Yes, AIM is down for me. My primary mode of communication with everyone and anyone.
AIM being down is much worse, to me, than Twitter being down. Not as bad as email or phone being down, though.
At first, I thought it was just me. But I checked Twitter and it is many others.
In my opinion, there should be exams given to people before they can buy an iPhone or smart phone.
I am sure this happens with all software developers and computer manufacturers, but errr!
The iPhone might be the easiest smart phone in the world to use. But people have no clue how to use it. They buy it because it is cool and they are training on how to make phone calls from it.
In fact, many of our "customers" have had their children install our apps on their devices for them. They have no clue how to update the apps, even thought a little red badge appears on the App Store icon, explaining they have updates. They have no clue how to use the features in the app, even though there is documentation on how to use it.
I cannot tell you how many emails, phone calls and so on - I get from people who are clueless about the features of either the iPhone or the Apps they purchase and download.
I know, I should not be surprised by this but today has been a frustrating day of support calls and emails.
Yesterday, we decided to purchase an unlocked Nexus One from Google to begin development testing of apps for that mobile OS. Here are some pictures of the Nexus One next to my Apple iPhone 3GS.
Update: Danny Sullivan has an excellent review of the Nexus One vs iPhone - he writes way better than I. Plus he is not an Apple Fan boy like me.
As many of you know, we have the most popular Jewish prayer book on the iPhone platform, the iPhone Siddur. Every day, I get emails from happy users, thrilled with all the neat and useful features.
But I often get complaints from people on other mobile platforms. Why can't you make the iPhone Siddur for a Blackberry device or a Android device or better yet, a Palm Pre device?
Anyone who emails me about Blackberry, I simply tell them, it won't happen, I am sorry. Why? We cannot make the same user experience on a Blackberry app that we can on an iPhone app. For us to build something for the Blackberry, at this time, would make our product look ten times worse and due injustice to it. It won't lead to a happy customer and happy user. Palm Pre, well, we brought one app to that app market, the Pre Shabbat Shalom and honestly, it wasn't a fun experience. So we are putting that on hold.
We are extremely eager to build apps, specifically our Siddur, for the Android market. However, Android, over two years from when it was launched, still has zero Hebrew support. Yes, you can install Hebrew fonts, but it requires a lot of work and in a sense, requires people to do something they will be afraid to do.
So my question to Google is when will you support Hebrew fonts?
My question is also, should we, RustyBrick, wait? We are strongly considering building the iPhone Siddur for the Android device (aka the Android Siddur), but if Google does not add Hebrew font's we would have to provide a level of tech support that we are not accustomed to. It won't be as easy as installing the app. They will then need to be walked through adding Hebrew fonts, which is a big process for most people. Do we go ahead, build it, charge more and offer that support - or do we wait?
It makes me sad to see Android users lacking a quality Siddur. I don't feel the same for Blackberry users and Palm Pre users - I am sorry. :)
Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Update: Mike, one of the RB developers, wrote a blog post on Can Android Support Hebrew Characters?
I have been a devoted Safari user for years now. I never switched to Firefox as my daily browser. I loved the speed of Safari. However, when I installed Snow Leopard my favorite Safari extension was killed and buried. I was no longer able to use Inquisitor X and it has been super bad!
I didn't like the speed of Firefox, so I stayed with Safari. Google Chrome was getting a lot of buzz, and Chrome is based off the same structure as Safari, but at the same time, it was not really supported on the Mac. Google Chrome then came out fo the Mac and I gave it a try, but it didn't solve my Inquistor problem, since it does not support extensions yet. But the beta version of Google Chrome, Chromium does have extension support and it works well.
So I went to the extensions, found the Search Box extension and loved it. I configured all my old search shortcuts and I am up and running again. I been testing this configuration for the past week or so. And last night, I finally made Chromium my default browser.
I assume as soon as the official Google Chrome supports extensions, I'll move over to that, since it is apparently more stable.
I had one crash this morning, but that was about it. So far, I use the following Google Chrome Extensions:
Yea, I drank the Google koolaid - but it is tasty and quick.
I have a bunch of Google Wave invites to send out.
If you want one, leave a comment below using the email address you want the invite to go to. Also, make sure to follow @rustybrick on Twitter.
Keep in mind, when I send you an invite, you might not get it right away. Google said:
Google Wave is more fun when you have others to wave with, so please nominate people you would like to add. Keep in mind that this is a preview so it could be a bit rocky at times.Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.
Happy waving!
For more info about Google Wave see wave.google.com and check out this awesome video:
I just got my Verizon MiFi, which I ordered on Friday. I let it charge for 2.5 hours and set up the device just now. I made some configuration changes to the router itself and it is up and running.
I wanted to quickly document the download and upload speeds, as they are in my office in Suffern, New York. So I did a speed test on SpeakEasy:
Compare that to the speeds I was getting three years ago and it looks pretty sweet:
Which is also faster than the 3G I get from AT&T on my iPhone. To be fair, I just ran the test again on my iPhone 3G (in my office, which has poor connection) and it shows 1050Kbits/s download and 230 Kbits/s upload.
I've had the Verizon Wireless V740 ExpressCard for over two years now. It lets me plug the card into my laptop and have Internet virtually anywhere I go. It is rock solid, in fact, I used it on a drive all the way from my office to Albany and back with no issues at all. I actually do it often enough and use it at all conferences and when I travel or go places where I don't want to tap into the open Wifi.
I didn't want to upgrade the plan, in anticipation of AT&T coming out with a tethering plan, so I can connect my iPhone to my computer and use the Internet from my iPhone to power my laptop. The issue is, AT&T is way too unreliable for that, especially in places such as NYC and at conferences (where there are tons of iPhones) to bank on it. So I decided to get a MiFi router from Verizon today.
MiFi is a tiny little wireless router that is basically like the card I have, but acts as a wireless router. The concept isn't new, it is old - but they are becoming more popular these days. The reason I went with this, over a new plug in air card, is that I can share it with multiple people and devices. If and when my iPhone doesn't work at conference or in meetings in NYC, I can let it access the MiFi wireless, along with my laptop. Plus, I can let my fellow bloggers (up to 5) connect to it, so they also can have internet, when they don't.
I don't have the device yet, but when we get it, I'll report back on how I like it. I will also have Ronnie write about the features of the MiFi router at the RustyBrick Blog for those who are interested in how configurable it is.
Just sad I feel the need to get a Verizon MiFi to make sure my iPhone can connect to the Internet - don't ya think?
I never really used my Google Voice phone number yet but on occasion I get phone number via Google Voice.
Here is an SMS message sent to my phone number, which is not listed anywhere, in my Google Voice inbox:
Not bad, a 3.25% fix mortgage rate?!
I jumped in my car to pick up yet another salad (I am good).
I decided to check my email while sitting in the car. I hit reply to that email and the GPS screen changed as if I was making a phone call. I first thought that I called someone by accident, but that wasn't it. I then figured out that every time I hit reply or new email, the iPhone sent a command via bluetooth to my car's GPS that I was making a phone call.
This is the first time something like this happened to me. I honestly think this is a quirk. But if it happens again, I'll update this post. If not, then it was a one time quirk (if that is even possible).
This happened in at least three cases:
Like a billion other people out there, I was watching the Apple rock and roll event on the web.
I used both CrunchGear and GDGT.com for the live scrolling coverage. But as the live coverage was flowing, I opened Google Finance and had the title tag peak through at the top, so I can see how the stock was doing. It started to drop during the iPod talk - maybe investors wanted to hear more about the iPhone?
Here is a screen capture:
A couple days ago, I built my Sukkah using Google's CAD like software named Skechtup. It basically allows you to design full 3D models, including homes, towns, etc. So I decided to teach myself how to use it and within hours, I had built my own Sukkah. A Sukkah is a temporary home used by Jewish people during the holiday of Sukkot (more at Wikipedia).
Here is a video of my Sukkah using Sketchup. I didn't build out the whole deck, but you get the point. Oh, yes, one wall, the one on the side of the home, is left open on purpose.
This is my on going coverage of my Sukkah purchase and deployment process, in which I should have all the right pieces now. I did my Sukkah shopping, planned the Sukkah and then noticed it was two inches too long, but now we should be set. I hope to put the whole thing up this weekend.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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:
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).
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:
When did YouTube begin allowing the upload of files over 1GB? I now see that I can upload up to 20GB in file size, up from the 1GB limit that was announced in September 2008. I cannot find any mentions of 20GB YouTube upload limits mentioned anywhere...
Here is a screen capture of me breaking the 1GB barrier:
Here is a picture of the "About Uploading" section that tells me the limit is now up to 20GB!
Do you see the same thing?
Oh, since you are here, why not follow me on Twitter @rustybrick. ;-)
Update: So I checked a different YouTube account and this shows only 2GB. Still up from the 1GB file size, but not the 20GB limit my main account has:
I have been utilizing GoToMeeting pretty often these days. I had one major issue where I was unable to show my slideshows in presentation mode while using GoToMeeting and Apple Keynote. Whenever I flipped on presentation mode, the person on the other side would see black.
After some trouble shooting with the GoToMeeting support team, they said they know of a work around. So to save you all time, here is what you need to do.
(1) Open Keynote
(2) Go to the "Preferences" section
(3) Click on "Slideshow" tab
(4) Check off "Allow Exposé, Dashboard and others to use screen"
Then GoToMeeting should show your presentation in presentation mode. Do keep in mind that the GoToMeeting presentation tool where people can ask questions, does not display to the presenter in presentation mode.
Hopefully this will help others with the same question.
You've seen those email signatures before. The ones that read, "before printing, please think about the environment." All that fun green stuff that was the cool thing to do before the recession.
Here is a picture:
What bugs me is when people send me useless emails that I wouldn't consider printing, yet alone storing on my hard drive and clogging up my inbox.
Honestly, I want to use a signature that says something like:
Before emailing, please think about my inbox
I make decisions with email, they are:
This is all part of my email OCD issues.
Too bad comments aren't open, I am sure I would get a few.
I have many peripherals for my computer and I don't have many ports. For years, my solution was to simply unplug devices that I am currently not using. That worked well, until now.
Now, I simply have too many must be on devices, where I cannot unplug something to use something else. So I finally caved and purchased one of the most basic pieces of hardware, a hub.
I purchased the D-Link DUB-H7 7-Port USB 2.0 Hub from Buy.com yesterday. Simple $25 device that should make my life just a bit easier.
About a year and a half ago, I purchased a Western Digital Drive for Time Machine to run as a backup solution while I was at work. About two weeks ago, the drive stopped mounting on my MacBook Pro. I waited it out, tried using Disk Utilities, powered it down for hours and even took the hard drive out. In fact, I took the hard drive out and put it in a desktop and it wouldn't show up. I tried reformatting, no go.
So I decided to purchase a new drive, since this one is dead. The old drive is out of warranty, being over a year. So I decided to not go with Western Digital and went with a Fantom Drive. There is currently a $20 rebate for the drive at certain vendors and NewEgg.com had a $10 instant rebate as well. So I purchased the 1TB drive, which is twice as large as the other drive.
I do hope to partition the drive so that 50% would be used for Time Machine and 50% would be used for video storage. I currently use a Western Digital portable drive for storing my videos, but I rather use a desktop unit, if possible.
Pretty sad I am losing my time machine backups with the WD drive. But I only used Time Machine once or twice in 1.5 years and even then, it wasn't a do or die use of Time Machine.
Keep in mind, I still use Super Duper for bootable cloned backups and that is still working.
If anyone has emailed me, they know I reply very quickly. It has to do with my email OCD issues.
So when I get spam emails in my inbox, I am not a happy camper. But that is exactly what I have been seeing a lot of since this Friday. Spam spam spam, in my inbox. Yea, I use the same spam filter most of you use, Google App's Gmail spam filtering. Don't get me wrong, it still blocks a ton of spam. But since Friday, a week ago, I have been getting many many more spam emails then I ever have received before.
My email address is really old, from 1998. So it gets spam. But Google has been very good about blocking the spam out.
So why all of a sudden am I getting tons of spam in my inbox?
I think I know why. I decided to use the "opt out" links on some (not all) mass emails. Maybe, since I used that link, they found out I look at my emails and didn't unsubscribe me, but rather added me to more lists. I really think it has to do with that.
