I’m staying at the Las Vegas Hilton this week for the SEMA Show, and down by the elevators they have the most amazing vending machine for Apple fanboys… BOOM! It’s an Apple vending machine. Chock full of iPods, cameras, headphones, cables, adapters… everything you might need in a pinch. They even have the latest toys, such as the iPod Nano, iPod Video, and iPod Touch. Check this out. Got any spare change?

We made an unexpected trip up to Disneyland today, mainly because I found someone who wanted my old 300C exhaust and since I couldn’t find anyone to buy it, I found someone who wanted to trade me for it. Plus, our annual Disneyland passes are still good so it doesn’t cost us anything to get into the park.

He lives in L.A. so we met him at Disneyland before we entered the park. I gave him the exhaust and he gave me his 2-week-old 80GB iPod Classic (the new one that just came out). It’s in excellent condition, and I’m currently filling it up with 30+ GB of music.

We spent the day at Disneyland and it was hot (about 85F) and had a really fun time. We’ve never gone during the month of October, so it was fun to see all of the Halloween decorations they had up.

Here’s a funny pic of Mel and I on our favorite ride, Space Mountain. Tip: ride in the front (wait for it if you have to), it’s 100% better being in the front!   Click the photo for a larger version.

Well, my new Nano arrived today directly from Shenzhen, China, a day early. I ordered it Sept 5th, the day Apple announced their new line-up of iPods. I’m glad I skipped the 2nd gen iPod Nano because it wasn’t much different than the first gen model. The 3rd gen model, however, is crazy different… shorter, wider, does video and games, and if you can believe this… it’s thinner than its predecessor.

Featured is my 8GB iPhone, 1 GB iPod Nano (1st gen), and 8GB iPod Nano (3rd gen).

Apple today announced their complete new line of iPods, including a whole new 3rd-generation Nano, updated iPod Classic, and a new iPod Touch which is basically the iPhone without the phone. They also dropped the cost of the 8GB iPhone by $200 and discontinued the 4GB iPhone (good move). This should make the decision for a lot of people to cancel their contracts and move to the iPhone/AT&T a whole lot easier (ahem, Mike!)

Amazing technology… glad I skipped a generation of Nanos so I can get the new one with the video screen.

The new Nano also works with the Nike+ sport kit, so this is a no-brainer for me! I can use it for my running, and have an extra video player and gaming machine around which is key for my kids. They seem to monopolize my iPhone when we’re out… so this solves that problem too! The 8GB black Nano is ordered.

According to SMARTOFFICE, there are rumors not from Apple, but Apple partners, newly filed patents and industry professionals, that a new iPhone geared toward business users and a new iPhone based on the Apple Nano iPod will be available in 2008.

Through Apple’s partnership with Google, the more business-minded iPhone will sport better messaging applications and GPS, while the Nano-based iPhone will have very limited functionality, but will be sold at a fraction of the current iPhone’s cost.

Cool stuff… Apple is riding the wave of success and expanding quickly!

Earlier I said that I would start blogging about problems (and solutions) I found with the iPhone, or really cool things I found. My first blog is about a problem and a solution.

One of the absolute coolest things about the iPhone that it has “the best iPod ever” integrated right into it. Man, Jobs wasn’t kidding! It’s incredible. The cover flow feature is amazing. Here’s the problem, though. I synced 18 albums on my iPhone, and about 10 of those albums did not display cover artwork. Having half of my albums showing a black default cover is no way to show off and appreciate a feature as cool as this.

Here’s the solution, for those of you experiencing the same problem:

1. Launch iTunes and select the album under your “PLAYLISTS”
2. Highlight all of the songs. On a PC you can click one song and then click CTRL+A to “highlight all”. Or click the first song, and while pressing the down arrow, keep the SHIFT key pressed down.
3. Right click any of the blue-highlighted songs and then select “Get Info”. A new window will appear titled “Multiple Item Information”
4. Drag your artwork to the white “Artwork” box and then click the OK button.
5. iTunes will then begin to apply your cover artwork to each song, one by one. This is necessary to solve the problem.
6. When it’s finished, select your iPhone device, then click the Sync button.
7. That’s it! There’s no need to reset your phone. It should work immediately after the songs are re-synced. The problem now is that iTunes must re-upload every song you’ve applied a new cover back to your iPhone. This takes a long time, but it’s worth it!

Have fun “surfing” your album covers! It’s definitely worth spending the time to do this, to make this feature look its best!

Thanks to “bigdipper” and “honebee1236″ at the iLounge for their suggestions.