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I'm releasing Instant Flickr into the wild today. It's my first Flickr gadget since I had trouble with Flickr some time back.
Check out Instant Flickr today and let me know what you think! And as usual, if you see bugs or have suggestions, please let me know!
There are so many movies coming out this summer that I'm really starting to get excited. I just saw the trailer for the Bourne Ultimatum. For me that may be the most anticipated movie of the summer as The Bourne Identity is my favorite movie of all time.
Which summer movie are you most looking forward to seeing?
Do you have a GPS navigation system in your car? My guess is that you probably don't. It's a cool concept and I've been with friends who have had them in rental cars -- they work well. The thing is, I drive the same roads pretty much every day. I'm not a delivery guy (though delivering pizza seems like it would be a really funny job) and I'm not a real estate agent so my personal day-to-day need for a navigation system is just about zero.
However, this summer I'm going to be in New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia and I'll be driving all over the place. Since I really don't know my way around, I'm obviously going to need something. So, I sent a message to my friend John over at TripGadgets to ask a few questions about renting a GPS navigation system.
The idea of renting a navigation system is fantastic in my opinion, but since I've never personally used a navigation system, I don't know much about it. This is the message I sent John:
1. How good is the coverage of the maps? I'm going to a tiny little place in New Jersey called Long Beach Island or Long Beach Township. 2. How much to rent a GPS for about 1.5 weeks. I'd need to have it in Arizona before flying to NYC and then I'd ship it back, so I'd actually have it for almost 2 weeks. 3. What other advice do you have?
This is the response:
The coverage is very good. The biggest concern would be if you were going to a town with loads of new roads. I would have a list of the zip codes for your various planned stops. It is the fastest way to enter in the next destination. Avoid the shortest route option as this will take you on city streets out of NYC vs. using the highways. In very dense downtown city streets, I have seen the system loose communication, if you are going from point to point in downtown Manhattan, I would have a map too.
How great is that?! I've just learned a great deal about how to plan my summer trip and I feel a lot better about renting a car and driving around an unfamiliar place. If you're considering a driving trip, you should contact TripGadgets and see how they can help you.
There are a lot of days that I feel like Kip Dynamite. I just want to sing "I love technology. Not as much as you, you see. But I still love technology. Always and forever. Always and forever."
Yep there are just days when programming software is still so very cool to me. I start with nothing ... have an idea ... then BAM! (shout out to Emiril) and there's something. I don't build houses. I don't create physical stuff, but writing cool software is something similar. It lives between complex math and really incredible art. It's insanely creative and insanely structured at the same time and I love it!
Basically I'm a geek and I'm just letting you all know it.
So, the lamp on my new TV burned out yesterday. I won't be watching any HDTV until Wednesday. Yeah, it had to happen just before a weekend. That's just not good news. It's something you ought to know when you launch yourself into the world of new large televisions. I knew there was a lamp. I knew it would eventually burn out -- they told me -- but it's supposed to last about 3,500 hours. That's about 10 hours of TV per day for a year. Mine lasted 2 months and we never watch 10 hours a day. So, just keep that in mind.
The great news is that Instant Amazon is now official. It's done enough for a full release and I've submitted it to Google and to the Amazon AWS team (they're the guys that make it possible for me to display Amazon information). This version finally has help and contact information, more setup options and a cool new look. Let me know what you think. Now it's time for my next "Instant..." gadget. Any guesses??
And since I'm on the topic of radio ads...
My local talk radio station 620 KTAR has been running a couple of ads that sound like they were written by Napolean Dynamite. Both of them are advertisements for the station's traffic report (every ten minutes on the nines!). Here's a partial dialog from one of the ads:
I laugh every time I hear it.
Listening to the radio on the way to work this morning I heard a claim from a mortgage broker that made me laugh and feel frustrated at the same time. The commercial said something like this: "Rates have never been lower. Don't miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reduce your mortgage payment."
Huh?
Rates were lower in 2002. I remember because I refinanced then at 4.875%. Now it's in the neighborhood of 5.5%. So, is it that we don't remember, or that we don't care, or that we really don't listen? Or is it something else entirely? Maybe we're just not too smart.
This is an historic year. Well, it's at least slightly different from every other year since 1987. This year daylight saving time starts on the 2nd Sunday in March -- that's this Sunday -- instead of the first Sunday in April. So, don't forget to change your clock this weekend.
The good news is that daylight saving time lasts longer this year also, so you don't have to worry about changing your clock again until the first Sunday in November. Or you could just move to Arizona. We don't bother with such details.
I've updated my Instant Amazon gadget. I haven't received much feedback, so please comment. I've just updated the online site with new instructions and screenshots. There are a lot of updates in this version.
I've been trying to figure out exactly what to do about this, and I've finally decided to just bite the bullet. This week a portion of my server database was destroyed and so I lost a whole month of data on several sites. This is one of them. Since I'm using MovableType as my blogging platform, you probably haven't noticed anything, but in the background some things just aren't there so comments haven't worked properly and some other things have been bogus.
Once I publish this post, the whole month of February will effectively disappear from this blog unless I go back and manually re-add the entries I made. I'm probably not going to do that.
So, I had a bad week, but it's getting better. I've just launched a site for my new gadgets: www.instantgadgets.com and I've listed my new Amazon gadget there. I've made even more progress on the gadget and it now supports Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr and Amazon.de. If you have a chance, install the gadget and let me know what you think!
