16 Mar 09 Gary Vee at SXSW

Ready for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from Gary Vee? You need to really check this out. Gary Vee rocks major ass!!!

Here is a quote from Gary to really think about “Cut out the people in your world that say no”

03 Mar 09 Jon Stewart Answers the Question “What is Twitter?”

Gotta love John Stewart and gotta love Twitter. Mix the two together and what do you got…….

Tags: john stewart, Twitter

31 Dec 08 My Chat Session with Clear.com

You may not know this, but I have real sucky Internet access at my house.  I am using a worthless piece of crap service from HughesNet.  They are satellite based, speeds sucks, I pay $70/month, and I am limited to less than 400MB / day of downloads.  I can just forget watching Hulu.com or downloading the latest ISO of Ubuntu.

With all of this in mind I have been constantly looking at different options for an Internet Provider and here comes ClearWire into (changed their name to Clear) with options for me to get on the Internet. Awesome!!!

They have plans for me to have a 6MB pipe for downloading and their is no limit on the amount of usage.  I am so there.  In early December I talked to a rep and he mentioned it wasn’t available yet in my area and it should be ready in Jan.  Well with it being December 31, I thought it was close enough to Jan 1 to see what I could get.

I go to the website and see if coverage is available and look at that I can sign up for the mobile plan, but not the home plan.  WTF?  So, I start a chat session to get more answers and here is how it went.

I am not sure if this person really wanted to help me or not.   It almost felt like I was talking to a bot. There were can responses in the chat, but this is really not a good sign of customer service for a new company coming out……

Will this stop me from using the service?  Unfortunately, no.  Why?  I HATE HughesNet with a major passion and anything is better then satellite based modem dial up.

Tags: clear, clearwire, wimax

18 Nov 08 Updated Dev Version of Google Chrome to 0.4.154.22

The big news for latest round of Google Chrome updates…….

No new features.  This is a bug fix only release.

What do I say to that? GRRRRR

Here are the big fixes:

• Feature 1:  Subscribe to RSS Feeds
• Feature 2:  Plugin support for something like FoxMarks

That is all I have for today.

Tags: Google Chrome

31 Oct 08 More Detail on the Google Chrome Plugin Improvements

When I first came upon a list of plugin improvements for Google Chrome I was thinking “Nice, we are going to get some real external plugin support for Google Chrome. This is HUGE.” Well, I was wrong, but with being wrong it is good to see some explanation of support for functionality like Adobe PDF Fast Web View and Adobe Flash.  I am sure the Chrome developers have been thanking Adobe for some real good fun times.

What is Adobe Fast Web Support and what was making Google Chrome bomb on this so badly?

Adobe Fast Web Support is basically the ability to back and forth inside a huge PDF file very quickly without having to download to whole document just to get to page 144.  For some reason the developers did not implement the NPAPI spec for stream seeking inside the PDF file itself.  Needless to say this is implement now and seeking different parts of a PDF doc should be easier to navigate now!

On to the Adobe Flash issue and YouTube videos.  When I would read about people having problems viewing YouTube videos using Google Chrome I was wondering what was going on.  I wasn’t having any issues at all viewing videos.  As the Google Chrome developers got to looking into this further, it turns out the video would stop playing if you moved the slider bar on the video exactly 6 times.  6 is a magic number in Google Chrome since 6 is the maximum number of HTTP connections it makes per host.  Once the slider button was moved for the 6th time on a YouTube video Google Chrome was just go crazy since it couldn’t make any more HTTP connections to the host.  Bottom line, the other I/O connections to the host were not getting killed and making Google Chrome very unstable and of course this has now been fixed.

It is always interesting to see and understand what goes on behind the scenes of a project like Google Chrome.  To understand the inner workings of such a piece of software will make it a better browser in the future and who knows where we will see Google Chrome in the next year.

Tags: Google Chrome

30 Oct 08 New Beta Release of Google Chrome ( version 0.3.154.9 )

There has been a new version of Google Chrome released into the wild!!!

