Entries from October 2007 ↓

On Sunday, I caved in and purchaed an iPhone. I have been lusting after this beast since its announcement in January, and especially after seeing it in person after its release in June. Thanks to some kind friends of mine and their Apple gift card birthday present, the iPhone is now in my pocket.

After three days with it, I am very happy. Activation was simple. I plugged it into my MacBook Pro, iTunes came up automatically, and brought me to the activation screen. Since I’m already an AT&T customer, I put in my phone number, and the last 4 of my SSN and it asked me to choose from the $20, $30, or $40 a month data plan. Since I’m not a big txt-er (or however you say it), I did the $20 a month plan.

Once I activated my phone through iTunes, it took about an hour and a half to actually activate. After hearing the error sound come from my old phone, and saw that it was reporting a bad SIM card, I rebooted my iPhone and I received a text message saying it was good to go.

So far, I am very happy with the EDGE data network. It’s not blazingly fast or anything, but it doesn’t drag either. I really like being able to get my email on the go, but realize that this now means that my work email will follow me everywhere.

My only frustrations are pretty much what everyone else is complaining about. First is the lack of being able to use my own ringtones. I don’t really mind paying $.99 for a ringtone, but it bugs me that you can only make ringtones out of certain songs (and none of the ones that I want).

In addition, it sucks that Bluetooth is so disabled. That was always one of the best things about AT&T/Cingular is that they didn’t disable Bluetooth syncing and file transfer. Having no Bluetooth communication between my computer and my phone is crap.

Besides those fairly minor gripes though, I love my iPhone! I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great mobile Internet device. And with the iPhone SDK announced today, things are only going to get better for iPhone owners.

Next weekend, October 19-21, 2007 will be The Wealth Expo New York, sponsored by MyWallSt.net: Your Financial Social Network. The Wealth Expo is a great opportunity for investors to network with other investors, chat with representatives from some of the largest public and private companies in the world, and to attend seminars to boost their earning potential significantly. The Wealth Expo covers everything from stocks to real estate and even investing in gold, so whatever your investment of choice happens to be, you’ll gain plenty of great information.

My personal interest is in real estate investing. In this changing real estate market, many opportunities will be appearing for those who know what to look for and how to handle what they find. On Saturday October 20th at 1:30, Ocean Star Estates, LLC. will present a session called “Investing in Ocean Property.” This is the session that interests me the most, and I imagine that it’s a session that many people would be interested in. Whether it’s for investment purposes or just for a personal home away from home, who in the world doesn’t want to own a piece of ocean property?

Either way, arming yourself for the coming change in our once-booming real estate market is beneficial to anyone willing to listen. The more you know, the more you know how to use this change to your advantage, rather than being sucked into the foreclosure black hole that far too many people are going to get sucked into.

So check out the Wealth Expo, and increase your earnings potential exponentially!

The schedule for the Wealth Expo is as follows:

Friday, 10/19: 1 p.m.-6:30 p.m. EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow

Saturday, 10/20: 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m. EDT w/ a cocktail hour to follow

Sunday, 10/21: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. EDT (no cocktail hour)

Over the weekend, I decided it was time to try out Apple’s new Public Beta version of Safari 3. My two points of motivation were checking out the new tabbed browsing additions which have been sadly lacking in Safari, and beyond that I was hoping that the new version of Safari might be more compatible with my Verizon FiOS wireless router. I am happy to report that I am quite satisfied with both.

Draggable/arrangeable tabs are one of the main new features of Safari 3. This is a great feature, and one that I have been hoping for for a long time. Mind you, I know that draggable tabs already exist in Firefox, I just for some reason can’t make the switch. I am happy to report that Apple’s version of draggable tabs works great, and makes browsing a much more pleasurable experience.

Along with draggable tabs comes bookmarkable tab groups. Under the “Bookmarks” menu exists a selection called “Add Bookmark for these X tabs…” which will bookmark each tab for you. It’s a great way to bookmark your morning reading, or to bookmark a certain workflow like editing your blog or some other web-based operation that you do on a regular basis.

A new feature that I didn’t realize was in Safari 3 is the spell checker. Again, this is an increasingly necessary browser feature. I can tell you it has already saved me much pain and suffering by helping me avoid re-editing blog entries.

So far I’m very happy with Safari 3. I can’t wait to see the official release version, and can only imagine that it will be yet another excellent Apple product. Oh, and by the way… it works much better than Safari 2 with my Verizon wireless router too.

Have you ever been to Britain? If you have, you most likely want to go back (because I certainly do), and if you haven’t you really owe it to yourself to visit. The best part is that you can do it affordably using resources available online.

To begin your trip planning, you’ll need to track down London Hotels, Edinburgh Hotels, and Glasgow Hotels. Because if you’re going to make the trip all the way over there, you might as well take it all in. I speak from experience, as I got all the way over there and didn’t take it all in. Next time I definitely will.

