mpolino.com

eReader eBook Costs

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 09:10:50 PST

I read a lot. In 2010 I read 110 books and for 2011 I’ve read 113 through Christmas. I read a lot of these books as eBooks and I keep seeing stories about what eReader is better, as if it were a hardware only choice. What about availability of books? What about the cost of books? Surely not all platforms are equal right?

So I did some research and pulled together this infographic based on the 113 books I’ve read so far this year. I wanted to find out how many of those books would have been available as eBooks and what they would have cost on various platforms specifically for Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Google Books and Apple iBooks.

Click the infographic for details.

I priced each book as of 12/25/11 figuring folks would grab their shiny new eReaders and buy a book. The results were very clear.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble stood out for book availability with Amazon having 91% of my books available as a eBooks. If you like anything outside of the mainstream Amazon is your best bet with only one of my titles available as an eBook on other platforms but not on Amazon. Both Google and Apple were hit or miss for a lot of titles with only 59 of 113 titles available on all four platforms.

Amazon was the king of pricing hands down. They were never undersold and if you had bought the 59 books available on all 4 platforms on Kindle instead of Nook, you would have saved just about enough money to buy a low end Kindle.

iPhone Reminders and Outlook/Exchange Tasks

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:37:50 PST

So I bought an iPhone 4 not a 4S. (Does the “S” stand for “Siri”?) because my Droid died about 3 weeks before the big announcement. By died I mean refused to charge. It was the connector not the battery.

Frankly I’m thoroughly enjoying the iPhone 4. Enough people think I’m strange without adding talking to my phone to the list. The update to iOS 5 was slightly painful but not worse than what I’ve been through with Android or Windows Mobile and it didn’t break anything permanently (cough…Android, Froyo, Droid Launcher…cough)

But folks seem to have missed something in the Siri buzz. The Reminders app is actually pretty cool. All the reviews seem stuck on the idea that it will remind you about a task when your near that location but I have yet to see anyone write about the fact that it integrates Tasks from Exchange. I’ve finally got Exchange Mail/Calendar/Contacts/Tasks on a single device using built in apps.

The last time this happened was Windows Mobile 6.5. Apparently folks who review iPhones don’t have corporate jobs that include Exchange or they don’t have tasks to complete. I guess it’s possible that they just gave up on having synced/integrated tasks on their phone.

I’m thrilled that reminders are now on iOS 5 and I’m thrilled that they sync to that magical app known as Outlook 2010.

Airplane Travel Tip-How to get more legroom

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:42:50 PST

The rules are that you have to have your carry bag under the seat in front of you for takeoff and landing. The rules don’t say anything about mid flight.So if you need a little more leg room to stretch out during that flight, after takeoff, move your bag under your knees.

I travel with a pretty small computer bag but it still gets in the way when trying to sleep so after takeoff, I move the bag under my knees or under the slight overhang between the end of my seat and the bar below designed to contain the carryon of the person behind me. Even a large backpack can fit under your knees allowing you to stretch out for some shut eye on a long flight in a middle seat.

My wife does this on car trips in the passenger seat but I never really thought to do it on airplane flights until recently and it works like a charm.

You’ll have to stow everything again for landing but hopefully you’ll be more rested by then.

TSA Expedited Traveler Exprience

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:22:01 PDT

On my way home from #atl today I got picked for the new #tsa #expedited traveller program. I had signed up a while back but never heard anything.

In short, the experience was fantastic.

The T gate checkpoint in atl now has 3 lanes. One for non-medallion members, a regular medallion lane and an expedited lane. Pre-screeners segregate folks as they walk up. The medallion side has a second screener who scan boarding passes with a handheld device to separate expedited travelers. Mine passed. Prior to security, a TSA agent checks ID and re-scans the boarding pass one more time.

After that security is straightforward. X-ray and bag x-ray. No removing shoes plus laptop and liquids stayed in their bags. No naked body scan.

I was picked for a hand swab but others went straight through. Even with that it was crazy fast. I could seriously get used to this.

Plus no one scribbled their initials uselessly on my boarding pass.

Delta: Honesty, Integrity, Mutual Respect = Bait & Switch

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:40:05 PDT

I’m a Platinum level Delta flyer and I’m on a Delta jet every week. I’m not Diamond level because of the number of times I go into Atlanta and stay there. As a Platinum member Delta gives me a set number of “System wide Upgrades” allowing me to get a “free” first class upgrade without worrying about my place in the upgrade line.

