Coming Soon
Hey… I have a blog. Yeah, I didn’t forget it… but it certainly does look like I did. However, a new look, new content, and hopefully a new attitude, will be coming this way… uh… soon. I’ve got a lot of plans for it… just have to get to those darn details.
Android Test
Testing out WP ToGo, so I can blog on the go from Disney. If you are reading this, then everything worked and I am all set.
What you like to do
I have always been lucky in that for the most part I have been able to work doing things that I enjoy doing. Sometimes it meant getting paid for what I do, other times it meant doing it for fun. Back in the late 90’s I did a website based on vacationing at the Jersey Shore, purely as a project of love. As the world of blogging took over my focus, I had given up on the venture promising on day to return to it, and possibly reinvent it as a vaction blog of where to go and what to do when on vacation in New Jersey.
Imagine my surprise, when Whit provided me with the opportunity to do it as part of a project on a much grander scale. Anyway, due to some slip ups, I am only getting started, but I will be joining a band of most excellent bloggers (check out the About Us page for the list of stars I will be trying to live up to) , writing at UpTake.com.
Yesterday was actually the official launch, and you can check out the official launch of their Travel Network Blog. For those that like read such things, there is even an official press release of the launch event (that I missed), for everybody else, just go and check out everything they have to offer, because with real reviews and blogs written by real people and not, say… imaginary gnomes, UpTake is … Your first Step to a Great Trip.
TechParent Tuesday: Living in the Cloud
I have been planning for quite some time now to bring back TechParent Tuesday, but I wanted to do something a little more focused than the radom reviews that I had been doing previously. Now, unless you have been living under a rock for the past year or so, I am sure you are aware or have at least heard of using “the cloud” for your computing, the theory that the OS is becoming irrelevant and that everything you do is or will be available on the web.
This concept in not new. In days past, when companies like Sun Micrososystems were touting, “The network is the computer” and Netscape that was talking about a BrowserOS, the idea was half baked. We didn’t have the tools or the abilities yet actually have a full rewarding experience without the underlying OS doing the heavy lifting. If you wanted to do “web e-mail” sure many of the same players, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc were around, but you got 2MB of storage, and a slow interface that had to refresh with every click. Tolerable, but certainly not what you would want to live your life in. There were also many pieces of the puzzle still missing, so while you could do some things online, you could not do everything.
When the first netbooks started appearing last year, the message that these computer makers were trying to send is that, at least for casual everyday use, that now the web is ready. Most people are still skeptical, as is shown by how the netbook market has already changed. The first machines offered you about 2GB of storage, the theory being that you would only install what you needed to get to where you wanted to go and possibly some other small add-ons like an IM client. Now most machines come with at least 100 GB of storage (because even if you want to live in the cloud, there are just some times unless you have the money to have an aircard from a wireless carrier installed, you will need SOME stuff to work when you are not connected).
I am going to take my Asus eeePC, and for my personal life and work test out this theory and see if and how well I can live life in the cloud. At least initially, my only offline access will be provided through Google Gears. So I will use GMail for mail (which I had been mostly doing anyway) and importing the mail from my other accounts rather than turning to Microsoft Outlook. I will start out with Google Docs (since it can use Gears as well) for all my documents, spreadsheets, etc. Though I will test out some of the other online document creation tools as well. Meebo will serve as my IM client. Photoshop Express or Aviary will become my image editors, and well… I think you get the idea. No local applications installed. If I really start missing interacting with a desktop, I will give DesktopTwo a whirl again (but I wasn’t that thrilled with it the first time around).
So wish me luck, this is as close to “roughing it” as I care to get these days. I will report back on how these and any other living in the cloud apps work. If you have suggestions of products or sites you think I should try out, then by all means let me know.
Monday Morning Analyis
Oh, everybody and their brother will dissect this Superbowl game a million different ways. While it was certainly an entertaining and exciting game, I just had no emotional interest in the game. (IF there was a way for Warner and Roethlisberger to both lose, then perhaps I would have had something to root for.) No, rather I am taking a look at what was true interest… the commercials.
The Superbowl is sadly (I think) the one time that advertisers (normally) pull out all the stops to try and make an impression or kick off a new ad campaign, or to try and create some buzz for themselves. Some, like the Budweiser Frogs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS5ZB1gBTEk) become so popular, they become industries unto themselves, or like the Budweier “Wassaup” commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L38wthA4Ld0) forever change us, as there are still people that yell “Wassup” though I suspect some of them have no idea why. This year, I thought was the most pathetic set of commercials since the onslaught of bad “DotCom” commercials, like this idiotic one from E*trade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnQMq5wtZcg).
So what were some of the hits and misses in the house of the Triple Venti Latte?
The best of the mediocre bunch
I liked the Coke Zero ad. Though, I thought it would have been better if Coke had dusted off the original commercial with Mean Joe Greene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc0izCGKxP8) earlier in the game. I can’t help but wonder how many people didn’t get the reference and thus probably found that commercial far less entertaining.
The 3-D ads were popular with LatteGirl, who originally had no interest in seeming Monsters vs. Aliens. I thought the Sobe commercial was the best of the first half, but that was not a tough hurdle this year. That is not to say it was a good ad, it certainly didn’t inspire me to drink Sobe products, but it was interesting. Overall, and probably not suprisingly, it was very difficult for these ads to live up to their hype.
I liked the Pedigree ad for adopting dogs. But unless I read this a year from now, I doubt I will remember it.
The Alec Baldwin ad was good for Hulu, though again in better years it would have rated as forgettable, this year however, it had little competition.
The same is true for 2 the Bud commercials. The Clydesdale “fetching” a tree, and the one going across the world (to the tune of “Ain’t no mountain high enough”) held my attention and even got a snicker.
Almost
There were a couple of ads that could have been winners. The ads were amusing, but I can’t now remember the brands or products they were selling, so considering that, was it worth it?
Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head had me laughing, the wife glaring and LatteGirl trying to decipher why we had such different takes on the commercial. But what were they selling? I honestly can’t remember.
The talking flowers in the box was amusing and made a nice point about getting the message across properly, but I can’t remember which flower service it was hawking.
The bombs were numerous.
GoDaddy, like the BudBowl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR3iiiBsxYE), they had an angle once… years ago, but have grown so boring and predictable, they are almost painful to watch. Side note, does Danica Patrick expect anybody to take her seriously any more?
Personally, I thought the absolute worst was the “PepSuba” ad from Pepsi. To me, this might as well have just been an ad for Coke. What was the message here, that Pepsi drinkers are too stupid to realize they should stop drinking their soda long enough to not die in an explosion? There is a longer version supposedly available online, but I am not inclined to go find it.
A genius can’t buy a car without cars.com. The message here? I guess is stop spending so much time online and get some social skills, which of course is counter-productive to a dot.com.
I know some people liked it (mostly seemingly for the desire to punch a Koala), but the careerbuilder.com commerical reminds me why I love my Tivo so much. This was just painful to watch after several iterations. I think they could have had a bigger “hit” if they stuck to punching the Koala.
I could go on, but it only gets worse from here. So tell me… what did you think were the big hits (and misses) of this years Superbowl ads?
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