I am an Apple fanboy. I love Apple products. I have a Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, 23” Cinema Display, iPhone 3G, AirPort Express and iPod Shuffle. When a person asks me what kind of computer should I buy (this happens all the time), meaning if they should get a Apple or PC I tell them the same thing. Apple will cost you more initially hands down. If they are looking to spend less than $1000 I tell them to go to Best Buy or hit up Dell.com. If they are looking for value and price is not the #1 option that’s where I work my magic. So hear me out, initially Apple will cost more money. If you are looking to spend less than $1000, stop reading this post. Apple has clearly shown that you are not their target market. Enjoy thisYouTube video.

Initially Apple will cost more but over time a PC will cost you more when you factor in the additional time and money you will put into the system (remember we are talking about machines that cost more than $1000). I have heard over and over that you pretty much have to employ a full time IT guy for your windows system. Ok, its a little exaggeration but you will spend much more time and energy with a Windows based system than an Apple. I have seen this story repeat itself over and over. Family, friends and my place of employment all fall victim of this. Person gets a spiffy Windows machine and between six months to a year problems start to arise. Windows system starts acting funny and feels like a 5 year old machine running Windows ME. This is not to say Apple machines don’t have their problems but that’s what Genius Bars are for!

Apple has no need to lower their prices just because. Everybody wants them to do that just because its a recession and that’s what every other company is doing. Yes its a recession but it won’t last forever and Apple, as history as shown us, takes their time on everything they do. For crying out loud cut/copy/paste will be coming to the iPhone for the first time this summer. Remember Apple doesn’t target people looking to spend under “a stack” (haha, that’s was the first word that came to me when trying to say $1000, a stack = $1K). Apple is saying to Microsoft those people are for you we don’t want them. Prices to get cut on Apple systems but people tend to forget that because those systems cost more than $1000. Let me say this again, Apple lowers prices on their systems from time to time. To understand how Apple works you have to take a step back and just look at how things are. Apple has about $30B in cash and no long term debt (that’s more than Microsoft). They don’t need to lower their standards just to sell more machines at a lower profit margin. That’s not in the Apple playbook for making huge amounts of money.

I used to be all fanatical in getting people to love Apple but I stop that a long time ago. I am more laidback in letting people know the enormous benefits of owning an Apple. I tell them the pros and cons and let them make their choice. I believe an Apple system is the best out there but if you don’t its all right with me.

Today was the big day. I took off from work to compete in the “Battle on Broad Street” at the Wachovia Center. Every year my friend Adam calls me up and asks me to play but I never could make it down. This year he called me this past Sunday to ask me to play and I told him put my name down, I’m in. I was pretty pumped up as the winning team for the competition gets a free airline ticket. Couple years ago Adam went to Hawaii for winning the competition. His team has won it the past 4 years, so I was confident we would capture another title and some free airline tickets.

To get ready Adam and I went to LA Fitness to get warmed up. I needed to because I haven’t shot a basketball since the summertime. I know I am getting old, playing sports in months intervals. We had a nice run at the gym shot a few practice jumpers played a 2 on 2 (we won). Since Villanova was playing that night so we had to get back to watch the game.

On Friday we got down to the Wachovia Center pretty early. After looking at the booklets they handed out, the competition was supposed start at 12.30. We got there around 11. Adam told Bruce our other teammate to get there by 10.30 as he was late last year. Sadly enough Bruce was on time and was waiting longer than us. I got a laugh when I explained to him why Adam told him to get here early. Bruce smiled and assured Adam he would remember this for next year. I'm guessing Bruce will be late on purpose next year. There was some rock band practicing on the court so most of us just played on our phones while trying to kill some time. I played some UNO on my iPhone while Bruce played Pacman on his G1 (peep Jack our other team member relaxing in the background).

The rock band cleaned up and it was time to play. The objective of the game was to score the most points within 2 minutes.

• 1 point = a shot made in the paint
• 3 points = a shot made outside the paint extending to the three point line
• 5 points = a three point shot made

Each team had four players. Two players shot while two players rebounded and would switch at the minute mark so everybody got a chance to shoot. It got kind of crazy when two players shot at the same exact time as the balls would hit each other. Rebounding made you sweat, all the bricks would fly all over the court. The advantage we had over the other 27 teams was quickness. Every other team had a slow and methodical approach. As watching the other teams I felt we had a good shot to win just along as we kept it at a fast pace.

