Paypal: brillantesruby at gmaildotcom

Excited for another bad hair day tomorrow 

oh, one more thing, my daughter Sammy’s friend Francois is joining us making a pit stop in Manila from his travels in Asia.  So tomorrow will be quite a crew – we have Australian, French Canadian, Canadian and the ever most resillient Filipinos.

Thank you once again to everybody.  Our success were all from your support.  Love you all.

To contribute via Paypal: brillantesruby at gmaildotcom

Update
”””””””””””’
Sunday, October 4th

With 22,000 Pesos on hand, Janet and I went to Makro (like Costco, for the masses – we didn’t go to S&R – apparently their for the “haves”). We picked up groceries and went straight to “River of Joy” Fellowship Centre in Manila. When we got there, there was one elder in the centre and a fellow named Jun sitting outside on a bench. He said that’s where he lives and he sleeps in his Jeepney at night.

We recruited Jun and put him to work with us. We re-packed 110 Care Packages. Each package contains 2 cans of sardines, 2 dried noodles, 1 juice drink, 1 bottled water, 1 “everything” soap, 2 small chips, 1 toilet paper and 1 sanitary napkin amounting to approx PhP 7,500 and we gave the elder PhP 4200 pesos to buy 100 kilos of rice to be distributed together with our goods. In total we spent PhP 11,700 pesos for the children of Manila North Cemetery – hopefully to reach out to 200 families.

I also allotted 500 pesos for gas = $10 for our drive all week

After Manila, Janet and I went to Hi Top Supermarket – same as Makro and we bought the same thing again. We spent about PhP 5,500 pesos. We could not buy everything at once as Janet’s car is 20 years old. We are afraid that it might not cooperate with us if we overload. (Good old Toyota Corolla – they’re great cars!). It is the only vehicle we have to do our escapade for the day/week.

We drove to Project 6 next, as one of my friends from high school owns a rice store. We had 3 sacks of rice delivered to my apartment that evening. = PhP 5,000 = a little over $100. So for yesterday, we spent approx PhP 22,700

Today is Monday, October 5th. I have no work until around 8:30 pm tonight.

Janet showed up at my condo unit bright and early. We started to re-pack the groceries we bought yesterday. A friend from our office joined us and used his lunch and breaks to help us pack. We re-packed about 100 care packages. Each package contains 2 cans of sardines, 2 dried noodles, 1 juice drink, 1 “everything” soap, 1 chocolate chip cookie bag, 1 toilet paper and 1 sanitary napkin. We also bagged 100 kilos of rice – (1 kilo per bag = 100 bags of rice for 100 families).

I also withdrew another 22,000 Pesos.

I ordered 6 more 50 kilo bags = 300 bags (1 kilo/bag) of rice to give away = PhP 10,000 pesos. I am reserving one 50 kilo bag for our cook out. The re-packaging will be done all week.

In total, we will have 400 one kilo bags of rice and 100 care packages = 500 families.

On Saturday, October 10th, our crew (me and my office mates) will be braving the City of Pasig – one of the most devastated area. We will hit 3 townships inside the city. (I will need to buy a pair of boots…..but if the water is waste high, I guess I don’t have to!) We will do a cook-out – make Arroz Caldo. I am using the one 50 kilo bag of rice for that. (For my friends in Canada, this is like Congee in Chinese Food). This is the easiest to make and hand out, as well as the cheapest. I would say spend about PhP 5,000 plus purchase bottled water to go with each bowl of Arroz Caldo. We will also buy all ingredients on Friday night plus buy a trail load of bananas. This place is still under water – we have to figure out logistics through each township leaders. I was informed that for those areas were water had subsided, the people are practically shovelling the left over mud. Most, however, are still under water – with garbage afloat. Some merchants are charging for boat rides of up to PhP 200 persos per ride. Just to give you a perspective, some people earn that for a day. (I am so glad I have my IPOD docking station – my daughter sent it to me and I can use it then… a little soothing or upbeat music …hhmmmm would be nice I think )

The cookout plus our 500 bags of “goodies” …sounds good!

When all this is done, I will have approx PhP 5,000 pesos (if the bananas doesn’t cost much with the bottled water) and $129 in the bank. This money, plus whatever is coming in, I plan to work with my friend Angelo who’s sister Aiko Melendez works as one of Quezon City’s councillor. She was the first to reach out to the depressed areas and has the guards, vans and people to deliver the next set of goods. It was with them that I experienced my first journey and if they didn’t have the logistics in place, I would have been trampled along with her family. Also going out with them gives me the greatest experience of reaching out. They’re not afraid.

