Rant: CWTV.com

Until last week I didn't have a TV, so anything I would watch was on the internet. This usually isn't bad. Yes the size of the screen is smaller, but the resolution is pretty good. You just cannot share it well with friends. I usually use hulu for most things, but there are some shoes that are not on hulu. Probably the only one I watch is Smallville.

Smallville has had it's ups and downs, and for the last three seasons I have only watched it because I had seen every one and it was supposed to end soon. (This is finally the final season.) Luckily this season and the last haven't been all that bad, even enjoyable, the only bad experience I am having with it now is watching it online.

CWTV.com has THE WORST video player online. Simply put I would never go there to find a new show to watch, it is not worth the hassle.

If you go to their site it looks just like it did about 5 years ago, when the internet wasn't very good. I am pretty sure there have been some improvements, because finally I don't have to use internet explorer anymore, chrome doesn't crash every other time like it used to.

My main problem now is how they set up advertisements. I know it is free to watch online so I shouldn't complain much, but for someone who is willing to sit through the commercials instead of just going to and illegal site cut me some slack. I have the problems with their ads that if they fixed them I would be happy. ONE: Tell me some kind of time frame. The there are usually 4 to 8 commercials between each section, I am okay with that, just let me know that there is actually hope that I will get to the show at some point rather that getting my hopes up and just having them slashed to the ground. TWO: If you have say 30 - 40 commercials per hour long program please diversify. I might be okay watching all 8 of those commercials if they weren't the same 8 in different orders every time. Stop trying to make me memorize the product even to hate it for the rest of my life. THREE: If I want to skip to the end, let me skip to the end. This might be the most annoying part. If you click somewhere near the end, instead of going where you click, it make you watch all of the commercials then just jumps one section. When you try again, same thing happens, so if I just want to watch the last minute of a show I have to wait threw the same 8 commercials about 6 times. Usually about the second I give up and just do something else. FOUR: Lastly stop putting some many links circling the video. I can't tell you how many times I have accidentally clicked things, which didn't open a new page, but just moved the current page, losing my place in the show and making me watch it all over again including the commercials.

The player isn't all that bad. It is one of the very few that is actually usable on my new Google TV, and the resolution is surprisingly good. If they would just make the experience around the video better I would use it more, and maybe even recommend it to others.

Rave: bit.ly

If any of you have not heard of this site, bit.ly is an internet URL shortener. It is a simple concept mostly invented for twitter so you can have a link in your post and still keep it under the 140 character limit. You go to their site the turn your super long link into a bit.ly/(insert random characters here). or even write your own little link. Example http://bit.ly/aboyandhistv

The reason this is a rave is for some cool features you get from logging into their page. The first is statistics. It will tell you how many people have clicked on your link, where they clicked on it from, and show some places that it is found on the internet, like twitter posts.

Here is the coolest option. The whole reason they get this rave today. If you click on the "Info Page+" for your link they even give you a QR code. A QR code (short for Quick Response) is this 2D bar code that you can scan and it will take you somewhere. If you scan this one you will go to my other blog. To scan it you do need usually and iOS device or Android device. Android comes with the bar code scanner built in. For iOS you need a program such as RedLaser or Paperlinks. Once you scan it it brings you right to the web page that you shortened on bit.ly. That is awesome.

Rave: Square Up

This small contraption in my fingers in a Square card reader. What does you do? you ask. Well that is simple, it reads credit cards. Where does that headset plug plug into to make it work? An iOS or Android product of course. (Supposedly the most preferable is an iPad, but I am happy to use my iPhone 3gs.)

Here is the actual information. You download the app called Square, which has an icon that looks just like the card reader, then they check your credit and if you are not a terrible person they will send you one of these card readers for FREE. Once you receive it you can use it to take credit card payments and generate receipts. (Very awesome for a small business or someone who does jobs like computer repair on the side.) Like any credit card taking company SquareUp does take a small percentage, (2.75% plus 15¢ per scan.) but it is comparable or better than most other companies, and the card reader comes free. All you need is to have a phone before and you are golden.

Square thank you for letting me avoid having people give me checks or change. Me, welcome to the future.

Rave: Blue Coat K9

K9 Web Protection I just have to give a shout out to. If you are a parent who wants to control what your children are doing on the internet, or a worried wife,or just a guy who wants to make it impossible to get to bad website, this is for you.