The competition was a double elimination bracket. We won our first three games but then lost our fourth game. The team scored 198 points. Yea we were kinda bummed out because we had our best score so far at 174 but the other team had the competition high for the day. We won the next few games before the “playoffs”. In our first playoff game we won and the next game we tied. To break a tie we had to “shoot for it”. Adam drained his shot from the top of the key and we advanced to the championship round. In the final round we lost, the score was 180 something to 132. I didn’t expect us to lose by that much. The winning team members received $250 airline ticket vouchers (not sure what airline) and club box seats for the Sixers game vs. Bobcats. Even though we finished in second place we received a $50 Best Buy gift card (James Bond Quantum of Solace Blu Ray???).

It really did hurt to lose because coming into the competition everybody knew about Adam’s team, Break Through Consulting. As the only winning team in the history of the competition everybody was giving them their props. As the new kid on the block all I could do was sit back and watch. The past prizes were a $1200 airline ticket voucher on Southwest, this was two years ago. Last year it was reduced to $500 on US Airways and this year it was cut in half to $250. Talk about feeling short changed. $1200 got Adam to Hawaii and now $250 would have gotten us to Miami, I think. I clearly attributed this to the economy as Junior Achievement and Accenture cut back on the prizes. Everyone received two tickets a piece for tonight's game which were located in section 217. By us losing Bruce was highly upset that we missed out on the airline tickets and upgraded club box seats. He bounced quickly and did not stay for the free food. He did not take losing well.

Since I did not eat anything all day except for a chocolate chip cookie, I absolutely killed the buffet they had set up. I had about 3 steak sandwiches and a crap load of chicken fingers. I sat at my table for a good hour just checking my Twitter feed and watching ESPN. I heard the Kentucky coach got fired and I voted “YES” that he had enough time to prove himself on a ESPN.com poll question. Adam and Jack talked for a good while about God knows what but they seemed to be having a good time.

About an hour before tip off is when we ran into Betsy and Kelly, two awesome ladies who work for Accenture. They were volunteers for the day and kept score during the competition. Talk about friendly and cool people to hang out with that knew their Philly sports! We got our section 217 tickets upgraded to tickets in section 105. Their friend hooked us up (I’m sorry, I forgot your name already!). My cousin Kevin came down and we chilled with Adam, his friend and the rest of the Accenture crew as the Sixers lost to the Bobcats.

Break Through Consulting will be back next year and expect us to bring home the gold. I hope the economy is better in 2010 so the amounts on the ticket vouchers can get us on a flight to the west coast!

I saw the trailer today and the movie looks cool. I remember reading this book back in the day. I don’t remember it fully, so I might have to ask one of my little cousins if they have a copy. It comes out October 19, 2009, so we have some waiting to do. Oh yea Spike Jonze is directing it.

I get asked this question a lot lately. To be funny I say it is Facebook statuses on steroids but in all actuality it is much more than that. Twitter is a social networking site that allows its users to send messages (140 characters or less) which are called Tweets to others users who choose to receive them. 

"...isnt Twitter just like a Facebook status?"

On the surface it might seem like a Facebook status but it is much more than that. Facebook is a two way street meaning that once I 'friend' you, my profile is accessible by you and vice versa. In Twitterland it is a one way street which can evolve into a two way street pending the necessary permits from your local government. Twitter users follow each other. Just because you follow a certain person doesn't mean they automatically follow you, hence the term one way street. To become a two way street that person has to follow you back. 

The Twitterverse is open. By default your Twitter is account is open and visible for the world to see even if they aren't Twitter users. You do have the option to lockdown your account and make it private by where you choose who can see your tweets. I'm personally against this as it takes value away from the Twitter service.   

The inhabitants of Twitter island send out tweets that show up in their followers feed. The feed is the first page you see when logging onto Twitter. It is the place where all your followers tweets are organized in chronological order. The more followers you have the more frequent your feed will be updated. 

"What's the purpose of Twitter?"

Twitter is an excellent communication tool but I find that it has a higher value as an information sharing tool. Most of your followers and the people you follow you will never meet in life and that isn't a bad thing. Whereas Facebook most of your friends are people you have met in life. Twitter allows you to expand your world and connect with other people who share your interests in a very easy and simplistic way. 

