Whoa! It's getting late on my Saturday morning. OK. I admit that it's 12:44 pm and I'm still in bed. How cool is this? I'm listening to great tunes compliments of my iPod, my recently purchased great music from the iTunes store and a good $100 set of computer speakers and subwoofer. My iPod is the computer that drives the speakers. It's great.
I returned my second Airport Extreme g basestation this last week (about 3 weeks after purchase) to the new Apple store in the Corte Madera Village. I didn't have the receipt with me and it was after the two week grace period for returns, but they were great about it. I paid a 10% restocking fee and got a store credit. That credit is burning a hole in my pocket but I've so far resisted picking up the Tungsten T3 that I spotted when I was returning the basestation.
With my old Snow basestation in my office, I'm getting 4 out of 4 bars of connectivity in bed (MacStumbler lists my signal strength as 56)! It makes a huge difference. It's not a struggle to get a connection.
One more thing. I stumbled across Steve Job's announcement of iTunes for Windows. It's excellent. It lasts about an hour and 15 minutes, so be warned. I watched the whole thing. Besides a great mini-tutorial on v2 of the iTunes store and updates on the success of the iPod and the store, Steve used iChat to bring in Bono, Dr. Dre and Mick Jagger. After that Sarah McLachlan performed live on stage. A treat for a Mac fan for sure.
Even though I had heard that the Apple store now has 5000 audiobooks, I didn't think much of it. You could already download audiobooks from Audible.com, so what was the big deal. Well... it's a big deal. Having the one-click buy button available is super convenient. I bought 9 downloads - all from NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Interviews with Emmylou Harris, Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Ridley Scott, Aimee Mann, Ellen Degeneres and Jodie Foster! Each program was a $2.95 download. Not cheap, but well worth it from my point of view.
OK. It's 1:19 pm now. The First Cut is the Deepest by Sheryl Crow is playing and it's time to get up and enjoy the rest of my Saturday. Life is good.