Until I try to use them of course.

For example, this weekend I went to buy a ticket. I have a flexible travel schedule in this case and the travel is 2 months out. I found that I could buy a coach ticket for $477. Delta’s website helpfully offered that for $306 I could pay to upgrade to first class. Total $783.

I called and tried to use a system wide upgrade certificate. Since the coach fare has to be booked in certain fair codes, my coach ticket with the free upgrade would cost me $678 or roughly $100 less than just buying a first class ticket.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that I’m supplementing the cost of my “free” upgrade by paying 2/3 of the cost.

As someone who flies every week on Delta this feels like bait and switch. I tried to explain this to the Delta agent who struggled with the fact that they couldn’t see the internet offer of $306. She suggested I take the $306 offer. That of course, misses the point entirely.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. It seems to happen every time I try to use an upgrade certificate which is why all of mine went unused last year.

Delta’s new safety video is preceded by a message from Delta CEO Richard Anderson who extols their commitment to honesty, integrity and mutual respect. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do that demonstrates honesty, integrity and mutual respect and I don’t see that when trying to their “free” upgrades.

Why my next Phone will (probably) be an iPhone 5

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:05:09 PDT

I’ve never been an Apple lover. I loathe the bloated pig that is iTunes for Windows, but right now, it looks like my next phone will be an iPhone 5 (on Verizon).

I was a long time Windows Mobile user but when Microsoft decided to take a year off to start over I wasn’t willing to wait. So I bought the hot Android device at the time, the Motorola Droid. I use my phone for email, as my primary music player, secondary movie player, primary ebook reader and for blog reading, Twitter, Facebook, travel you name it. So I’m picky about my phone.

My wife and I had both had build quality issues with HTC WinMo phones and I wasn’t interested in spending the next two years cycling through replacement phones. I’ve had good luck in the past with Motorola so I went that route.

Overall I was thrilled with the Droid until they pushed out the 2.2 (Froyo) update. While Froyo added the ability to run apps from the SD card and live wallpaper it completely broke the launcher. The phone now regularly times out before returning to the home screen. After much pain and Googling I’ve found that this is essentially a lack of memory problem with no real fix. The only consistent resolution seems to be using ADW Launcher with the Keep in Memory setting. Without that, the phone approaches unusable as apps grab memory throughout the day. I’ve seen it take 5 full minutes to return the launch screen.The hardware is still generally good though the headphone jack seems to be getting loose.

So why am I not looking at another Android phone again?

The uncontrolled growth in apps bothers me. The Droid is short on memory but it really highlights problems with apps like Google Reader, Twitter and Facebook. These apps store their data in “data” not in cache. Cache clears, data never does. My wife and kids have this same issue on their LG Ally phones. Facebook eats up all available memory and parts of the of phone (like texting) are unusable until you manually clear data.Though it’s fun to see my daughter twitch because she can’t text, this is this a poor design. And it’s a poor design in many Google native apps and official apps. Fail.
I don’t like being misled. The size of an app on Google marketplace should reflect the size of the app on the phone, not the download size. I’m looking at you Google +. A 2+ mb download should not balloon into an app 4x that size on the phone. Also, move to SD card should not mean that 90% of the app stays on the phone and 10% moves to the SD card. Again, yes this is more of an issue on phones with smaller amounts of memory but the Android ecosystem is in that stage where software is out pacing hardware. More phones will run into this as apps bloat.
Google Bloat.Speaking of bloat, there are two kinds of Google bloat. Apps that I can’t remove, essentially Google crapware and apps that Google bloats with updates. Both bother me but the updates bother me more. For example, the Google music app doubled in size with the latest update and got less user friendly. Google essentially stole space from me with their update. Sure I could choose to not install it but then the Market just nags me about it regularly. Amazon’s music app does the same thing, cloud and all, it is considerably smaller. The Android Market also ballooned with the last update. 3 of the 4 largest apps on my phone are Google apps, Maps, Music and Market. The fourth item is SlingPlayer which I expect to be large. It brings TV to my phone for heaven’s sake.
Performance. Why can’t the dialer be given priority over all other functions? I should have an option to kill everything else and answer the phone regardless of what is going on the background. Few things are as frustrating as sliding the little bar over and over again and still missing the call because the phone won’t give me back control. Plus, I still have to pull the battery about as much as I did on my old WinMo 6.5 phone.
Accessories. Yes it’s trivial but if you want a case for your Android phone you’d better buy it with the phone because next week it won’t be available. Heaven forbid your case breaks while protecting your phone and you need a new one. Even for a hot phone like the Droid it was almost impossible to find a case a few months after release. I can still find 25 different cases for old iPhone 3GP at Wal-Mart today without any effort.

