YaYoGakk

Microsoft Announces Windows 7 Pricing

David McCarter — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:17:20 GMT

Microsoft has finally release pricing for the October 22nd release of Windows 7. Prices range from $119 to $319. From now until July 11th you can order Windows 7 for a 50% discount. See blog link below for more info.

Click here for more information.

Parallels Screws Up Version 4

David McCarter — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:34:57 GMT

Recently Parallels released version 4 of their virtual machine software which I have been using for many years now and have been recommending to everyone I can. I use the MAC version so I can run Vista (even tried Windows 7) and until this version it worked like a charm! But after upgrading to version 4, spending 12 days emailing tech support back and forth the performance is much worse than version 3! Here are just some of the issues I was having besides the terrible performance:

Takes 4 minutes to boot the image.
While running, programs run slow in the virtual image AND on my MacBook Pro! Clicking on programs etc. sometimes does nothing for up to 30 seconds.
Network (internet) runs very slow in the virtual image AND on my MacBook Pro!
Takes 4 minutes to shut down image.

Tech support was very helpful and tried every trick in the book to get my vm to run faster, which it did, but still was too slow. Why should it take 12 days of emails to get it to work better, shouldn't it just work like that when I start it?

So my recommendation is do not use this version until these issues are worked out and I will not be recommending it anymore. Sorry Parallels.

McDonalds Likes to Pass the Buck

David McCarter — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:31:28 GMT

I wrote to McDonald's the other day letting them know I was over changed AGAIN at the local store near where I live. Also to complain that they continuously leave an item out of my order. Below is their lame response... nice way to pass the buck guys!

Hello David:

Thank you for your comments regarding prices at your local McDonald's.

It's important to know that approximately 85 percent of our restaurants are locally owned and operated by independent business people known as franchise owners. Each franchise owner determines his or her restaurant's prices by taking our recommendations into consideration, as well as their unique operating costs. This is why prices may vary from one McDonald's restaurant to another. Also franchise owners make decisions regarding charging for condiments.

We are sorry for any dissatisfaction you may be feeling as a result of prices at a McDonald's restaurant. Overall, McDonald's Corporation works very hard with our suppliers, research and development, and internal departments to consistently offer a broad menu that can be offered at a good value in our restaurants.

We appreciate your feedback and will share it with the appropriate people at McDonald's. Regarding your local McDonald's pricing, we encourage you to share your feedback with the restaurant Manager. We are sure the franchise owner would be interested in you comments.

Thank you again for contacting McDonald's. We appreciate your business and hope to have the opportunity of serving you in the future.

Matt
McDonald's Customer Response Center

Recycled Aluminum Foil

David McCarter — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:29:22 GMT

Reynolds is now offering recycled aluminum foil! Click here for more info and to sign up for a free roll. (hopefully it will be cheaper)

The Huffington Post Complete Guide To Blogging

David McCarter — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:04:48 GMT

I purchased this book after seeing Arianna Huffington on The Daily Show. She spoke highly of it and since I write maintain a few blogs I thought I could gain some some knowledge from it. The front of the book touts these statements:

Getting Started
Best Practices
Getting Noticed
Building Community
Finding Your Voice

Also listed on the front of the book are numerous famous people like Harry Shearer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bill Maher and more that wrote advice in the book. Wow, sounds like a great book... every blogger needs a copy! Think again!

Overall the book is just a 230 page advertisement for the Huffington Post. The statements listed above are just chapter titles and the star "advise" is not very aspiring. Just comments on their experience writing for the Huffington Post. Sure they do list a some useful tidbits like getting started but nothing in detail. Then the chapter just turns into how the Huffington Post got started. There were pages and pages on how Arianna and others came up with the look and feel of the site. All the experts they consulted, all the time it took to create something new and exciting and different from the current newspapers. So I finally got a chance to check out their blog and it looks like a newspaper! Wow, now that's a change! I quickly left because they came up with a design that "screams" at me and I don't like any site like that.

I vowed to finish this book (since I have trouble reading a complete book) and I did. But it got pretty painful since it's so self-indulgent! So in the end, not much real information but if you are a fan of the Huffington Post you will like this book.

