September 11, 2005
Review of Napster Premium
They tell you that you can download as many of the 1,000,000 songs that they have available. What they don't tell you is that all of the 1,000,000 songs suck. I signed up for a one month trial. I logged in and every single one of the songs that I wanted to download were not available for free. Every single song that I wanted to download cost me an additional 99 cents. I immediately cancelled my subscription and asked for my money back.
Review Rating: 2 out of 10
The only reason that they got a two was it was easy to navigate and rather easy to cancel a subscription. Besides that the whole service sucks.
There new ad campaign should be -
If you like a lot of crappy music pay 14.95 and you can get your fill.
Posted by Rex at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
I don't know how they do it, but I love it!
Yesterday my friend Matt introduced my to woot.com. Woot.com is a online store that sells just one product a day. They buy at wholesale and then sell that product at very very low prices for just 24hrs. They release the product for sale at midnight, then sell it either for 24hrs or until they sell out. I am a fan. Click here for the RSS feed for products.
Rex
Posted by Rex at 03:25 PM | Comments (1)
December 09, 2004
WiFi Co-op, let the world unite
I suggest that we start a WiFi co-op. People with WiFi hotspots that exchange Mac Addresses allowing others to use their internet access in one location in exchange for internet access at their location. Imagine a world in which you have access to the internet at you house, which gives you access to the internet virtually everywhere. By making it an exchange there is no free riding problem. You must open your access point in order to enter the co-op.
There are various technology hurdles one must overcome. A list of available Mac addresses must be created. Another point is that a program must be created in order to automatically update the routers with the new mac addresses. Another possibility would be to create a map and search directory of all of the participating access points in the co-op. Then when you need or know that you will need internet you log-in and search the available addresses of the access points. Then you would contact the administrator of those access points and give them your MAC number. That way when you need the internet you will have access to it. Everything will be user monitored so people who don't obey the community rules will be banned.
All that is needed is a database structure that will map out the available access points and administrator contact info. This also requires someone with enough free time and resources to do this.
Comments?
Posted by Rex at 06:45 AM | Comments (2)
December 06, 2004
Tivo - Being Lazy, Just got Easier
I must admit that TiVo makes being lazy, well easy. Thanks to Tivo I can skip commercials and watch more shows. The problem is that I have to be a little less lazy to make this work. I have to watch TV and when a commercial pops up, lean up press the remote and then watch for the end of the commercials and hit play again. This is a lot of work, since I am used to just sitting there and waiting. Lately this is the most exercise that I am getting besides the normal 12oz curls. Tivo makes me more productive. I now watch 25 hours of TV in just under 15 hours. Now that is quite productive. I mean I could spend 15 hours studying, cleaning, maybe doing laundry, but watching 25 hours of TV that kicks ass. Plus I can pause tivo to go to the bathroom and get my pizza from the delivery guy. How cool is that. I must admit, I love TiVo.
Posted by Rex at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
November 30, 2004
Facial Recognition Software - The Ultimate Pick-Up Tool
With the holiday season comes lots of TV watching. I have been watching Las Vegas, and in almost every show they use facial recognition software. The software is pretty cool. It uses complex algorithms to encode a person's face. Then using the data from the algorithms it searches for matches. How cool is that. I wish that I could have a pair of glasses that linked wirelessly to a computer to help me with the names of women that I meet at a bar.
How cool would that be? You are at a bar, a woman approaches and starts to talk. Your glasses are already searching and then her name appears with the contents of your last conversation. That would be the ultimate tool for picking up the ladies. Using bluetooth technology, the computing power of a PDA, and some ingenious algorithms, this could all be true. I would purchase the system if I could. That would be awesome.
Does anybody out there know of anything like this. I am going to have to research this.
Posted by Rex at 04:27 PM | Comments (1)
November 18, 2004
Online Banking
I find the ease of online banking quite disturbing. It is so easy and I can do almost anything with my money once I am logged in. When thinking about it, is the ease worth it? I am unsure about it.