If there’s more money coming in after this, I will keep going and add on to this.

I think that’s money well spent.

For now, on behalf of all of us here and the flood victims, we thank each of you for all your thoughts especially to those who sent us money. I was able to raise $1385.14.

I will give you one last update (and hopefully pictures) after this weekend.

I believe we made a difference.

Thanks again.

Ruby

Rogers explained that because of the data and voice plan that we had there was a $400 cancellation charge for the voice plan and an additional $100 for the data plan. I said that this was ridiculous as there was no hardware amortization involved, and it was simply at service plan. I also pointed out the extra charges we had paid on a number of months for going over on our voice minutes. They said yes, we see that, but the cancellation charges still stand.

Then I came across an interesting web site. Called the Commissioner of Complaints for Telecommunication Services. I simply went on their site and filled out the form explaining my situation and that I was willing to pay the $400 cancellation, but that the other $1000 was robbery.

…and what do you know. About 6 weeks later I get a call from “The Office of the President” at Rogers. I spoke with a woman there who explained she had received my complaint and agreed to waive the $1000 fee and only charge the $400. She said she would put a note on my account, so when it came time to cancel, simply refer the agent to the notes and all would be good. In addition I received a letter summarizing what they agreed to do.

Only in Canada eh!

Click on the link for the post.

Crossloop is a very simple program to use. You go to Crossloop.com and register an account. The registration and use of the software is free. Then you download the application and start it up. You have 2 tabs depending on which end of the call you are on. If you are the one needing support, you click on the Share tab. You will be given and 12 digit number. The person doing the support clicks on the Access tab and enters your 12 digit number that you give them, and clicks on connect. After a few seconds the person getting the support is asked if they want to connect, they click on the connect button and say yes they want to allow the person giving the support access to view their screen. From then on it was like was sitting there on the computer in Vancouver (except for the +25 degree difference in temperatures).  Crossloop is very secure as it generates a new code for each connection. So there is no need to worry about the support person dialing back in and downloading data. Once the session is ended, the code is no longer valid.

So thanks to technology, a happy ending to the story. My sister is happy and everything is working fine with her new laptop and home network. I wonder what the fee would be for a tech. support call from 8000 miles away?

Biggest Let Down: MacWorld. In previous years, ironically, the buzz at CES was MacWorld and new product announcements. With Steve Jobs a no show and barely any new announcements, it was almost a non-event.

Biggest Surprise: Palm Pre phone. Most people had written Palm off as a phone supplier since the introduction of the iPod. When Palm announced the Pre, their stock went up 35% in one day. Some comments in the blogosphere are that this could actually be competitor to the iPhone. We will have to wait and see.

Everyone has a…Netbook. If you make hardware, you probably launched a Netbook at CES. The most talked about was probably the Sony Vaio P. But there were many others. There were new introductions from the market leader, ASUS and Dell, but even Viewsonic, a monitor maker, launched a Netbook.

Most over used phrase…Normal People. This phrase refers to all the non-techies out there who have a tough time getting their photos on their TV, or configuring a home network, or connecting their media to all of the above. I must have heard this definition at almost every demo. It is a great focus because we all know how hard it is to do all the above, but they have been trying to get there for a long time.

Home Theatre. In previous years it was who had the biggest flat panel. Given the economic times, it seemed appropriate that this was not the focus of HDTV launches this year. It was more about the thinnest, or the technology such as LCD screens moving to 120 and 240 kHz. Also there was more focus on connecting HDTVs to the internet. The other development in this space is Sound Bars. These are replacing the 5 speaker surround sound Home Theatre In a Box (HTIB) with one bar that can be mounted below the TV. It still gives you surround sound, but without the hassle of running cables around the room.

Connected Media. All the network vendors launched storage and media streaming devices… for normal people. Cisco (Linksys), Netgear, Seagate and others all have some kind of devise for home network storage and media sharing. The device that caught my eye and follows the KISS principle was PogoPlug. You simply take a hard drive, put it in the enclosure, plug it into an outlet then plug it into your router. It configures itself and makes the hard drive available to anyone on the network. With the price of hard drivers now below $100 for 1 terabyte of storage this is a great way to increase network storage.

Economy. Lastly, everyone was talking about the economy. Forecasts were showing declines in the single digits for 2009. This doesn’t really fit with the fact that Circuit City will be liquidating 500+ stores and Best Buy had a 70% decline in earnings for the last quarter.

