Technically Cool

Can't truly blog from the iPad??

How frustrating! I just got my iPad for blogging on the go and, lo and behold, I've discovered that to be a fairly pointless endeavor. How is this possible?

Because Steve Jobs is still in some sort of pissing match with Adobe and won't allow Flash on the iPad (or any iDevice).

He may think the whole world is supposed to be about HTML5, but apparently the whole world missed that memo. EVERY blogging site's web interface requires flash to be fully functional. Want to compose a post using a WYSIWYG editor? Oh, so sorry. Want to create or modify the design of your blog? Good luck trying to drag and drop modules (from column one to column two, for example).

No problem, I thought. Surely a whole slew of blogging apps exist to resolve these problems. What a joke - turns out there are a whopping TWO apps for bloggers. Plus, one of them is solely for Wordpress users (I use multiple blogging platforms). Oh, did I mention that both apps completely suck?

The Wordpress app offers even less functionality than one would get by using the web interface from an iPad, so what's the point?

And BlogPress may work with multiple blog platforms but unless you either feel like writing your posts using straight HTML, or your blog posts are plain text, with no need for pictures, lists, etc, well that makes BlogPress completely useless. Sure, I know HTML. Does that mean I want to blog that way? Hell no!

And it's not like android tablets are a better bet. Sure, they're better for blogging from the browser...but not for much else. There isn't a single android app designed specifically for tablet use, and whether an existing app will work depends on the specific tablet you bought. And right now there's only one tablet (Motorola Xoom) which even uses the version of the OS (v3, aka Honeycomb) that's actually designed for tablets - and guess what? Honeycomb is super buggy. Yay. Not.

So all in all, I find the state of mobile blogging via tablets to be Technically UNCOOL. And despite the fact that that's the reality of things, I still find myself to be in shock that that could really be the case. WTF?!?

Technorati allows simultaneous searching of multiple tags using 'OR' in tag

Technorati is one of the top spots for tracking what’s going on in the blogosphere about your favorite topic.  Bloggers just add technorati tags to their posts (blog categories are also considered tags), and users can then search for blog entries tagged with specific keywords.  Previously, you could only search for one keyword at a time, but now Technorati has implemented Multiple Tag Search.  Simply enter each of the tags with the word OR in between them. 

From their site:

 Multiple tags are a great way to follow your favorite topics while accounting for the variety of methods people tag their posts. A tag search for college OR university displays the latest posts indexed by Technorati tagged with either "college" or "university." You could also mix tags in an area of interest such as tracking the mobile gaming industry through a tag search for PSP OR GameBoy.

Google SMS - forget 411, get free phone numbers, addresses, driving directions, movie showtimes, weather and stock quotes, and more!

  This is pretty amazing stuff here!  Google has created a new service called Google Short Message Service (SMS) which allows you to get tons of information for free by sending a query as a text message from your cell phone.  That’s right – you no longer need a browser to search google, you can just text your query to them at 46645 (GOOGL).  And you no longer need to pay expensive directory service charges to get a phone number or an address while using your cell phone either.  You only pay for the cost of the text message (and google’s responding text message) – which generally is about 2 cents a pop, or free for the many folk who have unlimited text messaging as part of their cell phone plans.  Lost?  No map?  Get directions.  Wanna catch a movie?  Get theaters and showtimes. 

From Google’s website:

What is Google SMS?

Google SMS (Short Message Service) enables you to send queries as text messages over your mobile phone or device and easily get precise answers to your questions. No links. No web pages. Just text — and the information you're looking for:

• Get local business listings when you're on the road and want to find a place to eat.
• Obtain driving directions to get from point A to point B without having to ask for directions.
• Find movie showtimes and theater locations of movies currently playing near you.
• Check weather conditions and 4-day forecasts to plan your day.
• Study the latest stock quotes and stay on top of the market.
• Get quick answers to straightforward questions.
• Compare online product prices with ones you find in retail stores.
• Look up dictionary definitions to expand your vocabulary or prove a point.

