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Apple iPhone 5S Space Gray Review

My Space Gray iPhone 5S arrived early this morning from Apple in China, and upon first opening the box, I was amazed to see how much longer, and lighter weight this 5S phone is compared to my 2.5 year old iPhone 4s.  Janna’s new iPhone will arrive tomorrow.  We’re both on the 4G Verizon network.

The first thing I noticed is that the Space Gray iPhone 5S would not turn on at all!  I was perplexed. Then I did the traditional “hard boot” by holding down the “on” button and the Home button at the same time until the phone turned on with the White Apple logo.  I picked Space Gray because it has a black face.  I prefer a neutral black on a smartphone.  A white face is just too aesthetically jarring.

The phone started and already had a 91% battery charge.  After setting up and restoring the phone, I was immediately prompted to download an 7.01 iOS 7 update.

As you can see in the screenshot below, I have a whole “extra row” for four more App icons in my Home screen!  That is a delightful and welcome change from the 4s.

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The MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K Monitor UP2715K and Apple Watch Reviews!

The title of this article — “The MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K Monitor UP2715K and Apple Watch Reviews!” — is ridiculously long, and that was intentional because I believe all three of those things belong together in the same review. The MacBook Pro lives in the Dell 5K display and the Apple Watch sort of ties together the netherworld of the current Apple universe.

Continue reading → The MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and Dell UltraSharp 27 Ultra HD 5K Monitor UP2715K and Apple Watch Reviews!

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Consuming the Adobe Creative Cloud

I  have been using Adobe products for over 20 years.  For many years, I was on the yearly upgrade cycle and, even as a previous purchaser, the upgrade fees for the Adobe creative suites easily cost over $600-800 USD per year.  That was quite a hit for a young author and designer fresh out of graduate school, but if you wanted to play with the big boys, you needed big boy toys, and Adobe is, and has always been, the web and authoring standard.

Over the last few years, with the churn in the business from a purchase model to a renting model at Adobe, I’ve patiently waited on the sidelines with my hardbox copy of the Adobe CS4 still in everyday use — about three generations behind the leading curve — and CS4 has served me well.  The new Adobe “upgrades” have seemed incremental and confused, and I was happy to keep skating along with Photoshop and Dreamweaver CS4 until two things happened.

First, I purchased a new MacBook Air that had plenty of room to install a ton of new software and, second, Adobe announced the end of boxed editions and were going rogue and “online subscription only” from here on out using a monthly and yearly for-pay model.  Two days ago, I signed up for the new “Adobe Creative Cloud” and I am totally thrilled with the decision.

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The Western Digital My Cloud Review, 4 TB Edition

I’ve purchased a lot of external storage devices over the last 30 years, and the one brand I keep turning back to for future purchases is Western Digital. I’ve had rotten experiences with LaCie and Iomega in the past and, to date, I have yet to experience any sort of hardware failure — or glitch, or even momentary pause — with a Western Digital drive, and I’m hard on my storage devices.  In fact, I’ve never NOT had a LaCie drive either be dead-on-arrive or die within two weeks of setting up the device. I run my HDDs 24/7/365 and I not only expect them to work, but to thrive in all hostile environments.

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Adding Paid Licenses for Google Drive in Google Apps for Business

Ever since Google Drive was announced and I upgraded my space, I’ve been enjoying enhanced speed and performance.  I’ve also been waiting for Google to take Google Drive Licenses live in the Google Apps for Business domain control panel.  This afternoon, Google Drive licenses became available for purchase with a big, yellow, box notification in my Google Apps Dashboard!

First, you have to agree to the activation conditions and confirm with Google Apps you want to add Drive licenses to your account and that’s a confusing process where you have to click on buttons to continue — and it looks like you’re adding every single Drive license to your account — but you are not.  You are merely confirming to Google that you will pay for licenses IF you decide to assign them to your users.

Google sets up the system to bill you on the first of every month, but you won’t be billed for anything until you actually assign licenses after giving Google your billing information and credit card.  It takes about 10 minutes for Google to email you and verify your billing information and to assign you a whole new “Billing ID” number number for this licensure process.  I was having horrible flashbacks to Office 365!

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Winding Up 2014

As we wind up into 2014 — and by “winding up” I mean a tightening of the dramatic coil, not an unwinding of tension — it’s time to contemplate where we go from here as a community of intersecting minds.

My first thought is that since 2014 is the Chinese — “Year of the Green Wood Horse” — and in every way that tells me, as a Wood Dragon, that this year is going to rock in predictable and amazing ways.

My first hope for the union is that since there’s a longer term budget deal in Washington, much of the vitriol and hatred spewed by the politicos in Washington, D.C. will die down a bit.  I realize the cruelty will never really go away, but lowering the temperature just a little bit will help us all get along just a little bit better.

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Why Does Gravatar Want My Google Apps Contacts?

After a successful return to WordPress.com from WordPress Multisite, I began rooting around the Settings and Tools and Appearance areas for my WordPress.com account to discover any new joys that were added during my inattention.

I found I could now add my “Google Profile” as a “verified” external service via Gravatar.  I clicked to continue to complete the verification process for my “Public Profile.”

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