Chillax

KFC Chicken-bone Pot Pie

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I decided to try the KFC Chicken Pot Pie for lunch. Although it didn't taste too bad, It was very disappointing. One, it looks massive but one poke with the fork revealed it was mostly an air pocket. Two, there is no bottom crust. Can that even be called a pot pie? It had very little chicken and what was there looked like the last scraps from the bones. In fact there was a bone I almost choked on. KFC is not the KFC I grew up with. Shame.

Jordan River Flooding

Reunion Info

via mail.google.com

Converting a Windows Media Center (WMC) Recording (.wtv, .dvr-ms) For My iPhone (.mp4, .m4v)

I recorded my first TV show on my computer with Windows Media Center (WMC) on Windows 7. I have to say it’s pretty cool having DVR functionality back again after dropping DISH and going with ‘Over the Air’ HD TV. But then I wanted to put it on my iPhone, but how…

The easiest (free) way I’ve found so far is to navigate to the folder where WMC stores the file (C:\Users\Public\Public Recorded TV). Right-click on the file and on the chose the option to ‘convert to DVRMS’ (found this by accident). It’s a really fast conversion. Then I used HandBrake (currently version 9.5) with the iPhone preset to get it into my desired format. Then import that file into iTunes. Easy-peasy. The biggest plus is the file size went from 5.86GB (1hr HD) an episode to 1.03GB (iPh 3GS 480x272). I’ll be looking for an easy way to edit out the commercials. I’ll be testing out Live Movie Maker, but I bet someone has already found an easier more automated way.

Update: So, Microsoft's free Live Movie maker had no trouble importing the 5.86GB DVRMS file. You'll want to have knitting or some other form of mind numbing activity to do while you wait for the long preparing video phase. However when it was ready you can easily use the split video as you scroll through the video in the right pane by dragging the time bar around. I like getting the commercial segment to take up about two or three rows using the zoom in zoom out buttons. Then, after it is all split at the start and finish of each commercial segment, its a simple matter to delete them out. This cut out approximately 15 minutes. I saved the video with the 'Save Video - For Computer' setting (640x480) and it spit out a .wmv (1.44GB). I need to mess around and figure out the output dimensions which were obviously looking a bit more square. This time however I used a lower data rate (about 700kbps from the last time encode of 2150kbps) on handbrake to get the file size down to 232MB. The resulting video was visibly different from the first larger output and the colors look a bit more washed out, all the extra converting probably didn't help, but it was still plenty good enough to watch on my iPhone on the go. I think next time I'll go with the target output size in the video quality setting in Handbrake instead and shoot for around 350MB.

e-Absolution - Paying For Your Traffic Sins Online

I recently received a traffic violation for failure to stop at a stop sign. I’m pretty sure I stopped, so I don’t think I was guilty, but like everyone else I didn’t want to be bothered fighting it. So I proceeded to go online to look up the fine. I was blown away to find out it was 90 bucks! I saw that I also had the option of going to “traffic school” to keep it off my record. This is nothing new. I think it was like 85 bucks in addition to the 90 dollar fine. But what shocked me was they now are offering an online version for a mere 100 bucks you can wipe away your traffic transgression from the comfort and convenience of your own home. $190 bucks, for a stop sign violation! And they don’t even have to provide an instructor for this money making machine. This was an injustice and I opted to have my day in court more to make a statement that they were going to have to work to steal 90 bucks out of my pocket. I ended up getting it reduced to $50 by taking a deal and pleading no contest. To conclude, I believe the system is broken for the following reasons. One, the poor police shouldn’t have a ticket quota which encourages ticky-tacky tickets. Two, it shouldn’t pay for their salaries this also encourages ticky-tacky tickets. Three fines should be proportional to the offence. I don’t think I damaged society $190 bucks for my alleged rolling stop. Four, I think that I should be “innocent until proven guilty” just like a normal criminal case. I would’ve like to see some evidence beyond the cop saying I did wrong when the result goes to pay his salary and meet a quota. Five, “traffic school” is a joke, and they should call it was it really is… Extortion. Just another way to get money by threatening put the ticket on our record which would increase our insurance premiums unless we pay up.

Why Google Can’t I Sync My Tasks

Am I the only one that would really really like to be able to sync my tasks with due dates like a calendar to my iphone? Really how hard would that be?

Help Syncing a massive library of Books in iTunes 10

So I added my entire library of eBooks to iTunes 10 with the desire to sync a few of them to iBooks on my iPhone. It just so happens that iTunes adds them all checked. Which means if your sync is on and you don't have much space you can go way over. So I start unchecking them one by one and it is taking forever. Here is the fix, uncheck the sync books in the books tab. Ahh, now I have my space back back on my device for syncing but that doesn't solve problem. Now go back to your iTunes Library under books and manually drag a book or two into your device. Magic! they sync over manually. However, even better you'll notice that when you go back to the sync books page on your in devices you'll notice that "Sync Books" is turned back on and only the books you manually synced are checked. Yea!