Once logged in to the account you can view written checks to view account numbers, routing numbers, account balances and even signature samples. Can this information lead to increased identity theft? The only thing stopping a person from the vast knowledge of information contained in my online bank account is a simple password. Getting a persons' password is extremely easy. It can be done with key logging programs, spyware, guessing or even as simple as looking over someone's shoulder.
As uneasy as I am about online banking, all of the information that is online is accessible to anyone that you write a check to. You don't think about it, but that shady cashier at the drug store handles the information that could ruin your credit history all of the time. Heck, every check that you send in the mail is subject to a security risk. The internet is not helping out either. Most websites will allow you to put in your checking information instead of using a credit card. Once you have the account number and the routing number you can use someone's checking account just like a credit card.
I really do like to be able to check my balance at any time, I also like the fact that I can see when checks have cleared. I also like that fact that the bank doesn't return all of the old checks anymore. When thinking about it, I believe that online banking is safer than writing a check.
Posted by Rex at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2004
Google Adsense
I am currently trying out google adsense and it is really cool. You can customize the look and feel of the ads, along with getting targeted content. We will see how it works out for the Rex Blog. I must admit that google is one of the hottest companies out there. I wish that I got in on the IPO.
Posted by Rex at 10:43 AM | Comments (2)
November 14, 2004
Free Legitimate IPODS
My friend Matt sent me a link to a site which offers free IPODs. I know what you are thinking this can not be true. Here is the link. http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=11890374
This site actually works!!! So, sign up!! Also, contrary to popular
belief, you won't get junk mail; I signed up using my account and
have received no junk mail whatsoever. Matt says that Gmail accounts work, but hotmail accounts do not. I would look into that.
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=11890374
Here are the steps to getting you free IPOD.
Step1: Use this link: http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=11890374 and Sign up
Step 2: Complete one deal like the Blockbuster 2 week trial or the Real Rhapsody music store which I signed up for(and then
quit after two weeks -- no charge then)
Step 3: Refer 5 friends (and then get them to do the free trial)
Step 4: You get your ipod.
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=11890374
Posted by Rex at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
Google has invaded my desktop why not replace my Browser
After an interesting article on slashdot I did a little investigating into the alleged google browser. It is true that Google has registered gbrowser.com. Is Google going to go after Uncle Bill and his beloved Internet Explorer. Google has already shown that it is far superior to Uncle Billy, when it comes to searching his operating system. From the rumors, Google is teaming up with mozilla firefox, to create a google branded browser. I already believe that firefox is superior to IE, but with the brains at Google this could be one hell of a fight. I would love to see the evil empire be taken over.
As more news and rumors become available I will post them for all to read. The war between Google and Uncle Bill continues...
Posted by Rex at 01:10 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2004
Shatner says beam me up!
William Shatner has signed up to take a trip into space with Richard Branson. Shatner is a tech icon. The man also has a new hit show Boston Legal, which by the way is hard to watch as the court scenes allow way too much hearsay. I would like to thank Professor Blinka for teaching me the ways of Federal Evidence Law. The class is helpful, but it has ruined my TV experiences as all I do is shout hearsay. Back to Boston Legal. The show is quite funny, but some of the scenes are quite unrealistic. Hopefully Shatner makes it back from space as there are millions of trekies that will miss him at the annual conventions, which I am glad to say that I have never attended.
Posted by Rex at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
Google Me, I don't think so!
After looking over Google desktop Search I am very skeptical about the information that the are collecting. They have a unique application number that is associated with each copy of the software. Using that number (which by the way can not be disabled) they track how you use the software. This is quite an invasion of privacy. I have attached the link to the Google Privacy Policy below.
http://desktop.google.com/privacypolicy.html
Google is one of the best things that has ever happened to the internet, but my hard drive is sacred and I am not willing to give them access to my computer just yet.
Posted by Rex at 04:03 PM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2004
Tainted Fuel in Milwaukee?
There is an increased amount of fuel injectors failing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Many believe that it is reformulated fuel problem. Milwaukee reformulates its fuel with ethanol to make it cleaner burning. Is this reformulation causing the problems?
Below is a link to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal that discusses the fuel injector problem. http://www.jsonline.com/news/gen/oct04/268069.asp
Posted by Rex at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)