Yesterday, I had an unavoidable meeting I had to attend in the afternoon. Yesterday was Tisha b'Av, a very sad day in Jewish history. Jewish people typically fast all day and act like they are in a state of mourning. So I often try not to schedule meetings on that day, but if you must, it is best to do it after the second half of the day, which was 1:02pm.

So I schedule a meeting with a client at 1:00pm, which we really didn't start until 1:10 or so. The thing is, besides for fasting and not feeling so great, I was not able to wear leather shoes. Why not? Well, it is a state of mourning not to wear leather, including leather shoes. Typically, when you go to synagogue on these days (Tisha b'Av & Yom Kippur) you see people wearing slippers or canvas shoes.

I couldn't wear slippers to this meeting, so I purchased pleather (plastic leather) shoes from Payless. Here is the product, I think I ordered. As you can see, they look like they are leather, but they are really plastic. They are way cheaper, but even more important, they are legal for these types of days.

So I looked pretty normal at the meeting. Actually, at the end of the meeting, we were all standing up talking and I looked down at everyone's shoes. My pleather shoes looked a billion times nicer than any of the other shoes there.

Posted at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Religion | Comments (5) (0)

Since I took video of me buying the Palm Pre on my iPhone, I thought I take video of me returning the Palm Pre on my iPhone.

I didn't take video while driving this time, as per my wife's advice. The video is pretty bad, cause I was in a huge rush.

No more Pre for me. The keyboard actually was damaged from extremely little use, in less than thirty-days. The phone hardware is JUNK, the software is neat, but coding for it is advanced JavaScript and not fun.

Posted at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1) (0)

We just posted version 4.1 of the iPhone Siddur which has many improvements, but the two most significant changes is a way to upgrade to the official Chabad (aka Nusach Ari) prayers from Kehot Publication Society and major speed improvements.

The Chabad Jewish sect has been waiting for this and we finally worked out a deal with the copyright owners of the Nusach Ari Siddur. Kehot Publication Society technically owns the rights to that Siddur, so we were not able to publish the full text until they gave us their approval. The deal is simple, we ask those who want to have the official Nusach Ari siddur to pay an additional $5 and it adds the official text to their iPhone Siddur. Of the $5, Apple takes 30% (like they do with all apps) and Kehot gets 70% - RustyBrick is not taking a dime extra for this, we are happy with 70% of the $10.

Let me show you how the upgrade process works (using Apple's "In App Purchases" feature).

Go to the Nusach Ari text of the Siddur and notice the blue button at the top right that says "Upgrade."

You are then taken to a screen that explains the price and details of the upgrade:

Click "Upgrade" and Apple asks you to confirm (your iTunes account will be charged):

Click "Buy" and then the transaction should go through and you will know you have been upgraded if you see the "upgrade" button turn into a "Kehot.com" button:

That is how you upgrade.

The other changes are speed improvements, including downsizing the overall size of the application and speeding up the loading of the Siddur. The Siddur sometimes uses the Internet and when the Internet connection is slow, it slows down the Siddur. We finally made that part run in the background, which seriously improves load times throughout the application. It was a major issue this morning when AT&T had an outage and it took a minute or so for my Siddur to load (due to the time out we set).

Other improvements include:

• Added Today Button to Luach
• Added Favorite Tefilot Feature
• Overall Speed Improvements & Downsized Application
• Misc Changes to Edut Mizrach & Sefard
• Bug Fix for Luach & Mizrach Orientation Alert
• Updated Minyan Database

It can take a week or so for Apple to approve this update, so expect it to come out soon.

Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion , iPhone | Comments (0) (0)

A month ago, I got a speeding ticket, in fact, I tweeted a picture of the cop who gave me a speeding ticket (which was my claim to fame). Last night, was my day in court - well, kind of.

As I said in my previous post, the officer told me to plead not guilty, so I did. When I got to the court house, which is a minute from my office, I got on line. There was initially confusion as to if we should sign in or stand on line. In any event, there were three individuals at a long table. We each went spoke to these individuals and arranged a "plea bargain" deal with them. One of those plea bargainers was a person I knew from the community (i.e. being too local).

My speeding ticket, which was a fine and 4 points on my license was reduced to a non-moving violation with no points and a $150 fine. I took it. To me, this means the court just wants your money and they don't care much about the DMV's point system.

