Maven Mapper's

The Trifecta of BlogWorld, New Media Expo & Las Vegas WordCamp 2009

2009-10-20T15:43:00.001-05:00

Originally posted in full at Softduit Media.

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Last weekend I ventured back to BlogWorld & the New Media Expo and Las Vegas WordCamp. The great thing is that all three conferences were consolidated in the Las Vegas Convention Center. I closed out WordCamp with a Session on How to Design a WordPress Theme in Minutes. The video from the event is not yet available, but the slides are below:

Design Your 1st WordPress Theme IN MINUTES!

View more presentations from Brett Bumeter.

This was an expanded version of the ‘Intro’ level presentation that I provided a few weeks ago at WordCamp Birmingham.

The big difference is that I demonstrated how to use multiple themes in a single WordPress configuration. Multiple themes that anyone could design and later iterate modifications themselves. I also highlighted a few of the techniques that I utilized to build our strategic partner’s site at Grass Shack Events & Media.

Here is the basic code that I utilized to create and call a default header as well as alternate headers based on an if then else selection:

<?php
//
// example of using header file based on pages
// note that you can either use page ID, Page Name or Page Slug
//
// this one uses page title

if (is_page()){
include(TEMPLATEPATH.'/header-business.php');
}
else {
include(TEMPLATEPATH.'/header-default.php');
}
?>

This month I will also create additional step by step video tutorials to share with people that were unable to attend this session. Alternately, if you would like me to speak at a conference or event in your area, please contact me to discuss availability.

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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WordCamp Birmingham 2009 Presentation Slides – Design Your First WordPress Theme in Minutes

2009-09-26T09:54:00.001-05:00

Brett Bumeter is presenting today at WordCamp Birmingham teaching people how to design their first theme in minutes.

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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I’ll make more more materials available later today, but here is my initial slide presentation for WordCamp Birmingham. This is just the opening remarks for the actual mentored demonstration. Hoping to add video of the meat and potatoes of this presentation after its done.

The main goal of this presentation is to help everyone give this a try, and if possible design their own theme, while I guide the audience through the process.

If you want to follow along during the presentation, I recommend downloading the free trial software from Artisteer or Cnet

1. Go to Artisteer & follow the instructions to download the free trial via Cnet (Mac users navigate to the News tab, scroll down and download the Mac OSx version of Artisteer)

*If you are using a Mac with Snow Leopard 10.6, there is a early beta (download trial beta) that is workable for most users so far, that early release by Apple has the team at Artisteer working over time like so many other companies I suspect.

2. Install the free trial software (works on PCs or Macs) & generate your theme.

Design Your First Word Press Theme In Minutes Word Camp Birmingham Brett Bumeter Softduit Media

View more presentations from Brett Bumeter.

For more information on the Theme Design Contest . . . see ->

Enter the WordPress ‘License to Design’ Theme Contest 2.0

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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Enter the WordPress ‘License to Design’ Theme Contest 2.0

2009-09-24T03:43:00.001-05:00

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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Between now and the end of BlogWorld in mid October, we are going to run a WordPress Theme design contest for new designers or people that want to learn how to design a WordPress theme for the first time....

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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Social Media Trends & Statistics

2009-08-19T12:09:00.001-05:00

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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Here’s a very good video that shares some insights in where social media is at today, where its been, and likely where its going.

This is probably one of those videos that you will want to watch a couple times, just to make sure you understand the insights and information within.

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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Cheapest Price on Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Available Now

2009-07-20T16:29:00.001-05:00

Note: Cross posted from Maven Mapper's Information.

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I’ve been covering Dragon Naturally Speaking from Nuance for a long time but have not seen the prices this low before.

Right now you can buy Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 for $29.99! For your average user, that’s all you need! If you want to have the extra ability to utilize an MP3 voice recorder (I use a Sony) you can get the Preferred version for as low as $117.99 and the ‘wireless’ version for $155 (that’s bluetooth wireless, I personally use an after market 2.6ghz wireless logitech headset that will work with any version).

You could buy the basic version for $30 and an $90 logitech clearchat wireless headset for a total price of $120 or just jump to Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 bluetooth wireless at $155.

No matter what these are great prices. Typically the lowest prices you will se are about $80 for Basic, $150 for preferred and $250 for bluetooth wireless. The best part about this is that at $30 for Basic, this is a great price for a first time user to get in and see just how great this software is these days.

Note: Cross posted from Maven Mapper's Information.

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Social Media Douche Bags Agree, Its Cool to ‘Say’ Sponsored Tweets Suck – White Paper

2009-07-10T23:44:00.001-05:00

Note: Cross posted from TOP 10 TECH.

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The Social Media Douche Bag Cabal that runs the world recently convened meetings in Las Vegas, San Francisco, LA, and NYC to confirm amongst themselves that they were all in agreement that the company pitch to be issued by Social Media Douche Bags around the world would be that Sponsored Tweets Suck....

Note: Cross posted from TOP 10 TECH.

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Greatest WordPress Theme Generator Now Available for Macs!

2009-06-28T14:53:00.001-05:00

Since November of 2008, PC User’s have benefited from the WordPress Theme Generator called Artisteer and now that WordPress Generator desktop application is available for Apple / Mac users. The initial Mac beta was just released and people that purchase/have purchased a PC license will also have the ability to use the license on a Mac or vice versa on a PC.

I have been giving demonstrations of WordPress as a Content Management System for several months which includes a demo of Artisteer and the first question that is always asked is, “Does Artisteer work on a Mac?”

Now the answer is YES! Artisteer does work on Macs.

Better yet, existing Artisteer users already know that when you purchase a license, that license will receive free upgrades for a year. I have personally created almost 100 WordPress themes since purchasing Artisteer last fall, and I have significantly benefited from many many upgrades to the software. This latest upgrade ads more Avatar support for WordPress, ads support for Dot Net Nuke and past upgrades provided support for Joomla & Drupal templates and much much more.

here’s the latest news release from Artisteer about the Mex Mac Capability

Artisteer for Mac (Beta) has arrived!
Artisteer 2.2 for Mac (Beta) is now available by clicking here. Couple interesting facts:

Artisteer for Mac joins the family of products based on cross-platform .NET framework known as Mono.

Artisteer might be the first product for Mac OS utilizing the ribbon interface first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows.

Technical notes and known issues for beta testers:

Artisteer for Mac runs on Intel based hardware with OS X version 10.5 (Leopard).

Artisteer for Mac requires X11 which is usually installed by default on OS X 10.5.

Artisteer may require approx 1 minute to start the first time after installation.

The "Open" and "Save" dialogs display Windows style folder structure and may require additional navigation to desired Mac folders.

The top Mac menu bar does not offer an option to quit Artisteer. Use the Artisteer menu, keyboard shortcut 'Command'+'Q', or the red window close button to quit.

Keyboard shortcuts stop working after clicking anywhere within the web design preview area.

Certain amount of instability and limitations (as above) are expected due to limitations of the current Mono framework 2.4.

There is a slight chance that your Mac computer may freeze when using Artisteer (this happened once in our tests). Please save all your work often in case you need to reboot your computer.

Customers who purchased an Artisteer license can use it on both PC and Mac computers (one each) during the beta period. An official release date of the Mac version will be planned after receiving detailed issue reports from our beta testers and determining how much work is needed to resolve those issues.
Please send feedback and report reproducible issues to our support via the Contact Us page.

Artisteer version 2.2 update
We are releasing a new update to Artisteer 2.2 to resolve a few recent issues reported in the previous version 2.2 Beta.

Artisteer: Added "Options" button in the export dialog.

Artisteer: Added DotNetNuke Skin export announced below.

Artisteer: Fixed a bug with the font size being altered by changing Articles -> Line Height.

WordPress: Improved compatibility with Avatar List plugin.

Joomla: Resolved custom footer not showing up.

Joomla: Resolved centered menus not shown correctly.

Joomla: Resolved a problem with the text "'30', 'height' => '30' near h2" showing on some pages.

Joomla: Fixed incorrect path to spacer.gif in script.js file in Joomla templates.

Drupal: Fixed an issue with broken image appearing instead of a logo uploaded in Drupal.

The new version 2.2.0.17297 can be obtained by clicking here and may become the officially released version 2.2 after additional testing.

Note: Cross posted from The LiveWriterz.

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Labs on the Lake | Monetizing Blogs and Traffic Building by Networking-Week of 5/18

2009-05-18T02:53:00.001-05:00

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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This week we are kicking off two more Labs on the Lake. This week we will hold two labs. One today, Monday(5-18 at 2pm est), covering the topic of Blog Monetization, walking through some blog revenue sources, adding some new ones to the list and giving some advice on how to navigate these options which can be murky on a good day. [Meetup RSVP link]

This like many of our topics will be covered several times. Blog Monetization is definitely not something that can be covered in a single day, let alone a single lab. Many people are looking for ways to earn extra money, raise revenue to market their companies more, or even start their own business. We will help people get started with the process of making money with a blog (a blog is required to follow along with this lab in person or on our live show at Mogulus.com/wificove ).

Then on Thursday(5/21 2 pm est) we are going to cover the topic of building traffic through networking. [Meetup RSVP link]

Again this is a very deep topic and one we will revisit many times in the future, but you can tune into either lab at 2 PM est or if you are in the Charlotte area, RSVP through our Meetup group (cost $5 to attend) and spend an afternoon on the lake learning some great web skills that will make you money.

We are following up on our first Lab on the Lake last week, which covered WordPress Installation, WordPress Configuration, & WordPress Theme design with our favorite WordPress Theme Generator-Artisteer. The video from this event (our first live broadcast) didn’t take to well, but we got the bugs worked out the next night when we held our weekly WordPress Meetup in Charlotte and do expect this weeks events to go off without a hitch.

Note: Cross posted from Softduit Media.

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Zero S – Cool Electric Motorcycle Under $10k

2009-05-03T19:21:00.001-05:00

TweetDoubler – Is It April Fool’s Day Yet?

2009-03-31T23:58:00.001-05:00

I’m guessing this app from razorfish is an April Fool’s day prank.

Compressing text – Hah!

Limited Beta expired at midnight on April 1 – Double Hah!

The Amazon Kindle might be Getting Push Back from Authors

2009-02-26T23:04:00.001-05:00

If free music downloads in the late 90 can provide any lesson, then you should go out and get a Kindle now, and stock up on books while things are still cheap!

BEING president of too many well-meaning organizations put my father into an early grave. The lesson in this was not lost on me. But now I am president of the Authors Guild, whose mission is to sustain book-writing as a viable occupation. This borders on quixotic, given all the new ways of not getting paid that new technology affords authors. A case in point: Amazon’s Kindle 2, which was released yesterday.

The Kindle 2 is a portable, wireless, paperback-size device onto which people can download a virtual library of digitalized titles. Amazon sells these downloads, and where the books are under copyright, it pays royalties to the authors and publishers.

Serves readers, pays writers: so far, so good. But there’s another thing about Kindle 2 — its heavily marketed text-to-speech function. Kindle 2 can read books aloud. And Kindle 2 is not paying anyone for audio rights.

True, you can already get software that will read aloud whatever is on your computer. But Kindle 2 is being sold specifically as a new, improved, multimedia version of books — every title is an e-book and an audio book rolled into one. And whereas e-books have yet to win mainstream enthusiasm, audio books are a billion-dollar market, and growing. Audio rights are not generally packaged with e-book rights. They are more valuable than e-book rights. Income from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and publishers, afloat.

You may be thinking that no automated read-aloud function can compete with the dulcet resonance of Jim Dale reading “Harry Potter” or of authors, ahem, reading themselves. But the voices of Kindle 2 are quite listenable. There’s even a male version and a female version. (A book by, say, Norman Mailer on Kindle 2 might do a brisk business among people wondering how his prose would sound in measured feminine tones.)

And that sort of technology is improving all the time. I.B.M. has patented a computerized voice that is said to be almost indistinguishable from human ones. This voice is programmed to include “ums,” “ers” and sighs, to cough for attention, even to “shhh” when interrupted.

In Case You Missed it Personal Privacy is Dead on the Internet

2009-02-20T08:35:00.001-05:00

Privacy is dead on the internet. There are millions of examples of this, but yesterday TMZ found a new way to prove it by publishing pictures of the battered face of pop star Rihanna. Her current boyfriend, Chris Brown, is accused of beating her during an argument.

The LA Police are investigating the leak of this photo, which would seem to confirm the photo as a real photo as opposed to a doctored photoshop image.

The internet and technology in general make it far too easy to share information. This is not a good thing and not a bad thing. It is a reality. In this case, someone knowingly seems to have provided this photo to TMZ for sensational value. However, there are many technologies these days that share images, video and sound of people all the time. Often they don’t even know what they are sharing.

Facial recognition software is even making it possible for images or video that have been posted years earlier but not tagged. So even if a person thinks that a moment for years or decades ago is water under the bridge future technologies might re-expose what might have felt like a private moment.

Google Earth – a Monopoly Play?

2009-02-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

Today, I installed Google Earth on my computer. This is a task that I go through every now and then. Its a really cool application but is all to infamous for crashing any and all of the computers in our house hold (all relatively new computers, the oldest being 2 years old, the newest 3 months).

This time I noticed that without even giving me an opt out, Google also installed the Google Chrome browser on my machine. :(

It instantly reminded me of the problems with Microsoft Windows 95/89 and auto installing Internet Explorer, plus making it very difficult to later remove it. Now, Google has a US Monopoly on Search, and they are trying to capture something similar world wide. I often find myself amazed every time they make a move that helps to demonstrate that they are not only a monopoly, but a monopoly that is abusing its power.

Satellite Traffic Collision between Iridium and Russian Satellites

2009-02-12T08:19:00.001-05:00

Two satellites had a fender bender in space. Both satellites were totaled out and are expected to be towed back to earth by gravity.

