If one thing about Showbiz Pizza stuck out, it was definitely the stage show with the animatronics… they were called the “Rock-Afire Explosion.” I don’t remember the music, but I definitely remember the stage set-up…

Well, you have to leave it to a crazed fan to actually bring the band back. I’m not sure exactly when Showbiz Pizza fazed out this act, but my guess it would be around the time they re-branded the stores to the now famous, “Chuck E. Cheese” brand. But some fans are bringing back the Rock-Afire Explosion in their basements, having bought the stage shows, they are now bringing them back to life and they’re singing some of our favorite contemporary songs. Check out this one featuring Usher with “Love in this Club.”

Wow, how awesome/weird is that? Ha ha! If you’re feeling a nostalgic trip right now there are a few websites you can check out. The first one is about a guy that is making a movie about the Rock-Afire Explosion, rockafiremovie.com. Right now it looks like it’s being released in Texas and I’m hoping it comes to DVD soon.

The next site you’ll want to check out is showbizpizza.com. It’ll tell you the history of the Showbiz franchise and perhaps spark some memories for you. Well, I guess if I’m going to leave you with anything, it will have to be one of those famous Showbiz Pizza commercials we all saw during Saturday morning cartoons. Enjoy!

This is pretty cool because up until then, iPhone users were left using “web apps” that relied on the internet to work. With the phone’s slow connection, the process wasn’t the greatest solution.

With Apple releasing a 3G (with GPS) version of its phone, it means more capabilities, including location-based services. I updated my phone on July 11th, so I’ve had a over a week to play around with it and experiment with different apps. The following are some of the apps that I use and find useful. Some of them can still be improved upon, but it’s a great start.

Facebook COST: Free Verdict: Needs work I was originally excited about this application, since I am a heavy Facebook user. Unfortunately it’s not as good as its web counterpart at iphone.facebook.com. The good news is that Facebook can always improve on this. My personal complaints are: the inability to view photo albums, inability to write on people’s walls, inbox doesn’t display full messages. I’m sure there are more “quirks” that bother me, but I’d say that those are the biggest ones. Facebook has promised to fix up the application in future updates… let’s hope so.

Pandora COST: Free Verdict: Nice Since I’m still using the first generation of the iPhone, I haven’t played with this app too much. But using it on Wifi, I was extremely impressed. For those of you that don’t know, Pandora is a project that takes what you like and finds similar music. So if I like Coldplay, I can tell Pandora that and it will find music that is similar in style to Coldplay. So far, the Pandora app has shown itself to be one of the more popular apps on the iPhone.

Remote COST: Free Verdict: Nice I LOVE this app. When using iTunes on my wireless network, I am able to connect my phone to iTunes and control iTunes from anywhere within range of my wireless network. This comes especially handy when cooking in the kitchen and not having to walk into the room and switch up the songs. If you’re used to the iPod Touch interface, you’ll feel comfortable controlling iTunes using this app.

Day Bank COST: $3.99 Verdict: Very Good I used to carry a small notebook in my laptop bag to record my debit card transactions… not anymore! Now I record the transaction and throw the reciept away! I am hoping that they’ll eventually build some budget functionality into the program so I can keep track of my bi-weekly budget.

AOL Instant Messenger COST: Free Verdict: Very Good The AIM app works pretty good, I’m not a heavy AIM user anymore. But I would definitely use this app more if it could “push” notifications to my phone. For those of you that don’t know, some phones have to login and check for new notifications (pull). But with “push,” the server “pushes” the new notifications to you right away. In the case of AIM, I could leave AIM running and would only have to open the program when someone sends me an IM.

Loopt COST: Free Verdict: Great potential My friend J.D. got me using Loopt. If you remember those cell phone commercials back in the day, “Where you at dog?” This application is the perfect answer to that. When you log into Loopt, it finds your location and puts it on a map. So in essence, it’s like a status message with your location. For example, J.D. hit up Perkins last night for 99 cent pie night. If I wanted, I could join him, since it shows his location on the map. It’s just one of the many features of Loopt that I have yet to explore, but it’s definitely worth a look!

UrbanSpoon COST: Free Verdict: Pretty Good Looking for a place to eat? UrbanSpoon is a great way to find a place to eat. It can locate your position or you can tell it what area you want it to look into. Basically the program works like a slot machine. You shake the phone and it finds a restaurant for you. Of course, you can “lock” certain things. So let’s say I wanted an “Italian” restaurant in “Palo Alto”, I could lock “Italian” and “Palo Alto” and shake the device and it will find an Italian restaurant close by in Palo Alto. Has great potential!

