THEMACGIRL*

Despite being into technology I am usually always behind on having the latest and greatest. One, I’m a college student (‘nough said), and two, I’d rather wait and get feedback from others about a product before buying. I’d rather be late in the game than wasting money on something that turns out to be underwhelming.

I have been an Apple user since ’05, and say what you will about their prices, they produce great products. Just this year I upgraded my Powerbook G4 to a Macbook. I probably could have waited a little while longer but with the software I needed for college it was running a little slow for my comfort. It has now been passed on to my sister. My current iPhone is the 1st generation that I bought off of a friend when they announced the first 3G model. I’ve been using this phone for the last two years and it has served me well but it is time. Oh, it is time!

After the debacle of trying to pre-order the phone on the 14th, I was finally able to reserve one at the Apple store. The following day I was finally able to pre-order it, but it wasn’t scheduled to arrive until July 6-8. I was a bit bummed but I could wait. I waited until Friday and decided to trek up to the Apple store in Louisville. Heh. I was not getting my hopes up because after seeing the lines on launch day I didn’t think they’d have any left. I got there about 8:30am and there were only 20 people ahead in line. After waiting about 20 minutes the concierge at the door said they had sold out of the 16GB model; what I wanted. BUT I made the special trip, and I was already waiting; I’ll shell out another $100. An hour after arriving I was in and out with my phone activated!

I think the girl who was helping me in the store was a little too excited that I was upgrading from the original to the newest model. I can understand her excitement now after using the iPhone 4. Just simple things like turning the phone on and off is significantly faster, checking in on foursquare (my new addiction) is substantially faster, too.

I’ve spent a lot of time playing around with the phone this weekend and I am in love. I’ve only ran into one issue so far and that was pairing my Jawbone headset up with the new phone. After doing my own troubleshooting, looking at forums and what their solutions were, nothing was working. I finally had a friend look at it and it almost immediately paired to my phone. Go figure!

The one thing I am completely blow away by is the display. Seriously, the colors are so vivid and the text looks incredible. The screenshot below from twitter is a perfect example of how amazing the text looks. My only wish for the future is the ability to install themes without having to jailbreak it. I have no intention of jailbreaking this phone any time soon so I’ll be patient and hope that one day Apple will jump on the bandwagon.

I first began this post wanting to detail 2008 and the many things that happened, but I don’t want to bore you with what you’ve been able to read in the past, or that I’ve told you. Most of my readers are close friends who hear about what I’m up to on a regular basis, especially if you read my twitter updates. I probably update twitter more than I should at times, but I suppose there are far worse addictions. Overall, 2008 has been a wonderful year. I’ve met a lot of new friends, mostly through flickr, that I continue to see on a regular to somewhat regular basis. Most importantly, I traveled more than I’ve ever done before in a year span. I think that was my big “resolution” for 2008: to travel more. To view photos from 2008 click here.

As for 2009 I’m not making any “resolutions” per-say, maybe a few goals. The word “resolution” seems like a doomed word, who really keeps their resolutions? Well, I suppose there are people out there with willpower, but I’m not one of them. I guess my big goal for this 2009 is to complete Project 365.

I attempted Project 365 last year and it fizzled out shortly after day 100. I lasted longer than I originally thought I would . . . so that’s positive? If you’re unfamiliar with Project 365 it’s pretty simple: you take a photo each day. I recall learning quite a bit about my camera when I was participating, and it’s not a crazy goal to have to keep up with. It helps that some of my friends are participating this year too. I posted my first photo (left) yesterday of my niece. If you’d like to keep up with the my project without joining flickr, you can subscribe to the feed here or livejournal users can add tmg_flickr to their friends.

I’m also brainstorming design ideas for a personal photography website. My brother told me I should do it, and for some reason I’m listening to him. What’s the worst that could happen? Not getting any clients? I’m at least attempting a step forward.

I hope 2008 treated you well and 2009 continues to do so! Happy new year!