I am not a “gearhead” by any stretch of the imagination. I know how to check my tire pressure, do some very basic maintenance and where to put the gas in my car. That is about it.

But what happens when you take away the gas tank and leave me with plugging the car into a wall socket? Things get intriguing.

During my most recent visit to the TechnoBuffalo offices, I was lucky enough to discover we currently had a Ford Focus Electric on-hand for review purposes. After all the talk you’ve heard about completely electric cars you tend to think of them as either a myth, or extremely underpowered. How could I resist when Jon Rettinger offered me the keys to the vehicle when I made a run to Starbucks? You have to accept and try it out and see if it is some form of joke to drive.

It’s not. Not by a longshot.

After you hit the start button and you see the dash come to life, all you hear is the AC and the radio – SiriusXM mind you – come to life, but there are no “normal” car sounds: You don’t hear that familiar rumble of an internal combustion engine, and you almost have to wonder if the car has even turned on. Deciding to try my luck, I applied the brake, moved the shifter to reverse, and saw the in-dash display change to a back-up camera, but I still opted to look over my shoulder. Slowly easing my foot off the brake, I moved. The only additional sound added to the hum of the AC and Rob Zombie on the radio was that of the tires rolling backwards, but yet the engine still remained entirely silent.

And that, if I had any, would be my only complaint about driving an electric car. The lack of engine sounds is so foreign that you feel somewhat removed from the driving experience. Gone is the sound of the increasing RPMs foreshadowing your change of gears, and it is replaced by instant torque. As Rettinger explained it to me, think of your electric drill. The second you pull the trigger, you are at full torque, and that is how it is with this car. There is no need to build up to the power, so you simply have as much energy going to the tires as you give them by pushing down on the accelerator. The pickup from 0 to 30 was amazing, but I never really got to try going faster than that due to the area our offices are in.

There is some mysterious beast called “regenerative breaking” that helps charge the batteries back up as you drive… I have no clue how it works, I just know it’s a good thing when the little circle spins and it tells you that you are somehow putting energy back in. Yay!

Two of my biggest concerns with the concept of electric cars have been what it would do to your home electric bill and being able to charge when you’re away. To the former, Rettinger told me he his home electric bill went up a whopping $14 last month when he had the vehicle in his possession for the entire billing cycle, and that was with plugging it in every night. Essentially about the cost of three gallons of gas for an entire month’s worth of driving. And as for charging when away from home, well, that is still a bit tricky. More and more places around Southern California are adding charging stations, but you still aren’t going to be using your average fully electric car on a cross-country drive. Perhaps a Chevy Volt which can also use gas, but definitely not the Ford Focus Electric at this time. (Tesla Motors has just launched “Super Chargers” that will allow its electric cars to travel cross-country, but they are specific to their vehicles)

I’m still intrigued by hydrogen as a fuel source, but electric definitely has my attention more than ever before. There was nothing half-assed about this car. You had all of your usual car amenities down to Bluetooth connectivity for your phone, but you get the added bonus of pointing and laughing at those poor saps standing at gas stations fueling up their cars.

Consider me won over. And should electric charging ever become widespread, I would definitely be giving this a lot more thought as an option to a future car purchase.

Unless you live under a rock, you know that Apple introduced a new version of the iPad today. The big question, however, is what the heck it’s name is.

When Apple unveiled its third generation iPad today they merely called it “the new iPad.”  That’s it.  No numbers, no extra “HD”, nothing else, just plain old, simple, “iPad.”  Okay, fine, if that’s what they want to go with, it’s their call, but there is some potential confusion out there as the iPad 2 isn’t going away.  It will still be available – albeit for $100 less and in only one memory size – so isn’t there some potential for customers to get a bit befuddled.

Customer – I’d like an iPad please.

Employee – Sure thing, do you want the iPad or the iPad 2?

Customer – Oh, well I guess I’ll take the iPad 2 since that sounds newer.

Employee – Well, no, actually the iPad is newer.

Customer – (picks them both up) But the iPad 2 is lighter and slightly thinner and we all know tech gets smaller with each generation.  And it’s cheaper, so this must be the newest one!

Employee – You know what, yes, yes it is.  Buy the iPad 2.

It would seem Apple is moving away from numbering its products, and that’s all well and good, but when you have two products in the marketplace, and one is named “iPad” and the other is named “iPad 2,” well, perhaps dropping the numbering wasn’t the brightest idea after all.