New Logo for our Tracking Program at work. I kinda like it.

More on Twitter, Facebook, and Buzz

It wasn’t long ago I was thinking Facebook was a pretty good idea. Now I’m thinking it’s not Facebook at all, its having all my friends and family using the same social service. I have been increasingly concerned about privacy on Facebook. But I guess they aren’t the only one collecting data on our internet activity. I would like to dump Facebook (mostly because I hate all the quizzes and apps like Farmville) but I can’t seem to leave until everyone else does. Twitter is pretty cool still but it has become more of a news and current events feed for me. I haven’t posted there much recently. I’ve come to hate tweets with a link and no content or those full of hash tags. Now, along comes Google with their new Buzz right in my email. I wish they hadn’t totally screwed up the launch because It seems to be the right amount of Facebook and Twitter mix I’ve been looking for. I think it needs its own method of easily posting videos (just figured out pics upload) rather than linking to other services. Linking to other services is cool but needs to be much faster. I posted a tweet and it showed up 12 hrs later in my Buzz feed. I’d really like to see a Facebook link to my friends status updates in buzz. And if I could could have a Facebook app update my status from Buzz I’d never have to log into Farmbook again. I could live like a e-agoraphobic comfortably within my gmail page. Crossing my fingers it will survive.

Hung up on Twitter and Facebook

It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. Twitter and Facebook have taken over for the majority of any online posting I do. Does anyone write or read these blogs anymore? I wonder if there was a good integrated app on my iPhone if I would post more. In fact, the only reason why I’m posting to my blog right now is because I finally gave in and installed the Windows Live suite which has the Window Live Writer blogging program. Honestly, I do know a few bloggers that are still active but they seem to be more of an electronic scrapbook for friends and family.

Disable slow iTunes backup (Mac and Windows)

http://klauskjeldsen.dk/2008/08/05/iphone-3g-disable-slow-itunes-backup-mac-and-windows/

Sent from my iPhone

Qik & the iPhone Woes

I've been playing around with the iPhone. Um, or rather, it's been playing me with crashing apps. I tried deleting them off the iPhone but these crashing Zombie Apps just wouldn't die. As soon I turned the iPhone off and on again, there they were again, minus one or two. So you can imagine with my addictive collection of nearly 100 apps that it took quite a while to kill all these apps one or two at a time. I tried readding them both from the phone and also all over again from iTunes. No good, still infected with the Zombie DNA. I think there is a problem with the apple DRM on the iPhone not playing nice with the DRM on iTunes. It seems like mixing app downloads and update using both iTunes and the iPhone app stores causes problems. I am pretty sure this has been the source of my problems, with perhaps a bit of operator malfunction. I managed to jailbreak my iPhone using Quickpwn and none of those apps seem to have any problems while ALL of my other apps were crashing second after starting. Anyway, I finally gave up and did a full factory reset, scraped all my apps in iTunes, and started fresh. After everything was working I did another quick jailbreak. Why? The only thing there that I really really want is an app called Qik. It allows streaming video from the iPhone live to the Internet. Apple has said no for some lame reason to video on the iPhone. Come on Apple get your head out... I almost thought Apple understood. Anyway, so now you'll see my Qik videos (and live feed when it's up) at the bottom of my blog. There are a couple of other things that seemed neat but not worth the risk of destabilizing my feeble iPhone again. Most of the cool apps seem to be MIA after the 2.0 update. I guess they are trying to redevelope their apps for the iTunes App Store. Oh dear... I feel another rant coming on about Lamers remaking once free jailbreak apps into for profit apps on iTunes.

Goaltime Rocks and keeps me on task

Every once and a while you come across something that just works for you. Goaltime is one of those things for me. http://ping.fm/52wiK