K9 is the best web filter I have ever seen. It is finds bad sites, and it doesn't bother you about good ones. There are some things that I unblock,. like social networking, because I like facebook and twitter. Overall it is a really good experience.

The thing that makes K9 better than most is that it runs in the background of your computer without letting you know. This does two important things: one, doesn't annoy me, two makes it so that the web is controlled on anything. Some filters only work for one browser, but not K9, it will filter your web if you are using IE, Firefox, chrome, or even something like the web browser hidden in iTunes or something. It does not let you around. There is only one way out, the password (if you lose that, the email that you signed up with, so wives you sign up.) If you try to close the file running in the background, no internet will work till you restart your computer, so it does not let you go around it. (The only way I know how to get around it is use a different OS. This has been very tricky till recently when you can put Linux on a flash drive and just plug it in whenever you want to boot from it, convenient, but not cool for filtering.)

There are some other cool features too, like you can turn down your filter, but it will alway, no matter what, keep a history of all the sites you go to. Something else cool is restricting times when people can use the internet. I have a friend whose kid was staying up all night watching online videos, so she blocked it after midnight, problem solved.

The only down side to K9 is that it is only available for Windows and Mac, for most users that is awesome, Linux nerds need to find another way.

I just wish there was something like this for smart phones.

Rant: Google Calendars on iOS

This is only a rant because it is complicated. It took me a while to figure this out, and my friend didn't know it was possible till I told him yesterday so you all get a blog.

If you have an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and use google calendars you may be frustrated to see only one calendar sync. This means you no longer get all those cool colors and organization. Good news is google already fixed the problem, you just have to set it up.

First thing is you need to have your gmail account set up through google sync/active directory not the regular google icon.

Second just go to m.google.com/sync on your mobile device and choose which calendars you want.

Tada you have all your calendars and all their color back.

If you are having any problems go to http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ and google will help you through it with pictures and all.

Rave: General Conference

Today and tomorrow we have the chance to listen to Apostles and the Prophet and other General Authorities. Take advantage of the opportunity.

Watch, read or listen to any of it here: http://new.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2010/10?lang=eng

Rave: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games are some really fun books. The second book, Catching Fire ended very abruptly so I am waiting for the next book. Luckily it is not too far away.

Rant: People Who Change Personal Settings in Windows

I am a CSR, and I also just like helping people with their computer problems. Category A,: simple fixes, things go screwy sometimes so they need fixing. These are about 90% of all problems. Category B: real errors, like viruses or something really broken. They take a minute to fix and are around 5% of all problems. Category C: User Preferences: not any kind of real problem, but rather that people tried to personalize something too much, that it ended up breaking other things. Sadly his last 5% takes more time to fix than all of Category A because you have no idea what they did, and thing are just weird. Yesterday I had a friend ask for help in converting files from Apple's stupid unsupported everywhere format AAC, which is another Rant altogether into something her old MP3 play could read. Switching to MP3 is an A problem, something annoying that Apple did, but has a simple fix, it just take a minute for apple to change it for you. That would have been all simple to solve except she is a C kind of person. Instead of files just opening like they should, she decided to throw in a little Windows 3.1 action, and have each folder open in a new window. Completely useless and very confusing. In a matter of seconds, while trying to locate the folder I was looking for I now had 15 windows open and no idea where I was. That would have been annoying enough, except she decided to throw another fun unexpected change. If you are guessing left handed mouse, that is a common C problem but not this one. She decided to switch windows to the single click system. For those who don't know about it, usually when you use a computer you click once to select something, and again to open it. Very intuitive, easy for selecting files to move and such. Hers instead would on that first click just open things. New folders, iTunes, random other applications. It was a mess. I eventually learned that to select you just have to hang your mouse over and it would select on it's own. Scary for those of us who ctrl click to select only the files we want. All and all it made something that should have been super easy become super complicated. This isn't the first time I have run into something like this, like the man at work, who needs everything flashing colors and bigger, or the lady who decided she needs to personally backup the servers, but sometimes you just need to fix what you can. Take a deep breath and move on and try to forgive and forget.

