In case you’ve been living under a rock in the Macisphere, there was a question asked at the recent iMac announcement event that set John Gruber at Daring Fireball off.  Basically, Bob Keefe — a reporter from the Austin American-Statesman — asked Steve Jobs why Apple didn’t participate in the “Intel Inside” sticker program and put the stickers on their current and future Macs.

To those of us who’ve been Mac users for a while, this is an astoundingly dumb question.  The answer is Apple doesn’t think the $2-3/machine they’d get to put the stickers on their machines is worth the negative aesthetic effects they’d have in mucking up what are generally the most attractive PCs in the business.

Gruber named Keefe the Jackass of the Week (a running gag at DF), MacUser actually outed Keefe as the guy who asked the stupid question and posted an audio clip.  Keefe’s responded saying he was working on a story about the Intel Inside program and wanted a quote while simultaneously disparaging bloggers by using the insult-quotes around “journalist” when he refers to MacUser’s Dan Moren and Gruber and calling Mac users “thick”.  There’ve also been weigh-ins from MacJournals and the Macalope.

This isn’t really gadget-related, but it’s extremely funny and it showed up on my radar this morning. Now, I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m not a huge fan of death metal. It seriously looks like some deranged clowns making a racket with guitars and drums. As my dad used to say “a cat fight in a trash can”… only this time with bears. That said, I can respect them as musicians while still thinking most of them take themselves WAY too seriously.

In the LOLCats tradition, for your Friday entertainment, I bring you LOLMetal from The Warehouse.

1. For crying out loud, buy an iPhone already.  If you’ve been waiting for the next generation to come out, stop.  You’ll still be able to sell your current iPhone for plenty of cash when the next version is released.
2. Learn to BBQ awesomely succulent ribs.  Dry or wet – your choice – but remember, the bandito will take every advantage possible to outdo all other ribs.
3. Invent something totally impractical and functionally useless.  The inventor of the USB charged office rocket is defiantly worthy of accolades and you can be too.
4. Throw your Windows PC out the window and discover the magnificent world of Mac.  Seriously.  Wait!  Before you do this, see step number 18 below.
5. Mod your pod.  Don’t have a mod?  Well it’s time to make one then.
6. Go outside and start a heated discussion with your nearest neighbor on the topic of Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD.
7. Start an 8 hour a day training regiment for the 2008 Guitar Hero Olympics.  Or do you want someone else to be the gold medalist?
8. Melt down your old CDs for scrap plastic.  I hear scrap plastic is quite valuable.  Better yet, give them to all of your friends for their birthdays and insist that they are coasters.
9. Make your own beer.  Better banditos brew beer.  It’s fun and delicious.  That’s a fact.  Mmmm… Bandito beer.
10. Create a Wikipedia entry on yourself.  Then debate the ethics of doing so with your favorite office mate.
11. Build the best potato cannon in the country with its very own web community base following.
12. Do eye stretches at least every 45 minutes to keep your eyes in their peak performance.  Eye health is important to tech banditos.
13. Download a new Firefox extension even if you don’t use Firefox.  Okay, that was dumb.  Sorry.
14. Create your own Google gadget or code your own widget.
15. Buy real headphones.  Necessary, but sorry, this doesn’t count towards your pod mod in step 5.
16. Remember that better cameras almost always take better pictures.  And banditos do both.
17. Employ an entirely robotic maid staff to clean your space.
18. Build a Linux home music server with your old Windows box hardware instead of throwing it out the window.  If you’re reading this list backwards, skip step 4 when you get to it.
19. Improve your online identity – it’s likely the only one to really matter in the future.
20. Read TechBandito everyday!

Flickr user Travis Gohr posts pictures of his injuries after using his iPhone on a treadmill. Basically, the short version is his iPhone fell off of the treadmill, he watched it and ended up flying backwards off the treadmill causing what I would describe as a nasty scratch right above his spine. Here’s the sequence of events that led to Gohr’s injury:

Step 1. Purchase an iPhone. I’d recommend the more valuable one as that will make you more willing to risk life for it.

Step 2. Gain access to a treadmill.

Step 3. Use said iPhone while using treadmill.

Step 4. When your iPhone magically slides off the stand, hits the treadmill and rockets off behind you, make SURE to follow it’s trajectory with your head, not just your eyes.

Step 5. If you’ve completed step 4 correctly you should now be facing sideways on the treadmill instead of forward. Your head should also be cranked completely around behind you. The position of your body will lead to you being completely off balance. Let the treadmill do the rest.