How do I use it?

Enter your query as a text message. Send the message to the US shortcode 46645 (GOOGL on most phones). Receive a text message (or messages) with your results, usually within a minute. Results may be labeled as "1/3", "2/3", etc. To get Google SMS help info sent directly to your phone, send the word 'help' as a text message to 46645.      Try their online demo.

Want to learn more?

• Find more information with sample queries
• Download their wallet-sized Tips Sheet. [pdf]
• Frequently Asked Questions.
• Google SMS is available on all major carriers.

Nintendo DS Price Drop, plus amazon.com offers special bundle deal of Nintendo DS, a game, and numerous accessories for the same price as the Nintendo DS alone!

 Nintendo has lowered the cost of it’s revolutionary Nintendo DS video game hardware by $20, knocking the price down to a cool $129.  And to make this deal even sweeter, Amazon.com is running a special where they’re offering a Nintendo DS Bundle, complete with a Spider-Man 2 game, and  Pro Gamer’s Kit including a protective aluminum carrying case for your Nintendo DS, a neck strap for those on the go, headphones, a car charger, and a protective screen lense for the Nintendo DS’s stand-out  touch screen.  Normally this package goes for $219, but Amazon’s selling this Nintendo DS Bundle for only $129, the same price as you’d pay for just the Nintendo DS by itself!

Now when will GameBoy Advance SP’s have a comparable price drop for those who can’t afford the DS yet still want to take advantage of the vast collection of thoroughly enjoyable GBA games?

Google Ride Finder finds out where your taxi or shuttle is - a communters best friend

Thanks to Lockergnome for discovering this gem

"Here’s a new entry from the Google Labs (You might want to call it ‘Google Playground,’ since this is where new Google tools show up first). This new tool is called Google Ride Finder and it could turn out to be the harried commuter’s best friend.

The Google Ride Finder does just one thing: it finds out where your taxi or shuttle is. That can be a lifesaver as you struggle to make the 5:56 home from work at the end of a long day. It gives you a fighting chance to see if that ride you're counting on is stuck in traffic.

It's only available for the large urban hubs of 13 cities at the moment and it offers far from universal coverage of every taxi or shuttle. <snip> The site does offer a zoomable map of the area, a button to refresh vehicle locations, and links to the home page of each company whose vehicles are tracked."

Sony PSP for wireless internet web browsing

My free PSP is being delivered today — thank you, Gratis Networks!  They even shipped it out 2nd day air!  Now I’m trying for a Free Nintendo DS, a Free MacMini, a Free Xbox (mine just died ) and an Apple 1GB iPod Shuffle.  It’s 3:50 and DHL’s tracking estimates my PSP will be here by 4:45, so I started to do a little searching on the net to find out what extra capabilities the PSP might have.  I’d heard there were a number of PSP hacks that allowed you to do things like surf the internet in any wifi access point.  How cool would that be??  Well apparently it’s possible.  There’s an article over at Make on Using the PSP as a web browser.  Sweet!  I can’t wait to try it for myself!

Uber-Cool! Free PSP offers turn out to be the real deal

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a gadget and video game junkie.  And since the release of Sony’s PSP, I’ve been drooling over them.  But with having just bought a house, the budget’s been more than a little bit tight – so all I’ve been able to is watch with envy from a distance as everyone I knew bought their PSPs.

Like you, I’ve seen the ads all over the place for Free PSPs.  And like you, I was pretty darn skeptical.  I mean, come on – how can this not be a scam??

Well, it turns out that most of these promotions are scams.  But one is actually legit!  Yeah, I was shocked when I heard it, too.  But you really can get your own brand spanking new Sony PSP for FREE.

OK - so here’s the scoop.  The only company that’s running a legit deal on this is called Gratis Internet.  There are lots of others out there with their supposed free offers but some quick google searches on those companies (like ExclusiveRewards, MetaReward, IncentiveRewardCenter, etc) as well as a check on Rip-off Report.com quickly show that these are to be avoided.  At the bottom of this post, I will link to several articles from well known sources that confirm the validity of this offer – please remember to come back to my site and use my referral link (http://www.freepsps.com/?r=19020233 )after checking them out.

