Cool Blog

The list of blogs I read is ridiculously long. Most times I read something interesting, I'll add the blog to the list. These days, this happens once a month or so. I've had bloglines for what, like 3+ years now? Yea, it's a long list.

Today I spent some time catching up on some blog reading as I do occasionally on the weekends. One of the blogs I regularly ignore, probably because of the daunting number of postings, is Apartment Therapy. One of the posts that stood out to me was Top 5: Cheap Furniture Basics. There's some neat stuff in there. The desk could be a good candidate for my next. The book shelves are pretty nifty as well. Check it out and click around a bit. It made my past hour pretty enjoyable.

Mom's New iMac

Wow. Just wow.


I've always thought the thing was stunning, but until you unbox one and set it up, you can't fully appreciate the construction of the machine.

I've been telling both my Mom and Dad that the iMac was their next computer for probably around 6 months ago. Mom needs a simpler computing experience with better photo and video support now that grandkids are rolling in. Dad is an anti-clutter guy who despises cables and appreciates well designed items and excellent customer service. It was a match made.

One night this week after getting dinner with my folks, Dad mentioned, hey, we talked about the computer at dinner, can we go see it somewhere? Turns out we were about 5 minutes from the Galleria Mall where there's a small Apple Store.

In the door, straight to a 24' iMac. After 15 minutes with the sales person (She did most the talking, I swear) Dad went for it. Quite possibly her easiest sale of the day. =)

This is truly the first computer I've seen my parents buy that they were happy about instead of intimidated and continually asking questions like 'how do we work this' or 'are you going to set this up for us.'

Its only been a couple of days, but so far, so good. The only real problem we've had was getting therir HP Laserjet 1020 to work. There's no driver for Mac OSX unfortunately. After a little bit of trial, error and several google searches, I was able to get it up and running with a different HP driver.

Next up:
-Latest MS Office from UB
-Time Machine backups, possibly via a Time Capsule base station
-Airport Express to make the printer wireless (maybe just get a wireless printer?)
-Go paperless with a Fujitsu Snapscan double sided scanner w/ OCR

Twitter Junkie

Yea, I'm really starting to enjoy it. The pundits, blowhards, friends, family, etc etc. There's lots of fun stuff and it feeds my insatiable appetite for information.

But really, what a neat communication platform. It's only become real valuable to me with the third party apps through the api. I don't particularly like the website interface and when I originally got on the service, I couldn't stand the constant stream of text messages. But I've got it all under control now. More on that in a bit.

The great thing about Twitter is the real time access to what is going on in the world. There are sites I view, blogs I read, e-mails and IM's with friends and colleagues. Twitter falls into the IM and e-mail category. It's real time reactions, but not just to a select person. It's available to everyone who is "following" you, or whomever you allow to follow. Suddenly instead of waiting to read something in my RSS reader after it happens, I get a short message from someone who just saw it.

There's also access to people you wouldn't typically ever see. For instance, Jim Long, aka newmediajim. Jim is camera man for network television. He's typically covering the President and political happenings in DC. Every so often you'll get a message from him about a breaking news story he's getting ready to shoot, or even the one time the President made a surprise trip to Iraq where all their communication gear was confiscated for a period of time for the safety of the President. Where else would you hear about this stuff as it happens?!

So, what's my Twitter setup like. Quite simply, I'm either at my desk or on my iPhone. At my desk, I use an application called Snitter to get updates, reply, post etc. It's a great app that works well and looks good. On my iPhone, there's 2 options. If I'm casually viewing and posting, I use www.hahlo.com (hat tip to Gavin). One of the most powerful and potentially annoying features of Twitter is the text messaging capability. You can link your Twitter account to your cell phone, as I have, however I almost always keep it toggled "off" so I'm not bothered. But, if I wanted to receive messages, all you have to do is send a text saying "on." Simple as that.

Jump on. Follow me. Read my feed to see what I'm reading and start to follow whomever is interesting to you. Twitterholic.com is a top 100 Twitter user list that's a nice jumping off point to find some people to follow.

See you in cyberspace!!

Wedding Crasher

It's that time of the...well, life. Everyone is getting married. At last count, I've got 5 weddings to attend this year alone.

Typically, I'm good enough with the planning, but about a month ago, I forgot to book a hotel room for a friends wedding. I landed in Orlando, got my rental car and hit the Beeline for the East coast before I called the South Melbourne Hilton.

Being that I was so late, there was no "wedding guest" rate available to me. However, they did have 1 room left. After asking for a AAA discount (thanks for that Mom =) my rate actually came out to $2 below the wedding guest rate. w00t.

This tiny bit of success really emboldened me. Just 2 weekends ago on the way to another wedding in Naples, I called from Alligator Alley, about 45 minutes out, to the Hilton designated for the wedding guests. Still feeling the rush from the last wedding, I informed them I could stay elsewhere. It wasn't a priority since the wedding, reception and all activities were located at facilities outside the Hilton. Again, one room left. Yea, not sure I believe it either, but the rate was great and they gave me something off for AAA again. But the real bonus didn't come until I arrived at the door.


le hookup.

Moral of the story: Procrastination pays!