Sidenote Rules

The utility Sidenote
for Mac OS is an absolute must. It is a little "drawer" that opens when you mouse over to the left edge of your screen. You can then type notes, drag and save images, etc. It supports multiple notes, but doesn't clog up your screen like the built-in Stickes app. As the clincher, it's guaranteed to fit your budget: it's freeware. So be thrifty, but don't be cheap. Throw a donation to the developer if you like it.

Feed The Pig

How is it possible to save money? Feed the pig.

"Show me the money!"

That's not likely to be what you say to a prospective employer at your interview or your boss at your job, but Payscale.com might change that. The site prompts you for basic info: job title, location, experience, etc. Then, with free registration, you can find out what other people like you make. Payscale does indeed show you the money.

Crashing

I've no problem crashing at a relatives' home or a friends' home while travelling. But a strangers' home? Yeah I'll consider it. Thanks for the tip, D. Go couch surfing.

Here's a brilliant commercial. It basically makes the point of this blog very concisely. Some might argue that it should've been a bunch of Priuses coming at you at the end, but still, the ad is very very well done.

Are you paying too much for rent?

Looking for an apartment? Wondering how much to spend for rent?
Rentometer is for you.
There's a line between being cheap and looking for apartments in the 'hood and being thrifty and just making sure you're getting a decent deal in the neighborhood you want to live in. Rentometer can help you whichever side of that line you're on. Simply type in an address, the type of rental (1br, 2br, etc), the rent you are paying/willing to pay and see actual rents nearby pop-up on a googlemap style map. If you've heard of better tools, let's hear 'em.

Some Phones Are Just, Well, Phones - NY Times
400 GB 7200 rpm internal hard drive for $99 - Hard drive prices are falling like a brick. Or is it bricks that fall like hard drive prices?

Google to Push for More Electrical Efficiency in PC’s- NY Times

Techie Cred? Maybe not. Thrifty Cred? Definitely.

So you wanna know about my cred, huh? OK. Here's a run-down:
PORTABLES:
My phone is a Sanyo SCP-4700 from 2003. It packs a vintage teal electroluminescent lcd display, backlit buttons, a handy red led indicator (see pic) to warn me of voice mail. It has more than a dozen built-in ring tones (including hits like Pachelbel's Canon), speaker phone, etc. The features go on and on, really. The size is handy too. It's far more solid than your RAZR! It's pretty amazing to consider all this was free after I signed on with Sprint PCS.

My iPod is a 3G 10GB from 2003. Received as a graduation present, it's still going strong.
COMPUTERS:
My wife and I have two computers. A 12" iBook G4 800 Mhz/640 purchased new in the fall of 2003. We also have a 15" G4 iMac purchased used off of eBay in the fall of 2005.
HOME ENTERTAINMENT:
Still rockin' an Aiwa 3 disc, dual cassette shelf system. (For the kids out there, the dual cassette decks were for dubbing tapes...sort of like copying MP3 files) We've got a Cyberhome DVD player/burner and a 20" Panasonic CRT standard definition TV. No TiVo or DVR.

That's it! How does your set-up rate?

Starbucks Raises Prices, Australia supplies Cocaine

Any successful drug dealer knows to raise prices when demand is high. Accordingly, America's favorite drug lord Starbucks is raising their coffee prices citing mounting expenses involved in their trade. While Starbucks' professional-type patrons have deep pockets, Dunkin' Donuts is giving away coffee hoping to drum up demand in the 'hood, apparently.

Meanwhile a new player is delivering a high-quality product called Cocaine. In a not-so-subtle move, Cocaine is simply delivering more bang for the buck with 280mg of caffeine per serving (see graph above). In addition, Cocaine contains lots of vitamins and dextrose; probably to take the edge off the inevitable crash.

Here's a user's guide to America's favorite drug.

CFL bulbs: A bright idea.

We hear about the environment a lot these days what with hybrid cars, global warming, and alternative energy sources regularly in the headlines. Often times thinking about the environment means making tough sacrifices such as spending thousands of extra dollars on a hybrid car in order to save gas, or sitting and listening to Al Gore drone on for 90 minutes about melting glaciers.

Sometimes being environmentally correct is very easy, however. That's what makes the compact fluorescent lightbulb (CFL) story so remarkable. It's the rare technology that's economical in every sense of the word, saving money, time, and electricity.