Rant: iPhone 4.01

I haven't ranted about anything in a while, mostly because i am generally a nice guy, but something are still annoying, or at least funny, as in today. Apple just released iPhone OS 4.01, which fixes the antenna problems in the new iPhone 4, and supposedly all the old ones too, like my 3Gs. I would like to show you what it actually did.

Before:

After:

Now focus, with all your might, on the signal strength on the left to see the difference. The iPhone is now magic and will never not work, because the bar has grown tall enough that even when you have no signal, it will still tell you that you do. Yay for Apple!

Rave: Meebo Bar

Today I was telling my roommate about the bar that I have here at the bottom of my page. It is really cool, because it lets me(or you) chat with friends, share this page, or just ask me a question right now. He thought it was cool enough to put on a page for himself. If you want one, just go here, sign up, and then add the script that it gives you into whatever web page you want. Mine is kind of one of the boxes on the side, that is why you might see something that says Meebo Bar but show nothing around it, but that slight annoyance is more that worth it. Meebo is awesome!

*Update: I deleted the name from the widget like meebogreg commented, and I now have the bar, and nothing else about it on my page.

Rave: Free iPhone Texting.

After almost a year of trying to figure it out I kind of got a work around working for texting through Google Voice on my iPhone. First get a GV account. They are now free if you have a gmail and live in the US, just go to here. You need to make up a new number, which is the annoying thing, but you can use it with your phone forever after. From that point you can text and call from the mobile web page, but it it is kind of annoying. Instead go to Voice Central and sign up, that will tell you how to get something that looks as good as an app on your phone, to text and call from, with your GV number. There would be a real app, but apple is a bunch of jerks and blocked all of them. The only problem is that it doesn't do push notifications. From this point, you can just get emails every time someone texts you, but that gets boring, so instead go to GVMax and set up an account to forward your texts to your google talk. It is really simple to sign up. Last download meebo! and sign in with your google talk account, which is the same everything as your gmail, and tada, it pushes every time you get a new text, and added them to your buddy list, so that you can text them forever from there. That is what I do, and it works pretty well, if you ever need to start a new text to someone not on the buddy list, just open voice central and start it there.

Rave: Cool iPhone Apps

In light of the new iPhone 4 coming out next week i wanted to rave about my favorite apps that I have on my phone. Some may change next week after OS 4.0 comes out. Most of these either are or were free.

Geocaching: This is one of my favorite games. People hide stuff and leave the GPS location and you can go find it. It is fun when you have some spare time, or just want to explore outside. It is a bit pricey but I think it was worth the cost, it is seriously the only app I have ever paid money for. Here is a free version that shows you the closest three caches.

WHERE: Find out what is near by. I use it for the cheapest gas prices around, even if Cheap Gas! is a bit simpler.

Fandango: How can you go wrong with knowing what movies are at the theaters near by, and if you want even order tickets.

Movies: Flixster and Rotten tomatoes got together to make this app. It gives pretty good movie rating and so much more.

Kids In Mind: I have used this web page for a long time to know if a movie will be crude or not. If you want the explicit details of how bad a movie, or just want to know the exact amount of F words used, this is an app for you.

Convertbot: If you every need any conversion possible this app is for you.

TuneWiki: Have you every just wanted to sing along with your music. This app has scrolling lyrics that move with the music, so kind of like your own free karaoke app.

CheckPlease: A really nice tip calculator, I use it every time I go to a restaurant.

ShopSavvy: If you every are wondering if you are really getting a deal at a store, pull this app out, scan the bar code and find out what other pricing there is locally and on the internet.

Urbanspoon: This app is just fun for going out to eat, shake it, and it will tell you where to eat, including reviews and a price gauge.

Bump: The coolest way to exchange contact info. They even have it for Android now, it works with almost any smartphone.

SoundHound: Everyone has heard of Shazam this does the same thing but better. Shazam works for music on the radio, but SoundHound can also pick up songs you sing, which helps to find out who sings that song that is stuck in your head. The only downside is it is kind of expensive for an app so they have a light version that lets you try five songs a month.

Pageonce Personal Finance: This tracks all your money and bills so you know what is due and when, with alerts, and even when your checking account is running low.

Meebo: By far the best chat app on the iPhone. It looks beautiful, and it is always logged in, so you will get push notifications for the rest of your life if you want them. eBuddy, Nimbuzz, Palringo and fring are okay in that order, but Meebo beats them all out of the water.