Personally, I follow a lot of people in the "tech" arena. Those include tech columnists, bloggers, young CEO's of various websites, engineers, developers and etc. If you haven't noticed my interests are tech related and eventually I want to start my own website. Twitter allows me a peek into those who have "made it" in the tech world and those who are trying to "make it". If you wanted to be a baker wouldn't it behoove you to listen to other bakers? Wouldn't be advantageous to you to read the same information they are reading on the internet? Twitter allows me to do all of this and more. 

"I have to follow people I don't know to unlock the full value of Twitter?"

Of course not! Twitterville can consist of people you know. My followers consist of family, friends and people who I have met through Twitter related events called Tweetups. When I was on Facebook I saw that on average my friends would update their statuses one to three times a day. If you start updating your status more than that people get pissed off. On Twitter there's none of that, send out as many tweets as you want, just ask Solange! A lot of people have their rules for "tweeting" but I say don't listen to them. Do as you please. Inhabitants in the Village of Twitter abides by their own set of rules and that's what makes up the Twitter culture.

"Are there any cool features that Twitter has to offer besides these tweets?

Without these tweets there will be no Twitter but if you need a little more to keep you satisfied Twitter has a lot to offer. The Twitter API allows numerous third party developers to create killer applications that tap into the Twitter network. A website called Twitpic allows you to post pictures into your tweets. There are applications Tweetdeck, Twhirl and Tweetie that allows you access Twitter without actually having to go to Twitter's website. These apps are much more powerful in terms of indexing information, accessing tweets and etc through your computer or your phone.

Twitter has a killer search feature at search.twitter.com. This allows you to search through all tweets recently posted. If Google is best at searching for what has happened then Twitter is best at searching for what is happening. For an example when Allen Iverson (basketball player for the Detroit Pistons) cut off his cornrows during the NBA All-Star game last month Twitter had the scoop on it. A friend told me about it but I wanted to get confirmation. I went to Google and searched for it but got nothing and then I searched for it on Twitter and several people tweeted about it. There was actually a Twitpic picture of Iverson with a low cut from someone who was in Phoenix at the time. 

"Whew, that's a lot of information! Thanks for telling me what Twitter is about."

Wait I'm not done, there is still more! But since you insist I'll bring it to end (Its 1.30a Tuesday morning and I'm getting tired). I hope you were able to see what Twitter is about. Don't look at Twitter as a competitor to Facebook because they both are different and their own ways. Until you try Twitter and become an active user is when you'll see what all the talk is about.

For all my Phillies fans out there getting ready to see our World Series champs take the field for the 2009 season, here's a couple of clips to get you ready. Hopefully we can have another celebration down Broad Street next October! Their first game is Sunday April 5th @ 8.00p on ESPN against the Braves. 

I've been following Jamie's blog everyday since my last post about her website, twittershouldhireme.com. She has been faithful in updating her site and keeping all of us informed with the job she is trying to get with Twitter. Her blog posts over the past couple of weeks have been about how Twitter should make money, ways they can stay on top and her actual meeting she had at Twitter HQ. 

I am not gonna break down her meeting she had with Twitter as she has done great job of doing that herself. Jamie met with Jay, Sangetta, Biz, Evan and Jillian. Jamie mentioned that she was told it wasn't a job interview but a lot of job related questions were asked such as pay rate, past experience and etc. Sangetta informed Jamie that they were looking for someone with more experience for their PR coordinator position. I thought Jamie was shooting for the Admin to CEO position (which seems to be filled) or the unfilled Founders Associate position. 

All was not lost just because she didn't get the Twitter job. From her hard work on creating and maintaining her site another company called Tech Venture noticed her efforts. Jamie said she will be taking a part time (could possibly turn into full time work) position to do social media marketing for them. It looks like she excited about the position as that is where heart is, social media marketing (as evident by her awesome site). Congrats Jamie on getting a job in the field of your choice and having the opportunity to meet the brain trust behind Twitter.com!

Check out Jamie's interview she had with Jun Loayza from Viralogy. 

