Looking Like An Idiot When Using A Tablet Computer
Tablet computers are slowly becoming more and more mainstream as the technology improves and the overall prices drop.
Similar to the rise of smartphones and all of their advances over the past ten years, tablets many one day replace laptops. I’m still not sold on getting a tablet yet, but I do recognize their potential and the handiness of using one.
That handiness, however, brings us to the subject matter of this article.
No, I’m not here to make fun of the retards who sit in coffee shops, trying to look sophisticated on their laptops and tablets when all they’re really doing is playing around on Facebook and Twitter, or just reading an e-book. That cliché was exposed a while ago.
This article is about people using the camera feature on their tablet computer while on vacation.
I understand that the camera feature is handy for video chatting software such as Skype. No problems there. But when people choose to lug around their tablets through theme parks and other vacation destinations, and then use said tablet product as their camera for taking pictures, those people look like complete fools.
Last week my parents came home from their trip to the central Florida theme parks. I asked them to keep an eye out for those idiots using tablets to take their vacation pictures. Take a look a several scenes of those people in action.
—– Read more…
Categories: computers, photography, Uncategorized Tags: camera, photography, society
Too Many Scripts and HostGator
The other day I received an e-mail from HostGator, my website hosting company, informing me that my account was suspended because “multiple scripts were causing high loading issues on the server.” My public_html directory was temporarily locked, not only taking down my websites, but also preventing me from using FTP software to access my files.
I have a shared hosting account with HostGator, and apparently one of my websites had an issue that was causing unnecessary strain on the overall system. Those issues have since been addressed, and now my account is in good standing and things are running better than ever.
So am I upset that HostGator suspended my account without asking me first?
Nope. Not in the least.
I wasn’t happy with the problem, but dealing with HostGator’s technical support went well and I was back up and running relatively quickly. That is, after I spent hours (before e-mailing tech support) researching solutions and getting a checklist ready for changes to make to my software.
It turns out that the process of repairing the software for my websites was easier than expected. Read more…
Categories: computers Tags:
R.I.P. — Steve Jobs
Today the world learned of the passing of Steve Jobs, visionary and co-founder of Apple, Inc.
What can one say about somebody responsible for the creative development of some of today’s hottest communication and computer products?
Steve Jobs — R.I.P.
Although I’m not an Apple person myself, I do respect the driving power that said products have in the marketplace. Because of that ingenuity and consumer drive do we see copycat products from other companies, and the further, frenzied development of the next generation and beyond of such products. That’s just crazy.
In a way, Steve Jobs can be compared as a modern day version of Walt Disney. He knew how to deliver quality and catchy products to the consumers. His products weren’t theme parks but some of the catchiest (and priciest) electronic devices to hit the retail shelves. In actuality, Steve did work with The Walt Disney Company, but that was from the acquisition of Pixar Animation.
If any of you want to have a better understanding of the early days and battle between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, I recommend the movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley.
This is a tough blow to Apple. The company will move on, but it’s going to be severely challenged to continue developing the latest trendy electronics that will drive its fans wild.
Categories: computers, Uncategorized Tags:
Fake PayPal Scammer
Today when I was cleaning out one of my older Yahoo e-mail accounts I came across this gem of an e-mail.
Every once in a while I’ll receive fake e-mails from companies, and sure enough, somebody was once again trying to exploit PayPal customers. I didn’t know this, but apparently my “account access has been limited” and I’m supposed to click on the link provided in the e-mail to log-in and verify that claim.
Of course, the odds of a link like that going directly to the official PayPal website are next to nothing, if even that high.
Notice how this e-mail was sent by somebody calling themselves “Pay-Pal” and not “PayPal.” The hyphen makes a world of difference between a fake name and a real one. Do take note that adding or removing a hyphen could also refer to an older spelling, like how Walmart once went by Wal-Mart. However, all real company e-mails will have the correct spelling (including punctuation) of the company. Strike one! Read more…
Categories: computers Tags: scam
Jones in the Fast Lane
Okay, how many of you classic computer gamers remember playing Jones in the Fast Lane?