REVIEW: Garmin Colorado 400T
First the negative, so I can finish on positive note. It's a bit pricey in my opinion for what you get (just under 500 on Amazon). I agree with comments on the chrome-like finish (not impressive). I am not going to test the waterproof claim, as I am skeptical after looking at it (maybe light rain). The built in base map seems incomplete at the street level and they are often not very accurate. Of course the "T" (topo?) model's claim to greatness is the built in DEM (elevations) plus 3d view. Yes, it's interesting when you are around a mountain, but not so much zoomed in on a flat area.
Documentation seems weak in areas. For example, I'm wondering if I can somehow use my own maps on the 4gb external SD card I picked up at costco for 35 bucks. 4GB is really overkill for just storing geocaches as the max the unit can handle at once before droping the rest is 2000 caches (in addition to the 1000 waypoints). I found this out the hard way. I'd like to be able to switch to different directories on the fly from the unit rather than switching the gpx files out at the computer or using different SD cards. What am I going to do with that extra 3.9GBs (unless I buy their routable street maps)? While I'm on that, the base map doesn't seem routable if you want to navigate in a car (unless you make your own route from your own waypoints). I wish I could hook up my iPhone manage and download maps and waypoints/geocaches/POIs out in the wild.
It seems to take forever to load at startup (but maybe that's because I am almost maxing out the number of waypoints/geocaches). Another thing, it sometimes takes a long time to aquire a good signal and the other day it had a hard time giving an accurate/constant fix in some trees on a recent geocache hunt. At other times it seem really steady and spot on. I'm undecided on this point.
That all being said it is still a great GPSr (the best I've had so far). It is small, light, and feels good in the hand. I really love it for paperless geocaching. It is really easy to transfer data to the unit and SD card. I really like the integration to the geocaching website for downloading caches and uploading finds. Having a built in digital compass is really great for geocaching. I just feel silly spining around twice to calibrate it when I want to use it.
I haven't tried the new integrated "WhereIGo" adventures but that seems to have potential. I looked into building an adventure for my area but the current builder software seems really complex to do it right. I think I'll wait until they simplify the process a bit more (more GUI to the GUI).
I don't know anyone else with a Colorado yet but I like the idea of being able to transfer items to another unit wirelessly. I'm sure there are tons more this unit can do that I just haven't had time to get into. Would I buy again? Yes, it is really great for a geocacher or hiker (me). Can they improve it? Yes, hopefully with software updates to come (crossing my fingers)...

Trying out Plaxo. I'm not sure I quite get it yet. Looks Like another Facebook only linking all your web stuff into one place. (copy from Pownce feed)

I survived the Red Ring of Death!

I had a panic attack the other day. I had just come back from Target with two new xBox360 games. After lovingly removing the infernal shrink wrap and security stickers. I hit the power button and was greeted with... nothing! I looked down and to my horror the red ring of death. In a panic I started digging through the documentation I had saved for the receipt and a service phone number.... ok I'll get straight to it. It turns out that my wife had unplugged the power brick for one reason or another (it must retain some power) and upon plugging it back in, I was back in the green. *sigh* So, in conclusion, my brief life and death struggle made me realize that Microsoft has not made it easy to get customer support. I hope it never happens again.

I Digg Firefox 3

I keep on trying to use IE7. I've come to the conclusion that while they have come a long way, they just don't understand. I want my browser to do what I want it to do, not what they think I want it to do. I want to make it look how I want. I want easy add-ons. In fact, since no one who writes good add-ons uses IE7, I want IE7 to be able to use firefox add-ons! I love my ad blocker, script blocker (noscript), and cookie blocker (CS Lite). I tried the IE7pro add-on for IE7. It kind of did some of those things. I ended up uninstalling it because it broke more than it fixed.

Pownce & Click2Voice

There are two really cool things I've stumbled upon recently that I wanted to share.
1st, Pownce.com (goto my public page at http://pownce.com/Gadzooks/) which is similar to twitter if you are familiar with that latest craze, only better. If you've never heard of either, think of it like an instant messenger/bulletin board to the world. Pownce takes it a step further and allows your posts to be sent to the world (those that care to look), to groups of friends, or someone specific (like a IM). Plus it has a variety of posts available (messages, links, files! and events).
2nd, Click2Voice [http://click2voice.com] which acts as an operator for your normal phone calls. you put in two numbers, say your home number and your friends home number, & click the big friendly green call button and the service calls each one (your's first) and connects you. What's cool about that. since both phones calls are incoming, no one gets the charge (say goodbye to long distance bills). There is also a cool script for grease monkey that turn phone numbers you see in your browser into quick click2voice links (really cool for webmail that has signatures that include a phone number).

Firefox 2 - The Return

Ok, I can say I've tried them all now. Well not quite all, but the major players (excluding the Mac one of course). Opera is definately top notch, but I missed the look and feel of firefox and my firefox extensions. I gave IE7 betas, release candidates, and final a fair shake and must say they have come a long way. It still feels clumsy. When are they going to understand that I want an integrated ad blocker or at least integrated 3rd party plugins like firefox. I want to be able to control what I see and do it by clicking on the site I'm on.  I don't want to have to dig around the options and manually add everything to the restricted sites list. I like what they have done with the  custom search engine generator. So, I've come back to firefox and really dig the new on the fly spell checker especially when doing webmail.  I also really like the latest del.icio.us bookmarks plugin and clipmarks looks promising. Tags are definately superior to bookmarks after you get use to them and having them wherever I go using the Delicioius Bookmarks plugin is sweet. I have also recently discovered the Firefox Extension Backup Extension (or FEBE).  Finally my firefox can be exactly the same at home and the office. Some other must haves in my opinion are Adblock Plus and sidekick Adblock Filterset.G Updater, NoScript, Greasemonkey, and IE Tab just for the occasional backward website. Some other optional cool ones that I like are VideoDownloader, Viamatic FoXpose, StumbledUpon, Scrapbook (might be replaced with Clipmarks), Preformancing (for blogging), PDF Downloader, Mouse Gestures, and Download Statusbar.  I hope TorPark updates to v2.0 soon for the extra bit of anonimity.

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