I am a Republican, but…
Posted on January 30, 2010
Filed Under Politics
I hardly ever go Political on this blog, and for the most part I will try to keep from promoting one side or the other in this post, other than to say I like Obama. That’s right. I am a Republican and I like the man and am glad he is the leader of our Country.
I know that won’t be popular with most of my Republican brethren, but then again I don’t really care. I am a Republican mainly because they side with my Religious beliefs, Environmental issues, and Capitalistic ideas. That may not be your American dream, but it is mine.
President Obama doesn’t “check every box” in my list of requirements of the ideal President. Sorry if this offends you, but I wish he wouldn’t side with the gay rights community. Don’t get me wrong, I believe every human being should be treated equally and with respect, but from my standpoint that is more of a moral issue than it is about equality. I don’t like his ideas about abortion either. I think the legalization of abortion is the biggest travesty that our Nation has ever perpetrated.
With those strong differences it would seem that I could not stand the man, and if you think the respect I have for him has come lightly you are wrong. Idealistically I wish he was everything that I wanted him to be. Unfortunately we don’t live in that world. I love and respect my wife, my children, my parents, my family, and myself despite shortcomings and beliefs, and I would dare to say that most other people feel the same about the people in their lives. So, why do we put these idealistic goggles on when we look at our Political leaders?
I loathe the attitude that someone is different from us and therefore we, and our group, are obviously superior and the other side and their leader must be evil incarnate. I loathe the blind, ignorant criticism that both sides spit out. Have we regressed into a Country that labels everyone and every group without actually listening to what they have to say?
I am not saying we should not question each others ideas, and even have the right to disagree with those ideas, but we have to be careful about what we say, and how we treat each other in light of those disagreements.
So why do I like Obama? He’s the first President other than maybe Reagan that I actually have confidence in. The man is wicked smart, and I believe he means what he says. I believe he genuinely cares about the American people and their plight. I believe if most Americans would take those idealistic goggles off and listen to him that they would be inspired, and that they would have hope. I believe they would see an imperfect man simply striving to make our Country better.
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Display any RSS Feed as HTML
Posted on January 16, 2010
Filed Under Internet
Ever since RSS feeds came out I have wanted to be able to pull those feeds in and display them on some of my websites. I have tried many different ways but never came up with a viable solution. A week or so ago I ran across this free script RSS2HTML.
RSS2HTML is a php script that you upload to your server. It pulls your feed in and gives you the code to display that feed on any website. It allows you to choose what parts of the feed elements to display, as well as how many entries you would like to display from the feed.
I didn’t want to be pulling the feed every time that particular page loaded though, so I needed to find some kind of cache script. RSS2HTML has a cache script but you have to pay for it. I am a cheapo so that wasn’t an option for me. After a few google searches I found an old PHP cache script that fit the bill. It worked, but it was really slow to load. The script actually creates a static html page that’s rewritten if it’s past the time frame that you set, so what I did was load the actual html page versus the cache script. That alone will not produce an html page/php include that updates at your given time frame, but what I did was create a cron job that “hits” that cache script at the time interval that I wanted it to.
Long story short, I finally have a RSS to Html solution that works like I need it to.
Cut your cell phone bill $100 per month
Posted on December 7, 2009
Filed Under Family 1 Comment
To be more accurate I should say, “How I cut my cell phone bill $100 per month.”
The first of this year we switched from Sprint, whom we had been with for 6 years. It seemed our bill kept going up, and honestly it was becoming a burden financially. We were trying every way possible to lower our bills, and although we had a “good run” with Sprint it was time to make a change.
We switched to from Sprint to TMobile. This immediately saved us about $40 per month. We had less minutes, but with TMobile’s Fav5’s we only came close to going over our minutes once in the 6 or 7 months we were with them.
The savings were great but what we didn’t necessarily like was the coverage. There were a lot of dead spots, and we just put up with the below average coverage to save a little money. However, the last straw so to speak was when I went to work one day and didn’t have any coverage in a 20 mile radius. I don’t mind being somewhere that is in a dead zone if I know I can drive up the road if I absolutely have to make a call.
My wife had found this company called Page Plus Cellular a month or so before. She mentioned it to me, but I had never heard of them and really did not want to take that kind of risk with an unknown company. After a month or so of doing some reading and hearing how others had switched I made up my mind to give it a try.
Long story short, I am thoroughly impressed. We got the best possible coverage and the absolute cheapest rates I have seen anywhere. Our bill came down another $55 per month from what we were paying TMobile ($95 total savings), and we had more minutes than when we were with Sprint or TMobile.
