Along with the new iPod lineup, Apple also introduced Ping, a new social music discovery tool built into iTunes 10 at the Fall Music Event, held last Tuesday. iTunes 10 users can log into Ping and follow their favorite artists and friends and discover what music they’re talking about. It sounds like Apple’s goal is to get you to post your thoughts about an artists particular album, live concerts and just discuss their music genre in general. In addition to Ping, iTunes 10 looks a lot different than the previous versions. The layout looks fresher and it sorts music in a different manner, geared more towards artists rather than particular songs.

More @ iTunes.

Today Apple announced a newly, totally redesigned iPod Nano. Some of the new features include:

• All new touch screen design
• Shake to shuffle
• Up to 24 hour battery life
• built-in clip to attach to your clothes
• built-in Nike+ sensor

In addition to the new Nano they also introduced a new Touch which features include:

• New 960×640 pixel resolution
• Facetime: Video calling on your iPod
• HD video recording with new camera
• New faster chip for iPod gaming

Although I don’t think code really sucks, code-sucks.com is an awesome resource to get website code to tweak to your own design. The site features fixed width and faux columns CSS layouts, web templates and CSS, Javascript and PHP code snippets, and as with most things on the internet, it’s free! When I coded my web site I did it from scratch but this would have certainly made things easier and saved time.

More @ code-sucks.com.

nmap.org posted a giant interactive graphic based on the largest websites on the net. This large 37,440 x 37,440 pixel graphic shows a gigantic Google favicon surrounded by smaller but still huge Yahoo, Facebook, Wikipedia, MSN and YouTube favicons. Zooming in you will start to see less recognizable website icons. It’s a clever way to show the biggest sites without just a standard list with numbers next to the websites.

More @ nmap.org.

No it’s not a new video game being released for the Wii but actually it’s a picnic that someone had involving only foods that resemble elements of the game. Super Mario Bros. My favorite foods here are the Goomba cookies and brick sandwiches. I’m not sure what those mushroom looking things are but those look mighty tasty too. I also like that this picnic is 75% dessert related.

More @ Flickr.

Due to the success of Little Big Planet, Media Molecule is making Little Big Planet 2 which now has a release date of November 16. The $79.99 Collectors edition package will come with a ton of extra swag including:

• A copy of LittleBigPlanet 2.
• Your own little 7″ plush toy Sackboy.
• Exclusive LBP2 game bookends.
• Exclusive DLC  including:
  • Disney / Pixar’s Toy Story 3’s “Aliens” Sackboy Costume
  • Disney’s TRON: Legacy “Clu” Sackboy Costume
  • The Muppets’ “The Great Gonzo” Sackboy Costume
  • PlayStation’s “Ratchet” Sackboy Costume
  • PlayStation’s “Clank” Sackboy Costume
  • Even More Animals’ “Crocodile” Sackboy Costume
  • Even More Animals’ “Vulture” Sackboy Costume
  • Even More Animals’ “Cobra” Sackboy Costume
  • Even More Animals’ “Mandrill” Sackboy Costume
• And exclusive to the LittleBigPlanet 2’s Collectors Edition:
  • PlayStation’s “Jak” Sackboy Costume
  • PlayStation’s “Daxter” Sackboy Costume
  • 5 exclusive LBP2 PSN Avatars – Lastly, complete your PlayStation experience with a new identity on the PlayStation Network with these new avatars.

Calvin and Hobbes is one of my favorite comic strips. It was syndicated for ten years from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Michael Yingling created a search engine that takes phrases and searches and finds the results  of text from every Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

More @ MichaelYingling.

A couple weeks ago I was home working on my computer. I put the computer on standby by shutting the screen so I could go make dinner. After dinner I wanted to use my computer again so I opened up the screen. I sat and stared at it for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds and finally about 2 minutes before I realized something was wrong. The screen was still blank!

I tried to put it in standby again and then reopened it. Same issue. I restarted the machine, same issue. I restarted the machine with the reformatting disks inside, same blank screen issue! I was starting to get nervous that my computer fried and actually started researching my next computer. Realizing how much of an investment this computer was, I decided to try to fix it before I even considered buying another Apple product or switching to a PC.

I set up an appointment with a Genius at the Apple Store and took my dead Macbook Pro into the store. The lady hooked up my computer to a thumb drive while doing numerous resets and holding different combinations of keyboard keys. She then put the thumbdrive into a different Mac and started reading the data. She told me that there’s good news and bad news and I was expecting the bad news to be really bad. She said that the good news is that this is a known problem and Apple will repair the computer for me for free and the bad news is I’ll have to be without my computer for a few days. I was obviously very pleased to hear that this was covered despite me not having Applecare.

Apparently in 2007-2008 while building a number of Apple laptops, some Nvidia video cards that were attached to the logic board (The Mac equivalent of Motherboard) were defective and causing the whole logic board to fail and screen to blank out.

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within four years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

Typically when a laptop dies, the manufacture of the computer won’t touch it if it is out of warranty. The fact that Apple went out of their way to investigate this issue and work with Nvidia to fix it was a very pleasant surprise to me. It shows me that Apple really stands behind their products. If I had to get this repaired and it wasn’t covered it would have cost a whopping $1,187.50, about the same price of a new 13″ Macbook Pro. Going through this situation has really made me realize that I want stick with Apple computers from now on.

