iDale

Here’s the thing: FlashRods are incredible!

Back to the Future Baby!

We all love cars and we all have data, so if you put the two together you get a stainless steel hard drive car that’s highly detailed with opening doors, bonnets and boots. Holy!

American Muscle Baby!

Each FlashRod is stuffed with a 500GB Seagate hard drive. And the variety of cards is growing quickly…

But wait, there's more... Baby!

It’s not bad either at a price of $250 (R1800) – think about what you would pay for a high quality die cast car and a hard drive. hmm? Do the maths and get yours here.

While we’re on the topic of Cars, check out which Flash Rod your favorite blogger would go for in my SA Blog Boys and Their Dream Toys post.

It’s not generally wise to buy second-hand gadgets. But when it comes to hand-built quadraphonic mixing consoles used by Pink Floyd, the rules can be chopped and changed so someone out there can own a slice of the band’s legendary live performance history…

One mythical concert coming right up

Hand built quadraphonic mixing consoles used on the Momentary Lapse of Reason and Division Bell world tours are being auctioned at Bonhams Entertainment Memorabilia sale in Knightsbridge on December 15th, with a percentage of the proceeds going to concert industry charity Stage Hand.

Hey guys, lets score some LSD and play with our soldering irons!

Every Pink Floyd tour since the late 1960s featured quadraphonic sound among the many live sound and lighting effects pioneered by the band. Sound effects including helicopters, the famous chiming clocks and gongs of Dark Side Of The Moon and many more, were whirled around massive arenas and stadiums using banks of loudspeakers positioned in a diamond layout.

PULSE - the most legendary concert ever

Only six generations of quad mixing desks or external quad panning devices were made during the band’s performing history between 1969 and 1994, each using the best audio technology available at the time.

Mike Rowe, the man flogging the two Pink Floyd consoles

It’s no wonder I included Pink Floyd in my  Twelve Most Memorable Album Covers Ever post a while back.

Click here to watch, listen and read what all the fuss is about. Trust me.

Apples free iOS 4.2 Software Update was released yesterday. This is important stuff because it brings all-new features to iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices, letting you do even more with one of the world’s greatest mobile operating systems.

I’ve installed it and have a run down of the most important implications it’s had for my iPad in particular…

Multitasking

This is the big one and allows you to be more productive as you work, have more fun while you play, or do a little of both. It’s really smooth and efficient and doesn’t affect the performance of the app you’re working in or drain the battery…

Browsing while running 3 apps in the background

Folders

You can now have more room for more apps with drag-and-drop simplicity. You can declutter your workspace and sort your apps for fast access to your favorites…

Pop your best and worst apps into folders

AirPrint

Another big play, AirPrint makes it simple to print email, photos, web pages, and documents with a couple of taps. In true Apple style there’s no software to download, no drivers to install, and no cables to connect…

Print anything from anywhere

Find My iPad

This feature used to be available only to paying MobileMe users, but now anyone can locate their missing device and protect its data. Once you set it up, you can find your lost device on a map, display a message on its screen, remotely set a passcode lock, and initiate a remote wipe to delete your data. And if you eventually find your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can restore everything from your last backup…

Locate your devices from me.com - now free

And there you have it!

Jim Marshall started Marshall Amplification more than 45 years ago in London England – the brand and its products have become legendary in the professional music world, and now come to you in the form of legendary headphones wrapped in the iconic Marshall-look packaging.

The Major

The Major encloses vast amounts of Marshall legacy…

Includes all the various jack adaptors in the box

Besides being straight up dazzling, the exterior of the headband is made out of the same vinyl used in Marshall amplifiers and it bears the original Marshall texture.

Folds and rolls up into a compact size

The Major is a solid workhorse with great stamina, designed with non-stop, all-day listening in mind.

The Minor

An advanced and hard working in-ear model…

Comes equipped with microphone and remote for use with your cell phone

In addition to its good looks it incorporates quite a few exciting features. EarClick is a patent that ingeniously secures the earphone into position in your ear.

I wan't these in my ears now!

Combined with excellent audio and a tangle resistant fabric cord the Minor is in it for the long haul.

Visit the Marshall Headphones site

Look at the Marshalls Mini Amplifier I featured last year.

Well well well, what do we have here…

Oooh... a locket!

This pretty little lady-locket is designed by Emily Rothchild. And as lockets would have it, you’d expect to place a single picture of your BFF in there.

But NO, NOT this locket! Because this locket…

Bang! Bet you weren't expecting that!?

…this locket lets you carry around thousands of BFF pics and you can share them on the go!

Fancy hey? (via)

Did you ever see these other USB memory sticks??

• Bomb USB memory stick
• Warhead USB memory stick
• Ninja Star USB memory stick
• Panda USB memory Stick
• Gruesome USB Chain Saw memory stick

Brings your pics together!

I’ve purchased and downloaded a lot of apps on my iPhone in the past year. But over time I’ve come to realise how much money I wasted on novelty junk allowing the real gems of value to shine through. AutoStitch is of the latter – a fantastic app that was worth every cent, works as advertised and adds a huge amount of regular value to my device.

AutoStitch iPhone is a fully automatic image stitcher. It unleashes the potential of your iPhone’s camera to create wide-angle views and panoramas with any arrangement of photos – horizontally, vertically or both!

Just look at what I shot this morning from my office window…

9 Pics Stitched together - click this bad boy to see the big picture!

This app clearly has some advanced technology behind the scenes, but on the outside it’s very simple to use…

1. Snap a bunch of photos on your phone from a single standpoint
2. Open AutoStitch, select the photos from your library and press “stitch”
3. Watch AutoStitch go to work by stitching your photos together
4. Crop, save, email or even post your panorama photo to Facebook

A few special features also add some extra value and are worth being pointed out:

• Unlike the native iPhone email app, AutoStitch’s in-app email sends your photos at their full resolution
• Blending options let you tweak your quality outputs where photos join one another
• Auto-exposure settings assist with variations in brightness of your stitched photos

Get AutoStitch from the iTunes store here.

