Pete Dudchenko

Google Maps is a fun application for figuring out where something is. What makes it even cooler though is the ability to mark areas on the map to customized locations and customized text. For example, I created one example of Local points of interest here in San Diego (link broken)

Want to learn more?

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Time once again for the yearly wrap up. This is where I reflect on the year about the good, the bad and the ugly…let’s begin:

The Good:

• Received a private lesson for kite-surfing for Christmas (I just hope this doesn’t happen).
• Started a new job with a great company.
• Bought a short board for surfing and acually was able to ride it without much transition.
• Visited Turks and Caicos for the first time.
• Was able to witness the greatest NFL game of the year.

The Bad:

• Took my cell phone surfing.
• Matt got a job (bad from his perspective, good for my couch)
• I found out that no matter where you live, people just can’t drive.

The Ugly:

• Played the grocery store game and lost.

Hope everybody has a safe and happy new year!

- Pete

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I recently reported on my smooth move at the beach the other weekend where I accidentally took my cell phone surfing with me. While the loss of my Razr was a pain, I was secretly excited because it meant I was able to justify a new electronic toy. In fact, not less than two days earlier I had been checking out websites looking at new cell phones (I wonder what Freud would say about my subconscious on this one).

About 10 minutes after leaving the beach I found myself at the nearest Cingular store looking at the latest toys. After a quick customer look-up I was informed that I’m not currently eligible for a phone upgrade until November…meaning if I wanted a phone I would have to pay full price. I decided a month or two is not too long to wait for a new gadget but in the meantime I still needed a phone so I ended up purchasing the cheapest one they had.

Now let me tell you, when I say cheap I mean it’s barely functional. I used to think that most expensive phones cost so much because of the “extras” they offered but in this case, the extra cost apparently pays for your calls to not be dropped or something because this phone can’t hang on to a call to save its life!

Plus with me, being a gadget geek, I’m missing my bluetooth and camera functions. Anyway after researching phones in an attempt to tide me over until I can get a new one, I found a pretty cool Samsung phone that seems to be an upgrade from the Razr (actually, I didn’t find it, Amy did). Its the Samsung SGH-D807 and you can find a review here.

I haven’t seen many, if any people with the phone so if anyone out there has it or knows anything about it I be interested in hearing your opinion on the matter.

I’m also looking at the Sony Ericsson W8100

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You may remember “Where The Sidewalk Ends” or “The Giving Tree” as a child…but did you also know that Shel Silverstein also wrote a couple of Jonney Johnny Cash songs including “A Boy Named Sue” and “25 Minutes to Go”?

Maybe it’s time to take a new look at “Uncle Shelby.”

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Given my recent posts on the chunks of ice mysteriously falling from the sky, I came across this theory that may explain it.

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Hit the beach with Amy and Matt Saturday afternoon. I got back out on the board and rode a few waves which was something I had been really missing. Sunday we spent the day by the pool playing water basketball and grilling out. The great thing about the weekend was that both days were perfect and we were able to enjoy both of them outside by the water.

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My last post talked about the US ban on Vegemite which seemed odd enough, but apparently there’s another new piece of news recently making headlines. Now, not only can you expect your local US Customs Agent to ask if you have any Vegemite, they may now be asking for your laptop as well.

In a recent NY Times article, laptops may now be seized and analyzed without any reason given and without any requirement to return the laptop to you in a reasonable time.

“One member who responded to our survey said she has been waiting for a year to get her laptop and its contents back,” said Susan Gurley, the group’s executive director. “She said it was randomly seized. And since she hasn’t been arrested, I assume she was just a regular business traveler, not a criminal.”

Now I can only assume that waiting a year is the exception rather than the norm but the article does raise some interesting points such as there’s no probably cause necessary for inspecting or seizing a laptop. Also there’s no requirement to notify the owner of the laptop as to why the seizure is taking place. These are the pieces that seem unfair. I’m not against empowering security officials to do their jobs but there needs to be checks and balances to protect the other side as well.

More and more personal information is being stored on computers. I probably have more financial records and photos on my laptop computer than in my own home. Law enforcement officials can’t enter my home without a warrant or probably cause. Why should they be able to browse through my bank statements or pictures of my family on my laptop without the same judiciary approval or supervision?

Link to Article

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The Dell website is recalling batteries shipped between April 1, 2004 and July 18, 2006.

