When I accessed the popular social networking site Facebook a few weeks ago, I hardly noticed a change. As usual the Facebook userbase created enough of a cloud with their uproar that even CNN reported their outrage at the new layout. I cannot even imagine what those guys are gonna do now, Facebook has officially taken over the region in my book that is primary social networking.

What is it that has everyone so upset? Can you place a blame on Facebook for following the sudden rage over Twitter? The fact is that Facebook re-aligned their website based on the pretense that the “Twitter” style of social networking was obviously becoming very popular, and seeing as how Facebook already had this functionality, why not put it center stage?

Most people do not want to know what your doing every other minute, most people go to Facebook to add photos, write on peoples walls, and well use Facebook like MySpace. Facebook’s new layout makes that style of use very hard, and clearly the vast groups of people who are chanting for a revert, have that style.

My suggestion to Facebook would be to allow options of layout on the front page. Something the developers might be able to learn from MySpace is that you are able to alter the actual layout of containers both on your home page and profile page. I feel that this feature when added to Facebook would push the platform past a line that MySpace would be able to reach.

I sincerely doubt that Facebook will actually make a change back to the original layout, if you remember the last time Facebook users grouped together and literally petitioned to have it reverted, nothing happened. Its called innovation, things change over time and although at first they may appear to be completely wrong, after a while you start to notice that it actually makes sense.

Think about the history of Twitter, did anyone see that coming? I had a hard time believing for a while that a social network based solely around instantaneous status updates would work, but at that time smart phones weren’t the rage they are today. Facebook was not wrong in their design changes, I think that they were doing what they thought was in their best interest, which was to center their site around real-time updates, which for a Twitter user like myself, is perfect.

When pressed with the issue of whether or not spending an obscene amount of money on electronic gadgets, often times most people don’t think of the environment they’ll be using it in - or what type of activity they’ll be doing. They just walk directly into an apple store, and buy the shiniest thing they can find. In today’s world that would be either the Ipod touch or of course the Iphone. What if I said I just purchased the shuffle? (about 10 days before the 3rd generation came out, thank gosh!) Most would look at me with 3 heads and say I’m crazy. Well here I am defending a purchase that most say is in vain, I completetely disagree.

The reality of this situation is that while an iPhone would make my life incredibly easy, it would also sink me well over 1300.00 into debt just to be able to receive a call on the device. At this point you’re probably like “what, that’s absurd! you can’t be right”. Well I am, because I not only have one, but two accounts with sprint. That poses problems in several sectors, the first being that I have a Motorola Q and a LG Rumor and while I wont get into details, I do like the rumor very much.

The second part is, who has the 400.00 some odd dollars to give sprint so they’ll cancel my contracts, let alone another 400.00 or so for the actual iPhone, plus the ridiculous data plan I know I would want and probably purchase out of value. Right, that’s only 800.00, but I’m including the first few months of service, plus apps, warranty’s, and of course accessories.

So you would think Im in the market for a phone and as I said, I already have a phone. What I need out of the deal is music.

I throw stock overnight 5 times a week, during which time I want to listen to my own tracks, which is mostly streams from nonstopplay.com. I don’t need a fart machine, pocket level, nor do I need to keep track of my friends at 4:00 in the morning. My job is labor intensive, and very dangerous to expensive equipment that would end up in my pocket. I also do not wish to have to pull it out of my pocket each time to change the track, volume or anyting along those lines. Additionally, I don’t want, nor do I need to carry some ungodly amount of songs with me. I’m obviously not going to watch videos or movies while throwing stock, so.. what are my options?

Awesome! Everyone asks me, “why the shuffle?” and I proceed to lecture them with the preceding nonsense. By the end of my tangent they still stand there with a blank look on their face and say “You still should of bought the ipod touch”. Yes let me spend the 200.00 on the ipod touch, only to break the screen, drop it, or smash it somehow in my pocket during work. Eventually when I move to the greater Boston area the ipod touch or maybe even the iPhone will become something of use to me, but as for now the ipod shuffle is doing a fantastic job.

I picked up the ipod shuffle, the last one on the shelf at radio shack actually. This was after stopping at several locations only to find that “We don’t sell anything but the ipod touch”… What?

The unit worked perfect out of the box, I love the included dock as well as the updated apple headphones. I know this is rather old news however I just bought my toy so this is the first time I am ever using this device. Sure the controls are archaic, FF and RW speeds are slow, and you can lose it in your pocket lint (but that shouldn’t be a reason because it clips on where ever you want) but it plays music, loud and clear and performs its function perfectly for my applications.

I want an iPhone, but there are some things in this world that people want but they really don’t need, in this case I’m going with what I need, and that is everything that the iPod Shuffle is.

I’m sort of disapointed however that this update is strictly a hardware style enhancement and not a change in the overall design and presence of the machine. No worries however, I have no particular problem with the current design, I just love seeing how apple manages to completely one-up themselves with every design they ever make regardless of how shocking and perfect the previous design was. I wish I could say the same about my trends in web design.

Now what about those specs? According to my friends at engadget.com the new 24″ model is cheaper than its predecessor, woo hoo! doesn’t mean I can afford it.. yet.

Prices start at $1,199 for the 20-inch and $1,499 for the 24-inch. At the base level Apple offers a 20-incher with 2.66Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB HDD and GeForce 9400M graphics, the rest of the iMacs are 24-inch numbers with 4GB of RAM standard. In the high end Apple has 2.93GHz and 3.06GHz processor for $1,799 and $2,199, respectively, with GeForce GT 120 256MB and GeForce GT 130 512MB graphics. In between there’s a 24-incher for $1,199 with 9400M graphics, a 2.66GHz processor and a 640GB HDD. On the outside it’s that same iMac candy shell you know and love, though Apple has oddly replaced the standard wired keyboard with a new numeric keypad-free model — those pesky numbers are available as an option. All models are available now.

Well, very impressive I think. Of course I own a 20″ Intel Core2Duo imac and it’s quickly reaching the end of its life for my style of use. The review community seems to have issues, in that they base their review off the base, consumer grade, option. The chances of a first time mac buyer reading your review before actually purchasing the mac is very small. I say this because most of those people go into an apple store and use any one of the models and say “whats the cheapest model”. Which is exactly why most students are walking around with macbooks, and not macbook pro’s.

Granted, I want the new imac primarily based on its desk appearence, another 3 year warantee, the glass display, and it’ll match the new LCD display from apple. I plan on selling the current imac here at the desk and using the profit from it towards one of the new machines, hopefully something that happens soon.