Step 6. Your feet should fly out from under you and if your head is still facing backwards you should land flat on your back on the treadmill. It will then proceed to rocket you backwards.

Step 7. This is of UTMOST importance. You will only stay airborne for a quick second and when you come down, the back of the treadmill will strike somewhere on your body. Make SURE it hits you DIRECTLY in the spine.

Step 8. You should now have a broken spine. If not, repeat. Or, you might just end up blogging about how you ended up with a wicked pressure burst on your back.

One word… Ouch.

Thank you to our good friend Megan for the tip.

Apple released new iMacs yesterday, but the big news for those of us who really don’t want an iMac is the introduction of two updates to the Apple software suites iLife and iWork.

Like every good Apple fanboy, I immediately and have been putting it through it’s paces. I’ve been an iWork user since I switched back to the Mac from the dark side, using Office 2004 only to open and interchange documents (and to use Excel, since there was no spreadsheet in iWork).

Now that I’ve got 24 hours of iWork ‘08 under my belt, I doubt I’ll need Office at all anymore (though I may keep it around as a safety net for a while).  Read on for an app-by-app mini-review.

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I spend a lot of time writing.  Writing this, writing that… It’s sort of what I do.  Yeah, the freelancing gigs and their tendency to be socially isolating can be a little mundane from time to time, but there are some huge perks – one of them being that I get to listen to excellent music all day long at the volume level of my choosing.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like to rock as much as the next guy, but when it comes to music that helps me write, being choosy matters.  My basic unwritten (until now) rules go something like this:

1. The music must be positively upbeat to keep my mind moving and my hands humming.
2. Most lyrics in English are distractions to writing.
3. The songs must synergize my connection to my work.
4. The new Foo Fighters song is going to have to wait until tonight.
5. Same goes for the Pearl Jam set from last weekend’s Lollapalooza that I just downloaded.

I find the old lore about classical music helping a person study better to be absolutely true.  And indeed, the same can be said about its enlightening effect on the author’s mind.  I’m personally not a huge fan of heavy baroque classical as I find it a bit too deep for staying on mentally on track.  That said, the right classical music reigns supreme for writing.

My favorite Classical Radio streams can be found in iTunes Radio under the “Classical” genre heading.  Listed in no particular order, I stream these more than anything when I want someone else to think for me and just let me write:

• Orsradio.com Classical – Quirky and uniquely, but somehow always upbeat and inspiring.
• Classical Guitar on Sky.fm – What can I say?  By definition, this station almost always has a Latin flavor which is often too much stimulation, but other times just the medicine I need.
• RadioioClassical – A mostly modern take on traditional orchestral classical music.  A trustworthy standby.

Alright, don’t get on my case and call me cheesy or anything, but I also find smooth jazz to be helpful to the mood when writing.  Yes, this is the same thing you heard in the elevator earlier and should typically be reserved for setting the mood of a soulful Sunday brunch.

Before you make fun, try it!  Again in iTunes Radio, you’ll find several stations under “Jazz” that fit the bill.  My favorite of the bunch is 181.fm “The Breeze” for its airy and peppy variety.  Also heavy in my rotation, the west coast piano jazz of Vince Guaraldi always keeps my keyboard clicking.

And now, I must make a startling admission.  As I’ve penned this whole post, I’ve been listening to Ben Harper and Donavon Frankenreiter.  I’m not really a hypocrite, but whatever suits the mood… right?

Image Courtesy of Apple

Yup. It’s that time of year again – Apple’s summer Mac madness. I know all the tech blogs are covering the insanity today, but wow, is it ever worth it!

The new iMac is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, you’d think Apple would get it wrong once in awhile – everybody does – but here they are, spot-on once again. Never mind the potential performance power packed in beneath this beauty’s magical metal skin, I’m still obsessed with its outwardly slender form.

Really, how much simpler could it be? Aluminum and glass melt together as one.

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In case it wasn’t bad enough that Dateline NBC has basically turned from a relatively legit television “newsmagazine” into the Parade o’ Pedophiles with Chris Hansen as emcee, I watched portions of a show that aired last week that tracked down those rascals themselves… those who’re lower than the pedophiles Dateline has outed to date… IPOD THIEVES!

