The Apple event, dubbed “It’s only Rock n’ Roll,” just concluded, and the iPod (not Apple) fanboy in me suddenly got a wake-up call. Well, not so much as jump-out-of-bed kind of wake-up, but more of a really-now-let-me-have-a-look-while-I-stay-in-bed sort of thing. A lot has been announced during the event, and this is my way of thinking if I should get a new iPod or not. Steve Jobs was also there to grace the event with his presence.

In iTunes, it gets a bit social by being able to share an iTunes store item. In-store item. Apple seems to have crowdsourced their marketing by letting iTunes users share and, hopefully (in Apple’s mind), convince that iTunes user’s friends to buy the item, song or app, from the iTunes store. But that’s just me thinking out loud. Also, the new version, iTunes 9, will let you copy songs, TV shows, etc., everything you have in your iPod with 5 other computers and lets you copy those items to your library. “Is Apple saying it’s okay to just pay once for an app even if it’s on two devices? – Joshua Topolsky of Engadget“ iTunes 9′s syncing has been improved as well, but what takes the cake is the App management feature as you can manage the apps in your iPod Touch in iTunes and have it synced with the device itself. And there’s iTunes LP, which brings back the lost pride in owning a vinyl copy of an album, complete with liner notes, artwork, etc.

The iPod Touch gets an improvement as well, though it’s not the camera everyone was hoping for. No camera in the new iPod Touch, but the internal hardware has been upgraded to support OpenGL and games that needs advanced graphics. Bottomline for the iPod Touch: it’s going head-to-head with handheld gaming consoles (e.g. PSP, Nintendo DS).

iPod Classics are not going away. Yet. Apple is bringing back the 160GB iPod Classic but with a thinner form factor. And at $249, it’s a great protable media player/external hard drive.

The iPod Shuffle gets new headphones, or manufacturers are now going to release a “for-iPod-Shuffle” line of headphones as Apple has let them do so. New colors will be available also.

As always, there’s the “One more thing” thing whenever there’s an Apple event about to conclude. The one more thing is the iPod Nano getting a video camera, without a price increase. So the new iPod Nano is one of the thinnest video cameras with the most capacity (8GB and 16GB), although I’m not sure if it takes still photos. Apple also added an FM radio and a pedometer that can be synced with Nike+.

And that’s about it from Apple. Since I’m overwhelmed with the options Apple just presented, I think I’ll just stick with the iPod Classic 160GB I have that I received as a gift about a couple of years ago. Until it breaks down or something, I guess.

Images stolen copied from Engadget’s liveblog article.

I wasn’t really planning on posting anything about my experiences with Windows 7, and I definitely would NEVER deliberately compare it with any Linux distro, for that matter. Well, not anymore. Okay, I’m going to try VERY HARD not to. But a recent article that leaked screenshots of Microsoft’s training course that essentially disses Linux and attempts to brainwash the trainee into believing Microsoft’s Windows 7 is the be-all end-all of operating systems just bites.

Yes, I have previously compared Vista and Linux, particularly Ubuntu, regarding UI and aesthetics, but upon using Windows 7, there really is no point in comparing the two operating systems. It’s like comparing apples (yeah, THAT too) and oranges.

What I can say about Windows 7, though, is that it has definitely matured enough to address a lot of customer concerns, matured enough that I can say it is the best and most praise-worthy operating system out of the Redmond giant. Borking it is as easy as repairing it. Literally. I borked my install a few days after a clean-install, and a few more times after that, and I repaired it in a matter of minutes also.

But to see this FUD being officially and professionally spread by Microsoft is just despicable. Those recent contributions to Open Source is, simply put, just marketing tactics.

However, I am not going to ditch Windows 7 because of this silly nonsense. Yeah, Windows 7 is just that great, because it just works. Like Ubuntu. But I’m still holding on to the install CD of Ubuntu, just in case.