So why not Windows Phone 7?

I’m not interested in waiting for Mango to make WinPho7 right. Been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt with too many promises in the past, and not just from MS. Android was the same way promising that 2.2 would make things all better, not. I’ll look at WinPho7 again in a year or two if it’s more mature.
Apps. It’s not about having more apps, it’s about having the right apps. There are still apps I can’t get on WinPhone like Square, Audible, Pandora and travel sites from Hilton, Marriott and Gate Guru. I travel, a lot.
Accessories. Android problem x 20
Strategy. Microsoft should have thrown in the towel and built a Microsoft branded Phone with WinPho7. They are trying to blend the control of Apple with the variety of Android. From a strategy standpoint, you can have apples or you can have fruit salad, Microsoft is trying push irradiated strawberries.

One more reason I’m looking at the iPhone 5 is still the apps. The iPhone gets them first, Android is optional for developers and Windows Phone is afterthought. Examples include WSJ, Suntrust, Marriott, etc. The last reason is that there is little risk in this decision. If I hate the iPhone, my wife is due for a new phone in Feb. and she definitely wants an iPhone 5. We could just swap then and I could get something new.

There is one reason right now that I may not go to an iPhone 5 and that is LTE. If, as the rumors go, the iPhone 5 won’t have LTE I’ll have to think about whether or not I want to spend two more years in slow town.

Live Writer Problems

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:06:13 PDT

Ever since the last update of Windows Live Writer I’ve had some strange issues Live Writer locks up and crashes and periodically and some posts to Blogger take an extremely long time to post.

I use the Blog This add in for Live Writer to blog from IE9 for most of my posts and I think I’ve found a workaround that seems to mitigate the issues.

If I open Live Writer and leave a blank post open before I start creating posts with the add in, things seem to run much smoother. I haven’t had any shut downs with this method and though some posts still take a while to complete, they always complete.

It’s not ideal but it’s not a tough workaround either. Sadly, prior to this, Live Writer had been incredibly stable for some time.

On Netflix and Inflection Points Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:52:02 PDT

In part 1 I looked at changes to Netflix pricing but there’s a broader point here. Netflix thrives on inertia. They spend a fortune to get you to sign up knowing that inertia will keep you from leaving. You’ve checked the box and mentally you’re off on to other things.That’s why they (and a ton of other companies) spend a lot of money incentives for new customer acquisition, even though it makes existing customers feel ignored.

But then something happens that makes customers reevaluate that decision and that’s really bad for inertia.

In my world, when companies put in a new ERP system people quit, leave or retire. Sometimes folks get canned. In most cases it has nothing to do with the new system. It’s simply a big enough change to overcome inertia. The change gives people an excuse to do things that they’ve been thinking about doing either consciously or subconsciously. Typically folks have been ready for a change for a while, they just need something to get them off the couch.

In the case of Netflix, we’ve wound our queue down to zero a couple of times over the last year. When really want to see a new release outside of a theater, we would drop the $3.99 to see it on demand via our cable company. In short, we were kind of bored but we didn’t have an incentive to quit paying our $10 a month. Now we do.

The new Netflix pricing takes effect September 1 leaving Netflix a pretty short window to get us to change our mind. Then they’ll spend a fortune trying to get us back. Breaking inertia is expensive.

On Netflix and Inflection Points

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:04:00 PDT

So Netflix is upping the cost of unlimited streaming and getting a DVD shipped, by a lot. My first thought was that we’d dump the Netflix DVD option and move to Redbox for DVD’s. After all, at one movie a weekend, which all we do realistically, Redbox is half the price. Pus, with Micah now driving, he’d happily run to Redbox for us just to get to drive his car. Half price movies and a happy teenager, what could be better?

