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Verizon Comes Out Swinging, Strands iPhone on the Island of Misfit Toys

David W. Martin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:24:51 -0600

AT&T is suing Verizon over its "There's a map for That" ad campaign, but that hasn't stopped Verizon from using the same Verizon vs. AT&T image map of 3G coverage in the U.S. in new holiday advertising. The latest advertisement, Verizon Misfit Toys, puts the iPhone at the center of a conversation between some toys on the Island of Misfit Toys.

After finding the first ad we checked the Verizon Wireless YouTube account and discovered two more.

Verizon Elves features an assembly line of elves gift wrapping netbooks and other devices which include 3G wireless. The Elves imply that the good kids receive a gift from Verizon Wireless and the bad kids get one from AT&T. You should note that the Elf is stuffing what looks like a white colored iPhone into the gift box for the bad kid.

In Verizon Blue Christmas a man is seen traveling home for Christmas and he experiences problems connecting to the AT&T network using what appears to be a white colored iPhone.

We've got to hand it to Verizon -- the ads are definitely amusing, but since some of us are having a better experience with AT&T after they rolled out 3G network enhancements cute ads are not likely to make us want to make the switch to Verizon. In any event, if you get a gift purchased from either Apple, AT&T, or Verizon this year, whatever you get will be better than switches and a lump of coal.

Tech Up Your Family -- Or How to Survive the Four Day Weekend

Roberto Baldwin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:35:00 -0600

Visiting family can be a mixed blessing if you live a completely wired life. Sure, it's nice be around relatives. The embarrassing stories about your childhood, the delicious meals, the annual touch football game that will inevitably lead to your uncle walking with a limp for the rest of the weekend.

Still, with all that family fun, you're going to get the itch. The itch to check your email, to update your Facebook status, to check your favorite website (wink wink). Here are a few tips to help you get through the weekend with your tech addiction in check.

Wi-Fi in the Boonies

We don't all have the power of the iPhone in our pockets, or swanky EVDO cards sitting in our backpacks. Once we leave our homes, the internet might as well be a myth without open Wi-Fi. We've spent countless hours in our families' homes walking from room to room waving our laptops in the air trying desperatley to find an open Wi-Fi connection.

Instead of trying to borrow the neighbors internet connection, you have a few options.

If your family has broadband, but not Wi-Fi, you can bring your router. This is probably a pain if you've created the perfect network closet at home, and now you have to pull out the heart. But desperate times call for for desperate measures. Once you have the router setup, you can amaze them with the networking possibilities a router brings. They may be so amazed that they'll just pick up their own router on Black Friday.

A better option is using old hardware. If you have an old Wi-Fi router lying around--maybe an 802.11b or g router from a few years ago--you can put it to good use by leaving it with your family. They'll be wireless, and when you visit, you'll have the internet you can't live without.

If your family doesn't have internet access, many ISPs have dial-up access numbers you can utilize with your modem. Unfortunately, MacBooks from the past couple years don't have internal modems. If you have one of those machines, you can purchase Apple's USB Modem ($49). Of course, purchasing a $50 cable to use the internet--very slow internet at that--seems like a little much.

The Greatest Show on Earth

If you're tired of the same 5 DVDs at family gatherings, you have three choices. You can gather up DVDs from your personal collection, you can burn copies of your DVDs so your precious collection doesn;t get scratched by the multitude of children at family gathers, or you get a iPod/iPhone Composite AV cable ($49) and fill your iPod/iPhone with videos from iTunes, or rip DVDs for the trip. You can call up other tech savvy family members and have them bring their iPod/iPhones filled with videos and you can finally retire the yearly Iron Eagle viewing.

In the end, it's probably best that you unhook yourself for a few days and enjoy the company of your family. It's only four days. Well, at least until next month.

Apple: Our Holiday Line-Up is Set

John Pitko — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:06:55 -0600

Stop the presses, take back all the gossip, and no more doctored pictures. There will be no updated Mac mini or iMacs this holiday season. With the recent updates to the MacBooks and iPods, Apple is taking a breather on their hardware releases. All rumors of updated machines were quickly disregarded when Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld, "Our holiday line-up is set."

The highly anticipated updates for the Mac Pro, iMac and Mac mini, will most likely be revealed at the annual Macworld Expo in January. Many people speculated that a refresh for the much needed Mac mini was coming, since the last update was in 2007. While others believe that the Mac mini's day are numbered and Apple is killing off the machine.