Threadless Sale!

I have multiple computers connected to a D-Link wired router. One of these computers stopped being able to connect to the internet suddenly yesterday. It just stopped working correctly and couldn’t even get to Google. I ran through more steps than I needed. I first checked that the software firewall on the machine wasn’t causing a problem. I released and renewed the ip address multiple times. And I tried Windows XP’s “repair connection” feature which flushes out some of the cached data and replaces it with new data from your connection, in the hopes that outdated data had somehow become stuck in the machine.

What had me stumped was that I was getting an ip address but I could not connect to the internet. I couldn’t even connect to the router. I was receiving exactly 1 packed from the router (presumably with the ip address) and nothing more (you can see this in the connection details where it shows Sent and Receive packets). Could squirrels have chewed through part of the cat 5 cable? Is that even possible with it still running, albeit incorrectly?

In the end the solution was pressing the little “reset” button on the back of the router. I have no idea what happened to it that would keep one machine working fine and one not, but it works again… for now. I hope that helps someone else out there. Always try resetting the router. But don’t hold down the reset button because it will erase your settings and bring you back to the factory defaults before you set things like passwords. So to recap: briefly press a router’s reset button whenever something weird starts happening with your connection. If that doesn’t solve it you have bigger problems to deal with.

Threadless Sale!

To get the conversation started, I was looking at these Westinghouse stainless steel lights on Amazon (link).

This facebook listing for The Boombox app’s owner Adam Mosseri (link) now returns no results, showing that the person deleted their Facebook account. Very fishy.

I am now looking for a new application to load on my profile that does the same thing. Unfortunately I do not remember which songs I had listed.

Here are a few alternatives:

• iLike
• Audio
• And a lot more in the Facebook Music application directory.

Sources: Blog confirmation I used to make sure I wasn’t just going crazy, Boombox review

For those who don’t know cron jobs are a way to perform functions based on a timing mechanism. So you can have a script called every hour or ever day at a certain time.

So far I have come up with two. eVoice and Grand Central. Grand Central was bought by Google not too long ago, and I am currently using it. You need to signup for an account through their site because it is still in beta. I signed up to reserve a number and was notified almost immediately that they were offering me an account, so the wait time doesn’t seem to be too long (or wasn’t for me yesterday).

Grand Central gives you a local phone number that you can have ring any number of phone numbers. You are able to choose what town the number originates from (state, town) and then select one number from a list of a few they have available in that location. I chose a number that coincided with my PO Box. You can then have the number ring you at your leisure. The Grand Central website is very easy to use and makes it easy to figure out how to do what you want to do. Caller ID can either show the caller’s phone number or the Grand Central number. I chose the latter because then I know when a call is coming from the Grand Central service and I can choose to ignore it and let it go to voicemail. I don’t know how the service is but it’s from Google and so far it’s free.

Another company I found is eVoice but I haven’t used them and I wasn’t able to find any reviews on them. But it is from the same company who operates eFax, so how bad can it be?

If you have tried any of these services please comment with your impressions so that others may learn. Also, feel free to suggest alternatives for us all to try and document.

Drag the bookmarklet link to the bookmark area of your browser. And when you click it a new window will be opened showing the Google form with the URL of the bad site filled in for you.

Bookmarklet: Report Malicious Site

Spread the word so everyone can help get rid of bad sites. Enjoy, from Jason of JasonBlogs.com.

• Electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
• Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing.
• Lighter and thinner than a typical paperback; weighs only 10.3 ounces.
• Holds over 200 titles. SD card support for more storage capacity.
• Audio: 3.5mm stereo audio jack, rear-mounted mono speaker
• Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), MP3, natively; HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MOBI, PRC through conversion
• Wireless connectivity enables you to shop the Kindle Store directly from your Kindle
• Buy a book and it is auto-delivered wirelessly in less than one minute. More than 88,000 books available, including 100 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers.
• New York Times Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise. Other books are less.
• Long battery life. Leave wireless on and recharge approximately every other day. Turn wireless off and read for a week or more before recharging. Fully recharges in 2 hours.
• Unlike WiFi, Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones—so you never have to locate a hotspot. No monthly fee for access to network.
• Includes free access to Wikipedia.org and a built-in Oxford English Dictionary.
• Email your Word documents and pictures (.JPG, .GIF, .BMP, .PNG) to Kindle for easy on-the-go viewing. They convert it into the right format and can send it to your Kindle for $0.10 or send it to you for free and you can transfer it to the Kindle with the usb connection

You can transfer MP3s or audio books to the Kindle. And you can listen to the MP3s separately or as background music while you read if that’s something you like to do. You can bookmark pages, or annotate them using the QWERTY keyboard. And there is a built in digital cursor that scrolls along the side of the page allowing you to select page lines. It is controlled by a scrollwheel. There are big buttons on the Kindle that let you go to the next page or back a page. It is all very intuitive according to published reviews.

A great feature is the switch on the back to turn the wireless single off. Great for planes and other places you can’t use a cellphone or wireless device.