Now I’m thinking that we might dump Netflix altogether. The streaming movie offerings are nice as a fill in but the selection isn’t strong enough to drop the $8 a month on. Frankly, every time we’ve really wanted to stream something right now (like when the kid’s karate instructor scheduled a party at our house to watch the original Karate Kid and then forgot to rent it.) we’ve been bailed out by Amazon Unbox, not by Netflix. I double checked and everything in my Netflix queue is available on Amazon for rent at pretty reasonable prices ($2.99 for the older stuff).

One of my uses for Netflix is streaming movies while I’m working on the road. Except that it rarely works. Too many hotels still have really poor wireless. (I’m look at you Hilton brands, Marriott kicks your butt in this area.) When it takes 3 hours to stream an hour and half movie you can bet the experience is terrible. With Amazon, the rentals are portable so I can rent and download before I leave home taking portable movies with me.

Ok, I think I’ve convinced myself, now to go convince my wife.

Droid Rebuild

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:40:36 PDT

Droids have long histories of rebuilding. There was the six million dollar man who became something of droid after the rebuild. C3P0 was rebuilt multiple times in the Star Wars saga as were the Terminators.

On Monday I decided that it was time to rebuild my Droid. My original droid had been through the upgrade to Froyo and I was regularly getting out of space issues despite my best efforts. The last straw came when any apps on the SD card refused to update. After deleting them, they refused to reinstall.

So Monday night I backed things up and did a hard reset on the devices and a format on the SD card. I was pleasantly surprised that my previously installed apps automatically installed, except of course that I didn’t want a few of them back. It would be nice if Android asked first.

By noon Tuesday the phone was 100% with all of my settings, logins, etc. complete and the phone rocks. It’s fast again and I have tons of room on the device and on the SD card.

I’ve noticed that many, many, many Android apps don’t clean up after themselves leaving crud on the device.Didn’t Google used to complain about that with Windows?

Finally, the day after I rebuilt my phone, Verizon sent me an email telling me that I was eligible for a new phone. Bad timing. Two days earlier and I might have jumped. Today, I’m happy again with my Droid.

Android and Office 365

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:35:20 PDT

I signed up for the Office 365 beta and with just a little work got my email account working on my Droid with the default Office 365 domain setup.

Here’s how:

In the core email app, click Menu | Add Account
enter your email address and password from Office 365

Android wasn’t able to automatically setup the account like it could with my corporate mail. I suspect this is a beta issue.

In Domain\User name enter your full email account like myname@myname.onmicrosoft.com
Enter your password
In the Server enter SN2PRD0602.outlook.com

This is slightly different than the settings you see if you add the account to Outlook. It uses SN2PRD0602.mailbox.outlook.com but that doesn’t seem to work on my droid.

Check Use Secure connection (SSL)
Hit Next
You will need to accept the security prompt.

That’s is. Now I’ve got my corporate Exchange based mail and my Office 365 mail going to Android. I can view a combined inbox or see them separately and the notification icon shows number emails in the number of inboxes.

Borders Book-O-Nomics

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:02:53 PST

So we hit the local Borders bookstore closing sale today. I went through my pile of books and then did the math. Most of the books I wanted were in the $25 range. With Border’s 20% discount, the price drops to $20. Even if I held off a few weeks and waited for 40% price breaks, it falls to $15. Except that most of these books are available today in Kindle format for $10-$12.

I have no idea how Borders’s bankruptcy affects their relationship with publishers but in the normal course of business most books are returnable by stores to the publisher for a full refund. Consequently, it may only be in Border’s best interest to sell the books at a discount that isn’t more than the cost of boxing up and returning the books. Don’t expect fantastic deals at a Border’s out of business sale. Do expect a long checkout line.

Freedom is never a release and always a responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:17:39 PST

As Egypt begins to ponder what freedom might mean for them, and the course to freedom is by no means set yet for Egypt, yesterday’s Daily Drucker reminded me of what freedom really means. It made me wonder if Egyptians are really ready for freedom, not just license.

