Rant: Meineke Provo

* Update: They have gone out of business! Happy day! *

I usually don't complain about companies, but the Meineke is Provo wins hands down for the worst business I have been to, ever.

My first time there I went because I needed an oil change. It took a while, but there were a few stores around so I went for a walk. When I came back they told me my breaks were almost completely gone and I should change them right then. I had only had the car for less than a year, so I didn't know when they had changed so I believe him and took the multi hundred dollar hit and just got it done. My car has been fine, but it was still a really long time and expensive. I felt taken.

A few weeks later I got an email telling me to do a survey, for doing it I got a free oil change. Here is the coupon if you want it. I read terms to everything and this doesn't have very many terms except an expiration date so feel free to use it if you dare.

I used the coupon on my girlfriend's car. Seeing as how it says FREE oil change I was surprised when the still charged me $10 for labor, but that is still cheaper than most places so I said okay. It took them almost 2 hours to get it done. Most of the time I was just waiting for the car to actually be taken in. There wasn't anyone else there so I didn't think it should have been that long, but whatever I walked to the store again.

When they finished they told me that the car was leaking oil in 4 different spots and it would be $120 per location to fix it. Since it was my girlfriend's car, and that is a lot of money I said not today. They took like 15 minutes longer to get it out then gave me the car back and I thought I was done, but I was still worried about the leaking oil.

By the end of the week the check oil light came on.  I checked the oil in it and there was NONE. The car that had worked for 20 years all of a sudden after going to them now leaked more than any car I had ever seen... I went and bought oil and filled it up and since then it has been fine. It leaks a little, but not anything like a full oil change in less than a week. I think I got what I paid for, they did the labor of taking the oil out, but I don't think they put any back in. They could have ruined the car and I not happy.

Today I checked reviews for it on google maps and found that everyone thinks that they are just lying looters that will do anything to charge you more. I will NEVER go back there and probably never go to a Meineke again. Check out the reviews here if you don't believe me.

Lesson learned: Meineke Provo is a bunch of looters who will ruin your car to get you to pay them their overpriced hidden rates to fix what they break. NEVER GO THERE.

Rant: Mint

Good think my checking account has overdraw protection!

Today I got an email from Pageonce, the service that has been much better than mint, except for killing my phone battery recently. I have been trying mint instead for that reason. This week I decided to pay off all of my bills. Mint told me that my accounts were out of date, and needed to be updated. I updated the information and it gave me a new balance. It didn't tell me that balance was from two months ago! Two months ago I was $600 richer I guess, because after playing my $200 credit card bills I should have still had $200 in my debit, and more in my savings account. The email from pageonce said I had $0 in my checking account. Zero is not a good number when you expect to have at least $200, and at the same time being another $200 short in my savings.

Mint really screwed up! If I didn't have overdraw protection I would have all sorts of bills to pay. Also I was just freaking out because I thought I had had my identity stolen or something. Goodbye forever mint I am deleting all the information I have on your page and deleting my account.

That was just RUDE!

Rant: Acer Chomebooks

 To start you should know two things: I love chromebooks and I have never trusted Acer.

  I have never met anyone who would buy a second Acer laptop. They work fine, but they are just not an experience that anyone really recommends. For something that you have to use everyday, it is just not worth it to own one. I was almost tricked into liking them again recently when I was able to test out a touchscreen super thing beautiful thing, that even includes gorilla glass, the almost unbreakable stuff, then Acer had to go make a chromebook.

 Chomebooks, if you don't know are relatively inexpensive computers that are everything the average user needs. They only have chrome as a browser and an operating system. Meaning for the people who use the internet, meaning everyone now a days, they are all you need. It takes a while for people to figure out what to use instead of Microsoft Office, but that is the only issue. If you are a photoshopper or programmer it isn't the best, but for most users it is more than they need and beautiful.

 The main kicker on why you would want a chromebook are these things: they are inexpensive, they should have solid state drives, they start super fast, they are simple and they look good:

Inexpensive is the only thing Acer did. They made a $200 laptop, which is amazing, but the Samsung one for $50 more is 100% worth it.

