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Google Offering More Space for Less Money

2009-11-11T11:41:00.002-06:00

Google announced on their blog their new pricing for Gmail storage: 20gig's for only $5 a year.

Update: last year I paid $20 for 10gigs. Under the new pricing, $20 will get you 80gigs, so Google just went ahead and gave me the extra space!

International Bacon Day

2009-09-05T00:01:00.001-05:00

Here's a few handy links to help kick off International Bacon Day. Enjoy!

1. 16 Degrees of craving bacon

2. Bacon Ice Cream

3. Tac Bac - Tactical Canned Bacon

Pay-as-you-go broadband

2009-07-02T00:06:00.002-05:00

Here's one for your hurricane kit: Virgin Mobile has a "pay as you go" broadband adaptor.

I picked this up at BestBuy and it pretty much works as advertised. Aside from the initial cost of the device ($149) you only pay for a set amount of megabytes as you go. The catch: unlike the pay-as-you-go phone minutes, your megabytes expire within 10-30 days depending on how much you buy (prices range from $10 for 100mb to $60 for 1gig). But Virgin sells pre-paid cards, so you can throw a few of those into your bag as well and be ready.

It works on an EVDO-REVA network, which I believe to be Sprint's network (don't quote me on that) and the speed is good enough in a pinch.

Its a thumbdrive as well, and comes with the Windows and OSX drivers on board (no CD needed) but you do have to initially activate the device from a Window machine. There's no cool "connection manager" for OSX, so there's a few extra steps to make the connection. But the upside is that OSX will easily share the connection with other computers. Although, at that price-per-meg that's probably not a great long-term plan.

Sprint Settles Lawsuit; Treocast Gets Paid

2009-06-01T20:15:00.001-05:00

I was notified today that Sprint has finally settled the Treo 600 class action suit that they have been battling for so long.

Granted, I had no idea that this lawsuit was happening. But I did own a Treo 600 back in 2004. As a matter of fact, it was the second in a long line of Treo phones that I've owned. (You never forget your first.)

Apparently some Treo owners took the promise of WiFi and Bluetooth literally and became upset when Palm didn't deliver. Rather than play around with every add-on gadget out there to solve the problem as I did (including this brick-expander) some decided to band together and take on Palm on behalf of Treo owners everywhere.

The result: I get a coupon for $27.50 to spend on the Palm web site any way I want. Can't beat that! I wonder what other lawsuits I'm tied up in that will be cashing in soon. Is there an app for that?

SplashCast Shuts Down Free Publishing Tools

2009-05-17T10:53:00.003-05:00

SplashCast has announced that effective June 1 they will no longer be providing free publishing services. SplashCast seems to he gone through a few iterations over the years, starting as a podcast aggregation and publishing system to some sort of "Social TV" site.

Sling Player for the iPhone

2009-05-13T13:10:00.003-05:00

It's available now, and from what I hear it works great. But before you get too excited: it will cost you $29, and its WiFi only - it does not work over 3G. This was at Apple's request, according to Sling. Kind of odd, considering other phones on AT&T's 3G network are allowed to use Sling...

Sprint Picks Twitter

2009-04-12T21:18:00.002-05:00

I saw this Sprint commercial tonight and thought it was interesting that they mention Twitter by name. Do any of the other similar (and arguably better) services even stand a chance anymore?

Brightkite and Limbo are "joining forces"

2009-04-08T11:54:00.001-05:00

I can't say that's I've ever used Limbo; I'm sure I created an account there at some point but that doesn't mean anything. I am, however, a big fan of Brightkite. To me Brightkite's always been a location-based Twitter-like service with better features and better interfaces. But that's neither here nor there.

The news today is the Bightkite has announced that they are joining forces with Limbo. It seems to be more a merger than a partnership though. The Limbo site points you right to Brightkite, and the Brightkite blog offers this explanation:

We plan to move all Limbo accounts and key features to the Brightkite platform. Limbo users gain an enriched product, enhanced user interface, and new Brightkite friends. We expect this transition to happen within the next few weeks. Brightkite users please welcome Limbo users and be sure to show them the ropes.

Connect with me on Brightkite. I'm treocast.

Happy Birthday Gmail

2009-04-03T19:13:00.001-06:00

Letter From The Boss

2009-04-03T13:51:00.003-06:00

Someone just forwarded this to me. I'm sure its a joke, but for some reason I'm not laughing.

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned myself to the fact that Barrack Obama is our President and that our taxes and government fees will increase in a BIG way. To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.

But since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal state of the economy, we will have to lay off six of our employees instead. This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn't know how to choose who would have to go.

