Sharper Image
It looks like Sharper Image has finally gone belly up by filing for bankruptcy. As a result, the company will be closing 90 (roughly half) of its 184 stores. I have to admit, I have purchased a few things from The Sharper Image, a meat temperature reader for the grill, radio/CD player and a facial hair trimmer that I use quite frequently. It isn’t a huge surprise that the company is going belly up though as I’ve always viewed their products as weird and overpriced for the most part, sometimes even cheap (especially for what you pay).
Goodbye Telemarketers!
On February 15th the President signed into law the permanent do-not-call act. This means those of us who hate telemarketer calls won’t have to renew our do-not-call listing, ever! Score #1 for the President, probably the most sensible thing he’s done while in office.
Windows Vista SP1
For some odd reason I was under the assumption that Windows Vista SP1 was supposed to make things better for the Windows Vista crowd but lately the reports that I’ve been reading is debunking that theory altogether. First I saw reports that the notoriously slow file copy processes were indeed not fixed completely in SP1 and now there are reports that even installing the pre-requisites for SP1 may throw your computer into an endless reboot scenario.
Someone please tell Microsoft that we don’t want their bloatware anymore. In the event that Microsoft simply can’t make a decent OS then please notify third party software makers that users are now switching to Mac platforms and that we would love to have their corporate software up and running in OSX.
On/Off Coffee Mug
This is possibly the coolest coffee mug I’ve ever seen! I honestly don’t drink that much coffee at home, but at work I might as well have an IV in my arm dripping the stuff into my system. This mug is sheer geekiness!
Aerial Geometry: 5 Circular Communities From the Sky [PICS]
There are an incredible number of amazing things in this world, some more impressive than others, but sometimes the simplest things are incredible as well. This page contains images of a few communities around the world that are circular in design, something not seen (or even heard of) by many.
read more | digg story
Apple Genius T-Shirt
I’ve been looking for a 2007 holiday season Apple Genius employee t-shirt for a while and finally found one my size on eBay. Luckily I won the auction and I should have my geek shirt in all its glory next week! I can’t wait to wear it around my Windows die hards at work! On a side note, I’ve been able to convert a couple of them to iMacs and they’ve since said they couldn’t be happier with the way the Macs are handling for them! Mind you that I must use Windows for most all purposes at work, but slowly but surely Apple will be able to work its way into Microsoft’s corporate territory and when that day comes I will be open arms!
Asta La Vista
When Windows Vista was made public over a year ago I decided to wait a few months for some of the kinks to be worked out between Microsoft and third party developers (software and drivers). I actually ended up waiting almost a year (after Vista was made available to business customers) and reformatted my work laptop to dual boot XP/Vista. Vista was made my default OS and I started using it full-time in August of 2007. I gave it a shot, the absolute best shot I possibly could, but last month (January 2008) I decided to make XP my default OS again. That’s right, I *UPGRADED* to Windows XP and eagerly await XP SP3 to be released. Why you ask? Here are some of the MANY reasons I have to answer that question:
- File copying took FOREVER in Vista. Things that should have taken a few seconds took minutes. Things that should have been copied in three or four minutes took over an hour at times which is obviously unacceptable.
- I got more system crashes on this particular system using Vista than I ever did with XP meaning it simply wasn’t stable. Granted that Vista did a better job at getting the OS back into a usable state after a crash, the problem was that it simply happened to frequently. For the record, I was using Vista drivers for all of my hardware and yes, my laptop had specific Vista drivers made for it even though it was purchased before Vista was made available.
- At first Vista appeared to be a bit faster than XP, but in reality once I installed all of my needed software it ran much slower than XP (my system has 2GB of RAM so that isn’t the issue).
- Even a year after Vista was released some software that I frequently use didn’t have a Vista compatible version so I was stuck with using alternatives which I didn’t like (in most circumstances).
- Vista comes in five flavors. Why does Microsoft make you choose from FIVE different version of the same OS? With XP I had one choice for business, XP Pro (or XP Home for personal). With Vista it is either Vista Home Basic, Vista Home Premium, Vista Business, Vista Enterprise and Vista Ultimate. No thanks. I’d rather just choose Vista Home or Vista Business. Vista Ultimate has turned out to be a total crock considering it is $400 and even Vista Business is $300! Again, no thanks.
I don’t mind for a minute to just simply skip Vista altogether which is what I plan to do. I am in charge of IT at a company with a little over 100 desktops and I simply refuse to *upgrade* to Vista. What worries me though is that Microsoft doesn’t make it easy to go that route. It is fairly easy to skip one version of Windows, skipping two is quite a bit more difficult. What happens if the next version of Windows is as crappy or worse than Vista?
For the record I have run a dual Windows/OSX configuration at home for a few years but last month I made the move to all Macs. I wish I could make the same move at work but unfortunately software manufacturers haven’t figured out that Macs could play a great role in Business, especially now considering how bad Microsoft has made themselves look.
Vonage
I’ve had Vonage for a few years since it is a bit cheaper than having a land-line and it has one feature that absolutely adore, having my voicemails sent right to my e-mail as well as being notified as such via SMS to my mobile phone.
What irks me though is when I have to call their customer service line for whatever reason. There are some extremely intelligent people abroad and in no way am I dissing their intellect or desire to help customers like me, but the language and cultural boundaries make it difficult for both ends of the line. It took me 10 minutes on the phone with Vonage for something that should have taken a couple of minutes, if that. When will companies learn that this is not the way to win over (or keep) customers?
NewsGator Inbox 3.0 beta 2
I’ve been an avid user of NewsGator’s RSS viewing products for several years. Most notably I have been using NewsGator Inbox since its first release and the company just released their newest version 3.0 beta 2. The company previously charged for the products (for which I was happy to pay) but last month they changed their tune and now offer most of their software for free to the public. I use their iPhone version as well as their online and Mac versions. All sync back to their servers so anything you mark as read is synced to all other installations.
Nakko.com
I stumbled upon Nakko.com today and thought it to be a great (free) service! As many of you know, Apple now allows you to create ringtones for free using GarageBand for example, this site is just a central point for ringtones that others have made and allows you access to them. Just peruse through their catalog of available ringtones, add one to your ‘locker’ and then choose to add it to your iTunes. It will add it as a podcast but when you sync your iPhone it will get added as a ringtone (but will also remain as a podcast, you can’t get rid of that entry unfortunately, or at least I can’t figure out how to). Their website needs some work and half the time I can’t get the preview to play, but I’m so glad to have found a free, fairly easy to use ringtone site for my iPhone.
