Entries Tagged 'Technology' ↓

Wirefly announces the Top 10 cell phones of 2006 based upon their customers’ orders. It’s actually pretty interesting, as my wife and I have the #1 and #4 phone models respectively. I had no idea we were so with it.

The #1 ranked phone was the Cingular modem Motoroloa RAZR. My wife has the pink model, and has had pretty good luck with it. The only problem she has experienced was that the bottom of the screen got horizontal lines going across it. This did not make it unusable however, and Cingular replaced the phone under warranty.

My phone, #4, the Cingular Sony Ericsson z520a has been excellent. I had a Sony Ericsson prior to this one, so I’m familiar with the menu and navigation system. It’s my first flip phone, and has been excellent so far. No trouble, just nice clear phone calls.

So yeah, from my experience it looks like Wirefly’s list is pretty comprehensive and the phones listed are pretty decent. I’m going to laugh when the iPhone tops the list for 2007 after it’s only been out for six months though…hehe.

I just saw an article stating that AT&T as of Monday will be rebranding Cingular back to AT&T. I have been a Cingular customer for a long time, and frankly am fucking sick of them changing their brand every few months/years/whateverthefuck.

When I first got a cell phone, I was with Pacific Bell Mobile Services. PBMS turned into Cingular. Then I switched to AT&T Wireless a few years later, who then became Cingular. Now Cingular is turning back into AT&T.

What marketing genius thought this would be a good idea? How long will customers tolerate shit like this? If this change is anything like the AT&T to Cingular switchover, logging into your online account is going to be a pain in the ass, your wireless plan is going to become obsolete, replaced by a more expenive plan with less minutes.

We’ll see how it goes. Unfortunately I need to stick with AT&T/Cingular since they will be carrying the iPhone when it comes out around June. Hopefully by then they’ll have their shit figured out and the transition will be complete. Speaking of that, I wonder if the iPhone announcement helped pave the way for AT&T to change the name? It seems that people like me who are pissed about their wireless provider changing names again are much less likely to switch just beacuse they want the iPhone. Things to ponder…

Alright fine, I give up. The rumor sites are going crazy with Mac fanatics’ mad ramblings of Apple’s pending releases tomorrow at MacWorld, so I might as well weigh in too.

Everyone is talking about how excited they are for the iPhone. Honestly, I could still give a shit for the iPhone. I hope it never materializes. I have been saying it since November, and continue to say it today, that the iPhone would be a huge waste of Apple’s R&D time and money. Why get into a market that’s already saturated, not to mention BORING. Unless you’re 15, in which case your cell phone is the coolest thing you’ve ever seen…so cool, in fact, that you have to text message your friends at all hours of the day including when you’re at the fucking movies. Anyway, the idea of the iPhone bores me.

But here’s what I want. And to make it even better, the iPhone freaks can get what they want, and so can the tablet heads too:

What I would love to see tomorrow would be an OQO style pocket Mac computer. It wouldn’t be anything amazingly fast, maybe it could even use the same 1.5 GHz VIA C7M ULV processor as the OQO. I would assume that Mac OS X would run just fine on that little beast, or could at least be recompiled for it. But it would be perfect for true on the go computing and productivity.

It would run full Mac OS X, not some emasculated version of it (like Windows Mobile or whatever the fuck they’re calling it these days), much the same as the OQO runs Vista or XP. Better yet, this pocket Mac would have fully integrated wi-fi, as well as fully integrated EVDO hardware.

What does this mean? This means that for $60 a month you can get full service wireless DSL on a computer that you can take anywhere. This also means that with $25 per month VoIP service from Vonage, SunRocket, or a competitor, you can essentially have a cell phone and portable computer for $85 a month. Oh, and since you’ll be using your unlimited VoIP service you won’t have to pay for going over your minutes, or for calling Mexico or Canada. You’ll also have the same number at home and on your cell.

Obviously the perfect pocket Mac would also incorporate the iSight camera for snapping pics or video, or videoconferencing on the go.

If this is what Steve has up his sleeve, I will be very very happy. As lame as the tablet Mac and iPhone are as stand-alone products, the pocket Mac would bring the two together and create something amazing. I hope this is Steve’s “One more thing…”

So my wife went to Canada to visit family, and she was going to bring some coffee beans for her mum. I went to the TSA’s website to make sure that coffee beans are not on the list of disallowed items list (who knows why they would be, but I wouldn’t be surprised for some reason). I figured that rather than calling the airport or the TSA, it would make sense to check their website.

Turns out that their site crashes Safari as soon as it loads. I figured, being a webmaster myself, that I should be a good Netizen and let them know. Turns out they don’t care. Awesome. Here’s my email to them and their response:

To: tsa-contactcenter@dhs.gov

Category: Website Feedback

Message:
Just thought I would let you know that your website crashes the latest version of Safari. If you’re going to be disseminating such allegedly important information that is so essential to national security, you might want to make sure that it’s accessible to everyone no matter what browser they’re using. Thanks.