Speed Test: is nice to find out if you are imagining it or if you internet is really laggy.

Here are a few cool church apps:

Gospel Library: If you are LDS, or Christian in general, you should have this app. It give you access to scriptures and anything else you could want, Sunday School manuals or even General Conference Talks.

LDS Hymns: When you need a hymnbook this is always here for you. There is even a Spanish Version.

Mormon Channel: This app lets you listen to the Ensign, Conference talks, Scriptures or the "Mormon Channel" which is some radio station put on by the church.

Lastly everyone has there favorite games. These are mine:

:Shift: If you get easily dizzy this isn't for you. This is the best use of black and white I have seen in my life.

Parallelus: Test your coordination while trying to collect hearts and avoid bombs at the same time with two parallel screens, one for each thumb.

Tunnel 3D: Just fun use of the accelerometer in your iPhone.

Falling Balls: Use your accelerometer to avoid getting crushed. Super basic graphics, but downright fun.

Action Heroes 9-in-1: A good small fun collection of games.

I have gone through tons of apps, and those listed are my favorites. I know I am forgetting some that everyone has (lightsaber, facebook, FS5 Hockey, IMDB, Pandora, iHandy Level, Remote), some just good reference (Background Check, iTranslate, Dictionary, Google, Zillow, Computing Assistant, Pi Cubed), convenient ones (inside redbox, Dropbox, Air Files, GPS Box, Apple Store, scanR) or ones to just show off (iSeismo, SnapTell, Koredoku, Remote Pad).

While linking all of those I noticed that some are no longer in the app store. Also a lot of them have gotten pretty expensive, but you can use a apps like apptizr or PandoraBox to find apps on sale (aka free for a limited time).

Let me know if you have any favorites that I missed.

Rave: Google Voice, GVMax and Meebo

Google Voice is probably the best service that google has, which is quite the statement, but I still think it is true. The basics of google voice is that you get a new number and it redirects to whatever phone you want, and passes your texts to your phone too. It has some really cool features like transcribed voicemails, choosing a time of day not to be disturbed and being able to block people you don't like. Other cool features are things like the widget that I have on the side of my page here, where you can call me without actually knowing my number. My favorite use of it is giving out that number on craigslist so I don't get calls for the rest of my life.

Since getting google voice sometime last year I have been trying to do something good with it, especially text for free on my iPhone, or even call over VOIP using it. As of today I can do both.

I have been trying to text with Push notification on my iphone for a while, and until today I have used apps like TextNow Lite or Messagey which did let me get Push notifications, but I could not respond. I would have to then open the gv web app and respond from there. It got annoying. I have a work around, it isn't the coolest ever, that would take jailbreaking my phone, but for those of us who want to be legal, her is what I do. You will need an app called Meebo and a google talk account (which you have if you have gmail, even if you didn't know you did). Go to the GVMax web site and set it up. GVMax will do a lot for you first, and most importantly it will forward all your texts to a your google talk messenger (as long as you had click the option in google voice to have it send texts to your email.) Now open up Meebo and sign in with your google talk account. I choose Meebo for two reasons: it has push notifications, and it pushes forever, no auto-logout ever. This is important if you want to use it for texting. Once you have that all set up you can text for free forever, as long as you have internet. (This work with an ipod touch and wifi.)

One thing that a lot of people want with google voice to make VOIP or SIP calls. There was something called Gizmo5 which made it simple and work. Problem is google bought the company and who knows when it will be released again. I will give an update when it is re-released, but till then I have a work around. Remember this is a work around, so it isn't the best, but for the time being it works. So a few days ago I stumbled across this web page that tells how to set up a number for incoming calls using PBXes.org and IPKall. If you follow that tutorial you will end up with a new phone number that receives calls. If you have an iPhone this is great, just download an app that work for SIP calling and set that account up. I have tried NimBuzz and Fring. I use Fring because it worked better on my phone, but the setup is about the same on both.

The tricky part of the whole process is for outgoing calls. This is when once again GVMax helps us out. Nimbuzz and fring let you log into google talk so you can use the chat thing I told you about before. There is an option for GVMax what when in a chat with someone you can type ggc and it will call that person. There are more options which GVMax has, but the chat inside the app that makes it possible to have it wall work, and not need to multitask (iPhone's biggest flaw).