CFL technology has been around for years as an energy saving alternative to the "regular" incandescent lightbulbs. Despite using about 75% less energy than equivalent conventional bulbs and lasting ~8x as long, CFLs were "prohibitively expensive" for consumers, costing several dollars per bulb (compared to a buck for four regular bulbs). Thus, they weren't popular.

Today CFL bulbs still deliver energy savings but at much lower initial cost than in years past. Thanks in part to a push by Wal Mart these light bulbs are now much cheaper and should be used by everyone. Although these bulbs are still about 10 times more expensive than conventional bulbs (which is to say, just $2 or so) they are one of the best investments that everyone can make. The energy they save over just a few months of usage pays for the cost of the bulb. After that, it's all gravy. The bulbs last for many years which means no changing bulbs and no buying new bulbs. And over the lifetime of the bulb one could save about $40 worth of electricity. Good for the wallet and the environment.

Switching from conventional incandescent lightbulbs to CFLs may seem like a mundane action – frankly you may not even notice the $4 monthly savings on your electricity bill – but the energy savings can be enormous given that it is the type of action that everyone can take part in. 100 million CFLs used instead of regular bulbs would reduce green house gas emissions as much as taking a million cars off of the road.

Lightbulbs. So boring, yet so amazing. Next time somebody shows off their Prius or wants to make a movie about saving the spotted owl, tell 'em you've got a brighter idea: you're gonna go change a lightbulb!

update: feature CFL article in Fast Company.

biodegradable iPod dock

Props to flickrflick151 for this resourceful idea. =)

What do you want?

There's a lot of great tech stuff that's in development. What things are you looking forward to? WiMax? WiFi calling? On-demand or downloadable TV content? RFID?
Maybe you're a dreamer and you want teleportation? Or maybe Microsoft Vista?

Hey, at least I'm asking. It's more than I can say for Sprint offering streaming movies on a cell phone for $4. Surely you have some better ideas?

new iPods: analysis (September 12, 2006)

I've just finished digesting the Apple announcements from and I'm now ready to egest, so here it goes:

The iPod 5.5G w/ video and 2G nano were solid updates and were unsurprising. Apple made incremental, important improvements (+ screen brightness, + battery life, + storage capacity) and added search by alphabet functionality. There was no surprise in that Apple continues to add value to their iPod line incrementally while eschewing price drops, using engineering and brain power to prop up their revenues. Incidentally, the biggest surprise for me in their new iPod announcements was that they DID cut the price of the 30 GB iPod w/ video to $249. Meanwhile, he attention that Apple paid to developing their entry-level / ultra-portable shuffle proves that they are intent on canvasing the PMP market.

Pricing scheme:
iPod shuffle 1GB: $79 ($79 per GB)
iPod nano 2GB: $149 ($74.50 per GB)
iPod nano 4GB: $199 ($49.75 per GB)
iPod nano 8GB: $249 ($31.13 per GB)
iPod 5G 30GB: $249 ($8.30 per GB)
iPod 5G 80GB: $349 ($4.36 per GB)

Of course, all the new iPods look slick, but anyone that still dismisses the iPod as faddish or merely fashionable is missing the shrewd positioning of the current iPod line:

5.5G w/ video - the 80GB model may be more expensive than the upcoming microsoft Zune (can't tell because pricing hasn't been announced, and may have been disrupted by Apple's release) but trumps the Zune's 30GB capacity by quite a bit. Meanwhile the 30 GB iPod is the cheapest iPod ever and undercuts Zune's pricing. In short, the two new 5.5G iPods are Zune's rock and a hard place this holiday season.
iPod nano - best value for a small-sized mp3 player.
iPod shuffle - interesting because it's so cheap. It serves as an entry-level iPod. Also will sell to iPod and iPod nano owners because the sheer (lack of) size adds a lot of utility. Leave on in your car, or keep it on you despite the fact that you already have a PDA or phone that can also play music, excercise with it, etc.

Summary: iPod continues market leadership with class leading design, solid specs and value.

