Based on market capitalization, Apple has official become the largest tech company in the world, passing Microsoft. Thanks in large part to ridiculously successful sales of the iPhone, iPod, and now the iPad as well as continually growing Mac sales, the company has slowly but steadily chipped a way at a market once entirely dominated by Windows-based products. Market cap, according to Wikipedia, is “a measurement of size of a business enterprise (corporation) equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding of a public company.” During regular trading hours today, Apple’s shares (AAPL) dropped $1.11 to finish the day at $244.11, which sets its market cap somewhere around $222 billion. By comparison, Microsoft’s stock (MSFT) fell $1.06 to $25.01, for market cap of about $219 billion. Although this is mostly important to stock investors, specifically those who invest in those two companies, it is a huge first for Apple and is a title I’m sure they are hoping to hold on to for quite some time.
Now is the time for Energy Reform
May 21st, 2010 
Evan Republicans have a long and storied tradition of taking a national tragedy, such as the events of September 11th, 2001, and manipulating it in their favor. Their strategies often line the pockets of executives, wall street, government contractors and military contractors with excessive amounts of cash. Now is the time for the Democrats to employ a similar strategy and take advantage of the horrible eco-disaster taking place in the golf coast. Unlike the Republican party, however, their motives can be entirely pure. Help wean this country off of its oil dependence and on to cleaner, safer, and renewable energy sources.
The oil spill that began two weeks ago and continues to pump massive amounts of oil in to the gulf of Mexico today is a huge disaster of epic proportions. There isn’t a sane person in this country that doesn’t think so and if there is one positive thing that can come from this, it is to utilize the hugely negative view of oil, specifically offshore drilling, to help pass a sweeping energy bill that will pump money in to wind farms, solar technologies, and research of future clean and renewable energy sources. Many people might not realize this, but the United States is one of the more ideal spots in the world to utilize solar energy. If the government would help subsidize installation of existing technology, while promoting the research neccesary to produce less expensive solar technologies, the US could easily find itself requiring less and less of the dirty fossil fuels.
So why aren’t we doing this? There is an underwater volcano of oil spewing in to the Gulf of Mexico as I type this and I sincerely hope that the Democrats in the Senate and House realize that this horrible man-made disaster is their golden opportunity and take full advantage of the growing hatred of oil in this country and pass sweeping energy reform.
App Profile: Twitter for iPhone
May 21st, 2010 TAV 
Twitter for iPhone
Category: Social Networking
Last Updated: May 18th, 2010
Current Version: 3.0 (Previously Tweetie 2)
Size: 2.4 MB
Price: Free
Once upon a time there was a @Twitter client for the iPhone named Tweetie. Although it was not a free client like some of it’s stiffer competition (Read: @Twitterrific), Tweetie was generally considered the best Twitter app available for the iPhone. Then, on April 9th, 2010, Twitter itself announced that had purchased the parent company of Tweetie and would be updating the iPhone client, re-releasing it as “Twitter for iPhone”, and dropping the price all the way down to the low low price of free.
This brings us to today, where the first and only official Twitter client has been unleashed on the world. I never used Tweetie, so I can’t really say if the differences between Tweetie 2 and Twitter for iPhone are big changes or even if there are any changes other than the name and icon, but I have been using Twitterrific, so that is my baseline of comparison. With that in mind, the new Twitter client is awesome.
Virtually anything that you can do on the web via Twitter’s website is integrated in to the client. The client goes even beyond that, though. The interface is extremely clean and easy to navigate and understand. The pull-down to refresh method integrated in the client is my personal favorite way of doing it. You can easily view top tweets, popular tweeters, view maps of localized tweets, and just about anything else you might want. You can even edit virtually every part of your profile with the exception of the web design options. If that’s not enough for you, then try swiping across a tweet. It gives you instant easy access to retweet, set it as a favorite, reply, view the tweeter’s profile, and more.
Sounds awesome, right? Well, it is, but it isn’t quite perfect. Ok, so functionally it is pretty close, but visually it is frankly a bit bland. This is where Twitter could really take a page out of the Twitterrific playbook. Twitterrific has an absolutely fantastic look two it and even offers three different style options, whereas the official Twitter app is visually the closest to Twitterrific’s most basic and likely least used style. I’m not asking for them to have a graphic designer spend the next month working full time on revamp of the App’s visual style, but spicing it up a bit wouldn’t hurt.
Despite a few flaws, if you have an iPhone and use Twitter, this is a must have. There really isn’t another free client available that offers everything that Twitter for iPhone does and you wouldn’t want to pay for something you can get for free.
White Entry-Level MacBook Receives Speed Bump
May 18th, 2010 TAV As of first thing this morning, Apple has rather quietly announced an update to it’s entry-level White MacBook. Keeping its price of $999, the laptop now offers a faster 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor as well as the NVIDIA 320M graphics chip used in the latest revision of the 13″ MacBook Pro. It also now boasts the same higher capacity 63.5Whr battery first introduced in the 13″ MacBook Pro. According to the Apple Store online, it is available immediately and ships within 24 hours.
TAV's New Social Media Toolbar
May 17th, 2010 TAV See that shiny new toolbar at the bottom of your screen? That’s our new social media toolbar here at The Apple Vine, courtesy of Wibiya. What does this mean for you, our loyal reader? Easy access to your preferred social media outlets, that’s what! You can now easily keep track of us on Facebook and Twitter, share a post you like on various different social bookmarking sites, and “Like” any page or post. If English isn’t your native language, you can even automatically translate TAV in to one of many common languages. I hope it helps improve your reading experience and if it doesn’t, you can even click to hide it away.
