Did I mention I hate packing?

They no longer use a nasty external power brick as well.

They changed the case design, giving it a glass front and back (supposedly developed to be 30 times harder than plastic), with a slim silvery edge which is the cell antenna as well.  It is 9.3mm thick.  The camera on the back is 5 mega-pixels and it has a LED flash. (finally!)  There are also two noise-canceling microphones for better clarity, and a camera on the front face too.

It runs on the Apple A4 CPU (you know, the one in the iPad)

The screen is an all new 960×340 resolution 326 pixels per inch ‘retina screen’.  Very sharp and clear!

They even found space for a gyroscope for extra 3d motion control capabilities.

HD video recording (720p at 30 fps)

Runs on the new iOS4 operating system. Multitasking!

Apple added Bing. (that’s Microsoft’s search engine) So now you can choose Yahoo, Google or Bing to search.

iBooks is now on the iPhone

iAds (banner ads built right in… bleh) Granted, there’s a lot of money opportunities but I dislike ads

FaceTime Video Calling (WiFi Only Video conferencing in 2010, more as agreements are made with carriers)

Comes in black or white. Pricing — $199 – 16GB, $299 – 32GB (U.S.) on sale June 24th in USA, France, Germany, UK and Japan.  In July, they ship to 18 more countries.

June 21st the iOS4 upgrade is freely available for all supported machines.

So it looks cool, is faster, has multitasking and more.  I just wish they’d quit with the ‘This is going to change everything’ crap.

My daughter Maia will be 1 year old in a weeks time.  She’s taken to being VERY vocal when she doesn’t get what she wants, which has been less than stellar.  It is funny though.  She’s walking several steps now and she seems to think she is invincible.

Still kind of in a funk here myself, feeling uncreative and muzzy-headed.  Still working it out.

Got a chance to watch Kick-Ass and really enjoyed it.  I’ll have to check out the comics it is based on and see how they changed it.

I’ve been rather bummed out, burned out, hitting proverbial walls, and not feeling very constructive or willing to hang around people.  A mild depression I suppose, brought on by the lack of a job at the moment.

The sun seems to be returning to us, Spring is here, and I hope this passes.

Sometimes, you have to shake yourself… and give a silly affirmation.

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, gosh darn it, people like me”

We found her climbing storage bins like a monkey and she was accessing the shelving yanking books and throwing them around. *sigh*

So we switched the living room around to block her from the kitchen, and moved my desk to another wall.  We like the new layout and I think it will help some.

Wow.

They released 1.1 in the past week due to some known issues burning your final master CDs…

At the MusikMesse show in Germany, they have taken the wraps off the next revision of Studio One, revision 1.5.

Version 1.5 is expected in April 2010 and will be a free update to registered users.  You can find more info as to the new features here.

The machine is hand-built and has always been fairly noisy, but I attributed it to the fact it has a high end video card inside.

We have parquet wood flooring in the apartment and that tends to add to the reflective noise as well.  It was noisy enough that we had to turn it off to be able to watch TV comfortably!

This morning, I had enough of it, ripped it all open and found that it was actually the CPU heat-sink and fan assembly, not the video card as I had thought.

A quick bit of research, and I was off for a merry shopping trip to my favourite local shop Canada Computers.

I ended up choosing a Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H50 CPU Cooler.  It is sealed, comes with all the necessary parts for mounting, and is totally silent!  It was necessary to totally disassemble the machine as I had to pop the CPU mounting bracket underneath the motherboard, but it is very solid and stable.

I feel like I just gave this machine a new lease on life, and I will be able to focus upon music making!  Hurrah!

It is exciting to see some of the more power hungry applications embracing the 64-bit land.  I ponder how long it will be before Ableton Live has a 64-bit option…

UPDATE:  They just announced 1.3 at the MusikMesse Show with even more live playing functionality!

Pixar, makers of some of the most memorable 3D movies, has a very informative Online Library to share animation techniques.