The other bold steps made by ASUS was that the Eee PC had no hard disk. You can get one in 4GB, 8GB and now 16GB flash memory. This means no moving parts in the notebook, which leads to more reliability. Lastly, the screen is 7 inches.

In terms of functionality you have all the basics. Wifi, internet browsing, web cam and audio. Accoding to their web site there are over 40 applications pre-installed.

Now why do I ask if ASUS is the next Apple? Over the years I have attended my share of tech. events and became aware of the number of Apple Mac Books vs. other laptops being used by the audience. Recently when I attended the Northern Voice event in Vancouver, another group of notebooks was popping up. This was the Eee PC. It was funny to watch as people pulled out their Eee PC, slowly small crowds began to form. The owners were checking their email, writing blog postings and recording video of speakers. The biggest draw, was the small footprint.

The popularity of these notebooks was further confirmed by third party accessory companies who are now coming out with products for the Eee PC. A-Data has released Eee PC branded flash memory and USB memory stick.

Due to the success of the Eee PC, there are competitors who have their notebooks being released over the next couple of months. Acer, HP and MSI as well as many other lesser known manufacturers are all fighting for their piece of the pie. ASUS is not laying down and letting these others take market share. They are releasing a 9 inch screen version, will now go up to 32 GB of RAM and…will come installed with Microsoft Windows XP.

The market for ultra portables will heat up further in June when Intel releases their Atom processor. This small footprint, high performance processor will be perfect for the ultra portables. ASUS has decided to push out their 9 inch screen in May rather than wait for the Atom processor. Others are a mixed bag. Whether or not this will be a mis-step for ASUS, only time will tell. Right now it is their market share to grow or not.

Livescribe Video

I saw this at the Vancouver Boat Show. It is incredible.

Of course it is $75, 000; but hey, if the volumes go up, maybe it will come down to $70,000.

I have blogged about a couple of other instant messengers for Blackberries before, and have had various amounts of success with them. There is a new player out there. WebMessenger has been around for awhile, but they recently announced that they were offering their personal instant messenger for FREE!

I tried it out and it was a breeze to set up. One of the biggest issues with Instant Messengers has been to get MSN Messenger, or Live Messenger on a Blackberry. WebMessenger does this without a hitch. RIM has been saying for some time that they would have a version for MSN, but so far only Yahoo and Google Talk.

Before you try to get it working on your Blackberry, you need to set up an account on the WebMessenger site. You simply tell them your logins for each of the IM’s out there and then when you login on the blackberry, all your contacts will be there.

…now if I could just get Rogers to offer a cheap data plan.

To further integrate Meebo into your browser, Meebo has just released a Firefox extension. This adds a pane to the right side of your browser and lists all of your buddies online. You can also ‘disconnect’ the pane and have it work as if it were a stand alone application.

It is annoying and many consider this to be rude.

I have found a solution. I found an MP3 file where someone recorded a sneeze. I then found the site www.coolservice.dk. It allows you to upload any MP3 file, then download it onto your Blackberry, or any phone that has internet access. You simply upload the file, and it gives you a code number. You go to the download site on your Blackberry browser, enter the code and it will be downloaded. You then save the file and it will be listed in your ring tones. Select Profiles on your Blackberry and then change the tone.

Now when your phone rings, it will actually sneeze. I have found this much less obtrusive while in public places.

You can listen and download the mp3 file below.

Blackberry does have IM support on its server software, but only if you have the most recent 4.1 version

Now I have email and IM wherever I go…(I just have to figure out if that is really a good thing

You simply download the software onto the 2 computers you want to synchronize. Point to the folder(s) you want to be in sync. and the software does the rest. As you change files on one computer, it is backed up on the other.

To really understand where the UMPC is going, simply watch the Intel video below. The only thing I could say after watching this is "I want one of each!"

Now I have discovered the IE tab for Firefox. This is an extension for Firefox. Firefox has hundreds of extensions, or plugins or addons; whichever definition your are more comfortable with. These extensions allow you to add features to Firefox. The whole system is pretty slick. Every time you boot Firefox it automatically checks for updates to Firefox and extensions. If is finds any, it will update them. This is not an Adobe-esqe type of update that takes 10 minutes, but it generally takes about 5-10 seconds. I could do a whole post on Firefox, but for now, I’ll focus on the IE tab.

