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I got fed up with Blogger requiring me to use a CAPTCHA every time I put up a new blog post. I'm not sure why. I understand the need for CAPTCHAs, but I find them painful to use, as they can sometimes be hard to read, and I never know even if capital letters are in the CAPTCHA, will they be accepted? I hate having to type in a CAPTCHA up to 4 times to post on my own blog, so I have moved. If you enjoy the content that I sporadically post, check out my new blog, The Stand-up Philosopher. All of my content from here has been reposted there.

(A CAPTCHA is a method supposedly designed to combat spambots. It consists of those number and letter pictures that have to be entered to post a comment on a blog or to register for a site.)

Should Cell Phone Use Be Allowed on Airplanes?

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/news/show/90145/in-flight-cell-ban-bill-making-its-way-through-us-congress.html

The discussion of cell phones on airplanes has been going on for a while now. What I find interesting is that the only real argument I hear against allowing cell phone use on planes has NOTHING to do with technology or federal regulations; it has to do with behavior. I find it odd that this debate only seems to center around one emotionally charged reason. Most people I know oppose allowing cell phone use on planes for only one reason: “I don’t want to be sitting next to that self-important sumbitch who has to talk loud into his phone the entire flight!”

Granted, *other people* sure can be annoying with cell phones. I can remember one flight I took to Norfolk from Philly. As we were boarding the plane, one woman a couple of rows back from me started making calls, apparently to people whom she would be seeing in Norfolk. Three phone calls were centered around the endless repetition of “No, we’re on the plane. Yes, we’re on the plane. We’re on the plane! No, we’re sitting on the plane right now!” Seriously, that’s all she kept saying as she went through three phone calls. Would you really want to spend time with somebody too stupid to comprehend that you’re on the plane right now? But is that really a good enough reason to continue to ban the use of cell phones in flight? I’ve never seen any actual proof that the use of cell phones or “portable electronic devices” actually causes any problems with aircraft communication devices. I remember back in the early 80’s when my family flew on an Air Force C-5 from Ramstein to Dover that I couldn’t use my first generation Sony Walkman at all because it would “screw with the plane’s communications and navigation systems.” The Mythbusters set out to test this, but could only test on ground as the FAA wouldn’t relax the laws for one TV show. Their on-ground tests with a variety of cell phones showed no interference with the plane’s instrumentation.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind being able to use my phone, at least, it would be nice to use my data connection inflight. I can’t think of many calls that can’t wait until I get on the ground, but it sure would be nice to have Internet access while flying.

What about you? Can you think of any reason beside “I don’t want to sit next to the sumbitch talking on his phone!” why allowing cell phone use in flight would be a bad idea that should continue to be outlawed?

Technorati Tags: Cell phones,flying,air travel,phones on planes

In Defense of Information Overload

As I’m starting this post, I’m listening to Roger Moore guest host for Albert Mohler’s radio show talk about how technology is “taking over our lives.” In discussions with callers, he talks about laying his Blackberry down on the table when eating with other people. Some callers mentioned seeing families out together with the dad checking email on his Blackberry and the kids listening to iPods through ear buds.

My Father-in-law was over for dinner Thursday night. Joshua finished up and just left the table to play. I had long since finished dinner. Christina and her dad (I’m sorry and I don’t mean this to be, well, mean) tend to eat much slower than I do. I was done eating, nobody was talking, and I really wanted to break out my Pocket PC or iPod Touch to check email of read my RSS feeds in Google Reader. My wife gets on my case frequently for “always being on that machine.” I have checked with other friends with Windows Mobile phones or Blackberries or iPhones and I find that our wives all voice the same complaint frequently. Come to think of it, I love when I travel for work because when we sit down to dinner, we all pretty much lay our phones on the table and randomly check for email and text messages, and the best part is because we’re engineers, nobody considers this rude!. On my last trip, while we were eating wings, there was a Blackjack, a Q, my 6945, an iPhone, and a Blackberry all sitting on the table while we ate.

Now, I’d be absolutely wrong to spend all of my time on my “machines” and neglect my kids. Perhaps my wife thinks this is what I’m doing. I honestly don’t see where the problem lies when there is dead time, no talking, no nothing, with me taking out my Pocket PC to check email, perhaps read one that may be pertinent, and put it away. I hear people complaining all over about how much time they “have” to spend on email. I honestly don’t feel chained at all, but maybe my life doesn’t revolve that much around email. I get several newsletters, but I can get to them when I feel like it. I get very little email that is immediately actionable, but maybe that’s because I don’t really have any friends.