Dell has identified a potential issue associated with certain batteries sold with Dell Latitude™, Inspiron™, XPS™ and Dell Precision Mobile Workstation™ notebook computers. In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other regulatory agencies, Dell is voluntarily recalling certain Dell-branded batteries with cells manufactured by Sony and offering free replacements for these batteries. Under rare conditions, it is possible for these batteries to overheat, which could pose a risk of fire.

Potentially affected batteries were sold with the following models of Dell notebook computers or separately as secondary batteries:

* Latitude: D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810
* Inspiron: 500M, 510M, 600M, 700M, 710M, 6000, 6400, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 9400, E1505, E1705
* Precision: M20, M60, M70, M90
* XPS: XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170, XPS M1710

Why is this you might ask? Apparently there have been some stories on laptop batteries exploding.

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How do you manage your money; Quicken, Microsoft Money, not at all? One of the things I started doing when I graduated from college was being more conscious of my finances. I didn’t make a lot starting out, and living in a major city like Chicago was not the easiest to do without cash. It became important to stay on top of my expenses and not exceed my income. Plus whatever system I used had to be cheap (i.e free). What I chose was a simple excel budget spreadsheet that I created. Call it lazy, call it not fixing something unless it’s broken, call it whatever you want, but I still use it today and with a few minor tweaks here and there over the years, it’s grown into a pretty useful tool.

I was orginally going to include my own spreadsheet for people to download but considering I didn’t have any help documentation and it was relatively customized towards my needs, I didn’t think my version would be that useful to everyone else. However, a quick check on the Internet led me to PearBudget which is essentially offering the same solution on Excel but with help. Give it a shot and if you do try it out, let me know what you think. Plus it looks like they are starting to develop an online application which will do the same thing. That’s pretty useful considering that you can access the file from anywhere.

Check out PearBudget’s Website

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I recently came across a pretty interesting article that throws out some
ideas on how to take advantage of your camera phone if you have one. Of
course we all know that it’s main focus is to capture events but it can
also be a useful tool and I thought that perhaps I could piggy-back off of
the article to suggest some new ways to use your camera phone which I have
personally found helpful.

1. Wine Bottles - I’ve done this a couple of times, especially when out to
dinner. I take a picture of the wine lable on a bottle of wine to
reference it later. If you’re into wine or find a particluar bottle you
want to remember this is a great way to quickly capture the details. Plus,
having a picture captures the label’s color and logo which makes it easier
to identify it the next time you’re at the wine store.

2. Mobile Blogging - Those of you that have a blog site can easily set it
up to automatically post multimedia messages from your phone. I don’t do
this much, as I have set up the ability to post the picture in the right
navigational bar instead, but either option is a good way to capture an
event in real time.

3. Shopping Specs - I did this while I was shopping for a laptop. Instead
of trying to remember a bunch of specs about a particluar model, in
addition to the price, I just snapped a photo of the spec sheet and I was
done. This would work for most gadgets where specs are important and
usually the reason to buy one product over another.

4. Capture website URL’s - How many items have websites associated with
them these days? It’s countless, and when you’re out and about, its very
easy to come across a site address you’d like to check out when you get
back home. My problem is that remembering a URL is probably ranked just
above remembering to water my plants (Crap! Be right back…) Taking a
quick snap shot of the URL is a great way to remember what you wanted to
check out later on.

Any other suggestion?

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I was paddling out on my new surfboard hoping to catch a few waves this weekend. As I got past the impact zone and sat up on my board, I rested my hands on the my legs, which just so happens to be where the pockets of my board shorts are located. As soon I did this I realized something was wrong because I felt something in my pocket. Turns out I had placed my cell phone in my pocket as I was leaving the car and never took it out before heading into the water.

Yeah…its trashed, I feel smart.

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Ever wonder what celebrity you look like? Check out My Heritage for the answer. You can upload a photo of yourself (or anyone else) and it will automatically find celebrities that you most resemble.

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Finally picked up the Sony Ericsson w810i last night from Cingular. After waiting for my upgrade discount to be offered I finally got rid of my old crappy phone and was able to be back in the 21st century again. This one is sporting:

-2.0 megapixel camera
-video recorder
-mp3 player
-bluetooth
-fm radio
-calendar and contact synchronization with Outlook

and I think it may make phone calls too but I haven’t gotten that far yet.