It was a simple life simulator developed by Sierra Entertainment back in 1990. This wasn’t nearly as fancy as The Sims, but it was still fun and very addictive. If you were a fan of the game or just want to try it, get ready for some good news! Read more…
Hello, Linux.
The other day I finally decided to join the ever-popular world of Linux.
I’ve been a dedicated Windows user since the days of Windows 3.1, and right now my laptop is running Windows Vista while my other two computers are still using Windows XP.
And now, as of last night, my oldest computer has transitioned to Xubuntu 9.10 and I’ve begun the process of learning how to operate the new operating system. That computer was fine during college, but eight years later the 1.1ghz processor and whopping 256mb of memory just doesn’t cut it anymore. At some point I’ll throw more memory and a much bigger hard drive into the box and make it a movie server for my entertainment center, but for now it’s my “learning Linux & Ubuntu” machine.
Fear Mongering at Its Worst
Recently there was a major story on the top of the main Yahoo! page.
“” (an Associated Press article deemed scientific enough for the front page of Yahoo!)
Yeah, the dreaded “climate change” is killing all of those poor people and not from overpopulation, over consumption, corrupt local governments, horrendous living conditions, or lack of medical care to fight common diseases. It’s climate change’s fault!
Categories: computers, marketing, photography, weather Tags: climate, global warming, government
The conversion of Intruder Prevention is complete.
The other day I picked up an excellent (and more importantly, updated) book on search engine optimization (SEO) that gave great examples of how to maximize the usage of key words and phrases without overdoing it, how to write better META descriptions and key words, and how to write more persuasive articles to lead to better conversion rate optimization (CRO).
Needless to say, once I went through the first two chapters and saw the example website that was successfully converted from a nothing website into one of the top websites in its category, I was inspired. I went straight to my Intruder Prevention website and spent the next two days working hard on the new SEO techniques.
– UPDATE – I no longer own or maintain www.IntruderPrevention.com
Post updating update
After updating my three WordPress websites, one of them today has been reporting back information at StatCounter.
That’s a bit of a relief. Now I know that something is working even though I know for a fact that my website has seen more traffic than what was reported and I still would like to know other critical pieces of information. This is a good start even though it still needs further investigation.
Let’s see if this works.
On my quest to get StatCounter working correctly, the best advice I could find was to make sure that my version of WordPress was in fact the most recent version. As you could probably guess, mine was not.
I initially built this website and my two other WordPress ones at the same time and used the same version of WordPress, which at that time was 2.6.3. I had received notices about upgrading to version 2.7 for a while now, but when looking at the documentation to do so it looked more complicated than it was. Rather than risking losing my websites during the upgrading process, I just didn’t upgrade.
StatCounter review
To help get a true idea about the traffic patterns for my websites, the other day I registered with a website called StatCounter and added the code to five of my websites including this one.
I like the amount of detail available from clearly seeing things such as visitors’ traffic patterns and the top downloaded files, but for some reason I still cannot get it to work with my WordPress websites.
Reporting problems with Google Adsense & Analytics
So last night I was going through my Google Adsense account and seeing how the advertisements were doing.
Overall, my page impressions (advertisements that were actually displayed to website visitors) were fairly high for what I usually see. This past week alone I picked up a strong link for one of my sites and saw a great boost in traffic.
As great as the increase in traffic and exposure was, it sure wasn’t reflected that way in Google Adsense.
Black Friday computer shopping
Victory.
That explains my Black Friday early, early, early morning shopping experience in one word.
My goal seemed simple but yet common to many people: To purchase a new, good laptop for as little as possible.
After examining the advertisements in the newspaper yesterday after Thanksgiving dinner, I reached the decision of going for an HP Notebook 2.0GHz Dual-Core Processor with 3.0 GB RAM, a 160 GB hard drive, and of course, a dual-layer DVD burner. Conveniently, Office Depot had such a laptop computer advertised for only $349.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate.
That’s where the fun began.
Read more…