The other day I stopped on my way home to get my brakes looked at. Turns out I just needed a $40 adjustment. Cool! While I was waiting, I had my “brain,” my iPaq 6945. I was able to check email, check my RSS feeds on Google Reader, and read a book in Pocket Reader. It was wonderful! No more staring at the walls or trying to read a magazine I’m not really interested in while I’m at a doctor’s office or mechanic’s shop.

Let’s all just take a step back and admit that maybe, on one level, we actually sort of enjoy the information overload. If you honestly don’t like it, then take a step back. I’m enjoying it personally. I love having an alternative to “dead time,” when nobody is talking, nothing is happening, and the time would otherwise go to waste. I just wish I could use my devices more during dead time after dinner without getting yelled at. Manners can go both ways. A couple years ago, while watching children’s TV, All Grown Up was on. One of the girls decided to chase down her Japanese heritage. She held some kind of tea party for her friends. One of the other kids decided to dig in to his food. He was told by the girl with Japanese heritage “In Japan, it’s rude to start eating before everybody else.” Since my wife was in the room, I yelled back at the TV “In America, it’s rude to make people wait to eat.” I’ve told my wife, if you don’t want me on my Pocket PC during dead time at dinner, then bring up a conversation topic. Shouldn’t we consider “dead time” to be rude?

Technorati Tags: Pocket PC,Information Overload,Email overload,gadget etiquette

Remote Control is Cool

When I upgraded my iPod Touch to the 2.0 firmware, I wasn’t entirely impressed. I found the 2.0 software to be a little less stable and to be a little “buggy” compared to the 1.1.4 version that I was running before (jailbroken with ZiPhone, of course.)

One of the first applications I downloaded was Remote. I heard it was pretty cool. Of course, to this point, I haven’t had a chance to deal with it yet. Finally, this morning since I have a little spare time, I decided to play with it some. I was able to get it set up and run with it. So far, I’m impressed. I’m playing one of my podcasts this morning while I work on a couple of blog entries.

Technorati Tags: Remote Control,iTunes,iPod Touch

The AT&T Tilt is One Sweet Phone!

In reference to my last post, I was at the mall tonight with my wife and kids. I did get just a little time to look at things that interest me. The Deptford Mall has few stores for a 34 year old gadget geek man, so when I separate from my wife at the mall, I browse the cell phone stores and kiosks. I’m currently using an iPaq 6945 Windows Mobile phone, which gets the job done but there’s always something better. The first store I hit with my two year old, Caleb, was Radio Shack. I was curious about the Blackberry. I’ve been using Pocket PC’s for years and never really thought much about the Crackberries. Radio Shack has dummy phones; at least, the phones aren’t on or functional. I had a nice discussion about tech with one of the guys there, but the time came to move on. Next I went to the AT&T store, where the phones were actually turned on! I picked up the AT&T Tilt and went to town.

This phone was nice! I’ve never had the chance to play with one live before. I played with one at an AT&T kiosk once, but the screen was locked so I couldn’t do anything but slide the keyboard out and tilt the screen up. I can’t believe how fast this is, especially the 3G data connection. My wife says getting a new phone isn’t a financially smart move right now. She literally would be happy if her current phone lasted forever, but I’m the Gadget Geek Dad! I would get a new phone every two months if I could. At least, I’d get a bunch and swap between them as I see fit. I wish I could grow this blog big enough that the manufacturers would send me review units. That would be cool.

Next up, the 3G iPhone. It was fun, but I didn’t get to play with it for long as Caleb kept grabbing another one. I was afraid he’d manage to break it, so I didn’t get to do much with the iPhone at all. I know how it works as I have an iPod Touch. To be honest, except for the 3G data connection, the new iPhone doesn’t seem that impressive. If I could buy an older model it would get the job done. Of course, I couldn’t get Caleb to cooperate long enough to fire up Safari and see the “blazing fast” 3G speeds. I know they were quick on the Tilt.

Finally, I played with the Treo 750W. It actually wasn’t bad. The only thing that really sets it apart (OK, 2 things) from my 6945 are 3G and Windows Mobile 6. My 6945 plods along at EDGE speeds so the 3G on the Treo was nice, and WM6 seems like a minor but nice upgrade from WM5.