In any event, I had to then go with my plea to the judge in the court room. We sat in the court room (probably fifty of us) and waited for the judge to call our names and ask us if we accept our plea and plead guilty to it. Keep in mind, you can plead not guilty and get a real court date. Most everyone took the plea deal and went on their way.

The court judge was actually a guy who lives around the corner from my parents home. He called my name and then looked up and saw it was me. He made a face and a "oh" expression but then read the plea bargain when I smirked back at him. I didn't want him to feel awkward, but then again, this is a local court, and I am sure he knows many people who stand in front of him. Just felt a bit too local for me.

In any event, I took my plea, and paid by the county clerk's desk. Wish they took AMEX, but MasterCard worked. They got their money, I didn't get points - we are all happy.

Posted at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Category: Motor Vehicle | Comments (5) (0)

I often use the search box on this site to find blog posts I have written in the past. I can honestly say, that at least 50% of the time, it doesn't help me find what I am looking for. So I end up using a different search engine. It just happened again, so I figured I show you what I mean.

I was trying to find my post about getting the NY Jets slippers as a gift, to write about how they ripped. So I conduct a search, using the Google Custom Search box on this site. I search for [jet slippers and I find a single result, but not the result I am looking for:

FYI, I am showing a site command search, cause they are the same results you see in the custom search box on this site, just a bit cleaner.

So I then remember, I also wrote about the iHome device I got in the same blog post, so I decide to search for ihome also and it returns the right result this time:

Now why would it not show up for the first query? I mean, it is indexed, it is in the title tag and in the content/ Why not show up????

Yahoo found it, so did Bing, why not Google?

Posted at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Category: SEO Tips | Comments (2) (0)

My Sister and family bought me NY Jet Slippers for Chanukah this past year. They are really comfy slippers and I really do like them.

The issue is, soon after I got them, they started to rip at the seam. I showed in the picture above, where it began ripping. The thread that kept the slipper bottom to the top, I guess ripped, and it is starting to come undone. I have been pushing off blogging about it, since I always forget to take a picture.

In any event, these seem like good quality Reebok slippers, so I am not sure why they ripped so fast. I guess I can buy a new pair, if I like them that much, or ask Reebok for a replacement. Again, that would require me to actually do something, other than blog - which is hard for me.

Posted at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (1) (0)

As many of you know, I purchased a Palm Pre to test out some of our apps for porting them from iPhone Apps to Palm Pre Apps.

We have finally submitted our first Pre app for review to the Palm team. I have no idea how long it would take to be approved. I can tell you that it is free and works almost exactly like the iPhone Shabbat Shalom app. Here is a video demo of how it will run on the Palm Pre:

FYI, click HD to play it in high definition quality.

In any event, to be notified of when it comes out, sign up at this page.

Posted at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Category: Computers , Religion | Comments (0) (0)

To continue my Sukkah shopping experience, after having purchased and planned the Sukkah, I thought perfectly, I was two inches off. Why you ask? Well, I (we) didn't account for the extra inch the vertical connecting bars add to the length of the sukkah.

Here is a picture, as you can see, the vertical connecting piece connects the bars across the bottom of the floor (as well in the middle and top).

So when you have two of these vertical connecting bars, it adds an additional two inches. Since I can only fit 22 feet on the home side, I was two inches above 22 feet long on that side. Here is a picture of the overlap of the polls:

I was worried about the length side of the Sukkah fitting, so that is why I did a test run on putting it up two plus months before Sukkot starts. I called the Sukkah dealer, Esrog Headquarters and explained what happened, and he said he will swap out the middle length bars of 6 feet, to 5 feet, which should make the Sukkah fit fine.

Hopefully this will help others when planning on buying their custom fit sukkah. I also learned that this sukakh is named the Klick Sukkah or the Ease Lock Sukkah or the Snap Sukkah depending on who is selling it. Downloading the Ease Lock instructions (PDF) helped me build the frame, even though I have a custom build.

When I get the replacement parts, I'll try putting it up once again.

Posted at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey , Religion | Comments (2) (0)

Sorry I haven't blogged anything in a couple days. I guess that is why it is nice this is a personal blog and not a professional blog.

I think the three monitors is causing information overload and has slowed me down. :)

Nah, just have been busy.

Got lots of cool stuff going on, hope to share it with you soon!

Everyone, have a great weekend!