GVMax also does something that I have been try to do, mass texts through google voice. Google Voice blocks you to only text 5 people at a time, to stop you from using their service to spam people, GVMax goes around this. It uses google's contact groups, and text to an entire group, using their cool chat feature. The best part is, you don't even need an iphone or anything, you can just use the chat in the side of your gmail.

I have spent a lot of time trying to get everything working, and have found some other useful things. The one I will talk about now is Voice Central Black Swan. This is a web app, so you don't have to go through apple, just go to their page through safari after you sign up and it will tell you how to make it into an app. I don't think Black Swan is the great, because it doesn't have push notifications and it has adds, but it does one thing that the google web app does't. Black Swan lets you choose which phone you want it to call. For all you iPod Touch users, you now have a way to call people without using the GVMax chat work around.

Point of the story is that if you have Google Voice you can make all the calls and texts you want for free, it just takes some work. There are other ways to use it, this is just my preference. If you don't have it and are a student click here and get an invite within 24 hours, if not click here and wait. Good luck!

Rave: Dr Horrible

Today I felt like re-watching Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, so I did. It was as good as the first time I watched. If you like singing along and funny stories this is for you. I don't want to spoil it, but this is the birth of a super villain and the end is necessary if you don't like it. Here are all three parts if you want to watch it.

Rant: Stalkers

Funny story, I now have a nemesis. Here is the story. There is a girl in my ward that kind of likes me. I think she is an awesome friend, but not looking for a relationship with her. She met this boy some time ago, that had no friends, so she decided to befriend him. Bad Idea. He fell madly in love with her, and didn't take it well when she rejected him a few weeks ago. My part in the story starts last night. He moved into my ward a few weeks ago, I guess to be closer to her, some people just thought it would be to try and make new friends because he didn't have any in his other ward. Well last night at FHE at the Bishop's house, he met my roommates. When he mentioned how much he loved her, they mentioned that she and I had something going on, I guess he threatened me, and they said they had my back, thinking he was joking at the time. As the night progressed he said he wanted to fight them and even started cussing at them. Luckily they are both men of patients and didn't beat him, because they are both way bigger and stronger than him, he just has some problems. Well this morning I get a surprise message on facebook from this stalker saying "I hate you, if you are dating... we are going to rumble" followed by one calling me a coward for not responding. My first inclination was to respond with "I'm a lover not a fighter" but I did not want to provoke him, so I just didn't respond. The story gets worse. I was telling a coworker about this, who decided to message the kid saying that a threat to me is like a threat to him. *Note: I have really great friends.* That really got the guy mad, and he started cursing at my coworker through messages saying he had nothing to lose and that he wanted to fight and such, and even made a hit at his wife. My coworker being the army guy that his is, was not very pleased, but had to go to class so I didn't get to hear more. His next message to me was "coward! I know ur dating... now ur an enemy of me! I dont care if u get ur friends on me. as long as i can get a finger in one of their sockets and pull one of their eyeballs out!" Like I said he is crazy. So now I am at a point to thinking should I get a restraining order, should I call the cops on this guy, should I just hope he cools down. The worst part is not me being worried about what he is going to try to do to me, but what he might do to her, because supposedly after the meeting with my roommates last night, he may have threatened her too. Also I am pretty sure I am about a foot taller than him, so I am not real scared I just don't know what to do about crazy.

Moral of the story: Stalkers suck!

Rave: pushme.to

Anyone who knows me know I have way too many iPhone apps. I might not use them all daily, but I have used them all at least once, and the ones I like I keep on my phone, the ones I kind of like I let stay backed up on my computer in the chance that I may need them later, and the ones I don't get deleted. Pushme.to has made it onto my phone and stayed for over a month, that means it has made it through at least three purges of apps I no longer use. I think that I am one of the only people out there that use it, but I like it. It is very simple for any iPhone user that in some random case would like something pushed to their phone, and not want to give out their phone number, or use a text, this pushes it for you. It is actually a free way to chat between iPhones if that is what you want it for, or just for the occasional message it works it. My favorite part is that they make you a widget (example below) where you can have people send you messages for the good old internet that go straight to your phone. The app is still in it's first form so there are some problems like you cannot delete old messages, but all in all I think it is pretty cool.

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