Some of you may know the the new iPhone is set to release this week. The details of the new phone left people unsatisfied. The most significant change on the new iPhone 3GS is a faster processor, more RAM (256mb), and a different video processing chip. Apple has clearly intended this upgrade to cater to game developers. Early adopters will definitely enjoy the new upgrade as Apple claims the new phone will be twice as fast and in some cases can be 3x faster. Those hoping to get a forward facing camera for video calls or some LED visual notification will be disappointed. Externally, the iPhone 3GS is virtually identical to it's predecessor.   

Also, releasing this week in conjunction with their phone is their new OS, version 3.0. I happen to have the final release and have been using it for over a week. The new updates are welcome but were way overdue. Cut and Paste and the ability to read/write text and emails in landscape view were the most important updates. Sure, sending and reciving MMS is something everyone wanted, but with the release of cut and paste accessing MMS messages is not as painful beofre. But we have to give it up to Apple to take 3 iterations to implement something that was so basic on a smartphone. One very important feature that didn't make the update was the ability to run multiple apps in the background. This feature alone would have been the deal breaker to ditch my trusty Blackberry completely. Unfortunately, Apple decided it wasn't important enough. I would have understood if background apps were only available on the new phone since it has twice the RAM and faster CPU, but Apple has no intention of implementing that feature anytime soon.

For those who have been waiting patiently, Apple has finally release a decent phone.  For those who have the 3G model I don't recommend picking up the new iPhone. The minimal added features does not warrant an upgrade. Those who have been holding out for the past few years can jump in and pickup the iPhone given that you're able to get it at the subsidized price. If you're strapped for cash picking up the 3G model instead can save you a $100. 

Apple is getting closer to making a phone that people want. It's so obvious that they are milking the iPhone by adding bits and pieces to each model and charging a bundle for it. At the rate they're going their competitors will such as Palm and Blackberry will leave them in the dust.

For the past few months I've gotten into the night-life-promoting scene. A couple of friends and myself have been promoting parties on the first Saturday of each month at Mosaic, an upscale lounge/bar located in the Hotel Montgomery.

Our parties have been epic and memorable. So if you're in the neighborhood come by and join in on the fun. You can view our website over at www.epicuresj.com for additional info.

For all of those out there missing my rarely posted blog. I will be back shortly. I've had a very busy first half of 2009.

Well, ladies and gents I will see you soon.

I'm here in Las Vegas. I just saw the weigh ins and was at the autograph session. Wanderlei, Kenflo, and Thiago Alves were there signing. I took some pictures with my cell phone. I sent them over to my buddy over at MMA-Extreme hopefully he'll post them up soon.

This is an amazing event with an awesome fight card.I can go on for days on each match up, but I'll just focus on the GSP vs. BJ Penn fight. This fight is one of the most anticipated fight in a while. BJ Penn is re-focused on his MMA legacy and wants to win this fight badly. Penn's talent is ranked right up there among the best in the world. But GSP is very well-rounded and Penn's raw skills are not enough to defeat GSP. Penn will need to come with the right fight plan to take on the Welterweight King. Penn will need to utilize his stand up skills and set it up for the takedown. Penn will have to use this BJJ to control GSP on the ground. This will help him control the pace and reserve his energy. If history is any indication BJ Penn hasn't shown any decent stamina in his fights. If BJJ is able to bring GSP down he can win via submission or by decision. The Candadian has the edge in this fight because he holds the win in their last meeting. GSP will need to bring a fast and furious pace and stay away from any takedowns, and he will need to utilize his kicks and jabs to setup takedowns of his own. The Champ will need to wear Penn down with some ground and pound. He probably won't submit Penn and will have to take the fight to the later rounds and force a stoppage by the ref. In the end, it comes down to who has the better takedowns in this fight will likely win.

My Picks:

George St. Pierre beats BJ Penn
Thiago Silva beats Lyoto Machida
Jon Jones beats Stephan Bonnar
Don Hyun Kim beats Karo Parisyan
Clay Guida beats Nate Diaz
Jon Fitch beats Akihiro Gono
Thiago Tavares beats Manny Gamburyan
Chris Wilson beats John Howard
Christian Wellisch beats Jake O' Brien
Matt Arroyo beats Dan Cramer

Rich Franklin v. Dan Henderson is a great headliner to start off the New Year. UFC 93 is also stacked with other bouts such as Coleman v. Shogun and the UFC debut of Denis Kang.