"Freedom is not fun. It is not the same as individual happiness, nor is it security or peace or progress. It is a responsible choice. Freedom is not so much a right as a duty. Real freedom is not freedom from something; that would be license. It is freedom to choose between doing or not doing something, to act one way or another, to hold one belief or the opposite. It is not "fun" but the heaviest burden laid on man: to decide his own individual conduct as well as the conduct of society and to be responsible for both decisions.", [Peter F. Drucker with Joseph A. Maciariello, The Daily Drucker]

My Most Used Android Apps

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:43:33 PDT

I’m late to the party. Dwight Silverman posted his most used Smartphone apps. James Kendrick followed up with his 5 most used Android Apps. I thought that I would join in with my most used android apps, excluding the built in apps. This is just apps, I’ll tackle widgets separately. I use most of these every day. A few are more every other day but are just so incredible (like DroidAnalytics) that I couldn’t leave them out.

Touchdown – Simply the best Exchange app I’ve seen on any platform including Windows Mobile. The app includes To Do lists, the ability to set categories and email signatures. It’s worth every penny, even at $19.99

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.nitrodesk.touchdownpro
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Kindle - To avoid having multiple book reading apps I’ve decided to standardize on the Kindle and I’ve not looked back. I’m working on reading 100 books this year. I’m up to 82 so far it wouldn’t be possible without the Kindle app. Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.amazon.kindle
Newsrob – The free versions of Newsrob is still my favorite RSS reader. I’ve tried them all and keep coming back to Newsrob. Free or $5.00

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.newsrob
Hootsuite/Twitter – Yeah, I know that these are two apps but Hootesuite is my favorite for managing multiple Twitter accounts. The Twitter app however allows adding location to posting so I use the both. Free/$2.99/Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.hootsuite.droid.full / http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.twitter.android
TripIt – I’m on the road every week and TripIt gets a ton use. Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.tripit
Blogaway – If you use blogger this is a must have app. The feature set is amazing. I use it regularly to pop out a blog post before the plane leaves. Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.beanie.blog
Droid Analytics – I like to keep an eye on my blog stats. This is soooo much easier with Droid Analytics. Droid Analytics gives incredible access to Google Analytics while on the go. Free/$1.25

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.droidanalytics
Calorie Counter – Some of us need to lose a little weight. Calorie Counter from Fat Secret lets you track what you eat and weigh and it syncs with the Fat Secret website making it easy to make updates online or while mobile. I’ve lost more than 20 lbs in 3 months and I’m still losing. Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.fatsecret.android
Abduction – Now that I’ve worn out Angry Birds I’m back playing some Abduction. Help the cows join their little cow buddies abducted by aliens. Fast and still addictive. Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/au.com.phil
Paper Toss – There is a sense of déjà vu you get when sitting in an airport waiting for a flight playing paper toss in the airport location. It’s like those picture in a picture in a picture shots. There are still times when I just need to turn off the brain shoot some wastebasket hoops. Free

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.bfs.papertoss

Hilton’s Top Chef Marketing Fail

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 20:43:39 PDT

For whatever reason I’ve gotten into Bravo’s Top Chef D.C. this season. Hilton is a huge sponsor. The competition has been held in the Hilton Washington D.C. and Hilton Singapore. The marketing includes hotel key cards when you check and in room promos. They just missed one thing…

In most cases, you can’t actually watch the show in Hilton hotel because they don’t have Bravo…FAIL!

The pay per view section in some hotels offers a few free episodes but you can’t watch the current episode in real time or near real time. I’ve been in a number of Hilton hotels when the show airs on Wednesday and I’ve always had to wait until I get home and watch the DVR version. (The family is monopolizing the DVR that has the Slingbox attached so I can’t stream it. It’s a long story.)

Talk about a lost opportunity.

How many evil empires can you support?

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:27:17 PDT

I’ve decide that I can only prop up 2 evil empires in my life so I’ve decided on Microsoft and Google. All of our PC’s run Windows 7 and either Office 2007 or 2010. I haven’t had time to upgrade all of them to 2010 yet. All of our phones are Android phones.

Microsoft gets: The desktop and the office suite hands down. With Office Live this is a total no brainer. Bing also wins for search on the PC. I’m hooked on the daily pictures. I support Dynamics GP and Google doesn’t compete in ERP so that’s a hands down win. Email with Outlook and note taking with One Note are also locks. Exchange gets my corporate mail.