Acer did not include a solid state drive, meaning that instead of eight second start up time, it is pushed back to at least 20 seconds. That isn't even a hibernate recovery, that is full boot. I know 12 seconds doesn't seem too long, but it is taking away from the experience. Also if you drop it, the Acer hard drive will scratch making it unusable. Solid state drives are so much more children friendly.

The look of the Acer chromebook is not up to par. The Samsung one just is beautiful without a doubt, reminiscent of a Macbook Air. The Acer chomebook looks like a laptop from the 1990s, with all the ports to boot. It is just ugly.

Mostly I am just sad that Google would put the Acer chromebook in their Play Store. That laptop is just not the experience that people who buy a chromebook should have, and I don't understand why Google would endorse that.

Rave: Join.me

 Log me in is a company that has significantly made life easier for a lot of people including me. Their main program is to remote control all of the computers you own. All you have to do is install the program on your computer and you can then access it from any browser no matter where you are in the world. That is convenient.

 Hamachi another of their products deserves a huge shout out. It lets you connect two computers as if they were a local connection even if they aren't. It even works on linux though their labs. I used on it a raspberry pi, as well as remote controlling my home computer from work. It is amazing for ssh and not having to find an IP address every time. It is mostly used for Minecraft servers, but it is amazing for so much more.

 Now on to the main rave join.me. This site lets you let someone remote view or control your computer after installing a super, super small program. I think it installed in the appdata folder because you don't have to mess with UAC, that super annoying screen that blacks out on windows and forces an administrator to type their password, meaning any user can use it, even if they can't install anything on their computer. This means that when grandma, or a less tech friendly friend, is having technical issues, you can just say "Go to join.me" and then you get to help them with whatever problems they have, hassle free.

Wrap-up: join.me = amazing; thank you LogMeIn for your great products.

Rant: 3D Film Reviewers

Hi. Jace's letting me ghost-write to this blog, even though it's clearly called "Jace's Rants and Raves." I am not Jace. I am a guy with my own blog that Jace is crazy enough to attach his name to. He's a nice guy. When I told him I wasn't sure if this rant was appropriate for my own blog, he just gave me access to his and said, "Rant away!" Anyway, my blog is about 3D movies. Specifically, I talk about the artistic potential of 3D in film, or how the act of being in 3D (or similar technologies, such as HFR) affects the movie going experience.

Here's why I'm ranting: I know my blog isn't up to the potential that it could be. I want to know all the many ways that 3D is important to storytelling. The problem is I don't see anybody else even attempting to do something like that. I look at film reviews (e.g. this one) and all they ever lend to interpreting the 3D in a film is one short paragraph, rarely more than 3 sentences long.

Let me do a hypothetical review of the 3D in Batman: Arkham City. In fact, I'll do a review of one scene in particular: the cut-scene before the confrontation with Mr. Freeze. In case you haven't played that game, I'll describe the scene I'm talking about quick. Also consider this sentence your official spoiler warning.

Early in the game, Batman is poisoned. The majority of the game follows batman's attempts to obtain an antidote that will allow him to survive his poisoning. Mr. Freeze is supposed to know how to build an antidote, but is trying to use that fact to leverage Batman into rescuing his wife. To do that, Mr. Freeze dramatically holds the antidote in front of Batman, with his hand and the antidote extending outside the screen in the 3D version of that cut-scene, after witch he shatters it by squeezing the vial.

Here's how I would review the 3D in that scene: The overarching theme of the game is death. You're meant to feel like the ability to avoid death is just outside Batman's capability. The 3D in this scene is utilized well to effect that emotion. The vial in the scene is held within the reach of the game's player. By all means he should be able to touch it, and is invited to try. My first time through the game I did try, only to have the vial shatter just before I could grab it. My second time through the game I was a bit quicker on the gun, and my fingers slid right through the vial before it shattered. Both instances communicated the message clearly to me. You can try again and again to avoid death, but ultimately that destiny is an inevitability. The message hits strong, and adds an emotional layer to the game not present in the 2D version. As such, I wholly suggest playing the game in 3D wherever 3D access is available.