When I first started my blog about a couple weeks ago, I immediately signed up for Google Analytics. I ran some small websites in the past and the tracking of visitors was pretty rudimentary when compared to what Google has. I love numbers and combing through piles of data to see trends, habits and etc. A couple days ago as I was doing my daily Analytics reading when I saw about 20 page views from Texas. This immediately hit me in the face. Most of the time when I get visitors across the country it is about 3 or 4 daily visitors at the most from a particular state. So when I saw 20 and it wasn't from Philadelphia I had to check it out and see what was up. So when I saw the visitors were from Texas I dug I little bit deeper I found out they were from a city/town called Euless. I pulled it up on Google Maps and saw it wasn't too far from Dallas. I still didn't know who Euless was so interested in my small personal blog. I needed to dig deeper some more and went to pull up the network location of the users for that day. Thats when it hit me who in Euless, TX was checking out my site and probably this post. The network location Google had was "Idearc Media Corp". I put two and two together and kind of made a bet with myself that Idearc corporate headquarters was in that area. I went to Idearc's website and it was. Then I remembered that the Idearc rep I had meeting with said he just got back from Dallas on getting training for the SuperGuarantee program.

There you have it. The folks from Idearc have been reading my blog. Since my blog is small I'm sure they got to it my doing a Google search. If you google "Idearc Super Guarantee" my site is number 1, yup ahead of Idearc's own website. There aren't too many sites out there that give their own view of this program so I didn't have a lot of other sites to compete with. As of today there have been 42 page views from Idearc. Here is a video clip of a commercial from Idearc. Enjoy.

What's funny is the line "If you don't get the job right, we'll make it right". Very nice Idearc. In the next commercial I think you should say "If you don't get the job right, we'll make it right in about six weeks while you still live with the problem". 

Jimmy Fallon slow jams the news, AIG style. One of my favorite parts of his new late night talk show. Big ups to the Roots crew!

After reading a couple of tweets by Jason Calacanis (the guy most known for co-founding Weblogs, the home of Engadget) last night, I started to think about what he said and that it is very true. 

I don't know if I will ever get over people leaving the office at 5:30pm. 

@purpleax at startup leaving @5pm,unless you're going to your kids baseball game,seems crazy to me. Not startup culture, not gonna chg world

@Heartagram punching an 8 hour clock is what I'm talkin bout. That's not startup, that's starbucks. :)

I totally agree with Jason 100%. Why? It is impossible to create an awesome innovative company during the 9-5 timeframe. That's the shift of an regular employee who really doesn't care about the company. Yes you may have the one dedicated "regular" employee but in most cases employees don't care. So if you are one of the few people working on the ground floor of an startup, how can you work the same amount of hours as a regular employee? You cant. From my personal experience in working in a small business trying to take it to the next level, my best ideas and thoughts come from working after the company leaves for the day. This is usually around 5-6. Once everyone goes home the office is mine, no phone calls, no interruptions. Its just me in the office churning out ideas and working on getting them implemented. 

If you want to change the world then you have to focus all your energies your idea. If you look at all the great business people of our time I can guarantee you that they and their people were not leaving the office around 6 Monday through Friday. Yes you might sacrifice a lot in the beginning but just look at what awaits you at the end. Regular people or people who do not want to change the world works 9-5. People who are serious about change do whatever it takes to work their dream. They key is surrounding yourself with people who share the same dreams as you. If you are the only person on your team who has the burning passion and desire to work this thing to the end, you will probably won't make it.

I had an awesome time tonight with the best Christian rappers from Lamp Mode recordings at Epiphany Fellowship. It was truly a blessing and a great way to end the day. God is good.

It was supposed to start at 7.00 but everything kicked off around 8.15 or so. It was getting cold outside while waited to get inside but once I got in I could feel the positive vibes flowing. This was my first time hearing the rappers but my friend John told me they all bring it and I would love it. He was dead on. Everyone was great but my favorites and those I really connected with were Shai Linne and Stephen The Levite. I've always heard Christian rap before but tonight it was like I heard a new sound. The beats were hitting hard, kudos to Deejay Essence and Average Joe. Their flow was different, not the normal flow I am used to hearing from Christian rappers. I especially like how Shai Linne brought it in "Penelope Mudd" and how Stephen The Levite basically used all bible verses in one of his songs.

If I had to do it all over again I would've waited outside again because it was well worth it. I totally forget it only cost $3 to get in. Oh yea the tea looked amazing, I'm not a tea fan but I think everybody else there was.

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