What do you think about Mark’s popularity? Any reactions to Google+? Leave questions, comments, or thoughts below!

On Wednesday July 7th, my friend and I went to a OneRepublic concert at the club Terminal 5 in New York. With two opening bands and (of course) OneRepublic playing, the show was bound to be awesome. Read on for videos (taken on an iPhone 4!) and a review.

After arriving at about 6:30PM and getting our hands drawn on to show that we were under 21, my friend and and I took our spot in the middle of a mosh pit on the first  Wednesday July 7th, my friend and I went to a OneRepublic concert at the club Terminal 5 in New York. With two opening bands and (of course) OneRepublic playing, the show was bound to be awesome. Read ofloor of Terminal 5. The first band to perform was Alpha Rev, a band I had previously never heard of. Formed in 2005 in Austin, TX, Alpha Rev came together as the brainchild of singer/songwriter Casey McPherson after the breakup of his previous band, Endochine. They were, surprisingly, very good. There music had a similar sound and feel as OneRepublic, the lead singer had an amazing voice, and  the electric violin player was excellent. If you like OneRepublic, definitely check them out on iTunes here.

GadgetHigh Report Card: A-

Next up was Sara Bareilles. To be honest, I was never the biggest fan of Sara Bareilles and the only song of hers I really knew was her hit single “Love Song.” She was pretty good, but nothing great. I was surprised by how many people in the crowd were fans of hers. She played her new single “King of Anything” and played a lot of music from her upcoming album “Kaleidoscope Heart.” She was also very social with the crowd, telling stories and even talking about the whiskey she was apparently drinking. Overall, a pretty good performance for a Sara Bareilles fan.Check her out on iTunes here.

GadgetHigh Report Card: B+

Finally, at about 9:30PM, OneRepublic took the stage and immediately performed “Everybody Loves Me.” After a little bit of schmoozing and crowd pleasing, they continued to play hits from their new album. After “Secrets” and “Good Life” (A video of Good Life is posted below!) and other songs, lead singer, Ryan Tedder, announced that they were going to play a song they decided to play about 5 minutes before walking on stage. They proceeded to perform an excellent cover of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out.” A video of that performance is posted below. After playing many more songs from the new and old albums, throwing water on the crowd, jumping into the crowd,  and even giving champagne to the crowd, OneRepublic was done for the night. Or so we thought. They returned a few minutes later for an encore in which they started out by covering “Stand By Me” (video below!) and “Seven Nation Army” (video below!). At the point of the guitar solo in “Seven Nation Army,” Tedder decided to sing a little bit of “SexyBack.” They ended the performance by playing “Waking Up.” Overall, the performance was fantastic. The music was great and the band members were great performers. Ryan Tedder had an amazing voice and played the piano (keyboards) beautifully. Brent Kutzle, the electric chello player (and guitar, and bass, and keyboards) never ceases to amaze me, and Wednesday night was no exception. Check out the videos below and check on OneRepublic on iTunes here. GadgetHigh Report Card: A

I also just learned that OneRepublic and Sara Bareilles did a duet recording of OneRepublic’s hit song “Come Home”. You can check that out here and buy it on iTunes if you’d like.

All video below was recorded in amazing 720p on my iPhone 4.

UPDATE: Facebook has agreed to reactivate my account. Read on to hear my story and hear why Facebook decided to side with me.

It was a Friday Morning. Approximately 12:20PM. Miami Beach, Florida.

I was enjoying my Spring Break vacation on the beach. I decided to take my free time and try to revamp GadgetHigh, including the fan page on Facebook. I started by going through the fan list on Facebook and I was surprised to see people on the fan list whom I did not know, about 6. Curious, I decided to send messages to them to see how they learned about GadgetHigh and if they were interested in writing for this awesome website. After breezing through the first two messages, I hit “send” on the third. That was when I received a message asking me to log in. As I have said, I thought it was a simple network error, and I tried to log in. And then the worst thing that could happen to a person on Facebook happened.