See more examples on the AutoStitch Flickr Group.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a struggling musician or a wealthy guitar collector because crime has no preferred supplier. That’s why this little gadget will appeal to anyone who wants to protect their six-string from growing legs…

Ready... steady...

It’s the Rock Lock! And you can think of it like a wheel clamp for your axe. Just attach one side here:

I only vont to hear von click!

Then secure it to something that’s very unlikely to move or be moved by someone (Like this awesome Guitar Store Front)…

Something more permanent than your amp will work better though!

I would imagine it works just as well with special edition Guitar Hero equipment or with guitars hanging in your closet. There you have it, your Rock is totally Locked!

Yesterday Apple made four big announcements that give a glimpse into the future of notebooks, content creation, operating systems and video-calling. Here is the roundup, in bite-size chunks, for you to see:

1. The New MacBook Air

The all-new MacBook Air is the first of the next generation of notebooks that will replace mechanical hard disks and optical drives with Internet services and solid-state flash storage. It’s available in 11-inch and 13-inch models and weighs under 1kg – it’s Apple’s lightest, most mobile notebook ever. The MacBook Air uses the same solid-state storage technology as iPad to deliver instant-on responsiveness, up to seven hours of battery life, and a whopping 30 days of standby time.

It's so thin and doesn't use a hard drive!

The Air is also the first notebook from Apple to use aluminum unibody technology for the screen housing as well as the main body of the machine. Pricing is very competitive and starts at $999.

2. iLife ’11 with new iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand

This is a major upgrade that gives Mac users even more great ways to create and share photos, movies, and music. iPhoto ’11 has a whole new look, with stunning full-screen modes for Faces, Places, and Events.

Add a name to a photo in Faces - it doubles as a Facebook name tag

iMovie ’11 makes it easier than ever to edit videos and quickly transform them into fun theatrical trailers for easy posting online. GarageBand ’11 introduces new ways to improve your playing and create great sounding songs with Flex Time and Groove Matching. New integration with YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook are exciting and deliver amazing features like automatic tagging of your Facebook friends in your iMovie video footage – That’s impressive!

3. FaceTime to the Mac

Apple announced the public beta of FaceTime for Mac, an entirely new application that allows Mac users to video call iPhone 4 and iPod touch users as well as other Mac users. Featuring an intuitive interface, FaceTime for Mac automatically uses your Address Book contacts so there’s no need to create special buddy lists, and it works seamlessly with the built-in camera and mic on Mac notebooks, iMac, and Apple LED Cinema Displays.

Macs, iPhones and iPods can now talk to each other!.With video!

The public beta is available immediately as a free download. This could be a revolutionary step in providing a new alternative and accessible means of video communication to replace land lines and possibly cell phones down the line – you can video call on your iPod Touch for goodness sake!

4. Sneak Peek of Mac OS X Lion

This will be the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system and will ship next summer.

Best iPad & iPhone interface elements coming to Macs!

Lion is inspired by many of iPad’s software innovations and features include the Mac App Store, a new way to discover, install, and automatically update desktop apps; Launchpad, a new home for all of your Mac apps; system-wide support for full-screen apps; and Mission Control, which unifies Exposé, Dashboard, Spaces, and full-screen apps into an innovative new view of everything running on your Mac, allowing you to instantly navigate anywhere. This is going to be the big one!

Bonus: Apple share price

As usual, Apple’s stock went wild as the announcements were released. Look at yesterdays share price with online news items (red dots) plotted on the graph:

Stock graph with realtime RSS news is a feature of See More Markets from Peresys

The day ended off on a high, but the coming week will tell if investors are as excited as I am!

I’ve been using Office for Mac since it came out in ’98 so that Windows users can open my files despite the fact that they look terrible and take ages to create (in comparison to using iWork from Apple). But yesterday I was fairly surprised when Microsoft launched Office for Mac 2011 at the Apple iStore on Sandton Drive.

Why you ask? Firstly it marked the official death of Entourage (possibly the crappest application ever made) and secondly the solution appears (on first impression) to be pretty slick. It seems that Microsoft have actually listened to what people wanted instead of peddling B-grade crap into a market that’s used to A-grade solutions.

We'll have to see if the applications are as awesome as the icons!

From my perspective I’m not interested in the student version. I’m into the business version and look specifically at how it’s going to make the transition from PC to Mac more fluid for those in the corporate space. And I think it will because Outlook for Mac is finally available and it’s no light-weight animal. It’s the real deal, full version, finished and klaar!

Not to say the other apps are insignificant, because they aren’t – Word, Excel and Powerpoint are also heavy-weight players offering every single feature and benefit that windows users are used to in Office 2010 – including the updated interface that uses the trusty old ribbon:

The suite will come in two editions, both available with either a single user license, or a multiple user option:

• Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 (ERP: R999- R1299)
• Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 (ERP: R2499- R2699)

Despite being in line with Office for Windows pricing, I can’t help wonder if people will be prepared to pay this sort of premium for improved compatibility when a copy of Apple iWork goes for less than R1000?

Almost two years ago we saw Sandton City begin its transformation of a R1,77-billion ‘masterplan’, which includes refurbishment of the existing centre, addition of 30 000 m2 of new retail space, improved access and additional parking bays.

But the ‘masterplan’ part?? Behold…

You see the second building from the left? That’s the existing landmark tower that’s graced the JHB skyline for decades. That means the bad boy on the far left is new – 80 stories of glamour to be precise! I believe that may make this building the tallest in the southern hemisphere.