 installed. With the computer in our room I only got to play a few times in the last 6 months. Now I should be able to play much more often. The only trick is not to get myself in trouble with my wife .