An iridium satellite collided with a Russian satellite launched in 1993. The Russian satellite has not operated in approximately 10 years. Iridium satellites are typically low orbit communications satellites, which leads me to speculate that the non-functional Russian satellite might have been in a more rapid orbital decay.

The Russian satellite weighed over a ton (slightly more than a car) and the Iridium satellite weighed in at over a 1,000 pounds or about as much as a very large Harley Davidson.

CNBC Charges to Show You the News?

2009-02-11T16:06:00.001-05:00

I find this to be incredibly moronic or possibly demonstrative that traditional media has lost the ability to keep their business profitable through TV broadcasts.

Paying $10 per month to have the ability to watch CNBC on your computer, just seems dumb.

Do they strip out the commercials?
Do they remove the commercials from their website?
What makes it worth this much money?

Camera Phones Everywhere

2009-02-09T20:08:00.001-05:00

Tonight as I watch President Obama give a speech about the economic Stimulus package, I noticed that several members of the press in the front of the room were capturing video of the President in the Oval Office.

Now this is live video at an event that is also being televised by every major network. Is it important or necessary for any given person, especially a member of the press to ALSO get some video of the President on their camera phone?

No its not, but everyone these days is doing it. Go to a concert and you will see hundreds of cell phones recording video at any given minute or second of the concert. The same goes for all live events. Its just a reality of our culture these days.

If you are involved in a live event there will be cameras. Odds are you may even get caught up in the stream yourself and there is already free facial recognition software starting to become mainstream on photo sharing sites.

Soon we will have an index or automated tagging system for every person that shows up at every event around the world. Are we ready for that level of visual inclusion and transparency at the expense of personal privacy?

That’s Hope You Can Take to Court?

2009-02-05T08:35:00.001-05:00

Mannie Garcia and Shepard Fairey both share a hope that is likely to come true, it is a hope of having their day in court. Through the Associated Press, Mannie is litigating Shepard for Shepard’s use of Mannie’s photograph of Barack Obama which Shepard converted into the famous ‘Hope’ poster.

If you listen real hard, you can just hear that faint sound of hope in the background. If there are other noises making it difficult for you to identify the sounds of change, try and isolate the sound that rings ‘kuching’. :)

Verizon’s Cell Phone Booster is STUPID!

2009-01-26T17:28:00.001-05:00

I realize it is not the best headline we have ever written, but sometimes you just have to classify things correctly in titles. Using some catchy or trendy title to call the Verizon Network Extender anything other than STUPID is . . . well STUPID!

If you haven’t heard of this, Verizon (along with competitors like Sprint and T-Mobile) are coming out with their own branded devices that help to ‘extend’ the range of your cell phone. The primary reason for this need hinges upon the failure of mobile networks to actually get coverage of cell phones into people’s homes and sometimes into their workplaces.

Great, where’s the extender? My coverage at my home 20 minutes from Charlotte is terrible both for Verizon and T-Mobile.

Not so fast.

The Verizon Network Extender is essentially a mini-cell tower that works by using a customer's existing broadband Internet connection to provide coverage in an area up to 5,000 square feet. The femtocell, which is made by Samsung, can also enhance the ability to send text messages, surf the mobile Web, and download e-mail, but it doesn't support 3G speeds on Verizon's 3G network. ~ Informationweek

So let me get this straight. The consumer gets to pay $250 up front. They get to plug the device into their broadband connection so that they can use their phone at speeds slower than both broadband and 3G.

They are charging to provide a device that slows your cell phone connection down!

Well, that’s just stupid.

I tell you what, just get a Skype connection through your broadband and have your cell phone forwarded to Skype.

Alternatively go and by a power booster for about the same price (sold by third party providers). Then you can send and receive at faster speeds with more power, wonder why Verizon didn’t use one of those ‘real’ extenders?

Maybe they are trying to protect their broadband and home phone business.

Nothing Broken About This Technology – Plane Landing in Hudson River Video

2009-01-17T16:52:00.001-05:00

I often cover aspects of technology that appear broken, but the design, training and use of the technology in the case of the pilot that landed a plane in the Hudson River without losing any passengers is nothing short of amazing.

CES 2009 Officially Starts Tomorrow

2009-01-07T15:16:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is the official kickoff of the Consumer Electronics Show. It is expected that this year approximately 120,000 people (down from 160k last year) will come to Vegas for the show. I arrived yesterday to cover the event, see what is new, and more importantly catch up with many interesting people doing interesting things inside of and outside of social media.

Mobile post sent by brettbum using Utterli. Replies.

CES 2009 Officially Starts Tomorrow

2009-01-07T15:12:00.001-05:00

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CES 2009 Officially Starts Tomorrow

2009-01-07T15:09:00.001-05:00

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MacBook Wheel (keyboardless Laptop) Early Video

2009-01-05T22:56:00.001-05:00

I have posted a video of the new MacBook Wheel at http://www.viralgrapevine.com/…-macworld/

If you are an Apple fan, you probably already know about this and may have already pre-ordered, but for everyone else I wanted to share this early look at the image and the video.

(still trying to get the video into a form that I can upload to Utterli for those of you reading this article on Utterli)

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Big Mac Daddy Has Hormone Issues

2009-01-05T12:19:00.001-05:00

Jobs’ Cancer Fan Boys Snubbed | Shareholders Left without Succession Plan

Much to the chagrin of many morbid fan boys that want to blog about Steve Jobs fighting cancer or something terrible, apparently the Daddy of Mac’s simply has hormones, or that is does not have enough of the right hormones to hold or keep his weight.

Hormonal issues typically derive from problems with the thyroid gland (No we did NOT say he has Thyroid cancer). This can happen with people of any age, but are most common with menopausal women.

Jobs wrote a letter to the Apple Community, essentially telling everyone not to get their panties in a twist about his weight loss, while basically admitting that he did not do anything about the problem until a ‘few weeks’ ago, or about the time everyone got in an uproar about the problem and Apple’s stock tanked(dramatic term for going down more than it should have all things in the financial world considered).

Unfortunately, even though Jobs is doing something about his hormone imbalance, no one has yet mentioned much about getting down to the business of building a successful succession plan for the company that tried to evolve past Jobs and failed in a spectacular fashion.

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

Apple’s Jobs being treated for ‘hormone imbalance’; Will remain at helm | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

The Age of the Beta Consumer Electronic Gadget – Probably Sucks for Consumers

2008-12-21T23:21:00.001-05:00

Google recently leaked a code road map that indicates that we can all expect the real Google Android mobile phone to launch sometime between January 26 and April 2009. The G Phone that is offered on T-Mobile networks was always basically a beta gadget.

Google loves to do beta’s on the internet and typically offers them for free, so why not offer a beta gadget and charge for it no less!

That appears to be exactly what they did. You take on part, early adopters, 4 parts semi-developed good ideas, mix it up with some out-sourced manufacturing and give it a healthy over dose of Google aps, and you basically have the G-Phone.

The only thing is that the G Phone was never really ready for prime time. Google just charged people to beta test it for them, so that they could perfect the device a bit more before launching the ‘real’ G Phone now known as the G2, as in ‘Geee We get to buy 2!’

Now, the first G Phone was a decent looking device (in the age before touch screens. Plus, it had that stupid slide up access to the Qwerty keyboard. Why not just have the hole face slide up? There’s nothing important about those buttons on the right, why leave them in the way of your thumbs? Despite the stupid slide up thingy, it was seriously missing one important feature. It lacked video camera capability.

You’d think the owners of YouTube might have had a better grip on the importance of video?

The G(eeee)2 has a 5 megapixel camera and a VGA video camera that should not only support video messaging, but video calls (and presumably live video streaming via services like QIK. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good feature to add, but WTF was Google thinking launching the G1 without it? Launching the G2 with video capability is far from ‘brilliant’ its just the bare minimum necessary for Google to stay in the game.

So for all you non-sucker early adopters that wanted to pay Google to beta test their phone that wasn’t ready to come off the drawing room table, the real G Phone should be launched sometime soon. If Google really has there stuff together, they’ll launch to this new phone to the CE industry in 2 weeks at CES in Las Vegas. If they can’t make that launch date, then we can all probably expect a late summer launch to the actual public.

Why Does My Verizon Wireless Aircard Always Have to Be Updated When I'm Pressed for time?

2008-12-15T11:10:00.001-05:00

Yes, its been a while since I had the opportunity to talk about Verizon Wireless. I have been fortunate and have not had to use their services in a couple months until today when I was traveling. Of course, as soon as I tried to connect to VZW, I get the nasty message that my air card needs to update.

These silly updates can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 minutes. I was lucky this time, and it was only about 4 minutes, but these always seem to happen when I’m in a hurry. That goes double for those times when I’m in a hurry and I’m traveling!

How do they know I’m on the road, when I do not have a Verizon Wireless cell phone?

Must be that blasted air card. ;)

Economy Problems Making it Hard to Buy New Laptops

2008-10-09T10:30:00.001-05:00

So the other day, I made plans to go to my local Best Buy and purchase a new laptop. I had it all figured out based on a Best Buy ad that I had received over the weekend.

Video of me talking about my plans for a new laptop with blootooth capabilities.

Unfortunately, when I got to the store, all of the laptops on display were old models. You see there was one thing that I couldn’t trust to specs and ads.

My initial reaction when I couldn’t buy a laptop.

The Keyboard!

I have had a toshiba for almost 2 years now and its a great computer, but the keyboard has sucked since day one. I say sucked because it has caused me grief from the early days with keys that stick, and an impact level that jars my poor sensitive finger tips (yeah, I’m whining a little bit, but when I pay a thousand dollars for any whiz bang gadget, I don’t expect it to cause me physical pain!).

Image via Wikipedia

So this time around when I wanted to upgrade, I hoped to buy another Toshiba, but only if they have better keyboards.

Well anyway, they didn’t offer the new laptops on display just some very beat up old models (which might not even be in stock)??

When I tried the old models of toshiba on display, the small laptops 14 and 13 inch screens, they had great keyboards. But the 15” and 17” laptops had keyboards that felt worse (looked better) than my own two year old toshiba

Can I get a WTF?

So today, I have resolved to head back to Best Buy. I’m going to buy one of those laptops on sale in the flyer, site unseen(nice oxymoron that one!).

I talked with my wife and she has volunteered to be a guinea pig. You see we were looking to get 2 laptops. One for her and one for me.

So she is going to try it out, if she likes it she will keep it. If not, I’ll take it back and Best Buy and Toshiba can deal with it.

If I like it as well, then I will go back and buy a second one.

Its a stupid way to shop, but that’s the way it is …

As a side note, I looked at the BlueLabel Toshiba on display. It had a great keyboard, but only 2 USB slots. That seemed pretty stupid. My current toshiba has 4, and that doesn’t seem like enough most of the time. The bluelabel laptop they had on display was also not the same model that they have on their website.

Double Doh!

sVideo Streaming Your Kids Soccer Game to the Grandparents

2008-10-04T14:39:00.001-05:00

Today, I’m sitting at a soccer field waiting for my son’s soccer game to begin. I brought my laptop to catch up on a few things during their warm up before the game begins. While I was sitting here I had an idea that I’m going to try out next week.

I’m going to try and stream my son and 2 daughters soccer games to my parents (my kids grandparents). My parents live about 800 miles away in Illinois and can’t make it here for the games. They do have a good internet connection and I have more gadgets and connectivity than is really good for a person.

So here is what I’m going to do. I’m going to bring my Panasonic video camera, set it up on a tripod near my car. I’m going to power my laptop and camera off of a DC inverter taking power from the car battery.

Then I am going to connect my computer via my Verizon Wireless Air card. I’m probably going to use either Ustream or Mogulus to then broadcast the game live to my parents. They’ll be able to watch the game like a TV show on their computer. If I use Mogulus, I’ll even be able to save the recording for a download at some point in the future.

I’m going to have to work on the logistics plan just a little bit, but all in all this should solve several problems.

My parents will get to see the games
They won’t have to wait for me to create a DVD and fedex it to them (which almost always takes too long, gets delayed and doesn’t happen)
My parents will feel more immediately engaged and can then talk to my kids soon after the game about how it just went.
I’m sure there are some other benefits as well, such as my other family members can watch also if they want.

Free Conference Call Options – Transcription and Recording Available with Paid Version

2008-10-04T00:36:00.001-05:00

Since I left the corporate world, I've been working as a consultant and publisher for several years now. I used to keep a standard web conferencing account which I would utilize for all my conference calls. But these days, I don't need conference call services quite as much and when I do, I need to be flexible and often times have to use a number of different services.

That usually means a lot of last-minute downloads and installs, which can clutter up my desktop pretty quickly. That said, when I need a conference call service, I oftentimes forget which one to use and I can never seem to locate them at my fingertips.

Recently, just because of the name, I have been able to easily remember the service freeconference.com. They offer scheduled conference calls and conferences on demand for free. If you want to make a toll-free conference call that does cost money and a rate of about $.10 per minute.

These days with Skype and unlimited cell phone minutes, I rarely care about toll-free calls. Below are the details of the two free services that they offer.

For publishers like myself you might also be interested in their ability to record a phone call and transcribe the text of that conversation. This is not an à la cart option and is only available if you use the paid version with the toll-free number at $.10 a minute.

I know a number of consultants and trainers that use this type of service to great advantage as they cover all sorts of topics on things as diverse as business intelligence systems to writing books and getting published to podcast that help people troubleshoot problems with their cars and find cheap auto parts.