After you install the IE tab extension you can switch, on the fly, between Firefox and an IE “emulation mode”. You do not need to exit Firefox or run IE at the same time. You just click on the Firefox icon on the lower toolbar and it switches to IE. If you have some sites that you know require IE, like Windows update and, in my case our reporting system. You can add those web sites to a list and Firefox will automatically load the IE emulation when you go to those sites.

Now I can have the security, speed, and flexibility of Firefox and the IE specific requirements when I need them.

Foxit PDF reader can read PDF files but is less than 2MB to install. Their uptdate files are also less than 1MB. Plus it loads in about 1/5 the time of Acrobat. If you need the high end features of forms building etc. then Foxit is not for you. But if you just need something quick and easy to read PDFs, then give Foxit a try.

There are several choices when you are posting your podcast. Do you want to host the file on your hosting provider or do you want to put the files somewhere else. I’ll start with putting them in the same place as your blog. You simply create a directory/folder on your FTP server (you should have a tool to do this already, I use FileZilla). Then you FTP the files to that folder. When you create your blog post about the podcast you will need a link to the file, in order for Feedburner to recognize the location of the media file. If you are using Wordpress, there is a great plugin called Podpress. Once you have this installed, it adds an on line player and several other features that make it easy to add podcasts. I use this plugin and you can see what it looks like on these 2 posts.

• Seagate puts Focus on Consumer Electronics
• Podcast about Skype

You’ll notice a couple of features. One is that you can color code the player to match the colors of your web site. Two, it gives the user the choice of playing it online or downloading it and listen on their PC.

You can also have your podcasts hosted on another provider. The choice among podcasters for this is Libsyn. They have several packages available. The big benefit, is that they charge you for storage space and not the bandwidth when your podcasts are downloaded.

When you have everything loaded up, it’s time to tell the world. Similar to pinging search engines about a new blog post, you would do the same thing with your podcasts. Obviously the most popular podcast site is iTunes. In order to get your podcast on their directory you will need an iTunes account. For this you will need a credit card, even if you never plan on buying anything from their store. Once you have your account, you load up iTunes, go to the Store, select Podcasts from the upper left box, then submit a Podcast from the lower left box. From there you follow the prompts of where you feed is and what your podcast is about etc. When you submit a podcast the first time, it will take 24-48 hours to get a response back with your podcast account number. You can take that number and put it into the form on Podpress, or you can save the link for future reference. There are a few ways of adding a button to your site that allows people to subscribe to your podcast. The first way is to use that link that was sent to you and attach it to a button. There are, however, some watch-outs to be aware of when using this method. If you have a podcast that comes out more frequently than once a week, you will want to use the methods below to link to your iTunes button. Sometimes it can take days before iTunes will update your podcasts on their store. So I recommend you use one of the following methods to attach to the iTunes button on your site. (assuming your are using Feedburner). You can use either the itpc://feeds.feedburner/[your feed name] or pcast://feeds.feedburner/[your feed name].

There are several podcast specific directories you should use to list your podcasts.

• Odeo.com – directory and podcast service
• Yahoo – has a podcast search and tag-based index
• Podcasting News’ Podcast Directory is the largest user-built directory of podcasts.
• Podcast Alley, one of the most popular podcasting sites, has a large podcast directory.
• Digital Podcast

iPodder.org is a large podcast directory.

• PodcastPickle  
• PodcastDirectory.com
• A Podcast Directory is available at Podcast.net.
• iPodderX

There are several other methods to marketing your podcast. You can watch Chris Penn’s excellent presentation at Podcamp Toronto here.

UPDATE Links: Microsoft’s Preparing for DST changes in 2007.

Microsoft Windows Patches for DST changes.

 RIM Blackberry Patches for DST changes.

 DSTpatch.com with more DST patches.

When you start out podcasting you may not know how long or how often you are going to podcast. From the feedback at Podcamp Toronto I would say to keep your podcast under 30 minutes. As for how often, that really depends on how much information you audience can handle and the big question… will you run out of things to say? The other part of how often is to be consistent. If you start a weekly podcast and skip a couple of weeks, some might think you stopped doing podcasts. Donna Popacosta mentioned the important thing is keep your listeners informed. So if you are going to take a month off to travel, let your listeners know in the podcasts before you leave.

So now you’re ready to record. One of the great lines I heard at Podcamp was “anything worth recording is worth recording badly”. The context of this was that you didn’t have to spend a fortune on equipment to start recording. Some podcasters started with just their laptop, as it had a build in microphone. When you are ready to start spending some money, it was unanimous to spend your money on your microphone. Look to spend $50-$200 for a good quality mic. This will make a big difference to your recordings. The type of mic. used by many is a condenser microphone, which will need an external power source. (look for mixers that have a “phantom power source” for these type of microphones).