That's the kind of thing I'm looking for. And that's only a review of one sequence that lasts less than a minute! Imagine how many metaphors, how much emotional impact, or how much visually altering imagery could be described if people were willing to read more into the 3D in an entire film! Yet, film reviewers today limit their discussion to something like, "The 3D effects in The Life of Pi are not really effects at all, in my opinion. They are part of the movie." No discussion, nothing to be able to understand why the 3D is good, and if that would be something to your tastes.

I guess that's what's upsetting me: how empty 3D film reviews are. They give me nothing to go on to understand whether the 3D version is worth spending the money on. They provide no service to anybody but the fans of 2D films. And I can't understand why any film reviewer worth their pay would be satisfied releasing such empty commentary.

</rant>

Rant: QR Code Pages

I am a big nerd, so whenever I see a QR code I have to scan it. Even if I am not remotely interested in what it is related it. On that note here is my rant.

Why don't people understand that you will scan them with a cell phone. Only rarely do I ever get a page actually made for a mobile device. They always direct to a page that was made for a computer. People need to know their audience. If you want them to go to a site on their phone, make it a site that is relevant on a phone. That is all.

Rant: Adobe Reader Desktop Icon

There are some things that it is convient to have a desktop icon for, such as a web browser. Adobe reader is not. I have never ever seen anyone open adobe reader than search for a PDF. NEVER. They click on pdf files, and adobe reader opens them. There is no reason whatsoever to have a shortcut on the desktop. Stop putting it there ever update Adobe, it is just annoying.

Also on Adobe reader. You are a free product. Version 10 or X is out. Why are there still updates for 9, and why doesn't it just update to 10. It is a newer better version, when I check for updates just move me to 10 or X don't just update 9, that is dumb. You are a free product.

Rave: My final iPhone Apps

I recently got a cool new Samsung Infuse 4G Android phone and am now free from the Apple tyranny. I decided I would still give a list of those apps which if I ever went back to an iPhone, which I would only do for battery life, which still isn't worth it, I would get. These are my recommendations to every with an iPhone. I will sort them by groups.

Any one with a * I think everyone should have or at least try.

Money

*Pageonce - gets you up to date info on all your accounts/bills.

Square - lets you receive credit card payments. Great for small businesses.

mooch - tracks what people owe you and you owe them.

*Shop Savvy Barcode Scanner - scans barcodes and QR and gives good prices.

Paperlinks - just does QR codes if you don't want the other barcode scanning.

SnapTell - uses the camera to scan bar codes or book covers or cds to give you the best prices.

*Where - I just use it for cheapest gas prices, but it does much more.

PayPal - cash checks into your paypal account using your camera.

Food\Weight\Self improvement

*Urbanspoon - fun shake to find a restaurant app.

*CheckPlease - my favorite tip calculator.

Target WEIGHT - shows you your progress losing weight and has notifications for pounds you still want to lose.

Calorie Counter - follow your calories and scan food products to show what you ate.

Nike+ GPS - it tracks your running and tells you how fast your go.

Streaks - lets you check daily if you accomplished things you wanted to.

Math\Reference

Convertbot - awesome converter for any kind of measure.

Computing Assistant - great calculator for anyone that uses binary, hex or octal.

Pi Cubed - an awesome calculator.

*Dictionary.com - a good dictionary.

*Google Translate - translates even between Spanish and Farsi.

Speedtest.net - find out your internet speed.

iBooks- it is good for stuff you want to read.

Music

*Soundhound - it listens to the radio or you humming and find the song with lyrics.

*Tunewiki - scrolls the lyrics of the song you are listening to with the "iPod."

Pandora Radio - good stations for long time listening.

Magic Stave - listens to notes and tells you which one it is.

Ocarina - play an instrument by blowing on your speaker.

Symphony - compose your own music.

Movies\TV

IMDB -who else was that guy in?

Fandango - what is in the theater right now?

Netflix - lets go watch some show that went off the air 10 years ago.

Google TV Remote - if you have a google tv you now have an extra remote with voice recoginiton.

