Iceland Says Hi
Hello reader (hopefully readerS). In the Reykjavik Hilton right now, flight is tonight, just had some breakfast. I should probably pack and shower and get ready to head over I guess. Iceland is beautiful, but I’d probably be more in awe if it wasn’t cloudy and wet the entire time that I’ve been here.
I did see some amazing things though and the people of Iceland love their geothermal energy for electricity and heat, it’s amazing. The entire country’s population is around ~370k, how weird is that, considering Boston proper is ~620k currently (and that’s not counting everything around it, which is pretty much Boston too).
The cheese and food here, I love it. Had some dried shark, salted cod, fermented shark, whale steak, reindeer burgers, atlantic char, lamb patte… so much other stuff. Totally stuffed.
That’s it for now, see you in GMT-5 soon. I wonder where I’m traveling to next…
In: Moblog · Tagged with: iceland, travel
Land Of Ice
Been a pretty good weekend so far. Saw Muse tonight at TD Banknorth (not a fan of big venues, but I love this band) and tomorrow I’m headed to Iceland with the sister for a few days. We’re hoping to catch the Aurora Borealis, but it’s March and that’s pretty much the last leg of the season and chances may not be that great.
Not that big of a deal, we just want to relax, have great food, and maybe take a couple pictures of the waterfalls there.
I’ve heard that the people there are pretty mean, will let you know how it goes.
In: General · Tagged with: concert, iceland, muse, travel
3 2 1 Contact!
Integration, I’m almost there. Contacts integration I mean. I’m not a fan of Plaxo, never have been, but for some reason I’m OK with Google having my contacts information. I guess it’s because for me Plaxo seems like they want to create a business around my contacts, while for Google my contacts are available to make my life easier while they make a business around web searches. Plus Plaxo sends out a lot of spam.
My contacts are all up to date in one place, my Thunderbird Address Book (which was migrated from my Windows/Outlook Address Book… 10 years ago?). I keep that in sync with my Google Contacts (for Gmail and other Google services) and manually update a SyncML server to keep those contacts in sync with my cell phone’s contacts (I switch phones often enough and SIM cards have too many limits for storage).
So yesterday I switched over from using SyncML (ovi.com, funambol, etc) to sync my contacts online to using Google’s Exchange Servers. I’ve been using that connection to sync my Google Calendar to my phone for a long while now (I live by my Google Calendar) and I’ve been syncing my Thunderbird Address Book to my Google Contacts using the add-on by Zindus. All along I had to manually keep my cell phone in sync, which worked great because it kept my Notes on my cell phone in sync too. But manual changes are for savages.
Now my information just needs to be updated in one place and a sync initiated manually once…
Thunderbird -> Google Contacts -> Cell Phone
I’m pretty anal, so I’ve only kept the syncing one-way, when I could just as easily allow changes to propagate both ways (i.e. I add/update a contact on my cell phone which then syncs backwards to my Thunderbird).
There are a couple of snags though. Zindus stores addresses in Google Contacts using an XML format (since addresses are stored free-form on Google). This looks pretty ugly, but I’m OK with that. I am experiencing a bug though where the street address isn’t stored, I’ve emailed their developer, hopefully this will be fixed soon.
Another snag is that I had to change my phone numbers to not have dashes and add the long-distance code to every number (i.e. 555-555-5555 to 15555555555). This shouldn’t affect anybody else though, just because the application I use on my desktop to send/receive texts (via bluetooth, cause I hate pulling my phone out of my pocket every time I get a text) requires that phone number format, otherwise the number doesn’t match up to the name in my phone’s address book.
And I really wish Google Voice and Google Wave would use my Google Apps Contacts instead of my Google Account Contacts, which were empty until I started using those two services (I don’t have a gmail address, but a Google Apps email address; same thing, but my own domain).
After all that headache, I now have all my contacts on my phone. Their home, fax, cell, work numbers, their home/work address, their screen names, birthdays, any other notes I have of them, etc etc. Feels good.
In: Tech · Tagged with: google, pim, syncml, thunderbird
Let Me Jinx Myself
So far, 2010 is in the contender list for best year ever. So sorry even numbered year curse.
In: General · Tagged with: 2010
Train To India
Got a call from American Express this morning, apparently there was a weird charge on my card around 11am today. Did I charge $120 at an Indian train station this morning, around ~5400 Indian Rupees? No, no I did not, I answered back while sitting in my work chair in Boston.
Getting a replacement card next-day-ed to me, now to get my new card number memorized… pain. I’ll miss you old credit card number and expiration date and CVC code.
Wouldn’t be that big of a pain if I didn’t get a replacement sent to me for the same card two weeks ago. It was fine, just a really run down looking piece of plastic, really overused and faded and was just embarrassing to use (ask my sister, she’ll agree). Got the new one memorized and changed my information for it online (bills, Amazon, etc). Now to do it all over again.
In: General · Tagged with: 2010, credit card, India
Canadian Crash
Got back from Canada this past Sunday. Went there for eight days, vacationing and junk. Spent a few days there, first in Montreal then in Quebec City. It was pretty cold and a couple days were just pure snow, but I have to tell you, Quebec City is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen in this hemisphere.
