real estate
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New Apple Store at North and Clybourne in Chicago
My current city of Chicago isn't really suffering for Apple Stores -- the one on Michigan Avenue kind of makes up for any other missed areas around here, as it's the nicest and biggest one I've seen (but then again, I haven't been to the ones in New York near Mr. Rose). But it's good to hear that we're going to be getting another store, this one a little bit outside the Loop, on the city's northside. State Street and the theater area, you might think, would be a little more fitting for the next big retail center, but no: apparently the burgeoning retail area between a gutted Cabrini Green and Lincoln Park is the place to be. Coincidentally, I used to work as a manager at the North Halsted Borders there -- served cafe sandwiches to John Malkovitch and found a book for Kurtwood "Clarence Boddicker" Smith, both visiting from Steppenwolf down the street.But perhaps I'm getting too personal -- just color me excited to have a new Apple Store even closer to where I live now (near Clark and Diversey). The new store is set to open on the empty lot that used to be taken up by a gas station between North and Clybourn (right across from the Red Line stop) and would have about 15,000 square feet in the "long-term location." No word from Crain's yet, though, over when the store would open or even when ground might be broken. Still, all of the development guys seem happy -- they'll probably get in there as fast as they can.
Global Condo Center's virtual open houses
Okay, I could've sworn I wrote about this kind of thing before as an idea I'd had, but I'm stuffed if I can find the post. Regardless, Global Condo Center has developed an island in Second Life wherein one can virtually tour Second Life versions of their real life properties. Despite the article's author's disparaging comments, I think this is a great way to make use of Second Life.Obviously one would like to be present in the real location before making any serious plans; no one is going to suggest purchasing or renting a property sight-unseen. One thing that would be beneficial in looking at a new space is the ability to easily move furniture around to better gauge how one would utilize the space, and SL can make this as simple as anything. And by the way, no one was saying that avatars were going to live in the Starwood Hotel building; it was there to gather feedback from residents concerning the design of the building. Let's do a little homework before making these statements, okay? Sorry for the grumpiness -- I'm not feeling well. I need more game time![Via clickz]
RealPIX point-and-shoot aims at realtors, fails to impress
Ah, there's nothing like an over-hyped pile of steaming rubbish, and that's precisely what you'll get if you somehow pull the trigger on the forthcoming RealPIX digicam. The fixed-lens P&S sports an utter lack of beneficial features, but boasts about its "awe-inspiring" 22-millimeter f2.0 lens, "full 90-degree field of view," built-in flash, USB recharging ability, and the laughable 640 x 480 maximum resolution. Furthermore, you won't be seeing any flash card slots, rear LCD monitor, or video mode on this sucka, as the ginormous red button atop this dreadfully designed camera supposedly makes it all worthwhile. The most unbelievable aspect, however, isn't the complete absence of niceties we'd expect on even a low-end shooter, but the expectation that "real estate professionals" will actually drop $299 on this pimped out disposable. Good luck closing on this one.[Via Wired]
MindArk claims $179,668 spent on trio of Entropia virtual properties
MindArk has revealed the winning bids for three of Entropia Universe's virtual mall properties that were auctioned off late last month. One bidder, identified as 'Onkel RobRoy Bob,' purchased two of the malls, Twin Peaks and Emerald Lakes, for a total of $109,601. The third mall was picked up by 'Epsilon Eps Vaz,' an alleged 19-year-old from the UK, for $70,067. The real-world identities of the supposed buyers were not fully revealed in the official press release.MindArk's press releases, this latest included, are often met with skepticism. Entropia has long been accused of being an alluring scam, despite reports (often published by MindArk) of players' economic successes. Whatever the case, there are many of us spending money on the game, and very few of us making any back. But ain't that always the case...See also: Prof debunks MindArk hype; causes CEO tantrum
Dubai's new luxury tower to resemble an iPod
As if the Burj Al-Arab (and Time Residences) in Dubai wasn't unique enough, Omniyat Properties is getting set to construct a 23-story luxury tower inspired by none other than Apple's iPod. Slated to be built in Business Bay, the "iPad residential tower" is scheduled to house more than 200 units, and was "designed by Hong Kong-based architects James Law Cybertecture International." The high-rise will sit atop a "docking station angled at six degrees," which should have iPod fanboys flying over in droves just to snap pictures. While no preliminary sketches have surfaced quite yet, we'll be sure to keep an eye out for future development (ahem) of the world's largest iPod, and you can go ahead and pencil in "sometime in 2009" as your "must-take" vacation.
Knockbox uses WiFi to sell your house
That's right, instead of punishing users who sit outside your house surreptitiously leeching on your WiFi, what you should really be doing is making use of that behavior to sell your on-the-market home. Merely set one of these suckers up, let your real estate agent program it with all the relevant information about the house you're trying to sell, then watch as the droves fly by, connect to the access point thinking they'll get some free WiFi, but are instead directed to a page with a sales pitch tp buy that $400,000 "attached" 1BR condominium with walk-in living room.
Stop manually maximizing your windows
This rant about Mac OS X, multitasking and usability is brought to you by the letter Q and a disgruntled design student:I heard something snap in my head today as I sat down at the back of an art history lecture hall (where outlets are, I follow) and got to peek over the shoulder of a girl using a 15" PowerBook in front of me.This girl was using Safari to browse MySpace and - arguments about that site's damage to civilization as we know it aside - the browser window was 100% maximized across her 1280 x 960 display, obliterating what I would estimate is at least 1/3 of useful screen real estate. Then, she switched over to Word to keep working on a paper - again, Word had been manually maximized across the entirety of her widescreen display which was throwing easily half of her usable screen space into the garbage. Unfortunately, she is just one of many I have witnessed throwing away all sorts of useful screen space while using Mac OS X.Men and women, boys and girls, please: Mac OS X more or less offers only one way to manually maximize windows across your entire display for a reason - because they don't have to be that large. "Multitasking" is defined as "the simultaneous execution of more than one program or task by a single computer processor." If we apply that definition to a person's ability to multitask, it means that you too are able to work on and look at more than one thing at once - which is why Mac OS X intentionally makes it difficult for one application to dominate the entirety of your display (Applications, such as Firefox, that don't obey the Mac OS X windowing rules I'm referring to are exempt from this post).While the various tricks and design ideals that Mac OS X uses to accomplish this fantastic feat of productivity-inducing magic are outside the scope of my rant, I just want the word to get out that it is actually safe to trust your operating system's judgments in these kinds of matters. Tell your parents, inform you friends. I'm especially looking at you, switchers. I know the way Mac OS X handles windows and changing their size is strange, but trust me - once you get used to it and wrap your head around why it works this way on Apple's side of the fence, you'll be overjoyed with all the extra screen space you just reclaimed.So go ahead, live on the edge: use that green "best fit" button and the Window > Zoom options, and be happy that you've taken a positive step towards getting just a little more done on your Mac.