Web-Scheduled Standard Snapshot

Maximum size:
150 Callers

Maximum time:
4 hours

Dial-in Number:
Long distance number assigned during the online scheduling process

Access Codes:
Participant Access Code assigned by us or created by you

Organizer Access Code assigned by us, changeable on the 'SETTINGS' page

Begins:
When first caller enters the conference

Ends:
When last caller exits the conference

Reservationless Conferences

Reservationless Standard

Reservationless Standard is a free telephone conferencing service† that can be used instantly and securely without the assistance of an operator. To get a reservationless number, sign up and receive a dedicated dial-in number and access code. You do not have to provide us with any information regarding your conference, including the date and time, estimated number of Participants, Dial-in Number, Participant Access Code, etc. Everyone who calls the same Dial-in Number and enters the same Participant Access Code at the same time will be connected together

Technorati tags: conference call systems, free conference call system, transcribing conference calls

gPhone Spotted in the Wild!

2008-09-18T22:28:00.002-05:00

T-Mobile is not rolling out a new 3g network in the Charlotte area any time soon that I know of having just completed the purchase of Suncom and still winding that into the company through the end of the year.

Yesterday, I teased some decently photos of the gPhone spotted out in the wild, and today I deliver. The official release date of the Android-powered T-Mobile Dream is the 23 of this month (a day quickly approaching - http://mashable.com/…ember-23/).

One of my super secret spies at Google just happened to trade contact information with someone who admitted that the phone in his hand was the fabled Dream.

Most of the details of the plans and specs are publicly available in various spots around the blogosphere, as are some leaked photos, but it would appear that there are a few of these roaming the wild and in regular use, as the fellow in question appeared to be his primary phone.

On the larger image, zooming in shows a bit of a peak at the interface, but from what I can tell it isn't significantly different from screenshots I've seen elsewhere.

Who's excited to grab one of these? At a price point fabled to be under $200, I know I am.

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That said, I think I am going to be in the market for Google's phone. Seems a lot more practical than an LCD HDTV or something, and compared to the iPhone it at least has a real keyboard!

Ergonomically Incorrect But Sexy

2008-09-17T10:42:00.001-05:00

People will do weird things to look sexy. They will wear uncomfortable clothing, shoes and more. They'll go through strange procedures and act un-natural. For years I spent a great deal of time training people on good ergonomics and posture.

Today, I received some stray email for BitDefender that must defend my computer from stray bits . . . or pieces.

I really could care less, but I did notice their ad image that accompanied their offer for two reasons, but before I mention the reasons I should mention that I am a male and I do take notice of attractive women.

That Caveate Aside, I noticed that

This is really bad ergonomic posture
If there were no computer involved this would be a sexy picture

As an ergonomic trainer, the image actually turned me off the product, and that made me pause. The conventional wisdom in marketing (for right or for wrong) is that using attractive models in images with products can help sell products.

But in this case, the image despite conventional wisdom does the opposite. The pose is just too unnatural. Not in a Cirque de Solei contortionist moving pianos into moving trucks while standing on their hands bent backwards and in half with the piano balanced on their toes unnatural, but just from a reality test kind of way.

I can't imagine ever seeing someone sitting on their knees on a tile floor typing on a laptop. So from that perspective, I suspect that this image and campaign might not go anywhere so you better watch out for those flying bits and pieces.

Candidates as Agents of Technological Change or Maybe Obstacles

2008-09-13T14:22:00.001-05:00

This afternoon I wanted to share an excerpt from a conversation that is still evolving over at Utterz about John McCain, his war injuries and either his inability or unwillingness to embrace technological solutions for productivity, like email and voice recognition.

The conversation unwinds with the titles below as JFMunger on Utterz mentions (War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet) that people should not pick on McCain for not using email.

The Reason: McCain's war injuries prevent him from typing.

I personally don't buy that excuse. John McCain is an American, I'm an American and us Americans don't let things limit us. If we face an obstacle we work to overcome it so that we can advance. That is doubly true when it comes to using technology to help us get past an obstacle.

Which prompted me to write the response, "Someone Give That Man a VR Crackberry!"

So here is the thing, maybe McCain has not heard of voice recognition software like Dragon Naturally Speaking. Maybe he doesn't know that you don't have to type with your fingers. Maybe he doesn't realize that VR can help you to type at 150 words per minute. That's all fine, but its not fine to sit back and use the same excuse for a few decades. Its not fine for the people and friends around him not to point out that there are solutions that can enable him to lead a more productive and full life.

We're not talking about a person reluctant to don a Halloween costume and head to a party, we're talking about a person that chooses every day to be less connected to the people around him and to inefficiently hire people to read, interpret, and respond to his personal communications.

He needs to do this not only to be more efficient and effective but to be more in touch.

Original Conversation Series

War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet

2008-09-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

This is the initial commentary that kicked off the conversation at Utterz and the insight into what might make John McCain a better candidate and more productive American.

Barak Obama criticizes John McCain because he does not use email. Really cheap -- and stupid--- shot. War injuries prevent McCain not only from typing on a keyboard, but also tying his own shoes or combing his hair. See the Boston Globe article by Mary Leonard on March 4, 2000. Move on, to something real, Barak, and quit embarrassing yourself.

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Note its not like we are asking John McCain to go out and get a job or something in this conversation. We're talking about a person that does not utilize one of the most popular forms of communication in the world today, possibly even more popular than the telephone. Email is not that difficult, it should not be that intimidating and its not like we are talking about weight loss pills, viagra, or some chemical fix for an ailment. We're simply talking about not utilizing people as buffers of communication for a person that might take control of the most powerful country in the world.

War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet

2008-09-13T13:55:00.006-05:00

There are many voice recognition softwares. Also what are the 100's of assistants good for if they can't read him his email?

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It was this response by AlwayaAMama at Utterz that helped to give me the insight that John McCain may be stalling stubbornly with an excuse as opposed to embracing technologies that could benefit him, his campaign and the country. Not to mention if he were to overcome yet another one of life's challenges it would be a hell of a story for the campaign. Its not like John McCain is trying to get some sort of settlement through a South Carolina injury lawyer so that hey can hang out and drink beer in front of the TV for the rest of his days. Obviously, that is not the type of guy John McCain is, but somewhere between the hero that held out against his Vietnamese tortures and the man that refuses to use a productivity increasing communications tool like email, we find the candidate that might run the country in a few months.

War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet

2008-09-13T13:55:00.005-05:00

You do not need fingers to read/type email.

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Someone Give That Man a VR Crackberry!

2008-09-13T13:54:00.000-05:00

Very true, I use Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 myself and it is amazing.

I think the wider point here, is that McCain is demonstrating an inability to adapt to new times and new technologies.

America did not work its way forward in the world by resting on our laurels and using the same old technology over and over again. If we were, my great grandfather would have taught me how to plow a line with a jackass and brass plow. In fact, not even my great grandfather was so limited as to not adapt to new technologies.

We have people losing jobs as new technologies and cheaper labor replace them. For those people to have a chance at making a living, taking care of their families, and keeping their self respect high and moving forward with all other Americans they have to find their way with new technology and productivity tools.

I'm 35 and I've had 7 careers already. I've designed my way out of jobs to get promoted, creating solutions that automated my own job into oblivion. I didn't do that out of a protectionistic sense of trying to keep the buggy whip industry afloat with government bailouts. I did that because that is exactly what Americans do.

We find better, faster, cheaper ways to achieve our goals no matter what the obstacle, no matter what our disability or impediment.

We are a land of underdogs and over achievers.

McCain has a number of qualities that I like, but this is not one of them. He needs to see the technological light and he needs to do it this month.

He showed extremely savvy political leadership by exploiting Barack Obama's weakness in judgment. McCain picked a woman for the ticket when Obama regressed and picked a safe old white guy (that I like by the way).

McCain showed that he's not some tired old dude that doesn't get it, and he showed that he still has a lot of potential as a leader. But good leaders adapt to the entire changing landscape.

Exploiting a political weakness of an opponent, might win you the battle, but adapting to changes in technology and exploiting those new technologies with savvy, that will win you the war and in this case, will keep America progressing as opposed to stagnating.

So will someone please stand up from John McCain's computer, sit that old dude down and get him to work taking care of his own email?

Give him a crackberry with voice recognition capabilities too while your at it.

ATTENTION MCCAIN CAMPAIGN

Any McCain PR people out there, call me! I've got a Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 preferred promotional products license that I'll donate today and McCain can get to work typing his own emails at 150 words a minute.

I'm not offering that up to help McCain win, but to help one more American (and fellow veteran) take a positive step forward towards independence for himself and all of us. We Americans can't afford to waste resources having someone else type our own emails.

My Name is Brett Bumeter and I typed this message myself. . . .

You can see some of my reviews on Dragon Naturally Speaking at

http://softduit.com/…peaking-9/

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Can You Really Mod a Prius to Improve Mileage?

2008-09-12T02:26:00.001-05:00

That is the question I asked myself when I saw this video Thunder's Prius EV mod install guide and commentary. This 15 minute video tutorial walks you through the process of mounting a Toyota Prius.

This step-by-step tutorial looks like something that your average person could probably do, but would your average person actually do it?

The actual device featured in the video cost somewhere between $70 and $90. That's not a lot of money if you're trying to save big bucks at the pump.

Add to that cost, 15 to 20 minutes worth of work on your car, and it doesn't seem like a big deal. That is of course if you don't electrocute yourself first, void your warranty on the car, or somehow managed to short out and kill your car altogether.

That said, next to driving cars, working on cars and making them run better than they do off the factory floor is probably just as American as apple pie and drag racing.

This particular device is supposed to allow you to switch your car into electric only mode, which is supposed to increase the efficiency of a vehicle. It's also supposed to be a common feature on the Toyota Prius when it is not sold in America .

That's right, this is one of those deals where the rest the world gets the benefit from a technology, plus Americans have to suck it up and deal with some governor like device it doesn't slow the car down,it does decrease its efficiency.

So after you install this device, you're supposed to basically get the same benefit that people around the world get when they drive same car.

Toyota Prius EV Mode Features

Easy Installation - In a few minutes this OEM option replication will activate the electric only feature from Toyota to drive for short distances such as around town or in parking lots to save fuel.
Fuel Efficiency - By limiting the use of the gas motor your Prius will have improved MPG.
Performance - Operating the electric motor at low speeds you will notice a bit more torque under acceleration.
Environmentally Friendly - No gas engine means better for the environment while EVMODE is engaged.
Step By Step Instructions - The EV Mode kit is designed for ease of installation and includes the step by step instructions. No cutting of wires.
Runs Seamlessly - The electric only feature can be turned on and used up to a speed of around 34 mph at which time it will automatically turn off and the car will operate as usual. Quickly and easily activate and/or turn off the electric mode when desired.
Maintained battery Life - Battery is prevented from going below 3 Bars by Toyota software in the Prius.
Engine automatically restarts when the battery needs to be recharged or if you need to accelerate quickly
EVMODE will improve your fuel economy. Results will vary based on driving conditions, geography and how aggressive you drive.

I have to admit, I do not fully understand the caveat that states "up to 34 mph with increased efficiency"

I do not know if that means that this will help your car run in only electric mode up until it hits 34 mph and then it switches into engine moderare burning fossil fuels,or to mean something else.

Plus I don't fully understand how this is different than what the car does by itself.That said I am very curious as to how many people might actually be making these types of adjustments to their car.My brother has installed new chipsin his own cars in the past as he's worked on a troublesome Camero dozens of years ago. Even my father, a very gifted mechanic, was looking at a couple of different devices that would and enable a person to reprogram the chip in their cars so that their car could burn gas more efficiently.Something akin to acarburetor tuneup in the old days I suppose.

In all truth, this doesn't look any more difficult than installing the power wire for the car stereo. But our society is increasingly moving towards more and more specialization to the point that your average person doesn't seem to work on cars very much these days.

So what do you think, could you envision yourself paying $70 for little device that helps you save some gas at the pump? Would you trust yourself to install this? Or would you even trust a mechanic to install this if you paid for the part?

The days when people only had to worry about developing a lead foot are long past. These days we are more likely to develop Plantar Fasciitis of the foot while sitting at a red light waiting for traffic, but that wait can burn a lot of gas, even in a prius without this type of mod.

Large Hadron Collider Inspires Death Threats Against Scientist from People Fearing World Ending Black Hole Creation

2008-09-09T11:19:00.001-05:00

Imagine someone flips a switch, and within seconds or minutes planet Earth is consumed and swallowed into a black hole. Sound like something straight out of science fiction or a B movie. Well it's that scenario that is prompting a number of people to send death threats to scientists are preparing to flip the switch and turn on a large Hadron collider.

This supercollider or particle accelerator, will be the world's largest, and some people feel that when launched a could trigger a worldwide cataclysm including the creation of a black hole that could destroy the planet. The collider will be 27 km in diameter and scientists hope to unlock a few new mysteries of the universe with this massive tool.

However, despite its great promise, many people worldwide have protested the construction of the particle accelerator, believing it could end the world. Many are fearful that the collider could spawn black holes, which they worry could devour the Earth. The creators of the LHC, some of the world's foremost scientists, say such concerns are unfounded and convey a lack of understanding about the project.
According to Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University, the public animosity is so severe that American Nobel prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received death threats. Professor Cox, typically sedate, adds irritatingly, "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t---. "

DailyTech - Large Hadron Collider to Go Online This Week Despite Death Threats

so this kind of raises the question, who is it that has oversight over scientists. Who is it that knows enough and has enough wisdom and given situation to confirm whether or not a scientific experiments could actually cause irreparable or life-threatening damage to planet Earth?

Unfortunately, anyone with half a brain knows that the human condition creates people even scientists, that do not always act in a way that is beneficial for the planet, for other people, or sometimes even for themselves.

