This is a nice, quick little video made by one of the Googlers. The full post can be found at “What is a Browser“

Technorati Tags: google, web browser

I’ve put out a few queries hoping to find some kindred spirits with similar problems, but none have spoken. In reality, it’s okay, as I never particularly cared for that machine, and now it can simply power an old monitor somewhere and run an email application or something.

Recent conversations with my very good friend and often times business partner, Joseph, led me to contemplating on my personal blog about the aspects in my life I’ve allowed to keep me from attaining the success we both believe I deserve. In determining what’s holding me down one thing became very clear to me: get focused on something and hone in on making it happen.

Which brings me to the dead (dying) laptop and my good replacement. Knowing I had a viable, mobile notebook around, though mostly used my desktop behemoth was a crutch. Not having it for the past couple of weeks has made me feel stuck; chained here to the desk with no hope of ever computing anywhere else.

photo credit: StrebKR

Of course, I have my Blackberry Storm (9530) and there is definitely a lot I can do with it. In fact, just recently I was able to get the Blackberry WordPress application operating within parameters. While I can now, technically, create and publish a blog post on one of my dozen or so websites, it just isn’t as intuitive, fast, or enjoyable as using a full sized keyboard. And though I can take and upload pictures, there are few features of the BB WP app that renders that process nearly as much fun as using the WP admin back end.

I look at the handheld access as a nice back up plan in case, for some strange reason I am in the middle of nowhere with no ability to access the Internet with a standard computer. As long as I’m in the nations best 3G zone (or whatever Verizon’s slogan of the month is) I should be covered with my trusty BB Storm.

My longer term plans however call for the ability to write. Both on a daily basis in order to generate my survival income as a freelance writer, as well as my creative projects. With this in mind, today I set out to make an investment in the tools I’d need to deposit into my Bedouin toolbox.

Initially it occurred to me to simply take advantage of Verizon Wireless’ offer on their cellular enabled HP 1105nr netbook. I was literally a text message of approval from having my sister join me for the trip to Prescott to see the actual working computer at the Verizon store and likely making the purchase.

When she indicated work would hold her late, I decided to do some research online. Googling for some reviews, I discovered that the HP was an “okay” choice, but the data plan required 2 years of commitment and might not be the best expenditure of monies on my part.

CNET provided me with plenty of comparative reviews and I was able to whittle down my potential choices to netbooks under $500. There was actually several of them that seemed to be winners, so I compared two of them, one from Dell and one made by ASUS offered at TigerDirect.com

As a disclosure, I have owned or purchased no less than a dozen Dell machines in my life. And I have nothing but great things to recall about those experiences. Most of my computer building supplies, and various other peripheral purchases comes from TigerDirect.com. I’ve likely spent thousands of dollars with them over the years. Again, never had a transaction I didn’t like (even the silly WiFi locator I once bought from them. What the hell was I thinking there!)

Dell has transformed its buying process into something truly magical. They would probably allow you to buy a cow with purple spots and red hooves if they sold cows. At times, their abundance of choice can be somewhat overwhelming, however I persevered. My historic tendency is to get the very most stuffed into a computer as will fit, both the physical space and my budget. This time I chose just the components that I felt were immediately needed.

Over at TigerDirect.com, the choices are simpler. Usually just down to the colors offered. Any other customization usually comes in the form of having knowledge about what you want, and searching for those components separately. They do offer some items down the side of the page that might relate to your purchase, however, nothing like Dell.

So, I dropped the ASUS netbook I thought I wanted into my shopping cart. Not content to simply push the purchase button, I went researching some more. I was curious about solid state drives, or SSD, and checked into that (the Dell offered the option of either a 160GB HDD or a 16GB SSD). That learning was interesting, but the result of it actually, somehow led me to my Amazon.com account.

Since I was there it seemed prudent to see their prices for the ASUS. They were actually selling a later version model of the computer in my TigerDirect.com shopping cart, and it was in the neighborhood of $12 cheaper. Ordinarily, that small of an amount would not make me choose to make the buy at Amazon.

What did push me over to them was the supporting information on the page. While less technical data than at TigerDirect.com, I had already read everything about the computer there, and had followed up with the offerings at ASUS site itself. The information at Amazon that got me was the user comments and ratings, as well as the “Buyers who purchased this computer also purchased this item” feature.

They told me something that I wanted to know, but hadn’t fully articulated in my own mind. What was the maximum memory this netbook could hold, and how much was I getting for the purchase price. The fashion they did this was in the form of letting me know that some percentage of visitors checking out this computer also purchased this memory stick.