Some of the suggested products were:

M-Audio Podcast Factory. This is a good starter setup. It comes with a dynamic microphone, a mini USB mixer and software to record and publish your podcast.

A step up from there were several microphone suggestions.

MXL 990 is a condenser microphone for under $100 and it comes with its own stand and hard sided case.

There are hundreds of other choices from AKG, or Rode. One of the best sources for products is ebay.

Peter O’Connell gives a great presentation at Podcamp. (download the 75MB .mov file here)

There are a few favorites for recording and editing your software. First, there is Audacity. This software is free and is a good starting point. It allows you to have multiple inputs (more than one channel). It also makes it easier to add music or other recorded materials to your podcast.

The next step up from Audacity is Adobe’s Audition or CUBASE. Both are professional level recorders and editors. Audition recently released version 2.0 of their product. (I have heard there are issues with Audition with Windows Vista). The good news about this release is that you can probably get some good deals on the previous version 1.5 which is still a very capable editor. For a demonstration of how to edit your recordings. You can download Mark Blevis’ .mov file here.

If you are a beginner and are using Audacity. There is another piece of free software I use. It is called Levelator from Gigavox. Through a series of algorithms it normalizes and/or compresses your recording; but it does it all automatically. For explanations of these and other terms, you can watch Jay Moonah’s presentation by downloading here.

Some of you may want to record more than just one person, or do interviews on the phone. The best method I have heard for doing this is with Skype. Skype is a free software download that allows you to talk to anyone else with Skype for free. I have several posts below about Skype. What you need to know for podcasting is how to record Skype. There are many choices for this. There is one thing you should look for in this software. As you progress in your editing knowledge, you will want to have your voice and the other’s voice on separate channels. This will allow you to add some effects to the other voice to correct any issues. The 2 packages I am aware of with this feature are Powergrammo (paid version does 2 channels), and PrettyMay. Other Skype recording software is Pamela, HotRecorder and Skyperecorder.

In Jay Moonah’s presentation above, they also discussed a “double-ender” This is where both sides use the software above to record their voice. Then your interviewee sends you the file. You match the 2 files up in your editor and you have a pristine sounding recording, almost as if the 2 of you were in the same room.

The next step up, from a hardware point of view is to a mixer. 2 of the most popular are the Alesis Mulitimix 8USB or the Behringer UB802. If you are looking for something portable. Belkin has their Tune Studio mixer that uses an iPod as the recording device.

One last point about the recording. When you make your recording, always choose to record in a .wav format. This is uncompressed and will be the best sounding format. When you have completed all of your edits. Then you can convert to .mp3 to post onto sites.

And…this is where this post ends, and the next post will be Podcasting 101: posting your podcast on web sites and directories, including iTunes.

The key phrase is web presence. You could have the greatest podcast on earth, but if you don’t have a presence, then no one will be able to find it, or you for that matter. Julien Smith was one of the speakers at Podcamp Toronto. He gave a fantastic presentation on Giving Your Podcast A Google Presence. You can download the video (80 MB) here. Julien make some tremendous points about Google and podcasting. Basically, Google couldn’t care less if you have a podcast. Google knows text…not audio. In order to help Google out, you need to start with a blog, or a web site. You should put the podcast notes on your site and/or get a transcript done. This will help Google when it searches you site.

Your Own Domain:

First, decide on a domain name. I could spend a post or two about how to choose a name, but Bill Sweetman gave a great presentation (40MB) about this at Podcamp. Once you have a name picked out and you have registered the domain; find yourself a good web hosting service. I reccommend this over any of the free services from Blogger, or Wordpress. I have seen too many people who have lost their blogs because of some technical issue. This doesn’t mean you can’t have a Blogger blog, or Wordpress blog. Both offer their software for free to put on any web hosting service you use. This blog uses Wordpress software and my hosting service is 1 & 1. Neither of the steps are expensive. To register a domain costs about $10 a year and a basic web or blog hosting service can be as low as $5 a month.

RSS Feed:

Next you need to create a feed. RSS is a standard format (XML) text file that allows many other readers see your posts. Now most blogging software will create an RSS feed. However, Feedburner.com will allow you to publicize your feed and add several extra features at the click of a button. For podcasters, the most important feature to turn on is the SmartCast feature in the Optimize tab. This will automatically add the tags required to put your podcast on iTunes and add media tags when you post an mp3 file to your site.

