Electronics recycling for cash – Gazelle.com

Between my wife and I we’ve gone through just a few cell phones, and other small electronics. I found Second Rotation (now Gazelle) a couple of years ago and have been very pleased with how the site works, the fast turn around, and the amount of money they pay for used items. I recommend you give it a try if you have old cell phones or small electronics. Now they’re even taking old laptops.

Embeding an mp3 on any webpage

Thanks to Amit Agarwal for his post on how to embed an mp3 using Google Reader’s player.

The Google Reader player has volume control,auto-detects the song length, and has a time slider for jumping around in the track.

The code for the player is:

“<”embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=MP3_FILE_URL” width=”400″ height=”27″ allowscriptaccess=”never” quality=”best” bgcolor=”#ffffff” wmode=”window” flashvars=”playerMode=embedded” /”<”

Removing the quotes around the <

Replace MP3_FILE_URL with the link to your mp3 file.

This adheres very well to the K.I.S.S. principle, or the Fischer Price principle. Which ever you want to call it.

Multiple computer syncronicity, file versioning, and un-delete.

I’m on vacation, so I’m catching up on all the cool sites that have launched recently. A theme emerged quickly from the file sharing, online backup sector. Mozy is officially old school. Dropbox is now my favorite new app. Mozy simply backs up files for un-delete or replacement to another machine, in a very awkward way. As I’ve had to use it a couple of times, and it wasn’t fun to figure out how to get files replaced from one machine onto another machine.

Dropbox not only makes this easy, but does with multiple machines continuously. Setting up was easy, and setting up again was even easier. I started setup on my desktop, and then did it again on my laptop. I was going on a short weekend trip and planned to do a little homework (online MBA program). Perfect time to test out something new.

Without even thinking I had saved a partially written post to my desktop (which is a synced folder since it’s my working palate most of the time.) Usually I save my post to GoogleDocs, but not this time. The prof. required APA format for the paper so Word it was. Word with it’s desktop centric anchors. I opened my laptop and while waiting for it to come alive I remembered I had saved to my desktop and not to GoogleApps. Oh, but wait, that’s supposed to be synced w/ my laptop. So, I logged in, got online and waited. About fifteen seconds later my partially written post was open and ready for me to finish it. Technology making life simpler.

Before I settled on Dropbox I also looked at Syncplicity. Looks identical on the surface. And maybe they are, but Dropbox was smart in highlighting their un-delete and versioning tools. Good bye Mozy, it was nice knowing you.

Dropbox has public sharing, photo sharing, and makes some great opportunities for remote workforce collaboration. I could see SharePoint document libraries getting replaced.

Technorati Tags: Dropbox.com,Dropbox,Mozy,Syncplicity,file sync,backup,un-delete

Google Chrome

While I have only opened it, tried to view some of the demo videos (which say they’re no longer available?), and loaded my gmail, it is promising that Google’s new browser will be a good product to have around. If nothing else it pushes every other browser out there making them all better for us.

I’m a Google convert. Yep, I used to be all MS, but in the last six months I’ve gone google. Nothing has reinforced my decision to do this more than my weekend move from a laptop to a desktop as my main machine. I took a fresh install of Vista Ultimate and in a matter of a day’s worth of my time I’m running both machines off the same file base.

No moving email programs and history, no moving images files back and forth, no moving spreadsheets, docs, or anything else. Now, I’m not doing all of that totally with Google. My image files are local on my NAS. But, they are reachable from anywhere.

How great it is to have the horsepower of desktop for graphics and video, and the portability of a 4 pound laptop, and never worry about not having a file or program synchronized or missing all together.

I didn’t intend for this to be a ‘cloud computing’ post, but I think Chrome is going to turn more than this post into discussions about this subject.

Google Chrome

Technorati Tags: Google,Chrome,browser,cloud,computing

Pickens Plan

Technorati Tags: Pickens Plan,energy,wind,natural gas,oil

Make My Logo Bigger Cream

This is a great parody on infomercials and the kool-aid that some marketing firms serve. Worth the seven minutes to waste on something besides reading more marketing blogs.