Also, several of the user reviews mentioned they had upgraded the total memory of the machine. That was enough to convince me to spend another $27 to double the RAM of the machine. Past experience has told me that this is a very worthwhile add-on to my purchase. Plus, that $27 was really only $15 since I would have been buying the computer for $12 more at TigerDirect.com.

My final actions today had to do with gaining a better understanding of the Mobile Broadband Connection data plans from Verizon. If you don’t know why they have two plans that allow you 5GB of transfer: one costing $15 a month, the other $30, hoping to find out on their site is pretty useless.

Have you done this? Spent WAY TOO MUCH time on a site trying to find an answer to something like this? What is the difference between these two offerings? And please don’t tell me $15! (I just knew if I was forced to call them that would be their answer.)

Fortunately, when I did break down and call customer support, they were very helpful. Apparently when I signed up for my Storm’s data plan, I didn’t buy the $44.95 plan that I would have needed if I required access to a corporate blackberry / exchange server. I only pay $29.95.

As a result, I’ll need to spend that extra $15 on the broadband connect plan. It will cost me $30 a month to be able to tether my netbook to my Blackberry Storm for Internet access. The cool thing I learned as an extra tidbit from my day’s research is that the ASUS has built in Bluetooth that should allow that Internet tethering to occur wirelessly. And that’s just as good as having the 3G antenna built in because no one will need to see the phone connected via a USB cable or have a USB antenna sticking out the side of the netbook.

The end of all this has seen me spend just over $430 on a new netbook, a nice pair of Bluetooth stereo headphones (extra, I know, but come on!), the upgrade to 2GB of ram, and a book on improving your knife skills in the kitchen. Yeah, one of those items was added on to get free shipping, but hey, can you blame me? One of my growing passions is learning to cook like a chef, so that book will pay for itself between the shipping savings, and reduced medical budget for band-aids on my fingers!

My orders are in. I’m anxiously awaiting all to arrive. When it does, I’ll do some sort of un-boxing post, complete with pictures and smells (or their descriptives!)

Till then, have patience if you can. It’ll be hard for me, too!

Technorati Tags: mobile tools, telecommuting, writing

Now, I’ve transferred all the images to my image server and have made all the appropriate changes to the src URL’s in every post on this site. Guess I’m glad I don’t have more posts with images!

Time and again, when you read through threads on their forums, end users are asking about documentation. Yes, it exists and is there. And if you want it to be found in one convenient place you can get it from their website’s Carrington Theme Documentation page. Apparently many of the people using this theme framework just don’t get the theory and philosophy behind the overall project, and tend not to be led closer to that “ah huh” moment by reading the documentation offered.

Below is a comment I left today at their support forum. You can read the entire thread by clicking this link. Following is my reply, which I believe stands on it’s own.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Probably good that you’re willing to pay for an e-book that offers more detailed instructions. If, as a reader/user of these forums, you’ve read several of the threads, you’ll likely be familiar with the very short/terse replies to users asking for help, usually followed by the reminder that paid support is available for anyone needing solutions to their problems.

Not saying there is anything in the slightest wrong with this approach. When running a business for profit, it is clearly important to try and drive the revenue producing efforts. Not all releases in the WordPress world specifically, and the Open Source world generally are completely altruistic and designed to service all of the end user’s needs for free.

Clearly their are some challenges with certain aspects of this framework, documentation, for me at least, and apparently for others, being one of the weak points. That said, I can recall a number of occasions where it has been suggested, and supported by the theme’s creators that someone take advantage of the opportunity to generate something a bit more hearty in the way of documentation.

Carrington’s creators have indicated they are not likely to take the time to go down that road, and that’s fine. At least they are up front about it. It’s also great that they are okay with (seemingly, from a couple of quick comments I’ve read in these forums) others stepping up to the plate and generating something that might be a bit more useful to end users.

This isn’t a project I’m likely to spearhead, however, I have been working with Carrington Blog theme for a bit now, and would definitely participate in a project if someone were to launch it. Maybe a wiki or a focused forum that generates conversations and solutions to some of the challenges that site developers are dealing with on their own.

Would love to see someone launch this. I’d definitely participate if you do!

Technorati Tags: Carrington theme, WordPress development, WordPress themes

Knowing what your web site needs will help you decide whether or not to go with affordable web hosting. In the 15 years or so since web sites have been in existence, an unknown number of companies and individuals have begun to offer the products and services associated with owning and operating a website on the Internet. Before you can be assured of understanding what is right for your specific scenario, you’ll want to know a few things about your personal or professional online presence.

