home Theater System: June 2010

Sunday, 20 June 2010

Spamming a Home Theater Blog???!!!

Man, our site must be getting as much traffic as Facebook for this to happen!

It has come to our attention that this blog has received a rather unusual form of Spam. Several "comments" have been added to our postings, but these "comments" have several things in common. First, they contain no real content. Their content is very general, contains obvious statements, quotes of one of our posts, or is pointless considering the post they are commenting on. Second, the "commenter" is a link to... wait for it... a web site marketing products! Sweet.

Commenters: Someone here (me) cares about what's posted. Those marketing "comments" lasted less than 24 hours, and now they're gone forever. This blog is about home theater technology, industry developments, and points of interest. Readers are encouraged to comment on any post, but not if it's simply an attempt at marketing. I respect my readers far more than to permit marketing by unqualified third party vendors through my blog. Readers deserve and get way more respect than that.

Readers, you will never find spam-type marketing on this site. If we've partnered with a company, it's because of their high value to our clients, top quality products, and the benefits we can bring them through those products or services. Look at the main site, check out how many companies we mention, you'll see we don't pick everyone, or just anyone, and there are very few links to other companies. We are VERY selective. We are all about integrity, and that means keeping the site clean. Truth is far more important, and the truth is that in any market a ratio identical to the classic Pareto Principle (80:20) is present. 80% of what is marketed is total junk, 20% is worth considering. We at Platinum end up selecting somewhere around 10% of that 20% (that's 2% of everything) to recommend to clients. That means that product being guerilla marketed on my blog has a 98% probability of being rejected by me.

If you wish to partner with us and have a link on our site, contact me by email and just ask. I'll review your company, products and services, and if it meets our standards, offers benefit, and matches with our direction of top quality service with integrity, I'll consider your link. You can't beg it, or buy it or spam it. You have to earn it.

Thanks, everyone, for visiting the blog, and keep watching this space for important news and industry developments. We might not be as popular as Facebook, but I'll bet we beat them out cold for truth in information.

Comments can be added by anyone, but are now moderated and will not post until approved.

Thanks,

Jim Addie
Platinum Home Theaters

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

New Mac Mini Unboxing photos

Drooling! So clean, and look at the back - and the RAM access - makes me want to replace mine!
Click here for official link

New Mac Mini released - with HDMI!

from TUAW:

Mac Mini gets a sneaky update: spec bump, unibody enclosure, HDMI

by Chris Rawson (RSS feed) on Jun 15th 2010 at 4:40AM

Amidst all the excitement over iPhone 4 being available for pre-order, Apple also snuck an update to the Mac Mini under the radar -- and it's a pretty big update. The new Mac Mini comes in two flavors:

2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB RAM
320 GB hard drive
$699

or the "server class" Mac Mini:

2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
Dual 500 GB hard drive
$999

Both models of Mac Mini have been updated with NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics, the same integrated GPU present in the MacBook and MacBook Pro.

The Mac Mini has received far more than a simple spec bump, however. The enclosure itself has been updated to a unibody aluminum construction similar to the MacBook Pro, and the "server" Mac Mini omits an optical drive entirely in favor of dual hard drives [this was the case for the previous server model –Ed.]. Perhaps more important than that, the Mac Mini is now the first Mac ever to include built-in HDMI. You read that right: the Mac Mini has HDMI. The Mac Mini also has an SD card slot in the back. [Ed: This is one sexy little machine!]

Apple has also addressed the well-known difficulty of upgrading the Mac Mini's RAM. There's now a removable twist-off panel on the Mac Mini's bottom that allows for easy access to the Mini's RAM slots. We're not sure yet if the hard drive will be as easy to upgrade, but at the very least, a RAM upgrade looks like it'll take less than a minute with this new model.

The Mac Mini is available now.