The End of the Road

To paraphrase REM:

It's the end of the road as we know it.
It's the end of the road as we know it.
It's the end of the road as we know it, and I feel...

Oh well, you know the rest of it.

In my eleven years at my current workplace, I believe I've had ten managers (counting times when I didn't have a direct manager and reported to some higher level manager). Soon, number eleven will be announced.

In the infamous words of my most-recently-departed manager, "We'll just go forward from here." Posted by Chris on 6/29/2005 08:20:00 PM :: Permalink   

Go outside and play

You know this means you.

www.digitalsawdust.com Posted by Melissa on 6/26/2005 02:04:00 PM :: Permalink   

Scott Hanselman's Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List

Wow. What an impressive list of tools and utilities. A few of these I've used myself, and many other immediately garner my interest. The only downside is how long it will take me to try these all out. These are mostly tools for the developer or power user (as he mentions in the post title), but regardless of who you are, you are likely to find something improve your computing experience.

Scott Hanselman's 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List

If you find one you particularly like, please post a comment. I'll try to follow up after I've explored several of these. Posted by Chris on 6/23/2005 10:22:00 PM :: Permalink   

Future Gold Glove Winner Suffers TiVo Withdrawal

On the way home from the beach, Victoria finished off all but one piece of her candy. Showing no prior interest in baseball at all, she then proceeded to insert her left hand in the small candy wrapper "glove" and hold the blue ball of candy in her right hand. Like a pitcher waiting for the ump to call for the first pitch, she repeatedly brought the piece of candy over to the glove, chanting happily "Baseball! Baseball!" I've actually got a few seconds of video of it that I might try to blog later just to play with video blogging.

Our beach vacation was fun, but it was the first time in a long time that the girls were without Tivo. They had to sit through commercials if they watched a show, and it was difficult to understand that we couldn't just watch what we wanted whenever we wanted. In the end, they took comfort in the assurance that the TiVos at home would have all their favorite shows waiting for them when we got back home.

Labels: family, tivo

Posted by Chris on 6/23/2005 07:46:00 PM :: Permalink   

Happy Father's Day

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 6/19/2005 10:26:00 AM :: Permalink   

BIG Big Wheels

Remember Big Wheels? Even if you didn't have on as a kid, surely you hopped on a friend's at one time or another. Perhaps you're missing that?

Enter Adult Size Big Wheels from Big Wheel Rally. You can now buy it supersized! There are several models to choose from and they range from $129 to $259. Let me know how it works out. Posted by Chris on 6/16/2005 04:54:00 PM :: Permalink   

Feel the Heat

Wayne's got a nice new bike and he drove it in yesterday.

But of all days, he picked the hottest one yet with a temp of 95 degrees and humidity up to 94 percent! Just look at that nice, warm, black, heat-absorbing helmet and jacket.

Another photo is in the photoblog.
Posted by Chris on 6/15/2005 01:13:00 PM :: Permalink   

Carlos' Custom Cases

Carlos also got a Treo 650, but he didn't have a case yet. Realizing that this device deserved some immediate protection, he took matters into his own hands.

A few minutes later and he had crafted his own custom Treo pouch case from paper towels and packing tape! It fit well and would prevent scratches, but I pointed him to my Treo 650 accessories post.

After talking with several of us, he later returned with a new improved version which included a velcro closure.

Ingenuity.

I'll put some more pictures in the photo blog.
Posted by Chris on 6/14/2005 11:06:00 PM :: Permalink   

Time For A Change

OK, everyone, all at once, you may stop holding your breath. That's right. Exhale. It has finally come to pass.

I've changed the site layout. If you're reading this via RSS (as I would), this means nothing to you, but I would encourage you to actually open your browser and load this site to see what you think.

If you're viewing this in a web browser and you've ever been here before, you've no doubt noticed the difference already. If not, then it's time to turn off the computer and get some sleep.

I've changed the comment system from Haloscan to Blogger, so we'll see how that works out. With a custom template, I was able to get comments to appear inline, which is what I always wanted. And the three column layout allows me to clutter your browser and pack in more links. There's also a new photo blog link and some favorite posts.

When you find things that don't work, just let me know (there are Email links in the sidebar). And I didn't change all of the old posts, it's just a new front page. So if you go back in the archives, the pages will still have the old look.

Go ahead, leave a comment. Do you like it? Hate it? Just don't care? Do you read but not write? Lurk but not post? Posted by Chris on 6/13/2005 10:37:00 PM :: Permalink   

Two Kids and a Couch

Can you find Delaney and Victoria?

Labels: family

Posted by Chris on 6/13/2005 08:29:00 AM :: Permalink   

Moblogging with the Force

Here it is. The first blog post direct from my Treo 650.