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lot and found six Obama bumper stickers on our employees' cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go. I can't think of a more fair way to approach this problem. They voted for change; I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

Google Launches Gmail Autopilot

2009-04-01T08:05:00.003-06:00

Just in time for Spring, Google launches their new Autopilot feature for Gmail. Autopilot uses a set of variables from you, plus some predictive AI to automatically respond to messages as they arrive in your inbox.

VMWare on Nokia tablets

2009-03-06T10:13:00.002-06:00

Here's a demo of a Nokia tablet using VMWare to run Windows CE (yawn) and Android. Finally, a reason to dig my Nokia N810 out of the drawer and play with it again.

ooVoo video calls from the browser

2009-02-25T21:05:00.003-06:00

I may be a little late to the game, but I just discovered that as an ooVoo user, I can have a video conference with anyone without making them install any software. A simple link will connect the call through the browser and connect us for a video call.

It seems to work well, although it doesn't let the caller know if I'm available or not before trying to connect.

Hulu Recommends

2009-02-17T23:32:00.001-06:00

Looks like Hulu is beta testing their recommendation engine.

Of the shows listed, I've watched them all during my life but not all on Hulu, so I guess I'd say its working okay. Of course, recommending a show that I haven't seen, but would enjoy, would be much better. At least it has its own RSS feed.

Google Mobile Sync for iPhone Beta

2009-02-09T21:26:00.001-06:00

Google sync now keeps your iPhone calendar and contacts in sync with your Google account over then air. I was expecting some download and installation, but it seems they've just enabled accounts to use the Microsoft Exchange settings that are already on the iPhone. So far it seems to work flawlessly.

Two things to note:

1) If you are already syncing your iPhone with an Exchange server, you can't use this; the iPhone only allows one Exchange server to be configured at a time.

2) Doing this will erase all of the contacts and calendar entries you currently have on your iPhone, so make sure that you back them up and upload them to your Google account before doing this.

Check out Google's Mobile Blog post and their Sync page for more information and complete instructions.

Wait. I have one of those?

2009-02-05T20:23:00.001-06:00

I received an email containing the following message:

Dear AT&T Yahoo! Briefcase user,
We will officially close AT&T Yahoo! Briefcase on March 30, 2009. Until then, we are offering you the opportunity to download your files back to your computer. If you have not previously used Briefcase to store your files online, then no action is required on your part.

I had to think about this for a minute. I think I did set one of these up shortly after having Yahoo DSL installed many years ago - it came with the account. And at the time is was an interesting service. Had they continued to develop it I might not be the Mesh addict I am today.

As it stands, I've only got a handful of files there, dated 2005.

Equinux beats Sling to the iPhone

2009-02-05T18:02:00.001-06:00

Equinux now has their Live TV iPhone client available in the iTunes store. So where's Sling?

Comfort Food

2009-01-30T22:36:00.001-06:00

When the economy is down, people turn to comfort food. And nothing say "comfort" like pork products.

obamicon.me

2009-01-20T11:12:00.000-06:00

A bit of post-election fun.

AT&T HomeManager

2009-01-14T08:40:00.001-06:00

AT&T is now offering a wireless device for home that provides all the basics: voice service, news, weather, email, intercom, calendar, etc. It seems a bit bulky, and at $299 ($499 without discount) a bit expensive, so its not something that I think we'll try out. But I could easily see my mother getting one and calling me over to come set it up.

Details and flash demo available...

Good Advice

2009-01-11T16:07:00.001-06:00

Windows 7 Beta Available Today

2009-01-09T06:19:00.001-06:00

The link was already suppose to have been added to the page, but as of right now its not there. But at some point today Microsoft will make Windows 7 Beta available.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the download site for the beta, but after failing to load for a while now, the web page has been changed to simply read:

Not Lovin' It

2008-11-23T12:54:00.004-06:00

Its a story you've probably heard before:

girl takes pictures
girl sends picture to hubby
hubby leaves phone in McDonald's
McDonald's clerk uploads pictures
girl sues McDonald's

The website apparently posted the photos along with her contact information and home address. The resulting phone calls and harassment forced the Arkansas couple to move. They are suing McDonald's for $3M in damages.

Whats up with Netflix's delivery queues?

2008-11-15T10:06:00.004-06:00

I've been a customer of Netflix since 2002. In all that time, the most I've ever had to wait for a movie in my queue is "short wait" which usually equated to one cycle (receive and return) of movie viewing. More often though movies have been immediately available, even the new releases.

Recently though all of the shows I want to watch are marked "very long wait." I realize that these new releases are popular (Kung Fu Panda and Hellboy II) but that's never been an issue in the past. So what's changed?

365 Days of Astronomy

2008-11-13T15:44:00.004-06:00

"The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is a project that will publish one podcast per day, for all 365 days of 2009. The podcast episodes are written, recorded and produced by people around
the world."

cool.