At the opening of the “biggest iStudio in the world”. Of course. There’s only iStudio here in Thailand.

The place is big. But the collection of products is nothing new. What they have is the learning station where you can sit, chill and learn about Mac computers. They seem to focus on the fact that Mavs are for making music though judging by the amount of electronic keyboards at this place.

And the premium? A mug. Yes. Coffee mug.

Our revered God, Google, has blessed upon us iPhone users the ultimate feature ever.

Over The Air Calendar and Contact Sync!

Do you know what this means? Finally iPhone users can enjoy life’s necessities like the rest of the world. We’re now one step closer to video recording, Flash player, and maybe *gasps* copy and paste!

I have been using the NeuvaSync service for quite some time. It works great, if you consider 50% down time great. Well beggars cannot be choosers. Until today!

Not only does this beta feature works perfectly, it syncs your info almost instantly. I didn’t try out the Contacts sync though as I don’t want random Gmail addresses in my phone but the Calendar so far it is instantaneous. And yes it syncs both ways!

OK. Enough geekness for today. Gotta save some for tomorrow when I jailbreak my boss’ iPhone.

Ironically, editing my Wordpress has stopped me from living my usual internet life. Upon opening Google Reader today, I was greeted with over 250 unread posts on my Mac feeds alone that usually accumulate to around 60 posts a day if I check it daily.

Every damn post in all the Mac blogs are either about the 25th anniversary or Steve’s health. But what I found very useful are all those posts about the history of the machines, from Classics to Macbooks.

I had just turned a Mac late last year when Windows disappointed me with the Vista. Though there are times when I wish I didn’t have to place two fingers on the trackpad to right-click, I still like the Mac experience better than Windows.

Before, I always hated Mac. I found the interface ugly, the keys clunky, and it felt like everything was misplaced. Until I started working at BK which forced me to use a Mac (Tiger) in the art room and I fell in love with it. The interface was very much improved from the last time I touched a Mac when I went to my mom’s office (the game I was playing was Shufflepuck Cafe). It had grown to look so much cooler, smoother, and more friendly for a geek-in-making like me.

And look at me now: A Macbook owning iPhone using, Wordpress blogger. Next geek creds I’m planning to obtain is a DSLR-er, and then if there’s time, an iPhone App developer.

I still wonder why the hell I didn’t get a computer science degree.

Look what we have here.

iTunes Thailand!

Only for applications for the 2.0 iPhone and iPod Touch though, so no TV series, movie, or music download yet. Guess we still need torrents for that.

Does this mean it’s time for me to REALLY get the iPod Touch??

OK yeah, the whole Macbook ordeal isn’t over yet. I have uncovered a new problem.

iWork 08 vs. Office Mac 2008

My office being a stingy budget-conscious one, we still haven’t moved on to the whole Microsoft Office 2007 frenzy — meaning the files ending with .docx have yet to come up. So that means I can use iWork Pages on my Macbook to work on those document files without a problem.

Now, yesterday I was trying to work on something on Word Mac. Just launching the damn program alone took almost a minute to fully open, and another minute to finally activate the cursor on the page. And that’s not all, even though I rarely use Thai fonts lately, I’d still like to have characters that are readable and not just rows of rectangles.

I think Microsoft purposely tries to torture Mac users as they know that .doc, .xls and .ppt are the world’s standard document format.

So I thought about getting rid of the memory eating Office Mac Suite completely and make my Macbook totally Microsoft-free (well, except for MSN). But I still needed second opinions. I went online to Thai Mac forums and 90% of Thai Mac users are rooting for iWork 08. Why? It can read Thai, it’s fast, it’s a no non-sense application, and best of all, it’s B15,000 less to get a legitimate copy of iWork than a genuine copy of Office.

And then, there’s the whole issue of .doc page breaks that get distorted when viewed with iWork Pages. And then there’s also the issue of unreadable .docx formats, which is not problematic now but it could be later. Some people on the forums even suggested installing Parallel just so that they could switch to Windows when they need to use Microsoft Office! So now, I’m still too scared to uninstall the Office Suite.

Damn. It’s painful to be a switcher in a Microsoft world. Mac geeks I know can’t give me advice as their line of work does not even require them to use document applications.

What’s a Mac girl to do?