Posted at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (0) (0)

I told you I would try getting multiple monitors running on my MacBook Pro... Today, the Kensignton Dual Monitor Adapter came and with the Mac beta driver, it actually worked. The monitor that the adapter is connected to is not as quick as the other monitors, but it is still quick in my opinion. I am currently putting my email exclusively on that screen.

Here is my current set up:

Left screen is the one connected via the adapter, and it has my email. The middle screen has my browser, mostly. The right screen has TweetDeck now. It comes in handy to always have these three applications open, including AIM. The monitor on the left is not the new one in the previous picture, that one didn't work with the adapter, simply because the software does not support the wide screen resolution. So I switched with an RBer here and gave them the new monitor, for now.

Moving from a single screen to multiple, does take some time getting use to, but I will get there. So far, I am enjoying it more...

Posted at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (5) (0)

It is customary for Jewish boys and girls in some communities to spend a year learning in Israel prior to attending college or university. I personally had the privilege to experience a year in Israel, as did many of my friends.

I recently learned that the place I spent most of that year learning, Ner Yaakov, is not opening this year. Ner Yaakov is a Yeshiva (Jewish school) for American Jewish boys between high-school and college. The news of them not opening this year was released on July 15th and came as a shock to many. The reason they did not open this year was mostly due to economic hardships. The Rosh HaYeshiva (head of the school), Rabbi Yehoshua Liff wrote a letter explaining his decision.

I believe the school has been around for at least twenty-years. Plus, my brother, Adam, attended the school several years before me, and really never left. Yes, he went home to complete his secular education, but he went back and worked with students in the school since. This will be his first year in probably, well over a decade, not teaching at Ner Yaakov.

The popular Jewish blog, Yeshiva World News covered the news as well.

In any event, it is a shame to see the Yeshiva not open this year. The web site, which RustyBrick hosts and built, will remain up for as long as requested.

Posted at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Category: Business , Religion | Comments (1) (0)

Gizmodo ran a story named Orthodox Jewish Couple Sues Over Motion-Sensing Light on Sunday. It has been driving some buzz in the social space.

I actually mentioned the Jewish issue with motion sensing lights in March 2008 when I wrote about buying dark sensing lights for my home.

In short, an observant Jew technically cannot turn on or off lights on Shabbat. There are actually lots of things we cannot do, but let's discuss just Shabbat (Shabbos). A Jew cannot turn on or off lights on Shabbos. I won't get into why, we just can't. We can set lights to go on automatically, i.e. based on a timer or on dark sensing technology, but we cannot do anything physically that would turn on or off the light.

That includes flipping a switch, clapping your hands, walking past motion sensing lights. Why? Well, simply cause my action is causing the light to turn on. So when a building installed motion sensing lights in the entry way of the building, it caused the observant Jewish people to not be able to access that entry way. If there is another way in or out, they should use it. If not, I am not sure what they can do, outside of asking a neighbor to walk in or out before they do (as to not trigger the light to go on themselves). Of course, it might be an issue to ask others to do that for you as well.

I am not a Rabbi, so I am not an authority on this topic. But I do remember learning in school about this specific case. There is a topic just on things like this. If you have no intention of turning on a light, but it turns on because of something you did, is it allowed? It depends. Is the outcome (light turning on) helping you in anyway? In the case of this building, it would because otherwise it would be dark. By walking by, without having intention of turning on the light, but the action of walking by the sensor does turn on the light, and because you benefit from the light (i.e. it makes a dark room, lit so you can see better), technically, you cannot walk by that sensor.

Of course, if you did not know that walking by would turn on the light, then there is not much you can do. But after a a few times, figuring out that walking by the light does turn it on, in the dark, then you got an issue.

This is a common issue in modern day Jewish life. I have the issue when I walk home from synagogue on Friday night. One of the neighbors has this light in their driveway. I do my best to walk on the far side of the street, virtually in the woods, and as slow as possible, so that I would not set off the light. Most of the time, the light does not go off, when I do that.

I don't subscribe to Gizmodo, but I do read their blog posts often. The way I spotted this article is via Twitter. But the Twitter user is the son of my elementary school principle/Rabbi, Eliyahu Fink. Too funny.

Posted at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Category: Religion | Comments (3) (0)

Update: On July 22, 2009, my wish came true and I am Running Three Monitors on MacBook Pro...