I personally do not have enough information about this collider one way or another to know if it's a threat or not. From what I know about chemistry and physics, I suspect that it is not terribly threatening. That said, I have had a great deal of experience with Murphy's Law, and I know that things do go wrong and sometimes unexpected results to occur even with the most tried and tested tools. So who is to say that this particular tool might work as it is expected to work, or might fail miserably, or may even fail spectacularly.

When a developing country such as Iran attempts to create scientific experiments to help build up its own nuclear technologies, many people in Europe and the West turn a critical and harsh it to that endeavor. We do so often times because we do not trust the people controlling the tool. But we seem to turn a blind eye to ourselves when we do even your experiments with even less knowledge than a country like I ran that is simply following in the footsteps of many other countries.

We are breaking new ground, and don't really know where we will end up. We have hypotheses, but that doesn't always mean much, sometimes those hypocrisies can fail miserably and people will suffer the consequences, and sometimes those hypocrisies can fail and we can actually end up succeeding in strange and twisted ways, just ask just Christopher Columbus.

I don't know where this one's going, and I'm hoping for the best. That said, you might want to take pause next week is the flip is about to be switched on and consider your place in the universe. I'm not saying anyone's going to die or the plants going to implode or disappear, but it can't hurt for us to reflect on where we are today, and where we are going tomorrow before a few scientists handle some pool floats and throw us into the ocean of the universe.

Mythbusters Censored by Credit Card Companies

2008-09-02T13:34:00.001-05:00

The above screencap comes from an Engadget.com post which you can find here: http://www.engadget.com/…company-l/ and it reports on Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage's admission that the Discovery Channel caved under pressure from the credit card companies not to air an episode profiling the extreme hackability of RFID chips that are now appearing in credit cards.

The story originally comes from a video posted on Wired.com here: http://blog.wired.com/…ch-my.html which was previously posted on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch

So, now the truth is effectively been banned. This kind of thing pisses me off to no end--as the Engadget post points out, rather than spend money on finding a more secure solution to RFID's problems, these companies would rather spend money on lawyers to stop people from talking about RFID's problems.

In other words, rather than keeping our money safe, they'd rather be able to advertise the latest bell and whistle to get more customers.

This is why I don't have a credit card. This is why I wish I could function without a bank account--because banks aren't keeping my money secure. Remember that company that made a bunch of electronic balloting machines that were super easy to hack? They used to be called "Diebold" and guess what other kind of machine they make: Automated Teller Machines. Yep, the company that couldn't prove they could count our votes we're trusting to count our money.

Meanwhile, banks think RFID is the wave of the future. However, it's anything but. While the credit card companies won't let Discovery Channel show that Mythbusters episode (or let them even MAKE the episode), Engadget.com previously posted a video that details how easy it is to hack RFID. I reposted it here: http://thepete.com/…vulnerable

I'm all for technology (DUH!), but anyone who thinks that technology can be trusted not to fail hasn't used technology enough to know what they're talking about.

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Comcast Bandwidth Cap Sucks for Shareholders

2008-08-30T13:25:00.001-05:00

Comcast this week blundered their way into a decision that will likely go down in internet history as being blindly ignorant. Like IBM giving away the farm to Microsoft in the early 80's and Yahoo! giving away the farm to Google in the late 90's and TimeWarner giving away millions for AOL, Comcast just made a collosal mistake which is going to have terrible implications for its shareholders.

Comcast has chosen to limit bandwidth for its cable internet users.

Many Internet providers reserve the right to cancel the service of the most excessive users. The 250-gigabyte cap is Comcast’s way of specifying a longstanding policy of placing a limit on Internet consumption, and it comes after customer pushed for a definition of excessive use.
But on the Internet, consumer behavior does not stand still. As the technology company Cisco stated in a report last winter, “today’s ‘bandwidth hog’ is tomorrow’s average user.”
New York Times article

Now, this would presumably block people from downloading large files and 'slowing down the internet for other users on the block'. But if you look at what types of files make up large downloads, that is currently video.

Aha! They are trying to protect their own business of enabling people to watch video via cable. No good, enabling your customers to watch download movies via netflix if that cuts into PayPer View or On Demand downloads and sales.

But consider that Comcast has added an entirely new business line in the form of Cable Internet on the infrastructure it had already built for cable. They made the pie bigger, and now they are going to chase away customers from eating that bigger pie.

Why would a consumer opt to go with a service that blocks them from getting the full advantages of the internet?

They won't.

As an example, I today get cable internet from Time warner and actual Cable from Direct TV.

If I were still a comcast customer and they tried to pull this crap on me, I'd drop the cable internet and go with someone that didn't block me from getting what I wanted.

By making this move they have just taken away the value proposition of one of their hotest new business lines to save an old business line with a short life expectancy. Its kind of like selling someone Grohe faucets and then telling them that they can only dring 250 glasses of water.

Volcanic Microbes

2008-08-29T09:23:00.001-05:00

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MindManager Pro7 FileExplorer Tool Doesn't Sort File Types in a MindMap

2008-08-28T12:56:00.001-05:00

Today, I was digging in a little bit into the new and improved version of MindManager. It comes in the version of MindManager Pro 7 and among many other things includes an upgrade to one of the tools that I have consistently used the most in MindManager.

Its the File Explorer tool. In the past, you could establish a link to a folder on your PC, then click the file explorer button. MindManager would dig through the file list of that folder and create individual topics of all the files, with links to those topics. This was amazingly useful for managing project files of all types.

NEW VERSION UPRGRADES

In the new version, you no longer have to create the link on a topic first, just hit the file explorer tool first, browse for the destination folder and wallah, you have your list. Very Cool. :)

Even Better, the new tool has a refresh option, so you can refresh the file list in the mind map and see an updated list after you have added, changed or removed a file.

What's Missing from this Great MindManager Tool Still

MindManager still does not provide a useful of way of sorting and organizing topics in an automated fashion. You can filter, but not sort and organize. This tool would be much more useful if it brought those files in under different sorting options including:

Sorting by file type (Word, xls, pdf, wmv, etc)
Sorting by file Date
Sorting by File Name
Including excluding specific file types

MindManager is a great software tool and I highly recommend it. That said, the evolution of this software has been painfully slow over the last two years. They have done some interesting things with MindManager making it more stable, but they always go half way with their evolution.

User feedback is addressed (eventually) but they never really go above and beyond taking the user feedback and doing something even better than asked for. Mindjet gives 100% and not 110% in this way and it could be one of the reasons why their growth recipe has lost the momentum that they once had with versions 4 and 5.

Where's Utterz Going with Upgrade? Broken CSS?

2008-08-26T12:21:00.001-05:00

I'm seeing several broken css styles with the rendering on Utterz today.

Plus, the query to start typing what I'm doing (as opposed to typing a title) and then to actually type what I'm doing in the body section, is down right confusing.

When I first saw this, I thought Utterz had added one of those mood ring like tools found on Facebook. (ex. Brett is Happy today. Brett is soaking wet from rain today or Brett is lost in a social media design today. :) or Brett is . . . yada yada yada)

I'm seeing text input boxes that do not fit with in the theme for the body section of Utterz.

Also, the Add Audio Pic Video buttons seem a little buggy as well.

I have a feeling that there was an attempt to make things wider and address some of the feedback requests of the past, but something definitely seems to be wrong in the execution.

I'm browsing in Firefox 3 on a 17" laptop with resolution set at 1080 I think.

As to the text prompts to kick things off, I think using verbage that sounds Facebooky is a mistake for several reasons.

1. It limits Utterz capability.

2. There are facebook connotations here that will mess with people and make Utterz feel like a bit of a knock off, which it isn't.

3. three, three, . . . I forget what three was for, but

4. You can't see the body text box, when you start the title text box, and that is just confusing up front and on the back end when it does show up.

In general, this just doesn't feel very tight. Maybe that's an execution thing, but aside from the wider boxes, the purpose of some of these changes seems mis-directed.

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Introducing Document Management. Go Green!

2008-08-21T15:59:00.001-05:00

Document management is the conversion of paper documents into electronic images on your computer. Once on your desktop, these documents can be retrieved effortlessly in seconds.

Thousands of organizations around the world use document management every day instead of paper filing systems. The reasons for this change are simple:

Document Management:

• Prevents lost records.

• Saves storage space.

• Manages records easily.

• Finds documents quickly.

• Makes images centrally available.

• Eliminates the need for file cabinets.

The steps necessary to introduce document management:

Documents are scanned into the system. The document management system stores them somewhere on a hard drive or optical disk. The documents then get indexed. When a person later wants to read a document, he or she uses the retrieval tools available in the document management system. Which documents can be read and what actions performed on these documents is dependent on the access provided by the document management system.

A complete document management system comprises five elements:

•Scanning

Major advancements in scanning technology make paper document conversion fast, inexpensive and easy. A good scanner will make putting paper files into your computer easy.

•Storage

The storage system provides long-term and reliable storage for documents. A good storage system will accommodate changing documents, growing volumes and advancing technology.

•Indexing

The index system creates an organized document filing system and makes future retrieval simple and efficient. A good indexing system will make existing procedures and systems more effective.

•Retrieval

The retrieval system uses information about the documents, including index and text, to find images stored in the system. A good retrieval system will make finding the right documents fast and easy.

•Access

Document viewing should be readily available to those who need it, with the flexibility to control access to system. A good access system will make documents viewable to authorized personnel, whether in the office, at different locations, or over the Internet.

If you've got a good idea of the basics of a document management system, you'll find our in-depth overview of document imaging and document management software a useful resource.

for more information please visit:http://www.laserfiche.com/

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Introducing Document Management. Go Green!

2008-08-21T15:20:00.001-05:00

I've had to do this several times for companies I have worked for. I started actually with a scanner to scan in some old spread sheets that someone had printed. Then I converted them back into spreadsheets with Omnipage (8 or 9 back then).

A couple years later, I started scanning all customer contracts and account documents and mapping them out with MindManager to keep things organized.

These days I have my own company, so everything gets scanned. I use PaperPort for document management and I use OmniPage 16 these days for OCR purposes.

I've got a three hundred dollar Brother scanner/copier/fax/laser printer that I keep on the dock that is fantastic. I just drop a pile of papers into the document feeder and scan away.

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Facebook Status Broken Today

2008-08-10T11:40:00.002-05:00

I was just noticing today that Facebook comments, that little question that asks you what you are doing or feeling right now.

This little update function can be temporarily addictive, like wearing the latest fad or something.

Unfortunately, this outage caught me right in the middle of my own susceptibility to the fad, and now I look at my status updates with the 'upgraded' facebook and all I'm getting is a bunch of strings of code.

Now all of my 'friends' are going to think I'm in a super technical mood, or just being geekily weirder than I actually am.

"No, those strings of code are not how I was feeling yesterday!"

It was hard enough explaining to my mother years back that the google ads showing up on my site referring to baby bedding, did not actually imply that we were expecting another child, just some automated code from Google.

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Pay It Forward - Verizon Sucks?

2008-08-04T11:29:00.003-05:00

I have been toying with the notion of what I should do with my brand new Treo 700P from Verizon Wireless. I'd really enjoy your thoughts on what you think I should or shouldn't do here. The more creative the better as I am stuck. In regards to my feelings for the Treo 700P, I hate it.

I love Treos, have loved them for almost a decade, but Verizon Wireless changed all that for me.

I bought a new Treo from Verizon Wireless last August, a year ago, and the phone was unable to work with email like it was supposed to. I took it back (I had 30 days money back + I was paying $6 a month for a warranty.) Verizon gave me a replacement phone in the store, and it was dead out of the box.

I should have recognized a big problem at that point, but I was in a hurry to get to Blogworld, so I had them give me another new Treo out of the box and I flew to Vegas for the show.

The phone worked, kind of. It was very problematic with lots of problems that I have detailed in my writing over the last year.

Long story short (for that part) they had to send me another replacement treo 700p on my warranty plan in June.

I tried the replacement for a week and it was susceptible to the same problems as the previous phone. (Didn't receive calls, lost voice mail,crashed regularly, and was unable to roam on networks other than Verizon Wireless)

Another long story short(ok, so I just can't tell a short story, I would have never made it as a serial writer in the 19th century!) I canceled my Treo off my gargantuan Verizon Wireless Plan (paying over $300 a month) That brought my monthly plan down to a more (less) reasonable amount of $200 a month. [I paid $100 a month for the same plan at t-mobile without a hitch ever].

I then picked up a little nokia phone from tmobile, and have been very happy. (except it doesn't have email)

The thing is I have this brand new Treo 700P, the latest replacement. I don't trust it myself, and would never dream of selling it on ebay or something, which is exactly what Verizon Wireless told me to do 5 times despite the fact that they admitted it would be morally the wrong thing to do.

I'm not as big of an ass as Verizon Wireless would have me be.

That said, I'm not completely free of that syndrome and have been trying to think of what I can do with this brand new phone that cost me almost $700 ($500 for the phone and $150 to cancel the Verizon Wireless plan).

I will be running a contest soon, offering up a great software program license(or multiple licenses) and I'm thinking about offering my new Verizon Wireless Treo 700P as a booby prize along with maybe a months supply of diet pills, and used pooper scoopers(something equally as valuable to my treoo 700P). The contest entrants will be bloggers and podcasters, and I'm thinking that if I give them the Treo 700P as a booby prize it might give them a lot of material to write about just how crappy the device and Verizon Wireless are in working with it!

That does seem like a mean vindictive thing to do to Verizon Wireless, but keep in mind they basically sold me a lemon and cost me $700 so I feel like they have ripped me off significantly. (not to mention I helped them stay in business 8 years ago, when they needed $1 billion, I gave it to them~no exageration, they used to be my customer and during their merger/formation their finances were very screwed up and I helped to prop them up and keep them in business long enough to get through the merger.

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Pandora Had Me Until Disco was Mixed with Seventies Rock

2008-07-28T20:01:00.002-05:00

This afternoon I was turned on to Pandora an old(even though many people haven't heard of it before) internet radio station company that reinvents itself on a regular basis.