We can never forget 9/11/2001

Few tech blogs will address the 5 year anniversery of the most heinous act of our lifetimes. But remember that the heroism on the plane that crashed in Shanksville,PA was made possible by Americans' trusty cell phones and that hundreds of lives at the WTC were lost because of failures in basic radio technology. As we go forward, preventing such future attacks depends on the interactivity of human effort and technology.
Those events of 9/11 transcend tech issues, of course. But tech had a direct bearing on the events of that fateful day.

Remote Backup

I had a bad dream the other night: my apartment burned down. The fire chief at the scene calmly informed me that no one was hurt and the cats were OK (whew!). My computer, however was toast. "That's OK, I backup...", I said coolly. Then he held up something that looked like a big chunk of General Tso's chicken: It was my external hard drive - which I back up music, photos and half of my brain to - fried to a crisp. Nooooooooo!

OK. Not the worst dream ever, but real-life remote backup options aren't exactly sweet dreams either. One could spend hours backing up stuff to CD or DVD and then mailing them to a friend or storing it at a bank or... something.

The alternative is online storage. Mac users get ONE gigabyte of storage for $100/year at .Mac or FOUR (4) gigabytes of storage for $200/ year. Xdrive.com will give you 5GB of remote storage for just $120 and backup.com will give you 5GB for $500.

It's a pretty hefty price to pay for such a little amount of storage. I could pay for 5GB of remote storage and it will be just enough space to save my (small) collection of digital photos. Meanwhile my music, documents, calendars, pets, etc. would all go up in flames or drown in a flood etc.

A FREE utility to turn your Gmail account into a 2.5 GB virtual remote hard drive can be had at rjonna.com. But again, it's a piddling amount of storage.

Does anyone have any suggestions for remote backup and storage solutions?

Free audiobooks

Literary works that are in the public domain are available for free at LibriVox. Read more about the project: Public Domain Books, Ready for Your iPod

GPS navigation

A headline in the New York Times' Technology section caught my eye becasuse it was ostensibly right up my figurative alley. For the Frugal, a G.P.S. Receiver With Fewer Frills talks about the Tom Tom One a basic, self-contained navigation system for your car. At $500, this TomTom could definitely save you enough time to make the unit price worth your while...but traffic reports and weather are extra through Tom Tom Plus and would incur cell phone data charges...
Which begs the question: Why do you need this device when similar services can be delivered through cell phones/PDAs? No sale for me. I'll stick with directions from Mapquest or Google Maps Mobile. Of course the latter would require me to get a compatible phone...

Cameras, TVs, and external hard drives.

Here's the NY Times' Damon Darlin's take on what to think about when preparing to purchase digital cameras, TVs and external hard drives. Bargains Are Near; Just Keep Waiting

CONC: Apples and Oranges

Windows Vista delayed
There was once a time when the Mac OS and Windows were direct competitors; two creatures fighting for survival in the
same niche. But that was around 1992.

Mac OS and Windows have since evolved into two distinct animals. One is a cat and the other is a dog (no derogatory connotations intended). Windows has long tended to the needs of IT and the business user while Mac OS X's strengths lie in home computing and media management. The characteristics of both creatures overlap, but they have different strengths and weaknesses and will continue to coexist for a long time. Now if you're saying that the cat will become man's best friend...
That's a different debate ;-)

CONC: xenophobia is alive and well

Well, it was depressing to see the "Buy American" rah rah rah attitude over at GM's Fastland blog. So I had to go over and put the smack down:

This is in response to those of you who are trying to make GM's problems a U.S. vs. Japan thing:
Many of GM's current problems were caused by the "Buying American" mentality. Think of the millions of of Delta 88, Cavalier, Park Avenue, and Bonneville buyers in the 80's and 90's... We bought those cars partly out of "duty" - it certainly wasn't the quality - and look what it got us... GM complacency and more mediocre cars. Tough love from us here in the Fastlane forum and the rest of America is the only way GM will get out of this mess. It's working. GM's making the best cars that I can ever remember now, but it's only because of the competition and people NOT buying GM cars out of duty any more.
No more free pass for GM, means GM having to make good cars, means GM will eventually turn around the business or fail trying.
It's 2006 folks, wake-up and do not buy "American" if it doesn't make sense for you and your family. Auto manufacturing jobs will be lost whether you buy GM, Toyota, or Hyundai. I can't save them and neither can you. A final thought:
"Technology, not necessarily outsourcing, is displacing American workers...Even China is losing manufacturing jobs because the number of people required to make goods is decreasing as a result of technologies that make factories more efficient" - Frank Reich Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

CONC: Day of the digital book may be dawning

eBooks. They're going to take over the world. Just not very soon. My post at Masimumnews follows:

For a portable electronic reader, the E INK screen is as much a problem as it is a solution. It solves the problem of letting human eyeballs read electronic documents for long periods of time. At the same time it poses a problem because it’s functionality is limited (currently) to static, black & white images precluding it’s use in a multi-tasking device. An E INK device that could display web content, video, and photographs is not possible.