Do Not Get Fooled by the Circuit City Going Out of Business Sale

David McCarter — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:30:27 GMT

So I've seen the commercials on TV, Circuit City is (finally) going out of business! So I thought I would take advantage of it and while doing errands today thought I'd stop by the one nearest to me. I had a few items in mind, not that I can afford it but I have been looking to get a flat-screen TV, I do need a new wireless router and few other items. I looked at the flat-screens and found a LG model that seemed like a good price. I thought I'd check the price on Amazon.com using the application on my iPhone... to my surprise it was cheaper on Amazon! Then I looked at the Linksys router and I found the same thing and the same goes for the other items I looked at. I even told some of the customers that were looking at the same type of items as I was that they could find it cheaper online.

So, I'm not a big time business guy, but it stands to reason that if you are trying to unload inventory, wouldn't you sell it at a huge discount? It seems Circuit City is marking all of their items at the original retail price (or more) and then applying the discount to that, which is still more than what you can purchase it from on Amazon (which includes free shipping over a certian purchase total). It's no wonder why this company is going out of business... it never kept up with compitition. So for one last screw over on the average consumer, now they are predending they are giving them a deal! (this of course does not apply to out-of-the-box prices)

I'm glad to see Circuit City go... the faster the better! I just feel bad that thousands of people that didn't deserve it will loose their job due to exceutives that can't get their greedy heads out of their butts.

Your thoughts?

Followup:
I sent this to KGTV Channel 10 here in San Diego and they are doing a story on it on 2/12/09 at 11pm. Tune in and see what they say!

Paint Shop Pro 1.1 - A Blast From The Past

David McCarter — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:37:51 GMT

Below is a review I did of my still favorite graphic manipulating program called Paint Shop Pro in a newsletter I use to write and publish called "The Shareware & Freeware Report" around 1994. PSP is the only program still around in this first issue that I published. Even thought the original designers sold it to Corel, it's still a pretty decent program for the price.

Backgrounds

David McCarter — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:05:43 GMT

This is a really cool application for your iPhone, especially when you have some time to waste waiting in your doctors office. It allows you to download thousands of iPhone backgrounds (wallpaper) from Flickr. Here are it's features:

Search over 50,000 Backgrounds
Browse over 5000 unique backgrounds
Choose from over 30 categories such as: Movies, Cars, Funny, Animals, Christmas, Models, Guys, Space, Cute, Sports, Games, Beaches, Water, Messages, Night, Hearts, Swirls, Explosions, Buildings, Cities, Fantasy, Sunsets, Technology, Flowers and many more.
100% Free

It's average rating on iTunes is 3.5 stars. I can't give it 5 stars for these two reasons:

Every time I download a background it tells me how to change my background. I think once a session is enough, don't you think?
Graphics are downloaded into the Camera Roll folder not the Wallpaper folder. Not sure if this is a security issue with the iPhone.

You should definitely check this one out.

GPS Mapper

David McCarter — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:32:44 GMT

The iPhone application GPS Mapper from InstaMapper LLC is a free real-time GPS traking service. You can use it to track an iPhone online, share your location with friends and family and record tracks for later analysis. Sounds cool, but even after a few updates, this application never seems to connect to the GPS on my phone. It did work the first time but after that it never did. I would not waste your time with this one. It's average rating on the Apple App Store is 2 out of 5 stars.

Sudo Randomness with your iPod

David McCarter — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:51:23 GMT

Yesterday I wrote a note on Facebook on how frustrated I am that even thought I have a 20GB iPod, it keeps playing the same songs and groups over and over again. I know there are thousands of songs on it that I never hear. One of my friends came to the rescue with what he does. He creates a Smart Playlist in iTunes that includes songs that have not been played in x number of days. Below is the Smart Playlist that I created:

You would think the mighty iPod would be better at this. I guess we can only hope.

Why I Love San Diego

David McCarter — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:13:03 GMT

You just can't beat the weather in San Diego. I just can't believe there is any better spot in America for weather than here. Case in point, I took the picture below the afternoon of December 30th, 2008 while walking along the cliffs above the beach in Del Mar.

There was a slight breeze blowing, no need for a jacket... just perfect. Just so hard to believe it was the end of December when most of the rest of the country is suffering from storms, snow pack and ice storms. We have this great weather with the only exception to the norm is that the nights are cooler than usual dipping down into the high 30's and 40's.