I've read about them dozens of times in magazines like Wired, but never gave them a try. Today I was doing a few things in FaceBook when I was given the quick ability to give them a try.

I was hooked.

I was rapidly finding some music that I liked and that was virally pointing me to some new music I hadn't heard of before.

Then Pandora's Box must have come completely off its hinges. Before I knew it I had Journey getting mixed into play on channels that were supposed to play disco, Peter Gabriel was following hard rock on the Nine Inch Nails Channel and for dozens of songs in a row I was stuck listening to garbage!

I was in Internet Radio Hell!

Pandora is supposed to look at your musical tastes, compare those tastes to other people and with the music selections that the music experts at Pandora use, make music suggestions to you that should help you keep your groove on.

But when it goes wrong and sends you a series of songs that you don't like, you can skip through two or three until you get a message stating that their license does not allow them to let you skip through more music until you listen to some more (crap).

From a Facebook perspective I rapidly ran into some problems as well. I was able to subscribe to some of my favorite groups and singers. However, I rapidly learned that many or most of them only had their most current albums listed in Pandora. So I could not really get in there and share or list my favorite songs by my favorite singers and groups.

The most annoying thing about the service though seems to be the fact that once it gets off track, you can't redirect it. Its like having a friend come over to your house, jump in to your music collection and suddenly pull out a bunch of really bad music that you received for christmas from a distant aunt that has no clue what music you like and then having that person play that music over and over again.

You can't hit stop, you can't hit skip, you can't tell them to turn that crap off or play something in a different genre.

That last word is the key here. There appears to be no genre of music on Pandora to help get the service guided back on track. So if your resident Pandoran expert chooses unwisely (for you), you are stuck with their suggestions and can't say, "Hey you fool, that's not rock n roll, that's not funky dance music, that's techno dance music, that's not acid house that's house, that's not rap that's R & B, that's not hip hop, that pop. You can tell it song after song that you don't like the song, but that doesn't seem to register quick enough to improve the next song in the play list.

Maybe even more important, if you want to hear 'more' from an artist, you just can't. This is (internet) radio and they don't really play requests like that. You can buy music anytime you like, knock yourself out. But if you suddenly get the notion or reminder to listen to this great song by an artist you're just hosed.

For those of us that have lived for decades now in the instant gratification world of MP3 files, digital cameras and mobile email, this is a real bummer. The introduction to new music is nice, but be prepared to take a deep breath before diving through the chaff.

The service has some interesting potential, but it just doesn't seem intelligent or responsive enough yet to really live up to its true potential.

Comcast Executive Care?

2008-07-26T09:28:00.001-05:00

Last week I blogged about a Comcast outage. A Comcast representative commented on my post and ask me to contact them. You can see it here: http://aaronburcell.typepad.com/…ng-me.html

In a follow-up email, I asked the commenter if there were some alert system that provided an eta on outage recovery -- a system like Pacific Gas and Electricity's phone tree. I didn't get an immediate response.

This morning I took a call from Comcast Executive Care. The contact apologized for the inconvenience, asked for multiple bits of contact info. He then indicated that someone from his group in the Bay Area would be calling me. So far, I'm not all that impressed, but I'm curious to see what transpires next.

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Comcast Executive Care Part II

2008-07-26T09:22:00.003-05:00

AaronB at Utterz kicked off an interesting discussion about cable providers and their response times and possible processes when their services go down. Now if you are like me you would rather volunteer for human trials to have teeth extracted by an elephant or eat at McDonalds for 90 days straight in order to develop a nice case of acne for the sole purpose of then testing suppository treatments for acne before you ever would want to call a cable providers 800 number and get put through the ringer asking for help.

That said, this discussion could prove enlightening and save you the time and trouble of dealing with them, as the conversation will partially confirm what you, I and the rest of the US already suspect, the phone call is a waste of time! :)

I spoke with Sandy (sp?!) at Comcast executive care tonight. To recap, I suffered a significant outage, Comcast owned up the issue through a comment on my blog, and have been trying to explain themselves ever since.

After returning Sandy's call, she was a bit confused as to why I called, and eventually found her files before addressing my basic questions about why Comcast could not communicate information about their outages before, during or after outages.

Here is a recap of the convo with Sandy today:

* Sandy believes that the IVR is supposed to read the phone number via caller ID, and give me regional outage information. Unfortunately, if you're a triple-play customer, you can't use your home phone to call in. Fortunately, my wife's mobile phone is the number associated with the account -- we called from that number, and only received information that there was an outage "in the area" and were provided no estimate on service restoration. Nothing. In reviewing my case history, Sandy recognized these facts.

* On that last point, when I pressed, Sandy advised that Comcast always encourages customers to talk to a live person about outages. I asked where they provide this advisement -- in the IVR, their site, the online billing site? Sandy said, she was providing the advisement in the call I was participating in, and that's generally where they advise customers... customers without voice or cable services. Yeah, I laughed too.

* After this line of conversation, Sandy contradicted herself and stated that she believes the IVR can't be prompted to give me an update on outages. So, the phone number a customer is provided on the site and via the EPG on the set-top box is useless. That's something everyone should know.

* Sandy says the call center system provides support folks with an outage board and give notes indicating what the issue is if they're available, and Comcast general does not update the IVR regarding regional outages. Sandy explained that most of the time, the outages aren't provided updates from the field. And, again, Comcast is advising that customers call support, talk to a person, who is rarely informed from the field, and not provided updates on specifics of the issue impacting your service. Yeah, I laughed again.

So, at this point, I confirmed with Sandy that she is not provided updates from the field, and the IVR can't be updated with outage info, but that I should call the 800 number and ignore the outage info prompts in the IVR and speak to a support person who is probably not going to have field reports on an outage. Sandy had a cute voice. She giggled in response to my question.

I pressed on, focusing on the subject of planned outages. Sandy shared more nuggets of confusion and humor:

* When there is a planned outage, there is a message provided to customers via the set-top box in the EPG menu under the message tab (WTF?!), and a red light appears on the front of the box to let you know that a new message has arrived. I didn't think to ask, but I wonder if this is the same red light that indicates one of my two tuners is recording a program. Yeah, that message-related red light couldn't be confusing or misinterpreted at all.

* Sand says that a customer is also notifed of planned outages in "most cases" via direct mail to customers, sent as a separate snail mail, aka a letter other than your bill. Sandy was a bit confused about whether or not this was an insert in your bill or a seperate mailing -- she described both instances, but eventually settled on a seperate mailing as the standard. Sorta like the IVR issue, Sandy was a bit confused, and just sorta picked a direction and went with it. I love Sandy.

* So, for everyone that ignores their statement and pays online -- you're not going to know about planned outages, unless you check your messages on your set top box. I asked this question. Sandy confirmed that it is probably that you'll not see the mailings regarding planned outages.

So, to review to this point, as a Triple Play customer, Comcast has your phone number, your email address, and a portal from which to communicate planned outages, or apologize and explain unplanned outages. None of these channels are utilized, according to Sandy in "executive care escalation". Instead, you might get a letter in the mail.

So, I pressed on regarding un-planned outage 00 the descriptor for the outage I experienced. After asking a series of additional qeustions, Sandy began to break down and make a series of revealing confessions. Here they are:

* Even after aknowledging my assertion that someone in NOC probably knows which houses are impacted by an outage, Sandy says that Comcast does not automatically credit customers for an unplanned outage. Instead, they only credit customers after the customer complains.

* Comcast does not snail mail or provide any follow-up with on un-planned outages. Sandy noted that most customers don't even notice that there is an ouage, especially in my case, where the outage was primarily during business hours. Interesting logic.

Ultimately, Sandy gave me a one-week credit ($42.10) at my current Triple Play rate. For her honesty and the credit, I'm eternally grateful.

Early in my career, I worked on WebTV, which was effectively an ISP for a TV-adjacent computer. We sweated outages and product issues, and we answered phone numbers and tried to over-estimate outages so that we didn't take on the additional costs of call-backs. We made light of MSOs (multiple service operators) and their lack of service commitments. As bad as cable was, we always felt that the phone companies were worse than cable companies.

But, tonight, I'm starting to wonder if "Big Old Expensive Phone Company" is better than Comcast. I might just decide to find out.

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Comcast Executive Care Part II

2008-07-26T09:21:00.005-05:00

To echo Michael's sentiment, I opt for several layers of redundancy at home these days. I keep a home office and being disconnected isn't really an option.

I have a landline through At&t, whom I despise and would almost rather chop off any body appendage on the left side of my body rather than do business with them, but redundancy is important.

I have DSL on the At&t line as well. This is my first level of redundant backup. Its too slow and quirky when it comes to a number of applications (like email). But its better than nothing.

TimeWarner's Roadrunner is my cable connection. It is pretty fast most of the time and only goes down for a few hours every couple weeks.

I get cable through DirectTv. Just maintaining momentum here. Don't like nor dislike them.

Then I have an air card through Verizon Wireless which can power my 3g Wireless Router and create a WiFi network at the house or anywhere when DSL and Cable internet are both down. So far that has only happened once this year since I set up the additional layers of redundancy.

I am none to happy with Verizon Wireless as they just ripped me off for $500 last month. They sold me a lemon of a phone, replaced it 3 times under the warranty I was paying for and none of the replacements worked. They would not take the phone back, give me my money back or give me a different model of phone (presumably one that worked).

Their only advice to me over the phone was to sell my lemon of a phone on ebay to some poor sucker out there. (They did not use the word sucker directly. But when I asked them if they admitted that I had a lemon of a phone, they agreed. When I asked if it was right to sell a lemon of a phone to someone, they agreed that this would be bad. When I asked what I should do with the phone? They said (again) many of our customers sell their (lemon) phones on ebay, you could sell yours on ebay. But it is a lemon of a phone that doesn't work. How can that be right? I ask.

They agreed and said that would be wrong, but that's what Verizon customers do.

I said, I did not want to harm someone else with a lemon, not to mention harm my own name, or even cost Verizon more money for the tech support calls they would receive from the poor sap that would purchase my phone. Verizon thanked me for that.

So I asked again what I could do with my lemon of a phone. They said, You could sell it on ebay. (I'm not kidding or exaggerating. They told me 4 times to sell my phone on ebay during the same conversation with the same rep, who agreed with me that it would be just wrong to sell the phone on ebay knowing that it was a lemon myself and with Verizon having documented the fact that it was a lemon in their own system.)

I hung up with the feeling that there was a supervisor standing behind her telling her to repeat the company line "Sell your lemon Verizon Wireless phone on Ebay" "No Refunds"

I learned my lesson with Verizon Wireless. Their warranty, $6 a month, is garbage. They just replace lemons with lemons. They might as well offer customers t shirts stating, "I paid $500 for a garbage phone with a service plan that cost $325 a month and all I received was 45 hours on the phone with tech support and a paper weight shaped treo 700P".

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Comcast Executive Care Part II

2008-07-26T09:21:00.003-05:00

So, now you understand why I've decided that Comcast gives me my internet connection, and Verizon gives me dial tone. I can miss a TV show once in while, but I don't want to be without dial tone. Whether you like them or not, no matter what the weather, time of day, etc., in power outages or storms, Verizon gives us dial tone. Comcast is more likely to be a blue screen or some sort of error message. Can't even count the number of errors before or during PPV movies, HD service is cranky and sometimes just stops for no reason, etc.

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Another Wireless Mouse is Junk

2008-07-25T16:22:00.001-05:00

I am increasingly beginning to think that no manufacturer can create a decent wireless mouse. This week I have witnessed the demise of yet another wireless mouse. A laser optical mouse that I paid $50 for just 4 months ago.

This mouse sucked down close to 12 AAA batteries a month and truly was not worth the total cost (after batteries about $100). If I can find one, I am from now on going to utilize a wired mouse, both to save money on batteries and to save landfills from more batteries.

More importantly I will make the switch to save myself the hassle of utilizing equipment that fails to work when I need it. It may make my work while traveling or staying in Mykonos villa rentals or in a Howard Johnson or even a Holiday Inn Express. Lugging a wired device seems a bit like packing up too much of the desktop to go on the road, but when you count many of the devices that plugin via USB to communicate with the actual mouse, traveling with a wireless mouse can be even more bulky than a wired device.

The trick is likely to find a mouse that has a cord that is manageable and does not make a mess of all the other packed devices and cords in your bag, backpack or briefcase.

Google and Viacom - The Fight That Had to Happen stays as Civil as Possible

2008-07-15T23:51:00.001-05:00

Google and Viacom have agreed to keep the identities of all those people that Viacom would argue illegally shared their content on Google's YouTube video sharing network.

Google said it had now agreed to provide plaintiffs' attorneys for Viacom and a class-action group led by the Football Association of England a version of a massive viewership database that blanks out YouTube username and Internet address data that could be used to identify individual video watchers.
"We have reached agreement with Viacom and the class-action group," Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said. "They have agreed to let us anonymize YouTube user data," he said.
Reuters

But Viacom does not necessarily want to upset its consumers any more than they already have by not enabling their content to be uploaded on to YouTube, especially shows, such as The Daily Show.

So after taking Google to task for buying YouTube, a company with a serious content ownership flaw in the business plan, they are now delving through the class action lawsuit with kids gloves, hoping to protect their content rights while keeping their viewers (and advertisers.) With this level of civility, you would almost expect lawyers from opposing sides to send each other personalized gifts along with evidence and data.

Improving Technology Series - Hot Tub Covers with Ambience

2008-07-14T01:14:00.001-05:00

This weekend as I took a short time to relax, I found an interesting new product that makes an improvement on the technology of hot tub covers. This improvement did not come in the way the covers work, or what they are made out of, but how they look when your hot tub is - uncovered.