The Franklin/Henderson fight will be a great matchup. These guys' style will make an exciting fight. Henderson has bombs in both hands whereas Franklin is very well-rounded and take the fight on the feet or on the ground. Both fighters are smart and will he who has the best gameplan coming into the cage will win. For Franklin to win he will need to keep his punches down the middle and avoid a slugfest with Henderson. Franklin will need to utilize kicks to keep his opponent at bay and use ring generalship to control positions and wait for Henderson to tire out from throwing his boms. For Henderson, he'll need to get to the inside and his wrestling background will help him with that. Henderson should put pressure on Franklin early on by pressing him up against the fence utilizing the clinch and take him down ala Randy Couture style.

My Picks:

Mauricio Rua beats Mark Coleman
Denis Kang beats Alan Belcher
Rousimar Palhares beats Jeremy Horn
Marcus Davis beats Chris Lytle
Martin Kampmann beats Alexandre Barros
Eric Schafer beats Antonio Mendes
Tomasz Drwal beats Ivan Serati
John Hathaway beats Tom Egan
Dennis Siver beats Nate Mohr

Yeah, I know it's a little late to say Happy New Year, I had a two week vacation from work a week ago and it's always tough to be back at work. Anyways, My new year has started off with a hick up. I lost my Blackberry Bold on a ski trip this weekend. A loss like that is almost grounds for suicide, but I'm holding up fine. At least for now. I'm now using a trusty Blackberry 8700c. I haven't used this phone in a couple of years and it feels weird using a Blackberry without a trackball.

I remember when 2008 started, it's ironic how many people said it would be a great and fortunate year since the number 8 is considered to be a very lucky number in Asian cultures, but it turned out to be the worse year since the great depression era. But I have a feeling 2009 will be a much better. Much better than 2008 and I know that's not saying much but at least we can have a little optimism. So far January will be exciting. We'll be swearing in a new President into office. Not just any President, it's a Black President. Also, Two big UFC within two weeks of each other each with an exciting headline match. Rich Franklin v. Dan Henderson will be squaring off this weekend, and BJ Penn will be battling George St. Pierre at the end of the month. Yes, it's very exciting. So here's to a fortunate and happy New Year. Cheers!

I'm posting this a little late. I'm on my Blackberry, so I didn't have the option to add the UFC image.

It's the end of the year and we get to have one bad-ass fight card. Having two title fights and a highly anticipated grudge match between two very exciting fighters is a great way to cap off 2008.

Let's start with the Evans v. Forrest. These guys came from obscurity to highly touted fighters in their division. Say what you want about these TUF alumni, but they proved that they deserved to be in this position with every fight they won. This fight proposes an interesting match up. Evans is a great wrestler that has developed into a striking machine and coming from a Greg Jackson camp only adds to his credibility. On the other side of the octagon Forrest is a machine that is almost unbreakable. His impressive wins over Shogun and Rampage catapulted him to the top of the rankings.

Evans has proved he has knock out power and Forrest is as well rounded as a fighter can get. But I see Forrest giving Evans his first loss. Forrest has been in hard fought-battles and came out as the victor. Forrest's reach advantage and technical striking will keep Evans at bay. As the fight progresses to the later rounds Forrest will have the cardio and experience to shutdown him down.

A grudge match that has been in the making for half a decade is one of the most anticipated fights this year. Rampage will get the opportunity to avenge his two losses from Wanderlei Silva, a fighter who has given Rampage two of the worst beatings in his career. But since those losses Rampage has reinvented himself and in the process won the Light Heavyweight title and defended it against Dan Henderson.

Wanderlei has the mental edge coming into the fight because he has already beaten Rampage twice. Rampage ditched is old trainer and opt to train with Wolf's Lair. That should definite help his game, but it won't be enough to stop the Axe Murderer.

Mir and Noguiera's title fight will be a true battle of attrition. They are both seasoned veterans who had a debilitating accident in their past and has come back against the odds to title contention. Before Mir's motorcycle accident he was considered one of the top heavyweights in the world, but his road back in the UFC was less than stellar to put it mildly. Noguiera has been in it with the best there is in MMA. His experience and list of victory easily puts him in the hall of fame of the sport.

Mir has his young age to his advantage, where as Noguiera's long history of being in those brutal battles may have taken its toll. Noguiera is not has fast and nimble as he was 2 years ago. It was obvious in his Heath Herring fight and Tim Sylvia fight. I see Mir coming in and throwing lots of kick to slow Nog down. Mir will keep the fight standing as long as possible and will hold Nog on the ground for a decision win.