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are just the latest two examples that the United States government are either a)totally ignorant to how the Internet works or b)they truly are in the back pocket of the media conglomerates.

Have you ever used an image you found on Google without asking permission?  You would be in violation of SOPA & PIPA and could have your site shut down.  Your hosting provider could be shut down.  Any site that links to you could be shut down.  And all of this could happen because a company, with little proof, filing a complaint against you.

If all this sounds serious, you would be correct, and that is why a large portion of the Internet is going dark today.  We can not, and will not, stand for the U.S. government crippling the Internet and causing those of us who have spent years building this fantastical resource to be gagged due to the concerns of someone being worried that someone MIGHT pirate a copy of Fast Five.

Yes, piracy is wrong.  Yes, it should be stopped.  But doing so with over reaching laws that will hand the keys to the Internet over to the likes of the RIAA and MPAA is not the solution.

SeanPAune.com will be joining the blackout today.

This post is a lie.

Although it is dated as January 11, it really is being posted on the 13th. Why am I allowing myself this lie? Because the two missed days of posting were not my fault by any stretch of the imagination, but that of Las Vegas’ total lack of ability to handle 140,000 tech people coming to town at once.

For the past two days I have had a total inability to get online other than at CES – a place where I am supposed to be working, and not updating my personal blog – either by hotel Internet or by mobile hot spots.  Las Vegas becomes a virtual ghost town of Internet connectivity when this show hits town, and that is just mind blowing to me.  It is one of the biggest gatherings in the world of people that need to be connected at all times, and while Las Vegas constantly builds more hotel space, they do nothing to accomodate one of their largest money making events of the year.  Astounding.

So, yes, I am back dating some posts because I wrote them, but was unable to post them, and while I scrapped the original one for the 11th to put this one up instead, I’m going to count it.

… Stupid Internets.

While working at CES 2012 today at the Las Vegas Convention Center, the TechnoBuffalo team encountered some Internet issues for a bit.  How do you know you work for a tech company?  When not only are people carrying multiple phones on them, but multiple hot spots.  This picture shows just about half of the hotspots we ran through during our Internet issues trying to find some form of solution.  These are only the T-Mobile and Verizon devices we were trying, but there were also some AT&T and Sprint devices to hit the table as well.

When this was going on we were literally feet from an outer wall and nothing was catching a signal. I finally moved to a different hall and worked out of the press room – which its Wi-Fi was a disaster – and through some odd miracle I was able to get the Droid Bionic to finally work and give me some 4G speeds.

It certainly wasn’t from a lack of available devices that we were having issues, though.

Post Script – I wrote this post last night before going to bed, and just as I went to hit publish the Internet in my hotel room gave out and none of the four hotspots I had on me could connect … I love Las Vegas during CES …

It’s the end of Press Day at CES, and beyond just being flat out pooped, I am walking away with a feeling of, “wow, technology does some silly things.”

Do you need to control your washing machine from your smartphone? You can do that now. Do you thing your fridge just doesn’t cool a 12 oz can of soda quick enough? There’s a solution for that. In short, for every cool thing that happens in tech these days, there are also some things that make you just scratch your head … a lot.

For all of the scoop on CES you can following along at the TechnoBuffalo CES page and see what we’re up to.

I remember on January 9, 2007 falling deeply in love with the iPhone.

A few days later realities set in for me, and while I still liked the idea, but I also knew at that point it was more about the possibilities it represented than what it was at the time.  There was, however, another small issue for me: It was only on AT&T, and I loved, and still do, my service with Sprint.

So, after watching the iPhone develop over the years, getting more desirable with each subsequent release for what I wanted it to do, I was still waiting for that final piece of the puzzle to fall into place, and that was a release on Sprint.

All I can say is, it’s about time.

The iPhone 4S, the fifth iteration of the phone, finally made its way on to my network of choice, and I had to jump on it immediately.

So, yes, after years of trying the BlackBerry thing, and then moving on to Android, I have finally arrived at what I was originally looking for.  Will it live up to everything I hoped for?  Only time will tell, but except for one or two little annoyances I noticed immediately, I think I’m going to be pretty darn happy.

Enjoy the video below of the first few minutes I spent with my phone that were recorded for a video to go on TechnoBuffalo.  So enjoy my first ever unboxing video recorded of my first iPhone which is on Sprint for the first time.  It’s like a triple hit.

Here’s hoping to the iPhone and I having a long, healthy and loving relationship.

It’s almost impossible to collect my thoughts at the moment when it comes to the news of Steve Jobs passing.