I've owned several hot tubs over the years and most hot tub covers are not terribly sexy nor relaxing, especially their under bellies. In fact, underbelly is exactly how most hot tub covers look on the under side. They look like the belly of a giant slimy cat fish and when you are trying to relax in a hot tub, staring at a glaring white behemoth, well its just not terribly relaxing nor peaceful.

Well, this company called SpaScenes.com has come up with an easy to install screen that attaches easily to hot tub covers with a special adhesive resistant to hot tub environments and chemicals. It can add a great looking scene that will definitely be more peaceful and relaxing than the giant white underbelly ambience that comes standard with hot tubs today.

The price on these massive hot tub cover murals goes for a little over $200. Your average hot tub cover itself can cost anywhere from $350 - $600 plus accessories like lift arms, so adding an accessory to deck your hot tub out like you are in a resort or spa could definitely be worth the investment. Plus, if you look at these for what they are, a massive water proof/ chemical proof mural the price is likely a great deal cheaper than a mural would be if you tried to install it on an ordinary wall.

Now, personally, I prefer to keep my hot tub outside. I enjoy relaxing under the stars and the trees. The beauty of these hot tub covers is that it can help to quiet down the light that would normally reflect off your hot tub cover and help you to focus on your environment and nature instead of staring at what looks almost like a big bright screen. After looking at it, I can't hardly imagine going back to my old hot tub cover where I'll probably always think of a blank Microsoft Word Document from now on until I upgrade my cover.

$70 per Year for Microsoft Office?

2008-07-12T09:58:00.001-05:00

You might have missed this deal announced by Microsoft and Circuit City just before the holidays. They are going to sell Microsoft office and Circuit City stores for $69 a year through a subscription plan. This is part of Microsoft's effort to try and keep up with Google who has offered Google documents as an online application to compete with Microsoft office which is notoriously been rather expensive over the years.

At about $70 year, Microsoft office would not really seem all that expensive to many people especially those people they're buying a new computer in looking at a teaser 30 or 60 day trial offer of Microsoft office. Paying $70 to get another year of Microsoft Office versus paying a few hundred dollars is a whole lot easier.

That said I don't think Microsoft is going to be terribly competitive with Google based on this one item. It will definitely help sales but it doesn't assume to make product any better or any more competitive with Google documents. People that use Google documents justify the use with the price but they tend to make the choice based on lifestyle and culture. Necessity does come into play at times, but it doesn't seem to be the overriding concern of many buyers.

Regardless of seems like pretty good idea for a soft, it's a solid baby step in the right direction to stay competitive and keep their army of software engineers gainfully employed and out of the unemployment lines looking for IT jobs.

The strange thing about this product offering is the choice of channel. Offering this deal exclusively to Circuit City is a little peculiar. Most people that run in that situation where they need to buy Microsoft office, for example when they're 30 or 60 day trial has just expired, need the software right away. It would seem that this model would work a whole lot better if Microsoft sold it directly from their own website as a download as opposed to making people jump into their car and pay $10 to drive a car across town to pick up some software and Circuit City.

I can deftly understand why Circuit City jumped at this deal, but Microsoft seems to have made a misstep in their choice of partner.

Powering WiFi Router with Air Card

2008-07-11T23:31:00.003-05:00

Last week when I went to the drive in. As I'm a bit of an uber geek with technology, I took my 3G Cellular router that created a WiFi network around my car at the drive in and then did a few fun things posting Utterz up to utterz.com.

I was mostly trying to just test or prove a concept that this was possible. There were people waiting for darkness to settle over the drive in so that the movies could begin (Wall-E and Indiana Jones IV playing that night). While they were waiting, some people were tossing around footballs while other people played dominoes and the people in front of us ran their car on idle with the air condition running, which seemed so 2001 when gas prices were reasonable enough to waste gas.

Anyway, I had been looking for something to cap off my review of the NexAira 3G cellular routers that I received from PowerfulSignal back in May. I have tried the mobile router on the lake, and on the road, but I wanted something to kind of cap off my adventure. The drive in actually worked fairly well, especially as there is a massive cell tower behind the drive in, which kind of helped to illustrate the point of how the whole thing works (and probably helps the drive in owner collect some rent money from Verizon).

Now, I never really doubted that this would work. Honestly, the thing always seems to work. I like to find the things that devices are unable to do, possibly even break them (not physically, but put them in situations where they crash or something). I like to know what extreme a device can work up to.

Unfortunately, I was never really able to find a situation where the device did not work. :)

Jeremy from Utterz, has mentioned in some of his reviews of the product that when you are in the middle of the mountains or driving down the interstate that it helps to have a cellular range extender working in conjunction with this device. I haven't tried that yet myself, but I do see the logic in it and suspect that I will likely need to pick one of those up before long.

In fact, I've been planning to get out West some year and attend Burning Man in the desert. I have no idea if you can get a cellular connection in the middle of the desert, but I think it would be pretty cool if I could get an extender capable of hitting a tower somewhere closer to well somewhere so that I could do some mobile blogging from burning man in a live capacity.

Anyway, in summary this is a great little tool. If you have to be connected for your job, or have to have a connection anywhere and everywhere at a moments notice this is probably a device that is in your future.

Double that need if you commute in a carpool!

I had a fun putting the Nexaira mobile router through its paces, and wanted to thank the folks at PowerfulSignal for giving me a chance to try it out and give my opinion. I think they have a winner of device on their hands.

Its late Friday night as I write this, and I'm heading into the weekend. While I think about the connectivity potential of this device, I can't help but think about the concepts of a 'Gargoyle' as depicted in the book Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. In the book, a Gargoyle is someone that basically walks around always connected to the internet.

This device won't make a Gargoyle out of you, but will give you all the connectivity you really need. Maybe 4G will take us the rest of the way . . .

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Testing my WiFi Connection at the Drive-In

2008-07-05T19:13:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone, coming to you live from the Drive In in Belmont North Carolina. I suspect that I am the first person to ever Utter from this Drive In and possibly the first person to Utter from their laptop while at a drive in at all. :)

The wireless connection set up in about 5 minutes and things went very smoothly. I'm standing about 150 meters away from a cell phone tower so there's no need for a cell phone repeater here.

Going to record some quick Audio in a second, while I upload a quick picture of myself and my technical assistant, Zoe.

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Wasting Marketing Efforts with Sweepstakes People Do Not Enter for Products They will buy anyway

2008-06-28T12:22:00.001-05:00

So the title of this article pretty much sums up the article, but I'll repeat the premise a bit. I am continually annoyed with sweepstakes offers thrown in with products that I WILL buy regardless of whether there is a sweepstakes or not.

I see this most often with Coke, specifically Coke Zero. I drink coke all day long. I'm a coke addict. I don't play their sweepstakes. Its a waist of time, and even if I win, the prize is still a waist of time.

But what it does do is give them my name and email address and marketing information (like they need it). WTF? I've been drinking coke for decades, do you really need to add my name and email address to your databases yet again?

Now, I might understand (but not buy) if the sweepstakes offered me a free trip to say the Playboy bunny ranch if I bought some men's jewelry. I don't buy nor wear jewelry, but I might be tempted for the right(wrong) contest. But tempting me to do something I am already going to do, what's the point?

Similar issue, I bought some AAA batteries the other day. Duracell this time (I go back and forth between duracell and energizer and price is the only thing that makes a difference.)

This time around, they offer a Wii sweepstakes. I don't need a Wii sweepstakes. Its the damn Wii (and my wireless mouse) that eat all the AAA batteries in the first place!

If I add another Wii to the household, I'll use twice as many batteries.

AHA! I see the evil in their marketing plan now . . .

Just look at all this information they want. I need a Duracell account like I need a hole in the head.

Follow Up - Is Time Warner Slowing Down My Internet Connection? Doesn't Look Good

2008-06-15T22:21:00.001-05:00

So I did a little more digging into what seemed like a possible slow down of my broadband speeds.

Here's what I determined:

When I first started downloading files, I downloaded 4 files simultaneously. Each file was pulled in at a rate of about 300 kbs. That's a total of about 1.2 mbs on a system that is normally capable of pulling in 3 - 10 mbs.

As the files finished the download rate picked up a bit from 300 kbs to 311 kbs after the first file, then to 350 kbs for the second file, then 400 kbs for the third file. As the fourth and largest file (2.5 gb) reached the 80% done stage it also jumped from 400 to 500 and then to 700 kbs.

So those slight jumps in speed seemed to indicate the server on the sending side gaining resources to send more faster.

But a jump of 20 or even 400 kbs didn't account for the drop off of speed of 2 - 9 mbs!

As things were downloading I performed the following speed tests in the order presented:

Then after all the files were done, I did one more test and my speeds were back up in the 5.5 mbs range.

My conclusion is that when there is some type of load placed on my broadband line, there must be something that starts slowing things down, rationing out the supply. This is not a scientific conclusion, but more of a gut feel, which I hope to get more information on when and where I can. I'm hoping to test the methodology with other sending servers in the future as well to get more perspective on just how fast Time Warner Cable might be 'when I need it' as opposed to how fast it is on a test.

I do not want a broadband service that tests well and performs poorly. I want a service that performs well.

I run a small business and if I am to capitalize each small business opportunity that comes up, then I need reliable tools, partners and services.

Is Time Warner Cable Slowing Down My Internet Connection?

2008-06-15T21:17:00.001-05:00

This evening I purchased a software program called Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate. It cost me about $100 and if I download it, I do not have to pay for the CD's and shipping and boxes and junk, which will save me another $40-$50.

The thing is the download is about 5 gigabytes total. While I was downloading on my Time Warner Internet connection, I noticed that about 10 minutes into the download, the speed seemed to slow to a trickle. The download program showed that my download speed was coming in at about 300 kbs.

This is on a connection that is supposed to yield me 3 - 10 megabytes per second.

Now one obvious possibility is that the Pinnacle server sending me the files is a little slow. That could be the case, and I just can't tell.

However, with all the talk about broadband companies putting the brakes on speed, I was curious whether or not Time Warner might have interpreted my download activity as a movie download or something and proceeded to put the brakes on me.

I ran a speed test while the download was taking place and it showed that instead of the normal minimum 3 mbs, I was only getting about 1.5 mbs.

As I write this article, I am now waiting to test the speed connection again once the download has finished and possibly after some time has passed so that I can see when or if things speed back up. I'll share the results of that finding in a quick follow up article in the next day or so.

If you have run into similar problems or if you have some possible other perspectives on what may have slowed down a normally fast connection, drop me a comment and I will expand the troubleshooting more if I can.

Mostly, I just want the fastest most reliable connection I can get. I don't want an anemic connection that makes my computer suspect I'm feeding it diet pills. I want the seven course dinner full of butter and fat and everything that goes with it to stuff my pipes and keep my computer working as hard as possible. So if Time Warner can't provide this, I may have to continue searching for someone that can. (I've already had to drop Bellsouth/At&T because they didn't come close to making the grade.)

Kevin Johnson of Microsoft on How and Why Yahoo! blew it for Stockholders and Customers

2008-06-14T13:52:00.001-05:00

By most accounts the weekend after, Yahoo! blew a deal with Microsoft in order to prepare to lose a deal with Google, Yahoo!'s death knolls or tolling.

The end may not be this year or next, but given their inability to do business when and where they needed to and their penchant for doing business where they absolutely do not need to, they will soon be another internet company footnote like the implosion of AOL. They will no longer provide search, search advertising, or internet advertising. They've dropped out of bill payment services and are losing chat ground to other companies. Soon they will only be good for brand recognition, which might when them some deals with their logo on micro sd cards, but little else.

Here are Kevin Johnson's comments and perspective on the deal and situation that Yahoo! lost on...

During the last few weeks, we spent a considerable amount of time with Yahoo! discussing an alternative proposal around search. Specifically, this search proposal had three components:
• Microsoft would have invested $8 billion in Yahoo! at $35/share;
• Microsoft would have purchased Yahoo!'s search assets for $1 billion, and assumed the operations and R&D expense while returning data back to Yahoo! for use in their advertising business; and
• Microsoft and Yahoo! would have entered into a long-term search partnership, where Microsoft would have provided favorable economics to Yahoo! search, including a three-year guarantee of higher monetization than Yahoo!'s Panama paid search system currently provides.
This partnership would have created a stronger competitor to Google, providing greater choice and innovation for advertisers, publishers and consumers. This approach could have been implemented quickly and would have simplified the integration process for both parties. It would have also established the basis for a long-term Internet partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft.
We believe this proposal would have created compelling value for Yahoo! and its shareholders in at least three ways:
• New Transfer of Cash to Yahoo! Shareholders. This proposal would have transferred $9 billion from Microsoft to Yahoo!, which could have been used by Yahoo! to reward their shareholders.
• A More Profitable Ongoing Business. This proposal would have resulted in higher operating income on an annual basis for Yahoo!, with our projections more than doubling Yahoo!'s operating income in the first year of operation, and increasing it by more than $1 billion above its current operating income level.
• A More Compelling Search Offering. The combination of the search platforms would have unlocked new R&D innovation, eliminated redundant engineering efforts and allowed for greater scale in serving our customers.
Taken together, we believe that our proposal would have created total value for Yahoo!'s shareholders in excess of $33 per share.
Unfortunately Yahoo! has chosen a different course, and yesterday announced an agreement that would start to consolidate over 90% of the paid search advertising market in Google's hands. This will make the market far less competitive. There are many experts who suggest that a host of legal and regulatory problems lie ahead for Google and Yahoo!.

Yah-Poo! Pride Cometh Before the Fall

2008-06-13T20:00:00.001-05:00

Yahoo's chief executive officer, proved this week that he is an apt to continue leading the once great Internet giant Yahoo!. His pride came long before the better interests of his company and his customers as he bent over backwards to block Microsoft from becoming a partner.