“Your account has been disabled,” the sceen read. “NO,” was the first word that popped into my head. Why Facebook? WHY ME? There was no reason given. No explanations, no email, nothing. I looked at my watch, April 2nd it read. Damn it–not an April Fool’s joke. I was filled with anger and confusion, and tried at least 5 more times to log in. Every time I received that same message: “Your account has been disabled.” I tried to keep my cool, but I may or may not have screamed some expletives at my computer. I had questions, comments, and concerns, so I visited their FAQ (frequently asked questions) page to find some answers. I read some of the reasons why an account would be disabled:

Continued prohibited behavior after receiving a warning or multiple warnings from Facebook–I never recieved warnings (or engaged in prohibited behavior, I promise).

Unsolicited contact with others for the purpose of harassment, advertising, promoting, dating, or other inappropriate conduct–all my contact is solicited.

Use of a fake name–I used my real name. But what about seniors applying to college? Every one of them changes his or her name! Those are fake names, but none (that I know of) have been disabled by facebook!

Impersonation of a person or entity, or other misrepresentation of identity–I keep it real. No impersonation necessary.

Posted content that violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (this includes any obscene, pornographic, or sexually explicit photos, as well as any photos that depict graphic violence.)–NO WAY. This GadgetHigh site has pictures of naked phones (phones without cases for those of you wondering) but that is all.

Having over 5,000 friends or excessively sending friend requests- let’s be real. I don’t think I even know 5,000 people! Maybe I had around 4,000 friends (that is a lie, more like around 1,000…maybe 900). And I was not sending (or receiving) excessive friend requests.

There were many other offenses, but I digress. I HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG.

Some of you may be thinking: stop complaining James. Just create another account. One word: No. I am not protesting facebook at all. Oppositely, I have entered the facebook appeal process. I filled out a form, answered a few questions, and sent an email to disabled@facebook.com. Suprisingly, they responded immediately. Unfortunately, the email said nothing informative. The email required that I reply to the email with my reasons for my innocence. Part of the email read:

Lastly, you may not create another account using a different email address while you are waiting for a response. Creating more than one Facebook account is a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and violations of this rule could result in all of your accounts being permanently disabled.

And so, the waiting begins. I have no idea how long it will take for them to reply to my second email with either the good news of my being reactived or the bad news of my account staying disabled. For now, I am staying off facebook. I will survive, for a short time at least. A terrible part of this whole situation is that the GadgetHigh fan page has also been disabled, a fan page that just reached an impressive 100 fans I am still unclear how I will communicate to the outside world without facebook, but I will find ways to manage. I admit, I have already instinctively typed facebook into the URL bar, not remembering my unfortunate situation.
I will be sure to update everyone on the latest news and hopefully this story will have a happy ending.

Also, if this is your first time on the site or if you don’t have an account, please register for an account above.

Please leave all questions and comments below. You can share any of your facebook horror stories or leave a sympathetic note for me.

Let us hope for reactivation.

UPDATE: Madeline from Facebook User Operations sent me an email on behalf of the Facebook Team. Part of it read:

We have detected suspicious activity on your Facebook account and have reset your password as a security precaution. It is possible that malicious software was downloaded to your computer or that your password was stolen by a phishing website designed to look like Facebook.

While I do not think any suspicious activity was going on, I am sure glad to have my Facebook account back. I has been about 6 days since I have gone on Facebook and I am now able to reconnect with the world.

Thanks Facebook for responding to my requests, although this better not happen again.

Click here to go to the GadgetHigh fan page on Facebook and become a fan. As always, register for an account below. You won’t regret it.