WeatherBug COST: Free Verdict: I like it! I’m a weather buff. And when driving up to Michigan last week I ran into a storm. It was tremendously helpful to load up this program, have it find the nearest city, and show me the radar. It could be more traveler-friendly though. I would love it if I could tell it to locate me and find the nearest radar for me. Right now you have to have it locate you, then the user selects the nearest weather station, and then has to add it to their list. It’s a pain! Especially since it only allows the user to save three locations. But overall it’s a great application and a must-have.

Shopper COST: $4.99 Verdict: Makes shopping easier I’m a nerd, as you can tell by this list. I had been making groceries using a to-do service called “Remember the Milk.” However, the online app for Remember the Milk was slow on edge and a native app has yet to be developed for iPhone. So for grocery shopping, I have downloaded Shopper. It’s extremely easy to add products to the list and you can customize it… adding products and categories. I’m loving it so far.

Shazam COST: Free Verdict: Insanely awesome Have you ever heard on a song on the radio and wondered, “what song am I listening to?” With Shazam, it answers that question. All you have to do is click on the “Tag Now” button while the music is playing, Shazam will listen to the song and send the data to their servers and the song you’re listening to will show up on your iPhone! Here’s a video:

Answers were given today as Steve Jobs spoke at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). Perhaps one of the biggest stories out of the conference is the price cut from $399 down to $199, making it a more appealing option to smart phone owners.

As time continues, we are seeing the iPhone mature into a more capable device: Exchange support, GPS, third-party applications, 3G data, “push” technologies for those not using Microsoft Exchange.

Yet people still aren’t happy… and here’s why. Over the development of the smart phone, we have been used to a “PC” way of thinking. Most smart phones are designed for geeks, by geeks. Need a keyboard? Just slap it onto the front of the device. Need more storage? Have an ugly SD Card slot on the side. Need to navigate through the phone? Up until the iPhone, no smart phone has had a great user interface (UI).

Now before I get called an Apple fanboy, let me state that I only own an iPod and an iPhone. I have played around with an iMac at work, but do not use it on a regular basis. What I do what to emphasize for the “geeks” out there is a different way of thinking. The problem with most smart phones today is that they’re not designed elegantly. In the consumer electronics market, there has to be both elegance in design and usability.

It is my belief that Apple is trying to achieve both. The problem is that we’ve been used to the way a Blackberry or a Palm is designed, that we fail to think “outside the box.” Is the iPhone perfect? No. It is still missing some features that others find important: multi-media messaging (MMS), cut-and-paste, physical keyboard, the ability to shoot video.

Both MMS and cut-and-paste are all things that can be integrated in later into the software. Why Apple hasn’t included these is anyone’s guess. Having a physical keyboard takes away from the elegance of the iPhone design… but to those who would like to carry around a foldable keyboard, it would make sense for Apple to add support for Bluetooth keyboards. And as for video… in today’s world of HD, why would you want some low-quality footage that sucks up battery life?

I understand that many people want an “All-In-One” device, but this simply cannot be achieved at this period of time because of two things: storage constraints and the most important thing, battery life. The main purpose of any phone is to make and receive calls! And if we are unable to do those two things because we’re sucking the battery life because of these “novelties,” then the smart phone really hasn’t done its job.

I view a smart phone as a communications device. If it can send/receive calls, text messages, e-mails, and access the web… I would deem that a good device. Everything else: GPS, cameras, video cameras, games, MP3 players… those are all non-essential things. While they do add great value to a device, if the smart phone can’t do essential tasks for communications, then the smart phone has failed to do its job.

Having said all that, I’m glad that the Apple iPhone has gone down in price and is now more affordable. I think that the iPhone… as well as other smart phones are evolving and will continue to get better as storage and battery life are greatly improved. So don’t get too upset if the iPhone 3G doesn’t have the features you crave, it is a constantly evolving product and I look forward to seeing what Apple and other companies have up their sleeves.

It seems that for me, when it rains, it pours. Our web server at Grace has been “compromised” meaning that someone illegally accessed it and has been using it for malicious purposes. Think of it as getting a nasty virus on your computer that you just can’t get rid of.

We’ve been pretty lucky over the past few months to have the server running fairly stable… until this past week. Which brings me to today.

I came home early yesterday because I wasn’t feeling well and was planning on doing some work from home, until I saw that my internet wasn’t working. So I called Bright House and they told me that they would get someone out there by Sunday. Not a huge deal, I thought… I’d just go over to my Dad’s house and use his internet connection. WELL, we had some pretty strong storms pass through on Friday night which knocked out my Dad’s cable connection… NICE.

