3 things Cuil got right
July 28, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : New Products, Opinion , add a commentIn the past 24 hours there’s been a lot of talk about how Cuil has fallen short of its aspirations of ‘Google Killer’. In testing the service it is clear that there are some problems with the relevancy filter and since really that is the heart of a search engine’s success, a lot of those critiques are warranted. When a term returns 500,000 plus results, adding a few hundred thousand more isn’t as much of an improvement as moving the page the user was actually looking for onto the first page of results. (more…)
How to increase your electric bill and gain social status
July 27, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : How-to, Humor, Other Stuff, Tips , add a comment
Excess is a sign of success. Whether you’re talking about Jay Leno’s 75+ cars, or the potlatch ceremonies of the Kwakwaka’wakw, how much you’ve got is measured by how much you can spend. With gas and other factors pushing energy costs to new heights, these days, nothing is a bigger sign of wealth and social status than sporting a huge electric bill. So to keep you at the top of your peer group’s pecking order, here are a few things that are guaranteed to pump your watts. (more…)
Samsung BlackJack Internet Sharing with Windows Vista
July 19, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : How-to, Microsoft, Mobile, PDAs/Smartphones, QuickTips, Tips , add a commentI have struggled with getting Internet Sharing setup between my Samsung BlackJack and my Gateway M6750 for quite a while. The Gateway doesn’t have built in Bluetooth, which has caused a few problems with getting a working dongle and BT stack, but beyond that there were some other issues that kept hanging me up. I had given up on the task for a while until I came across Mike Swanson’s post on internet sharing with the Blackjack and Vista.. His steps worked almost perfectly for me so if you’re having problems give his method a shot. (more…)
Overdue Review: Keeping it together with GrandCentral
July 6, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : New Products, Reviews , add a commentDamnit. I’ve been working on a great review of GrandCentral’s online service for several (ok several, several) months and we keep finding a reason to postpone it. First, there was the buyout by Google and as usually happens, no one cared about the service, they just cared about the price. Then there was the fact that they closed the Beta and the only thing anyone cared about was, “Where can I get a Grand Central invitation?”
Installing PHP 5 and Apache 2.2 on Vista
June 25, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : Coding, How-to, Microsoft, QuickTips , 1 comment so farSometimes you want to get things done right and sometimes you just want to get them done. When your installing a PHP 5 and Apache 2.2 development setup on Windows Vista using the automatic installers, it may seem like neither one of these is an option. This quick tip is going to save you a lot of time and trouble.
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Will AT&T burn you with the new iPhone?
June 19, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : Apple, New Products, PDAs/Smartphones , add a commentAre you one of the loyal AT&T customers who will have to pay full price to upgrade to the new version of the iPhone?
The jaw-droppingly low, AT&T subsidized rate for the newest iteration of the iPhone was one of the biggest announcements of Job’s keynote speech at Apple’s WWDC. But don’t get caught up in the hype. $199 is a great price for an 8 gig iPhone, but a whole lot of people won’t be able to get it. Ironically, this group is the one you would expect AT&T would least like to ostracize - their loyal customers.
In a discussion with an AT&T representative yesterday we confirmed that the $199 (8gb) and $299 (16gb) prices are only for new customers or customers eligible to upgrade based on their time in contract. A large group of people who recently upgraded are going to be out of luck.
The first version of the iPhone was clearly a product for early adopters who were willing to pay a premium for the new, cool gadget. In terms of market targeting, this version *should* be the version for the mass adopters - and the price suggests they are ready to target that group. But the usefulness of such a price drop is lost when a majority of potential purchasers will have to pay full price. By making this offer unavailable to the current AT&T masses AT&T has effectively reduced it’s target base to the three people in the US who don’t already have a cell phone and the small percentage of people who are available to upgrade at release.
QuickTip: Fixing a Bluetooth® pairing problem in MacOS
January 13, 2008 Posted by Bryan in : Apple, PDAs/Smartphones, QuickTips, Tips , 1 comment so farIf you’re having problems pairing a Bluetooth® device (for example a phone or PDA) with your Mac here is a quick suggestion. Make sure that your computer’s name (listed under System Preferences –> Sharing) is less than 20 characters. Longer names can cause problems with the pairing process in some versions of MacOS.
A review of the ShoppingAds and AuctionAds services
December 28, 2007 Posted by Bryan in : Coding, New Products, Reviews , 1 comment so farI’ve been testing the AuctionAds and ShoppingAds services for several months now. Despite some promising results early on (as mentioned in this post), I am very disappointed with the overall results. Over the past six months, I tested a variety of AuctionAds and ShoppingAds ad blocks from in numerous positions on various sites. As a result of real world obligations I haven’t devoted much time to site development lately and the ad blocks remained in place longer than their performance warranted. Bad for my bank account, but good for testing purposes. The final result? In over six months of testing I made less from these services’ combined totals than I typically make from AdSense in one day.
Both AuctionAds and ShoppingAds allow for product images in their ads and this is one of the reasons I expected them to be successful. However, Google’s targeted ads clearly outperform AuctionAds’ and ShoppingAds’ keyword based ads despite AdSense’s lack of product images.
Unfortunately, I can’t rule out issues with the AA/SA backend as the cause for the low earnings. For example, I received several clicks on the referral based service (AuctionAds) but none on the CPC service (ShoppingAds), a fact that is inconsistent with all other ad blocks during the same period and suggests a problem with unrecorded clicks. Additionally, earnings appeared and disappeared rather frequently on reports from both systems. Bugs are to be expected in new products, but frankly, if I have to devote a significant amount of time to double checking earnings reports, it’s just not worth it for me.
My current recommendation regarding these services is to fight the urge to be an early adopter. Wait until these services become more mainstream and work out the bugs. Currently they require more effort than they are worth given the viability of other alternatives.
Desktoptwo: It could be the next big thing
July 30, 2007 Posted by Bryan in : New Products, Reviews , add a commentOnline desktops have the potential to change the way we use computers as much as or more than any other technology that has recently emerged. What, you’ve never used one? I’m not surprised. The basic idea behind them is very sound, but so far their real world implementations haven’t been.
Online desktops provide internet-based services that allow you to do all the things you could do while you are at home sitting in front of your desktop, from any computer connected the the ‘net. Specifics vary from product to product, but generally there’s some sort of online storage, a few applications, and an interface that emulates an operating system.
Sounds like a great idea, but (more…)
Watch it now on Netflix
July 7, 2007 Posted by Bryan in : New Products, News , add a commentNetflix has launched a new feature that allows members to watch full-length videos online.
After logging into your account click on the “Watch Now” tab. Pick a video, click “Play”, and you’ll be prompted to download a player.
Not all of their catalog is available. Right now the selection consists of mostly older movies and TV series, but this is still good news for people who like to watch videos online or who feed video to their TV via their computer. The number of hours you can watch is determined by your Netflix plan.
Bad news for a good portion of the internet though, the service currently requires Windows and Internet Explorer (i.e. no old school Apple or Firefox).