I asked others on the same domain as me and other Gmail users, and they did not notice any change in spam levels.
Possible issues:
(1) Bug with Google on my specific account
(2) Getting more spam in general, thus more come through (opt out thing)
(3) Everyone is getting more spam in their inbox
The standard Bluetooth Icon that most people can recognize is:
Apple has a slight variation on it, but it is about that same. The B look:
So why does my navigation system show a totally weird Bluetooth icon? You see, it has a three blue circles on top of a BT. Weird!
BTW, I love the bluetooth connection feature in the nav. I use it all the time. I hear the next iPhone will support bluetooth stream of the iPod, which would be nice as well for driving.
The battery that comes with the Sony HDR-XR200V is the NP-FH60, which lasts 100 minutes or so. In the material sent by Sony with the video camera was "recommended accessories." There was a ACC-FH70 Accessory Value Kit that came with a case and a NP-FH70 battery.
The battery lasts 165 minutes, so between the two, I should have about 265 minutes of battery life, which should be plenty. I know I needed some sort of case and I read the reviews on Amazon about this case, and people liked it. One concern was the size. The camera is really small and the case is at least twice its size. Anyway, I got it today and I wanted to show you how big the case is, relative to the camera. Maybe this will help others in their purchase decision.
Here is a picture of the case, next to the camera:
Here is a picture with the camera in the case:
I am not concerned with the camera moving from left to right, since it is padded in nicely. But there is a lot of room in the up and down position, which lets the camera bobble up and down, hitting the top and bottom of the bag. I guess I can by a piece of foam to stick in there, if I am that worried.
What else do I have in this bag?
I might add more accessories, like a clip on microphone and/or a light sometime in the future. But there will still be a lot of room.
Here is the first video I made (less than two minutes) using my new Sony HDR-XR200V. The exported version from iMovie is over here, this is a downsized version of the highest quality.
Here is the Flickr Embed:
Here is the YouTube Embed:
Heck, I did it for the iPhone 3G, the original iPhone, my new MacBook Pro and my old MacBook Pro, so why not do an unboxing of the Sony HDR-XR200V, which I just got today. I ordered it on Friday, after a month of decision making and being worried about the delivery, it did arrive, thanks to those signs I hung up.
Right now, it is charging... Here are the unboxing pictures of the Sony HDR-XR200V:
I put a standard Bic pen next to the camera so you can see how small it is.
Can't wait to give it a try.
I caved and I purchased the Sony HDR-XR200V on Friday. I did not receive this camera yet, but I have been struggling with the video camera purchase decision for just about a month.
I decided I would wait for the model I was eying, namely the HDR-SR12 to be discontinued. I heard Sony was releasing a new model, aka, the HDR-XR200V this month. I was planning on contacting the stores that sell those cameras and asking them if they have a discount on the SR12, since it is old.
So on Friday I contacted like 15 stores and they all told me they either didn't have it or had so few that they cannot give a discount. But one was willing to give me a crazy good deal on the HDR-XR200V, I assume because they had a boat load in inventory. So I ordered the HDR-XR200V for a few hundred dollars less then the SR12 was selling for.
The HDR-XR200V is really new, it ships today for the first time. So there are no reviews or complaints about it yet. So there is a risk. But the HDR-XR200V is an upgrade to the SR12 and it is supposed to improve the SR12 and add some features.
Some cool features include the GPS stuff, so it tags my location as I take pictures. Plus it has improved low light video capture, which was the only "good" and not "great" rating the SR12 had.
I am excited to get it and give it a try. I assume I will use it a lot on the Israel Blogger delegation trip I take in less than two weeks. Then I will use it for my search videos and a lot of family purposes.
When I went to Israel a couple months ago, I was ecstatic to to have an international data plan for my iPhone. It really let me enjoy my time in Israel, knowing that I can be connected all the time, where ever I went.
But it is not enough to be connected to the Internet on just my iPhone. A couple months ago, I used the hotel's internet, which was pretty expensive (I think $15 per day) to connect my laptop. Then with the international plan at about $10 a day also, it added up.
I will be heading back to Israel via a Blogger Delegation via the NY Israeli Consulate. This time, I can take advantage of renting a wireless data card.
I received an email from TravelCell.com a few weeks after I returned from Israel that they know how internet cards PDF available for Israel at an unlimited data rate. So I just signed up for the weekly plan, which includes a free cell phone rental (minutes are extra but free incoming).
Will the internet card be too slow? I am not sure. I did some speed tests in Israel over my iPhone and it was actually faster then my brothers Israel internet. So I hope it isn't too bad.
I will report back my experience.
The only downside right now is that they charge your credit card for $500 as a security deposit. You got that, they do not just "authorize" the card for the deposit, they actually charge you $500. Then when you return it, they promise to refund the $500. Outside of that, so far so good.
And I have learned to activate my AT&T international plan on the way to the airport, as to not pay for days that I am not overseas.
This morning it was incredibly foggy. Went I began driving, I noticed the GPS was off. It thought I was maybe 50 feet from where I was. This is unusual for this GPS, because it is built into the car and uses more than just satellite to pin point my location. As I continued to drive, it remained off.
Here is a picture, see, I am not on a road:
I guess the extreme fog this morning had something to do with it.
I have seen this a lot with external (portable) GPS devices in NYC (tall buildings) or with bad weather or in tunnels, but never in my area in my car.
So I thought I take a picture and blog it (cause that is what I do).
How does one blacklist a specific email address from showing up in their Gmail inbox. I get this question a lot, so I thought I would blog it and then tell people to read this blog post when I am asked again.
Yes, you get the spam over and over again from the same email address. Or you are signed up to your friend's mailing list and you don't want to insult him by asking him to remove you, but you don't want those email. Simple answer is to blacklist the email. But how do you do that in Gmail?
You set up a filter. Here is how.
(1) Go to Gmail
(2) Click Settings
(3) Click on Filters
(4) Click Add New Filter
(5) Enter Email address in from box and click Next Step:
(6) Check off the "Mark as Read" and "Delete It" check boxes and click "Create Filter.
You are done.
For a more advanced way of doing this, see Alex's post on this topic from 2006.
As many of you know, I am expecting my first child soon, in about three-months. And with that comes a lot of shopping and preparing for the new child. Cribs, car seats, gliders, toys, safety devices and the list goes on and on.
My big purchase will likely be a video camera. My wife wants me to get one and I have always wanted a real video camera. I do weekly videos on search topics and I currently use my built in iSight, so the quality is not great. I did invest in a USB mic because sound quality is something people aren't willing to put up with. But video quality, on the web, is still something people don't expect much from. That will change, YouTube now allows you to watch videos in higher quality and my iSight won't do that. I know people don't care to look at me in high definition. But when I take videos of my new kid, I am sure family will want to get the best quality as possible.
In any event, I am a bit iffy on which video camera to get. I 100% want a camera that is HD quality. I 100% want a camera that is plug and play with iMovie. Outside of that, I hear there are many things you should look for in a camera, but do I need it. Those features include image stabilizer, good in low light, hard drive based, and some other things.
So if I want the best possible HD hard drive camera for personal use, I believe my best bet is the Sony HDR-SR12. It does pretty much everything I want and works incredibly well with iMovie, as far as I can tell from all the reviews I have read.
The big draw back is the price tag at being about $1,200 - but doing some quick searches, I think I can get it for in the $900 range. But $900 is still a lot of money. Last year, I would have likely purchased it already. But we are in a recession, if you haven't noticed and I am much more careful with what I do buy and what I don't buy.
The question is, do I go for this camera or get a cheap one instead? I know I will use it for both family purposes and business purposes, very often (at least once a week). I know it won't just sit in the closet and collect dust. But do I need to get the top of the line model? Is the price worth it? Should I go cheaper?
Really looking for advice here...
The news is buzzing about Verizon now, all of a sudden, offering remote DVR capabilities for their FiOS customers. Hmm....
I had this feature in November and I documented how it works very thoroughly. But the releases claim this is brand new and was first demonstrated at the CES event today.
Was I part of some private beta that I didn't know about? I personally really like it. I often use it to browse what will be on and quickly record shows that I don't want to miss.
Since nothing is ever on, I rarely have to record anything these days. ;-)
Some of you know, I had my first Wii experience a couple weeks ago. Well, this past Sunday, my brother-in-law and I had some serious games. I took a game, he took a game, etc etc. At the end, he used some dirty tactics, which I won't mention to win the last match.
The Wii is a lot of fun and even better when you play against someone at your level.
Below is a video of a 22 month old playing Wii Tennis, pretty funny:
I use to play a lot of Tennis years ago. I do miss playing, maybe I should get back into it, in the summer months.
Video of 50 kids and their reaction to getting the Wii. Via CrunchGear.
I have been a Wii virgin until this past week. My nieces received a Wii from their parents for Chanukah.
So of course, my brother-in-law were eager to play. So for the first time ever, I played the Wii. I played Wii Tennis, Wii Baseball, Wii Bowling, Wii Golf and Wii Boxing. I find all the games very enjoyable, minus boxing. Boxing just didn't seem to move with you to well - or maybe I am just really bad.
Of course, there we made a Wii character (not sure what they are called) for me. It actually looked pretty much like me. To be honest, I think making me into a cartoon these days, isn't too hard, especially since you can slap on a goatee. Maybe I'll get a screen capture of the Wii me, or whatever it is called. Just looked them up, they are called "Mii". You can build your own at MiiWare.com.
In any event, it is an addictive game console.
Last night, I turn on my TV and I see a message from Verizon. It said that I can now enjoy programming my DVR from my computer or a wireless device. I immediately stopped everything and read on. I followed the instructions and configured my Verizon account to control my DVRs.
In short, you control this at Verizon FiOS TV Central. After you register your account and activate the remote DVR option, you have access to the DVR (beta) features.
You can view shows that are scheduled to be recorded:
You can see the shows that are recorded and even remove them:
You can see how much space you have on your DVRs:
You can browse or search TV listings and record them, by clicking on the show and clicking "Record."
It then puts the show, in this case, "The Office," in my scheduled recordings:
If I had a Verizon Wireless phone, specifically from LG, I would be able to do this on my phone:
These are the currently supported phones:
I am a happy campier with Verizon. Even though their customer service has been horrible, the features are rocking!
Note, this service only comes the Home Media DVR package, which just became available a week or two ago for me at my home. Yea, it wasn't available originally, and the December rumors turned out to be true or in this case, early.
Check out Verizon's Remote DVR features for more details. This is too cool. I know TiVOs have this feature, but this is part of the bundle for me.
I was uploading my next video cast to YouTube for a Sunday release and I noticed the new progress bar.
I am a huge fan of knowing how far I have progressed. :) So I am happy. If you scan the comments on the YouTube blog post, you will notice everyone simply wants one thing.
You got it! Video lengths longer than 10 minutes. I personally would love that. I always have to crop my videos to 10 minutes or less, to make sure they can be visible on YouTube.
But the progress bar is nice - thanks YT!
Yesterday I called Verizon because I had major problems with the bill I got for my new FiOS Triple Play set up. They fixed most of the billing issues, so all is good. But the woman did tell me, when I mentioned the issue with the Verzion FiOS Multi-Room DVR Does Not Work With HD Boxes.
The woman told me that they have a tentative schedule to get the multi room DVR boxes working with HD TVs as early as December. I said, cool! But she said again, it is "tentative," and we cannot guarantee it. I said, cool!
So, as you know, Verizon FiOS installed TV and phone in my home today, to compliment the Internet I had with them. When the tech came to install, the first thing he said was that I ordered the Multi-Room DVR, but I have all HD TVs. He said, the HD boxes do not work with the Multi-Room DVR and gave me a face, like - its stupid that they don't, but they don't, so don't ask me why.
At that point, I said, fine, install for me a single, normal HD DVR and give me a normal HD box for the other TV.
The sales rep knew this, but sold me the wrong one. I was convinced that it would be an HD option, heck - who has non-HD TVs anymore (kidding).
So after careful research today, the DVR page (which I linked to above), has this disclaimer in small, gray font (kind of like fake-non-hidden links):
Multi-room features are supported on the Multi-Room DVRs and Standard Definition Model 2500 Set Top Boxes
So, you order one Multi-Room DVR and then you need the Standard def boxes to go with it. The HD boxes will not work with the Multi-Room DVR. Confusing? Yes.