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So I added a new section on the right sidebar of this website called Cell Phone Pics. If you scroll down a couple of entries, you’ll see some flash animation that has about 12 thumbnail pictures on it. This is a new area that I’m hoping to add to as time goes on but focusing specifically on pictures I take with my cell phone. No comments will be added (unless I have the time) but they should be interesting even still. This app will show the last 12 pictures taken and since I can send it directly to this from my cell phone, I can send pics on the go rather than uploading them later.

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Matt got a job. Actually he’s a couple weeks into it and hasn’t quit, or been fired yet.

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Ok, I’m sure the title makes no sense what-so-ever but it was supposed to be the music from the Olympics.

In keeping with that Olympic theme, I’m heading to Little Italy tonight to celebrate the opening ceremonies. Supposedly there’s going to be “fake” snow to enhance the “winter” event (Yes, it’s too warm for real snow. I’ll pause while the Mid-West and Eastern parts of the country give me the finger).

Saturday some of us will be attending the Davis Cup which I’m looking forward to but Sunday is probably what I’m most excited about. That’s the day I’ll catch up on cleaning and laundry!

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Apple to recall 1.8 million notebook batteries

Apple Computer Inc. on Thursday recalled 1.8 million Sony-built laptop batteries that could overheat and catch fire.

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Apparently the US has banned Vegemite from entering the country for containing folate.

Folate is a B vitamin that occurs naturally in foods like bananas, leafy green vegetables, and is also fortified in breakfast cereals in the form of folic acid.

That seems a bit odd to me. I’m no nutritionist but I’m not sure how removing items that contain folate from being available is going to help with meeting the FDA’s folate intake targets which we are currently well below.

I actually brought some Vegemite back from my trip to Australia a couple of years ago and invited some friends to try it with me. I guess it’s an acquired taste or something you have to grow up on, because I thought it was horrible. Most of my friends agreed also. Let’s just say I don’t think banning it from the US is going to hurt world-wide sales much.

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Ever hear about the 1950 video on how to “survive an atomic blast?”

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I like fantasy football as much as the next guy but come one…if you’re caught wearing one of these, I’m pretty sure you’re taking things way too seriously.

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Do you use Netflix? From December 5th to the 21st Blockbuster will accept the tear off sheets from netflix envelopes in exchange for a free movie rental from the store. You must have a Blockbuster account (or sign up there) but seems like a good deal.

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Just heard on the news…

National Average Gas Price: $2.91
San Diego Average Gas Price: $3.12 (highest in the country)

I’d move to a new city but I can no longer afford the cost of the moving truck and the gas to fill it!

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A normal night of sushi and drinks turned interesting when the couple behind us decided to make out in front of the entire restaurant…including their own kids!!

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So I recently came across some pretty cool online applications that I thought I might list out in an effort to help suggest some tools that might reduce some of life’s clutter. Hope you find them useful:

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I’m trying to add a new section to the site specific to different wine tastings. This is my first attempt with a wine I tried a few months ago out at dinner. The thing that really stood out with me was the finish, which wasn’t overly strong at all like most wines.

Producer: Gloria Ferrer
Region: Carneros appellation of Sonoma California
Grape Varieites: Pinot Noir
Price: $22.00

Conclusion: Very nice, not overpowering. Hints of chocolate.
Score: 4 out of 5

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Google Calendar launched in beta yesterday. I’m sure that there are already a ton of sites out there doing their own review so I won’t go into the details but one cool feature that I’ve already noticed, which is a great idea, is the ability to send text message reminders to your phone on calendar events.

I’m a big fan of text message alerts. I already mentioned it in one post on how to set up phone alerts when you get an email. I’d say this might be just as useful if I decide to adopt the online calendar for good.

Here’s why I may not though.

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I’ve got to admit, I’m not a huge soccer fan. I mean I loved playing it as a kid, all the way up to and including high school (co-captain and MVP thank you very much) but I never really enjoyed watching it. It was always so boring and there’s not a whole lot going on until maybe 2 minutes before a goal is scored. But I must admit, this Saturday I jumped on the US World Cup bandwagon to watch them play Italy. You’ve got to give credit to an event that is shared throughout the world as the biggest sporting event around. Plus it was a lot more exciting than I expected. I guess the anticipation of something big happening keeps the excitement going.