Version 0.3.154.9 is ready for prime time.  There are some security patches applied concerning popups and address spoofing.  Thank you Google!

Here are some nice bugs that have been fixed.

1.  Videos are working better.  Flash, windows media and Quicktime videos are working better.

2.  Fixed the ‘chrome has crashed’ message when you close a tab that was showing PDF using Adobe Reader 9.

3.  This one really kinda makes me think WTF!!! No longer storing https pages on the computer, but you are still able to search for https urls in the address bar.  What were you thinking here Google?  Thank you for fixing this!

4. The New tab, New window, and New incognito window options moved from the ‘Control the current page’ menu to the ‘Customize and control Google Chrome’ (wrench) menu. Thanks to Szymon Piechowicz for the patch.

5. The spell checker works on text input fields and underlines misspelled words. You can now add words to the spell check dictionary so they are not shown as misspelled (right click on a misspelled word and choose ‘Add to dictionary…’).

6.  The download behavior for files that could run programs (exe, dll, bat, etc.) has changed. These files are now downloaded to unconfirmed_*.download files. Google Chrome asks you if you want to accept the download. Only after you click Save is the unconfirmed_*.download file converted to the real file name. Downloads that you never confirm are deleted when Google Chrome exits.

If you haven’t already downloaded Google Chrome please visit http://google.com/chrome

Still no word on a Mac or Linux version release. Let me know your thoughts on this new release and what still needs to be fixed with Google Chrome.

Tags: Google Chrome

11 Oct 08 iPhone, BlackBerry, Android So Many Choices…..

When it comes to phones I am what you call a phone junkie.  Way before cell phones became popular I would have 5 to 10 phones hooked up in the house with different features and different purposes in life.  I really loved it when caller id came out.  That was the shit back then.  I was really almost creamed myself when caller id came out for cell phones.  Since then I really don’t eve care about the home phone anymore.  I am totally 100% focused on cell phones.

About 6 years ago I wanted a phone where I could check my email.  I tried the 1st version of the crackberry and returned it.  I ended up with a motorola flip phone from Nextel that would do a very basic imap type connection.  It helped me sleep better on the weekends we would go camping.  I felt I could be away from the office, but still be in touch.

Since then I had the Razr, a crackberry 8700c and currently I have the blackberry curve.  I have really enjoyed both of those phones and they work really well, but we are reaching a point in phone technology where things are about to really shift again.

The current champion of phones out there is the iPhone 3G.  I have tried it, loved the interface, but there are still bugs needing to be worked out.  Maybe in a few years it will grow up and learn to play better.

RIM has 2 phones getting ready to hit the streets.  There is the blacberry Bold and the Storm.  The Bold is a major upgrade to the Curve and the Blackberry Storm is a touch screen competitor to the iPhone.  Personally I was totally 100% psyhed about the Bold.  When I took my iPhone back to Apple I was thinking the Bold was going to hit the streets an a couple weeks.  Well, it has been a couple months and it still hasn’t hit the streets.  The latest rumor is the OS on the Bold is really flaky and needing upgrades and what not.  Very bad for the Bold.

Now the blackberry storm is only through and I am currently on AT&T (I still want to call them cingluar).  So, I am not sure about switching carriers.  I tend to be a loyal customer, plus I am sure there are going to be bugginess about the Storm.  This is version 1.0 or at least RIM wants you think it is version 1.0.  I am sure it is more like version .80.  The thing that gets me about this phone, is that RIM is not adverising it on their website at all right.  If you go to http://blackberry.com there is no mention of the Blackberry Storm at all.  WTF RIM????  I really do not understand this logic at all.

There is one other thing I want to talk about for the BlackBerry phones real quick before I talk about the Google Android phone is the latest round of RIM rumors this week.  It sounds like Microsoft might buy up RIM.  Now if you know me at all, you know I will not own a M$ product at all.