I think it will just be a matter of time until Verizon gets their hands on an HD box that works with the Multi-Room DVR feature, until then, I am where I was with Cable.
Hopefully this helps out someone else, who is looking into this option.
About 30 minutes before Shabbos started this Friday, I heard a knock on the door. I answered the door to see a young guy and woman in Verizon FiOS shirts. They asked me if I want to switch to FiOS. I said yes.
Remember when I had the dilemma of FiOS vs Optimum when moving to my new house? Then, the only FiOS service available was Internet. TV was not available and Verizon told me that they were not able to switch my phone number. So my decision was to go with super Internet speeds of FiOS Internet, also went with Optimum for TV and Vonage for phone.
So when Verizon came to my door, my first question, after knowing that they know can do TV was.... Can you switch my phone number? They plugged it into the system and said yes. So I said, switch me over. I have no patience for sales calls but door-to-door salesmen, heck - I was sold. In fact, I was planning on calling Verizon to do the switch anyway. Them coming to my door and signing me up, well - possibly saved me time and cost.
Any downsides to the switch? I may miss the Game Channel, which I rarely watch anyway - but I do enjoy when I do watch. With Vonage, my phone was not listed and I was also able to take my phone with me, not that I ever did that. Also, Vonage sent me voicemails via email (not that the voicemails are for me) and maybe Verizon does that also. I did have a FiOS outage in the past, which caused my Internet to go out for about 24 hours. I do have backups. I hear CableVision (Optimum) has better support. But also, with Verizon, I will have a real landline, not a VOIP line, so when the power goes out, I should have phone (yes, I do have a cell phone anyway).
One cool feature Verizon FiOS TV has is the media manager. A DVR that is basically a network DVR. One DVR for all your TVs. So I ordered that. Now, if I am watching something downstairs and my wife kicks me out, I can pause it, and watch it upstairs.
My Internet should be untouched, which is nice. I rather not mess with that, if possible.
In any event, I made the switch and I am excited for the install date.
I have a Gmail account that I rarely use, but it is mine. The Gmail account is barry.schwartz@. But for the past several months, I randomly get emails made out to barryschwartz@, yes, without the dot.
So I figured the people were emailing the wrong person, i.e. not emailing barryschwartz@ but mistakenly emailing barry.schwartz@. I am wrong, they are emailing barryschwartz@, the one without the dot, the one I did not registered.
In fact, Google is clear about dots, saying they don't matter. Here is a screen capture:
Google is being smart and saying, "Yes, this is you." Google links me to this page, where it describes that "If you created yourusername@gmail.com, no one can ever register your.username@gmail.com, or Your.user.name@gmail.com."
So, I guess you can email me at b.a.r.r.y......s.c.h.w.a.r.t.z@gmail.com, if you want. And, yes, it works, here is a screen shot of me getting a test email sent to that address:
The sad part of this is that I cannot reply to this email to tell this company that I am not the Barry Schwartz they are looking for.
One thing I miss is the ability to tether my phone's internet connection to my laptop and use that as a way to connect to the Internet. I was legally able to do with with my Treo, Verizon and my MacBook Pro, without having to spend an additional $60 (it cost about $10 extra a month legally).
The Apple iPhone does not have a way for you to tether your phone to your laptop to use it as an Internet connection. Since I got the Apple iPhone, over a year ago, I also tacked on a Verizon Broadband card for $60, so I can fire up the Internet on my laptop. If the iPhone and AT&T allowed you to tether for even $45 more per month, that would make sense for me.
But there is now a way to do it, at least, illegally. Cre.ations.net has posted the details and the process includes:
- Jailbreak your iPhone 3G
- Install 3Proxy and Terminal
- Create an ad-hoc Wi-fi network using your laptop
- Join the network with your iPhone
- Find the iPhone's IP address
- Open Terminal and run the proxy program
- Open Safari on your iPhone and open a web page
- Configure your browser to use the proxy
Visit Cre.ations.net for more information but beware - I am personally not going this route.
I have been using Parallels since August 2006 on my MacBook Pro but time has come for me to trash it. Over the course of the years, Parallels has slowed my computer down tremendously.
I recently switched to a real PC. I bought a cheap Dell computer for maybe a couple hundred dollars more than the Parallels software. I stuck the computer behind my desk, plugged it into the network and then I leave it on. I then use the Apple Remote Desktop Connection Client to connect to the Dell.
This is so much faster then running Parallels. I can connect at work or at home, via the VPN. I can print, copy and paste between Mac and PC and always email documents back and forth. Just as my Mac (which is still less than two years old) gets older, Parallels slows down and it takes forever to do the tasks I need it to do.
Goodbye Parallels. :(
3 weeks ago, I told you that My Linksys Wireless-G Travel Router Died. So I initiated a chat session with Linksys tech support, they gave me an RMA (return merchandise authorization) number, and I mailed back the broken router via UPS to Linksys.
Two weeks later, they got it and backordered the replacement. Two days after that, they shipped out the replacement. Today, three weeks later, I received the replacement router.
It actually seems brand new. It may be refurbished but it doesn't seem so. I set it up in a matter of minutes and it is ready to go, when I need it.
I keep it in my RustyBrick bag with me at all time. You never know when you need a wireless router or ethernet cable.
All in all, the return process was painless. Took a bit longer then I would like, but it was very easy.
Seems like AIM suffered a major outage at about 10:40AM (EST).
My AIM died around then and then I got a couple emails from others who's AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) went offline at the same time.
So I Twittered it and received many confirmations from around the globe. Here they are:
dannysullivan @rustybrick yes aim seems dead
longhornkate @rustybrick yes, it did for me
ericjodom @rustybrick Yep... just totally crashed
sonnygill @rustybrick yup.
eddings @rustybrick wow AIM did die, I didn't even notice. thx
griffingranberg @rustybrick ya
It seems to be recovering now.
I was blogging about my Linksys router that died and told you I had two wireless networks in my house. Let me explain.
Verizon FiOS installed their wireless router and modem in my basement. The wireless router's signal is pretty good, but isn't as strong as I would like it upstairs on the bedroom level. The house came pre-wired for Ethernet, so, it wasn't a big deal to set up two wireless networks. One in the basement and one in the upstairs bedroom level. I also have hard-wired ethernet ports (two more) on the main level.
Here is a picture of my home network (clearly this is a crude layout). Bottom floor is basement, middle floor is main level and upper floor is bedroom area. Everything else is clearly labeled.
All my wireless access points are locked down, unlike my neighbors. :)
In December 2006, I hinted that my wife buy me a Linksys Wireless-G Travel Router. I think, I bought it a few days later for myself. In any event, Saturday night, the thing stopped working.
I believe it is something with the power supply. The power LED light simply won't turn on, no matter how many wall outlets or surge protectors I plug it into.
I actually used this device for my home's upstairs wireless network. Yes, I have two wireless networks in my house. I guess I can do a post on why I have two networks later.
So after about 10 months of the router being used every day, it blew up. I think from over use. This is a travel router and I assume it is not meant to be used 24/7, non-stop. But yet, it has a 3-year warranty. So I used the live chat thing on the Linksys web site, got myself a case number and issued an RMA. I will mail it to Linksys for replacement today.
I have one concern, thanks to Steve E, he showed me this blog post about Linksys losing his hardware and RMA information. Hope that doesn't happen to me.
Of course, I will let you know either way.
As some of you know, for a PBX system at RustyBrick, I use an open source platform named Asterisk, supported by Fonality.
This morning, most incoming and outgoing calls stopped working. We tried rebooting the server and it had some major disk failures. Here is a picture of the box running Fedora, recovering from the disk failures all on its own:
Several minutes later, the system appeared to recover. The picture here is a picture of Fonality loaded up on a Dell box - pretty cool, ehh...
Anyway, it recovered by the phone calls did not work. So I called Fonality support, something I rarely do, and pressed the emergency number. Shortly after, I got someone on the call who took care of the issue. He quickly figured out it was an issue with the caller id handler, it was an unsupported version. So he pushed down a supported version and we were back on track to placing and accepting phone calls.
This is the exact reason I wanted a supported solution. Going with Fonality allows me to support open source and also get support for my system.
I've written about Fonality in the past. I did a Features in 4.0 review as well as a full Fonality review in the past. I am still a happy Fonality user, even after 2.5 years.
When it comes to sharing my gadgets, I am a bit of a germy. I just don't like people touching my laptop, my iPhone or any of my gadgets. I am very possessive about them and I admit, it is a bit selfish.
Why don't I like sharing my gadgets?
(1) I am very protective over them, very (see my cartoon above, it has my bag, I always have my bag of stuff with me).
(2) Fear of breaking it
(3) Fear of losing it
(4) My life is on my gadgets
(5) I need to always be able to use my gadgets at any time, even if I won't need it a 100%
Last week or so, I found a study that shows I am not alone. Spotted via Science Blogs reports that Mac users are way more possessive then PC users. Yes, I am a Mac user and I guess I fit in that group.
The poll found "there's a dramatic and statistically significant difference between how much PC and Mac users let friends try out their new devices."
So TUAW posted their own poll:
How willing are you to let others use your new gadget?
I replied "They can hold it, but not press any buttons."
Not sure if I told all of you, but I made the plunge and switched not only my corporate email to Google Apps, but all my clients (several hundred) email accounts to Google Apps. In fact, via Slashdot, DreamHost who hosts 700,000 web sites, is encouraging their customers to switch email from them to Google Apps. Honestly, I switched for the same reason I switched off PHPAdsNew to Google Ad Manager. I don't have to patch for security, I have no server load for hosting it, the data is up in a cloud, I don't have to worry when there are issues and it has awesome features. So, I switched. Kind of scary.
Now, back to my contacts. I use Apple's Address Book application for managing my contacts. Of course, it syncs with my iPhone. But I also wanted that data in a cloud, just in case I need to access it when I don't have my phone or computer (yes, extremely rare for that to ever happen). In addition, it is backed up in a cloud (yes, I am obsessive about running backups with my computer, but still...). I was waiting on SpanningSync to come out with their tool to sync my address book to Google Apps, but last night, Apple released OS version 10.5.3, it came with support to sync your address book to Gmail (Google Apps).
I followed the instructions at the Google Mac Blog and I was set. Oh, if you are not an iPhone user, Lifehacker has a hack to enable you to sync your stuff to Gmail. I am not sure why it was restricted to iPhone users only but it is, without this hack.
Schedule wise, I do sync some of my calendars to Google Calendar, but not all. I might begin syncing my full calendar to Google Calendar, so I can easily share it with everyone in my office.
I can't believe I am giving over virtually all my data to Google. But in exchange for the convenience, piece of mind and ease-of-use, I couldn't resist. Good job Google!
You know what happens when your throughput is incredibly fast? You get really really hot cables that burn through the plastic wrappings. Here is a picture of one cable that borked out at RustyBrick this morning:
Okay, I lied. As per the new required Google disclosure, I am tagging this post with a rel=hoax attribute.
In reality, the cable was laying on a baseboard heater. I guess after time, it burned its way through.
As you know, I was thinking about getting a new hard drive to house my raw search recap videos. So I swung by Best Buy and bought a Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB External USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive in the Intense Blue color. Why? cause it was on sale and I had a $150 Best Buy gift card.
What I hate is the box it comes in. The thing is wrapped in this hard clear plastic. You need a mini chain saw to cut it open and get the hard drive out. I have a sharp razor blade, which did the trick. But I had to be careful not to cut myself on the razor and even on this hard plastic. Here is a picture:
So, tell me, why do they come packaged like this? Just to annoy customers or for protection and style?
I have many hard drives for my personal computer. I have a hard drive to mirror my main hard drive. I have a hard drive for doing Time Machine backups. I have an old mirror hard drive that I don't use anymore. Of course, I have my main hard drive in my laptop. And, my office, I have several network storage hard drives.
But I think I need another one. I have been doing lots of videos and videos take up a lot of space. Recording, processing, editing, producing and sharing video really takes up a lot of space. I have been doing this all on my main hard drive, which only have about 2GB of space left. So I need to either delete stuff quick or get a hard drive to use for my videos.
