2007 May

Hybrids Biting The Dust – Already!

One of my teachers presented me with this article from Monday’s NY Post:

Hybrid Buses breaking down

By JEREMY OLSHAN

Hybrid buses may be good for the environment, but they’re also good for the mechanics.

NYC Transit’s fleet of more than 600 Orion VII buses have repeatedly suffered power-generator breakdowns.

Manufacturer Orion Bus Industries hasn’t fixed the problem, according to MTA documents, so the agency plans spend $200,000 on a consultant to find a solution.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05212007/news/regionalnews/hybrid_buses_breaking_down_regionalnews_jeremy_olshan.htm

Personally I have faith that these buses are good buses – they might be half-plastic, but I’m more for cosmetics than mechanics, as most of my readers know. It’s just too bad they are failing so much.

Another Flavor of Mint

So far we have the Mint stat-tracking software, the MintPages.net designers’ community, and now the Mint finance tracking service. Although it is an invitation-only service, it looks promising. Want to help me get Minted faster? Click below:

Why I Don’t Follow

Throughout the blogging world there is a growing practice to get rid of the rel=”nofollow” addition that WordPress adds to links in comments. I agree that it’s a great way to give commenters an incentive to write comments (they get their share of PageRank value). However, there is a specific reason I don’t “follow” the crowd: comment spammers.

Askimet (the hosted comment spam filtering service from Automattic, the creators of WordPress) is very good, but it’s not perfect. Almost every day last week there have been some of the newer forms of spam comments slipping through Askimet, and along with them came undesirable links. As long as I keep comment moderation turned off (allowing a good majority of legit comments to get through safely), the nofollow code will prevent the spammers’ sites from getting my precious PageRank.

Note: I only nofollow links in comments and trackbacks. If you are linked to from one of my posts, like the link to Chris’s blog below, then you are in safe territory.

Related link: Thursday Thoughts » Solo Technology

My First Phone: Motorola i855 from Boost Mobile

Thanks to the extreme compulsiveness (more like the way mothers worry so much) of one of my relatives, I now own my first cell phone. Originally I was planning on buying one myself, but luck struck and it came as a present, much earlier than I had hoped for. Like every tech purchase that involves me, most of the deal was planned out beforehand, so I didn’t get stuck with any surprises.

We bought the phone at one of those gadget places (where they sell phones, stereos and other stuff) in Manhattan. My Moto i855 cost $149.99 before tax, which is exactly the same price that the Boost Mobile site offers it for. In the box:

• Motorola i855 handset
• Manuals, guides, warranty statements, etc.
• Belt holster (with a swiveling clip)
• “Rapid” charger
• Activation materials (which in the end got me $10 on my balance)

The phone itself is a bit large, being about 2 1/2 times as thick as my dad’s Moto Razr. Add the belt clip on there, and it’s probably four times as thick as the Razr alone. However, the holster does protect the shiny front panel from scratches, and it doesn’t make the phone feel much bulkier. And while I’m talking about the physical design, the headset jack cover is located all the w

If it wasn’t for one of my friends (err, enemies at some points), I would never have heard of Boost Mobile. Based off the so-called nationwide Nextel network, they give access to texting, mobile Web, and the famous Walkie Talkie. However, because Boost is prepaid, communicating can be expensive. Here are the service rates:

• Cellular calls: $.20 / minute
• Night / weekends: $.10 / minute
• Mobile to mobile (Sprint, Boost, and “most” Nextel callers): $.10 / minute
• Text messaging: free incoming, $.10 / message outgoing
• Multimedia messaging: $.25 / message (incoming or outgoing)
• Wireless Web: $.35 / day for unlimited use
• Walkie Talkie: $1.00 / day for unlimited use (the absolute most expensive way to call with Boost)

It’s easy to see that prepaid cellular is expensive. Fact of the matter is that nobody in my house (including me) is willing to pay for the upgrade to a plan that allows a second line, and then the second line. Prepaid service from Verizon and Cingular isn’t any cheaper: Verizon charges a daily $.99 access fee (but only $.10 / minute for calls, and unlimited In calling), while Cingular offers either the same deal (with unlimited nights and weekends) or a plain vanilla $.25 / minute plan.

Although I have made a single real telephone call yet, the claims that Nextel has a really terrible netowrk don’t seem to hold true. Despite those claims, I observe at least three bars in most places. But one thing strange thing is that it takes some time (10-20 seconds) to download text messages. For example, this morning, I got a 0.6 Kb message, which took about the aforementioned time to transfer.

The phone’s interface is not entirely intuitive. Pressing the Menu button will bring you to the first screen (out of three) of the main menu, but pressing it again will give you options relating to the main menu. In order to go to the next screen, you press the More soft key. In most areas of the phone, pressing the menu button will bring up some kind of context menu.

Here are some bugs that you probably wouldn’t expect from a phone. While sitting at my computer, my speakers emit strange wisping sounds, and occasionally my wireless mouse will go haywire. In fact, one of my friends knows that he should get ready to pick up the phone while listening to music on his CD player: he hears sounds in his headphones too.

I like my phone. Even though it has some quirks, it is definitely a nice phone for a first phone. Hopefully Motorola will keep up the good work. And good thing I have a 7 Eleven nearby, for those sudden minute refills….

IMified: Truly Simplistic, Undeniably Useful

Starting at registration, IMified is the easiest Web 2.0 service to use. Not many sites that cross the Educated borders are talked about like this, with good reason.

From second one, I realized that IMified is truly simplistic. In fact, the registration process is as simple as this: send an instant message to one of the services IM accounts (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, ICQ, and maybe one or two more), and then go to the link it sends back to tell it the absolute basic info about you (the time zone is the only necessary one). Once that’s done, you can decide what you want to be able to do with IMified.

From the IMified Web site, you can select which services you will be able to access from your Main Menu. These include Google Calendar, Twitter, and the various services that IMified provides (Reminders, Notes, Todos). It is all very simple to set up, and almost as easy to use.

Other than the downtime of their bots upon occasion, I have no gripes towards IMified. It’s all very simple and uncomplicated. Perhaps this could be a true Web 2.0 service.

Visit IMified