Nagel Family Website

Very slowly, I’m accepting this whole “Web 2.0″ thing. Yeah, I know it’s been around for a while now, but I have to see a service in use for a while, and understand why it’s better than what I’m currently using before I’ll move to it.

I’ve been blogging before it was called blogging. In fact, my first site (found in archive.org) has a first post date of September 27, 2000. I wrote the software that ran the site myself, and it wasn’t pretty. Then I moved to a packaged system which was clunky and ugly, then I moved to Blogger, and finally to Wordpress in October of 2006. I’ve been with Wordpress since then, and see no reason to change - Wordpress rocks!

My first big (and this was BIG) move was when I switched my email from an Outlook / POP combo to Gmail and Google Aps. One day, I just signed up, switched my MX record, and started using it. Very smooth transition.

Last year, I joined Facebook. So far, it’s only wasted my time and reminded me of all the people that I don’t remember from high school. The only good thing about Facebook is that they have a very nice mobile interface. Other than that, it’s a waste of my time. I should just get rid of it.

Yesterday, I decided to give del.icio.us a try again. My bookmarks were getting out of control, and Firefox didn’t do a good job keeping them organized for me. So I moved my bookmarks to del.icio.us, keeping a few in my toolbar (ones that I use multiple times a day) and adding a few to the Google Bookmarks service (part of the Google Toolbar).

I think I have a good balance now, with my common & temporary bookmarks in del.icio.us, bookmarks that I use almost daily with Google (Plesk login pages, PPC & Network login pages) and ones that I use multiple times a day in the toolbar (Google Reader, Gmail, Weather, Yahoo Finance portfolio).

So what am I doing on my desktop, that I should move to an online service? What other Web 2.0 services do you use, that I should look into?

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

While working on a site today, I noticed a cookie named “loverealone” was set on my machine. The cookie had a value of “real”. I know I didn’t set the cookie. A Google search yielded nothing (well, nothing in English).

Turns out, Google Analytics is setting this cookie! You can see in their code the following line:

var start=cookieString.indexOf(”loverealone=”)

Well, at least now I know it’s not spyware. Back to work…

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Remember when I suggested Google hire me as their Director of Common Sense?

Well today I logged in to Picasa and saw:

Integration with Google image search results
Get more exposure for the public albums you’re currently sharing on Picasa Community Search. Now, public albums from users with ‘Public Search’ enabled may also be included in Google image search results.

Google, you’re welcome. No need to pay me - I’ll accept stock or small trinkets.

This entry was posted by Eric on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

I’ve had quite a few people email me about adding an FM transmitter to their Mr. Christmas Lights and Sounds of Christmas. I’ve done it to both models (the 20-song version that I had last year, and the 40-song version I have this year) and used 2 different methods. I’m not sure which is better, but here’s the general idea (sorry - no photos yet. I sold my old one, and I’m not taking down the new one now).

First, remove the back plate from the unit. Then remove the screws in the deep holes, and carefully open it up. The speaker has 2 wires going to it from the main circuit board: white & orange.

Either solder a speaker wire where the existing contact points are on the speaker, or splice into this orange/white cord. Drill a hole in the side of the unit & push your wire through there. Now you have an external audio cable. It either has an end on it, or it raw wire.

I use the C. Crane FM Transmitter for my set-up. Once you have this unit, follow the directions on this page to expand the range of it.

Now you either need to cut the wire of the C. Crane unit or somehow otherwise hook it up to the wires coming from the Mr. Christmas. In my set-up, I had 2 male ends, so I bought a Female-to-Female Coupler from Radio Shack to hook it up.

Turn it on, and adjust the audio on the Mr. Christmas. Now, adjust the audio input on the FM Transmitter so when the Mr. Christmas hits the loud notes, you notice the red light come on the transmitter. If the red light is constantly lit, it’ll cause static on the other side. It’s very delicate.

If you found this post useful, please vote for me at Bronners!

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 9:31 am and is filed under Christmas, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

My buddy asked me what in-car GPS navigator I recommend, and it’s no surprise I recommend a Garmin. But which one? Here’s my response:

I have 3 Garmins and know many others that own them. Hands down, the best GPS you can buy. They are the leader in this technology.

For my car, I have the StreetPilot c330. My father has the c340 - one step up from mine. Honestly, the 330 has all you need. All of the roads in the entire US & Canada are built into this, as well as the huge directory of business & government establishments (like hospitals, parks, museums, etc). I’ve had mine for 1-1/2 years now and haven’t had the need to upgrade the maps, although I might before our trip to Disney. An update is like $70 - just buy the DVD, plug-in the unit to your computers USB cable & let it run.

So when you’re looking at the various models, look for “Preloaded street maps, full coverage”

The c340 “speaks street names, optional FM traffic alerts”. The street names are OK, but the FM traffic alerts carries a monthly fee. Don’t bother (we live in Buffalo - traffic is not an issue).

The c510 has “anti-theft, high-sensitivity receiver, sunlight-readable”. The high-sensitivity receiver may be nice - I know in my van, I have to use an external antenna (they sent me one - no charge - after I complained about losing the satellites while driving). My MAXX does not need the antenna - I think it’s the way the windshield is angled on the van. “sunlight-readable” is a joke - they’re all sunlight-readable

“Bluetooth® wireless, speaks street names, MP3 player” in the c550 is overkill. You don’t want this stuff - you just want a GPS navigator.

The c580 has “MSN® Direct content” which is kinda neat. It’s an additional monthly charge (after 12 months included, you’ll pay $50 / year) and get traffic, gas, weather & movie information. Gas is probably the neatest feature. While the other units will tell you where to get gas, this one will tell you current prices. So you can save $0.02 / gallon for $50 / year. OK - maybe not worth it.

If it were up to me, today, I’d be looking at the c330 or c340. The c330 is $175 from Amazon while the c340 is $50 more. For $50, you can hear “In 100 feet, turn left on Knowlton Ave” rather than “In 100 feet, turn left.” It’s your $50.

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Lately, whenever I open iTunes, it warns me that it’s not the default audio player. Odd, because it’s the only audio player that I use. So I try to make it the default player, but no luck. I finally found that RealPlayer really, really wanted to be my default player, and wouldn’t let me change it! Scum!

Goodbye, RealPlayer. I guess I could’ve made a change in the Real preferences, but I’d rather just remove the “hijackware”. Hope this helps someone else

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.