Make My Logo Bigger Cream

Technorati Tags: logo,cream,bigger,infomercial,marketing

MozyPro online backup is a life saver

The non-profit I work for uses MozyPro to backup all our machines.

It works great for us. We only backup about 35 gigs, but after the first backup the subsequent backups happen quickly. (I usually don’t see it happen anymore as it happens while I’m sleeping.)

It runs $0.50 per gigabyte, per month. Cheap compared to many of the services with comparable interfaces and features. They have server editions that run the same plus $7 per month per server. It works for USB attached storage as well, but I’m not sure about NAS devices.

It has an easy administrative interface, and sends weekly email reports detailing each machines last backup time, space used and space allotted. For the most part it’s ‘set it, and forget it.’

My favorite part is I can right click in any directory and choose to “Restore Files in Folder” and it gives me all the files that have been backed up from that directory. I double click the file I want and it downloads it from our Mozy storage back to my pc instantly. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve deleted a file and had to restore it months later.

If you have any questions about it feel free to comment below. Their site should answer most of your questions. They usually run a promotion every month for 10% off by typing the month’s name in the coupon code box. (i.e. “JUNE”) Also, if you sign up for a year or biennial subscription they give you from one to three months free.

Technorati Tags: Mozy,Pro,Backup,Online Backup,server backup

Mozy – online backup tool has a sale, great product why put it on sale?

My favorite online back-up service Mozy is taking advantage of HP’s problems with their recently launched Upline service to give some big discounts both to new sign-ups and any users who might be looking around for a more reliable alternative. For those that sign up they save 25% off One or Two Year Unlimited Online Backup Accounts at Mozy.

There’s two packages that they are discounting: One year of Unlimited Online Storage for $60 – 1 month free – 25% coupon = $41. Or two years of Unlimited Online Storage for $120 – 3 months free – 25% coupon = $79.

For either one, use Coupon Code: UPLINE during signup to get the savings. This coupon will be valid only for a very short time.

Technorati Tags: Mozy,Online Backup,Backup,Upline,HP,25%,discount

TripIt | Organize your travel

This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in the travel arena. Technology operating in a way that actually makes life easier is tech I love. This not only makes life easier, it also passes "The Fischer Price Test" for easy use and function. I’ve got a trip to Orlando next week with plane reservations, rental car, and hotel. I forwarded my confirmation emails to ‘plans@tripit.com’ and this site pulled the relevant info from each email creating one logically organized and useful itinerary. All with out even setting up an account (which are free if you so desire one.)

If you’ve ever read "never eat alone" by Keith Ferrazzi this would go well with that book. You can invite friends and colleagues to use it and it will tell you if, when, and where you’re paths will cross if set to do so.

One downside, at least in my opinion, is it only gives the average weather for your destinations. It’s says Orlando’s average for next week will be 52/32, while a quick check shows forecast of high 70′s and low 60′s, for highs and lows respectively. Drastic difference. Their FAQ page admits this, and states this is because forecast are only good for about one week into the future. So, give us the real forecast seven days out, and the average for anything longer than that.

You can also send an email from your phone to get your itinerary emailed back to you, with options set by what you include in your email subject line. I’m sure we’ll SMS coming soon with briefer details.

I highly recommend this if you travel any at all. If you’re like my Dad who has 3-4 trips a week I could see this as indispensable.

Thanks to JoelOnSoftware.com for the find.

TripIt | Organize your travel

Technorati Tags: TripIt,travel,itinerary

OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet

I was watching DL.TV on Tivo a couple weeks ago and saw them review OpenDNS. After using is just over two full weeks I love it. It takes the need for protective software on each pc away, and taking it to the entry point of your network. Making it difficult for kids, or adults, to stumble onto unwanted web site.

The sites that are listed within each category are human classified, by OpenDNS staff and OpenDNS users. You can blacklist or whitelist individual sites easily. I had to whitelist Flickr because it fell under ‘nudity’ which was blocked.

Another wonderful feature is it’s faster than the DNS most ISPs provide. (By the way the the DL.TV video summarizes DNS very well.)

OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet

Technorati Tags: OpenDNS,DL.TV,DNS