__________________________________________
Date and Time of message: 12/24/2006 2:04:43 AM

Re: Customer Service Feedback <<#45237-93139#>> Inbox
TSA-ContactCenter
to me
More options Dec 27 (4 days ago)
Thank you for your e-mail message.

So that we can better assist you we encourage you to call us at 1-866-289-9673 for assistance. If you are outside the United States and cannot use the toll-number, please call us at 1-571-227-2900.

We hope this information is helpful.

TSA Contact Center

Does anyone else out there not give a flying fuck about the Apple iPhone? There’s so much buzz lately, among promises of gloom and doom if no iPhone shows up at MacWorld in January.

Honestly, who cares about an Apple cell phone? It’s a fucking CELL PHONE! It makes phone calls from your pocket just like your Sony Ericsson or Motorola or Nokia or Sanyo or whoever the fuck cell phone that you already have! And as much as I’m sure Apple can make a kickass cell phone, I would rather have their development teams working on making what they already have better.

Like how about a wifi/Bluetooth iPod? How about finishing up iTV and making it even more amazing than we’re hoping for? Why waste resources making a stupid cell phone when there are so many more innovative products to build?

The RAZZ Mixer is a new web-based recording and sound effects application from razz.com. Not only does the RAZZ Mixer allow you to record your own audio from your computer microphone, it also has built-in sound effects that you can use to add humor or excitement to your recording morning radio show style.

I have to admit that despite my initial concern, I am really impressed with the RAZZ Mixer. First, it’s a fairly complex web app, which frequently translalates into “not Mac compatible.” I am happy to report that the RAZZ Mixer functioned perfectly in Safari, and allowed me to do everything that I wanted to with ease.

As a little aside, I might mention that the RAZZ Mixer can also be used to capture audio from any application on your computer. Just turn the gain up, hit record, and you’ll have audio from any audio source. This is great if you want to capture something that’s streaming or some other kind of audio from a non-saveable source. Pretty cool, especially for free.

Try the RAZZ Mixer Yourself and see what I’m talking about.

Make your own Razz!

If you’re a serious podcaster, you know that having a “voice of your podcast” beside your own is pretty important. If you don’t have a friend or non-friend who might be willing to lend a hand and do some voice overs, it might be worth your while to check out voices.com, an online marketplace for voice talent. Leave it to a professional, and make your podcast come alive!

If you haven’t yet optimized your small business website, SEO Position can help you out. SEO Position specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization, and Content Management System (like Drupal) optimization that can help skyrocket your website’s effectiveness in cultivating new leads, customers, and clients.

Besides that, SEO Position also specializes in XHTML/CSS standards compliant development, which iherently optimizes your sites for all of the above, and also makes them generally ADA/508 compliant (which you probably don’t need to worry about, but should probably take into account anyway).

SEO Position has helped over 200 small businesses optimize their websites, and can help you too. Check out their website to find out about their SEO Consulting services.

Lately I have been trying to make my website more search engine friendly, and have begun a home-grown SEO process based upon free information on the Internet. I had not really seen any huge benefits up until today, but I’m happy to say that my erfforts are working out.

The way I know is that I finally got my first blog comment spam message, which pretty much tells me that the spambots are hitting my site finally, which I assume also means that the Google bots are also hitting my site more frequently now. Looks like it’s time to turn on Akismet on liamferris.com too now. Woo hoo, what a way to start a Friday! Success!!

Do you ever feel like you’re missing out on the whole “making money online” thing? Even though you spend your life on the Internet, you’re not getting any financial benefit.

I know I sure feel like I’m missing it. I am starting to make some money online after almost a year of trying, but I’m still not at a point where I would like to be, or at a point that I feel my technical, Internet, and business knowledge should be able to take me. Therefore I have been researching and reading all the articles on Internet business that I can get my hands on. If you are in the same boat, I would highly recommend doing the same.

It seems that many of the same ideas that work in real estate also work with websites. Since you are selling virtual real estate, I suppose it makes sense. The only problem is that websites come and go. A site can be at the top of the heap one day, and a complete flop the next. Brick and mortar real estate is something that you own, that is tangible, and that no one can take from you except in extreme cases. Because of this, I feel like the web real estate boom is a great way to make some money, but is not a solution for long-term wealth. It can however fund your adventures in long term tangible investments, which is my motivation for making money online.

Anyway, I just came across two great articles on CNNMoney that I’m sure you will enjoy if you are into making money online. Check them out:

• Flipping Web Fixer-Uppers
• target=”_blank”>New ways to strike it rich on the Web