My picks:

Forrest Griffen beats Rashad Evans
Frank Mir beats Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera
Wanderlei Silva beats Quinten Jackson
Cheick Kongo beats Mustafa Al Turk
CB Dollaway beats Mike Massenzio
Yushin Okami beats Dean Lister
Matt Hamill beats Andy Reese
Ryo Chonan beats Brad Blackburn
Antoni Hardonk beats Mike Wessel
Dan Everson beats Patrick Barry

For those of you who have Blackberry devices you may have downloaded applications over-the-air (OTA). Blackberry devices uses a .jad file to download OTA apps by pointing its browser to that file. OTA apps actually consists of two file types .jad and .cod. The .cod files are actually the content of the application and the .jad files points to it.

If you plan to host your own OTA files on a Windows IIS server you'll need to make some changes to you web server to process those .jad and .cod files.

You will need to access Internet Information Services and right-click on Web Sites and select properties. Select the HTTP Headers tab and click on MIME Types. Here you will add two MIME Types:

Extension: jad
MIME type: text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor

Extension: cod
MIME type: application/vnd.rim.cod

You may need to restart IIS once you've added the MIME types. Open the command prompt and type in "iisreset" (minus the quotes).

Unless you’ve been living under a rock inside a cave located somewhere on the moon you may know that our economy has been in a downturn for about year. It’s especially apparent for the past few months as unemployment rises and stocks tumbling like Britney Spears second attempt at a singing career. The silver lining of this historic event is that gas prices are low. So low that gas guzzling SUVs are looking pretty good, so get your driving on while gas is cheap.

Our government is bailing out the financial institutions and the struggling US auto makers are standing by with their hands out begging to get a piece of that pie. And in the midst of all this economic drama our new President elect promises to heal and restore our economy once he takes office. Also, stock prices are low and cheap. If you’ve never invested or interested in investing now is a good time to buy. If history is any indication investing for the long term at this moment may pay off quite well. But before you go out and throw all your hard earned money into the market. Talk to someone who knows something about investing before you jump into it.

Randy Couture is back and this time he’s taking on a mountain of muscle, a juggernaut named Brock Lensnar. Let’s get to the fight picks.

Brock Lesnar beats Randy Couture
Many may see Brock Lesnar as too inexperienced in MMA to beat Couture. It is true that Lesnar is inexperienced, but what those same people don’t know is that Lensar is acompetitive athlete that knows how to use his physical abilities to his advantage. Fighters with a strong wrestling background like Lesnar’s do very well in UFC; Matt Hughes, Mark Coleman, Sean Sherk, Matt Lindland, Frank Edgar, Gray Maynard, and Randy Couture himself. One thing to take notice is that Randy hasn’t fought in over a year. Will he have ring rust? Probably not, but at his age the sharpness of his skills maybe affected. Randy has always had trouble with bigger guys with a decent ground game. Ricco Rodriguez and Josh Barnett beat Randy. Those losses may be ancient history, what did Randy do after those losses? He dropped to 205 and since then he fought fighters who likes to strike rather than take it to the ground. In this fight I see Randy trying to be elusive using hit and run tactics, but as much as I like Randy I see Lensar ending up getting the take down and overpower Randy for a TKO stoppage.

Joe Stevenson beats Kenny Florian
Earlier this week I had Florian winning this fight, but I believe Florian and his camp underrates Stevenson’s striking. Stevenson also has a good ground game and can surprise Florian with well-placed striking and a takedowns. If Stevenson takes Florian down I can see him controlling the top position as Sean Sherk did. This is going to be a very close fight, but I Stevenson getting the slight edge and pulling an upset.

Demian Maia beats Nate Quarry
Nate Quarry is a tough fighter. He has decent striking and wrestling. A jack of all trades, but an ace of none. Demian Maia is a submission machine, and if the fight goes to the ground Quarry’s decent ground game won’t cut it. Demian Maia is not going to stand and will look to take the fight to the ground as soon as he can. Quarry will have to the get the quick KO if he wants to win this fight.

Tamdan McCrory beats Dustin Hazelett
Aaron Riley beats Jorge Gurgel
Jeremy Stephens beats Rafael do Anjos
Alvin Robinson beats Mark Bocek
Ryan Thomas beats Matt Brown
Gabriel Gonzaga beats Josh Hendricks