Google gets: The phone ‘cause Windows Phone 7 isn’t out yet and is copying Apple too much. They also get the blog with Blogger because I have no interest in hosting a WordPress blog and Blogger is much more customizable than any of Microsoft’s blogging options. Google also get’s website analytics. Microsoft is simply non-existent here. Google also gets the nod for RSS reading. Microsoft’s RSS strategy just doesn’t support reading in multiple locations well. Gmail gets my personal mail, mainly for storage size and IMAP compatibility making it easy to use with Outlook.

Apple gets: Nada. I don’t even have Quicktime on my Windows machines. Here’s the thing, I don’t need to carry another device for music, Android runs just fine. I don’t think Apple does a good job of writing Windows software. iTunes is a pig and Steve Jobs is really needy. He keeps needing me to do things his way and that turns me off.

So, my limit is 2. The funny thing is, I don’t see the MS/Google ratio changing much in the near future. Other than search, the other items are really a slam dunk for me. If anything MS could create a great analytics package or web based RSS reader easier than Google will pry Excel or One Note from hands.

100 Books This Year

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:27:52 PDT

Inspired by Paul Randal reading 100 books last year, I set out to read 100 books this year, 2010. I figured that I come pretty close to that number anyway but this would formalize it. From my starting point, I’m in week 33 meaning that I need have read somewhere near 66 books. I’ve finished 71 and expect to have book 72 finished before the week “ends” on Friday. Even better I have books 73-78 already in house, no waiting on the library. I also now have a large enough backlog that coming up with a 100 books to read won’t be a problem.

I track my books through Library Thing. You’re welcome to follow along. The 100 read so far this year is here. According to Karl Rove, George W. Bush read 95 books in a year on a bet. I’m betting I can beat that.

5 Books NOT to Read on an Airplane

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:11:48 PDT

I spend a lot of time on airplanes and I read a lot of books taxiing with Delta (Doesn’t Ever Leave the Airport). As a result, I’ve compiled 5 books you do NOT want to read on an Airplane plus a couple of bonuses.

The Bourne Identity - I read the opening paragraphs about Carlos the Jackal bombing planes in Europe (including Frankfurt) while sitting on a plane in Frankfurt. We were delayed because a passenger decided to get off and they had to remove his luggage to ensure that it wasn't a bomb. Talk about a scary book.
Turbulence - I never want to fly in plane where the pilot and copilot are so out of sync. This book even freaked out my wife about flying.
Airframe - Michael Crichton's take on what can go wrong at 35,000 feet.
The Unthinkable - On the plane you'll realize all the things you haven't done that could help you survive a disaster, including listening to the flight attendant and locating the exits. Even worse you won't be able to anything about it except maybe locate the exits.
The Hot Zone - It has little to do with flying but you'll be scared to death that the guy in row 37A has Ebola or some other hideous disease and is spreading it to you through the poorly circulating airplane ventilation system.

Bonus

Crashers – I haven’t read this yet but it’s on my list. I suspect that it will make the next list
World without End – It’s not scary and it has nothing to do with planes but it weighs so much that Delta will charge you $25 bucks to carry it on the plane.

The Truth About Healthcare

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:42:17 PDT

Medical Chick-fil-A

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:00:32 PDT

My sister-in-law is battling ovarian cancer. My wife is headed out today to be with her through her chemo treatments. Every time my wife goes out to do this, my sister-in-law wants one thing…medical marijuana you ask? nooooo…Chick-fil-A. As a certified Chick-fil-A addict who managed to work at one in high school I appreciate a good Chick-fil-A sandwich. I’ll get excited over nuggets and Chick-fil-A sauce but I never thought of Chick-fil-A as a cancer treatment. So now I’m worried.

Will Chick-fil-A become a controlled substance? Will I have to wrap to my own Chick-fil-A like I did in high school? Will those little foil wrappers become the next dime bag? I don’t want to go hang out in dingy clubs just to get a hit of nuggets and Chick-fil-A sauce. At a hit of Chick-fil-A doesn’t give me the munchies but it is pretty addictive.
Hopefully all of that won’t happen. In a perfect world, my sister-in-law’s cancer is cured and the miracle powers of Chick-fil-A remain a dark voodoo passed from one cancer survivor to the other. Heaven knows the medical profession would try to screw it up by removing the pickles or opening the restaurants on Sunday.