If you are coming from a medium to large sized business background, one of the most important aspects you’ll need to learn is whether or not a web hosting company has the resources and manpower behind them to service your needs. Nothing is worse that finding out you’ve been paying on a monthly contract and your web host is simply a reseller that has little knowledge or experience to help solve the inevitable challenges associated with web site hosting.

One should always start with the best rated web hosting opportunities and move down that list to find the best prices to fit your budget. You will almost always be happier with a company that has been reviewed by real world clients and stands above the crowd in terms of quality, reliability and service.

When it comes to understanding the importance of securing top notch hosting, simply imagine if you entire income was dependent upon all things working smoothly, as it related to your online business. You’ll likely know how much, on average your company makes per day. How many days could you survive if your income producing machine, your website, was off line to the world?

How many total hours per month would you accept if your site was not taking orders, selling widgets and shipping gadgets? Very few folks think in these terms when it comes to shopping around for web hosting. If you don’t, then you’ll be dissatisfied if you end up with a fly by night company that has little if any accountability in terms of keeping your business open and operating 24 hours a day.

A little diligence should provide you the perfect combination of a quality, affordable web hosting provider that is rated to provide you the best hosting your money can buy. You will either take the time and expend the effort before you secure a web hosting company or spend money, worry, and aggravation later wishing you had made a better choice.

Absolutely nothing is worse, as it relates to your business’s online presence when you start to get messages from clients, employees, or worst of all, competitors, telling you that your web site is down. Or perhaps there are just a number of little things that seem off or are not working correctly.

Do all the images on your web site show up on the page? Is your sales department receiving email inquiries that should be sent out from the form on your web pages? Sure a lot of these items might be due to faulty web site coding. Many times however, a web server’s configuration is incorrect, and no one realizes that emails never reach their target destination.

Taking the point of view that you get what you pay for isn’t necessarily the best, either. Just a little work on your part will help you better assess the best rated web hosting that exists out there, while still ensuring that your online budget is stretching as far as possible.

Extremes in price will simply not guarantee you the best or the worse hosting experiences. Check in with others and learn what is happening first hand with the web site hosting company of choice.

Technorati Tags: writing examples

Many are praising the bold attempts by the new president to help the United States oil consumer break their addictions to foreign oil. The stark reality, however is that most of these “new” standards could have been reached at least 10 years ago.

photo credit: superstarksa

The biggest challenge to U.S. auto manufacturers comes not in the form of technology or engineering capability to make better vehicles. Actually, little has changed with respect to the techonlogical landscape recently. Instead, car makers have opted to go the route of making and selling larger, heavier SUV’s.

And since light trucks and sport utility vehicles have a much larger profit margin, their sales have gotten most of the focus. Add to this equation the fact that the heavier vehicles require much more torque and horsepower, and you begin to “understand” what has happened to our declining vehicle fuel standards in this country.

With the new decree for higher miles per gallon to be achieved by 2016 instead of 2020, most analysts and experts are hoping to see innovation return to the U.S. auto industry.

photo credit: jurvetson

Before those dishes start washing themselves, in addition to the new appliance, you are going to need a few things: fittings, like properly sized brass elbows to connect the dishwasher inlet to the copper supply line as well as compression fittings for attaching the supply under the sink to the angle stop. Your home repair and maintenance tool box should always have some Teflon tape for wrapping the threads of water spigots and other threaded pipe ends.

Medium sized wire nuts are always good around the house, and probably come with the new appliance. You’ll want to have hose clamps for attaching the drain hose, and some plumbers strap to secure that hose.

A few simple tools and a couple of specialty items are all you’ll need to complete this install. Again, your repair tool box should have a variety of screwdrivers, pliers and an adjustable wrench. If you don’t have wire strippers, make the investment, you’ll thank me later!

A power cordless drill will make the job easier. You’ll need a 2 inch hole cutter as well. If using copper tubing, you’ll want to have bending springs and a tube cutter (close quarter is preferred). Rubber or plastic tubing? You should be fine without investing in the pipe tools.

Connect your water supply line to the angle stop, or the “faucet” under the sink. Run your supply through the cabinet wall hole you drill there. If your electrical is coming from under the sink, it’s advisable to run through it’s own hole.