I do have a best buy gift card that I have in my wallet that will cover an additional hard drive. The only thing is, I don't have any more USB ports to run Time Machine, the USB Mic, the keyboard, and my other USB devices along with an additional hard drive. I guess, when it comes down to it, I will make it work, some how.
One feature I would love to see from Gmail is a way to specify that you want certain spam to be auto-deleted.
As many of you know, an email is marked as spam automatically if the spam score meets a certain number. Now, the score is made up of many factors, such as words in the email, message source, location, and so on. Some emails marked as spam are less spammy than others.
What would be nice is if Google somehow showed us the spam score of each message and then allowed the user to define which spam messages should be auto-deleted.
For example, if after several days of reviewing spam email, I notice that any email with a spam score greater than 5, is always spam. Then, I would love to tell Google, delete any spam emails from my spam folder with a score of 5 or higher. The rest I will review at a later date.
There is a way to delete all spam right away but that is a bit risky.
Also, I see why Google might not want to show a spam score. If they do, spammers can learn from the score and create spam emails that break through. However, virtually all spam filters do show a score of some kind.
Any chance I get, I'll mock Microsoft, in any way I can. Ronnie, my brother, spotted and blogged about a funny typo on Microsoft's remote desktop for Mac product.
When they came out with a new update, they asked you to download the latest version. But spelled latest with an extra S, as "Lastest."
So, it comes out as Lastest. Screen shot:
What I can write from here, is almost endless - so I will end now.
I just got my USB Microphone, the Samson C01U mic. I plugged it in to my Mac, and presto, it showed up in the list of input devices under my audio settings. I decided to scan the owner's manual and it had three full pages on how to set up this Microphone with a Windows PC. Mac? Just plug it in and it works. Too funny.
Anyway, here is me testing out the mic:
More details on what I am doing with this microphone can be found over here.
I use the MX Revolutions mouse from Logitech. I have had tons of mice, including Apple's Might Mouse, then I switched to the VX revolutions and now I have the full size MX revolutions.
The MX rocks! It does so many things and makes me seconds faster hundreds of times throughout the day, saving me invaluable time.
Anyway, I spotted a deal on Deal News for this mouse. It is $69.99 with a $30 mail in rebate and then add on some shipping. A seriously solid deal for a device that will save your hours per month.
Honestly, I think Vista is one of the main reasons many people are moving from PCs to Apple Macs. Heck, do you think we will see Bill Gates using one soon?
From Gizmodo: Did Bill Gates Just Say Windows Sucks? Watch the video:
Too crazy!
We have been using Fonality for our phone system for well over two years now. In fact, I wrote a quick Fonality review back in January 2006 that still gets comments to this day. Overall, I have to say I am still very happy with the system - it rocks for us, a small high-tech company.
In short, Fonality is a supported and pre-programmed PBX system that you is co-hosted by them and with a server in your office. It runs off the Asterisk code-base, an open source PBX project. We love Fonality because:
(1) It comes with a ton of pre-built solutions so we don't have to build it up ourselves via Asterisk
(2) It is continuously upgraded
(3) We have phone and email support for hardware and software support if needed
(4) We can hack the heck out of it and build it into our PHP solutions because it is Asterisk based
Last night I was emailed that they have automatically upgraded us to the 4.0 version. The main feature in 4.0 is the "FindMe with Boomerang Mobile Integration" that basically is a FindMe feature (i.e. if your out of the office, you can have the system try calling you at different phone numbers and if you like, you can answer it. Then with "Boomerang" when you get back to your office phone and you are still on the call, you can send the call back to your phone at your desk (I could have used that feature a billion times). Here are screen captures of how it kind of works:
You go to your features tab and then you can click on the "FindMe with Boomerang Mobile Integration" and you are shown a screen. Select, "FindMe Using a schedule" and you will see this:
Then based on the schedule you can set up a billion actions based on certain cases. Here is a screen capture:
Schedule is nice, but HUD status is really where it is at. If you use the Fonality HUD feature and set your status to available, away or offline and it will do different things based on that. Here is a screen shot of that screen:
Then at the bottom of each of these options are "FindMe White Lists" and also "VIP Lists" which are self-explanatory.
There are a ton of new features in 4.0 that I need to explore. Here are some:
There is however a large debate on if Fonality should sell this product. The open source community or at least some of them, are upset Fonality is profiting on this. Personally, they are providing huge value to me at a low cost, so I am all for them selling this. This is seriously a large corporation phone system at a small business price.
Now that Ask.com ripped my heart out, I need to replace them as my default home page. I was thinking of going back to my old home page, Yahoo.com but then thought I would ask others what they use?
I also thought that since I rarely use a home page button, maybe I should make it one of my sites? What about Google personalized home page? I am not sure. My main sites that I use every day and all day are always open, heck I wrote about speeding that up. But now I have this home button that does nothing for me. I can always search Google, Yahoo, Live, or even Ask using inquisitor, one of my used tools on my computer. So I don't want a search box to be my home page anymore.
Any ideas? Take the poll or comment...
Thanks!
This is incredibly frustrating. I put like 30 minutes into making a video in iMovie. I then upload it to YouTube directly from iMovie. The video is then visible but then after five minutes it says "This video is unavailable." But it is available!
Here is what I see in my video's section:
It says "Live," yes, live. And so far, three people viewed it and no one else because its not available anymore, even though it still says live.
Here is what happens when you play the video:
Again, it says live on my side. If I try to reupload it, it says there is a duplicate version and you can't upload it. Trust me, in a couple hours, the video will be playable again. I just don't know when, so this is frustrating, to say the least.
Here is the video, SMX West 2008 Highlight Video...
It's me again, on the plane. I just finished my blog entry on how I ended up writing this stuff. In the seat in front of me, in the opposite row - there is this guy with a 17" MacBook. Yea, it is a bit tight for him to type and use his computer.
I can't help to notice but the fact that he has dozens and dozens of sticky notes covering his desktop. They are everywhere. Stickies, as my Mac calls them, are basically virtual sticky notes.
Now, explain to me how sticky notes keep people organized? Heck, if you ever look at sticky notes, they are the most messy and disorganized looking pieces of paper one can imagine. To have them stuck in random order throughout your home and on your laptop makes no sense to me.
Do you use sticky notes to organize your daily life? If so, how do you do it?
When I was driving to work this morning, the whole 7 minutes, I was thinking about my old cell phones. It is a shame, I think I forgot about some of the phones I had in the past. So I thought I document what I remember now, before I forget it all. Hopefully, I will remember to update this blog post as I upgrade.
My first cell phone was when I spent a school year in Israel when I was 17 or so. It was the best mode of communication. I don't have a picture of the cell phone, but let me describe it. It was almost like a brick. I used to pretend it was a back pack. Why? Because my friends had these small cool phones, I had this huge phone that looked like it came from Zack Morris on Saved by the Bell (I am impressed I remember that show). In any event, it worked semi-well. I remember when I was in the old city, with a ton of brick all over the place, I had to walk to certain areas to get reception. In any event, it lasted me the year in Israel. How I wish I had a picture of that phone.
When I came back from Israel, I attended Baruch College, and needed a cell phone to communicate while I was in NYC. I also ran the early stages of RustyBrick while in college. So a cell phone was necessary. In any event, I remember having a Motorola flip phone. It worked well, no real complaints that I can remember. Again, I wish I had a picture of it or remember the name of it.
After that phone, I got myself a StarTAC phone. Those phones were the coolest phones back then, I was a little late to get one but I got it eventually. It worked well and I liked having it. I had a gray cover on mine but here is a picture of one.
After that, I think I had one or two, maybe three, phones - but I can't remember what they were. During this time, I also had palm pilots, I had many different ones - so I was addicted to mobile pant to hold all my gadgets comfortably.
Eventually, I upgraded to a the Palm Treo 650 and I was part of the smart phone group. After about a year or so, they came out with the Treo 700p and I got it on August 17, 2006. I really loved that phone - well, not the phone part but the mobile email stuff. I did a ton with it, including tethering the phone to my MacBook so I can use the Internet connection when traveling and it worked.
Then, in July, I broke down and got the Apple iPhone.
By far, this is my favorite phone. The web browsing is really web browsing, not fake web browsing. The email is awesome, there are some things I miss from the Treo - but its worth it. The phone is a 100X better than the Treo. The iPod rocks to have in one device. I live on this phone. Google Reader, Email, RustyBudget, text messaging, stocks, weather, photos, calendar, etc - it all syncs with my Mac perfectly.
What is next? I suppose a new iPhone when the 3G model comes out. But time will tell.
I already wrote about Geeks & Airline Security, so this is going to be my international version. Yes, there are new things I need when traveling international.
Here is a list of geek items I need for the trip:
That is my list so far...
What is up with the lego plane? More on that over here.
You often see how I use these high-quality images of products I use on my Mac, when describing those products. Here is how I get those images uploaded to Flickr.
(1) Go to the application in the finder window:
(2) Highlight the application and select "Get Info" or Apple I.
(3) When the info screen comes up, click on the icon at the top left of that small window. Then when the icon is highlighted, select "Copy" from the edit menu or click Apple C.
(4) Then open Apple's "Preview" under your Applications folder. In Preview, select "New From Clipboard" in the File menu.
(5) It then should open up as so:
(6) Go to "Save As" in Preview's file menu and select the JPG option (the Gif option will make it an animated GIF, so don't pick that one).
(7) You should then get this single image, which you can upload to Flickr or use on your blog as you see fit.
Here is a video of me going through the steps in real time...
Now this display from Alienware, being curved and all, is really sweet!
Thanks Jimmy.
I try to be a nut when it comes to backing up my computer and office computers. My office computers are backed up on an NAS device, plus backed up off site on at least one other computer. Our production servers are backed up so often, in so many different ways, you would think I was a nut.
Personally, I use to back up my laptop a few times a week using SuperDuper. SuperDuper does a direct clone of my hard drive, onto an external hard drive. This way, if my hard drive blows up, I can theoretically pop in this other hard drive and get going from my last back up. The thing is, SuperDuper has not yet come out with a Leopard compatible version and it has been stressful to say the least.
So I finally took the plunge and bought a new hard drive so I can run Time Machine on my Leopard OS. Yesterday, I got the drive from Buy.com, a Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB version, and started the backup at about 2pm. It finished the 90GB backup at about 6:30pm. That was my first backup. Now every hour, when this hard drive is connected to my laptop (only when I am in my office), it backs up every hour. It stores hourly back ups for the past 24 hours, daily back ups for the past month and weekly backups until this drive is full. The UI is amazing for restoring lost or old files, simply amazing.
My hope is that when SuperDuper releases a Leopard compatible version, which I am excepting within a week or two, I will run both SuperDuper and Time Machine as backups.
SuperDuper will give me the bootable clone of my hard drive from my last run of that backup. Time Machine will give me the file by file capability to restore files historically. I think I will feel completely at peace once I run my first SuperDuper backup on Leopard.
I bought my PS3 about 10 months ago. I used it maybe a couple dozen times. It was a bad bad investment, stupid purchase and in hindsight - I would not have purchased it.
But now that I have it and reselling it on eBay doesn't look good with them lowering the price for this holiday season, I had to make a decision.
I decided to recycle the gift for Chanukah. I will give it to my four nephews for them to use. They already have XBox, which I bought for them years ago. But I guess a PS3 isn't bad to have with the XBox.
So now, they will have both.
If I ever get the urge to use the PS3 or even XBox, I am just around the corner from them. So I will stop by and play. :)
Happy Chanukah!
Remember I wanted to cell my Treo 700p? I blogged about CellForCash a place to sell your cell phone with ease? Well, I finally got my check for $48 from them.
Here is the timeline:
October 11th - Submitted Request
October 12th - Box Mailed to Me
October 22nd - They Received My Phone
November 29th - I Got My Check
Here is the check:
Last night I reorganized the devices I want to have on a battery backup, just in case the power goes out.
I placed low cost battery backups in a couple strategic locations throughout the house. I then made sure the following items still have power, even if the power goes out.
So this way, if the power goes out I still have Internet access for a little while. Plus, I still have phone access for a little while (until the Internet goes out or the Vonage box goes out). Oh, and if the power goes out in the middle of the night, I hope my alarm clock still goes off.
