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Just 5 days until Redux’s new energy drink, Brawndo (as seen in Idiocracy) hits the market. I’m excited. The website’s up and now taking orders! Check it out!

For those of you who aren’t aware, Brawndo is the energy drink of the future, chock full of electrolytes. Seen in the movie “Idiocracy”, Cocaine-maker Redux Beverages will be creating this beverage so you can enjoy a bit of the future…TODAY! Well, not exactly…you’ll have to wait until December 15. The official site is very well-designed in my opinion, but lacks any significant content. I would love to see some more hype, as I am very excited about this drink!

One of my favorite features in Leopard escaped me when I was writing my first post-Leopard blog, but this post is here to set it right. Apple’s default email reader, Mail.app, has received significant upgrades. Apple seems fairly proud of their new “stationary”, which allows Mail.app users to send messages with HTML formatting (borders, framed pictures, etc). Personally I just see that as absurd — I am not looking forward to a generation where email takes 5 minutes to open because it’s so bogged down with images and useless formatting.

That said, Mail.app does have several great improvements. It now allows you to write yourself notes, and store them with IMAP, meaning you can transfer them to your iPhone or laptop, or some other device, fairly easily. Next is to-do lists, which work in much the same way. Both these features are very simple, but they add a lot to the program. No more iCal running in the background. iCal is great, but I can only afford room for one program.

The last great thing about Mail.app is quite timely for me. I’ve only recently started keeping up with world news, the economy, and things of that nature, as much as I should. Mail.app is going to make this even easier for me with its new built-in RSS reader. Safari simply doesn’t cut it as an RSS reader, because, let’s face it, Safari just isn’t built for that sort of thing. Mail.app is. Again, this is a very simple implementation of RSS, and I’m sure hardcore RSS freaks won’t be too thrilled. But for people like me, who can’t justify dedicating one app to RSS and RSS only, Mail.app’s new RSS capabilities are a very welcome addition.

I should also touch on QuickLook, because it is insanely cool. I don’t claim to understand how it works, but from my perspective this is a technological marvel. I can click a PDF document, touch my spacebar, and BOOM! In a matter of less than a second I have the full PDF in front of me. I have tested this on massive, graphically intensive PDFs that would have taken Tiger take 10-20 seconds to fully load up. Everything is instantaneous.

One last thing I’ll mention is the new voice, Alex. He is intended for the visually impaired, and reads words that are on screen. This has existed before, but the voices available were very robotic. Alex is a breakthrough, he sounds incredibly human-like (for a robot). I’m sure that Alex will have a huge impact.

Summarily, at least figuratively speaking, I’m currently screaming like a schoolgirl over Leopard.

And I’m still amused at this:

That’s right, folks, Leopard is here! I had it yesterday! Matter of fact, I was the first person in Utah to walk out of the Apple Store with box in hand! Everything about it is incredible…from the very packaging, to the beautiful new (but familiar) User Interface. It makes my computer SCREAM, presumably from the jump to 64-bit and an even tighter coding standard.

Excusing a few third-party applications that haven’t updated their apps to the “Leopard-look”, everything is very beautifully integrated. The shadows are subtler than before, and yet they do their job of showing you which window is active even better. The Finder bar’s transparency isn’t distracting, as I was slightly worried it might. The Dock is just simply amazing.

Spaces is even more incredible than I thought from the demos. It so so perfectly smooth. Even when my computer is under load, I am able to switch Spaces quickly and elegantly, with no to very little lag. One of my favorite things about Spaces is that it allows me to organize my screens in a way that there are only 2 or 3 open windows in any given Space. That means I get to see my desktop wallpaper a lot more frequently now, which is always a welcome sight. Before, it was rarely seen.

Time Machine is also incredible. The interface is so sleek and beautiful. It makes backing up your computer easy and automatic. The only gripe I have with Time Machine is that it has caused my hard drives to near-constantly emit that incessant clicking noise that means they’re moving files around. That said, I believe the main cause for this is that I have been installing apps and moving files to their new homes all night yesterday, so files were changing more drastically hour-to-hour than during normal use. The problem shouldn’t occur very much when I’m done settling in.

Safari 3 is so much better now. It’s faster, it’s more stable, it fixes all the bugs and gripes I had with Safari 3 Beta. It’s a beautiful, efficient browser, and among your choices: Firefox, Camino, Opera, Safari, at least for me, Safari is by far the best.

But I saved my absolute favorite thing about Leopard for last. I haven’t seen much buzz about this anywhere, which quite surprises me as I find it to be a very useful feature. You see, when your Mac recognizes a Windows server on your network, it shows you in the Finder sidebar. And if you get info on that, you will find that the default icon for a Windows computer on the network is a beige monitor showing the infamous Blue Screen of Death.

So can we expect Vista Service Pack 1 to show Macs on the network as Spinning Beachballs of Doom? But hey, I’d take a psychedelic spinning cursor over an ugly blue screen any day. That’s just me.

Video of the launch, unboxing, and install will come. Peace out.

I hate Microsoft.

New podcast for you guys. Not very serious or useful, but rather amusing (at least I thought so). The more exciting thing about this one is the “Podcast Player” I put together. Let me know if you have any problems with the player, and what you think of it, in the comments. And of course, feel free to comment on the podcast itself

We’re a third of the way through October, but where is Apple with the announcement about Leopard? I might not be able to handle the suspense much longer.

(It won’t auto-play, so once it’s done loading and you can see the play and pause buttons, go ahead and click play.)

Download MP3 (1.7mb, 1min26sec)

IE Users: You may have to click the load message to get the Flash to load properly. Working on a fix to this. In the mean time, get a real bowser.

“…we love to see see students cut themselves and shoot themselves.”

-Mario DeAngelis, Film Production and Camera Teacher, East Hollywood High School

The full quote:

“Sometimes for time reasons, I do a lot of the camera work and editing myself, but we love to see students cut themselves and shoot themselves.”

My friend Archie, who unfortunately is forced to work in the PC world, was checking his rarely used MSN/Hotmail account when he noticed some unsolicited email from…guess who? Everyone’s favorite people over in Redmond, Washington. He followed the unsubscribe link, not wishing to be further brainwashed, and came across this…I’ve highlighted the “punch line”.

This is real: http://email.microsoft.com/m/u/mst/emd/m.asp

I’m no huge fan of Fake Steve Jobs for the most part. It’s not that I disagree with what he has to say - he seems very intelligent - I’m just not fond of his writing voice. For one thing, ironically enough (considering the real Steve Jobs quote he has up: “Negative people upset me”), he is one of the most negative bloggers I have ever read.

But enough on that. I’m posting here because I read something of his that I not only liked and laughed at, but found to be extremely true from the ground up. He writes about how Microsoft does things — and compares it to the way U.S. congress writes bills. He’s spot on with that one. Anyway, head over to FSJ now and check it out for yourself.

Oh, and he mentioned a parody video that piqued my interest: Microsoft’s version of the iPod box. Unfortunately, no link was provided. I went ahead and did a little digging, though, and here it is for you to enjoy. It is very amusing, and it doesn’t even bother to exaggerate (much). Hit me up in the comments if you know of a better quality version somewhere out there.

Peace out

Ever wonder what I do when I’m not blogging, writing, or geeking it up? Well, the truth is rather disappointing I’m afraid…I just lay around in my room all day doing gong hits. Take a gander.