For those familiar with Farmville, this game uses the same technique for many things and so instead of giving all of the details I’ll highlight the differences.  First of all unlike Farmville, you must level up to plant more crop plots.  For example I am on level 14 which is fairly high and I can only plant 10 plots right now.  While this may seem frustrating it is actually nice because it puts more emphasis on the other aspects of the game.  Just like Farmville planting a crop and waiting for harvest can take as long as a day according to what I’ve unlocked so far, but can also last as short as 45 seconds for the first crop.  The money is then used to purchase buildings for your farm such as a mining camp and a butcher shop.  Friends can place orders in these shops which can give just as much or more experience than harvesting crops.  Unlike Farmville, there are no animals which I found extremely disappointing but I can live without them.  The final aspect of gameplay that I want to cover is Mojo.  Mojo is awarded whenever you level up and is used to speed up the process of the game.  Using 1 mojo can instantly build a butcher shop that would normally take 12 hours to complete.  Mojo can only be used to purchase one thing in the game, but I haven’t leveled up enough to buy it yet.

Similar to the most of Ngmoco’s newer lineup of games, We Rule uses a freemium gaming style.  For those who don’t know what that is, it is a game that can be downloaded and played for free but you can also pay in order to speed up game advancement.  This is where the mojo comes in.  At the beginning of the game I received 5 for every level but in higher levels I now get 8.  You can purchase 5 mojo for a dollar, 800 mojo for 50 dollars or any number of increments in between those two.  I was a fan of Farmville, but I always had two gripes with it.  First was that it wasn’t playable on my iPhone which made it frustrating to constantly have to go to my computer.  Secondly, it was always a chore to have to click the hundreds of plots on my farm to harvest, but on the iPhone it just feels much more natural.  Definitely one to watch and I’ll try to post once it’s available in the US.  For those who get it, my plus username is rossisd, feel free to add me.  No link for obvious reasons but pictures up top.

Hello everyone. I know it has been a while since the last article, but that subject is for a different time. I want to tell you a little bit of news about Topeka, Kansas. Yes, something interesting is happening in Kansas. Topeka, as some of you may know from some history class, is the capital of Kansas, but is now in the news for other reasons. A plan to rename the town to Google?! Read on to learn more….

When you think of Kansas, fast internet is probably not one of the first thing that comes to mind (maybe potatoes?). That may change, according to a formal proclamation Monday The mayor of Topeka announced his city will be known as “Google” — Google, Kansas. The mayor wants the kids of Topeka and even many of adults to have the fast internet that they deserve. The mayor believes that faster internet would encourage people to stay in Topeka and would encourage business in Topeka.  Sounds like a cool young mayor right? Guess again. The Mayor of Topeka is Bill Bunten, a 79 year old man who admits to not using the internet much and having his assistants search the internet for him. Bunten had this to say about the temporary name switch: “It’s just fun. We’re having a good time of it,” he said of the unofficial name change, which will last through the end of March. “There’s a lot of good things that are going on in our city.” Could the switch last more than a month? Could the new capital of Kansas be Google? When Bunten was asked if the change could ever be permanent he said:

“”Oh, heavens no, Topeka?” “We are very proud of our city and Topeka is an Indian word which means ‘a good place to grow potatoes.’ We’re not going to change that.”

Potatoes. I knew it.

Google has declined to comment on the name switch and, of course, took no part in it.

Is there a reason for this crazy renaming besides the fun of (temporarily) living in a town named Google? Yes, there is. The unusual move comes as several U.S. cities elbow for a spot in Google’s new “Fiber for Communities” program. The Web giant is going to install new Internet connections in unannounced locations, giving those communities Internet speeds 100 times faster than those elsewhere, with data transfer rates faster than 1 gigabit per second.

As crazy as this may sound, this is not actually the first time the apparently tech-crazy town of Topeka changed its name.  In 1998, former mayor Joan Wagnon temporarily changed the name of the city to “ToPikachu, Kansas,” in reference to Pikachu from Pokemon. This change lasted one day. Why you ask? Not even Bunten knew why: “We did it for a day, I can’t remember why.”