Site note: Buy.com has a great deal on a battery back up... It goes as low as $28 if you buy it under a brand new Google account with Google Checkout, after rebates... Here is my aff link:
My brother-in-law is a Blackberry guy, yea - I know, one of those...
He downloaded an "iPhone theme" to his phone and I snagged a picture. Here is my iPhone side by side to his Blackberry with the iPhone theme.
But Blackberry users, there are tons of iPhone themes out there for you guys. Just do a search and you too can try your best to be an iPhone user. ;-)
A few weeks ago I wrote about my dilemma in picking a Internet, TV and Phone provider. This week I finally made a decision, thanks to the helpful comments and advice. So what did I choose.
I picked three different providers.
(1) Internet: How can I not go with Verizon FiOS. It is super speeds and nothing, to-date, compares. So I picked FiOS. I have an install date.
(2) Phone: Vonage. Why? Because Verizon and Optimum both required that I get a new number, since I am moving to a new zip code. Vonage allowed me to transfer my number. So I ordered Vonage, it is being delivered soon. I requested a transfer of number and I plan on using Vonage at my current residence and then moving the box with me to the new residence.
(3) TV: Optimum via CableVision. Verizon didn't have TV service available in my area, so I signed up with CableVision. No other choice outside of getting a satellite provider or using an antenna.
If Verizon comes out with TV, I will likely switch because I rather pay one bill but this is the best I can do now.
Major geek factor here.
A teen hacked the iPhone so that it is now unlocked and working on a non-AT&T network. The teen is 17-years-old and Glen Rock, N.J. Which is not too far from me.
Teen Trades Hacked IPhone for New Car from the AP writes:
The 17-year-old Hotz said he will be sending the three new iPhones to the three online collaborators who helped him divorce Apple Inc's popular product from AT&T's network. The job took 500 hours, or about 8 hours a day since the iPhone's June 29 launch.
His name is George Hotz.
George made a deal with CertiCell. CertiCell is giving George a Nissan 350Z plus three 8GB iPhones, in exchange for the unlocked iPhone.
He unlocked the iPhone on Friday, Aug. 24, 2007.
Now that is one killer summer gig.
As some of you know already, I was house shopping. It looks like we pretty much agreed on a house, so I decided to call Verizon about their FiOS offering last night.
The representative told me that Internet and telephone are both available BUT the TV connection is not. Ouch!
I seriously wanted to have all my networking items with one company. TV, Internet and Phone - all in one.
So then I called Optimum to see what the deal is with moving, since I already have Optimum. They said that you have to disconnect your service before the new service is moved and installed. Huh? So I have to go without phone, Internet and TV in the new house? I can't insure that both are up and running, so I don't loose anything? Technically, if I am moving, I have to be disconnected first, the rep told me.
So I have a few options. Get Internet and Phone with Verizon FiOS. And then sign up as a new customer with Optimum for cable. OR I just move my current Optimum over to the new house, but probably have some down time. TV is no big deal, but Internet and phone are.
Any advice?
Chris Pirillo twittered that he sold his old cell phone on cellforcash.com for $110.
He said he thinks you should, too.
Should I?
I can sell my Treo 700p for $63. Seems kind of low, but I suspect there isn't much hassle involved with that type of sale.
What do you think?
Want to buy my Treo for more?
This phone keeps getting cooler.
I actually learned how to make popcorn with it. Check out the video to see how it works.
Pretty cool, eh?
I know I have been posting a lot about the iPhone, but I am still amazed by it. Anyway, today, I accidently found a new way to delete email while using your iPhone's mail program.
When you are in your list view, displaying your emails... You simply glide your finger from left to right over one email message. Up comes a delete button.
Here is a video demonstrating it:
This saves you a step or two.
Either you have to click on the email and then click the delete trash can button at the bottom of the email. Or you can click the "edit" button at the top right of the list view and then click the red circle icon on the left of the email and then click the delete button on the right of the email. So this is a third way to delete email.
I use to have this problem with my original Treo 650. When I got my Treo 700, the problem went away.
For some reason, the iPhone causes interference with my external speakers. Now, I am not even connecting the iPhone to the speakers. The interference is random sometimes and is also triggered by when I get a phone call or text message or when I sync with my Mac.
I am far from the only one who is experiencing this interference. There is a large thread at Mac Rumors on this topic. Also, MacWorld covered the issue.
The image at the top right is an setting you can configure when you hook up your iPhone to speakers. Note, I do not get this option, because I am not hooking up my speakers to the iPhone. It just causes crackling and popping noises that come out of my speakers. Turning off the speakers don't help. I can turn on the airplane mode feature, but then I won't get calls, text messages, emails and web.
One person said, you will just get used to it...
blackberries do this all the time. After a while you just get used to the sound
I try to put my phone a good distance from my speakers, which helps a lot.
I got the Apple iPhone, as many of you encouraged me to get.
All synced up and ready to play. My number even transfered within minutes...
Here are pics, more details later, I need to go play.
I think I may have figured out a way to get the best of both worlds.
Currently, I have a data and voice with Verizon Wireless. If I removed the voice service from my plan but kept the data plan, I can then get an iPhone. Work with me on this...
My voice and data plan with Verizon cost me about $120+ per month. The data plan is $60 from Verizon. If I just use the data plan, buy myself a Verizon Wireless V740 ExpressCard for my laptop and drop the voice plan. That will save me about $60 per month. Now, I can add iPhone/AT&T's cheapest plan of 450 minutes - which is plenty for me and I am back at $120 per month.
The major draw back is that my cell phone number would change. Because I would have to keep my current plan, i.e. my current number, with Verizon not to be charged the early termination fee. But then again, it doesn't bother me if I have to get a new number. So people who haven't called me in a while, they won't know how to reach me. Not a big deal, seriously.
Thoughts?
Remember, I said I was trying out CallWave? It is basically a service that overrides your cell phone provider's voicemail services and replaces it with theirs. They add more features and conveniences.
So I stuck with it.
The other day, I noticed I got a weird text message. It turned out that the text message was a new feature from CallWave that turns converts a voicemail to text. In the past, CallWave would text message me that I got a voicemail from person a, at this time and for this long. Now, they send that, plus they convert the voice message to a text message. I love it.
I can now see, immediately, what the message was all about, via a text message.
The example here, shows a message someone left me. Funny how they converted the word, "Kleenex" to "Clean Acts" - but I understood it.
I love the widget CallWave has also.
So, Google bought GrandCentral last week.
GrandCentral basically gives you a centralized location for all your telephone numbers. So they give you one number that will call your other numbers. There are also tons of features.
Personally, I am not going to use it much. But if you want an invite to use it, I have about 7 left. Just comment below, make sure you have your email address in the comment form and Ill hook you up.
While supplies last. :)
The other day, I wrote The Fastest Fiber is Comparable with the Fastest Cable & DSL where I showed tests that showed Optimum Online's internet to be almost as fast as Verizon's FiOS. I wanted to put that to the test.
First, I did a speed test using my Treo over the Verizon Wireless broadband network. Here are the results:
Not bad.
Then I did a test of the Optimum Online cable network from my home. Here are the results:
That is pretty quick.
Here is a test from the same provider, Optimum Online, in the morning, in my office. Here are the results:
Now, let's try the Verizon FiOS connection from a location in New Jersey.
That is blazing quick! Blazing!
My father's area just qualified for FiOS, he should jump at it. I am just waiting for my home and office area to qualify.
Update: Just after posting this, ARS Technica posted a review of Verizon's EVDO network.
Tons of rumors all over the web that PlayStation would be dropping the price of the game system.
Well, now it is confirmed.
We confirmed today that we are lowering the price of our current 60GB PS3 by $100, to $499, effective immediately in North America.
And in a few weeks, a new PS3 is coming out priced at $599 that has a larger hard drive. The hard drive is 80GB and the PS3 comes with MotorStorm.
Yea, I got a PlayStation 3 a while back. I honestly do not use it as much as I should. I think it has been a few weeks since I last played. Just lots going on right now, I guess.
Like I said in the past, we are in need of server upgrades and new hardware. A bulk of the stress on the servers come from the blogs we have on the boxes. The largest blog by far, is the Search Engine Roundtable.
So we need to upgrade the operating system, streamline the software on the boxes and then move over applications, such as this blog software, on new machines. This all costs a ton of money. So like my buddy, Shawn, did with his donate page, I thought I can take some ideas from him.
I have been writing on search since 2003. We do accept ads, but they don't cover all the costs, especially of this major server upgrade. So I am hoping to earn more money from a special Search Engine Roundtable Donations page.
Like Shaw, I am giving an advertisement on that page for anyone who gives $500 or more.
I also added a FeedFlare button to go directly to the donations page, so look for it on the main site under each post, or in the feeds.
Thanks for your support!
The iPhone reviews are out and overall, the reviews are mostly positive. Here they are:
The iPhone is Breakthrough Handheld Computer, Wall Street Journal
Expectations for the iPhone have been so high that it can't possibly meet them all. It isn't for the average person who just wants a cheap, small phone for calling and texting. But, despite its network limitations, the iPhone is a whole new experience and a pleasure to use.
The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype, New York Times
But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles. In other words, maybe all the iPhone hype isn’t hype at all. As the ball player Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you done it.”
Apple's iPhone isn't perfect, but it's worthy of the hype, USA Today
The mania over Apple's iPhone launch has created stratospheric expectations that are near impossible to live up to. Yet with a few exceptions, this expensive, glitzy wunderkind is indeed worth lusting after. That's saying a lot. After months of hype, Apple has delivered a prodigy — a slender fashion phone, a slick iPod and an Internet experience unlike any before it on a mobile handset.
At Last, the iPhone, Newsweek
Certainly all those people lining up to buy iPhones will find their investment worthwhile, if only for the delight they get from dazzling their friends. They will surely appreciate the iPhone’s features and the way they are intertwined to present a unified experience. But in the future—when the iPhone has more applications and offers more performance, with a lower price—buyers will find even more value. So smart consumers may well wait for that day. But meanwhile they can only look with envy as the person sitting next to them to them on the subway, or standing ahead of them in the Whole Foods line, is enjoying the phone that finally fulfills the promise of people-friendly palm-top communication and computing.
Crunchgear is updating with these reviews often.
You guys know I am having second thoughts on the iPhone...
Appleinsider is reporting that there are two guys already on line at the Apple Manhattan store, since Monday - four days before the iPhones go on sale, to get themselves an iPhone first.
Gizmodo has posted a video of an interview with the first two people who camped out for the iPhone.
Supposedly, this guy is a "veteran camper" who was one of the first to get the PS3 and so on.
Vicarious Music has a picture of the guy with a sign.
Now that is dedication - or simply crazy.
Everyone is excited about Google buying Zenter, as part of their collection of purchases to offer online presentation software, similar to WebEx. Here are two articles on it from yesterday:
- Google Acquires Zenter, Online Slides Presentation Company from Search Engine Roundtable
- Google Acquires Zenter, Online Presentation Software Company from Search Engine Land
But, did you guys know about a free online meeting application from ZOHO known as Zoho Meeting?
I tried it out myself and it has a great UI to manage online meetings. The only thing I don't like is that if you are the presenter, you need a PC, because it uses ActiveX commands to run. But it is still free and I have a PC on my Mac with Parallels so I gave it a try. It works pretty well and is easy to use.
Who told me about this software? Gary Price, of course, he informed me about it several months ago, when I was looking for an easy solution for a problem I had.
More details on Zoho Meeting over here.
We, at RustyBrick, are in the process of reworking our server environment. The goal is to get a cluster of servers running, so that we can balance the load of our sites on several servers instead of a site being paired to a single server. Several of our larger clients have this already, but we want to move this configuration over to our smaller clients environment.
Let me start off that I don't fully understand these technologies from within. Ronnie is here for that, so he makes the decision with this. I'll explain from a techno-business stance.
We currently run FreeBSD (FreeBSD.org) on all our machines. But it is out dated and a very old OS. We love that there is no GUI to it, but it doesn't support certain clustering technology that we are wanted to implement. So we have decided to leave FreeBSD and go to a new OS. The question is which one?
There is absolutely no way we would consider Microsoft, so scratch that. We want a flavor of Linux. No, we won't be using Apple Mac - even though we love them. So which Linux flavor?