So now I feel an insurmountable pressure to move the site off of the infected server and onto a backup server. This requires some work, which isn’t too hard, but it’s something I haven’t had to do before. So where do I find internet? Not at work, because the network is too slow… across the parking lot at Tim’s. I’m hoping to get a lot of my work done in a couple of hours and then finish up tomorrow.

Overall, I have been stressed and trying my hardest to relax (which is what I was TRYING to do this weekend before heading back to work on Monday). But instead, I’m working.

I’m very thankful for the job I have, for my apartment, the people I work with, my friends and my family. I just hope that the rest of the summer can be somewhat of an enjoyment… let’s pray that happens before I lose my mind.

Back in 1995, long before Facebook and MySpace, a site called Classmates.com popped up… it was one of the first “social networking” sites. Sure, places existed on the internet to connect (chat rooms, message boards, reunion sites), but Classmates.com made it easy.I signed up for Classmates.com around the year 2000 before I graduated college. Since I didn’t have Facebook or MySpace, it was a great way to see what my friends were up to, unfortunately, to see any real information or make contact, you have to pay. Unfortunately, Classmates.com hasn’t evolved with the times. I am now more connected to my friends in Facebook than I am in Classmates.com.If you look through Facebook, you may notice that the Class of 2001 going forward to today are heavy users of Facebook, while the pre-2001 classes don’t typically have Facebook because it wasn’t around when they were in college (or they were one of the select schools to be on the Facebook platform prior to 2001).

For those of you familiar with Google Maps, you’ll be excited to hear that Google Streetview now has Indiana on its radar. It looks like Google has covered all of Indianapolis (and outlying suburbs), Terre Haute, West Lafayette, Bloomington, Kokomo, Marion, and others.

So how can you use Google Streetview? I thought of a great idea as I was planning for my road trips this summer, I took a “virtual drive” of my destinations so that I can become familiar with the area and find things easier. This really comes in handy with urban areas where skyscrapers dominate the landscape.

How does it work? The car has a tripod mounted on the roof with a 360 degree camera mounted on the top. Basically, it’s a sphere with several lenses built-in to create a 360 degree view. The company then takes the several pictures from each shot and “stitches” them together to form a seamless picture.

It’s actually fun to see what kind of things the Streetview car catches, check out this blog posting of weird Google Streetview moments.

So how do you know if an area has streetview? In the top-right hand corner of the map there are some options, including streetview. When you click on that, areas that have been filmed will appear in blue. So have fun discovering!

I personally keep the program on the screen at all the times, but you can customize it so it pops up for a certain amount of time (first five seconds, etc.). It’s just a really cool little program that I think all of you should check out! And don’t worry, it supports various players (including Windows Media Player, iTunes, WinAmp and others).

Now before you attack me, I don’t share my music. I’m pretty protective of that. But when I pay for music, I want to OWN my music, not just have a license to listen to it… which is essentially what DRM does. And with iTunes, they’re making the blatant assumption that they will always be your digitial music player and provider. So when you buy tracks through iTunes, you can only listen to them through iTunes.

Sites like AllofMp3.com popped up which sold DRM-free tracks and showed the recording industry that people were willing to pay for music as long as they didn’t have restrictions placed on them, which is why I’m excited to see a service such as Amazon’s MP3 download service.

To find the Amazon MP3 download service, locate the part of the menu that says “Digital Downloads” and then select “MP3 Downloads.” That’s it! You now have access to a catalog of music that is DRM-free, you get the MP3 file and it imports it into your favorite music player (even iTunes). You do have to download a small piece of software, a download manager, but it’s small and unobtrusive.

What’s the downside to this service? Well, unfortunately the selection isn’t nearly as good as iTunes. But as more record labels allow DRM-free music to be sold, the more music you’ll see show up on this service. I personally only downloaded two songs out of the possible five that I wanted because they didn’t have the artists I was looking for.

But if you’re looking for an alternative to iTunes, Amazon.com’s service is definitely worth a look. If you have an MP3 player (not an iPod) and listen to a ton of music, Rhapsody and Napster is a good alternative with unlimited music for your compatible device starting at $9.99. Of course once you cancel your subcription, you lose all your downloaded music.

Friendly Reminder:You should back-up songs that you download from services such as iTunes and Amazon.com, they aren’t responsible if you lose your files! Seriously, if you lost a CD, would you go back to the record store and ask them to give you another one? Nope, that’s what I thought!