I’m curious about a couple of things however, first what was up with the first red card against the Americans? Seemed a bit unnecessary didn’t it? And second, why end the game in a tie? Could you imagine if tonight, Miami and Dallas ended Game 5 of the NBA Finals with a tie score? Sure the series wouldn’t be over but I’d certainly leave the game feeling like nothing was really accomplished.

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A few days ago I posted a comment about the recent release of Google Calendar which was the latest buzz. After spending a few days with it I must say it’s impressive but I understand the need for giving it the ever-popular Google tag of “beta.” Not for bugs but for features, or lack there of.

Adopting a new web-based calendar is not an easy thing to get people to do. Most, probably use Outlook, and a few of us older geeks out there still have our trusty Palm Pilots connected to sync with. So for me, aside from the ability to set up cell phone text message reminders, Google Calendar wasn’t enough yet to get me to move everything over (even though its pretty easy to import Outlook events).

For one thing, I can’t sync between Outlook and Google. I can import my Outlook events into Google but that’s a one-time manual process that I don’t want to have to remember to do every day/hour/minute. Also, if I did want to drop Outlook for good and make the plunge into a web-calendar, that would have to mean dumping my Palm Pilot which, call me stubborn, I’m not ready to do yet. Until some of these features are released (if they are released), it looks like those in the same boat as me are going to have to wait…but who wants to do that?

In searching for a 3rd party tool to possibly fast forward the wait on some much needed features, I came across AirSet. It one of many web-based calendars that are out there, and only one of a few I looked at, but it seems to have those features I’m looking for and more. For one, I can install a desktop app to auto-sync Outlook with AirSet on a time frame that I choose. Now I can add a new appointment on my laptop (using Outlook), through my browser (using AirSet) and even still on my Palm Pilot without having to re-enter it again and again. Through the syncing of my apps all three are up-to-date. Better yet, they’re offering a beta test that I recently signed up for to allow my events to be accessed and managed from my cell phone! It’s already available to Verizon users for a small monthly fee and as long as you have a java compatible phone, you’ll soon be able to install the app on your phone for on the go access and manipulation. And it still offers the mobile text reminders that I really love.

So what’s the catch? Well, so far it seems very promising although I must admit I’m a bit partial to Google’s UI over AirSets. Its a bit cleaner and easier to enter events, a real time saver. Plus the cell phone beta testing has brought up enough bugs to cause me not to be able to use it much yet but the response from the testing team has been phenomenal. I sent an email to be added to the test group and within two minutes I received my invitation. Plus in sending and receiving emails on the problems, I was still getting replies well into the late evening meaning some people are working late over there.

Like I said, I’ve only just started to use AirSet as a calendar but the possibilities seem amazing and I’m getting everything I asked for. Now if I were only popular enough to have events to add, I’d really be set!

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Straight out of The Simpsons with the Good Morning Burger, comes the Quadruple Bypass Burger from a restaurant outside of Phoenix. If Jolt Cola sold hamburgers at Hooters, this would be the result.

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Here’s a billiant idea from fredshouse.net but doubtful to ever be realized. I think it goes against Google’s revenue plan. How can they continue to make money charging for personalized search ads if people strip out off of their personalization data?

I think I need a new Google product to drop into beta. That would be, let’s see, Google Data Privacy. GDP would allow me to review all of the information that Google retains on me across all services, from all devices, and from all sources. GDP would allow me to determine the maximum data retention period for each of my services. GDP would allow me to selectively opt out of cross-service data mining & correlation, even if it reduced the quality of the services I receive. GDP would allow me to correct any inaccurate data in my profile. And GDP would log and alert me when my data was queried by other services.

Link to the site

Confused on the point? Every time you perform a search with a search engine you’re trusting a couple of companies with your data. First, the Search Engine, since they know what keyword you searched on, and what links you clicked on in the results. Your ISP also knows what pages you’ve visited. These are things that most people probably never concern themselves with because they assume that even though these things may be tracked, no one is concerned with tying these back to an individual person. Sure a Search Engine many be concerned with information in aggregate to help sell adds and present relevant data to advertisers but they aren’t concerned with doing this at an individual basis. Most search engines won’t even store a name with the searches, they use random numbers instead to keep people’s information private.