So will this switch help Topeka win the “Fiber for Communities” contest? I can’t see how this would help, but maybe.

Keep on Googling Topekans.

Comments, questions, thoughts? Leave them below!

Also, we are looking for more people to make accounts, so please take the time to either click this link or hit register in the top right corner of the webpage. Thanks!

Facebook has already taken steps in expanding their messaging system. You can now send messages (or as many facebook-savvy users call them- inboxes) to non-Facebook email addresses. To those of you with smartphones and also to those who visit some websites that use Facebook Connect, you have probably seen Facebook Connect in action. In essense, Facebook Connect allows you to connect Facebook to third party applications. That being said, Facebook wants to take over even more of your messaging life.

Project Titan would replace the current messaging platform with full POP and IMAP support and a customized @facebook.com e-mail address. You would be able to access this email through Facebook or independently. So instead of using your Gmail account or your .me account as an email, you would be able to use your username@facebook.com address as an email system either for Facebook or independently from Facebook.

The real question on my mind (and hopefully yours) is: would I really want/need/use this? And the obvious answer is no. I have two email addresses already. Not that I really need both, but I like the Gmail system and I also like the .me system. Facebook email would bring no advantage, other than having to check another email account for messages that may likely be spam. I personally have no problem with the current Facebook messaging, as I am not a person who has constant threads with many other people. Since I do not use the messaging a lot, I do not see any flaws. If you do find any flaws or problems, there is always the comment section below to tell us about them.

Needless to say, if Project Titan is in fact real, I would probably get an username@facebook.com address just to have it. Here is where a big problem lies however. I would personally want the address jamesruben@facebook.com.  A quick “James Ruben” search on Facebook gives me 204 different people named James Ruben, and there are probably many more. Someone is bound to beat me to the email address I want. If they do, I will be sure to send them an email to jamesruben@facebook.com telling them how I feel.

Would you want a facebook email? Do you hate the facebook messaging system? Do you have something, anything at all, to say? Leave your comments below!

Since 1999, music sales have cut in a little more than half, from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in 2009. Although the Recording Industry Association of America will report its official figures in the early spring, the trend has been very clear: RIAA has reported declining revenue in nine of the past 10 years, with album sales falling an average of 8% each year.  The 90′s ( a decade many of you probably only listened to kids music) saw a crazy growth in music sales because of the great number of cassettes and CD’s bought. But the digital music gained immense popularity and everything changed…

Right now you may be thinking, most of my friends have some sort of Portable Music Player (like an iPod). Almost everyone I know listens to some kind of music. So how could the music industry possibly be losing so much money. Well, I can give all you skeptics a one word answer and it is spelled F-R-E-E. Free. Gratis in spanish.

It all started with Napster.  In 1999, Napster, a free online file-sharing service, made its debut. Not only did Napster change the way people got their music, but it also changed the price of the music to the magic word: free. Eventually Napster was shut down, after being sued by the music industry, but Apple kept the digital revolution alive with iTunes in 2003.

Raise your hand if you use iTunes. Hey you, I know you have iTunes in the dock right below this screen. Raise the hand. I am sure almost all of you use iTunes to get or store some of your music. But the transition from free to 99 cents a song (now more for some songs) was not easy. Many of Napster’s near 60 million users found other ways to get their music for free. Even now, statistics show that more than half of the people who buy digital music legally are not happy about having to pay.

I am not going to say I have never gotten music illegally. I am not going to say I have, but you can infer what you want. And I’ll admit, things are better when they are free. But even though you aren’t paying, you are hurting someone. Think about that new artist that you love, or rapper/singer/DJ were created that new track you cannot stop listening to. When download their music illegally, or my some means get the music illegally, they are not getting any money for their work. If we really want to be analytical, it actually goes against their constitutional rights to the fruit of their labor. But we won’t go there. In essence, you are getting the music you want, but eventually this decision to not buy the music will come back to haunt you when the new artist you like isnt making enough money as an artist because people are not buying his or her or their music. Not having enough money, he or she or they will not be able to create a new album. That seems dramatic, and in some ways it is, but even if your situation is not dramatic, in someway you are hurting someone’s income by downloading music illegally.

