This is the Top News Stories section from My Yahoo start page. The first 4 stories seem quite appropriate for this section. These are important news stories that have real life altering impact to many people. The 5th story is just absurd. Honestly people, it's just a damn phone. People are dying in the world and the Gulf of Mexico is a disaster zone. Those are important stories. Whether a phone loses cellular signal just doesn't really seem that important in the grand scheme of things. Granted, Apple brings a lot of this upon themselves with the way they handle PR but I would hope that the powers that be that shape and deliver our news would have elected to push a story like this to Page 2. But in the ever growing chase for eyeballs, news outlets want to push what brings in the most readers. Who cares that only 3 million iPhone 4's have been sold versus the hundreds of millions of other phones on the market. There's only one thing that people love more than fawning over winners and that's to watch them fall.

A friend of mine recently was shopping for a media storage system to manage his library of movies, music, pictures, etc.  I directed him to a previous post I did re: my home media server.  Seeing as how it's almost a year old, I decided to do an update with new equipment and specs.

The first component I updated was with the media player itself, the recently released Mac Mini.  Great elegantly designed device.  Easier to upgrade the RAM on though I went from 4GB down to 2GB on this new model and haven't seen any drop off in performance.  When RAM prices are a little more affordable, I'll probably spring for the 4GB.  I'm running MakeMKV to do the video conversion/ripping and Plex to manage my media.  MakeMKV is one of the simplest bluray/dvd ripping software I've used to date and Plex handles all video files like a champ.  Boxee is a good alternative to Plex but I just don't like the interface.  I still use the same external USB bluray drive I've had before.  Saw no reason to upgrade it but may do so when faster drives become a little cheaper.

The other major component is the Drobo storage system.  Since the Mac Mini currently has a 320GB drive, you won't be able to store much there.  I have the original Drobo 4-Bay system but they've since released a very nice upgrade in the Drobo FS.  The new FS has 5 bays and integrated gigabit ethernet.  This is perfect for if you want to stash your Drobo somewhere hidden and then just pipe the media to multiple locations via a gigabit router.

Other components are the Logitech diNovo Mini (essential if you don't want to deal with a big keyboard and mouse) and the Apple Remote.  Not super essential but extremely useful for an uncluttered coffee table.

It's definitely not a plug and play type of solution but with a little bit of do-it-yourself elbow grease, you'll have a home media manager that will grow with you for the foreseeable future.  If you have any questions, please feel free to hit me up for advice.

Finally. Nuff said.

No words can explain it.  You have to view his Twitter responses on the right hand side.

Looks like the Warriors are letting Anthony Morrow walk. At a time when the fortunes of the team were looking up, they lost a pretty good piece of the puzzle. Granted, Morrow is not a premiere player but he served a very important role - dead-eye outside shooting (he was one of only 4 guys last year who shot more than 45% from 3PT land).

Ever team needs a guy who just hangs on the perimeter to knock down open 3's. With David Lee as an above average passing big man, Monta Ellis driving and kicking out, plus Curry creating open shots, the Warriors needed a guy just like Morrow. Plus at only $4 million a year, he's great value considering guys like Reddick and Korver were getting $5M - $7M. Compounding the issue is that the Warriors signed Dorell Wright, who by all measure (other than height) is inferior to Morrow, to the same exact three year $12M contract. He scores less, grabs fewer rebounds, and doesn't shoot as well from the floor or the free throw line. The only way I can envision the Warriors letting him go is if he expressly asked to leave and the Dorell Wright move was in reaction to that. Two steps forward, one step back.  At least we get a trade exception out of it.