Gentoo (Gentoo.org) was the most attractive, being one of the newer flavors. Our server management people were most positive about it and it looked great. But there were several problems that forced us to say no to Gentoo. It did not support Urchin, Payflow Pro and some other things that were critical to our business. So that went out the Window (no pun intended Microsoft).
Next up was RedHat (RedHat.com), a very powerful linux operating system that really does everything we want. But what upset us was that it was closed when compared to FreeBSD and Gentoo. There is commercial backing to it, there are support contracts and so on. Our managed services company didn't like that (I suppose because it means we are less dependent on them), but Ronnie didn't like it either because it gives you less control.
This is where Fedora (FedoraProject.org) comes in. Fedora is based on RedHat and backed by them. But Fedora is completely open source and has all the support we need for our applications, I believe.
So at this time, I believe we have selected Fedora to be out next operating system. I'll let you know when it has been implemented. Hopefully, it will be 100% transparent to you.
I was jealous today when Joost de Valk released an OpenSearch plugin that enables you to turn off personalized results on a per query basis right from your toolbar.
It is Friday at 6pm here and things cleared off my plate. I have a search toolbar plugin for Safari (not the beta) and I thought I play with it to get the same thing working here. And I did, plus I did a lot more.
(1) First download Inquisitor at http://www.inquisitorx.com/safari/, trust me, it is a time saver.
(2) Next, go to your preference under the Safari menu.
(3) Then click on the Search icon at the top right of that context menu.
(4) Then click on "edit sites" and you should see this:
(5) Click on the plus sign and you will see more options. First add the other search engines you want. Wait a second, your favorite search engine isn't there.
(6) To add a custom search engine, just click on the "New custom search shortcut..." option.
(7) Then double click on the Site Name area and enter in Ask.com.
(8) Then double click in the URL and enter in "http://www.ask.com/web?q=%@" (note the %@ is your search query.
(9) Then click done.
What if I want to add custom search engines, like to search this blog? No worries! Just add this string "http://www.cartoonbarry.com/search.html?cx=002396771074467716933%3Aj9829rsyocs&q=%@&sa=Search&cof=FORID%3A11"
What about the Search Engine Roundtable, sure add this http://www.seroundtable.com/searchinternal.html?cx=002396771074467716933%3A9winkv77liu&q=%@&sa=Search&cof=FORID%3A9
Ok, wait a second, what if a site doesn't have a Google Custom Search Engine like Search Engine Roundtable and Cartoon Barry has? Oh, you mean Search Engine Land? And you want to search Google but restrict it to Search Engine Land? No worries, use this string http://www.google.com/search?q=site:searchengineland.com+%@
You can do this for any engine. The trick is to do a query at the engine and simply replace your search phrase with %@.
What does it look like?
You type your query in the search box and click the arrow down and you should see this:
I am glad I added these, will save me some time through the rest of my searching career.
So as you know, Canon wanted To charge me $140 for a $35 fix. So I showed them, I bought a new Canon camera for $219! Ha! umm....
Well, I am a kid when it comes to wanting new technology. Since I have the SD 500, I thought the SD 1000, a whole 500 more numbers than the model I have, would be sweet!
So I got it. Maybe Ill still fix the other one and sell it on eBay or maybe not.
I was thinking about buying it at thedigitalnerd.com for $189.00 but the site looked a bit sketchy. So last night I bought it at Best Price Audio Video for a bit more. Turns out that was a good move, because as Jacob Wolfsheimer said:
You may consider watching out for thedigitalnerds.com. A search on them comes up with ripoffreport.com results.
Wow, I guess so.
I'll let you know how the camera acts when I get it...
I have the Treo 700p and I wrote about it dozens of times. But I always wondered why the default "hang up" button is the same button you use to turn off the display?
So if you are using email, text messages, web, calendar, etc, to turn off the display you either wait 30 seconds for it to shut off by itself, or you hit the red hang up button.
But time after time, I am getting a call at the same time I am hitting the off button.
I am checking an email on my Treo, I finish, I hit the hang up button to darken and lock the Treo. But at the same time, someone is calling in and I hit hang up. Then I hang up on their call, unintentionally.
I am sure there is a way to change the default, but isn't that just dumb from a user interface and usability standpoint?
Oh, the picture above is a pic of where I keep my Treo while I drive.
I just read the June 26th edition of PC World and saw a column named Real World Testing: The Best ISPs in America.
Basically, they rated the top ISPs by provider, type and geo-location.
I grabbed the chart and just plotted the best speeds from Fiber, Cable and DSL providers.
As you can see Verizon FiOS (which I am dying to get), is the fastest, averaging 307 Kbps. then comes Optimum cable (which I use) at 283.2 Kbps and then Speakeasy DSL at 277.7 Kbps.
What is interesting is that the second fastest Fiber Optic is 265.8 Kbps, which is slowest then the fastest cable and fastest DSL.
Go figure. In any event, I still want to trash my T1 line in favor of Verizon FiOs. But I am still waiting for availability. I would still keep Optimum cable, to go with FiOS in my office, but I hate the T1 speed.
Remember, I broke my camera for the second time? I sent it back into Canon, assuming they would fix it for free again. Boy was I wrong...
They said they can fix it for me for $137.64.
Now, I have a friend who fixes this type of stuff for a living and he told me it cost $30 for the piece. So I may just have him fix it, if I can persuade him. Or maybe it is a good excuse to get the new SD 1000, which is a lot lighter and has a bigger LCD screen....
What ticks me off most is that they want you to pay $175.00 for a refurbished SD 500! Why would I do that, when I can get the SD 1000 for $14 more? Why!
So, I declined the repair. I will decide to to either fix this camera or get the new SD 1000. And then from now on, I will try not to break it.
When I was uploading the picture to Flickr for my Wild Wild Wheelchair Ride at 50 MPH, I noticed that Flickr automatically added a title, description and tags to the image for me.
I took the picture from the Washinton Post article. So I assume, it was able to recognize the image as a duplicate to other images like in on Flickr. It then offered me a prefilled title, description and tags for the image. I never saw this before.
Don't believe me. I repeated the action and took a video of it.
I even tried changing the file name and it still worked. Pretty cool.
Anyone know of Flickr documentation on this feature?
Not sure why I didn't add this earlier. I am always counting up and down to figure out what time it is in California and Israel and London and many other places.
So I finally added several world clocks to my dashboard on my Mac.
I have seven of them across the top of my dashboard, but I broke them up in two here so you can see them all.
Don't know how I lived without these clocks.
I.e. I get news stories that are embargoed at 9PST or 9EST etc, this makes it a whole 5 seconds faster.
Remember I posted after I got to the SMX conference that I Broke My Camera Again!?
That is the second time I broke the LCD, the first time was during my Israel trip.
So I checked the purchase date, and by three whole days, I am still under warranty.
So I brought up my old blog entry and reviewed what I did then to get the camera fixed for free. I replicated it and I was told that the repair is estimated to cost me nothing. Whoo hoo.
So I just mailed it to the repair shop and hopefully, it will come back new - for free.
Next time I break it, I will either have to pay for a new one or pay for it to be fixed. So, moral from the story, since I am not such a quick learner, be careful!
There is this unbelievable deal over at Sprint for a Treo and their data plan. One of my RB staffers told me about this, and I was like, no way! But yes way!
A Fat Wallet thread has the details, which gets updated every now and then.
Go to: www.sprint.com/sero and in the email box enter savings@sprintemi.com with a valid zip code and presto.
You qualify for 500 minutes, unlimited texting and unlimited broadband data for $30 per month! Nuts!
Other plans include:
Seems way too good to be true. But supposedly, it is true.
I am so upset. I broke my camera again. It must have got kicked when on the plane.
It is a solid camera, but this is the second time I broke it. What happened was something smashed against the LCD screen. So I can't preview or see images I have just taken. I can still take pictures, but the preview is something I got accustomed to.
Last time Canon fixed it for me for free. But they did it as a one time courtesy. I doubt they will do it again.
How did this happen. I put my camera in a very padded camera bag on the side of my RustyBrick bag. I think the camera USB cable is in that bag and was pressing up against the LCD screen. When the bag was on the airplane, I suspect it got hit and the USB cable pressed up even harder into the LCD, cracking the inside of the screen - rendering it useless.
Just bummed about it.
I am a big fan of the Logitech VX revolutions mouse, as I said here and here.
My only one issue is that it is kinda smaller, since it is made for mobile computers.
My brother purchased the MX version, which is the full size and it rocks. So I have been waiting for a good deal, and today is that day.
DealNews has the deal:
newegg.com offers the Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse, model no. 931689-0403, for $79.99. This $40 mail-in rebate and coupon code "EMC517FLOGI" (for $5 off) cut it to $34.99. With free shipping, that's the lowest total price we've seen.
I purchased it from NewEgg.com just an hour ago. Not sure what I will do with this mouse now. :)
Nathan Weinberg was complaining his CPU spiked to 147 degrees fahrenheit. Come on! That is not hot.
On average my CPU is at about 160 degrees. MacBook Pros are made to run hot.
If my CPUs were in your laptop, your case would melt.
Actually, I keep my laptop on a coolpad which helps it say at the coolest possible temperature. By keeping it elevated, air circulates around the machine and flows through.
How do I know how hot my Mac is?
I use a Mac Widget named iStat Pro from iSlayer.com which shows you not just temperature, but tons of other details on:
To name a few. So Nathan, you keep your laptop in the freezer. I'll blog a bit more. ;-)
The new Google Analytics is out and I was playing around with the charts the other day - sweet stuff. So I decided to compare the Search Engine Roundtable visitors. I thought it would be cute to profile New Yorkers versus Israelis.
Here is a map overlay of the state of New York. The larger the orange bubble, the more people in that area visit the site. New York City is where most my readers are, if they are based in NY State, but as you can see, I have three Suffern readers (one myself, curious who else are out there).
Here is a map overlay of the state of Israel. The larger the orange bubble, the more people in that area visit the site. Petah Tiqwa, Rosh Haayin, Tel Aviv and Haifa are the most dense for me. Jerusalem is the bubble on the right middle portion, pretty small.
But what I found most interesting is how Israel's love Windows and hate Macs.
New York Readers: 81% use Windows and 16% use Mac.
Israeli Readers: 96% use Windows and 1.7% use Mac.
Don't Israeli's know that Apple Macintosh computers are far superior than PC's running Windows? ;-)
Of course, this is a gross misuse of statistics and we all know there are much better studies out there. But I thought it was fun anyway.
Oh, Google, I know you are reading:
Thanks!
Next month, I will be comparing Search Engine Roundtable to Cartoon Barry readers. Should be fun.
I just downloaded TextExpander from Smile on my Mac and I am now testing it live.
I often type the same things over and over again. Such as code to quote people. Here is an example of me showing you how blockquote works.
TextExpander saves you countless keystrokes with customized abbreviations for your frequently-used text strings and images.
With the Search Engine Roundtable I often type the same things, such as using phrases like "Forum discussion at" and then hyperlink to a forum such as Cre8asite Forums or DigitalPoint Forums or Search Engine Watch Forums or WebmasterWorld. So this should speed things up.
There are dozens of keystrokes I can automate. This is my first real test. The time is 2:32 PM.
Here is the video how I typed this entry.
As you can see, I was a bit distracted while typing away. But from this, you can see how I actually blog, well - blog while knowing people are watching over my shoulder.
I have been testing and comparing Google Reader versus Bloglines as my primary reader for some time now. The history goes back a while, but you can start here and then click back through the links to see that I finally switched over to Google Reader from Bloglines.
I never compared the mobile versions of Google Reader & Bloglines. So I figured I do a post right now on that. I am not a heavy mobile RSS reader, I would say I used the mobile RSS readers a few times per week - i.e. when I am out and I am bored (see Streaming the Daily Search Cast Podcast at the Mall.