Page Plus has a 1200 minute $30 plan and an Unlimited $40 plan. Pretty much any Verizon phone will work with their service, and the coverage is nearly identical to Verizon’s as well (they use the same towers).
If there is any downfall to the service it’s their Customer Service. It takes a long time to get through to them, but once you do they are courteous and handle your issues. We have only had to contact them to initially setup our service.
Have you saved any money with a new cell phone plan, or a new cell phone service? Let me know.
It’s also worth noting that WalMart has partnered with Tracfone and come out with a new service called Straightalk. Straightalk has a $30 plan and a $45 unlimited plan.
Me and my children
Posted on July 12, 2009
Filed Under General 2 Comments
Testing posterus.
Posted via email from Trai’s posterous
Done With Digg
Posted on March 28, 2009
Filed Under Internet
I have submitted quite a few stories over the past few years. Some of them were my own stories and others were just interesting articles I had found on the net. Maybe some of them were not that interesting, but some were very informative. I guess it’s all about who you know or who you are friends with on Digg, because I have never gotten over a handful of Diggs for any of those stories.
Recently I found a Firefox plugin/add-on for Google Voice. It’s pretty amazing! It finds phone numbers in webpages that you visit and turns those numbers into click to call links. As far as I can tell it’s never been submitted on Digg before, so a few nights ago I submitted it. I check back in tonight and it’s got three Diggs. Three Diggs? What?
Am I a little sore? You are darn right I am. I don’t think Kevin Rose could honestly say the current state of Digg is what he had in mind when he dreamed up this user generated content site.
I will still visit Digg because sometimes I get bored and there are some good stories posted there, but I’ll never submit another story there. It’s pointless, and I am sure thousands of others have already realized that.
By the way, don’t dare digg this post.
My Opinion of Google Voice
Posted on March 25, 2009
Filed Under Phone Stuff
I recently got a new cell phone and number, so today I logged into Grandcentral to add the new number. To my surprise Google is switching over Grandcentral users to Google Voice. I was assured that everything would be similar and I would get even more features in Google Voice.
The transition was really smooth, and I was able to link my main Google account with Google Voice in the process. So, this means all my contacts from GMail are available in Google Voice and vice versa. The interface has the same Google simplicity as every other service they offer, so in just a few minutes I had navigated around and made the necessary changes.
One obvious change was the new feature allowing you to call International numbers (for a fee of course). I don’t remember the rates, but your new Google Voice account will come with a $1 credit so you can test it out.
Another new feature that I really liked was the ability to send/relay SMS messages. You can send SMS messages to any phone within Google Voice. From my understanding the message will appear as it is coming from your GVoice number. (Tired of typing Google Voice out so that’s what I am calling from now on. Why didn’t they call it that to begin with?) When the recipient replies GVoice forwards the SMS message to your phone(s).
All in all it was a really easy transition and I am happy to have it linked with my main Google account. Now I am wondering what Google plans to do with GVoice. I think I remember reading the FAQ on the Grandcentral site and it saying something about eventually charging a monthly fee for the service. I could have read that somewhere else though. As of now the FAQ says that there are “no specific product plans to discuss at this time.” I hope they keep it free. It’s a good service, but I wouldn’t pay much over $5 per month for the service personally.
I would like to see GVoice integration into Gmail. I am sure it’s coming through Google Labs soon enough, but you know us techie types – nothing is ever good enough.
Already available through Google Labs and a Gadget for IGoogle. Click below for the instructions.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=29f67f1d8daa7585&hl=en
If you are not already a Grandcentral user then you will have to wait until Google opens this up for everyone. You can go to https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/ and request an invite.
Update: This feature may or may not have been available under Grandcentral, but I just realized you can call your GVoice number (from any of the phones you have set up with GVoice) and it will give you a prompt to enter in a phone number to call. After you enter the number it will place the call to the number you have entered. I setup my GVoice number as one of my Fave 5’s for TMobile so this is going to be a handy feature. I have already given out my GVoice number so all those incoming calls will be free to my cellphone, and I can also dial it to make free outgoing calls on my cell if I need to. Pretty sweet.
Update #2: I found a really cool Firefox Add-on for Google Voice. It will make any phone number within a webpage a click to call link. You can also enter a phone number right from your browser and your phone will ring. When you answer the call will be connected. I installed it tonight and it works great. Check it out.
http://thatsmith.com/2009/03/google-voice-add-on-for-firefox/
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