Think for a second about the AOL data scare that occurred a little while back. Basically a bunch of aggregated data was released accidentally into public access. Even though no names were tied to the searches that were perfomred, it was possible for people to look at the keywords used for searches and figure out who some people were, where they lived, and even contact them.

Search Engine’s go through a lot of effort to keep your data secure and private but as you can see that’s not a guarantee that you’re 100% safe. Mistakes can be made and the propsed idea above is giving control of your data back to you. If you want to “clear your data” from a search engine, GDP might let you.

So why won’t it happen? Because even though Search Engine’s aren’t necessarily interested in your data individually, it is valuable to them in aggregate. That’s how they make money and measure results. Its how’s they can determine what pages are most relevant to a search term. Its also how they can communicate to advertisers on where trends are. Removing that, hurts their business. And I’m sure an agument could be made that it hurts you as well. If I can’t track your searches, I can’t estimate what results are going to be most relevant to you (see Google’s Personalized Search Feature).

Still, it does raise some interesting questions though. Who should ultimately “own” your data? And how comfortable are you with someone else managing it?

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I know that this site probably means well, and the idea is probably to help brainstorm ideas for someone who’s a little shy to ask someone out, but some of these suggestions might not go over so well if the person you’re asking out really has no interest. In fact some of these ideas may be boarderline call the cops…

Here’s one suggestion:

Get a bunch of cardboard boxes from a local grocery store and build a castle on the lawn. Attach a flag saying “Princess ——–” Inside, leave a note asker “Her royal highness” out on a date. Be sure to tell her who the Prince Charming is!

Check out more

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Unexplained Solid Chunk Of Ice Crashes To Earth

My favorite quote of the article:

“One expert says sometimes big balls of ice just fall from the sky without any explanation.”

Wow, thanks! How do I get to be an expert like that?

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Falling ice perplexes scientists

A second chunk of ice fell from the sky again and no one seems to know why. Still in California but closer to LA this time. Here are some theories:

1. Ice from a plane.
2. Super secret military jet.
3. Global warming.
4. New “extreme advertising” campaign for Jack Daniels on the rocks (my own theory).

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I still want to try kite surfing some day, just not on a day as windy as this one…

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I have no idea why Discovery Channel started making these but some of them are good advice!

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Ok, on the lighter side of things, I came across this Line Rider application the other day which allows you to draw your own ski slope and then watch someone try to sled down it. I thought I had created some pretty cool slopes….I was wrong.

Check this one out:

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What’s a moblogging? Its basically a way for me to post pictures on my website from my cell phone (mobile+blogging=moblogging…get it?). So if I’m out anywhere and I take a photo, I can send it to my site and have it automatically post to my new moblog page without doing anything more than sending a text message (MMS). Pretty easy to do.

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Ok, I was just sent some more pictures from Tahoe and I thought I might share some of them…enjoy!

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Apparently from a recent article, some movie theaters may begin showing NFL games in high def. This is a great idea for movie theaters since recent reports have shown that more and more people are choosing to stay home for movies rather than going out anymore. Finding another way to fill the seats is necessary if they want to stay profitable. Plus with the social aspect of watching games, it may actually be more fun to watch a game with a large group of fans rather than at home.

Of course bars already do this and serve drinks as well. Would movie theaters need to get liquor licenses now or would enough people go just for the high-def and $12 popcorn?

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In case you have an RSS subscription you may not notice that I’ve changed my site’s look. I’ve been thinking about a new look for a while but there’s that old saying that if something’s not broke, then don’t fix it. Well, something finally broke on my old theme and this was enough of a push to update the site.

Hopefully the new look is better and I’ll still be working to update it. The surf page is not formatted quite right but I’ll have to figure out something on that one. Other than that though I like it. What do you think?

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So its a little dated (announced March 28th, 2006) but I recently came across a nice list of web 2.0 sites organized by category. Its actually a list of winners from the seomoz.org website and I could see myself killing a day or two playing with some of these links.

Some sites that I’ll be checking out :

wayfaring.com - Wayfaring allows you to create personal maps with and share them with your friends. Explore maps created by others and connect and collaborate over a vast social network. Mapmaking has never been so easy!

newsvine.com - Keep track of breaking news with Newsvine: read “The Wire” for a direct stream of articles from the AP and ESPN, and read “The Vine” for Newsvine user submitted content and columns. Interact with other Newsvine readers by voting for and commenting on news, and write/maintain your own Newsvine column.

cssbeauty.com - A project focused on providing its audience with a database of well designed CSS websites from around the world.

