In a bit of irony, a few days after I switched my server to an Xserve, Apple has announced that at the end of January 2011, the Xserve is being discontinued.

The Xserve I bought was a fairly older model being a G5 system rather than an intel, but for $300 I couldn’t really complain. I was very happy with Ubuntu and just in case, I made sure that I could load it on the Xserve if I wanted to go back. The main extras that I get with OS X Server edition is being able to fairly easily set up a Time Machine server to backup our laptops over the air and the ability to have iTunes setup to stream media to the Apple T.V.

The other plus is the Xserve is much quieter than the previous server. Which is certainly an issue living in a small area. I would compare the noise to the Xserve to that of your regular desktop PC. I still have a few more things to setup and will do my best to try and document them here.

After roughly a year, Apple has allowed Google Voice apps back into the app store. This was the last thing that I wanted and had been considering jailbreaking for. The first one to get approved was GV Connect which appeared late last Friday. I decided to grab it as soon as I could to try it out. I personally don’t make a whole lot of calls with my google voice number, but I do use it for the free unlimited texting. Up to now, I had been using the web app Black Swan which is pretty impressive when you consider it is all completely web based. The main drawback of the web apps though was the fact that everything had to be downloaded like a standard webpage. This makes the process that much longer in receiving a text or getting to the dialer to make a phone call. After using GV Connect the last few days it has been a huge difference. There is obviously still a little delay for it to pull the text message from Google’s server, but it is barely noticeable unlike before.

The next day another app was approved called GV Mobile+ which was previously in the app store before it was pulled last year. I’m waiting to download this app until it is made available for free for a limited time this Saturday. It looks very similar to GV Connect, so it will probably be just personal preference as to which interface a user likes better.

Once I’ve tried both I’ll post which one I’ll actually be using for Google Voice. Both apps right now run $2.99 a piece which is pretty cheap when you consider what you’re getting. It will be interesting to see if Google themselves resubmit their app that was never approved before. If that happens than I imagine it will probably be free, so it is up to you if you want to wait and see if that happens.

Here’s a few screenshots of the app from the GV Connect page.

Over the last few months Sarah and I have been going to the Rec Center a bit more. I’ve picked up on several podcasts that I enjoy listening to while working out, so I thought I would share my list in case anyone wants to check them out. Now you don’t need an i device to listen to a podcast as they all provide an mp3 that you can download to listed to on your computer or other music player. The only advantage with using iTunes on these, is that it automatically downloads the new episode for you and puts it on your i device the next time you sync. Now on to the list.

The Chivecast: This is the only podcast out there right now that focuses strictly on vintage Star Wars collecting. It is monthly and was started roughly 6 months ago by a couple of collectors on Rebelscum. It is hosted as the official podcast of The Star Wars Collectors Archive. Early on, they even had some discussion on U grading and had collectors view their thoughts on the U grade.

Star Wars Action News: This is a weekly podcast on Star Wars collecting. It focuses a bit more on modern items (currently in stores), but they do have a vintage segment every now and then. They cover a wide range of items from toys, statues, books, etc. Even though I don’t collect a lot of that stuff anymore, I still find it enjoyable to listen to and keep up with the current news in Star Wars.

Now Playing: A movie review podcast put on by some of the same people that do Star Wars action news. This one is a lot of fun in that they occasionally review new movies, but also focus a lot on older movies too. They recently did retrospectives on the Predator movies and Karate Kid movies leading up to the new releases. For warning this one does have explicit language, but usually only when reviewing an R rated film.

We Have Communicators: (formerly iPhone Alley) This is a podcast that covers all i device related news each week, so pretty much anything iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and iOS.

Macbreak Weekly: This show is hosted by Leo Laporte that some might know from his Tech TV days. It is a weekly show that is recorded on Tuesdays that cover all things Mac. They cover the weeks news and any other fun topics that come up. I find Leo to be pretty unbiased toward Apple as he is someone who covers all areas of tech.

Engadget Podcast: One of my favorite tech news sites. They discuss pretty much everything and anything coming out in the tech industry. One week they may talk about phones and another week the focus could be on cameras. They also get in to some pretty fun arguments at times.

Today Apple has finally made an official response on the iPhone 4. They only mention issues with how the signal bars are displayed on the phone, but hopefully it will fix some of the other reported issues as well. They say the fix will be released in a few weeks which I was hoping a bit sooner, but as long as it is done right, I don’t mind the wait.