So music lovers and other people of the world, unite. Let’s buy our music. iTunes is cheap in comparison to the cost of CD’s. Even if you can’t kick the illegal music habit, at least try not to illegally share all the illegal music you download. That just ain’t right.

0101, GadgetGuy

Leave you comments, questions, thoughts, or anything else below!

How did Stephen Colbert get an iPad? Read on…

Tonight during a live television broadcast of the 52^nd Grammy Awards on CBS, Stephen Colbert, the host of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, whipped out a spanking new Apple iPad to read out the nominees for best song. He bragged that even Jay-Z didn’t get one in his gift bag. When we last saw Colbert he was pleading for an iPad during the intro of the January 27^th episode of the Colbert Report. Wether this is promotional genius from Apple or Steven Jobs is a fan of Stephen Colbert (they have the Steven-Stephen connection), it sure was nice to see the iPad being used in a somewhat practical situation. That is, if you consider a device to keep track of the nominees you must read at the Grammy’s practical.

I have added the videos below.

Noah Landesberg

I am sure anyone reading this now has read or heard about Apple’s new iPad, either through Ross’s great review or by some other means. So I am not going to just write another review.  I am going to discuss another part of the new iPad—its name.

To be honest with all of you, when I first saw the name of the iPad (while reading Engadget’s and Gizmodo’s live blogs simultaneously), my heart sank a little bit.

Maybe we didn’t start out on the right foot.  The device? It looks great.  Now I have my pro’s and con’s, but that is for another time.  I just can’t bring myself to accept the name “iPad.”

You could be thinking, oh GadgetGuy (James) do you actually have a reason for not liking the name or are you just rambling?  Answer: I do have my reasons. Here they are:

1.  Cool Factor.  Over the years, Apple’s product names have become less creative and more blunt.  For example, the last tablet-like device created (almost 2 decades ago) by Apple was called “Newton.”  Now that’s cool! I want something mysterious, something interesting.  I want someone to ask me what I am using and I want my response to sound cool.

2.  Clarity/Accuracy.  This brings me to my second reason.  If the blunt names must continue, the name should be something a little more….clear.  For example, the iPhone. Simple name. Apple’s signature “i” followed by what the device is supposed to be a “Phone.”  So let’s try this method with the iPad. Signature “i”?  Check. But here is where we run into trouble.  “Pad”?  Really?  This is definitely not a pad.   Another rumored name was the iSlate.  Even “Slate” I understand more that “Pad.”  The actual object is a Slate. So that is fitting.  The iPad, however, is in no shape or form a Pad. (Besides, doesn’t “Slate” sound so much cooler than “Pad”?  I guess that brings us back to reason 1.)

3.  It could be much better.  I won’t lie, these people at Apple are among the most creative people I have ever read about.  The things they come up with and create are beyond me.  So why couldn’t they take about 2 hours out of one day, sit together in a boardroom, and come up with a name that is not only fitting but also sounds really really cool?

Other rumored named included, Tablet, iTablet, Apple Tablet, Slate, and iSlate.

Since none of these names really fit for me, I have decided to take matters into my own hands. Here are a few examples of some decent names:

1.  TheMagicMaker

2.  The MagicTouch

3.  the iMagicTouch

4.  iEvenIfYouDon’tLikeItYouWillBuyItBecauseAppleMakesIt

5.  iBlock

6.  AppleBlock

7 . iBrick

8 . The iPhone on Steriods

9.  The iTouch (oh wait…)

10.  The Big Sexy Touch Computer

And that’s it for my suggestions.  Vote in the poll below and be sure to comment with your thoughts. In closing, though, not matter the name, I will be getting an iPad.  (It pains me even to type the name.)