Paul T Cottey's blog

Have you looked at g**gle’s home page today?  It is dressed up like some cheap strumpet or tarted up like some cheap floozy or, well, you get the idea.  Instead of being presented a simple, fast-loading, easy to use interface, it now looks like bing or maybe prodigy.  In a word:  Ick.

It turns out there is no way short of staying logged in to set the main page back to a blank page.  Maybe g**gle’s idea is to generate buzz, and maybe I have fallen into that trap, however, I am now starting a process of picking a new default search engine.  Hey, g**gle guys, when you put it back the way it was, drop me an email or a tweet and I’ll consider switching back.  Don’t wait too long, because I am sure to find a new favorite soon.  Have a nice day.

UPDATE:  I had only changed to a different search engine in one of my browsers, so when I opened the other, google still opened.  When it did, it was back with the standard mostly-blank page.  I’ll see if it stays that way.  I did not get a note from the google guys tells me they were sorry or anything, but since they changed back before I could get committed to a new browser, they may have kept my business but burned goodwill.

I haven’t updated this in a while, and it turns out there is only one change, the swapping of iTunes for WorldCard, but I figured I would re-post this.  Subsequent pages certainly change, but it is interesting that the apps I use the most found stability within a short period of time after converting to an iPhone.  Here they are:

What's on front

What am I missing that is on your front-page?

I looked at the large stack, actually stacks, of business cards in my desk drawer today and figured I should type them into my contacts.  Then I thought that maybe there was a nice $20 business card reader that would do it for me.  A little googling, however, pointed out a lot of $200 business card readers, but no $20 ones.

However, the kind folks at MacWorld had reviewed a number of iPhone apps that take a picture of a business card, OCR it, and export the results as a contact.  WorldCard Mobile available at the Apple Store for $5.99 was my choice, and it was a good one!

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I realized today that I walk at 120 steps a minute. (The Jaywalk-o-meter(tm) timed me at two steps a minute. Thanks for asking.) So I did the math at three feet per step and figured out I walk at 4.09 miles per hour. Just thought you might want to know…

I went out yesterday and bought the AT&T Microcell 3G.

3G Microcell

What the microcell does is route calls over broadband instead of directly over the cellular network.  Essentially it fills in for the fact that AT&T has never been able to get coverage at my house despite line of sight to multiple cell towers.  It annoys me more than a little that I have to spend money to fill in for gaps in AT&T’s network (Slogan:  ”No Bars in More Places”), but it is better than seeing “No Service” on my phone all the time.

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I was thinking about all the things that I think I know about recording media which simply don’t matter anymore (assuming they once did), and I figured I would list them here:

1. 5 1/4″ floppy disks used to be expensive (remember Elephant Memory Systems brand?) so it was possible to take a hole-punch and make both sides of the disk usable by removing what essentially was a write-protect tab from the plastic casing.  You still had to physically take the diskette out and flip it over to use the other side.

1b. If you screwed up with the hole punch, you had a lovely coaster.

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It was not a tough assignment:  Turn a $100 American Express gift card into a $100 iTunes gift card.

Round 1 went to American Express:  Because the gift card was not registered with an address, it could not be used successfully on-line.  When presented to the Apple Store, Apple tried to validate it, did not find an address on file (it’s a gift card after all), put a $1 hold on the card anyway, and then dutifully reported Amex’s rejection.  It takes until the 8th day for the $1 hold to clear.  Amex gets to keep the money another week, interest-free.  I call Amex, register the card, and wait a week.  Fast-forward to 8 days later.

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As of today, the University of Illinois has an unprecedented $436 million in unpaid state invoices.  University leaders have implemented a mandatory furlough, a hiring freeze, and a commission to review cutting administrative costs.  However, without additional state funding, the core mission of educating the UI’s 71,000+ students will be in jeopardy.  This is because the State of Illinois owes the University money, but hasn’t paid it.

I sent a letter to my representatives, State Representative Will Burns (repwillburns@att.net) and State Senator Kwame Raoul (raoulstaff@gmail.com or nsolomon@senatedem.ilga.gov), asking them to honor our commitments to the University.  Write your representatives too.  If you don’t know who represents you, look here.

Thanks!

I seem to return to this theme repeatedly:  Connectivity in the air.  Maybe it is because it is still new, and therefore interesting, or maybe I just think it is nice not to land with 27 messages queued up to go out and another 100 ready to come in.  I don’t know.

Nonetheless, GoGo Inflight is offering chances until the end of February to win free or discounted service with them.  Follow this link GoGo for a chance to win.  You may play every day, and it looks like you may play as often as you’d like.

Good luck!