Yes… using the hidden camera tricks they’ve honed while doing the “To Catch a Predator” series, Hansen and his merry band of vigilante journalists are now in the biz of outing iPod thieves. Using iPods with specially-modified software on the install discs that phones home when the thief installs iTunes, Hansen confronts the iPod thieves with their crimes. The gravity of the situation is surely not lost on Hansen. I mean, some dude out there isn’t listening to his Britney Spears remixes because someone jacked his iPod. And that, my friends… is a fate worse than death.

The Incapacitator

Some light breaking news this week for all techies interested in, well… in light. Light technology has hit its stride over the last several years, with even the LED on my keychain being darn near as powerful as the four pound lantern flashlight I used to take camping with me to keep my petrifying fear of the dark at bay.

Alright, I’m not actually that scared of dark, but if I was, I’d be truly enlightened by the kind of gadgets becoming widely available today. For instance, check out the newest monster from Surefire aptly named “The Beast II.”

Considered by its maker to fit the searchlight category, this thing actually pumps out 2000 lumens. Umm… That’s a heck of lot of light folks. In fact, the output is conservatively rated at about 100+ times the output of your standard everyday flashlight.

Only one problem though… Unless you’re totally crazy or just totally loaded, at $7,000 I sincerely doubt too many of you all will be putting this gadget in your pocket anytime soon. On top of the ultra-hefty price tag, the 20 lithium batteries required to power this behemoth only last for less than a couple of hours.

This device is effectively targeted at non-consumers. So, if massive light power alone doesn’t exactly do it for you, what about the latest potential replacement for the tazer that’s getting all of the buzz today?

Have you heard of the flashlight that makes you vomit?

Yep, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has given Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc. the contract to begin building just such a weapon.

The so called “LED Incapacitator” uses the newfound favorite light emitting diode technology to blast penetrating light pulses with frequently changing wavelengths that instantly cause potential perpetrators to lose their own wavelengths, so to speak.

I’m pretty sure that a flashlight that can make you hurl is a brilliant idea. While completely incapacitating this device might be useful to slow down the bad guys (and maybe your buddies just for fun, if it ever hits the consumer market) just long enough to take control of the situation.

While the personal sized device is just right for those one-on-one confrontations, the best part is that this technology easily scales up for bigger tasks, such as riot or crowd control or perhaps even some combat type applications.

Right now, the Incapacitator is still in development and could stand to slim down a bit, but that’s also in the works. Mass availability for enforcement agencies is predicted by 2010.

So there you have it… The week in light. What’s next in LED technology?

Freelancers, telecommuters, home business owners, and productivity fanatics alike all appreciate the merit of having their own Zen-like spaces at home to environmentally cater to just whatever it is that they do. While every individual has at least a slightly different point of view, organization and design certainly both remain important factors of creating the home office for any home-worker.

So just what are the most ideal features of a home office?

The Keep It Quiet Zone

Most people are looking for a way to escape the noise and activity of a normal household. Even little distractions can totally kill productivity. I’m sure most would agree that the home office has to be a sanity zone spaced far away from any conflicts to provide a bit of serenity.

Environment of Style

Again, everyone has a different sense of style or design. I think most of us draw at least some inspiration directly from our surroundings. If our home office is an environment filled with furniture and décor that support our personal tastes and reflect just what we do, then extra energy will ensue one way or another. Or following the distraction concept, we at least won’t be annoyed by things that don’t seem to fit.

Create a Productivity Den

A home office planned for increasing productivity takes more effort in the beginning, but the payoffs are incredible. Think of the tools most used, their placement, and your interaction with them. Computer monitors should obviously be positioned so glare from sunlight or interior lighting doesn’t interfere. Keeping the devices most used within easy reach also factors in to the equation. Just as we try to plan our kitchens for efficiency, we should ideally layout our office for good productivity.

Comfort Is King

Just as important as any of the other factors, comfort is always a keen consideration when it comes to the home office. After all, this is the room of the house that will probably see the most hours of daily use, so the best should be made of that time. Only use ergonomic chairs and definitely give thought to proper keyboard and monitor set up. Think about setting up a separate heating and cooling zone just for the home office, to keep it just right all the time.

Borrowing Ideas

There’s no reason to be afraid of borrowing good ideas when it comes to setting up your perfect home office. Check out this flickr photostream for a few pictures of what to do (and several of what not to do). For even more inspiration to get started, check out these HGTV home office projects. There’s bound to be several that would perfectly suit your needs. Perhaps just flip through your latest Pottery Barn and IKEA catalogs for further ideas.

No matter which direction you decide to go, if you’ll be spending any time at all in your home office, it would definitely be wise to make it an enjoyable space. After all, life’s too short not to!