Pete Dudchenko

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Dudchenko….

We had a wonderful time in Kauai with everyone who was able to make it and both the wedding and honeymoon were fantastic. Pictures to come…

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Wedding plans are wrapping up. One month from now we’ll be in Hawaii…

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I like music. I’m not sure that I can say I like good music, that’s subjective, but regardless of your opinion, I think I’ve found a pretty good way to listen to your favorite set of tunes. We’ve all heard of Bose but the amount of money they charge is pretty high. I won’t argue on the quality, although some audio snobs might, but I will propose to anyone out there looking for a set of quality headphones to check out audio-technica.

I recently bought their answer to the Bose Quiet Comfort Headset and I’m blown away. For $110 you can own a set of noise canceling headphones that are just as good, or arguably better than Bose, which charge $300 or more.

Check out the audio-technia ATH-ANC7 headphones.

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I picked up the BlackBerry 8310 (Curve) phone the other day and I’m hooked. I love having everything together (email, IM, phone, SMS) in one place and not having to load up my laptop every time I want to check email.

I have put together a list of my favorite BlackBerry applications as well as BlackBerry applications that I would like to see:

My Favorites:

Google Maps – Not only does this allow you to quickly find directions while on the go, but with the recent addition of GPS support (which the Curve has) I don’t have to know where I am to find out where I need to go. My phone tells me within a few meters where I’m at.

Viigo – Think Google Reader but made specifically for mobile. This app not only allows you to import in your current RSS reader subscriptions but it can be set to automatically update in a time frame you set (2 hours, 4 hours, etc). That means that when you run the program, your feeds are already up-to-date

JiveTalk – Trillian or Pidgin for your phone. Do you use multiple IM clients like Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger, Google Talk and others? This is the mobile IM client to use. It’s not free, but I’ve been playing with the trial version and it may be worth the money. The interface is clean and easy to use which is nice considering how complicated it must be to fit all contacts and conversations onto a small screen. Plus it only uses data which means no SMS charges.

BBWeather- A simple weather application that allows you to track multiple cities and view current conditions as well as forecasts. The nice thing again is the automatic updates so when you launch the application, you know it’s current.

Of course there are plenty others that are more popular like Gmail, Google sync and Opera Mini.

And what list would be complete without some wishful thinking? Here are some apps that I would like to see:

Download Podcasts Directly to your BlackBerry – Why not? We already have a data plan, the Curve is set up with a media player, this just seems like something that would be out there already. I did notice on the Viigo website a mention of Tango, which seems to have audio in the picture but I’m not sure what that will mean exactly.

Telenav for Google – Did someone just call me cheap? I haven’t tried Telenav yet but it looks awesome. For those not familiar, Telenav offers GPS real-time navigation for your phone. The only reason I haven’t tried it is the price. I would think that Google would offer something close to this as a next step for Google Maps for Mobile, which would make it free. It seems like a logical next step for Google as they already offer turn-by-turn directions and GPS support. Why not bring the two together for real-time directions. From an advertising standpoint, wouldn’t it be beneficial for customers to find your store and have an easy way to locate you?

Integrated To Do List – I use online to do lists like Remember the Milk rather than Outlook’s Tasks so I can’t easily sync my tasks onto my phone. Sure they offer mobile access but when I want to quickly check something, it takes time to load a browser, navigate to the list and check it off. Why not offer a mobile application for BlackBerries like they do for Windows Mobile already? Or better yet, let it sync with the native task list on my curve.

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Hilarious! A site for guys, about being guys, written by (take a guess).......... guys.

Check out Manoverse.com.

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San Diego has a pretty cool deal every year called “Restaurant Week” where participating restaurants offer specialized menus at a discount price. Think of going to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse for a three course meal for $40. Not totally in the cheap zone but considering their normal prices, it’s a pretty good deal.

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I failed miserably at my 4 week plan. Everything started out so well, and then I missed one day, then it was Amy’s birthday (yeah I’ll try to get away with blaming someone else for my mistake), then we moved, then the holiday parties came up and so on and so on.

It did provide extra motivation to make it to the gym, its just that once I failed for the first time, it became a slippery slope downhill.

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