With the 2 lines now into empty appliance cavity, measure how much line you’ll need to connect to the water inlet and the electrical connection box. Don’t hesitate to gently tip the dishwasher forward to gain better access to the bottom of the appliance. From this position you can ensure the inlet fitting and electrical connections are secured. If you’re using copper tubing, leave a few inches past the inlet location, use a curving spring to bend the tube to the fitting.

Open the electrical box and run in your 3 wires: white, black and green with about 3/8 of an inch stripped. Using wire nuts, connect the 3 feed wires to their corresponding appliance lines. Replace the metal box cover, and ensure you’ve affixed the electrical feed line to the back wall.

Attach the drain line at the dishwasher side; secure with a hose clamp. Snake this line through at least a 2 inch hole into the under sink area. Clamp the end of the drain line to the inlet of your garbage disposal, or the sink’s tail piece and be sure to tighten the hose clamp to prevent leakage of discarded dish water.

Push the dishwasher all the way until the closed front is flush with the other cabinet doors. Using a small “torpedo” style level, make sure the dishwasher is level by adjusting one or both of the feet in front (they usually screw up and down.) With the dishwasher in place and level, insert small screws into the built in tabs just under the counter creating a stable connection between the top of the dishwasher and the underside of the counter.

Turn on your water supplies and check fittings. Give them some time, as a build up in pressure sometimes works out leaks. When you are certain all is dry, plug in or make your electrical connection and run a test cycle. Continue to check your water feed and intakes as well as the drain hose clamps on the appliance and under your sink.

Finally, if your model has a kick plate, insert it into place, tighten the install screws, and enjoy your new dishwasher. Take pride in the expert installation job and be happy with your water and energy savings.

Technorati Tags: CES, WordCamp

You still have time to get in on the action. Head straight away to Seth’s Squidoo Lens detailing what this opportunity is all about, and then get a crackin’! The only thing you have to lose is a little time and sleep. Heck, you’ll lose that this weekend anyway!

For everyone that has contacted me, shared kind words of encouragement, please accept my deepest gratitude. Not you Ralph (just kidding, I don’t even know anyone named Ralph. LOL) Seriously, thank you one and all. Wonderful gifts for this humbled soul.

Technorati Tags: alternative MBA, seth godin

And here’s the comment I left. Thanks!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like the rest of you, a lot of thoughts concerning the real world financing of this apprenticeship has been coursing through my head as well. Being an online developer with a wide range of experiences, my creativity tends to run in all things web/Internet related. Here’s a series of thoughts that just might help more than one (or four) of us:

1. Most all of us applying have online presence. Either with our own blogs, web sites, various social media presence, etc. This all translates to advertising inventory.
2. We all know at minimum, 150 other people closely. Likely into the 1000’s as it relates to online social contacts.
3. Whether you get chosen as an apprentice or not, clearly you are interested in seeing Seth’s program succeed and the participants be able to make it to and through. So, what if,
4. Everyone in this Ning network, and all those that are applying (or should apply ) agreed to “donate” ad units to the “cause”? Again, those ad units could be on your own sites/blogs or others you have control/influence with. Personally, I run a server and host sites for family and friends all the time. I alone (and I am sure I am not alone in this aspect) have roughly a dozen or so sites that have tons of ad inventory that could be donated.
5. Administering something like this would be as easy as setting up an install of OpenX ad server and the code to place ad units across this Tribe of Alternate-MBA supporters would be easy to install.
6. Next, all of us would not only place ad units in the sites they influence, but also make the pitch to those friends, family and associates that have online sites/presence. “Hey, could you put up one more ad unit on your site? This is the cause, why its important, and what you’ll get out of it” (and what they would get is exposure into the ad network we’re creating here, for a very reasonable rate”
7. Finally, anyone that was interested in supporting the cause could purchase some display ads, and have them appear across this network we’re proposing.

Clearly, for something like this to work a lot of transparency would be required. The “recipients” would need to be open about their needs, costs associated, etc. But this could all be set up online and administered there. The operation could almost act as a foundation that provided grants to the participants that needed assistance with the necessities associated with participation.

What do those that do not get chosen to participate get out of helping with this proposed financial aid (if you will)? My hopes will be that the actual folks chosen as apprentices will be very open and communicative of what is happening during the 6 months. With the understanding that Seth has already indicated he doesn’t want to set up a telecommute scenario, and there will likely be certain bits of info he’ll not want made public, there will still be a lot that the participants should be able to share with the rest of us.

And to me, that would be worth the effort of setting all this up in order to help them make it to and through Seth Godin’s Alternate MBA program!

Technorati Tags: advertising, alternative MBA, seth godin