Best Photos from the Puerto Rico Trip

Legal Music Download Sources

When it comes to purchasing legal pop music,

Here's where I'm at with this.

iTunes is the most user friendly, but typically the most expensive.

And they use AAC (M4A) Files.

Finally these files are DRM free and play in most devices (but not all)

They do play in Traktor (DJ software) which is the most important,

but not playing in like most car stereos for example.

So they need to be converted for car stereos (which typically only play MP3 or WMA).

But they are the best sound quality.

And the selection is Awesome.

The preview is decent, but only 30 seconds.

Average price $1.30 to $1.00

Amazon also sells MP3 downloads.

The file type is 256kbps variable bit rate (vbr) MP3.

These basically play everywhere (its an MP3).

The interface isn't as good as iTunes but not too bad.

The selection is pretty good.

The preview is terrible. Its 30seconds and highly compressed sounding.

You have no idea what the actual file sounds like until you buy it.

Average price $1.00

LaLa is becoming my favorite.

The cost is typically a bit less than iTunes and even less than Amazon.

Average price about $0.89

The preview is awesome. You get to hear the actual file from start to end (but only once).

The selection is a little crappy, but generally gets the job done.

The file type is 256kbps vbr MP3 (I prefer the sound of the AAC files, but the difference is much less than 1%).

The biggest problem is the user interface.

The searching is terrible. You can search for artist or song name, but it doesn't do both.

And you can't organize songs by alphabet. they are seemingly randomly arranged, so you

have to look through all of them to find what you want. Its unbelievable,

That in today's digital world, they couldn't do a better job with that.

The best shopping method is to have all three sites open.

I use the iTunes for most of the research and buy on LaLa or Amazon if LaLa doesn't have it.

Another Smokey Bones coupon...

Here's another great coupon from Smokey Bones.

Detroit Emptiness

Great smokey Bones Coupon

Here's a great coupon from Smokey Bones. I use these all the time...crazy thing is, you can print them off over and over again, and use them until they expire.

Deer hunting how-to

Haha, this is funny:

The botfly in my head

This is pretty fascinating. I saw a link to this video in the New York Times this morning. Thank you to naturebreak.org.

What's up with Facebook?

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, or rant and rave about nothing, but Facebook is getting annoying.

Today someone tagged me on a note that was attached to a nasty photo of a dog - presumably one of Michael Vick's (who's to say?) - who's face had been so mangled, it looked like spaghetti. Seriously, I don't need or want to see this. Especially not on Facebook. I thought about sending the person a note explaining my disgust, but then decided I didn't want to hurt the person's feelings, and left it alone.

I'm gonna hitch off on a tangent here:

Come on people...the guy has paid his dues. OBVIOUSLY he screwed up...and he spent 18 months in prison. And frankly, who are we to say we shouldn't let the guy pursue life, liberty, and happiness, now that he's paid his dues? This is the United States of America. People get out of prison everyday. Some go on to be productive citizens, some don't. People have been convicted of manslaughter, and served less time. I'm not condoning the guy's actions - no way...but there are far more important issues we should be focused on.

And as far as Facebook goes...I don't want to be part of your "Mafia Wars crew", I'm probably not going to "support your cause", and I don't want anything to do with your "Sunshine Ranch"...I may have been your classmate, but I'm not into "Yearbook" - and I'm not going to "Send my friends a sunset", or a "full charm bracelet".

Come on people! Seriously...this is a huge drain on society. People who could be working on something productive, are instead quizzing themselves on "Who is your guardian angel", or "If I were a state, which one would I be?" or "How heartless are you?" Hahaha wow.

And a note to Mark Zuckerberg:

See MySpace. It could happen to you too.

New phone number

This is just an update to let everyone know that I’ve switched to Google Voice - so check out my Facebook page for the new number.

My old number will continue to work for the foreseeable future, but please delete that old worn-out number, and switch to the new one! haha

Sorry for the dumb "hey everyone, I'm changing my phone number!" post - but the whole idea behind Google Voice is that this should be the last time I'll ever have to do this...

Cheers. :-)

Google Voice

A few days ago a buddy asked me why Google Voice. This was my response:

There's no hugely obvious reason to switch to google voice, but by switching there are some really nice features that you don't get with a regular cellphone number. The biggest reasons for me are:

1) I hate voice mail, and google voice allows me to view my voice mail visually by signing into Google Voice online, and managing it there. Google also transcribes your voice mail into text. Same with text messages. If you lose your phone, you can sign into google voice, text all your buddies, and let them know what's up.

2) Google voice allows you to manage different contacts in groups. Basically that some people (friends) receive different treatment by the system than others (your boss, future employers, etc.). You can record different greetings, set up different privacy schemes, etc. using groups of contacts. Of course the contacts are identical to the contacts you have in Gmail.

3) Call forwarding. You can forward your google voice calls to whatever number(s) you want. If I go home for the weekend, and I decide I don't want to take my cell with me or if I don't get service, I forward the calls to my parent's phone. If I'm at work, I can have all my calls ringed to my work phone AND my cell phone - and then answer whichever one is more convenient at the time. If I'm in Puerto Rico for a week - I can send all my calls to the place in PR - people call my usual number, but the phone in PR is what rings. Call forwarding is nothing new, but google voice allows it to multiple phones, and it's a lot easier to manage with the online interface.

4) I chose a number local to my parents. Now they can reach me on my cell phone by dialing a local number from their landline.

*UPDATED 8/18/2010*

5) Total integration with the Android Mobile OS. Basically, you don't need to buy a text messaging plan anymore. The only downside is that your friends and contacts who don't have Google Voice won't be able to take advantage of mobile-to-mobile texting...so your texts are going to count toward their text messaging package (but not yours!). Tell them to go get a Droid and sign up for Google Voice!

Here's a good article to read that pretty much says the same thing I just said:

http://lifehacker.com/5304800/google-voice-is-cool-but-do-you-need-it