Video: Neil Gaiman discusses the Amazon Kindle.

From reviews by people that actually used the Kindle it seems to work well. The e-ink is easy on the eyes, and the reader was designed with usability in mind. It’s ergonomically designed to feel like a book. It’s the same size as a paperback book and it ways a little bit less at 10.3 ounces. Amazon thought of everything. I’m almost tempted to buy one to check it out. I want one. But I might wait for some more hands-on reviews, and until more of the books I want are available from the Kindle store.

Buy it or find more info: Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device

Hands on Reviews and Interviews around the Internet
Newsweek: great interview with Jeff Bezos and background on Kindle and the book market.
ZDNet Hands on with the Kindle: This ugly duckling has potential
Engadget hands on, and some extra details
Gizmodo

Buy it or find more info: Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device

So head on over with this link so I can get some free shirts off the backs of my visitors.

Threadless $10 Holiday Sale

Amazon.com will be offering hourly deals from 6am to 6pm PST (9am to 9pm EST) along with thousands of products on sale for a limited time. Also, customers will get gift wrapping for $.99 per item. I have put Amazon’s special deal widget here so on Black Friday it will pull in the latest deals. Or you can go directly to their Black Friday Deals page here.

Amazon’s Black Friday Deals

1,000 Nintendo Wii Game Systems (see prices on Customers Vote page)
500 Panasonic 7.5MP Digital SLR Cameras, $499 (*normally $1,149.95)
1,000 Razor E100 Electric Scooters for $29 (*normally $89.99)
500 TiVo HD Digital Video Recorders, $89 (*normally $253.48)
500 Magellan Maestro 3140 Portable Auto GPS Systems, $99 (*normally $247.00)
200 Samsung 46” 1080p LCD HDTVs, $719 (*normally $1,899.98)

So what are you waiting for? Go vote and then check the Amazon site each day from Nov. 22 until the last day to see if you can buy the item you wanted at the discounted price. The top voted item each day is offered at the price they show, but if you voted on an item that didn’t win you can still get offered it at a lower price.

You can only get offered the item you voted for, so choose wisely.

Amazon Customers Vote 2007

Adobe announced “Thermo” at MAX Chicago 2007. Applications created in Thermo are Flex applications that can be loaded directly into Flex Builder, providing a way for designers to collaborate with developers. “The designer’s work can be incorporated directly into the production application with no loss of fidelity, and designers can continue to refine the design throughout the iterative development process.” The tool will let designers create Rich Internet Applications in a very visual manner. They can convert artwork into working components with a single click. Hopefully this won’t put any developers out of work. I know I would love to start using it, since I design mostly in Photoshop first anyway and then convert my designs into working apps. Thermo will be compatible with a large chunk of Adobe’s suite of tools. Take a look at the demo video. It’s in 3 parts. And the Thermo wiki has a lot more info and pictures.

Thermo Sneak Peek at MAX Chicago 2007 Day 2 Keynote

Part I

Part II

Part III

Source: Thermo – Adobe Labs

1. Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive for $109.99 (free shipping)
2. SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series 500GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive for $109.99 (free shipping)
3. Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive for $99.99 (free shipping)
   I would recommend reading reviews on this drive. I’m not sure how good it is.
4. Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB 3.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive for $94.99 (free shipping)

But it is beta so they could be holding off on it for a while. It also took iTunes a while to offer gift certificates, so it could be a legal issue. But Randy reminds me that you can’t buy Amazon gift certificates with a gift certificate balance, so it could be a flaw in their system design. I find I have a lot more Amazon certificates than iTunes, so it would be a perfect solution to be able to use them.

Check out the Amazon MP3 Bestsellers

Michael Pritchard hopes that the bottle could be a life-saver for refugees in disaster regions where access to clean drinking water is vital. Four hours after Mr Pritchard launched his new “Life Saver” bottle at the DESI defense show in London Wednesday, he sold out his entire 1,000 stock.

The bottles, which can distill either 4,000 liters or 6,000 liters without changing the filter, will have huge benefits for soldiers who hate drinking iodine-flavored water.

Conventional filters can cut out bacteria measuring more than 200 nanometers but not viruses, which typically are 25 nanometers long. The Life Saver bottle can clean up any water using a filter that cuts out anything longer than 15 nanometers, which means that viruses can be filtered out without the use of chemicals.

Source: Telegraph

I know I have always had a difficult time in the Account section trying to find the right place for the information I needed (such as gift certificate balance or how to rate one of my recent purchases). Unfortunately the account section now focuses on highlighting purchases recommended for you, and the account options are crammed into a right-side navigation menu. So that still needs some work.

I like a simple and uncluttered design because I know how to handle a site. But the nice submenu display on each page that shows you others sections of the current department adds a lot of height to the top of the page and pushes content lower down (at least with my font display size set to 16pt). The design is being tested and you may or may not see it when you visit Amazon.

Below is an image they posted on their demo site explaining the site design features. What are your thoughts on the new design?

Threadless $10 Sale