The Intro Pages:
What You See on Bloglines Mobile:
- Total Number of Updated Feeds
- Categories or Folders
- Items Updated by Folder & Feed
- Mark All as Read
- Display All Feeds (including unread ones)
- Display Saved (Starred) Feeds
- Search Feeds
What You Don't See on Bloglines Mobile:
- The Updated Feed Titles
What You See on Google Reader Mobile:
- The Updated Feed Titles
- Mark All These Items Read
What You Don't See on Google Reader Mobile:
- Total Number of Updated Feeds
- Items Updated by Folder & Feed
- Categories or Folders
- Mark All Items As Read
- Display All Feeds (including unread ones)
- Display Saved (Starred) Feeds
- Search Feeds
Summary on Intro Pages for Bloglines versus Google Reader Mobile Edition:
Google Reader Mobile does allow you to see "starred" items as well as view the folder/categories (i.e. tags) for items unread by folder or category. But it requires an additional click. It would be nice to set this as a preference. But this is not a huge deal, I can always bookmark the /tags page instead and use that. So you can get to almost all the information Bloglines provides on the first page, but it takes one extra click.
Let's take a look inside now.
Viewing A Feed Item:
What You See on Bloglines Mobile:
- The Feed Title
- Contents of Feed
- Link To Original Post
- Date and Time
- Email Content Feature
- Save (Star) Item Feature
- Keep as New Feature
- Unsubscribe from Feed Feature
- Mark Feed As Unread
- Feed Summary
What You Don't See on Bloglines Mobile:
- View Next Unread Item
What You See on Google Reader Mobile:
- The Feed Title
- Contents of Feed
- Link To Original Post
- Save (Star) Item Feature
- Keep as New Feature
- View Next Unread Item
What You Don't See on Google Reader Mobile:
- Date and Time
- Email Content Feature
- Unsubscribe from Feed Feature
- Mark Feed As Unread
- Feed Summary
Summary on Item View Pages for Bloglines versus Google Reader Mobile Edition:
While I like the features on Bloglines, some may be overkill and slow things down. I do not need to see the feed summary when I am viewing an individual item in that feed. The other features are nice to have and I wish Google would add them. I also find a preview of the next unread item in your feeds at the bottom of the item feed view useful and would recommend Bloglines add that to their mobile edition.
Conclusion:
Overall, I find Bloglines Mobile to have more features that I would use while reading my mobile feeds. It is, however, not enough to make me switch back to Bloglines. As I said, I do not use mobile RSS as often as when I am at my office or on my computer at home.
I think. I have been patiently waiting for Verizon FiOS to come out next to my office. I know our neighbors in N.J. have it.
So I called and they told me that when I see cable spindles, that is a sign that they are laying the ground with fiber for Verizon FiOS.
So I hope that the spindles I just saw next to my office building are for Verizon FiOS, I hope.
I currently have both T1 and Cable Internet in the office. The T1 costs me about $550 per month, I can get it for about $300 now, but I would have to renew for 2 years. I know FiOS is around the corner, so I am holding out. Once FiOS gets here, I will replace the T1 with it and run both Cable and FiOS.
It appears that they offer static IPs so that would work well.
So I am a bit excited over spindles, is that normal? :)
I told you that I got joost a while back. Well, now, if you want Joost also, I can give it to you for free. I now have invites to give away.
If you want an invite, just comment below. Please hit the submit comment button only once (thanks).
Joost lets you watch some TV on your computer and it works well. I never use it.
Here is what it looks like:
Thanks.
I admit it, I have a serious condition. It is commonly referred to as OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder. But my OCD is not typical.
I am obsessive and compulsive about emails.
Like most people in the tech industry, I get tons of emails. To be honest, I will go out and say, I probably get more emails than the average guy in tech. Why?
I am pretty sure I ordered the list above in volume order. It gets overwhelming sometimes.
But what makes it worse is that I am obsessive over not having email in my inbox. I absolutely hate having email in my inbox. I also hate not knowing if there is new email in my inbox that should be filed away quickly.
My email filing system is pretty good. Here is a sample structure but not exact:
- Search Related
-- Search Engine Roundtable
--- SER Advertising
--- Google
--- Yahoo
--- Ask.com
--- Microsoft
--- Design
--- Pulse
--- Seals
--- Misc
-- Search Engine Land
--- Google
--- Yahoo
--- Ask.com
--- Microsoft
--- Misc
-- SEW Blog
-- IMNY
-- Conferences
--- SES
--- PubCon
--- SMX
--- Misc
-- Forums
--- Cre8asite
--- SEW
--- WMW
- RB Related
-- RB Clients
--- Client X
--- Client Y
--- Client Z (and so on)
-- Prospects
-- Biz Development
-- Hosting
--- Email
--- Servers
--- VOIP
--- Network
--- Security
-- Employees
--- Employee A
--- Employee B
--- Employee C...
-- Legal
-- Affiliate
-- Receipts
-- Promotions
- Personal
-- Wife
-- Dad
-- Basketball
-- Misc
This list goes on and on...But I need to stop somewhere...
Then I use Smart Folders for quicker access to some type of mail. I won't get too specific here also.
Now, if an email is not filed away quickly and I know it should be, it really bothers me.
What is worse, is that if I am not by my computer, I live on my Treo. I am the rude guy who you are having dinner with and while talking to me, I am going through my email on my Treo. I am also the guy who is walking from my office to the bathroom, reading email on my Treo. I am also the guy who is responding to emails while driving 75 MPH on the highway (I know!). The list goes on.
But it all goes back to me being compulsive and obsessive about email and email not being in my inbox. Well, I do sometimes see the bottom of my inbox and that feeling, is something I cannot describe.
Update: I am live doing the Search Pulse radio show and I am checking email! I am sick!
I read this Wired article on a PlayStation 3 game named MotorStorm. It is basically a racing game, specifically designed for the advanced and high processing power of the PS3.
From Wired:
As I said, Motorstorm is all about advanced physics. The graphics are excellent, sure. The dirt looks like dirt, etc. But the key feature here isn't that the bikes look like bikes, it's that they bounce like them. It's annoying when your bike skids out of control into a rock and explodes, but it's entertaining because you could see exactly where you lost control and understand what you could have done to stop that. There's been a lot of effort put in to make everything feel right, and you can really see the difference.
So I bought the game on Amazon from a gift certificate I got from a friend in the search industry.
The main issue that Wired brings up, and I agree, is that you don't "feel" this. The controllers don't shake or rattle or jerk. The Wired writer calls out Logitech to build a 3rd party controller that does just that; "So yeah, I'd really like to see a controller re-design or a third party pad with less stupid analog triggers. Logitech? Can we get a little help, here?"
Outside of that, the graphics are crazy and it is fun. I played about 10 races in the past 2 days. Each took about five minutes... I am on race two of level one still.
Fun game...
Oh and the mud does splatter on the screen when someone cuts you off, it is really annoying....
Yes, Second Life is Nuts! I once gave it a try in November of last year, but after it wasting literally 4 hours of my time without blinking, I had to drop it cold turkey.
During those wasted hours, I tried to build things. Simple things like balls, cones, boxes. I couldn't imagine building out a whole town in less than a week!
A Scoble twitter led me to a post named Rapid Architectural Prototyping in Second Life explaining, "Second Life architect Lordfly Digeridoo has posted a great video of the process of designing a site plan in Second Life for a real-world site in Ypsilanti, Michigan."
I honestly would love to learn how to do that. Wow!
I just got word from Google Reader Engineer, Mihai Parparita, that they have made speed improvements to Google Reader on Apple's Safari.
Mihai said:
We've made some improvements with regards to memory leaks (affecting all browsers, including Safari). Now if you switch between one subscription or folder and another, memory should be properly reclaimed.
So I gave it a quick test with my morning feeds and it worked! Google Reader is now fast in Safari!
That was the main I stuck with bloglines after my first test.
Now that the speed improvements are here, I will be giving it another run. I will give it about a week and let you know what I decide. But it is looking good for Google Reader.
Thanks Mihai!
Say it ain't so! New Jersey lawmakers may ban texting while driving from Reuters says they may pass legislation that will fine you up to $250 if you are caught text messaging while driving.
I live on my Treo while away from my computer. Mostly for email, but I also get many text messages. And often this means while I am driving in my car.
So does text messaging include email?
Get this, "one in five drivers are texting while driving" according to a nationwide survey. Wow!
Funny, yea - eating, drinking, and putting on makeup should be banned also! Why just text messaging? Heck, I can txt and email blindfolded on my treo. In fact, I am hoping for better integration with the Treo and my GPS device, possibly voice controlled email on my GPS via my Treo, would be a solution. It is a dream I have...
You say what? Yes. I said Joost. I got Joost. Jason Dowdell sent me an invite, and now I have Joost.
What is Joost?
Joost (pronounced 'juiced') is an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer tv technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project," Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. Joost's CTO is Dirk-Willem van Gulik.[1] The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks. It has signed up with Warner Music, Ministry of Sound TV and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures.
So I gave it a test run and decided to capture it on my screen for you, so here it is:
It is pretty cool, but honestly, I spent about 5 minutes with it.
Currently I have zero invites to give out. As soon as I get one, I will invite Gary Price and then whomever else wants. So, if you want one, let me know. I feel like Jason wasted one on me, so I feel bad.
Let's get old school geek here... IRC, yea, Internet Relay Chat, before instant messaging there was IRC. It was created in August 1988 by Jarkko Oikarinen, as a replacement for another form of chat - but this one really took on. IRC is like AOL chat rooms but old school. There are ops (channel moderators) who help keep things in order.
I used IRC when I was a teenager, mostly because my brother Ronnie used it for programming help. But then when WebmasterRadio.FM opened an IRC channel, I decided to break back into IRC again. I am an op in that channel, where people come to get help and chat about search stuff. FYI, I heard WebmasterRadio accidently banned many of the users from the channel last night (ouch!).
For IRC, I use Snak (no I prefer not to use an IM client for IRC, because they are totally different. Snak is wonderful in that it allows me to customize the screens as well, has tabbed windows and much more. The one thing that bugs me is how PM (private messaging works), just doesn't work logically - but I hope future versions fix it. I keep the Snak application at the lower left of my screen during the work day, I often miss the conversation there, but sometimes, I'll peak over to see what is going on. During live podcasts, I keep an eye on the chat room, especially if I am doing the show.
It doesn't mean we never get up, but often we opt for IM over in person discussions. Most of the time it is, what is the status with this or that, can you review this, can you email me that, where can I find this, etc.
Plus I use IM to talk with SEOs and SEMs, vendors, clients and friends throughout the day.
In fact, my IM list is so big that I often have 80 plus active buddies in the list. That is why I prefer to use Adium X. Adium is a long time Mac alternative to AOL Instant Messenger's software. I am able to easily customize the interface to blend into my desktop so that it takes up as little space as possible. In addition, it has tabbed IM abilities, lots of nice features including the much appreciated IM chat logs (searchable). The one feature I wish it had was video chat, which I think they are working on. I can live without it for now.
So it looks like I am going to keep the PlayStation 3 I ordered a couple weeks ago. Honestly, I haven't played all that much, but I intend to play Saturday nights more often.
Sunday, I picked up Resistance: Fall of Man and I played a little. After getting accustomed to many of the controls (took several minutes) I really started to enjoy the game. The graphics are wow! The actions and controls really put you in the game, which makes it incredibly exciting. I am playing the game offline first, this way I can hopefully learn all the features and get even more accustomed to the controls. Then, once I beat the game, I plan on playing it online.
What about Madden? Well, that too. But for some reason, I have yet to figure out how to save a game mid-way through so that I can pick up later. Resistance is easy to save and pick up later, which is important, since I frequently have to stop playing throughout the game. But I hope to get a Madden league going with the guys and then possibly join an online league (but not yet, because that requires commitment).
In any event, Resistance rocks, I am glad I got it. Nothing like killing aliens to relieve stress from the week.
This is an interesting bug, a reader told me that my feed URLs are being redirected to my home page.
So http://feeds.seroundtable.com/~r/SearchEngineRoundtable1/~3/97339342/012542.html is not taking you to http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/012542.html like it should. It is taking you to http://www.seroundtable.com/.
I tested this on both my feeds and both are the same.
I then tested Danny's feed via Google Blog Search, since he also uses FeedBurner, and his has the same issue.
I emailed FeedBurner and Danny emailed Rick at FeedBurner...
Hope it is fixed soon, along with the FeedFlare issues, which I may drop.