I never owned a Mac before last year, but it was never out of a hatred for Apple, they simply didn’t suit my needs.  However there was one thing that I never had an issue with and that was Steve Jobs, the co-founder former CEO of Apple.

I’m not going to go into a lot because what do you really say about a man that not only helped shape your life (would there even be a world of tech blogging without him? … think about it), but also helped shape the entire world.  The things he helped invent, design and spearheaded will be with us for years and decades to come.

Steve Jobs may be gone, but his legacy will live on.

My deepest condolences to his family, friends and co-workers.

I’ve known this day was coming for some time, but it still didn’t stop my jaw from going a bit slack when it finally happened.

Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple.

I have had my issues with Apple over the years, and even now that I have seemingly converted my computer loving ways over to the all mighty iMac, one thing you would never hear me do is say a negative word about former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.  Say what you will about the company’s products, but there is no denying that the man is a business genius.  What he has done with Apple is nothing short of amazing, and I truly believe that some day in the not so distant future, there will be entire business courses taught around some of his decisions.

While he is not completely leaving the company it seems, it will still be odd to not think of him calling all of the shots on a day to day basis.  Steve Jobs has been Apple for so many years that they have become one and the same.  While I can name most of the executives at Apple (because it’s my job), I doubt many other people can.

Thank you, Steve for all you have done.  Thank you for your part in changing the world and the industry I love.

Just … thank you.

As I’ve been telling all of you for the past few weeks, I am finally making the change from being primarily a Windows user to a Mac user. While the process has been fairly painless, there has been a hiccup here or there, and this week I hit a doozy.

On Monday the 4th, I finally moved the Windows monitor out of the primary desk position and moved the iMac over. That day being a holiday seemed to make sense as it would allow me a day to get comfortable with it before starting a full work day.  The first thing I noticed is while a 27-inch monitor is great to look at, it’s a heck of a lot of real estate to transverse with a mouse.  So, using a combination of the Magic Trackpad and the Microsoft mouse I planned to use, I’ve figured ut a pretty good system for getting around the screen.  (Trackpad for distance and simple tasks, mouse for tasks that require accuracy.)  I don’t blame the Mac OS for this issue, it’s just part of dealing with a screen of this size.

Tuesday started off well with no issues, and I was able to do all of my usual work without any issues.  (Note to Adobe: Why in the world does Photoshop hide the desktop on Windows, but it doesn’t on the Mac?  I constantly click out of the program by accident.)  However, towards the end of the day I was on a conference call where I needed to send someone a document, and I couldn’t.  The Mac was totally locked up.  I sent it from another computer and started trying to figure out the issue after the call.  I could get the Force Quit window to open, but I couldn’t click on anything with either the mouse or the Trackpad.

I called AppleCare and they ran me through a bunch of different things to try.  We would reboot, it would work … then lockup.  We tried other things with the same result.  They wanted me to go to an Apple Store, but seeing as the closest is 180 miles away, that wasn’t happening.  They wondered if was my third-party apps, but I told them the exact same apps run on the MacBook Air I use for work/travel, and it has never had an issue.  They finally told me to reinstall the operating system, which, as a 25 year PC user, struck fear in my heart, but with the Mac OS it doesn’t mean reinstalling anything.  Huzzah!  I did it, the system ran, I shut down and went home for the night.

Tuesday morning I decide to come in early in case anything was wrong again.  Yep, it was locking up again.  Back to AppleCare I went.  This guy ran me through a bunch of stuff, issues persisted and I was beginning to think I was going to switch back to my Windows machine.  Finally we got it to boot without issues and we ended the call.

Now, here’s where all my computer experience comes in.  I decided to reboot again, and … lockdown.  Back to the phone I went.

This time I got an older sounding gentleman, and he read over the history of the case, and he goes, “What device are you using for a mouse?”  I told him the Microsoft mouse and the Magic Trackpad.  He told me to unplug the mouse and turn off the Trackpad.  And at that point I mention that if needed, I still had the Magic Mouse laying on my desk if he wanted me to try that.

• Him: “… are the other things off?”
• Me: “Yes … and, whoa … the Magic Mouse is working, it’s no longer locked up.”
• Him: “Pull the batteries from the Magic Mouse, plug your mouse back in and turn the Magic Trackpad on and then reboot.”
• (After doing all that) Me: “It’s not locked up.”
• Him: “Even though you weren’t using the Magic Mouse it was talking to the iMac and confusing it.”

