T-Mobile Is Invading Your House!

I am sure most of us have seen the new T-Mobile commercials which mostly feature mothers interfering in the lives of their children and husbands via a very spiffy home phone. Cell phones can send pictures to it, you can send text messages right from your kitchen, yadda yadda yadda.

On the one hand, this is awesome and I want one in spite of the fact that I do not currently even have a land line in my house. On the other hand, the commercials really ... really turn me off, big time. Because you can envision that all kinds of meddling will be happening, just like they say. I am not a fan of neon yellow animal prints either but come on. Plus, hi, aren't we texting enough? Do people even talk anymore?

Tick-Tock Goes the AP Ticker

Bad, bad news for poor little freelance folks like me who try to eke out a living bringing news to all you hoes (but I say that with love and affection).

The Associated Press is putting the smack down concerning people obtaining permission to use their news ticker. Mind you, this includes search engines like Google and Yahoo. Newspapers are going to bear the brunt of this, it seems like. If permission is not obtained, the Associated Press is going to sue yo' ass.

I have to be honest here. I do not understand this a lick. I started yawning halfway through the article (eff you, A.P., it wasn't one of yours), and just stopped reading. But it seems like a big bunch of crock. I could be biased, considering that I certainly rely on their articles quite a bit for certain things. It kind of makes me just want to tune into AOL's news now, just to be spiteful.

Eff Your Cell, It's Old

So I am a secret cell phone buff. I say "secret" because I'm still using my frigging Razr like it's top of the line and do not foresee dropping too much money for one of these fancy new things at any point in the near future -- because I am cheap. However that does not stop me from obsessively dreaming about getting something new, shiny, and high tech, so naturally I was bound to drool over the new phones presented at CITA Wireless.

Liiike this one. Oh man. This thing is so cool. It is from NTT DoCoMo, which I've never heard of, but I don't even care. This phone is magnetic. No, seriously -- it is held together with actual magnets, and you can still use the keyboard even when it's separated. Plus, it comes with an arm band. Why? So you can basically wear the screen around your arm, like it's an accessory. A bit pointless ... but I still want one.

Of Cable and Computers

Oh, come on. We all know it's coming. With web sites like Hulu, televisions are practically becoming as obsolete as CDs and DVDs, and the cable box is soon to follow.

Most of us already spent plenty of time watching TV on our computers and laptops as it is. Soon, that is going to be even more of an option, thanks to the advancement of technologies which will allow you to ditch your cable box in full favor of your computer.

Is this good or bad? Pro or con? Heck if I know, I just got a plasma screen so I'm pretty well behind the curve on this one. However, if this option is going to be cheaper than my current AT&T cable, then I'm all for it. Eff DishNetwork and DirecTV too, while we're at it.

One Step Closer to the Jetsons

Sci fi worshippers and Jetsons fans the world over have long been dreaming about the reality of the jet pack. In fact, for years many of us have been left feeling bitter and disenchanted, due to the fact that the Jetsons clearly lied to us. Not only do we not have any jet packs, we don't have any flying cars, either. Quite the contrary, you can't even take the frigging train now without being crammed in beside the other passengers like sardines and suffering through a nine hour trip with someone breathing questionable breath into your face as they attempt to sleep on your shoulder. Unless of course you have the riches required to get a sleeper car or bedroom.

Of course, if you have an extra hundred grand lying around, now you actually can buy a jet pack. Yes! They are coming into existence! The Martin Aircraft Company of Christchurch, out of New Zealand, is one of many companies perfecting the art of jet pack travel. Currently, their version -- which runs on two turbojet engines instead of a rocket engine -- is at the head of the pack. The way things are going, it might be affordable for the rest of us somewhere around 2030, so hey! Start saving!

Making your computer faster

I've recently done a few things to my laptop that has SIGNIFICANTLY improved my performance, so I thought I'd share those really quick.

Obviously, a memory upgrade is easy, quick, and very inexpensive. That's a no brainer. Do it now and max it out.

I've also purchased a solid-state internal hard drive. Booting up and shutting down in Windows is agonizingly slow - as most of you know. With the solid-state drive, it's extremely fast. Just a couple seconds. I never thought Windows could run like this. The solid-state drive is pretty expensive though, and you may not get one as large as you want due to the cost constraints, so I would recommend using it for your more active files and programs, and system directories.

Finally, I've noticed that occasionally my machine will start running at 100% CPU utilization when I'm browsing the internet. I've found that this is due to flash. Flash ads, etc. end up going haywire for some reason and take my machine. I've installed flash ad blockers for both firefox and IE to prevent this from happening. And now it doesn't!! Just do a search in Google for flash ad blocker and you'll get plenty of free solutions.

Hope that helps!