Onto the Google Android phone.  It is from T-Mobile and it is another version 1.0 phone out there.  The thought of having this phone is really cool from an open system point of view.  Creating an app for this phone is much easier then the iPhone and Blackberry combined.  There is much more documentation and you don’t have to develop it on a mac and it is in Java.  Very cool.  Finally I can see a purpose for Java.  I have only been waiting since 1997.  The phone itself, I am not so sure about.  I really need to get my hands on one and make a decision.  I am so much about form over features, thus the reason I took the iPhone back to Apple.

So, this is where me the phone junky is currently at.  I have tried the iPhone and it needs to get some bugs worked out.  I will not own a M$ (aka microcrap) product if M$ buys out RIM.  The actual Android phone itself doesn’t reach out and impress me so far.  Like I said, I need to get my hands on the Google Android phone to reach a decision there.  The next couple months are really going to be hard for me.  I don’t know what I am going to do.  What about yourself?  Are you going to buy a new phone here shortly?  What are you going to buy?

Tags: blackberry, bold, Google Android, iphone, storm

10 Oct 08 I/O in Google Chrome

With this much thought gone into just the startup of the browser it sounds like the Google Chrome browser will have some very nice features (ie addons)  in the future that will blow us away.  I am not saying Firefox is a bad browser, but there are concepts here with Google Chrome Mozilla did not take into consideration for Firefox.

So you might be asking “How come the mac and linux versions of Google Chrome are not complete yet?”  Well, I do believe the basic and most important foundation for these platforms have been completed.  To have a fast stable cross platform browser out there on the market is a very important step in competing and maybe eventually winning the browser war.

Tags: Google Chrome

08 Oct 08 David Kernell, gets the book thrown at him

By now, everyone in America knows who Sarah Palin is, but do you know who David Kernell is?  He is the sweet little innocent boy who thought it was a fun idea at the time to try and break into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account.  Yes, believe it or not here is his current options in life.   He looking at actual prison time and a fine.  Currently he is released without bail, but cannot touch a computer unless it has to do with him doing his homework.

So, let us go back and think for a second where this young boy went wrong.  First and foremost he bragged about it.  He wanted the street cred and now what is his future going to look like.  Not that great if you ask me.  If and I mean if he had any smarts about him at all, he would have broke in the Sarah Palin’s email account at the school library, left it open for the next person to see and let them take the credit for it.  This whole hacking thing has got to be totally underground and quiet or you will just get your ass in jail.

Let me back up for a second on this Sarah Palin email breakin thing with David Kernell.  There is the possibility another student took my advice and set David Kernell up.  If this is the case was the person who setup David Kernell smart enough not to leave any trails?  I sure hope so and if this is the case, them this story is so much better than a stupid high school student wanting some recognition for hacking into a Yahoo email account belonging to Sarah Palin.

I hope you life goes well for you David Kernell.  You have had your 15 minutes of fame.  Enjoy it while you can because for you it sounds like you will not have another chance for another 15 minutes.

Tags: david kernell, sarah palin

07 Oct 08 Google Mail Goggles

Have you ever been really drunk and decided to really let loose those deep down feelings for another person in your life?  Did you regret sending out that email the next day?  Well there is a new Google Labs feature called Mail Goggles.  Yes, it is kinda like beer goggles, but you have to think before you send out an email.

Check out the picture below.

If you are really needing to enable Mail Goggles for GMail, here is what you do.

1. Log into your GMail account
2. Click on the settings link in the upper right hand corner of the screen
3. Click on the Labs link to the far right under settings
4. Enable Mail Goggles (it is about half way down)
5. You can customize when this feature is enable by going to Settings again then to the General tab

I can’t believe this little app made so much news today.  Is this really needed?  Are we going to start seeing this sort of behavior in Outlook and Thunderbird?  Will this be a feature in Exchange for corporate America?  I sure hope not, but you never know.  It could be something that is needed.

Tags: Goggle Mailer, Google Labs, Google Mail