For a long time, I wish I had multiple monitors. Thing is, I have a MacBook Pro and like Danny, I wish I had a good way to get dual+ monitors working with my MacBook Pro. In fact, most the developers at RustyBrick have three monitors set up and I have a single one. Yes, my single display is sweet, but would love more screen real estate.

We recently ordered a new Dell computer to replace one that seems to be on its last leg. It came with a great deal for another monitor. So we have an extra monitor, we actually have a bunch of extra monitors here. So I decided to pretend I am able to use two monitors, by placing the new one (which still has plastic on it) next to my Apple monitor.

What do you think?

Yea, it would be nice if it worked. So I decided to buy a device that has a beta version of Mac software that should make it possible. It is the Kensington Dual Monitor Adapter but the Mac software supposedly is pretty poor. I called Kensington to see what the status of the "beta" label is and they said they cannot give me an ETA but they are working on it. The reviews are pretty bad for Mac compatibility, but if I left applications that don't require much refresh rate, maybe it will be an okay solution until they update the software drivers?

So for now, I pretend, until I give it a try with the Kensington device.

Posted at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (7) (0)

The other day, I described my Sukkah shopping plans. I wanted to let you know, last night, I placed an order for my first Sukkah. I put a lot of work into planning the Sukkah and emailing those plans to Sukkah vendors.

First, I wanted to tell you that I purchased the Klick Sukkah from Esrog Headquarters (what is an Esrog, see Wikipedia). Levy, who owns Esrog Headquarters was extremely patient with me and worked with me to get the perfect Sukkah for my needs. We went with a custom version of the Klick, so that I can have multiple entry ways, as well as maximize the square footage for my deck, and leave a portion open for the potential BBQ. I should also mention that Marty from Sukkahs.com was very helpful. In fact, it was between Levy's Klick Sukkah and Marty's Plastic Sukkah, the plastic one kind of looks like a Fisher Price playhouse.

Why did I go with the Klick?

(1) Easy to store
(2) Netted windows and doors (very buggy in my area)
(3) Was able to customize it for my needs
(4) Fabric walls feel more 'Sukkos' to me than plastic

But when it came down to it, I would not have been able to buy, what I believe is the perfect Sukkah without planning properly. I drew I diagram of my deck by hand, wrote the dimensions down and then copied it into Photoshop. I used photoshop to make a, to scale, digital version of the deck and where I want to place the Sukkah. I then was able to place lines on top of the deck, for where I wanted the Sukkah to see how it would fit and line up with the various entry ways. The diagram will also be vital in building the Sukkah each year, basically my blue print.

Here is a version of my diagram:

Why did I use Photoshop? Well, I know Photoshop well enough to get this done right. I switched the settings to use millimeters (which represented inches in my case), instead of the default pixels. So one millimeter was an inch, in my case, which allowed me to draw things to scale. I then dropped shapes and lines on top of the deck to see how things would fit. I guess I could use CAD programs to do this, but I don't know CAD. There are web versions, but I didn't find any I liked with the detail I needed. So Photoshop took me about 20 minutes to set up and I used that as a template going forward.

All in all, I strongly recommend Levy at Esrog Headquarters and if you do buy anything online, just the affiliate URL (just signed up, didn't know they offer it), so I get a commission to pay for the decorations.

Updates to my Sukkah adventure:

• Two Inches Too Long: Snap, Klick or Easy Lock Sukkah

Posted at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey , Religion | Comments (2) (0)

For the first time in my life, I actually booked tickets for a flight for the wrong day. I am actually not to blame, because the SES site does say Monday through Thursday, but I didn't realize that Monday is a training session day and not really part of the conference.

Since I booked the flight a few days ago, I was hoping pushing the day forward would not cost me too much. I dialed the main line to Continental Airlines and spoke to four people, with hold times of about 7 minutes (on average) before speaking to each person. Each person said, we can't change your flight without a change fee, plus your fair is going to be much higher. I said, I then asked if they can do something, so I was transferred twice before speaking with someone who was basically yelling at me for the mistake.

I won't say her name, because I forgot it and I don't want her to get fired. But she was like, "Why are you asking me about this?" I said, I don't know, I was transferred here by the other person. She asks me again, "why would you speak to me about this, I can't help you!" I kept saying, I didn't ask to speak to her, but they transferred me to her. She just kept on going, making me feel stupid that (1) I was speaking with her and (2) I booked the wrong flight. Okay, I was stupid for #2, but still.

