Birthdays are fun!

So yesterday was my birthday, I'm now officially 31. I can't say I'm really old as all my colleagues are older than me... and possibly a few of the grad students; but I still feel as though I am getting old. But to make the celebration special my wonderful wife was kind enough to buy me the latest iPhone! So its needless to say that I'm really stoked about it, the phone really just is the coolest thing going. It's also led me to realize just how much I've become a huge fan of Apple products in the last couple of years.

See, I've never in fact owned my own computer, the one that I have now is the laptop I got for work. However, if I was to buy one it certainly would be an Apple; but why spend the money if I can get it without a direct cost to myself. But beyond the laptop it seems that Deirdre and I have amassed quite the collection of Apple products, here's the list:

- an iPod shuffle
- an iPod mini
- a G4 iMac
- a 15" MacBook Pro
- an Airport Express wireless router
- a pair of iPhones (one original, one 3G)

The sad part is that even with all these items I would still like to get plenty more. I'm just really impressed with the functionality of Apple products and the style of them.

One of the nice things that I've found with iPhone is just how useful it's already shown itself to be. It would be nice if I could actually download papers that I search for but at least I have found a way to read them once I have downloaded them on another computer. There's a new program that I've managed to get a beta test version of that has proved extremely useful in doing this. It's called Dropbox and it allows you to upload any file into an online storage/sharing program. It syncs up with all computers that it's loaded onto and can be selectively shared with others. The bonus for the iPhone is that I can read any files that have been uploaded to the system on my iPhone, even pdf papers. So this really makes the phone that much more useful for me, which is sweet.

By the way, if you want to try Dropbox and the signup takes too long just leave me a comment and I'll send you an invite, I have about 9 left.