T-Mobile

So, if my ears have heard correctly, T-Mobile stands to shake things up a heck of a lot in the next few months by braking with industry standard and charging people for there phones.  This revolutionary new idea sounds like a bad one, because we are so used to getting free phones, but there is a catch, my friends, there is a catch.  There will be no contract.

That's right ladies and gents, T-Mobile is doing away with the ball and chain, and setting there customers free from expensive-two-year-binding-soul-stealing-contracts.  And what's better is they are moving to a much better pricing model.  All the glorious smart-phone goodness will be had for $50, $60, or $70 a month, depending on the level of service you want.  They will also be giving truly unlimited data, which will win back a lot of there old customers on its own.  And to top it off, you can get a payment plan set up to pay for your phone.

Honestly, as crazy as it sounds, this is almost enough to make me switch to T-Mobile.  The highest price bracket is almost half of a standard cell contract, and that is with adjust 3gb of data.  I think I will wish the best of luck to T-Mobile, and hope they get better tower coverage in my area, as that would be the straw to break the camel's back.

Till next time, catch you on the flip side.

Raspberry Pi

So, it finally arrived!  After three whole months of waiting, our first Raspberry Pi has arrived.  After overcoming an unforeseen hurdles, like needing an SD card of at least 2gb or larger to download the OS onto,  we now have it up and running.  We're still scrounging around for a spare keyboard and mouse to use on it.

As we get more images and projects operating on it, we will be posting more tutorials on Raspberry Pi use, so keep your eyes open.

Up and Coming

There hasn't been a lot to report in the month of January.  We've been busy with tech support work, and haven't really had the time to do much else.  Though we are currently working up a six lecture, month by month course we'll be teaching at the South Shore Mall on computer basics.  Other than that, Not much else is going on.

So, just hang in there with us, and hopefully we'll have something new to talk about in February.

Another New Year, We're Still Here

So here we are in 2013, and it is officially the fourth year of Digital Fruit's operation.  Last year was bumpy, but we weathered through it fine.  With a record number of computers worked on, the Digital Fruit Small Business Conference, and work on launching a record label, we've had one heck of a year.

Even though the blog got kind of neglected, (sorry), things are moving onward and upward.  We will be having another Digital Fruit Small Business Conference, and our first video games should be available this year.  We have more office space too, so there is some room for the tech support area to grow as well.

So drop us a line and say hi, come check out our projects, or let us help you with your computer problems.  This is our fourth year, and we're still here.

Mintduino

I never thought I would have so much fun with a 20 MHz processor and 32 KB of ram.  I mean honestly, those sound like specs from 1970, and yet the Arduino micro controller system operates on just that.  I have been picking up pieces of the Arduino for almost a year now, but I found something the other day that really got me going with this whole micro-computer thing.  At Radio Shack they have mint tin kits from Make:, and by far the coolest one is the Mintduino.

The Mintduino is an Arduino based micro controller in a mint tin.  Its a DIY kit with a solder less breadboard and almost all of the pieces you need to make your own Arduino.  And the coolest thing to me is that the whole thing runs off of a single nine volt battery.  It doesn't come with the USB connector, but I found you can buy it from Make:'s website for fifteen bucks.

I know it sounds terribly geeky of me, but it is totally awesome that you can now buy a web server in a mint tin.  That's amazing.  Till next time catch you on the flip side.

Another Patch Tuesday

So, another Microsoft patch Tuesday is coming, and this time there are several critical errors being fixed.  Nineteen errors in all will be repaired, a few of which will affect the brand new Windows 8.

It worries me that a product that just rolled off the shelf in the last couple of weeks could already have known critical security flaws.  Honestly, to be releasing the patch so soon means that they knew about these security flaws before the product launched.

So, if you've spent the money already and bought a new Windows computer or Surface tablet, make sure you patch.

Ubuntu 12.10

Fast becoming one of my favorite things to go online each October, the latest update to my favorite operating system is here.  While not the long term support release, I find that the best new features for Ubuntu come out in the fall.

So as I sit here in front of my computer, waiting for it to download some 2056 new files, which seems like it will take a couple of hours, I'm excited to see what updates will be there.  Some will seem cool, but almost never get used, like the ability to shop from Amazon.com right from the dash.  Others will probably get used every day with out even being noticed, like some of the UI upgrades I've read about.

So, to finish off this little blurb today, I would like to prompt people, if they haven't tried out Ubuntu yet, head to Ubuntu.com and download 12.10, and give the LiveCD a chance.  Who knows, you might just enjoy it too.