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Steve from The Sneeze posted a hiliarious version of Oh Holy Night. The hiliarious part is that the attempt made by the singer is believed to be legit. As Steve points out;

It is still not known if this recording is terrible on purpose, but amazingly the consensus is that it is a legitimate attempt. The singer still hasn’t been identified, but I did receive this email last year which might fill in a few of the blanks.

You can go to Steve’s site to download the mp3 or you can listen to a streaming version here:

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So I mentioned in a few previous posts about making a conscious attempt to log more wine tastings. I came across this site which i might switch to instead of logging them here. There’s a couple of reasons:

1. Its more of a database which means I can search and sort the data when I’m looking for something rather than in a blog where you have to read all the posts to find the one you’re looking for.

2. I can access this data from my cell phone. This comes in very handy when you’re at a wine store and need a suggestion.

3. It incorporates Google Maps. I can easily see which regions I’ve tried and start to figure out what areas I like over others.

you can check out my first entry and I’ll post here when I add new ones.

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…caught in mid-conversation while waiting to checkout:

Clerk: “I live nearby, so I don’t have to drive to work”
Customer: “So do you still walk to work during the cold winter season?”
Clerk: “Yes, unless its really cold like tonight.”

Current (night-time) temperature in San Diego = 56 degrees

Take THAT Chicago!

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I did a small site re-design tonight. After waiting way too long, I finally brought over all of my vacation pictures from my old site to this one.

You can check on the new design by selecting “Pictures” from the tab above or by clicking here.

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My last day at work was Friday. Tomorrow I start my new job. It was both an exciting and difficult weekend as I really enjoyed where I worked for the past 2 and a half years. I look forward with what’s to come though.

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Bought tickets to Pearl Jam today. I’ve never seen them before and was a big fan when they first came out with “Ten.”

Our seats are pretty good but I’m not sure how Ticketmaster offers seating. I’ve gone back a number of times just to see if they offered better seats and it seems that sometimes you get bench seats (way in the back) then the very next search you get the same class of seats I bought as soon as they went on sale. My guess was that the best seats go first but aside from the floor level this doesn’t appear to be the case.

One cool feature was in going to the venue’s website, it offered actual pictures of the view from your row or section.

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Good concert, lots of great songs. A setlist can be found here. No pics unforunately, my cell phone shots didn’t turn out. The cool thing is that you can buy/download the concert as well. For one song Kelly Slater showed up to play guitar.

Sonic Youth opened the show. I’ve certainly heard of them but have never really listened to them before. They were also pretty cool

Here’s a website I found that has some pictures of the show.

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Nebraska fans travel really well. Ok, this is probably not news to a lot of college football fans but after going to the USC/Nebraska game (at USC) on Saturday, its amazing to see how well The Cornhuskers were represented. I’m not sure of the actual totals but of the 92,000 stadium seats, I think an estimated 25,000-30,000 were cheering for the visiting team. Next time though, when the run doesn’t work, try something else. USC over Nebraska, 28-10.

Direct TV has this pretty interesting feature for those that get the NFL package that allows you to select players that you are interested in, to receive on-screen alerts when something good happens (i.e. someone scores a touchdown, forces a turnover, etc). I knew I was in trouble for my fantasy footbal league this week when I only received one alert.

Have you seen those VW commercials where two people are driving, engaged in a conversation, and all of the sudden they get hit by a car running a light? Its meant to focus on the safety features of the vehicle but for those of us with slightly twisted minds, it causes me to NOT want to buy that car. I mean who wants to buy a car people keep smashing into? (insert groan-over-lame-joke here)

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I’ve been in a geeky mood lately so I thought I would add to the category a bit more with a post on how to receive text alerts on your cell phone when you reveive an email. Its actually pretty simple but also pretty powerful.

Examples on why this is useful:

• With most cell phones having the ability to check email already, you only need to check when you know you have an email and therefore save on bandwidth usage.
• Waiting for a potential employer to return an email, or perhaps to hear back from a friend? Find out right away when then do.
• Anything time-based that can be emailed to you can now be passed along to your phone as well, you don’t have to be in front of a computer to get notified.