CheaperthanHotels.co.uk will break down hotel pricing for you based upon star rank, which allows you to find your perfect match of amenities and affordability. They also provide hostel listings if that’s your thing. Through the website, you can see pictures of each hotel, and book your room online from the comfort of your own home.

So get on it, and start booking your British vacation today!

Have you ever been driving, maybe a little faster than you should be, and been caught in a speed trap? Traffic officers frequently hang out in the same areas where there’s a plethora of easy targets whether the areas are designated speed trap areas or not.

Well some kind soul has taken the initiative to set up a user-reported list of areas where cops like to hang out and give out tickets. I was browsing through it just today, and noticed that a few different sections of road that I traverse on my way to work every day are listed. Needless to say, I’ll watch my speed more cautiously now.

Take a look at the list, it might save you some frustration and money, not to mention a point on your license:

http://www.SpeedTrap.org

It’s amazing what a difference just upgrading your bathroom fixtures can make in the look and feel of your bathroom. New fixtures that look great and actually work right can brighten up the whole place for not too much money, time, or effort. Well, unless you go shopping for your fixtures at a brick and mortar retail store, that is.

Why waste your time fighting traffic and crowds, not to mention spending a lot more money than you really should be at a traditional retail hardware or plumbing store when you could just hop online? Faucet.com has a huge selection of name brand bathroom and kitchen fixtures for you to browse. And once you decide what you like, you can order them and have them shipped to your door. No leaving the house, no fighting huge lines. Check out Faucet.com and get started on that bathroom remodel today!

Not surprisingly, in a Congressional hearing today Erik Prince defended Blackwater’s actions in Iraq, and supported the United States military’s dependence upon Blackwater in Iraq and other international and domestic initiatives. And why isn’t anyone surprised? More importantly, why isn’t anyone irate? And yet more importantly, who cares what the outcome of this investigation is? Blackwater already has a new United States contract as of Friday, so it’s not like they’re going to stop getting government handouts.

It seems to be the case over and over. Contracts like the Blackwater short takeoff contract sneak through the cracks while the dog and pony show goes on in Congress. And citizens are not told about it because the mainstream media isn’t doing their job to actually inform citizens. Instead they’re more concerned about Britney Spears losing her kids than they are about a completely corrupt mercenary unit stealing American’s tax dollars. It’s just absurd.

If you have ever shopped for small business phone systems, you know how expensive they can be. Not to mention the fact most of them require extensive on-site hardware installations that can rob your business of valuable office space. You will be happy to learn, however, that there is a solution that can save you money, time, space, and the hassle of picking a small business phone system.

Packet8 Virtual Office is a hosted iPBX solution that requires no on-site hardware. Packet8 Virtual Office offers a full featured phone system without the hardware, configuration, and cost of a traditional PBX phone system.

Out of curiosity, I took a look at Pack8’s website to browse their specific offerings, and must say I was quite pleased. They offer a number of great products that could easily serve a one or two person operation to a full call center. Although Packet8 does offer a number of lower-priced monthly service plans, the one most attractive to me is their “Global Extension” service for $79.99 a month. This includes unlimited calls to a number of countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and US Territories. If you have overseas business contacts, you just can’t beat that price.

And remember what I said about not having to spend an arm and a leg getting Packet8 set up? For their Global Extension service, all you pay is a one-time setup fee of $39.99, and pay $99.99 for equipment (not the huge bulky stuff like I mentioned earlier). So for the meager setup cost of less than $140.00, you can have a full featured small business phone system that lets you call overseas for free.

If you are starting a business, or are just trying to save some money, be sure and check out Packet8 Virtual Office.

On Friday, the Pentagon issued Blackwater yet another ninety two million dollar contract despite their murder of eleven innocent Iraqi civilians earlier last month. Presidential Airways, a Blackwater company, has been issued a contract for “Short Take-Off and Landing air transportation services between locations in the Area of Responsibility of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan,” beginning October 1st, 2007, and ending in September 2011.

It seems funny to me that this contract was still awarded despite Blackwater’s multiple blunders (more like “murders” than “blunders,” but whatever). So instead of investigating Blackwater’s crimes, our government decided to reward them with yet another contract. There are two seriously questionable items at hand here that should really make you think.

One: In the wording of the Pentagon press release regarding this deal, “This contract was competitively procured and two timely offers were received.” That means that Blackwater was not the only company available to provide this service. Even if Blackwater was a bit more expensive, it would seem smart from a public relations stand point to award another company the contract. Apparently someone doesn’t really care about that though.

Two: The press release regarding this contract was released on Friday, September 28th at 5:00 PM EST. If you have been paying any attention at all, you know that news that our government wants to slide by the public is almost always floated on a Friday afternoon. So we can only deduce by logical reasoning that the Pentagon wasn’t exactly proud of this decision, or at least didn’t want the public scrutiny that they knew would result.

Anyway, sounds like another Monday, another disappointing day for the United States.