We know that chicken has special medical powers. You can see that in chicken soup. I just didn’t realize those powers had spread to the whole Chick-fil-A line.

Kenya Photos on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:36:17 PDT

The kids are posting some Kenya photos live on Facebook. Here are some of Micah’s: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2041449&id=1318016427

OneNote Online

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:52:09 PDT

With the release of Office live apps I was really excited to be able to be able to move my OneNote files to the web. I had tried this before but the old Small Business option didn’t have enough storage space. The plus to that was that I had an idea of what I was doing. Since this is all new I thought that I would post a little of my experience.

My Old Setup
My old setup was a USB key that all of my OneNote files lived on. All of the files were synced to all of my PC’s by plugging in the USB key. This was actually very convenient for all of the laptops. Rarely does my stuff have to be continuously in sync and if I wanted to ensure absolute synchronization, say before getting on a plane, I could just plug in the USB key.

It was still imperfect because I often had to plug in 3 times to get 2 two computers to sync. That is, changes from computer A to the drive, changes from computer A to computer B via the drive and changes from computer B back to computer A.

OneNote Online
That of course is why I was looking forward to maintaining OneNote online. All in all the process was about what I expected. It seems to work fine for new notebooks but it’s still a little rough around the edges when moving existing data up. For my own safety, I created a new notebook online with the same name as existing notebook and copied each section from the old notebook to the new, online notebook. Then I let the notebook sync online naturally. Warning, it can take a long time.

Most of my notebooks synced fine but a few of them kept throwing errors. Typical errors were that a section was too large or a generic error that the section couldn’t sync. All of them were finally solved, more on that later. Everything is now syncing.

So here are my tips:

Syncing can be very slow to move a lot of data up for the first time. Give yourself plenty of time
I found some oddities where I couldn’t delete sections from within OneNote. Deleting them from the web worked. Similarly, I would delete items locally and they would come back when syncing. Deleting them from the online version worked. This only happened occasionally and with sections that had trouble syncing. It was not common.
There doesn’t seem to be a really efficient way to get an existing notebook up to the cloud. I preferred to copy sections not move them in case something goes wrong.
To access the notebook on a second computer, open the notebook in office.apps.live and click Open in One Note.
Notes taken in Ink will sync back and forth but aren’t visible in the web app edition.
The online help for sync errors is essentially non-existent. Nothing led me to the error numbers, direct link, Bing, Google, nada.
For Sync errors:
- If it’s a generic can’t sync error, try again. In my case my internet connection had lousy upload speeds and that was part of the problem.
- For errors where the section is too large, the error log will show the specific section. Remove that section and add back parts one at a time.
- Also if the section is too large, splitting it into multiple sections works fine. It was really hard to figure out why a section was too big. Often it didn’t seem to make any sense.
- Pay attention to the recycle bin. Sometimes the error message actually refers to a recycle bin section that won’t sync. Empty the recycle bin for that notebook locally. (Right Click on a notebook name and pick Notebook Recycle Bin)
- In a few cases, creating a new section with a different name and copying each item separately seemed to fix the issue.

I think that’s about it. My OneNote files total about a 1.5 gigs so that should give you an idea of how much data I’m pushing.

Everone and Their Luggage Made it to Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 06:36:20 PDT

It looks like everyone and their luggage made it to Africa and they are ready to go.

Kids Mission Trp

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:58:31 PDT

The kids are off to Kenya on a mission tip! After little NASCAR style fun when we realized that we forgot Micah's passport at home everyone made it. The team has put their first video. After a long flight to London they have another long flight to Kenya.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this possible. If you can't see video below it's also available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbUKHPyegZU

Shipping the Kids off to Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Polino) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:52:36 PDT

For those of you who haven't heard, our kids, Micah and Angelina are going off to Africa on a Mission Trip with World Hope. They'll be helping World Hope's existing presence in the slums of Kenya. We think that this is a tremendous opportunity for God to do something both through them and to them. We would like to thank everyone who has already donated,

For those of you who have not given yet but would like to support them in this endeavor, please use the Donate button below to give securely. Include your name and contact information and we will ensure that you get a donation receipt back. Thank you again to everone who has helped. They are getting close to having all the money raised. Please help put them over the top.