Now, supposedly this only works using Internet Explorer, but all you have to do is 1) sign up, 2) complete one of 18 offers from such well known companies as Blockbuster, Columbia House, Citibank, Playstation Magazine, Cheap Trips, eFax, etc.  The offers range from free trials to free stuff where you only pay shipping and handling fees, and you’re sure to find one that is of interest to you amongst the offers.  If you have popups turned on, you can see details of what you need to do to complete the offer and how fast your account will be credited with having completed the offer.  Some offers credit your account instantly, others can take a month or so, so read those popup infos.)  3) Next just refer 5 friends (or bloggers) using your referrral code (again, mine is http://www.freepsps.com/?r=19020233).  Once 5 of your referrals have also completed their chosen offer, you’ll be ready for your free psp and you just have to click a link on the ‘Status’ page to start the order process, wherein they’ll review your referrals to make sure they are real and unique individuals, and then they’ll send your free PSP out to you.

So, folks, if you would enjoy receiving a free psp, then please click my referral link and when you’ve finished the process add a comment to this post and include your referral link.  When I’ve gotten all 5 of my referrals, I’ll swap out the links on this post to use the referral links you’ve provided in the comments (in the order they were received) so that you can quickly get your five referrals, too. 

And if you use my referral link, don’t forget to reply to this post and add your own referral link.  Remember, it only takes 5 legit referrals to get the free PSP so once I have my 5, I won’t need any more referrals and I’ll use YOUR code for all the links instead of mine so you can get your free PSP that much faster.

Now, if only I could afford the pimped out bling bling Russell Simmons gold ‘n diamond-encrusted PSP case (it’s only $35,000) (haha – not).  Give me a break – does anyone other than the folks on MTV cribs even want one of these cases?  Jeez.

Oh yes, and in couse you’re still in doubt that Gratis Networks’offers are for real, check out these articles from Wired News, Engadget.com, this Video clip about freeiPods.com from NBC, NY Sun Article About
freeiPods.com, video clip about freeiPods.com from TheScreenSavers on TechTV .  While these articles pertain mostly to the old offer for free ipods, they all prove that the company behind these free offers is for real.

AdMoolah.com allows webmasters to share and compare Google AdSense income

Google updated their Adsense policies to allow users to “accurately disclose the amount of Google’s gross payments” in March 2005.  This meant AdSense users could now compare their earnings with each other and even publish their earnings online.  It didn’t take long before AdMoolah.com was born – and now webmasters have a centralized location to share and compare google adsense income.

Webmasters can enter their own monthly earnings into AdMoolah’s database, as well as query the database using various parameters, including categories, languages, pagerank, url, pageviews, visitors, etc.  Registered users get even more advanced query options.

Pretty darn cool!

Google Suggestions

Not sure what you want to search for?  Try Google Suggestions (still in beta).  As you type, Google will offer suggestions. Use the arrow keys to navigate the results.  Interesting tool for webmasters..

Gmail supports "plus" addressing

This means that if your gmail address is [email protected], you can send an email to [email protected].

This is a great little known feature, because you can use it to identify which websites are selling your email info to spammers.  For example, lets say you want to fill out a sweepstakes form on somesite.com and it asks for your email address.   Instead of  telling them your address is [email protected], tell them it is  [email protected].  That way you know that any email that is sent to that address ([email protected]) ORIGINATED in some way from somesite.com - either the email is from them, or they sold you out and gave it to spammers and now you know who to blame.  And you can now set up a filter to delete all email sent to [email protected] if it's getting spamridden, making gmail accounts have automatic disposable addresses.

This is very similar to yahoo mail's "Address Guard" feature, except that you don't have to login to gmail to create the disposable address every time you want a new one.  Just add a plus sign to your username and put whatever you want after the plus sign and you've got your new address.  Pretty nifty.