Random points of interest and generally awesome things.
My friend Robynn came by work and interviewed me for a piece she was doing for a local news radio station. This is one of those times where hearing the sound of your own voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard or pulling apart cotton balls, but I think that she did a great job!
A couple of weekends ago, several of us from OrangeSoda competed in the First Annual Utah Valley Race All Night Competition. My four-person team was made up of my wife Landry, Amber, Michael, and myself. The prize for the winner was an all-expenses-paid trip to Cancun, Mexico and we really wanted to go to Mexico! We didn’t win but we had a blast. Landry couldn’t walk the day after and I was as completely drained for a couple of days afterward.
Here’s a list of the activities in the order in which we did them:
It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience but I would have to seriously think about it before doing it again! Check out the official website for the race.
I am a very late-comer to the Twitter scene. I have only recently started using it regularly. For the longest time, I just couldn’t see the point. I wondered, “What does Twitter offer that Facebook or MySpace don’t?”
Twitter allows you to keep in touch with people, just like those other guys. It’s a quick and easy way to get your thoughts, questions, and ideas out to anyone who cares (and even to those that don’t). One thing that Twitter has on Facebook, MySpace, and other social media is that it is incredibly easy to use and the concept is very simple.
After using Twitter for a few weeks now, I have realized that there really isn’t a point to it, it’s just fun! Stop trying to understand it and just use it, I bet you’ll like it!
My wife had been dropping hints for quite some time about how badly she wanted a Mac and I knew that I had to get her one. She had tinkered around on my MacBook and had decided for herself that her Toshiba Satellite would no longer cut it. Once the decision between getting a MacBook or an iMac was made, we were ready to make a purchase.
We did some preliminary research before making our purchase. We went to the local Mac reseller and I asked one of the sales reps what the cons of buying a refurbished iMac would be. First he said, “I’ve never seen an Apple refurb, we don’t sell them,” then he said, “plus, a new one is only a couple hundred more. If it were me, I’d fork out the extra dough and get a new one.” Of course he would get a new one, that would give him his commission!
I have seen a couple of refurbished Mac products. I have a few friends who have purchased refurbished MacBooks and I have been pleasantly surprised when their refurbed Macs look and function just as well as a new Mac. Place a new Mac and a refurb next to each other and you’d never be able to tell the difference. So as far as I’m concerned, there is no significant difference between a new Mac and a refurb.
Here’s what you get when you buy a refurbished Mac product:
Apple Certified Refurbished Products
- Quality products/great prices
- Stringent refurbishment process prior to sale
- Covered by Apple’s One-Year Limited Warranty
- AppleCare Protection Plan can be purchased
- Supplies are limited
from Apple.com
And here’s what you get when you buy a new Mac:
New Apple Products
- Quality products/premium prices
- Covered by Apple’s One-Year Limited Warranty
- AppleCare Protection Plan can be purchased
The decision is up to you, but I was very happy to purchase a refurbished iMac at a 17% discount!
I recently purchased a T-Mobile Dash (a.k.a. HTC Excalibur) and I have been pretty happy with it, not because it is the fastest or coolest smartphone on the market, but because it is has a ton of cool features for not a lot of dough. I really wanted an iPhone for all of the same reasons you do, but I didn’t get one and here’s why:
That last feature was the real clincher for me, not only am I able to use my phone’s internet connection on my Mac, but I’m also able to use my MacBook as a router to broadcast said internet connection over a wireless network. Pretty cool, eh?
I do think that an iPhone ranks way higher in degrees of sexiness and innovation but if the iPhone follows the trend set by it’s cousin the iPod, then the next iPhone will be the one I’ll want to get. Maybe Apple will make the second-gen iPhone 3G compatible and maybe they’ll add the Bluetooth PAN feature just for me! And maybe Mike Huckabee will win the Presidency.
One major drawback of the Dash is that Windows Mobile 6 does not work with ActiveSync!
A friend of mine hooked me up with a new MacBook sleeve made with memory foam. Up until now, I was happy-go-lucky using my Neoprene MacBook sleeve (also from Isis Dei) for toting my MacBook to and from work but now I know the glory that is memory foam and I’ll never look back.
The case I got looks just like the one you see here and it’s just about as cool as they come, it has stellar graphics screen printed on it for style points and dual memory foam layers lined on the inside with velour (softer than a baby’s diaper) for crazy amounts of MacBook pampering and protection. My favorite part of the whole deal is that these things sell for $26, that’s cheap enough for me to feel comfortable recommending these MacBook covers to anyone and everyone! Also, Isis Dei releases new designs every couple of months and they let you trade in your cover for 50% off a new one. Very rad.
