So I was watching MahloDaily and Veronica Belmont had an done an episode on Flock. You ask ‘What is Flock’? Well its a web browser that has been around for some time but has recently received a pretty major overhaul making it more stable and including services for many of the major social networking sites built right in. I’m writing this blog entry with the built in blog editor.
The browser itself is pretty snappy and the built in features are not only innovative but nicely incorporated. At first, I thought that maybe the window would be to busy or that it would just be too much going on to effectively browse. Then I started using the web clip board, the photo uploader and emailed a couple stories, all simply by dragging and dropping. It does take some time getting use to but the more I use it the more I am liking it.
If you haven’t tried it out…give it shot for a couple weeks and jump on board. Download it here Flock.com you’ll find versions for windows, mac or linux.
Blogged with Flock
Tags: flock, internet, mahalo, veronica belmont, browser
YouTube recently launched its embedded player program with adsense. Seems like an interesting enough concept. The ads don’t seem to intrusive like with other video services and you can even customize the color scheme of the player. You can set a few keywords to help YouTube select the type of video for you or you can select a predefined industry or provider. It was easier to setup the video player than an adsense banner for those of you that have gone through the process, you know what I mean. The code is generated automatically for you and its just a simple act of copy and pasting. What you end up with is what you see below. The one caveat is that you don’t directly control the content, you can only guide it and as we all know there is some offensive video that would be worse than some of the text ads you might see.
Merry Christmas! Ha Ha or should I say Ho! Ho! Ho! I found this site last year and immediately got hooked. I must have sent out a 100 different elf greetings as I call them. Elfyourself.com is a sponsered site from Office Max amd it was one of the biggest viral campaigns from last year. Well its back and has been featured in a few other stories online not to mention money.CNN.com as well, so I wont bore you with redundant details other than the basics. Elfyourself.com is a site that allows you to upload a photo and superimpose it on an elf that dances around and can even mouth of a digitally manipulated recording of your voice. The service is completely free and allows you to email the link to your elfness to all your friends and family. What’s really cool this year is that you can now upload a set of 4 pictures. I for one, set up a whole gaggle of elves (my family) and much like last year have been sending it out to everyone I know. So go on and make one for yourself and put your link in the comments.
What a great day! Not only did the Paula Dean turkey thing arrive today but more importantly, the Nikon D40 did too. 
A quick charge (only took a few hours) and slap in an SD card and I’m ready to go. So the picture is obviously not taken with the D40 but with my Olympus u70. However, a quick comparison between the same shot with both camera shows an obvious difference between cameras (something to be expected), the noise level was noticeable with the Olympus where it there ws very little if any with the Nikon. Ok, so one would expect the Nikon to be better. What I am after is the level of quality for the average guy, average shots of average composition. I’m not a professional or even a prosumer photographer as you already know. I do like my new toys and have great hopes in the integration of this one into my daily life. The size may be the biggest obstacle in average use but we’ll see how that goes.
So a rather interesting coincidence has prompted today’s post. I had a conversation last week with my wife about helium and I read in today’s paper that there is a helium shortage. Helium as we all know powers balloons for all occasions as well as those fun little cartoon voices we make when inhaling the gas. Interesting facts include being the second most abundant gas in the universe (wikipedia) and having a multitude of uses beyond just powering your B-Day Party 
including powering the space shuttle. Unfortunately for the common person (you and me) we’ll probably feel this shortage as an increase in our daily ballon price. You can read more about this in the USA Today article [click here].
How exciting, the Keurig B-50 showed up at my doorstep today. I’ve been on the fence on this product for a couple years now. (yeah some things take me that long to get) Someone else actually sent this to me as a gift. I have to say it is as cool in my kitchen as it is in the GreenMountain catalog. One of the coolest upgrades over the first $500 model introduced a few years ago, is that the water tank now has a blue led and it just looks cool. One thing you would think someone would mention in a post or in a review (why I am) is that this thing is loud. If you have an espresso machine then you know the noise generated from the pump. All I have to say is this thing is louder than my espresso machine when its pumping water or frothing milk. Pros-
- Easy to setup and use (fill water, press a couple buttons. I will admit the directions were reversed in terms of button layout but that should not be cause for too much confusion)
- Simple to use. place coffee in basket, inset mug of choice and press a button
- Coffee is perfect temperature (the brochure says this but it really is true)
- Brews in a few seconds and only needs another 30 to make another cup of coffee. Heating from a cold start is only 3min long.
- No clean up!
- Great tasting coffee repeatedly
Cons-
- The coffee packs are designed for a smaller 7oz cup. If you make a mug size 8oz your coffee is a little watered down
- The coffee packs are plastic. I wish they could make these a little more environmentally friendly. This is one of the biggest reasons I never purchase don in the past. Keurig does include a reusable filter that you can place your own coffee in (the main reason i accepted the gift)
- Did I mention the noise?
- Cost of k-cups (you can bypass this by using your own coffee in the special adapter)
I’m running out of channels. Every year (well at least the last 3) it seems that my wireless router goes a little bonkers. This year I was sure it was Leopard wreaking havoc on my network. Basically, I’ll have my internet then at random times it will drop. Sometimes it will drop the just the wireless connection, other times its just the internet with the intranet working without problem. This year after doing a little research online, I’ve found that the best thing to was to change wireless channels (something other than the typical 6 or 11). I was a little hesitant as the higher channels travel seem to travel further even though they are a higher frequency (the opposite should be true). The lower channels seem to be less prone to interference from other routers (seemingly my problem) or other electronic devices. It’s now been a week since the modification and I am happy to report that the network has been smooth running. No more hiccups and life is back to pre-holiday surfing. Although I went with the lower end of the channel spectrum, I find that the signal quality has not suffered in my small home. So if you are having problems with connectivity to your wireless router, try changing the channel and try and pick one that is at the opposite end of the spectrum to that of your neighbors 
Read more »
Well it’s actually been 110 days but that didn’t sound right for a title. I’ve now experienced several system updates and had the pleasure of jailbreaking and loading 3rd party apps at one point. I can’t wait until next year to see what kind of apps get made once the SDK gets released. I wanted to just update you on, well my experience so far with the phone. I read a lot of reviews and listen to the haters and lovers alike. I think just like any phone available, there is no such thing as one size fits all. For me, this is as close as I have been able to get since Nokia introduced the 232. It’s the perfect form factor and weight that I have ever used.