Kids In Mind - find out how bad movies actually are.

Peel - it shows you what is on your TV in a very nice way. No more TV guide channel.

Redflix - lets you find coupons for redbox movies.

RunPee - tells you the best time to take a bathroom break in a movie.

Social

Google+ - the newest and happiest social network.

Facebook- you know the drill/

Twitter - for any good beliber.

BlogBooster - update your blogger or others blogs.

Tumblr - for all you tumblr bloggers.

*Meebo - the best chat client ever.

Talkatone - a google talk client that automatically makes internet calls through google voice.

fring - useful for some chat, but more importantly includes voip/sip.

Google Voice - google's somewhat annoying app.

GV Mobile + - cost some, but often prefereable to the Google Voice app.

contactus - edit your google contact groups, only makes sense if you use gvmax for mass texts.

Church (I am a good LDS boy.)

Bible.is - the bible, written or read to you, with or without dramatic background music.

*LDS Gospel Library - scriptures and more.

LDS Tools - on the go ward/stake list.

LDS Hymns - sing your heart out.

*Mormon Channel - listen to scriptures, ensigns and much more.

LDS Why? - youth questions, with good answers

Games

Falling Balls - fun accelerometer game.

*Geocaching - pricey, but way great for dates, here's the intro version.

Get Your Bearings - do you know where things are?

Hungry Shark - girls love this for some reason.

*Lightsaber - everyone needs one sometimes.

Paper Toss - can you throw the paper away?

Parallelous - how good are you at multitasking?

:Shift: - this and the squeal are fun.

Smack that Gugl - really kiddy, but fun.

Tilt to Live - best iPhone game ever.

Touch Hockey - air hockey with friends is fun.

Tunnel 3D - another fun accelerometer game.

WeDraw - if you have a smart TV and a bunch of friends with smart phones, try it.

Most of the apps I had I got for free, but some really were worth buying. Mostly I got lucky and got while they were free for a limited time.

I recommend looking at most of these, I have gone through more apps than anyone I know, and these are the ones that I decided to keep. All you Appolytes out there should check them out. Android people, half of them are available, and some even work much better, like google+, although most are a build or two behind. I hope all the time I spent linking every app was worth it.

Rant: Dell Network Card

This is the main reason that I do not like dell products and haven't since I was like 15. That at least a 10 year grudge. In those ten years dell could have solved this problem but even last week the problem still exists. None plug and play network cards! Seriously though this is the most annoying thing ever. About the only time you will ever notice this is on a fresh install of Windows. After windows installs you need to go to the Windows update page, and fix all your drivers so that everything works like it is supposed to. This is where you hit the problem. There is no possible way to get to the internet, or even your home network. You have to go on another computer download the network driver from Dells web page, and then transfer it to the computer by something physical like a cd, or jump drive. 10 years ago when I didn't have wireless access to other computer or jump drives it was a bit more annoying, I had to find the cd that came with the computer. The technology for network cards hasn't really changed, so I don't know why in the world we still dont' have plug and play network cards.

Dell you suck! Fix this! I have already waited 10 years! At least make a deal with Microsoft to include your driver in windows so this problem doesn't happen.

Rave: Clever People

Someone just had this video posted on facebook. The video is annoying and long, but how cool is the load bar. Clever people make me happy.

UPDATE: I guess youtube caught on, it no longer has the awesome bar, but enjoy the music anyay.

Rant: Receipts

The other day I went to return a book, but didn't have a receipt, because I had lost it. It didn't matter that they had scanned my ID card, and knew that I had purchased the book from them only days before. Since I lost that piece of paper they charged me $10 to return it. How lame. I really don't like holding on to useless paper. Receipts are technology from before computers, now in the computer era they need to make their move out of existence and stop wasting trees. We have the information of buying things through online backing and credit card statements, which also waste trees. Why can't technology we use just work instead of letting use get stuck with old wasteful traditions.