Since E INK’s functionality is limited, pricing power for such a device is limited too. Sony doesn’t have a prayer for a successful product if they’re selling this device for over $100. It’s simply not very useful - it’s functionality would be limited to reading novels/non-fiction books, magazines/newspapers (without pictures). Period.

The upshot is: success of E INK will not be achieved as a stand-alone consumer product (portable or otherwise). These E INK displays must get cheaper and thinner so they can be integrated on to existing products which have other functionality (such as the back-side of a video iPod or as a notebook computer’s 2nd screen). Once that happens, it will be a home-run because the killer apps (newspapers, books, journal articles, instruction manuals, textbooks, PDF’s, etc. etc.) will already be in place.

CONC: Rupert Murdoch sez digital video is small time.

I replied undeer the headline "...at the moment"

CONC: Dell kills DJ

It's official now. I posted under the headline: "Couldn't turn up the volume on the DJ"

V cast - useless and expensive

Let me preface this entry with a disclaimer: I just turned 30, so my understanding of technology is beginning its slow and inevitable decline.
That having been said, I can not believe how useless V casts' music download service is. We're in the midst of a media revolution which is allowing people to acquire music (M) without leaving the house (iTunes, Napster, etc.) and videos (V) without leaving the house (netflix, iTunes, Google, etc.) and now Verizon is giving us the 'privelege' of being able to download M&V on our phone so that we can in fact get M&V outside of our homes again because presumably it was an inconvenience to be able to obtain M&V at home. I must be getting old, but to me it seems awfully nice to not get up off my duff ("duff" is an older variation of butt for you youngsters) to get M&V. Back in the real old days, we actually had to go to a store to buy "CDs" or a Blockbuster to rent videos, so old-fashioned me thinks it's great to have M&V download access at home.

Alright enough of the self-depracating "old" talk. Let's cut to the chase which is that Verizon's got a loser on it's hand with V cast. First of all, the commercials promoting the merit of V cast's music-on-demand are laughable.
Exhibit A: commercial showing pre-game locker room of a hockey team getting psyched-up for their game because one of the kids downloaded a song and played it on their phone. Is this phone really loud enough to pump up a hockey team? I don't think it could pump up a ballet troupe. Strike 1

Exhibit B: commercial showing a girlfriend angrily rushing away from a boyfriend and rushing to get away in a taxi. The boyfriend whips out his V cast and downloads a smooth R&B track, plays it and soothes the girl making her feel better.
Ha Ha Ha. How long does it take to download a song? by the time the song is downloaded, the girl would be gone. Strike 2 What angry girl can be soothed by a song being played through a phone speaker? Please send me her number. Strike 3

Alright. So since when have commercials made accurate claims about their prodcuts? But in watching these commercials the sad thing is that these were among the more plausible uses for V cast...

So how much will all this uselessness set you back? $15 / month + $1.99 / song.

R.I.P. Dell DJ

In September '05 I wrote:
"...Since apple is selling their iPods at a higher volume than all their competitors...they could really put the smack down on competitors by selling iPods at a discount and absolutely flatten the competition...Apple could move millions of units at a thinner margin which would force Rio, Creative, and Dell into a very tight spot; letting them choose between moving hundreds of thousands of units at razor-thin margins or maintaining pricing while watching unit sales slide towards zero.
... Apple has now lowered the boom on the competition with the nano. Look at the competitions' products at $199 or $249. Sony and the others have to be sweating bullets. Their products at those price points are very simply, a cut below."

Since I wrote that, Apple sold 14 million iPods in about 3 months. All their competitors combined sold (by my estimation) sold around 5 million units. There had to be casualties. Rio has apparently exited the mp3 player market and Dell has suddenly and unceremoniously apparently stopped selling DJs.