More @ Apple.

We finally made our way to the trail.

As we made our way down the path things started to get a little rocky but this is just a small sample of things to come.

Next the path brushed up along the Potomac River. Here is a picture looking west towards Virginia.

The trail continued to wind around with the Potomac before we hit this huge rock that we had to climb.

After climbing up that rock we saw this ‘Emergency Exit’ which I thought was funny. I see them in movie theaters but not so often on trails.

After making it over a few more rocks we hit a beach. This was a good spot for a water break.

Next the trail wrapped around what looked like a lake but was actually just part of the river

We had to cross this creek that led into the Potomac River. There was at one time a bridge that went over the creek but it was broken and looked to be broken for many years. There was an old large tree that fell over the creek to cross on or this somewhat built dam was another option.

After the creek and more rocks we made our way to this beautiful lookout area. Below is a panoramic picture I took. Click the picture for a larger view.

The rest of the trail was more of the same. A windy trail over rocks. We finally made our way back to the towpath.

Overall it was a great trail and one of the more advanced trails I’ve ever been on. From start to finish it took us about two and a half hours including getting to the trail from the parking lot. The things I enjoyed most about the Billy Goat Trail were:

1. Although it’s a trail marked with blue spray paint markers every few feet, it’s still a trail that lets you choose which way you want to go due to the many different paths through the rocks and boulders
2. The beautiful views along the trail. Thousands of years of the Potomac River traveling through these rocks have created the beautiful views that we see today.
3. The amount of nature we saw on the trail. I saw a beautiful Newt, many deer, huge turtles that looked to be hundreds of years old and of course plenty of bugs if you’re into them.

Red Rock Canyon features a recenty built six million dollar state of the art visitor center and a 13-mile scenic drive filled with beautiful mountains, animals and hiking trails.

While driving along the 13-mile path there are many breathtaking views in all directions, some going as far as the eye can see. There are sections where you can pull over, park and get out of your car and explore.

After finishing the 13-mile scenic drive we ended up heading back to Las Vegas. However, there is apparently a ghost town a few miles further out on Charleston Blvd. that we didn’t get to see. Maybe next time.

We boarded the bus around 6AM which picked us up right at our hotel which was convenient. The buses would pick up people who were staying at any hotel on the strip and since the strip is where most tourists stayed anyway we were all covered. We then proceeded to go to the touring companies offices where we paid up for the trip and were provided with a small breakfast which consisted of a juice box and packaged danish that you’d find in a vending machine. Then we boarded our bus which was going to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. There were other buses going to other areas of the canyon but we chose the south rim because it supposedly has the best views.

We drove through Boulder City, NV and made our way to have a view of Lake Mead. I noticed that they were building a new bypass highway and bridge going around the dam. The bypass didn’t look to be quite done yet but seemed to be very near ready for regular traffic.

After we drove over the dam the bus stopped for a photo opportunity just south on the road overlooking the dam. Everyone got off the bus and snapped some pictures of each other for about 20 minutes before we loaded back on the bus and hit the road. Here’s my picture:

The bus driver then put on a movie about the history of the dam construction which was somewhat interesting. The next stop was in Kingman, AZ where we briefly stopped at a McDonalds on the famous Rt. 66. After I scarfed down a burger I headed back onto the bus and we hit the highway again. The next stretch of the bus trip was the longest at about two hours. We finally made it to Rt.64, located just West of Flagstaff and headed north towards the canyon. We started seeing a lot of Grand Canyon signs like the one below.

We finally came up to the IMAX theater and Grand Canyon gift shop where we saw a movie on the mysteries of the Grand Canyon. The move was about 45 minutes long and discussed the different lifestyles throughout the decades that lived and visited the Grand Canyon. We grabbed a bite to eat and hit the road again for the actual canyon part of the tour.

Now it was finally time to see what we traveled so far for. We pulled up to a bus stop that looked like we were in the middle of a forest. Then everyone got off the bus and proceeded to walk down a path and then *BOOM* the Grand Canyon was there before my eyes. It was very pretty and so huge. Pictures can’t do it justice. You need to see it with your own eyes to believe it. We were there for about an hour before we loaded up on the bus and went to another location in the south rim with an even better view of a large portion of the canyon.

After about another hour stay it was sadly time to hit the bus and head back to Las Vegas. The trip back seemed to go by a lot faster which is typically the case when traveling for hours. The Grand Canyon is a magnificent sight that everyone should see at least once in their life. Next time I go to visit the Grand Canyon, I hope to be hiking it.

After years of providing free content, Hulu is adding a premium service for $9.99/month. For that price you will get tons of TV show full series, not just the latest episodes plus they will be in HD quality. In addition, you will be able to watch Hulu on your ipod, ipad or PS3. Seems like Netflix will finally now have some decent competition.

Still no release date but Sony released a Gran Turismo 5 trailer earlier this week.

I learned something new today when I was trying to add up some numbers at work. Not in the mood to open up a new application, I did a Google search for an online calculator. To my surprise I discovered that all I have to do is simply type in the calculation right into Google and it will tell me the answer as I type it. I then clicked on the Google Calculator link and discovered that you can do some big time equations (that I don’t exactly understand) in Google as well.

More about Google Calculator.

Apparently Mario and Yoshi have moved on from chasing after Bowser to chasing groundhogs off lawns.

More @ Kotaku.