Here is the output for a CURL command showing it is on FeedBurner's side, since I do not use a Linux box, I use FreeBSD.
curl -v http://feeds.seroundtable.com/~r/SearchEngineRoundtable1/~3/97374916/012543.html
* About to connect() to feeds.seroundtable.com port 80
* Trying 66.150.96.119... * connected
* Connected to feeds.seroundtable.com (66.150.96.119) port 80
> GET /~r/SearchEngineRoundtable1/~3/97374916/012543.html HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: curl/7.13.1 (powerpc-apple-darwin8.0) libcurl/7.13.1 OpenSSL/0.9.7l zlib/1.2.3
Host: feeds.seroundtable.com
Pragma: no-cache
Accept: */*
< HTTP/1.1 302 Moved
< Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:24:14 GMT
< Server: Apache/2.0.54 (Debian GNU/Linux) mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 mod_jk/1.2.15
< Location: http://www.seroundtable.com/
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Content-Type: text/plain
< Set-Cookie: NSC_gffe-iuuq-mc-wtfswfs=8efb330c3660;expires=Wed, 28-Feb-07 16:27:09 GMT;path=/
* Connection #0 to host feeds.seroundtable.com left intact
* Closing connection #0
FeedBurner fixed the issue:
We had a brief service interruption morning that would have led to the redirection trouble you reported. We sent in the smokejumpers and got things under control so you should be seeing expected feed performance/clickthrough destinations again. Please let us know if that still doesn't appear to be the case on your end. Thanks for your patience.
I am crazy, I know. I actually purchased a PlayStation 3 Saturday night and had to go to a different store to find a sold out Madden 2007.
The graphics are very nice, very. Thing is, I don't have much time to play.
I think I am going to set up a "Game Night" at my house for a few of my friends. Maybe a Saturday night. I joked with my wife that the wives can cook up food for us while we play.
I played a couple of games with my favorite team, the Jets. Wow, I am so bad. But I assume that will improve over time.
Will I keep this device? Totally depends on if I have time to play. I can return it within 30 days. I am not the type to return things. But this was expensive and if it just sits and collects dust, I think I will return it.
I have a client that wants to do some video casts. I am far from a videographer so I was wondering if any of you have advice.
Of course he can buy a web cam, but he wants them to come out nice.
What video camera do you recommend?
What type of lighting?
Anything else I should know about this?
Who knows, maybe I'll do some video stuff myself. But not sure how exciting I can make SEO videos...
Hope some of you have ideas and suggestions. I should probably wait for Matt to arrive in California from Dublin before hinting for an suggestion from him.
Winter, snow, cold and wind remind me of ChapStick. So how does a computer guy geek-out his used ChapStick?
Yes, he converts his ChapStick into a USB Drive.
Andrew from The Machinist describes how you can make this happen.
I just bought a new 2GB USB flash drive, and it happened to be sitting on the desk the other day next to a tube of ChapStick.
Spotted via Crunchgear.com.
I have been blabbering about how much I like my mouse.
Yesterday, I wrote about the battery life cycle of the VX and I was happy with it.
A month or so ago I wrote My New Mouse Rocks - The Logitech VX.
Some commented that it was a bit expensive, I of course agreed and told them to wait for a sale.
Well, Buy.com is having a sale today on the .
Only $34.95 after this $20 rebate.
Hawaii SEO, no more excuses!
Not sure if you remember, but I love the logitech vx mouse. I got it late December and I used the battery it came with (Duracell).
That batter died today.
Not bad, about 1.5 months later.
And I use the mouse around 12 hours per work day. So figured I used this for about 400 - 500 hours on one battery.
A thumbs up!
More fun Vista stuff for you.
First, the Jerusalem Post reports that if you have a Windows OS that is English but you want to buy Vista to run in Hebrew, it won't work. Reportedly, you can only upgrade a Windows OS that is already Hebrew flavored to Vista Hebrew. But you cannot upgrade an English Windows OS to Vista Hebrew. This was not the case with past upgrades.
Second, Tech.Blorge.com reports that if you want to install Vista on your Intel Mac, it will cost you more. Mac users won't be able to run Vista Home, they will have to install Vista Enterprise, which is $100 more than home. So the cheapest version available to Windows users is $199, but for Mac users, it is $299.
David Pogue of the New York Time has posted a video comparing the new Windows Vista to Apple's OS X operating systems.
I wish I could embed the video here, but I can't.
So go to NY Times to watch it.
Very funny.
CrunchGear reports that Sling the makers of the Sling Box that allows you to watch your TV from any computer.
Well, it is not just any computer anymore. You soon will be able to watch your TV, live or recorded, on your Palm Treo. They are currently taking applications for beta testers over here.
The requirements include:
Of course, if you had a Windows Smartphone or PocketPC you can already be watching TV on your phone.
This would come in handy for me when I am shopping.
For a while I have been using the Apple Mighty Mouse, but it was working against me. After a few months of use, I had to constantly (several times a day) clean the little scroll ball, because it got dirty and would scroll. So I gave up on the cool looking, simplistic mouse for a more functional and sturdy one.
I bought the Logitech VX Revolution and after owning it for a couple months, I can say, I love it. Of course, like any new mouse, it took a couple weeks to get used to. But the features and durability rocks.
I am able to configure the dozens of buttons on this mouse on a per application basis. I actually just set them all to do the same thing for all applications. My most favorite features outside of the scroll wheel working are:
My brother, Ronnie, has completed his detailed review of Xavix. Xavix is a game console, like the Wii, but focuses on real exercise.
The main difference, outside of the exercise aspect, is that the games themselves come with the controllers. So, with the Wii, you get this game controller that you can use with all the games. The Xavix doesn't come with a game controller. For example, if you buy Tennis, it comes with two Tennis rackets. Baseball comes with a bat and ball. Etc...
Ronnie, reviewed the various products and accessories, plus uploaded videos and screen captures. His conclusion?
If you are looking for something to get you off your couch and don't want to hang your clothes on it to dry, I recommend the Xavix. If you are looking for more exciting games with better graphics, try the Wii. It is worth noting that the Xavix does have other games including Baseball, Bowling, Fishing, Golf and a Scale. For more information on these, please see http://www.xavix.com/ and http://www.xavixstore.com/
Check out the full review named Stay in Shape the Techie Way.
I hate getting voicemails on my cell phone, more than I hate getting voicemails on my business line. With my office, I have a web based console that allows me to listen to my voicemails via Web site or via email - in addition to over the phone.
CallWave has a service that allows you to add that type of service to your cell phone's voicemail. It basically overrides your current voicemail service from your provider and hosts in at CallWave. But the service allows me to manage my cell phone voicemails via the Web or a Mac Widget (or Yahoo! Widget) (download widget here).
You can listen, delete or undelete your voicemails via the widget, web site, or via your cell phone.
Again, this completely overrides your service provider's voicemail service. You can switch back at any time.
I am using the free service, you can also, just go here. The paid service adds a few features at $10 per month, features, I personally do not need. In addition, you do not get a voicemail indicator on the phone, instead you can opt for a text message that gives you a wealth of information on the voicemail.
For example, yesterday, I was out of range, I received a voicemail, but I didn't know from who, because the call never reached me. The text message would have said, I received a call from ABC at this time and the voicemail is X long.
I am giving it a try and so far, so good. I'll let you know if I ever switch back.
When I read, USA Today's Verizon rejected Apple iPhone deal, I was begging the article was not true. I so want the iPhone, but I would not switch to it, unless two conditions be met.
(1) It runs on the Verizon Wireless network
and
(2) It has the high speed broadband network
Right now Cingular is the exclusive wireless provider for Apple's iPhone. Plus, it won't support the EVDO network.
But when I read that Verizon turned down Apple, "almost two years ago", because Apple "wanted a percentage of the monthly cellphone fees, say over how and where iPhones could be sold and control of the relationship with iPhone customers." It made me sad.
I honestly, would jump at this phone if it was on Verizon and used the high speed network. But I guess now I will have to wait probably two years to get it. Which is probably good anyway. Right now, I am very happy with my Treo, it does everything I need.
But as a Mac guy, this phone fits perfectly with my applications and style. It does not currently fit with my need for speed and wireless provider.
Why Verizon, it works best in my area here - plus it is solid where ever I travel. I am loyal.
When I arrived in Israel for my honeymoon I noticed the LCD screen on the camera was press in, and broken. The camera itself worked, but I couldn't use any menus or advanced features, nor preview images after they were taken - due to the LCD not functioning anymore.
I was about to buy the newer model of my camera, I have the SD 500, the SD 600 is pretty good. But my brother informed me that it might be under warranty. He offered to fill out the online repair request form for me and when I got back from Israel, I mailed the camera with the form to Canon.
Five days later, it showed up in their online repair tracking system and then a day later, they fixed it, and shipped it to me via FedEx two day.
During the process, they informed me that the repair was free, since I was under warranty. I would never have imagined. I some how accidently smashed the LCD screen, so that is broke. I would never of thought that it would not cost me anything. Heck, I broke it. But I am not complaining, they fixed it and charged me nothing, even though I told them it was my fault.
Here is the official "examination" report:
Impact/pressure damage. LCD screen cracked. Check all functions. Repair to good working order.
Here is the official "service details" on the report:
Replaced panel, LCD, checked all functions and cleaned. CXB19I68
The bottom, fine print, said this repair was not under warranty, but they did it as a courtesy. That is nice.
Thank you Canon. Maybe they knew it was my honeymoon? :-)
Every morning, when I get into the office, I pretty much open the same four tabs in my browser. I use Apple's Safari as my browser, and I thought I share with other Safari users, how to speed up their daily web usage grind.
I personally open up my blog admin for SER and SEL, my forum and a RB backend application. But for my example, I am going to show you how to open up Ask.com, Google, Yahoo!, and Live.com in a jiffy using Safari. Honestly, this tutorial is for my Dad, because he asked me how to do this. :)
Step One: Create a new bookmark folder on your toolbar by clicking on the book icon or by selecting "Bookmarks" "Show All Bookmarks." Once you are on that screen, there should be two plus sign icons at the bottom of the browser, click on the one on the right side. It will then give you a new folder, it looks like this.
Step Two: Name your bookmark folder, I like to use symbols for those types of folders, I used ☼ (thanks Fox). You should now see the bookmark in your toolbar, directly under the URL bar.
Step Three: Navigate to the URLs you want to bookmark and drag them by the favorite icon (or the blue globe) into the bookmark folder OR you can click on "Bookmarks" and select "Add Bookmark" and place the URL within that folder. I did this for Ask.com, Google, Yahoo! and Live.com. It looks like this:
Step Four: You are done, now right click (no right button, alt key plus mouse click) and you will see "Open in Tabs." Click on that, and presto, all your bookmarked pages will open in tabs. Repeat only Step Four every morning or whenever you need those tabs, and you saved about a minute or two of repetitive processes each day.
It looks like this in my example:
Hope this helps some folks.
I have been eyeing this travel router from Linksys for a while now, I think this is the best price I have seen it at ever. Buy.com originally sells it for $89.97, and with a $50 mail-in-rebate and $20 off for using Google Checkout, the router costs you at the end of the day only $19.97.
Wife, hint hint, Chanukah... ;-) The looks like a nice present, if all the rebates are taken care of and if Google Checkout is used...
This specifically will come in handy for my trip to Israel, where my Treo's Verizon Wireless broadband connection won't work. But the hotel's internet better work.
I often track good deals at Buy.com and some other merchants, so I figured I share some with you, and at the same time use my aff ID (if that is cool). The first deal is a 1GB USB Flash drive for $0 after rebates and using Google Checkout. Buy.com and Google Checkout, is the best thing that happened to me...
Learn more about the .
The next one is a 2GB Kingston SD card, I actually bought this myself last night. For $10 after an instant $20 Google Checkout rebate (you must use Google Checkout when ordering) and then a mail in rebate of $26, it comes out to be $9.99 for a 2GB SD card. I think that is the best price I have seen on an SD card that size.
Learn more about the .
Please let me know if you want me to post more deals like this or not, here is a poll.
So like many folks, I was lucky to get the Google Digital Picture Frame. But like many, I also had some technical difficulties.
First here is a picture of the frame working....
Oh, no one I know, can figure out how to remove that ugly blinking picture of a yellow battery. Removing the batteries, plugging it in, nothing gets rid of it!
Blogging My Life...