Great tip from Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com about shopping with Microsoft’s new bing.com websearch tool. Besides being a Google challenging search tool, it can also save/make you some money. You’ll need to sign up for ‘cashback’ using a Windows ID email (ie. live.com), but by using the impressive search website and associated vendors (huge list), you’ll be able to have cashback plunked right into your Paypal account. Give it a try.
Our local VW TDI group is working on a ‘welcome bag’ item for this year’s TDIFest 2009 near Washington DC (Herndon, Virginia).CinciTDI.com group, which hosted the TDIFest OH8 last year, has decided to offer up something for the registrants. Initially we though about a small canvas portfolio bag, a 12 LED flashlight (still pretty pricey), a small tool kit (cheap-ish Chinese tools) and now a small Jotter (below) that could be used at the TDIFest or even afterwards in the car. Thoughts from those of you that are reading this from CinciTDI?
This was suppose to have posted from the Palm Pre to my blog … obviously my test and photo didn’t post. (I’ll have to look into it) Anyway … after a long rain delay early in the game, the Red were able to finish on top with solid pitching and hitting fromLaynce Nix. See Story
After a week slipping my new Palm Pre smartphone in my front pants pocket, I’ve decided it really needs a little protection if it is going to last a few years. Since the ‘cute’ little pouch that comes packaged with the Pre is not well suited for daily pocket use, in my opinion … I’ve opted to recycle a “lost but found”Blackberry slipcover case.
The slightly wider case actually works very well and the phone is easy to access, but doesn’t readily fall out. I’m hoping that the case will also offer just enough protection if dropped and still make it easy to access the phone. Other Palm Pre owners who prefer carrying their phone in a pocket might want to consider this option until a premium slip case is fitted for your expense phone.
Now if only the little cut that is on the left were on the right (photo below), the tiny Pre speaker would be easier to hear.
Here’s an excellent video from the World Air Games in Turin, Italy showing a test flight flown by Space Shuttle astronaut (STS-75) Maurizo Cheli in the electrically powered SkySpark Single “Motor” Land aircraft (a lame attempt at aviation humor on py part). What makes this flight unique is that it has achieved an airspeed record of 155mph (250km/h) for an 8-minute long battery powered flight. The project plane, a Pioneer Alpi 300, is capable of 186 mph straight and level flight so expect to hear more record breaking flights. (long time blog readers might recall that my current Sonex project plane was electrically powered two years ago – link)
The engineering firm is Digisky along with Turin Polytechnic University and they have worked with both fuel cell and battery powered project. This aircraft is powered by a liquid-cooled 75 kW Valentino synchronous motor by Sicme Motori that weighs in at 55 lbs (25 kg) with energy provided by lithium polymer batteries. The team plans on focusing on a “hydrogen fuel cells powered engine” project.
While I’m in the “picture taking” mode, here are a couple spider webs taken while leaving the house this morning. The fog was heavy through the night after the thunderstorms on Sunday afternoon.
Click photos for larger versions or here for largerst. Photo with Canon XTi & Tamron AF17-50mm.
Spending a busy weekend away from the computer, but found time to catch up on some tech updates on my Palm Pre. Really I’d prefer watching video on a big screen, but I was impress at how well I was able to watch a couple YouTube videos and episodes of Cali Lewis on Geekbrief.tv. Very nice.
The automatic upgrade feature in newer versions of WordPress software makes upgrading far easier than just a few version ago. I remember putting off the chore for months not wanted to hassle with backups and FTP uploads. Currently the step by step ‘semi-wizard’ approach works well and the switch to WordPress 2.8 last evening the same. I really appreciated the backup approach to databases before implementing the upgrade. After the 5 to 10 minute of clicking and reading explanations the chore was done.
As for major changes, I haven’t noticed them yet, but then again who reallywants a complete redesign???
Yesterday was a busy day of business calls and traveling so I missed the chance to blog about my son’s birthday. Nevertheless, I’ll include a Palm Pre photo from my son’s birthday dinner — Happy Birthday Taylor. The evening was nice as we enjoyed watching the Benihana chef cook the food in front of us while ‘freezing’ … the air conditioning was blowing directly on us.
I do like uploading to Ping.fm or Twitpic (left) as it provides a quick to upload photos to Twitter followers … or “peeps” to get my jargon correct. (the Palm Pre app Tweed will soon integrate Twitpic I’ve heard)
Although I’m including the photo from Twitpic (no longer functional), I personally I still like Flickr for serving up files for sharing on my blog. Currently, the Palm Pre doesn’t support photo uploading to Flickr. The Pre does however included apps for photo uploads to Facebook and Photobucket; I tried them although still prefer to “email to Flickr” for the time being … I’m sure an app is in the works?
Speaking of photo tests, one of the functions I appreciate is being able to make a picture-copy of a text page … more for just remembering what’s on the page than for a quality photo. Below was my test of an 8-1/2 by 11 page using the Palm Pre camera and a pair of 1.25 power reading glasses in front of the lens — click for larger (this is an old trick I used on the Treo).
Some heavy smartphone device users may have a problem with the Palm Pre’s battery life. My initial road test is turning up some pretty questionable results (click photo at right – used 80% of battery in 4 hours). I left the house this morning for a day on the road about 7:30AM and proceed to mount my newly synchronized Palm Pre in the old Palm Treo windshield mount. (for those following my struggle to get my old data from Treo to Pre, I ended up using Google to sync data – neither Sprint’s tools or the Palm Data Transfer Assistant worked — PC or Mac)
First item of business was to run the Sprint Navigation GPS app and plug in the first stop in Columbus Ohio. I watched in amazement as I was located a few seconds later and calculated the time of arrival while reading back the turn by turn audio directions … although the Pre has a ‘weak’ internal speaker (haven’t figured out if I can port the sound to a bluetooth device?). Next I checked Tweed (Twitter app) and looked to see that my Google calendar was syncronized from the previous night. After ‘flicking’ closed a few text messages and emails, I decided it best to focus on the road.
😯
About four phone calls and an hour into the drive from Cincinnati to Columbus, I realized that keeping the Sprint Navigation app running as a card in the background was going to quickly drain my smallish battery … remember I’m use to a much larger Palm Treo 700p battery. I “flicked” off the navigation “card” and proceed to take a couple more short phone calls. After stopping at my appointment south of Columbus, I decided to send a Pre photo to Twitpic using the email app. I ran Tweed again, check stocks with the Express Stocks app and glanced at the browser to see that my photo had been uploaded. All good.
An hour later I found myself stopping for lunch and realized that my battery was down to 20% (see time and battery use on photo) … so either I need to cut back on my usage in order to make it an entire day or rig up a car charging setup as I did for my Treo. (Thanks Ernest for the thought on possibly making a homemade Touchstone-like charger for my car — any additional info would be appreciated.)
Great tip from Paul Thurrott of winsupersite.com about shopping with Microsoft’s new bing.com websearch tool. Besides being a Google challenging search tool, it can also save/make you some money. You’ll need to sign up for ‘cashback’ using a Windows ID email (ie. live.com), but by using the impressive search website and associated vendors (huge list), you’ll be able to have cashback plunked right into your Paypal account. Give it a try.