Had New Years Eve dinner at L’Astral which happened to be situated at the top of the hotel we were staying in, which was a bonus in that weather. Let me see if I can describe the situation, rather than try and describe the beauty…
Imagine a 5-star restaurant, situated on the top floor of skyscraper hotel, located in the middle of the city, on top of a hill, gazing out into the snow falling on a white city. And did I mention this is a revolving restaurant? The entire 360° view.
Coming back to Boston’s grey snow was… strenuous. But I did have a nice little surprise when I got back here on New Year’s Day, my computer’s hard drive crashed while I was away. Now I sit here, waiting for my new drive to be delivered (hopefully by tomorrow), so that I can spend time restoring everything that was lost. Good thing I’m super crazy about backups (an online backup was created the night before the crash, so nothing lost, except time).
New Year’s Resolution? Don’t let this even-numbered year bring me down, the hell with you even-numbered year curse!
Actually, I don’t make resolutions, personally I think they’re stupid, why does it have to be a new year to start change? I made one once, I think 5 or 10 years ago, something like “more running, less cursing”, mainly because people wouldn’t stop asking me what my resolution was. I’ve actually kept up with it. I think I’ll start saying “wtf” and “effing” less too, yes, I actually speak (and spell out) those words in the quotes.
But I’ve been told the whole even-numbered year curse is a self-fulfilling prophecy or at the very least something that I actively seek out in many situations (much like getting your fortune told, the brain makes connections where there are none), so I’m going to just ignore it. Don’t know why it took so long for me to think that, I don’t even believe in curses…
In: General, Tech · Tagged with: 2010, canada, hard drive, vacation
Lorem Ipsum Bookstore
Lorem Ipsum Bookstore needs help, if you’re in the Boston area, help em out:
Help Lorem Ipsum Out
I’ve never been to that bookstore personally, since Inman Square is a drive and Porter Square books is really close to my place, but hey, Inman has Christina’s Ice-cream, so I’ll try and stop by Lorem Ipsum this weekend and see what all the hoopla is all about.
Marge Is Hot
This month’s Playboy issue with Marge Simpson? Total let down. I think it was three pages worth, two of them occupied with an interview… answers which I could have given based on what I know about Marge Simpson.
With her hair down, she’s totally hot. No hair down pics in the issue though.
On the bright side, this is my first actual purchase of an adult magazine! Doesn’t really have the same thrill as I would’ve had back when I was fifteen, but then again, back then it was just easier to kiss my 9600bps modem connection for providing me with an all text Internet. ASCII pictures were pretty lame now that I think about it.
Boobies: (.Y.)
Shorted
Been reading Neil Gaiman’s M Is For Magic lately, it’s another one of his short story collections. Enjoying it so far, but the entire book is going by pretty fast.
You know what I love about short stories? The ability to just sit down, spend a little time, and go through an entire journey from start to end. Perfect for the work commute I think.
You know what I hate? If you really enjoy the story and you want to read more… tough balls, that’s it, nothing else to read about those characters or settings.
You know what I love? There is no “filler”. Novels, much like the episodic TV seasons in the United States, feel like they have some chapters tossed in just to fill up time, so that there are enough words for a novel. Minor characters are given face time when there is no need, it doesn’t add to the story, just more words and time. On the flip side, I guess the six episode seasons in the UK can be compared to short stories, too short. I’ll stick with the thirteen episode seasons offered by Showtime I guess.
Hmm, maybe I should read more novellas or even novelettes.
In: Books · Tagged with: short stories
Vided
Been really hooked on video games lately. My current phase, the book phase is in the backseat. How can I tell what phase I’m in? What I spend my free time on weekends doing. Doesn’t mean I’m not still reading, I still do, everyday actually, but an obsession it is not anymore. Maybe my next phase, shrug.
As for the video games, more specifically, co-op video games, it’s just so much more fun playing cooperatively online with a friend, using voice chat anyway. Random people online, not as much fun, or remove the voice chat, again, not as much fun. I don’t have roommates anymore, so having somebody on the couch next to you whenever I feel like a game isn’t possible.
There are some great games coming out soon, here’s hoping I can convince my friends to snag a copy too. The tough part is picking which system to play on. I don’t own an Xbox 360 (PC, PS3, Wii guy), some of my friends may not have a PS3 or a good PC or any other system. So finding a fun game (probably the toughest part), finding somebody who wants to play it, making sure they have that system, finding the right time, etc. It’s all a bit of pain. But there are some really good games coming out soon… Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Demon’s Souls, Left 4 Dead 2… they’ve all got co-op. Now just to get some folk to play em with me.
Been hankering to pick up some other games lately, but I should probably wait, get through some of the games I’ve got now. And I wonder why the Wii doesn’t have that many online co-op games… maybe it’s a voice chat issue. And Left 4 Dead is pretty much the best co-op game I’ve ever played. Well, not counting World of Warcraft.
In: General, Tech · Tagged with: co-op, video games