For the entire 2011 I experimented with WordPress.com, Tumblr and Posterous. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.

If you’re looking for something quick and easy, use Tumblr. If you want some extensibility, try WordPress.com. If you want to automatically update your other online presences while blogging, Posterous.

Many felt Apple’s announcement of iPhone 4S yesterday was a let down. The rumours on the web hyped the event to a degree where most people I spoke to believed an iPhone 5, totally revolutionary new iPhone, was about to be launched. Apple’s tick-tock refreshes aren’t new, and it’s so effective even Intel has adopted it in its recent roadmaps. So why beat yourself up about it?

It’s not all “bad” news, the new camera in the iPhone 4S is incredible for its form factor.

The new iPhone 4S camera consists of the following:

• Sensor:
  • 8 megapixels (3264×2448 resolution)
  • Backside illumination (BSI)
  • Hybrid IR filter
• Lens:
  • 5 elements
  • f/2.4 aperture
  • 4.3 mm focal length (35 mm equivalent of exactly 35 mm)

Apple was also able to utlize the Apple A5 SoC to process images, created what they dubbed as Image Signal Processor. Coupled with the new sensor and lens the iPhone 4S allows for 60% more pixels, 73% more light, 33% faster capture, 30% sharper image, 26% better white balance, better colour accuracy and uniformity, face detection.

When a video is being taken, the iPhone 4S can utilize its gyroscope to provide video stabilization.

Judging from the EXIF data from the iPhone 4S keynote photos, the camera can achieve ISO 64 without any problems, it’s likely able to shoot in ISO 50 at the lowest range. The exposure and shutter are fully automatic with the built-in app so it’s hard to tell exactly what you can do until someone gets one and tries it with Camera+.

If the recent Flickr camera usage data is of any indication, the point and shoot cameras marketshare may take an unhealthy dip in the coming year.

In terms of usability as a blog, not much as changed. But if you wanted to use Posterous as a social media replacement then the Spaces rebrand may be just what you’re looking for!

Found an interesting tidbit on the web showing how to burn your own bootable Mac OS X Lion disc. Unlike previous OS X releases, only a single layer 4.7 GB DVD is required. The actual image is just slightly larger than a 4 GB SD card so if you’re going to use flash media, you will need to buy a 8 GB one. I guess most of the system apps are now in 64-bit thus reducing the overall size of the disc image.

Anyways, use these instructions to make your own bootable backup install media for Mac OS X Lion. It would allow you to clean install without having to install Snow Leopard first, as Steve Jobs suggested.

• Purchase and download Mac OS X Lion from the Mac App Store.
• Locate the installer after it is downloaded. It should be in /Applications/.
• Right click on Mac OS X Lion Installer and choose Show Package Contents.
• Inside the Contents folder that appears you will find a SharedSupport folder and inside it you will find InstallESD.dmg.
• Open Disk Utility, and drag InstallESD.dmg to its sidebar.
• Click the Burn to make a bootable DVD, or use Restore to make a bootable USB/Flash/external HDD.

You can also save a copy of the image elsewhere for future use.

Twitter’s kind of taken over my news sharing lately, but sometimes I still feel like writing a lengthy feature about important technological milestones. Apple’s WWDC 2011 keynote topped the technology news today and there are some very important things worth mentioning. 

Mac OS X Lion part of the keynote was not a big surprise. There’s been multiple developer preview releases already, so most of the announcements were really just confirmations that makes developers feel better about spending the last 2 months re-writing their apps to be Lion-ready. 

Mac OS X Lion will released via App Store only. Recovery is now built-in to a partition on disk. I assume this means the 200 MB EFI partition that currently stores nothing will finally see some use. I hope the recovery function can be duplicated onto a USB drive in case of complete system failure. 

Autosave is long overdue for a major desktop OS, versioning is now a standard feature. AirDrop will do p2p over Wi-Fi, auto discovers and sets up ala Boujour (presumably). System wide multi-touch gestures, fullscreen apps, Launchpad (copying Springboard from iOS) and Mission Control have all been revealed before. 

Perhaps the biggest impact from the Mac OS X Lion announcement was its pricing. $29.99 is all you pay if you already run Snow Leopard. Must have Snow Leopard to access App Store so I assume Apple will rack up Snow Leopard upgrade sales concurrently. What is Microsoft going to do with their pricing model now that Lion is $29.99 for everyone? There’s probably a panick in Redmond right now, Ballmer may needs to spend another billion to feel complete. 

iOS 5 is perhaps the bigger news. But I noticed most of the top 10 features in the keynote were copying, or if I put it nicely, catching up to Android. A new notification system, system-wide Twitter integration, Newsstand (why can’t iBooks also look like this?), new camera controls, simple photo editing, wireless updates is now extended to the OS level, finally you don’t need to sync an iOS device with iTunes when you unbox it. 

The real feature that Android doesn’t have is still a copycat. This time from RIM. iMessages will be built into the current Messages app and will support real-time notifications while messaging, just like BlackBerry Messenger. LiveProfiles, Ping, Kik, WhatsApp, and every other BBM clone just rolled over and died, and for good cause too. The market was too saturated with messaging apps. It’s nice to get something official from a major OS developer. 

The video mirror feature that is currently iPad 2-only will do away with cables now if you have an AirPlay compatible display, or an AppleTV. Just join the same Wi-Fi network and AirPlay to the output device. 

Steve Jobs can rest easy now. Apple fulfilled their “Post PC” promises with iCloud integration. Wi-Fi sync for any traditional iTunes content. iCloud will store all iTunes purchased content for you, plus 5GB worth of storage that is used for emails, and anything else and 30 days worth of photos. 

One last thing: iTunes Match will upgrade your ripped songs to 256 kpbs AAC DRM-free for a $24.99 yearly subscription! The terms and conditions states a limit of 25,000 songs, still better than none. Unmatched songs will be uploaded, but not upgraded to 256 kbps AAC. Still forthcoming is whether or not the iTunes matched songs will be made available after the subscription expires, or if you must keep the subscription active for matched content. Either way piracy is now legitimized.

Apple is likely not stopping with just music. iTunes already sells movies, books, etc. Whether or not this will extend to all media sold in iTunes is yet to come.