You’re supposed to be able to keep the MacBook in the cover while you use it, but I haven’t quite figured how to do that. The part of the sleeve that covers the top half of my MacBook just falls off because there is nothing to attach it to my computer. It’s probably not the best idea to use your MacBook resting in a sleeve for extended periods of time anyway, due to poor ventilation, but maybe you’re not as paranoid of overheating your MacBook as I am.
You can pick one up for your MacBook or MacBook Pro on Isis Dei’s website. Grab yourself a keyboard jimmy while you’re there, they are muy excelente!
UPDATE: I figured out how to get the cover to stay on my MacBook, you just don’t unzip it all the way and it stays just fine!
This is just a follow-up to a past post on TV Links.
My buddy Nathan tipped me off to the new TV Links and I wanted to share the love. As many of you know, TV Links was the premiere online source for streaming online video for free with everything from TV shows to music videos to movies (even movies still in theaters!)
The content available on the new TV Links is nowhere near as extensive as the content on the old TV Links, but I’m sure that it will continue to grow as the site gets more traffic. Once that happens, the site will come under legal fire and get shut down and we will await yet another TV Links site to pop up.
Santa (in the form of my in-laws) left me a new Trek 7100 bike for Christmas. I usually don’t like to ride a bike unless it has a couple hundred cc’s strapped to it but this one will do just fine until I can get my hands on a “real bike”. Plus, my wife got a bike for Christmas too and now we can get matching Spandex shorts and eat CLIF bars together!
The Trek 7100 is a great bike for cruising around town. I’ve even decided that once the snow clears up, I’ll ride it to work- check back in 3 months and ask me how that one’s going! I’ve only ever had a mountain bike before this bike and I’m pretty excited about some of the differences between the 7100 and my old mountain bike.
The biggest difference is in the tires. The tires on the 7100 are skinnier than those found on a mountain bike but a little bit wider than the tires on Lance Armstrong’s bike. The result is a faster, more lightweight bike that makes it easier to ride on pavement. Also, I’ve never had a bike with shocks on it and the shocks on this bike make it really fun to ride.
I think the reason why I have never really been a bike rider is precisely because I have never had a bike that is easy to ride around town. My new Trek is easy and fun to ride and it was very affordably priced- it’s a great Christmas gift. Thanks, Santa!
Image used without permission.
My buddy Kirk told me about cryogenic ice cream today and I just had to try it. The basic idea is that they take a cream/sugar base and add flavoring and mix-in toppings in a bowl. Then they add liquid nitrogen to the mix which not only makes for a really cool cloud of coldness but also instantly freezes the cream mixture and, voila! you’ve got instant ice cream.
Liquid nitrogen is kept at right around -320 °F and all scientific resources consulted in my research agree that -320 °F is very very cold. When liquid nitrogen comes into contact with the deliciously creamy mixture in the bowl, the atoms in the cream are arranged into a pattern that vaguely resembles a solar system, a Rubix cube, an organized, repeating pattern of particles. Imagine what that stuff would do if it came into contact with your skin! The girl who prepared my cryogenic treat wasn’t wearing gloves or even those killer cool lab goggles from Chem 105.
The first step in the zap-frozen ice cream creation per Sub Zero’s website is:
Step 1: Choose Low High or Medium Fat
How could a food product that let’s you choose your fat comfort/acceptance level NOT be delicious? Seriously one of the greatest inventions since 2% milk. Overall, I really enjoyed the ice cream. I got “High Fat” with fudge chocolate and malt flavoring with dark chocolate shavings as a mix-in. It was delicious and fun to eat and my 6 oz. cup only set me back $3.49. My tongue was a little bit raw afterward, minor frostbite I’m sure, but when my spoon hit the bottom of that cup I was wishing that I had bought more than half a cup of the stuff!
So if you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon, it’s time to get on board. I’m too cheap to pay for cable and for some reason our TV only gets two channels, so Landry and I are forced to look elsewhere for our entertainment. We usually got to http://www.tv-links.co.uk.
TV Links has everything from TV shows to movies (even movies that are still in theaters) to music videos. All 3 seasons of NBC’s The Office can be found on the site and I have seen “Live Free or Die Hard”, “The Simpson’s Movie”, and “Ocean’s 13″ without ever having to go to the theater.
Overall I have been impressed at the video quality but some of the movies that are still in theaters are pretty bad quality. Once a movie has been released on DVD the quality is usually better. All of the files are streamed but they seem to load quickly enough on my wireless cable connection. I’m not really sure why it is that this site hasn’t been shut down due to copyright infringement issues, but I think that it has something to do with the fact that TV Links doesn’t actually host the files available on the site, they just point you in the right direction so you can watch what you want to see.
I say “Long live TV Links! and thanks for all of the good FREE stuff”.