Facebook has a big problem brewing…
May 13th, 2010 Evan In light of recent Facebook privacy policy changes, one search has been becoming more and more popular on Google.
Beginner's Guide To Setting Up A Mac Mini Media Center
May 12th, 2010 TAV 
You know you’ve thought about it. Ditching cable and hooking a small computer up to your TV to stream videos, TV shows, movies, music and more is something that every geek would love to do. Well, there isn’t really a better computer on the market for doing this than the Mac Mini from Apple. In this article, we will tell you everything you need to get and install to be able to hook your Mac Mini up to your TV and maximize your viewing experience.
Hardware Requirements
There are a few things you’ll need to buy (or already own) for this to work.
- Mac Mini
– You won’t get too far without actually owning a Mac Mini. Coughing up a little extra cash for more RAM and a larger hard drive is likely something you will not regret.
- Wide-Screen HDTV
– This really isn’t worth doing without a good TV.
- Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter
– Gives your Mac Mini an HDMI port.
- HDMI Cable
– Along with the Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, this will allow you to hook up your Mac Mini to virtually any modern television.
- Apple Remote
– This will allow you to control and navigate through most of the programs you’ll be using in your media center.
- Apple Wireless Keyboard
+ Magic Mouse
– There will be times when you’ll need and/or want to do something that just can’t be done easily or quickly with the remote. This duo will make life at your couch a lot easier.
Optional:
Hardware Setup
Setting everything up is relatively straightforward and really much more complicated than setting up any other Mac. Find a good place to put your Mac Mini near your TV where it is visible and has room to breathe (overheating is bad, mmkay?). Once you’ve got it where you want it, simply plug everything in (power, hdmi adapter, and hdmi cable) and power up the Mac. It should automatically adjust to display correctly on your TV, but you can always adjust the resolution to suit your needs. If this is a brand new Mac Mini, just run through the set up and configure it like you would any other Mac. The initial setup is where you will find that having a keyboard and mouse is needed the most. Once you’ve got everything in place and working, it’s time to decide what software you want to use to view various different shows and programs on your Mac Mini.
Software Options
There is a decent selection of different programs you can install (or come preinstalled) on your Mac Mini to improve your viewing experience. Here’s a quick selection of the best options and what they offer you. Are there more than just these three? You bet there are, but many of the features overlap with these or aren’t as extensively developed.
Front Row is Apple’s very own media center application. It will seamlessly integrate with anything you’ve added to iTunes or iPhoto and give you a nice clean full-screen interface with with to view your movies, tv shows, pictures, or listen to music. It also has access to a huge assortment of movie trailers, if you’re looking to catch up on what will be hitting the theaters soon.
Boxee is a beta product and comes with its fair share of bugs, but it is still one of the absolute best media center solutions that you can get. It can play back just about any type of audio and/or video file format that you throw at it, scrapes the web for coverart and information on whatever you’re playing, will function as your DVD player, offers social networking integration, and much more.
Hulu’s Desktop Client gives you access to all of the content of the net’s most successful destination of streaming TV & movies without having to open up your web browser. As a joint venture of Fox, ABC, and NBC, this offers you access some of the biggest hit shows on network and cable television, not to mention feature length films, trailers, and more.
Drawbacks
If you’re doing this as a replacement for your Cable or Satellite TV as opposed to a supplement, then there are some caveats you should be aware of. Unless you are one to illegally pirate all of your viewing materials, there is a plethora of content that you might have access to now that simply isn’t available on the Internet, free or otherwise. One huge glaring example of this is the hugely popular programming on pay channels such as Showtime or HBO. Neither of these networks currently offer any kind of online access to their content, even as a paid subscription (Which I would gladly pay if any executives happen to be reading this!). Another factor to keep in mind is new programming. Not everything that is available through services such as Hulu is available as soon as it has aired through traditional means. Sometimes you have to wait a day, week, or more and sometimes it won’t be available until it has been released on DVD.
Summary
If none of the above drawbacks are a huge concern to you, then setting up a Mac Mini as your new media center solution is a fantastic and fun idea that can provide you, your friends, and your family with endless entertainment. It requires a decent initial investment to get any hardware that you might not already have, but can save you hundreds of dollars a year in cable or satellite costs, if not more.
Android Overtakes Apple in US Smartphone Usage
May 11th, 2010 TAV According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, Android has usurped Apple for the #2 spot in the US smartphone market. RIM still leads the pack with it’s Blackberrys (-ies?) commanding a 36% market share, with Google’s Android OS now at 28% and Apple’s iPhone at 21%. AT&T, amazingly still the only company to offer the iPhone in the US, is still the leader of the pack with a total 32% of the smartphone market with Verizon trailing closely behind at 30%.
With the release of the iPhone OS 4.0, the next generation iPhone (Potentially called the iPhone HD), and a rumored Verizon offering all coming this summer, one can likely expect the iPhone’s market share to climb back up by fall and potentially retake second place.
Trimming The Fat
May 7th, 2010 Evan Just a quick update to let any regular readers out there know that I’ve uninstalled a whole host of WordPress extensions from this site that weren’t really needed and cleaned up the sidebar. All this means is that page loading should be noticeably faster. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
The Best DVD Cover Ever?
May 5th, 2010 Evan As you may or may not be aware, The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies. A few years ago they released the 20th Anniversary Edition on DVD. Although I did not see this then, as I already own a copy of the movie, this edition of the DVD has what could possibly be the greatest DVD cover ever. It is easily the most awesome ambigram I have ever seen.
