Yup, this is site is currently inactive

Fellcast may return, ya never know. But I'm immersed in other projects. Hope to see you there!

Thinking of buying an iPhone 5S or 5C before your contract is up?

This got me wondering whether I should think about getting an iPhone 5S. It's been a couple of days over a year since my 2 year contract with AT&T on the iPhone 5. But I want that new camera. AT&T won't give an in-store offer, but they do have options for the iPhone 5C, which is already available for pre-ordering (the 5S is not). They're offering the 16GB 5C to me for $349.99; the 32GB for $499.99, That boils down to an extra $250 for the 16GB, or $300 for the 32GB. But it's a substantial discount over the price of the unlocked T-Mobile phones, which are $599 and $649 respectively. As for the old iPhone 5, Gazelle is still offering $350 for my model. We won't know until Friday, when the 5S goes on sale, what potential early upgrades like me will have to pay for the 5S. But I do have something to consider.

The reviews are in; iPhone 5 is amazing

Here's a quick post to put all the iPhone 5 reviews I can find in one place.

CNET: Finally, the iPhone we've always wanted
The Loop: It has been a treat
New York Times: The iPhone 5 Scores Well, With a Quibble
Engadget: It's every bit the device people were asking for
All Things D (Wall Street Journal): I like it a lot and can recommend it, despite a few negatives
T3: ...thinner, lighter, and faster... But...
Pocket Lint: ...an extremely polished smartphone that oozes appeal
TechCrunch: With iPhone 5, Apple Has Chiseled The Smartphone To Near Perfection
USA Today: ...a winner that should keep Apple at the front of the smartphone pack
Daring Fireball: Just hold it. You really have to
CBC News: Not terribly innovative, but still a smart package

A Note on Literacy

I'm pretty hooked on the Kindle software for the iPad; but I stumbled upon an ereader for the Mac, Windows and Linux called calibre. The lower case usage is theirs.

I only bring this up because of something funny that happened. To try it out, I thought I'd search for a free book about the brain. I double-clicked on something called The Brain, a Decode Enigma by Dorin T. Moisa.

I'd link to it, but I thought I'd save you the trouble by quoting the first page. I need say no more. No typos here from me, I copied and pasted this.

THE BRAIN, A DECODED ENIGMA

Dorin T. MOISA

Warning

This book contains a symbolic model associated to the basic hardware function of the brain.

A symbolic model is a model based on logic only. So, this book is not recommended to individuals who has the tendency to understand the external reality based on imagination.

The book can be understand by persons between 12 and 20 years old who have special abilities in the field of positive sciences.

Also, the book is recommended to persons who already work in the field of positive sciences (mathematicians, phisicists, engineers and so on).

Music in the Clouds: Introducing iCloud

Apple officially took the wraps off its new cloud computing service, iCloud, at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. It was the third of several big announcements, along with Lion and iOS 5.

Steve Jobs handled the introduction of iCloud. The idea is to make the Cloud, not the computer, the center of your digital media world. 

iCloud, says Jobs, "stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices...everything happens automatically." This completely replaces MobileMe, Apple's $99/year service that includes mail, storage, and contact sharing. The new services (mostly) are free.

Take pictures with your iPhone or iPad; they automatically sync with iCloud and appear on your other devices. Add a calendar event on your device, ditto. Add a contact in one place, he or she appears in them all. You can also share calendar events among users.  

App Store and iBooks will show purchases made on ANY device on ALL devices. Redownload to another device very easily. Buy a new app or iBook, it will automatically appear on your other devices.

Backup your iOS devices to the Cloud if you want, instead of using a computer. App data, music, photos, all sync.

And then there are all new apps:

• Documents in the Cloud: Edit a Pages, Numbers or Keynote document, it will sync to the cloud and then your other devices. Its not just for those apps, though: Apple is making it easy for developers to add this functionality to their apps.
• Photo Stream: Take photos on any device. The camera roll gets updated to the cloud, and downloaded to your other devices. View them as a stream on your iPad, iPhone, Mac, or even Apple TV (second generation). Or in your Pictures folder, if you're on a Windows machine. Your Mac or PC keeps all the photos, your iPhone or iPad saves the most recent 1000. All photos will be saved in the Cloud for 30 days.
• iTunes in the Cloud: This is amazing. Everything you've ever bought from the iTunes Music Store will be available in the Cloud, at a 256 kbps bitrate. You can now redownload any song you've ever bought to your computer, your iPad, your iPhone, your iPod Touch. Buy a new song, it automatically appears on all your devices.
• iTunes Match: Everything above is FREE. Impressive. But the iTunes in the Cloud also has a paid feature that makes it even more powerful. For $24.99 a year, iTunes in the Cloud will also try to serve you music you have, but did NOT purchase from iTunes. The system will attempt to match music you've ripped from your CDs, from Amazon, or any other place. If the same song exists on iTunes, even if its in better quality, it should appear on your iTunes in the Cloud.

Its a good time to be an Apple devotee.