I then apologized to this customer service person. I told her, I am sorry if I am making your day turn out bad. I added that I really didn't mean to be transferred to someone who cannot help me. I just want to find out if I can do something about my mistake. She basically grunted and asked again for my confirmation number, so I gave it to her. Then the shocker....

She said, "Your elite access," I said yes, I know. She then began apologizing to me for the trouble and said she would transfer me to the "elite desk." She then apologized three more times and transferred me. Wow!

The elite desk answered right away, made the flight change for free, with a slight cost for the flight difference. And I was all set within minutes after being transferred to the "elite desk."

I was shocked to see how Continental treats their "average" customer, compared to those that have "elite" access (i.e. fly more than 25,000 miles a year with them). I know you treat your better customers better, but to virtually yell and belittle the "average" customer and then treat your best customers like gold, seems way off to me. There has to be a better balance between the two.

And if you are off to SES San Jose, double check the agenda and make sure you are flying in and out the correct days.

Posted at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Category: Business , Travels | Comments (4) (0)

As many of you know, I have been very actively using videos for both my weekly search videos and to demonstrate our iPhone apps. So we decided to invest a bit in making the openers and closers to these videos a bit more snazzy.

Here they are, let me know what you think...

iPhone App Video Opener for our Demos:

Search Engine Roundtable Weekly Search Video Opener:

We hired JM Design to make these for us and he was both professional, reliable, responsive, cost efficient and creative.

Posted at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (1) (0)

There is a ton of people that really enjoy "push" email. There are tons of people wishing that Gmail would support push email on the iPhone. I am not one of those people, at least in some cases, let me explain.

I do use "push" to sync my contacts and calendars with the web, computer and iPhone. But I would hate to get notified of every time I get an email on my iPhone. In fact, my computer doesn't notify me if I get an email, although it checks every 2 minutes or so. I just know that when I will check my email, I will have several emails to review.

I cannot imagine being notified of every email I receive, all day, on my iPhone. The iPhone would never stop buzzing. And since I have email OCD it would make me even more crazy. I guess if it pushed emails without notifying me, that would be fine - but at the same time, that would be a waste of battery. I know that when I open to check my email, it will download them at that point and I know, without fail, I will have new emails to review. Yes, it would be nice to not have to download the emails when I check email, but the battery difference might not be worth it.

Push email with notification would drive me insane. Push email without notification would likely kill my battery. I, for one, don't need push and might find push to either hurt my sanity and/or deplete my battery.

Posted at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (2) (0)

So I have been in the new house almost two years now, and this Sukkot, I hope to finally build my own sukkuah. What is a Sukkah? See over here.

What I did was measure my deck, which is typically where people would put their sukkah, if they have a deck. I had my wife draw the deck on a piece of blank paper, since I was holding my baby, then I measured every thing. My deck is not a standard rectangle or square, the rectangle gets smaller on the kitchen side. Now I do not need to cover my whole deck with the sukkah, but it might be nice to.

I am not sure, since this is my first sukkah. A 10 x 20 sukkah would easily fit on the large side of the deck and that might be large enough.

So what I did was make a digital version of my deck's dimensions, and emailed a few sukkah dealers that came up on Google. I got one response so far, hope to get more. I am looking for something that is easy, but yet will last a long time and be more useful for my deck's shape and size.

I am thinking that the Sunshine Sukkah as a top candidate, but again, this is premature. I would love to have two doors, possibly three, again, not sure. We will see.

Any Sukkah specialists out there with any advice?

Oh, and how cool is that picture? A sukkah on a boat in Venice.

Update: I purchased the Sukkah from Esrog Headquarters, for more about that purchase, see my blog post named Buying a Sukkah & Planning. The Snap, Klick or Easy Lock Sukkah is now Two Inches Too Long and Esrog Headquarters said they will send replacement parts, so stay tuned.

Posted at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey , Religion | Comments (1) (0)

I first purchased my ambient orb back in February 2005, yea over 4 years ago (1600+ days ago). It is a geek thing, where I paid the small monthly fee to transmit data to it, so that I can see on a weird level, what our employees are doing.

In short, I sent a message to it via our backend software, over radio frequency, which updated the color and pulse of the orb, based on what our employees are working on. I documented each color and pulse in a blog post named My Ambient Orb Feeds Me Employee Data back in July 2007.

Recently, the orb has been on the fritz. It is behaving irrational. It just pulses really quickly and rotates between colors. Is it an orb issue or an API coding issue? I am not sure yet.