To raise the bar a bit I also setup Flickr so I could snap a photo with the built-in camera and include that in the post. I can see me doing more mobile photoblogging, where, on the spur of the moment I snap a photo of Delaney or Victoria, add a short caption, and blog it.

And I can also see me blogging some weird pictures, well, just because I can.

Posted by Chris on 6/13/2005 12:25:00 AM :: Permalink   

Zire 71 Going Once, Going Twice...

Now that I've got a Treo 650, I finally put my Palm Zire 71 up on eBay. It was the best PDA I had ever owned and I was well-pleased with it. Posted by Chris on 6/11/2005 08:40:00 PM :: Permalink   

Treo 650 Accessories

I've had my Treo 650 for about a month now and I've finally carved out a little time to blog about it. Basically, I love it so far. I'll admit it's not perfect, but it's darn good. I certainly don't regret the $250 I paid for it (and prices have since dropped even lower in some cases).

I'm not going to give an in-depth review in this post because I want to talk about the accessories I bought for it, but I will say that mobile internet at 120kbps is nice. True, it's not always 120kbps, but every speed test I've run has been at least as good as my old dial-up connection. "Push" email is cool. And having your PDA functions integrated with the phone is great. I don't use a cell phone that much, but carrying one less device is worth the price alone.

So, you may not realize it, but getting the phone is only the first part of the financial investment. You won't get off that cheap. You still need accessories. Then software (much of which is free, but not all of it). Here's how I've accessorized my Treo 650:

Screen protectors - Probably the most important thing to do immediately is to protect the screen from scratches. The Treo ships with a cheap screen protector that might last you a little while, but my favorites are the WriteSHIELDs from PocketPCTechs. These are clear and seem to last a long time (at least the ones for my Zire 71 did) and best of all they have the best writing surface of any protector I've seen. But I'll admit that the writing surface is less of an issue on the Treo 650 since you'll be using the keyboard and 5-way navigator much of the time.

1GB SD Card - I bought a 66x Ridata card. Check the deals at www.dealram.com. The Treo 650 is capable of being your MP3 player, podcaster, and even portable video device. You're going to need space for all that media and for all the Palm apps that don't fit in the nvRAM. There's a camera and video recorder and you can get a voice recorder as well. All of these can save data to the SD card, but nothing chews up data like ripping and transcoding a 2 hour DVD movie to watch on your Treo while you're waiting at the airport or whatever. The screen is that good. Plug in stereo headphones and you can watch anything you like. But get a fast card for better performance. And get a BIG one.

Car charger - You never know when you'll need to recharge on the go.

Pen stylus - I find these invaluable. How many times have you been searching for a pen? Since I always have my Treo with me, I always have a pen! If you keep a few business cards handy, you can always jot down a note or phone number to hand to some other poor soul who doesn't have a Treo for you to beam or email the message to.

F650 case - I think it's impossible to find the perfect case for any device - especially one that combines the features of a phone/PDA/MP3-player and more. For now, I've settled on the F650. I carry the Treo in my pocket and want a slim case. The flip cover provides added protection. The only downside to this case is the added bulk from the wraparound magnetic closure. If taht extra wrap-around flap could just be eliminated and if the business card slot were actually usable, this would be an excellent case. It's still good, but I'm looking for better.

Retractable USB charge/sync cable - This is slick. You can charge and sync all via USB and the cable retracts. Very handy. And this one even has a hotsync button on the connector.

Hybrid earbuds headset - I just got these and have only used them once. It's nice to be able to hear decent sounding stereo MP3 music on your commute and switch over to a phone call at the push of the button. I will say that the earbuds aren't the best I've heard, but I think they're ok.

Stereo headphone adapter - If you want to plug real headphones into your Treo or hook it up to some in-car stereo adapter, you'll need this.

Belkin Bluetooth adapter - Finally, I bought a Bluetooth USB dongle with a 100 meter range (but don't buy from there; you can get it much cheaper elsewhere). The Treo supports Bluetooth but it's only got a 10 meter range. I haven't played with this much at all. So I can't give any opinion, but I will reference this excellent guide to setting it all up.

So there you go. Accessorize! I'll try to post a rundown of my current Treo apps soon.

What's on my Treo - Part 1 - Part 2 Posted by Chris on 6/07/2005 09:35:00 PM :: Permalink   

Microsoft adopts open standard XML!

Wow, this is surprising. The next version of Microsoft Office will use industry open standard XML for its default file format.

That opens up a world of possibilities. As anyone will be able to write an app to read and write Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files. You won't be stuck using Microsoft apps and interoperability should get a big boost as should use on other platforms (like PDAs, for example).

And since it'll now be in a text format, Office docs will play nicer with CVS as well. An interesting move by Microsoft, and I think it's the right one. Posted by Chris on 6/02/2005 08:52:00 PM :: Permalink   
Want more? Visit the Archives or jump to current entries.