Ping’s The Thing:

Once you have created somthing new for your site. You need to tell the world that it is there. The easiest way to do this is tell all the search engines, blog directories and podcast directories that you have created something new. Pingoat is a great service to do this. Once you have filled out your sites information you should add the site to your links group in your browser. Then all you have to do is click on the button in your browser and Pingoat will start telling all the services that you have new content.

Of course to help Google to search your site, you should have a site map. There is a Wordpress addin that will create the site map and ping Google to come and search your site. You can download here.

Tags:

Tags are keywords that will help others to find your posts or podcasts. Technorati is the largest and most popular site for tag searching. You will need to “claim” you blog on their site. Once that is done, you can add some tags in the profile page to help others find your blog and podcasts. You should also tag your posts. You can see my Technorati tags below next to the green icon. Most blogging platforms support Technorati tags. For Wordpress there is a plugin called Ultimate Tag Warrior. This adds an entry bar right under the posting page to add your tags. It also allows you to list related posts from your blog. This helps people to find your other posts on the same topic. Lorelle gives a great tutorial on using Tag Warrior in this post.

Community Sites:

Now the next thing is to get yourself published on some community sites. Such as mySpace, Flickr, Linkedin, Facebook, Friendster and StumbledUpon. Chris Penn from The Financial Aid Podcast gave 2 presentation on these tips and tricks. Podcast Marketing: Five tools and strategies to grow your audience TODAY (60MB) and notes. Plus, Podcast 401 – 5 steps to a bigger audience and slides.

Now you’re ready to start recording! In the next few posts I will discuss the various hardware and software required to start your first podcast. Plus, how to post it on iTunes and other services so the World can subscibe to you. As always, if you have any questions, just send me an email or leave a comment.

Leesa Barnes of Podonomics – Organizer, Media Liaison. 

Jay Moonah of Uncle Seth and Online Music Marketing – Organizer, Event Logistics. 

Brent Morris of The Closet Geek Show – Organizer, Volunteer Liaison. 

Julien of the In Over Your Head hip hop podcast – Organizer, Tech Guru. 

Mitch Joel of Twist Image – Organizer, Publicity/Promotions

Podcamp was a collection of sessions for the novice to advanced podcaster. Podcasters and Podcaster wannabees from both the US and Canada came out to learn more about marketing, branding, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), improving audio quality and building your community and traffic. Several of the sessions are available to view at the Podcamp Wiki.  Mitch Joel’s presentation on branding was excellent. Julien Smith’s discussion about Google couldn’t care less if you have a podcast was both entertaining and enlightening. Christopher Penn gave 2 sessions on the tools needed to expand your audience.  There were many other sessions that you can review on line.

The one area that seemed to be missing was Podcasting for newbies. From a showing of hands in a few sessions it appeared to be 20-25% of the attendees had not produced a podcast. Contrast this against some of the attendees who had been podcasting for 5-10 years. (I wonder what podcasts were called before the iPod?). I offered my services to put together a presentation for the next camp to talk about all the steps I have learned over the past months about podcasting. I also offer my knowledge to anyone who has questions about Podcasting. I will be doing a series of posts over the next few weeks precisely about this topic. So if you have a question, leave me a comment.

Now, I know there are several other products out there that do the same thing. There is Foxmarks and Bookmarks Synchronizer, which are both extensions for Firefox. There is also Googles browser sync and their toolbar favorites sync. But, if you use Firefox and home and your company has standarized on IE, then you would have to use 2 different utilities to synchronize.

2Go’s product works with all of these:

IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox and Opera.

The greatest thing about this software is that it just works. I have used it for years. The other feature it has it that it backs up your favorites and will keep deletions for 30 days in a separate folder. So when you wake up one day and find out that you accidentally erased your Favorites folder. You can go to the website and take the deletions out of the recycle bin and you’re ready to go. So if you have multiple computers, you can’t go wrong with this product.

The installation took 3 minutes. You plug the supplied cable into the back of the dock. You attach the 2 RCA type jacks to your stereo system. You insert the iPod into the dock, turn on the remote and within 5 seconds you have your menu on the remote.

The other benefit of this remote is that it is RF (radio frequency) as opposed to IR (infra-red). This means you do not have to have line of sight to the dock. You can be anywhere in your house and access your iPod. More importantly, you can see what you are playing and what you are accessing.

Watch the video below to see this unit in action.