Along the way, I did pick up and play with a few live Blackberries, but nothing really stood out to me with the Blackberry enough to make me want to drop Windows Mobile (or dreams of an iPhone) for it. People who have Blackberries claim to love them, and I can hardly say I “love” Windows Mobile, but I’ve had it for so long and bought a lot of programs for it over the years so it would be hard to just drop the platform and move on at this point as I have so much invested in it.

Next I went to a T-Mobile store, but their phones weren’t live. I sort of like the T-Mobile Wing, but the onboard memory seems a little lacking for serious use. My AT&T contract is up in January, and we’re not sure if we want to continue with AT&T or use an excuse to jump to another carrier.

It feels good to get back to the original purpose of this blog, gadgets.

Technorati Tags: Gadgets,cell phones,AT&T,AT&T Tilt,3G iPhone,Treo 750W,T-Mobile Wing,3G

Store Credit Cards Are Getting to be a Pain

(I think I will be moving back to this blog. I hate the CAPTCHAs, but Blogger is a better platform to blog from than MSN Spaces.)

I was at the mall with my wife and kids tonight. In the time that I’ve been blogging on my MSN Spaces blog and leaving this one dormant, I’ve been listening to Dave Ramsey quite a bit. He really does change the way you look at money. My wife stopped at Sears to buy shoes for Joshua. She also needed a bathing suit for my company’s picnic tomorrow. She went to pay, and sure enough got the inevitable “You can save 10% if you open a Sears card account.” We politely declined. After paying, my wife went upstairs to look for clothes for the kids. She found a few, and went to pay again. This time, once again, the cashier tries to push a Sears card on us. My wife said “I don’t work.” Well, she works harder than I do, but I don’t issue her a W-2 :-) . The cashier looked at me, and I said “No thank you. You can tell how much money Sears is making off finance charges by how hard they’re pushing the card on people.” My wife told me to knock it off, but after 3 hours at the mall chasing uncooperative kids around, I didn’t feel like it. I muttered “You can hardly get a cup of coffee at Wawa anymore without hearing ‘you can save 10% on your purchase if you open up a charge card account.’”

According to Dave Ramsey, (and I assume his sources), most stores these days have very narrow profit margins. Apparently, Best Buy and Circuit City don’t really make any money off of merchandise anymore. Most of their money is made from finance charges and warranties and service plans, like charging $50 to install a RAM chip, a service I am proud to still perform for pizza and beer for ten straight years. Even with a Meat Lover’s, and a six pack of a premium lager, I’m still cheaper, but Best Buy doesn’t make money otherwise.

Be careful with the store credit cards. My wife and I often will buy larger items on a “12 months no interest” plan. Dave Ramsey recommends not doing that, as Murphy’s Law is in full effect. It doesn’t matter how disciplined you are; life still gets in the way.

Technorati Tags: Dave Ramsey,Sears card,profit margins,charge cards,store credit

I’m Tempted to Come Back to Blogger

I hate to say this, but I’m getting tempted to come back here to Blogger. As I said in my last post (Apr 1, 2008,) I was leaving for my MSN Spaces blog. I’ve put a lot of work into Blogger over the years, and I hated to leave, but the CAPTCHA was really getting on my nerves. If I do come back here to Blogger, I don’t know if I should bring over some of the posts I’ve made on Spaces. I’ll decide. Anything between Apr 1 and this post was brought over from MSN Spaces.

Technorati Tags: Blogging,Blogger,MSN Live Spaces

I Might Be Switching to Microsoft's Live Spaces

I hate to do this after 235 posts on Blogger, but I might be switching my blog to Windows Live Spaces. My space (not MySpace, but I have one of those too) is http://emuelle1.spaces.live.com . I know at least one person checks my blog (thanks for reading, Andrea!), and I do like Blogger, but one minor issue has come up. I like to use Windows Live Writer to write my posts, but Blogger seems to have disabled the "fire and forget" feature. When I write in Windows Live Writer, I want to be able to publish remotely, but in an effort to cut down on spam, blogger will only take the uploaded post as a draft. I then have to log in, open the post, and publish it by putting in a CAPTCHA (those letters and numbers). That makes posting to my blog more complicated than I'd like, especially since I got my new job and have less time to blog. CAPTCHAs might cut down on spam, but they are a serious pain for real people. These last two sentences of this paragraph are added after my second attempt to enter the CAPTCHA.

I'll keep this blog up for a while, and I probably will drift back here if I can find an override for remote publishing, but if you read this blog regularly, please check my Windows Live Space for the time being until I decide finally. I may additionally start using my Wordpress blog. I had high hopes of being a "pro blogger", or somebody who makes money from blogging, but who am I kidding?