To ultimately account which this goal he had to do a deal with a double and partner up with Google, which formerly ran Yahoo out of the search engine industry years back and now is preparing to run Yahoo out of Internet advertising as well.

Before Google is done with Yahoo there'll be nothing left of the company in Yahoo's shareholders will not even have sold the company to anyone. Jerry Yang is essentially giving the company a way for nothing all in an effort to foil a deal with Microsoft.

Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang's five-month conflict with Microsoft Corp. ended yesterday. The outcome may not be good for him or the Internet company's investors.
Yahoo said yesterday it scrapped talks after Microsoft refused to pay the $47.5 billion it offered last month. Instead Yang unveiled a partnership with Google Inc. While that deal may add $800 million to annual sales, it may not be enough to push the stock above $30, Canaccord Adams's Colin Gillis said.
``When Microsoft walked, it was a real walk,'' Gillis said. The New York-based analyst recommends selling Yahoo shares. ``This deal has the perception of damaged goods.''
The Google accord may make Yang more vulnerable in a proxy fight against billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who says Yang botched the Microsoft negotiations. Even if shareholders opt to replace the company's directors with Icahn's candidates, Microsoft is no longer showing an interest in buying Yahoo, owner of the second most popular online search engine.

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

It is absolutely no wonder that analysts and stockholders alike are starting to bail out of Yahoo as they realize that there is ultimately going to be no hope for this company. If you haven't gotten out of Yahoo yet, now is the time to cash in and cut your losses as they are. If you are a customer of Yahoo, it's probably time to try and find some alternate service solutions as their service offerings have been getting substantially worse over the last year and now promised to do more of the same. Jerry Yang seems to be following a business model paid out by AOL in which you cannibalize a company ultimately sell it for nothing with little rationale other than saving your pride until you're pushed out of office at which point in time you perform a big balance transfer to your retirement plan and hope to avoid any congressional inquiries.

More than Half Sold on NexAira 3G WiFi Router & My Review is not even Complete Yet!

2008-06-13T13:06:00.002-05:00

So for a couple weeks now I have been reviewing the use of a 3G WiFi mobile router. Those words name the device but they are a bit of a mouthful. This is essentially a Wireless Router that connects to the internet via a cellular air card sets up the wireless network which multiple computers can then connect to wirelessly.

Whew, told you it was a mouthful, but it is also very useful so its worth the explanation.

Now, as I mentioned I have been reviewing this device for a couple weeks now, writing a number of short articles as I go through the various stages of my review.

Now I try and keep unbiased when I review a product, but half way through the review, I have to say that I am about sold on this product. It does what it claims to do and does it well.

I haven't had the success with my TiVo yet, but that has been more of an issue finding the right TiVo adapter (I have one in a mini storage unit, but haven't been able to find it in the boxes and my two attempts to purchase a new adapter from Amazon, yielded the wrong type of adapter.)

That said, it works great for establishing a WiFi network. This has been invaluable when both my cable internet and DSL internet connections went down at my house during a storm a week back. My Aircard and WiFi 3G router still worked and I was still in business. It has also been very useful for some of the mobile blogging activities that I engage in regularly.

I suspect that for small companies that send small teams of 2 - 5 people into the field together, this could also help to save companies the expense of having to purchase multiple air cards and accounts. Using 1 air card and saving on the purchase of 4 others could save a company $240 a month, easily paying for the NexAira 3G mobile router in the first month alone.

Even better a friend of mine bought the 3G router and the Wireless extender from Powerful Signal and had some excellent insight into the situations for using the devices together when working from a remote cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.

Here are some of the videos that accompany My reviews

Updating TiVo w NexAirA 3G Router

2008-06-01T13:32:00.002-05:00

This is a concept that I am still working through. I actually ordered a usb to ethernet converter for $8 from Amazon today so that I can prove the concept out one way or the other. This video walks through the concept. Once I have the adapter, I'll let you know how it works out.

USB to Ethernet Converter on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/…B0012HPSRA

Establishing WiFi networks at Hotels and Conferences
Something else that I intend to test on my next trip will be the establishment of a WiFi hotspot when I attend my next conference or stay in a hotel that doesn't have WiFi access (for free). Some cheap hotels charge an arm and a leg for WiFi access and when you are working with a group of people this 3G router could become very handy and very economical for the group.

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The Back of the NexAirA Router

2008-06-01T13:31:00.013-05:00

Here is the back of the NexAira 3G Wireless Router (it connects via a cellular wireless card, and then creates a WiFi hotspot that you can connect multiple computers). Its a pretty impressive device and next to buying more ram to make your computer run smoother, if you are a mobile professional that does a lot of work with groups of people, on a regular basis this could be a very very handy too.

The trick is to figure out when all those situations might be where you need a WiFi router but you do not have access to DSL, Cable or ethernet for more than one person.

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Where to Get NexAirA Router

2008-06-01T13:31:00.012-05:00

A Person at Utterz missed my early statement or link about where I found this gem of a device, the 3G Wireless Router. So I reiterated that I found it at PowerfulSignal.com.

That said, I'm still testing the device and while my initial results have all been very positive, I need more time to test the following items before I'll give an endorsement and encourage people to spend a little money out of their savings account to become even more mobile.

What I have not had a chance to test is the following items:

How far from the router can I get a WiFi signal on my computer
How many computers (laptops) can connect successfully at the same time
How does the device work when powered through a DC inverter (ergo I plug in a DC inverter into a cigarette lighter on a car or boat, then plug the router into the inverter and start blogging or something)

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Powering WiFi Router with Air Card

2008-06-01T13:31:00.010-05:00

Here is the Verizon Wireless Air Card that I use. I do not necessarily endorse Verizon Wireless at all. (With my cell phone, a treo 700, they are bane of my existence.) This is just what I have for anyone curious or paying attention to how I use some of my equipment for my various mobile endeavors.

Due to my actual cell phone related experiences with Verizon, I'd just as soon use some other carrier, but in all fairness their air card service seems to work better and be more reliable than their actual cell phone service. Somedays I feel like I am paying Verizon Audemars Piguet watch rates so that I can get a Timex level of service.

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Powering WiFi Router with Air Card

2008-06-01T13:31:00.009-05:00

I have been working on testing and finding some good uses for a 3G Connected WiFi Router from NexAira that I received from Powerful Signal.

I'm going through several aspects of my initial tests with the product here at MavenMappers and expect to find some libertating uses for this technology this summer. I've also had several conversations about the product over at Utterz a few people have already purchased their own 3G WiFi Router.

Here is a quick glimpse at the download upload speeds that I received with 2 bars of signal on my mobile router. As I understand things, your aircard speed are going to be limited according to the strength of the signal.

For what its worth the company that I received this router from PowerfulSignal.com also sells signal boosters in addition to these cellular routers, which can be used in conjunction with your cell phone or air cards. So if you are in the mountains and your cell signal is very week, you might also benefit from a cell phone signal booster. (I believe that will help you push out signal/data to a cell phone tower.) Usually they transmit at plenty of signal to reach you, its more an issue of whether you can talk back to them to establish '2way' communication.

Here's the home page for the company

http://www.powerfulsignal.com/

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Tackling To-Do Lists

2008-06-01T01:00:00.002-05:00

It has been a while since I rand down my history with MindManager. I was conversing on the topic on Utterz, a great social network and thought I'd share this response below here.

MindManager can be very addictive. I started using it back in 2005. After downloading the trial, (I missed the section where they have the video tutorials) but after about 20 minutes I had taught myself how to use the software and 10 minutes later had brainstormed and drafted a business plan with Mind Manager.

I later went on to use it extensively in everything from process diagrams, to drafting policies, procedures, training materials and more.

Then as I became more involved with contract negotiations and partnership relations management, I started to use it to map out contracts, their negotiations ant tie that into our systems and databases so that the systems would mirror the agreement and we could gather data to later pinpoint the aspects of contracts that might need more emphasis during future renegotiations.

I also happen to be a MindManager trainer and blog about it a bit. ;)

BTW the PC version is 10 times more powerful than the Mac version. This is pretty much a made for PC type of software, mostly because it is interoperable with most Office programs.

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MindManager for me is one of the best things to empower my brain to do more that I have ever come across, with Dragon Naturally Speaking coming in a close second. For me the visualization of concepts just helps me operate and think faster like a massage therapist helps your muscles relax better. I've been to mindmapping school and it helped even more, just like a therapist would attend massage therapy schools. It just helps!

Want to test drive a Hydrogen powered car?

2008-05-24T14:12:00.001-05:00

If you live in New York City; Washington, D.C.; or southern California you can.

http://gas2.org/…r-drivers/

http://www.youtube.com/watch

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Wii Play Together and get Wii Fit Together

2008-05-18T22:12:00.001-05:00

Nintendo is expected to hit another game out of the park. This time they are not targeting teenagers or pre-teens or even young children. They are not even targeting twenty or thirty something pre-grown ups that still have a video game fetish from their youths.

This time Nintendo is courting Mothers looking to get fit or stay fit. The new Wii Fit can measure weight and body mass and much more to help engage people to get fit and keep trying.

Players can chart their weight and body mass index over time and work to improve them by engaging in about 40 activities including yoga, aerobic step routines, strength and training exercises, and balance games. The balance board can track the progress of up to eight players, so users can encourage each other toward their respective goals.

For moms, Wii might have the perfect Fit

The Wii Fit comes with a balancing pad and a foam mattress like a yoga pad along with a game for the Wii itself.

Analysts Befuddled Says Microsoft Trying to Buy Yahoo! Subscribers

2008-05-18T21:49:00.001-05:00

Analysts are befuddled as they attempt to understand Microsoft's next move. One analyst claims that Microsoft will try and purchase part of Yahoo!

``What Microsoft is most interested in is getting that Yahoo subscriber base,'' said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon. Microsoft may have realized that it would face challenges in integrating the whole of Yahoo, he said.

Bloomberg.com

The problem with this scenario is that Microsoft already has a base of customers. Lest we forget, Microsoft has their software operating on a super majority of personal and business computers around the world. Buying a redundant subset of subscribers of their own customer data seems ludicrous.

It goes to show how analysts are either grasping at straws or trying to offer up a smoke screen for their own purposes. Microsoft definitely does not need this information nor the subscription that comes with them.

What Microsoft does need is a finger on the pulse of search and internet advertising. Something that Yahoo! even has been steadily bleeding out to Google for almost a decade. The concept that Microsoft can improve or save their own business by getting a list of customers invokes images of a back alley deal with a list of dot matrix computer print outs locked up in an aluminum Zero Halliburton metal suit case hand cuffed to a Yahoo! executive's wrist. Obviously, Microsoft's solution is not that easy, but it is fairly transparent.

Its not about the list, its about search.

The Yahcrosoft might not be a Dead Merger Yet

2008-05-14T14:50:00.001-05:00

Carl Icahn is looking closely at staging a proxy fight to unseat board members at Yahoo! and force a relook at a merger with Microsoft after the July 3rd board election at Yahoo!.

He is reportedly in talks with corporate pundits from both schools of thought weighing the benefits of this action verses not acting.

Icahn has a long history of sticking his nose in corporate hornet nests of incompetence and stagnation from Chrysler to Motorola and now Yahoo!.

If you want to reform an alcoholic, you send them to alcohol rehab, if you want to reform a stagnant corporation, corporate board, or CEO that is out of touch you send in Icahn.

Bloomberg.com: Invest

Microsoft Takes a Fresh Look at Facebook

2008-05-09T23:08:00.001-05:00

After walking away form Yahoo! (Microsoft Walks Away From Yahoo! ) Microsoft is taking a fresh look at its minority stake in Facebook and in Facebook itself.

Microsoft needs to find an innovative way to enter the online world and especially the online advertising world. Google entered online advertising by getting in the middle of what people are looking for through a computer interface.

Facebook is a social network that can enable people to look for things by asking other people for their advice. Its a new paradigm (sorry for dropping the over used word) and Microsoft might just be able to make something useful out of it after losing a shot at one of the oldest internet companies around and failing to make a deal.

If we were just talking about MySpace, the social network might only be good for finding good music and tips on the latest and greatest acne treatment, but Facebook goes a good bit beyond that even though it is starting to get bogged down with programs and applications.

Funny that last part, that is a similar problem that Microsoft routinely struggles with!

Microsoft Walks Away From Yahoo!

2008-05-05T01:42:00.001-05:00

In an amazing display, Microsoft has decided to walk away from the Yahoo! deal. Yahoo! established some poison pill options that made a hostile take over unattractive and at the same time, Yahoo! rejected the higher offers that Microsoft offered.

That means that Yahoo! shareholders are now stuck with a leadership that can't execute and no better offers on the table. The leadership at Yahoo! has been lost on the highway of the internet for the last 6-8 years without any gps tracking devices to help them chart a course and now it appears that they are not going to get any help in the short term.

Meanwhile Microsoft is going back to the drawing boards hoping to get ahead in the Online Advertising market on their own.

They always say that you should never go into a negotiation that you are not willing to walk away from if you hope to get the best deal possible. It would appear that Microsoft is living by that tip, and making a point to the world that they are not pigheaded enough to pursue an acquisition at any cost.

Yahoo! - Dream Team Offer Deadline Today

2008-04-26T14:00:00.001-05:00

Just like the Democratic party, technology is witnessing the possibility of a dream team line up and merger between Microsoft and Yahoo!. I personally like both companies and can credit both companies for providing services that have benefited my company and careers over the years.

It strikes me as funny when the press drums the potential merger up with talk about Microsoft being something of an evil empire taking over a poor helpless Yahoo!, a tech giant in its own right.

