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Tell Apple What Else You Want From Your iPhone …

Whether you want to politely request something, or to use your outside voice, Apple would like your feedback and suggestions about the iPhone.

My only complaint is how come my iPhone doesn’t seem to do everything in this video …

Or yeah, this other guy accidentially broke the screen within a day – somehow it was charging and when he pulled it out to answer a call, the base yoinked it away from and the iPhone landed on the edge of the table* … but Apple may have a customer for life, they actually replaced it …

BTW, you’re not restricted to just giving feedback or reporting bugs for the iPhone – feel free to tell them about everything they sell at their Feedback page.

*Also note, unlike your iPod when it’s syncing, you shouldn’t remove, the iPhone is okay to remove to answer a call … or when you really, really need to check the weather.

Star Wars turns 30 next month

So Star Wars turns 30 this May…I want to get excited but it just means I have gotten really, really old.

I remember dragging my Dad down to the theater to see it the day it opened at the earliest show possible so we could get a seat. It was beyond awesome. I saw the film seven more times that opening week. Like many theaters, the one where I viewed this masterpiece of celluloid storytelling no longer exists. For the uninitiated, here are the differences in the formats:

35mm has much less surface area than 70mm.

65mm film negatives with no sound lines would be used in the camera to shoot the footage.

For the release they would transfer the image to 70mm film stock with 6 channels of sound.

Descriptions courtesy of this geocities site.

Does anyone else out there remember seeing what 70 mm Dolby looked and felt like? It was amazing. The best 70mm experiences were to be had where the theater actually had the proscribed curved screen and 6 channel sound system.

Cleveland had one 70mm movie house back in those days. I remember seeing Brainstorm on that huge puppy and the opening 360 sequence almost got me nauseous…and I loved it! I think that location holds a bank now which is sad considering the megaplex environments we are asked to suffer.  Hellloooo, large screen home HD with 65″ plasma and surround sound.

Naturally, this question ain’t in the same league when Kennedy got shot, the Dow sank on Black Monday (another anniversary this year as it was 20 years ago), or when 911 happened but at least the Star Wars anniversary conjures up good times and not bad and it is in that spirit that I ask that question.

So where did you see it? How many times? Did it excite you?

CNN is letting people get their geek out by uploading pics and commentary.

Online music trading is as simple as saying La-La

I have been a member of the online music trading service, LaLa, for some time now and love it!

While iTunes is very well designed and tunes cost only 99 cents, you can get an entire album over at LaLa for only $1 per trade. What’s the catch?

Not much, actually. All you need to do is sign up to be a member (no tiers here – it’s a straight up free deal). Then you upload your CD collection (only a few of my discs were not recognized by the LaLa database but you can petition to get the ISBN added).

Then you place cds that you want in your want list and wait for other members to send it in the pre-paid postage envelope to you. Easy-Peasy.

Trades get throttled if you have traded out more than you have collected in which stops people from dumping off cds and not trading anything. Only original pressings are accepted for a trade and most people will send along the cd artwork from the cases. You can even make that mandatory for the trade.

The interface for LaLa is very simple and music genres can be searched. Looking for Afro-Cuban Jazz? No problem. I received my Machito cd last week. You can see from the image above that I have 138 different cds to trade, I currently have only 19 discs entered that I want to receive (must look for more music!), and I have received 133 cds from other members.

LaLa is a phenomenal way to dump old discs from your cd collection and even keep a copy before trading (mp3 or disk) since it belongs to you. Then, for a $1 a trade you can get anything from film scores, movie soundtracks, jazz, bay area rock, chopin, just about anything. I have yet to get stumped to find anything.

The only challenge is getting some members to part with their discs. For example, there are several film soundtracks I would love to receive but there are only a few members that have them entered in their collections for trade and so far no discs.

There is so much other music to enjoy I don’t really find this to be a major sticking point. The social aspects are good as well. You can tag people to be in your ‘friends’ list. You can email messages. You can listen to internet radio (although thanks to our government that may end soon). LaLa recently starting selling new discs at a pretty good discount as well and even launched some titles.

One of the founders bought one of the best college radio stations around (WOXY in Ohio) some time ago. I stopped buying from itunes when I discovered LaLa and hope you try it soon.

Hello world!

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