Rant: Apple

Yesterday I went to the Apple store because my battery on my iPhone has not been that great recently. It has been going down when I do nothing and for no reason. I thought the battery had just gone bad so I was hoping they would change it. I still have Apple Care, they fix things. Instead of fixing it the guy did a diagnostic. He didn't actually do anything but have my phone send his phone or whatever a page telling any problems going on. It was simple and told every problem which is cool, except that there is no possible way of me getting to it. It is for apple employees only. Why am I not allowed to know what the problem with MY phone is?

To make me more mad, the guy told my battery problem was that a while ago some Apps had crashed, and therefore never close. Some of these Apps have actually been "deleted" by me, or so I thought. Instead it destroyed the OS forever. The only way to get these to be gone is to do a "Restore" on it, which actually means delete everything and put a fresh version of iOS on it. Usually at this point it copies all they stuff important like text messages, pictures, apps and music back on. In my case where the apps crashed since it ruined the OS if I were to do that, it would restore the error in the OS. I have to personally put each thing I want back on, and texts are gone forever. Is it worth battery life over the last year of texts? Probably, but it is super annoying.

I really don't like Apples philosophy of not letting people change anything in the products they own. I still want a mp3 as my ringtone.

mini rave: While talking about Apple I will tell of their one redeeming quality: Apple Care. If you ever buy and Apple product buy Apple Care. It means that if you ever have a problem ever they will either fix it or give you a new/refurbished one. In the year and a half that I have owned an iPhone I have had Apple Care: replace my iPhone because the case cracked, replace it again because the GPS on the second didn't work, replace their charger cord because the wiring started showing and yesterday replace the headset because they wire broke. Looking at that it looks like their products do not last longer than 6 months, which is about the time that Apple comes out with a new product for you to buy. In summary Apple is for fanboys so if you want one of their products go all in and get Apple Care.

Rant: Paper

I am in a Technical Writing class, where my teacher is making print a resume on nice paper. I don't like the idea or think it is very useful. Tonight I went to the store to by this "nice" paper. The paper may be fine, but I really didn't want to spend $17 on 100 sheets of paper I will never use. I am pretty sure every assignment in that class for the rest of the semester will come on resume paper.

Officemax I am mad at you for selling it only in packets of 100, I would have been happy with 25, maybe even 50, but who wants to spend almost $20 on paper they don't even believe in. Yet again, English classes suck.

Rant: Google on the iPhone

I am a google fan. I have a cr-48 ChromeOS Notebook that I have almost been converted to. I have a google tv which is amazing except when the remote freezes, but I have not been happy with almost any google iPhone apps, and I have tried them all. List hear what I think of them all.

Google Mobile App: The voice search is okay, but not enough to make me want to open this and then maybe have to switch to Safari after, it just isn't a smooth transition. It has push notifications for gmail, which is just weird. The great feature here is Google Goggles, which should be its own app, I would actually use it if I didn't have to go through that app.

Google Earth: I just don't know how to use this. I keep it to occasionally get GPS locations for geocaching, but there isn't really a real use.

Google Voice: This is the app I have been most excited for. I even bought a third party one for a while, I used work around and anything I could for almost a year. The one thing this brought was push notifications. That is awesome, except the app itself is sub par. Half the time when I try to type a text it will update, hiding the text box under the keyboard, and then when I try to edit the box after, it just deletes everything. It has problems in anything but the best of internet, and just generally is lame. I use it because of the push notifications, and the calling feature actually works, but if there was something better I would probably switch.

Google Latitude: Cool idea, just no one uses it, and it doesn't integrate well with things. I wanted it for so long, then when it finally came out it was just meh.

There are others, Google Books, I haven't tried much, Google Authenticator, I don't understand, and Google Places, which I have now, but haven't started using it much.

All in all, I don't like the soft blue look of all their apps, they don't integrate, and I still don't have a remote for my google tv. I know I shouldn't complain because they are all free, but it you have a product make it good.

I think I was just mad about how the google voice app just didn't work 3 out of the last 5 times I wanted it to. I now switch to my laptop to text most the time because it isn't worth the hassle of using the app. The Chrome extension for Google Voice is amazing and one of the reasons I cannot go back to Firefox.

Thanks google for doing okay, but get an iPhone App department that actually uses iPhones.

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