Here is a video of the spazzing:

Posted at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (1) (0)

This Saturday night, I booked three flights on Continental. The prices seemed right, so I booked them all. I should have booked via Orbitz, but I had travel certificates due to my last flight booking gamble, which paid for two of the three flights. So I believe I had to book on Continental.com to use them.

I am booked to fly to California, San Francisco for SES San Jose. Tickets for that were really high, the price went down, so I jumped on it. I am only staying through Wednesday night this time.

I am also booked to go to the in-laws in St Louis for an upcoming holiday. That will be my first time flying with our baby, so it should be interesting. I actually had to use the special booking form to add an infant as a traveler, that was neat. Tickets for that flight seemed relatively cheap, so I got em.

I also booked my flight for PubCon Vegas. The price was about $320 with tax, which I think is a pretty good price for New York to Vegas on Continental.

With those three flights, I should have secured Elite Access with Continental for 2010. One thing I noticed having Elite Access in 2009, was that typically, 50% of the flight has the same level of access that you do. So I don't feel too elite. ;-)

I am also expected to be at SMX East in October, but I don't need to fly anywhere to attend this conference.

Oh, bad choice of picture?

Posted at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Category: Travels | Comments (0) (0)

I just picked up my new Palm Pre at the local Sprint store. You are probably now all thinking... "What! Barry got a Pre? What about his Apple love? What about his iPhone obsession?" Yea, I still love my Apple stuff, especially the iPhone. I got the Pre to be able to test building and porting our iPhone Apps to the Palm Pre platform. Yes, we will be building many of our iPhone Apps for the Pre. In fact, if you want information on that, go to rustybrick.com/pre and sign up for email notifications (or keep watching this blog).

In any event, I took a video using my iPhone 3GS, of me driving to the Sprint store in the local mall and walking into the store and then walking out of the store with the Pre. I thought using my iPhone to take the video, would be somewhat funny.

Here are some Palm Pre unboxing pictures:

Here are side by side shots of Palm Pre (on left) and iPhone 3GS (on right):

Honestly, my first impressions about the hardware is that it feels cheap. The keyboard feels like it might snap off, the phone itself feels like cheap plastic. But I know people love the phone, hardware and especially the software. So we hope to port our apps, by popularity, to the Palm Pre.

Again, for more about our work on Palm Pre apps, go to rustybrick.com/pre and sign up for email notifications (or keep watching this blog).

Posted at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Category: Computers | Comments (6) (0)

I hate talking to people and using the phone, so I am glad I was able to schedule my car maintenance check completely online, without having to talk to a single person.

I went to my local Lexus place's web site and clicked on the "schedule" appointment feature. I set up my appointment online in a matter of minutes. I am sure this will mean I will be getting email spam, but heck, no people!

Here is the summary of my car appointment:

How cool! I love the web.

Okay, need to go to my next in person meeting - chat with you all later. ;-)

Posted at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Category: Motor Vehicle | Comments (3) (0)

Talk about a vague blog post title, "my lots are a mess." Well, that is the case. When I moved to my new home in October 2007, I discovered I had four property lots. One main property lot and the other three were like less than .1 of an acre each. Normally, I wouldn't care, it is not like people take notice to it.

My real estate lawyer suggested that I consolidate the four properties into one single lot. I got the info to do it, but it required several trips to several different government offices to make it happen. The reason she suggested it was to make it easier for the mortgage company on paying the taxes to the government. My first mortgage company really never had an issue, but I refinanced in March of this year and my new mortgage company cannot figure out how to pay taxes on more then one lot.

Every time taxes are due, I get a fine for not paying the $15 or so on each of the three minor lots. It is a huge pain because even though only $15 is due for three lots and the bulk of the taxes are paid on the main lot, there is still taxes due and technically, it can lead to serious legal issues.

So I decided to make the first step forward to consolidating my properties into a single lot. I went to one office today to start the process. That office gave me the info on where to go next, which was next door, so I went to get a letter that my town and school taxes are paid up.

Next I have to the village to get a letter that those taxes are paid up. Issue is, those taxes are not paid up. My mortgage company needs to pay them, hence the issue with them not paying taxes on the smaller lots. Once that gets paid, I will go to the village tax office, get the letter. Then I need to go to a different office in a different city to get another letter that my taxes are paid. Then I go to the real property services office and file papers then, and pay a fee. Then I go to the country clerk in a different building but same city, to file more papers. Then finally, I go back to the office I went to today and file the disclaimer with them and hopefully, by next year, I will have a single property.