After telling him everything the other two had me do, he just chuckled and said he believed in K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid).  And I have to agree.  I haven’t had one issue since he had me pull those batteries out.

Now, admittedly, I never told the other two about the Magic Mouse, but they also never asked me about my devices either.  All told, tech support guy #3 took less than 5 minutes from start to end, and he did have the leg up of seeing what the other two had done, but my gut tells me he still would have taken only five minutes from start to end.  There is certainly something to be said for age in situations like this.

Otherwise the week has gone swimmingly, although it is taking some getting used.  For instance, changing where my thumb goes for Copy and Paste keyboard shortcuts is driving me batty.  Command-C and Command-V are no where as physically comfortable as Control-C and Control-V on the PC.  Everything else is pretty much a learning curve, but after a quarter century of working with Microsoft-powered computers, I think that is to be expected.

A few years back Apple ran a promotion stating how it had never been easier to switch from a PC to a Mac.  For the most part I would say this is a true statement.  Unlike the old days, most of the programs you’re used to are easily found, or there is something similar you can run.  Overall I am finding the experience of switching my primary computer from a PC to a Mac to be a painless and easy experience.

… and then it came to iTunes.

I’m a music junky and I have a collection of music that is far larger than any human should even contemplate having.  On my PC I had my music files on an external drive, but my iTunes and podcasts ran off of my primary C drive.  I was expecting some hiccups with this setup, but nothing that I couldn’t overcome.  I had moved the collection between various PCs a few times, so I didn’t see why this should be that difficult as it was essentially an Apple product coming “home” if you will.

I started doing some research online and what I found was a mish-mash of haphazard ideas and workarounds.  Seeing as I had paid for Apple Care, I gave them a call … for the first time ever an Apple employee gave me a less than satisfactory answer and actually suggested I call Microsoft to see if they had a tool for converting the files to the required Mac format.

Are you kidding me?  You want people to switch to Mac, but you don’t have a simplified process for moving one of your flagship products?  That ranks up there on the idiotic scale in my book.

So I ended up going to a bunch of forums and asking questions, and much to my surprise, nobody came up with a good answer.

While doing this research I came across an ad for a programs called CopyTrans TuneSwift.  It was $15, but it promised to move your iTunes from a PC to a Mac with ease.  At this point, with days of research under my belt, I figured I had nothing to lose.  I made a backup of everything to another external hard drive just to be safe (which took nearly a full work day), ran the program (which took nearly a full work day) and then did the restore on the Mac … which took about 90 minutes.

End result?  Everything is on the Mac and working without a hitch.  Everything ended up on the main drive, which isn’t exactly what I wanted, but to be honest, at this point I just didn’t care any more: It all moved, it’s all working and I’m just happy.

Apple: Take note of this.  You want people to switch to a Mac, you need to make it far, far easier to move iTunes.  The process was silly, and the fact I had to spend $15 on a program to do it was just idiotic.  Want an idea?  Buy the rights to TuneSwift, because for whatever reason, they got the whole thing to work.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I first heard about Apple’s Magic Trackpad, I mocked it. I don’t remember where I mocked it, but I made fun of the concept somewhere.

Last Sept. I went to Philadelphia on vacation, and with some time to kill one morning, I swung by the Apple Store to just poke around and see what was new.  (mind you, the closest Apple Store to my home is a three hour drive, so being within walking distance of one is actually intriguing to me)  While there I was trying out all of the gadgets I hadn’t before as Apple doesn’t usually send out review devices.  With a large smirk on my face, I tried the “Magic” Trackpad … and instantly fell in love.

While I’m not a huge fan of trackpads on computers – I actually travel with a full-sized mouse – this is a completely different experience.  The size, the smoothness, it’s just a joy to use.  Add in the multi-touch gestures that allow you to do things like go backwards or forwards in your history in a browser and just kicks up the computer experience another notch.

I still use a mouse with the iMac for things like photo editing, but the “Magic” Trackpad sits next to my mouse pad, and quite often I find my hand going there before it goes for the traditional device.

Accuse me of drinking the Apple Kool-Aid if you must, but I am now a fan of the “Magic” Trackpad.  What I’m not a fan of … that blasted “Magic” in front of its name.  Until this thing pulls a rabbit from a hat, it’s not all that “magic.”

Before you go thinking I’ve totally lost my mind to Apple seeing as last week I discussed switching to an iMac as my main computer, next Sunday I will be spitting fire about what turned into a multi-day battle with iTunes.  ”It’s never been easier to switch to a Mac” my hiney!