“Smart” phones are cool. Phones like the iPhone or BlackBerry let you install both free and paid applications on them that provide some cool or useful (hopefully both) functionality. Let me point out one of the most popular phrases of 2009 (according to a University of Princeton survey): “There’s an app for that” -Apple, referring to their iPhone. And cool it is…

Over the past decade, there have been many technological changes, from the prevalence of PDAs to laptops to Netbooks to Smart Phones. Look out, because I don’t think things are done evolving quite yet. There are plans for a multi-touch tablet computer revolution. Could we see an end of the computer “mouse” as we know it?

tether for PC

The topic of this post is about a little slice of technology called cell phone “modem tethering”. You may have heard of this but for those that haven’t. this is where you use the Internet connection provided by your wireless phone to connect to your PC or laptop. Instead of a WiFi or Ethernet connection to a router, DSL, or even dial-up connection, the cell modem principle allows you to venture off to places where you would not normally have an Internet connection available for e-mail or web browsing. » More…

At long last, we will hopefully get some much anticipated relief from having to jump for the remote to lower the sound volume when a television commercial airs while watching TV.

On December 15th, 2009, the House of Representatives passed The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) by voice vote!

The Act enables the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to monitor the volume of advertisements in television programming and determine acceptable levels.

Something else I read about that I found interesting is the fact that many advertisers know that there are certain frequencies that people hear better than others. They have been amplifying these frequencies in particular.

Official Summary:
Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prescribe a regulation prohibiting advertisements accompanying video programming from: » More…

This had me laughing out loud, and is most therapeutic if the Christmas season has got your spirits down… These guys hide oversized locomotive-style air horns on their cars and ride around, tooting them around unsuspecting “victims”! Note that you need to hear the sound track to fully appreciate this.

This video requires the free Adobe Flash Player. You can test your Flash and Shockwave versions by using this free tool on the Adobe website. » More…

Elijah - Green Fighting Irish 2009

On Thursday, October 29, 2009, the Green Fighting Irish hosted the Gold Bandits for the second of two playoff games in the Rochester Youth Football League. The first game was played on Wednesday, October 28th between the Purple Prowlers and the Blue Outlaws, and resulted in a Purple win (big surprise).

Since the Green B team didn’t finish in the top 4 (they finished 5th), they had to turn their equipment in before the playoff games. They were invited to keep their game shirts to attend the A playoff game and support them. Probably the coolest thing for me in this was the fact that Elijah and 2 other players from the B team were selected to join the A team in the playoffs. Way cool!

The weather was clear but chilly, and I got to run the scoreboard, which was quite a surprise to me. I was asked by one of the coaches to do it, which I found to be entertaining but no simple task for one person. You have to type in all the down, yards to go, ball on the X yard line, scores, quarter, time, etc, plus accurately start and stop the game clock. I think I managed OK until the end of the game, when the officials hollered up to me to put a certain time back on the clock. » More…