Wasted Day Rant

Today seems like it was a total waste. I got nothing productive at all done. Nothing. Today was filled with frustration, futility, and shame.

First off, when I started my new job, I was told to go ahead and order a laptop. I was allowed to pick out what I wanted. I'm sick of being stuck with obsolete technology, so planning to be using this laptop for several years, I asked if Windows Vista was OK. I don't care what technology journalists and TWIT panelists say, I like Windows Vista. I think it's safe and secure and one hell of a graphical shell improvement over good old Windows XP.

In order to gain access to one of the networks I need, I have to get my laptop approved by the people on the network. I will say that I have a very hard time holding my mouth back when up against other IT people. I have an IT degree and have been playing around with computers as a hobby for more than a decade, although my experience led me into an engineering position. I hate running up against large IT bureaucracies, as I know that most of the rules and requirements that they have are nothing more than organizational preferences, most of which are BS policies. When I picked out my laptop, I asked if Vista was OK and I was told yes, so I went with Vista. (I wasn't told yes by these network people, whom I knew nothing about at the time.) I know that you XP Luddites are hoping that XP will last forever, but the truth is sooner or later, Microsoft will HAVE to stop supporting it and I'm planning for that. But, I was told that I can't get my laptop approved for network access unless I put XP on it. OK, I found a copy of XP, wiped the drive, did a base install, and dropped it off with the techs.

Then I had to deal with another issue. We're still trying to sell our home in a market that sucks really bad. I hadn't heard from my realtor in a while, and I left a message last night and another this morning. I broke down and called the brokerage manager. My realtor called back right away. She had sent me an email, but I don't have access to my gmail account at work now like I did on my last job. I did feel a little bit bad about having to escalate, but I had no way to know that she planned to call me later in the day. I still feel a little bit of shame, but not much. In order to get a signal, I had to go outside. I work in the approach path to Philly International, so while I was talking on my phone low flying jets passed overhead.

Then I got a call from the network people. My laptop didn't have network card drivers, so they couldn't do anything. I went to get it back. Go figure, since this laptop was designed for Windows Vista, nobody bothered to write XP drivers for any of the hardware in it. I spent an hour and a half trying to find them, but to be honest, if I wanted to work that hard to find drivers I would have installed Linux.

By then, the workday was over. I just wanted to drink myself stupid. Nobody from my group was around, so I can't even ask my supervisor what to do about my laptop until Monday. Oh, I can get my laptop on the network if I want to, but if I get caught there will be a lot of trouble for everybody. It's highly unlikely that I will be caught; I've had the laptop on that network with Vista already. I know a workaround, but I don't want to cause trouble. However, stupid Luddite policies like that one are just begging a geek with my skills and lack of patience to use a workaround. Seriously, this network JUST started supporting Window XP THIS YEAR! Windows Vista has been out for more than a year now, XP has been out for more than seven.

I need to get a job in the group that makes these policies. Anyway, this day was a waste, I got nothing done, I feel a little ashamed at calling my realtor's brokerage manager to get her attention, and this ranting blog entry is the only thing I have to show for this entire day.

Oh, well. My birthday is Monday. My dad might be willing to get me an iPod Touch, so I might call and ask if I just buy it myself can he send the money. Maybe I'll have an iPod Touch to show for today. That would be nice. That or at least a six pack of Yeungling.

Actually, there was one good thing this workday. We had a team meeting early. It was my first one, and I met some new people.

Technorati Tags: Wasted day,Luddite network policy,Windows Vista,Windows XP,Realtors

University of Phoenix Switches to Gmail

I logged onto my page on the University of Phoenix's website yesterday to see what the commencement information is for this year. As I was poking around, I decided to log into my webmail account so see if anything has happened since last October. I found two emails regarding the University of Phoenix switching student email accounts to gmail. Wow, new students are blessed. I had to deal with an 8 MB account limit over IMAP. I had such a horrible experience that I thought for a while that IMAP was an older technology.

For some reason, most of my traffic on this blog is from people looking for UOP email account settings. Of course, they don't stick around and leave comments to make me feel better (or worse) about the time I've spent putting more than 240 posts on this blog over 3 years. Ya'll can stop searching now, as gmail's help can provide all of the information you need.

I'm not sure what they're using for newsgroups, but searches to my blog can trail off. Gmail can help you.

Technorati Tags: UOP email,University of Phoenix,gmail