Posted at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Category: Homey | Comments (0) (0)

I finally purchased a new keyboard, so my typing is a bit sloppy right now, until I get the hang of the new one. I was always reluctant to get a new keyboard because of the slight learning curve, but I know I will pick it up within a day or so. My old keyboard was at least five years old. Since I only buy laptops, my computers never come with keyboards, so I used a hand me down from a desktop my brother likely purchased several years ago. It was a solid keyboard, but it was pretty nasty. It was old, the keys began to stick and it was filled with my mess, including hair from pulling out my hair at work.

Here is a picture of the old one:

Ready for a close up?

I guess you weren't... Hair, food, who knows what. And yes, I do use the air cans to clean it, but it doesn't always get everything out, as you can see.

My new keyboard replaces both the armrest and the keyboard itself. It uses the same software as my awesome MC revolutions mouse, which literally saves me an hour a day. The keys I have on the mouse and keyboard make things slightly faster for me and since I use them all day, the minutes saved adds up quickly.

I purchased the diNovo Keyboard Mac Edition instead of the more expensive diNovo Edge, Mac Edition because I wanted the full size keypad. A rechargeable battery would have been nice, like the MX has, but I am told this keyboard works for 3 years if you turn it off at the end of the day. This one is also 2.4 GHz wireless and not Bluetooth wireless, which is fine with me, in fact, I did not need the wireless at all.

So far, so good with this keyboard. I like how the typing feels, it will just take some time to learn all the keys and configure the extras exactly how I like them. It also looks pretty, here is a picture of it on my desk:

Posted at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Category: Apple Macs , Computers | Comments (6) (0)

It is hard to top the Best (Worst) Bird Poop on Cars post (if you haven't seen it, it is a must see).

But based on my baby pooping on three people (including myself) over the weekend, I thought I should do a baby version of this post.

The best/worst baby poop shots caught on film.

The issue is, only one of the images I found on Flickr allow embedding on blogs, so here is that one, the rest, I'll add links to below.

Here the non-embeds that require a click: poop explosion, I pooped, poop-leg and poopsplosion.

Poor Guy!

Posted at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Category: Just Funny | Comments (2) (0)

Today, we released an update for the iPhone Siddur, which Apple has to approve. The changes include:

• Added Mizrach Compass (iPhone 3GS Only)
• Added Luach Calendar Subscriptions & Alerts
• Revised Luach Event Management
• Revised Map Feature using Native Apple Maps
• Setting to Turn Off Nekudot in Siddur (for speed)
• Setting for Turning Off Sleep Mode in Siddur
• Force Portrait Layout for Luach & Mizrach Compass
• Cleaned up Benching in Ashkenaz and Sefard
• Shows Tachnun After Shavous by Default
• Bug Fix for Rosh Chodesh
• Bug Fix for Nusach Ari text in Benching and Al Hamichya

Also, here is a video demo of the 4.0 iPhone Siddur.

Posted at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (1) (0)

I thought 189 was a good score. Well, today I played the game and I scored a 561!

This game is more than just a game. I play against clients and colleagues for bragging rights.

Posted at 3:15 PM | Permalink | Category: iPhone | Comments (3) (0)

Inbal from the Google News team sent me a cool new Google News t-shirt today. The Google News T-Shirt has a robot reading a newspaper and says, "Google News (delivered by robots)."

Here is a picture:

Why did I get it? Well, because I help out here and there at the Google News Forum as part of my Search Engine Roundtable research and discovery morning routine.

Posted at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting | Comments (1) (0)

I recently got myself the Country Codes of the World poster. In my opinion, this is a must have for any internet company, be it SEO, internet dev/design shop, marketing, etc. Must have.

Hope to hang it up in our conference room soon.

Thanks Byte Level Research!

Posted at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Category: Just Interesting | Comments (3) (0)

Yesterday, I enabled revenue sharing on my YouTube videos within the YouTube ad network. Today, those videos are now displaying both video ad overlays and ads above my text description. Here are screen shots:

My very popular iPhone Popcorn Trick:

A relevant ad in my last weekly search video:

I guess I can potentially now make money from my videos? :-)

Posted at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Category: Blogging | Comments (0) (0)