Thursday, May 31, 2007

Google Reader offline access


So I launched Google Reader this morning (it's been a couple of days) and saw this at the top:



google reader top bar



I clicked the "Offline" link and got this pop-up window:



google reader offline pop-up



This just makes Google Reader all that much more useful.



Link  


Friday, May 25, 2007

Stuff like this cracks me up


Here's text from an e-mail I got from Qwest:




Your bill will now reflect one of these new Qwest Broadband names:




  • Qwest Choice™ DSL is now Qwest Connect®


  • Qwest Choice™ DSL Deluxe is now Qwest Connect® Silver


  • Qwest Choice™ DSL Premier is now Qwest Connect® Platinum





Launching a New E-mail Domain: @q.com


I had an English teacher that used to write  "SO WHAT?" in huge letters across our papers -- I only wish I could do this on the Qwest e-mail and send it back to them.







Sunday, May 20, 2007

Best gum I've had


I chew a lot of gum and have previously been a Trident fan, but have to say that Orbit's mojito mint is the best tasting gum I've had.



orbit mojito



Unfortunately they don't have it by the case at Costco yet, but you can find 3-packs at Target. 


Friday, May 18, 2007

Celebrating Spiderman III in controversy


I'd never heard of a comiquette before, but here's one that features Mary Jane from Spiderman:



spiderman comiquette



Not surprisingly there are a bunch of people that are upset about the comqiuette based on the imagery, but, of course, that's what makes it even more desirable.



Apparently enough people were not offended by the comiquette to not buy it because it's currently sold out and they manufacturer has a waiting list.



Pretty remarkable -- I always thought that comic books and comic book-based movies were memorialized in the comics themselves. 



Link  


Payphones


Payphones actually cost money.  



Most people have a cellphone and don't use payphones much any more. 



Payphones are disappearing at a pretty rapid clip.  Phone companies are outsourcing their payphones to third parties that contact businesses with payphones on their property and give businesses the option to pay to keep the payphone or the third party comes and removes it.  Most businesses don't want to pay to provide payphones and elect to have them removed.



payphone



So what's the next payphone?  If they don't figure out how to improve battery life on mobile devices, it could very well be a per minute rapid charging station. 



Photo by Grant Neufeld  


Feature request for WriteToMyBlog


I'm a pretty heavy user of IMGRed, which caches images for me in my posts.  Below is a cached version of the WriteToMyBlog logo image:



writetomyblog



To you as the reader, you see the image and the IMGRed caching is invisible, which is how everything should work.



Here's what I'd like to see on WriteToMyBlog:




When I click the "Insert/edit image" button and get the dialog box to put in the image URL, give me a check box that automatically appends "http://imgred.com/" before the URL that I paste in.




I love WriteToMyBlog and this truly is a wishlist feature request.



Link -- IMGRed



Link -- WriteToMyBlog 


Microsoft releases a .docx converter for Mac, but no support for other apps yet


It's a little hard for me to believe that this converter only converts to Rich Text files, but I guess it's better than nothing.  Note that the beta is set ot expire in December of 2007, so presumably MS will have a better solution that hopefully extends to all types of Office 2007 application document types before that.



Link 


Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Amazon to sell DRM-free music


amazon primeTechCrunch is reporting that Amazon will open a DRM-free music store later this year.  Quite frankly if Amazon doesn't have a catalog that is different than Apple's and if the pricing is identical, I will probably stick with iTunes Music Store.



Be interesting to see how it turns out.



Link


Monday, May 14, 2007

Thunderbird 2.0 reply position fix


Thunderbird defaults the position of your replies to an e-mail to appear below the e-mail that you are replying to.  While this makes sense fundamentally, Outlook, which most people are use to, does exactly the opposite: putting your replies above the original e-mail.  Obviously the Thunderbird default is disconcerting not only for the user of the Thunderbird client, but also the person receiving the reply as most of the e-mailing population is used to seeing the reply on top.  Furthermore, if you are deploying Thunderbird as an Outlook replacement (perhaps in conjunction with Google Apps), you want to make sure that it is as "Outlook-y" as possible.



Here's how to fix it (click the picture to get to the larger size):



thunderbird reply config



  • Go to "Tools"

  • Select "Account Settings"

  • Click "Composition and Addressing"

  • As per the image above, you'll see that "Automatically quote the original message when replying" is checked

  • Below that check box, you'll see the selection drop-down starting after "Then,"

  • Change the drop-down to "start my reply above the quote"

  • Note that if you are using a signature, you'll probably want to have that above the quote as well to be as "Outlook-y" as possible even though Thunderbird recommends putting your signature after the quote 


Monday, May 07, 2007

firedog Across America -- help out firefighters


firedog across americaThis is not a sponsored post, but rather an informational post with a call to action about what I believe to be a pretty cool program.  Those that have seen Circuit City ads have seen the firedog services that are offered such as network configuration, tv installation, etc.  Owing to the fact that "fire" is in the name, firedog is running a program that encouraged firehouses across the country to write stories that described ways that they went above and beyond the course of duty.  Ten finalists have been chosen and each firehouse will receive $20,000.00 in free equipment along with the essay writer receiving a $10,000.00 technology makeover for his or her house.



Following the selection of the 10 winners, firedog made videographies of each firehouse and now wants America to vote on the winning firehouse, which will receive an additional $100,000.00 in funding.  Here's the absolute best part: for every vote that is made, firedog will donate $1 to the chosen firehouse.



My wife was a firefighter/paramedic in both Arizona and Colorado, so I can definitely get behind a program like this.



Click the link below to vote and please share this.



Link  


Friday, May 04, 2007

On syncing your Blackberry and your Mac


I guess I didn't address this before, but have received some e-mail about it, so here are my thoughts on synchronizing your Blackberry and your Mac:




There are currently 2 sync solutions available to synchronize your Blackberry and Mac: PocketMac and  The Missing Sync.  Although I have use The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile, I have not yet tried the Blackberry version for this simple reason: PocketMac is free.  That's right, RIM licensed PocketMac as their official Blackberry OSX software, so you can get it free of charge.  I've been using PocketMac since I got my Pearl and it work great -- the interface looks just like iSync and synchronizing couldn't be easier.  The Pearl actually detects when it is connected via USB and allows me to choose if I want to enable mass storage mode for the memory card, which allows me to easily add/remove ringtones, wallpaper, pictures, etc.



The Missing Sync seems to perform many of the same functions as PocketMac and I would highly recommend it if you are a basic or non-advanced user as the interface is very polished and interaction with everything on the device happens via its application.  Bear in mind, however, that you pay $40 for that convenience.




My vote's for PocketMac, so that's the link you'll find again below (note that the download link will take you to RIM's site where you'll have to give them some personal info in order to download the software).



Link  


Contactify


Contactify allows you to easily create a simple form that people can use to reach you via e-mail rather than posting your actual e-mail address (or an image of your e-mail address or a version of your e-mail address with things spelled out with goofy characters).  So here's the link for my blog e-mail address:




www.contactify.com/b5bd9




This would be much cooler if I could put a widget directly on my blog, but it's still pretty cool.  Actually, it would also be cool if you could just send an e-mail to my Contactify ID, but then there are already a bunch of services that offer that.



What's super-funny is that on the "Contact Us" page, Contactify provides an actual e-mail address rather than forcing you to use their service -- makes me nervous that they don't trust their own product enough.



Link  


Wednesday, May 02, 2007