Depending on your email provider the scenarios can vary but the objective is relatively simple. Most email providers such as Yahoo or Hotmail or Gmail allow you to set up “rules” to follow when an email is received. An example of a rule that you could set up might be, “Every time I get an email from my sister, automatically delete it (just kidding Britt!)”

Doing the same thing but changing the logic of the rules allows you to set it up to get notifications on your phone. Most cell phone providers create an email address with your cell phone number. They may not publicize this but its true. I could email your cell phone right now as long as I know your cell phone number and your provider (and truth be told, I really only need your cell phone number but that’s another story). For instance let’s say my cell phone number was (858) 555-1234 and my cell phone provider was Cingular. Well, the email address for me would be 8585551234@cingularme.com If I were to send an email to that address, instantly I would receive the text of the email in my cell phone as a text message.

So setting up a rule in my current Yahoo or Hotmail account to automatically forward any email received to this number would basically give me a text message on my cell phone any time someone emailed me. Plus I would be able to see a small snip of the email itself although it would cut off the text after a certain character limit due to text message restrictions.

So what’s your email address? I’ve provided some main carrier information below:

Cingular: your10digitphonenumber@cingularme.com
Nextel: your10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Sprint: your10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: your10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Verizon: your10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
Virgin Mobile: your10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com

Almost forgot to add the legal mumbo-jumbo of “your carrier may charge you for text messages so be sure to understand your plan before setting this up.” Its easy to rack up 100-200+ text messages a month by doing this.

All, Geek | 1 Comment »

I saw the latest Bond movie last night (decent flick but longer than it needs to be) and one of the things that stood out was the amount of product placement in that movie. Maybe it’s just me (probably) but I couldn’t help but notice all of the Sony items in the movie. Coincidence? I’m guessing not since other Bond movies seemed to have followed the same trend. First there was the Sony Vaio laptops, then the Sony Ericsson cell phones which, by the way if there’s any truth to the movie, cell phones will be pushing GPS soon. Finally the kicker was when one of the characters was taking a picture with, you guessed it, a Sony camera. By the way, did I mention that Sony Pictures made the movie?

I suppose this is inevitable considering how difficult traditional commercials must be with TiVo and stuff. Actually I don’t mind a little bit, it adds to the realism of the movie. I’d rather see a Sony or Apple laptop than a fake one anyway but too much becomes distracting. It did start me thinking though of some other movies that have had too much product placement where it becomes noticeable:

• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Probably the most recognized use of product placement would be the love of Reeses Pieces by an alien from outerspace.
• Wayne’s World - The scene is when Wayne and Garth have been picked up by a station and the station wants to add product placement for “Noah’s Arcade”. In resisting, Wayne and Garth poke fun of actual product placement in the movie by dressing up in Reebok or eating Doritos chips, all while saying how much product placement in the show would be “selling out.”
• The Transporter - I may be confusing this with the sequel but this seemed like a 2 hour commercial for a BMW.
• The Italian Job - Just like Transporter but this time it was a commercial for the Mini Cooper.
• Thank You for Smoking - Actually there was no direct product placement that stood out for me but this movie does address the concept within the storyline by showing the tobacco industry attempting to make smoking cool again by having movie actors smoke within the movies.

HowStuffWorks.com has more information on the concept of Product Placement. Also, BrandChannel attempts to identify some of the new releases that have product placement in them. You can also read up on the latest PP news.

All, Geek | No Comments »

Lots of free time but still pretty clever.

Check it out…

All, Geek | No Comments »

So I was driving around at lunch one day and I was almost cut off by a car trying to merge onto the freeway. Last time I checked they are the ones that are supposed to yield (see “A properly designed freeway on-ramp”) but that doesn’t seem to be the case here in San Diego. This got me thinking a bit about the differences I’ve noticed in driving styles between Chicago drivers and San Diego drivers. below is a comparison.

I invite you to add your city if you like:

All, Life | 4 Comments »

Ok, I’m intrigued, this sounds interesting. Its an online calendar/task list weblication that’s just released in beta (invite only) but checking out the video shows some of the advancement in the online applications these days. Plus the ability to access your data while not online is a huge advancement. For me there have always been two concerns with all the online apps that are being released these days. First, its a privacy issue with giving one company too much personal information. Second, its the ability to access my information while not connected to the Internet. This appears to resolve concern #2. Check out the demo below: