Dell Streak Goes On Sale August 13th

Friday the 13th may prove to be lucky for people waiting for Dell to release the Streak, a massive 5" screen smart phone.  General sales will begin this Friday with pre-sale registrants being able to place their orders on the 12th.  The Streak will sell for $299.99 with a 2 year contact on AT&T and $549.99 without a contract.

Specs:

• Android 1.6 (Hopefully an update will come sooner than later)


• Snapdragon 1GHz processor


• 3G + Wi-Fi + Bluetooth


• GSM Chipset


• 5 MP Autofocus camera with dual LED flash. 


• Micro SD slot

Press Release

Western Digital Launches WD Elements Play

Western Digital has released the WD Elements Play, a product that combines an external hard drive and WDTV media player.  Most of the basic features of the WDTV are available in this model, however this drive does not appear to be network compatible.  The Elements Play is available in a 1TB or 2TB version.

Specs:

• 1080p resolution


• Supported video codecs:

AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4)
MPG/MPEG
VOB/ISO
MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264)
MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4)
TS/TP/M2TS (MPEG 1/2/4, AVC)
FLV (D1 resolution only)
RM or RMVB 8/9/10

• USB ports for extra storage


• Digital camera compatible for viewing photos from camera


• Can play video, music, photos from hard drive


• HDMI & composite video connections

WD Elements Play User Manual

QNAP App Allows Multimedia Streaming To iOS Devices

QNAP has launched an Application in Apple's iOS App Store that allows multimedia streaming from their NAS products.  To enable the feature, the NAS needs to have the QNAP v3.3 NAS management utility update applied to it.  The App is a free download, and allows you to stream your music, photos, and videos over WiFi or 3G.  QNAP also includes MyJukebox, a feature that enables browsing for playlists created on the NAS, without using iTunes. 

Source: Hot HardWare

Fired HP CEO Getting $40m Severance

File this one under " Are You Kidding Me?"!  Multiple sources are reporting HP CEO Mark Hurd was fired for filing false expense reports to conceal his mistress.  In addition to losing his job, Mr. Hurd is punished my receiving a $40 million (cash & stock) severance.  So he cheated on his wife, stole from the company he ran, and filed false reports.  HP should be forced to spend that money on hiring some of the millions of unemployed Americans, not giving it to that A-Hole!

iPod Touch, iOS 4 Event Scheduled For Mid August?

The MacMagazine received a tip that an iPod Touch / iOS 4 for iPad event is scheduled sometime between August 14th and 16th.  MacMagazine points out that Apple events are usually done on Tuesdays, so the event could be held on the 16th or 17th (Monday or Tuesday).  This event would fall about a month earlier than the usually scheduled Fall iPod event.  Could Apple be positioning the iPod Touch as a different device as I speculated in this previous editorial?

Google Kills Wave

Google announced that they officially killed Google Wave.  The product was promoted as the next generation of online collaboration.  Many people thought it might kill email or instant messaging.  Others thought Wave would replace Microsoft SharePoint or Wikis in the enterprise market.  The one constant about the product was confusion.  Wave was difficult to implement, use, and find a good purpose for.

R.I.P. Google Wave 2009-2010

Mac OS X Tip: Popular Terminal Commands

Show hidden files in Finder

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

Change TRUE back to FALSE to hide files

Both commands require the Finder to be restarted

 

Enable Safari debug menu

defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Change 1 to 0 to disable

 

Disable Dashboard

defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES

Change YES to NO to enable

Both commands require you to restart the dock by typing killall Dock in the Terminal

 

Changes all mail to plain text

defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE

Change TRUE to FALSE to undo

 

Disable unexpectedly quit dialog from application crash

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType none

Change none to prompt to enable