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In: Web
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I noticed a weird charge on my credit card from “Mnesvc Inc Seattle” on 9/1. I initially thought it was a fradulent charge, but it was for less than $2, so I was a little confused. After a little more research, I found that Mnesvc is really Amazon.com and this is how they are now billing their monthly Amazon Web Services, such as S3 backup. Why they made this change, I don’t know, but it probably signals a move to integrate TextPayMe in some fashion. I just wish they had provided me with a more clear warning of what to expect on my credit cardRead More →

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In: Tech

If you’re like me, you probably registered a few extra domain names over the years and never got a chance to do anything with them. They just sit there and you keep paying annual renewal fees. While renewing one such domain name, I noticed that GoDaddy.com now offers a service that they call Cash Parking.  I decided to give it a try to see if I could at least get these domain names to pay for their own registration fees. Looking at the example GoDoddy shows, it appeared that a domain would easily be able to pay for itself. With any luck, my domains shouldRead More →

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In: Web
With: 8 Comments

As you know, my wife and I just welcomed a little girl into our family. Our families ares hounding us for photos on a daily basis so I set out on a quest to find the best way to share with them our digital photos. Here is what I found. RAW Image Support I have a Nikon D40 D-SLR and shoot all of my pictures in RAW (*.NEF) format. I do this because the RAW / NEF format offers much, much more flexibility; you can almost re-shoot the picture if you edit it with the Nikon NX software. Anyway, I was hoping to find aRead More →

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In: Web
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Despite being around for years, RSS and Atom web feeds have managed to stay below the mainstream radar; a quick poll of my tech-savvy friends proved this to be the case. This article explains what web feeds are, why you care, and how best to take advantage of them. What are web feeds? According to Wikipedia: A web feed is a data format used for serving users frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation. What’s the Benefit? The benefit to the userRead More →

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In: Wordpress
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My long-time friend Bryan recently described me as “a person who will spend a lot of money on some new electronic gadget and then take it apart before he even uses it.” He’s right; I can’t help myself. I want to make everything “better.” This has extended into the use WordPress Plugins on my site. I’m always looking to add something new and my plugin count has increased to nearly 40. But the list has grown large and I’ve started to debate the usefulness of several of them. I then receive an e-mail from a native Dutch speaker by the name of Ilse, who reverse-translatedRead More →

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In: Reviews
With: 85 Comments

I’m gleefully excited to have just completed my order for a brand new Lenovo Thinkpad T61 laptop. I’ve been a huge fan since my first Thinkpad 600 in 1999, followed by a T20 in 2001, and a T30 in 2003. They are extremely solid, well supported premium notebooks and are well worth the extra investment versus lesser hardware. Better yet, they were provided by work, so I didn’t have to buy one. Unfortunately, my employer switched to Dell and I’ve been stuck with the mandated Dell D620 for the past year. I’ve gotten used to it, but it’s no Thinkpad. I re-tasked my current desktopRead More →

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In: Web
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After reading an informative post by Paul Stamatiou on blog traffic, I decided to join Technorati and see what it has to offer. Truthfully, I didn’t even know that it offered user accounts and statistics, but it apparently it does. Anyway, to get things started, here is a link to my Technorati Profile.Read More →

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In: Web
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I recently discovered that X10 Wireless Technologies Inc was trying to post false customer testimonials on my site. Upon further investigation, I also discovered that they “The X10 Gang” has been trying to game Digg.com as well.I found 8 users that I believed to be part of The X10 Gang. I looked-up the Digg and Submission history for these users and found 25 total stories. Of these 25 stroies, 23 either pointed to an X10 website or to a story about X10. These users only dugg stories submitted by one another — but didn’t digg any submissions by any other users. Furthermore, there are twoRead More →

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In: Wordpress
With: 1 Comment

I think Ultimate Tag Warrior is one of the most useful WordPress plugins available for Serach Engine Optimization. For those who are familiar, it allows authors to add descriptive tags (keywords), helping search engines categorize the content and ultimately increasing site traffic. This feature is so useful that there are a bunch of people who believe it should be incorporated into the core of WordPress. Unfortunately, to be so popular, I find it surprising that the two latest versions are causing serious problems with the WordPress search feature. Versions 3.1415926 and 3.14159265 have incorrect table joins in the search function. So, if a post (orRead More →

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In: Home Theater
With: 10 Comments

Let’s face it, the thermostat that is installed by default in most dwellings is pretty basic. If you have a digital display that’s the “upgraded” version; and all it does is replicate the functionality of the old rudimentary mercury switch / rotary knob designs. An advanced thermostat with scheduling features can save quite a bit on your energy bill, but can also be an interesting gadget to occupy your time. Since my energy company is offering a rebate for anyone who upgrades to a scheduling thermostat, I decided to pull the trigger. The features I identified as necessary for a new thermostat are: Scheduling ofRead More →