I do believe that the two companies together could actually balance out the market that has lately become dominated far too much by Google. An 800 pound gorilla itself that regularly straps on its skate shoes and speeds through the internet making or breaking companies as it so chooses.

Verizon Wireless Phone Updates *228 - Broken Technology Series

2008-04-24T18:51:00.001-05:00

I am traveling on the road yet again and once again I am reminded about how much of a pain in the ear Verizon Wireless can be. Like a Windows 98 PC, you have to run regular software updates with Verizon Wireless phones. Unlike Windows, you have to do this manually with Verizon Wireless.

You have to dial *228 plugin your option, and let them send your phone some software to update it.

The problem with this is, whenever I go from the East Coast to the West Coast, my phone becomes completely non-functional about 24 hours after my arrival until I run this update. If I get a text message or email on my Treo the phone locks up and goes into fits, trying to resend (in the background) over and over again until my battery is shot. I only notice a problem when my battery drains 10 times faster than normal on my new phone.

Well, I had that problem yet again today, in Laughlin Nevada just south of Las Vegas. The phone worked fine yesterday when I arrived, but today it was fritzville until I updated the phone through Verizon.

More power to you if you can avoid networks that have this type of proprietary software loaded onto their phones. I'm jumping ship on this phone back to T-mobile as soon as I can and that will probably save me a fortune the next time I get life insurance quotes. Getting rid of this phone is sure to add 5 years to my life expectancy.

Saving Fuel with Flash Drive Movies on Airplanes

2008-04-23T16:18:00.001-05:00

I was flying on a US Airways flight this afternoon from Charlotte to Las Vegas and noticed an area where the airlines could save some money on fuel. As a former accountant, this is one of those abstract things that you tend to notice. A little thing on one plane that when its repeated over and over again on a fleet of planes adds up to a lot of money.

This particular flight had an in flight movie (The Devil Wears Prada from 2007 and getting a little old. This was probably the 3rd time I've seen it play on US Airways).

The point is that the plane played the movie with TVs and a VCR. Not the flat panel TVs, and not a small little VCR, but big hulking metal jobs of TV's and a VCR that took up half an over head luggage compartment.

It struck me first off that the VCR probably weighed a lot and when you multiply that across many planes and factor in $125 a barrel oil, that's the type of thing that Richard Branson should pay attention to. They simply need to replace the VCR with a small card reader that can play movies from a flash card and they would save a ton of space and money.

Once I noticed that then I started thinking about all those 14" tv's and how much they weighed.

Now, I'm sure a retrofit costs money, but its a simple enough equation for an accountant to figure out how much it would cost and how much would be saved with a lighter load.

I could complain about the bad movie, or the lines in the TV that makes you feel like you need low vision aids when you are 3 feet away, but instead I'd rather tip off the airlines in a way to save some money and keep in the air. At $325 for a ticket to Vegas, I sure couldn't drive that distance for that kind of money, even in a Prius.

Cross Browser Compatibility - say it with me Cross Browser Compatibility

2008-04-18T15:09:00.001-05:00

I have a small pet peeve. Some very large and respectable corporations have websites that are not compatible with one of the most popular internet browsers, Firefox. Others are not even compatible with IE7, which still has the largest market share of users.

Corporations need to learn that if they want their message to be heard, they should insure that their web designers insure and test their sites for "Cross Browser Compatibility."

I just received and offer from a company that I love, but I couldn't get the offer to work because the link was hidden in an html button in an email and when I clicked it, Firefox started (my browser of choice for security reasons) and their website failed to work.

Here's the work around in case you have the same problem with Mindjet Connect Mindjet (MindManager) Connect Beta - How to Get Invitation to Work | Maven Mapper's Information

I see the same problem with Bank of America too. If you are leasing office space Connecticut in you might be able to get away with a simple looking site, but as soon as you want to provide any type of dynamic functionality, you best make sure it works with both browsers and Safari and Opera while you are at it.

Comcast, Time Warner - No Shows at Net Neutrality Meeting

2008-04-18T09:55:00.001-05:00

Michael Copps was a little dumb founded at the no show of the major ISPs at this weeks Net Neutrality hearing. The ISPs have been fighting to lock down the internet and force people to pay for access to premium knowledge and information as the carriers deem fit. We're not talking about websites making you pay for their content, we're talking about your broadband provider making you pay before you even get to those websites.

Well, those carriers were not able to make the debate and defend their attempts to chain the internet and suck more money out of consumers.

Copps followed Martin's apologia, all fire and brimstone. "Let's look at it from an inventor's perspective," Copps explained. Will the broadband pipes for which they develop applications be open to their ideas? "Inventors and creators need to know, up-front, that they have the right to innovate without going on bended knee to seek permission from a few who have amassed too much control in their own hands," he said.

The time has come, Copps declared, to beef up the FCC's 2005 Internet Policy Statement with an "enforceable principle of non-discrimination." Something that makes it clear that "we will not tolerate unreasonable discrimination by network operators," bolstered by enforcement rules "to make sure that anyone with other ideas isn't going to get away with them."

Big ISPs a no show at second FCC net neutrality hearing

I have no sympathy here for the ISPs. They have created a technology like radio in its day that has given people access to a new plane of existence. Back then it was radio waves or spectrum, today it is the mythical place known as the ether, but that place is shared in ownership by people all around the world and no company can harness it and claim ownership or prevent people from accessing it based on how much money they do or do not pay for the content.

The concept seems extra ludicrous as the economy starts to turn into a heavy recession with hints of the same problems that sparks depressions. The concepts of charging people more when they can barely fill up their gas tanks or pay their mortgages, while corporate CEO's chuck around multi million dollar stock options like they were a Rolex President sales trophy just grates at the nerves.

MindMeister 2.0 Unveiled

2008-04-17T22:33:00.001-05:00

MindMeister is just unveiling its latest upgrade bringing on board many new features:

Task information on ideas
As a first step to lightweight project management in MindMeister you can now add task information - priority, completion, due date and owner - to ideas. More to come!
Attachments on ideas
You can now upload file attachments to ideas and preview images through inline thumbnails. This feature is for Premium users only, but everybody can try it out for 30 days.
WunderLink and WunderNote
Try out these new functions to magically add links and notes to your ideas, using the wonders of the web. WunderLink gets its link from a little Yahoo! search performed in the background, while WunderNote uses a FreeBase database lookup.
Automatic text wraps
Idea captions will now automatically wrap at a certain length to avoid overlong nodes (you can keep the old behaviour by adding manual line breaks with Shift-RETURN)
More Geistesblitz features
In our constant quest to improve the Geistesblitz tools we have now added email support and a Geistesblitz Activity for Internet Explorer 8. With email support, you can send single Geistesblitzes or while mind maps just through an email.
Subsharing for maps
New option to allow collaborators to invite others when sharing a map - this will also work for already shared maps
Print and export enhancements
New option to center map on printout, PDF export of mind map now includes notes
Formatting and navigation enhancements
Apply text styles selectively to child ideas, nicer formatting of first level branches, ability to expand and collapse levels
More note and link enhancements
Advanced and larger note editor with more formatting options, new links widget in sidebar, "Show popular links" for idea
OpenID and Paypal support
Support for signup and login through OpenIDs and Paypal support when upgrading to commercial licenses.
Other enhancements
Nicer invitation and sharing emails, new user options, improved support for Safari and Opera, performance improvements through better script and image loading.

This online mindmapping service offers team collaboration online through mindmapping and for a great fee. So whether you are working through processes with coworkers, researching a book, or writing a screen play with a team or even trying to hunt down the best price on the top wrinkle cream to ward off the aging process, its still a great service for a good price.

Automatically Mind Mapping the Context of Web Pages - Context Organizer

2008-04-12T14:51:00.001-05:00

For the last year, I've been following the development of a software program called Context Organizer from a company called Context Discovery Inc. I started beta testing this program out 18 months ago and it had the opportunity to review its development over that time is a has worked towards achieving the goal of enabling people to automatically run a program that mind maps a webpage into MindManager.

I should add the disclaimer that might mapping is not its center functionality, just one that interests me the most. The program actually focuses on reading the actual sentences are present on a webpage, determining their context and in summarizing that context. Along the way they tend to eliminate a door or reduce the emphasis of short textual phrases that appear in meta tags, images, buttons and other navigational areas and even advertisements.

This enables the mechanical eye of the program to review the actual sentences insurgent group goes into arrangements that would make sense to an actual person. It's the summary or the final output that can then be mind mapped.

There are in a lot of ways it can use this type of program, but I like to point out the generic example that might he faced by many people. Let's say you're doing some light research and you stumble across a New York Times article on soccer. Now if you're looking for the information to describe what this article is about, or what a particular page of the articles, summarize and have it written into a MindManager mind map.

Now, you probably don't care about any the advertisements on that same particular webpage and so you would want to see an advertisement about soccer trophies that happens to be in the lower right-hand corner of the website. This program can strip out that advertisements text and help you ignore it and focus on the actual information on the page.

Context Organizer enables users to instantly find the most significant content on web pages, Outlook e-mails, Google search results and in office documents. Context Organizer version for MindManager automatically generates Mindjet MindManager maps. With seamless integration into Microsoft Office applications the product helps to reduce information overload by helping users find critical information quickly when browsing or searching. Users can easily drill down on important keywords to quickly focus on the most relevant information.
Henry Lewkowicz, Context Discovery's CEO says: "It's all about context and focus. One of our main objectives is to pierce through the data on the Internet and instantly zoom on the core information. When information is presented in context it becomes relevant and we don't suffer from information overload. M-Urge specializes in distribution of knowledge management products and is a recognized leader within the UK in providing tools and solutions for businesses and educational organizations. Context Discovery and M-Urge are exceptionally well suited to offer their customers effective productivity tools that reduce information overload."

Context Discovery Inc. Announces Strategic Partnership with M-Urge to Sell Context Organizer

Maven Mapper's

The Trifecta of BlogWorld, New Media Expo & Las Vegas WordCamp 2009

WordCamp Birmingham 2009 Presentation Slides – Design Your First WordPress Theme in Minutes

Enter the WordPress ‘License to Design’ Theme Contest 2.0

Social Media Trends & Statistics

Cheapest Price on Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Available Now

Social Media Douche Bags Agree, Its Cool to ‘Say’ Sponsored Tweets Suck – White Paper

Greatest WordPress Theme Generator Now Available for Macs!

here’s the latest news release from Artisteer about the Mex Mac Capability

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Zero S – Cool Electric Motorcycle Under $10k

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The Amazon Kindle might be Getting Push Back from Authors

In Case You Missed it Personal Privacy is Dead on the Internet

Google Earth – a Monopoly Play?

Satellite Traffic Collision between Iridium and Russian Satellites

CNBC Charges to Show You the News?

Camera Phones Everywhere

That’s Hope You Can Take to Court?

Verizon’s Cell Phone Booster is STUPID!

Nothing Broken About This Technology – Plane Landing in Hudson River Video

CES 2009 Officially Starts Tomorrow

CES 2009 Officially Starts Tomorrow

CES 2009 Officially Starts Tomorrow

MacBook Wheel (keyboardless Laptop) Early Video

Big Mac Daddy Has Hormone Issues

Jobs’ Cancer Fan Boys Snubbed | Shareholders Left without Succession Plan

The Age of the Beta Consumer Electronic Gadget – Probably Sucks for Consumers

Why Does My Verizon Wireless Aircard Always Have to Be Updated When I'm Pressed for time?

Economy Problems Making it Hard to Buy New Laptops

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sVideo Streaming Your Kids Soccer Game to the Grandparents

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Free Conference Call Options – Transcription and Recording Available with Paid Version

Reservationless Conferences

Reservationless Standard

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gPhone Spotted in the Wild!

Ergonomically Incorrect But Sexy

Candidates as Agents of Technological Change or Maybe Obstacles

War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet

War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet

War Injuries Prevent McCain from Typing/Internet

Someone Give That Man a VR Crackberry!

Can You Really Mod a Prius to Improve Mileage?

Toyota Prius EV Mode Features

Large Hadron Collider Inspires Death Threats Against Scientist from People Fearing World Ending Black Hole Creation

Mythbusters Censored by Credit Card Companies

Comcast Bandwidth Cap Sucks for Shareholders

Volcanic Microbes

MindManager Pro7 FileExplorer Tool Doesn't Sort File Types in a MindMap

NEW VERSION UPRGRADES

What's Missing from this Great MindManager Tool Still

Where's Utterz Going with Upgrade? Broken CSS?

Introducing Document Management. Go Green!

Introducing Document Management. Go Green!

Facebook Status Broken Today

Pay It Forward - Verizon Sucks?

Pandora Had Me Until Disco was Mixed with Seventies Rock

Comcast Executive Care?

Comcast Executive Care Part II

Comcast Executive Care Part II

Comcast Executive Care Part II

Another Wireless Mouse is Junk

Google and Viacom - The Fight That Had to Happen stays as Civil as Possible

Improving Technology Series - Hot Tub Covers with Ambience

$70 per Year for Microsoft Office?

Powering WiFi Router with Air Card

Testing my WiFi Connection at the Drive-In

Wasting Marketing Efforts with Sweepstakes People Do Not Enter for Products They will buy anyway

Follow Up - Is Time Warner Slowing Down My Internet Connection? Doesn't Look Good

Is Time Warner Cable Slowing Down My Internet Connection?

Kevin Johnson of Microsoft on How and Why Yahoo! blew it for Stockholders and Customers

Yah-Poo! Pride Cometh Before the Fall

More than Half Sold on NexAira 3G WiFi Router & My Review is not even Complete Yet!

Here are some of the videos that accompany My reviews

Updating TiVo w NexAirA 3G Router

The Back of the NexAirA Router

Where to Get NexAirA Router

Powering WiFi Router with Air Card