I setup a new website you can read my blogs at. This place is no longer going to be updated. To read my new blogs and find me on twitter, etc. Visit

www.sudoaptget.com

Wow, I’ve been busy busy busy. So, anyways, Haliee Williams and I are getting married in March, on the first to be exact. So, we’ve been busy. This past Saturday Haliee needed to get a “practice” hairstyle done for the wedding, so we went to Wal-Mart and she got it done by the coolest person there! Erica Black. A few days later we became friends, however, I would say we pretty much were already, just not “in touch as often” friends. Anyways, yesterday (Sunday) we got to meet her husband Joe Black. He’s a gamer, so we get along and understand the awesome gaming jargon just fine. Anyways the point to this story was that we made new friends and we are gonna go on a double date and it will be tons of fun! Also, Joe and I are probably going to own up some noobs on some PC games or something. So, back to the wedding stuff for now, on Saturday, Haliee also had her bridal shower and we got some pretty sweet gifts, a honeymoon, a place to live, towels, bedding, kitchenware, bathroom stuff, cleaning products, a laundry basket with detergent, just to name a few. We appreciated everything! Sweet stuff. So now, we are working on making sure we have the right building (LDS meetinghouse) setup, have an organist(pianist) ready to play, and making sure we have reservations at the place to eat — The Garden. Fun stuff, though, I don’t really like to be involved – I’m the guy. So, that’s fair right? I’ve updated some of my things on Facebook, I would have to say I like facebook over myspace anyday. The fact that everything is Ajax based is just awesome. Myspace is just yucky. Its kinda neat you can create your own applications for Facebook and stuff also. Anyways, right now, work is slow, we are moving sometime in the near future to (the company) Ogden, so I am not sure if I will be able to commute to the place, so Haliee and I are looking for new jobs and stuff, I don’t think it will be a big issue, but of course, we need jobs so, if you have any openings . Ha. Just kidding that sounds sickly desperate. Oh, last night (sunday) Haliee’s dad had a birthday so we threw him a party and got him an Sirius radio for his b-day, Haliee and I were just looking at all the wonderful things we could listen to so we HAD to go get one, so we went back to the wal-mart and picked one up, I installed it and its working great. Its really cool, she loves 80s music so all of hers is covered, and I love talk radio, so we get what we want whenever we want it. Great stuff. So, I have decided that I carry around too many things, I need to make some space, or get a bigger bag. – Just a random thought. So over the past 2 weeks or so I’ve been enjoying the crisp yet delightful taste of Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Chocolate. I really like it. I think it takes a powerful pallet to understand the power behind this drink. At first, when you take a sip, the first thing that hits you would have to be the carbonation mixed dr. pepper and cherry flavor, after it slides down your gullet, I think there’s a very distinct chocolate flavor that just comes out and tickles your taste buds, if you haven’t tried this soda, you need to because its limited edition. Just a side note- I’m a Diet soda kind of guy, my family always drinks diet, I have learned to enjoy diet soda. So, if you’re not into diet soda, you might not like this, as Haliee says it tastes horrible, but what does she drink? – Cherry Coke, Cherry Pepsi, and Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, nothing diet at all. If she does drink diet, the only diet she will drink is – Diet Dr. Pepper original. Me, I love the wonderful party my mouth gets from the different flavors that complement each other. Diet Pepsi Lime, Diet Coke Lime, Coke Zero Vanilla, they all are just great. Soda is great. Hmmm. What else can I blog about. Haliee and I have enrolled in Financial Peace University. A program given by Dave Ramsey. This man is smart. End of story. Great stuff. I listen to his radio show every day and I recommend it to everyone. You can actually listen online for free, however I pay a monthly 10 bux for his podcast of the radio show so I can listen to it whenever. My dad sent us the FPU kit so that we could attend, we have been wanting to go but last week (Wednesday) was that awesome storm that made redwood into deadwood and slowed traffic to a halt. So we didn’t get to attend the first week, but this week, we WILL be there. Its a great class and I believe everyone could learn from it. We are working on his program his “baby steps” and we are gettting Baby step 1 into place. You can learn more at the links above. Anyways, yeah, we’re excited for the wedding, excited for new friends and excited to get a budget in place. Overall that’s really all I have to say for now. Thanks for reading!

Google Apps. – I’ve been speculating about google apps for some time now. I’ve gone back and forth between google apps and just my normal work applications. However, when the good ol’ company decided to change its gears and switch some positions around, I now have found a long lost friend in these applications. UTA, Utah Transit Authority or something like that has come to our company and pretty much said “Get out soon”. Our company pays rent to another company I guess for the buildings that we use. So, UTA is planning on putting a Trax station in place of where our wonderful building is. Forceful re-location is what some would like to call it. So we are moving. Where? Heck, no one at the company not even the C.E.O. knows. All they know is that we are moving “North” not “South” so, because of the push, the Board of Directors for our company has asked the current C.E.O. to step down and to monitor and assist in the moving of the company to the new location… The C.O.O. has moved into the C.E.O. position and has required a little bit more detail out of everyone. All of that said, I was told to make up a weekly agenda by the C.E.O. of the company. Every Friday send it over to me in an email please. Without hesitation, I started writing things down on a note pad of course.  By the second day of that, I my hand was already hurting. I knew there had to be a better solution for me and my wonderful new agenda which had fallen from the sky. I turned to Google. I knew Google had “Google Calendar” and I was determined to find something to work for me so I wouldn’t have to write things down, as well as after writing them down, type them up. So, I started with “Google Calendar”, went to it using my already acquired and well appreciated “Gmail” account and started typing in entries. Lo and Behold, I don’t think I will ever use anything else for agenda planning anymore. Not only could it put dates, times, detailed descriptions, alerts, etc. but I could add “filtered” calendars. Say I wanted to make one for Work hours (which I did) and also one for something like Personal “things to do” or whatever, I could execute this without any issues. Another feature of Google Calendar that I enjoy is its “Add a public Calendar” meaning, any calendar another company, friend, etc has, I can grab those and put them into my calendar as well. I picked up “Movie Release Dates”, “Weather w/Forecast”, “Mozilla Developement Team’s Calendar”,  and a few others. This was a plus, I could plan out a nice date with my fiancé and throw in work updates at the same time. You can also import your Outlook calendar information right into the calendar. Also there is perfect color coding and instant “Show/Hide Filters” that you can filter your calendar to show whatever the heck you want. Also I do believe there is a “mobile phone” option to get things sent via your provider to your mobile phone (haven’t tried that yet). The best thing about Google Calendar in my opinion though, would have to be, its mobility. I can access Google Calendar from any web browser I want. I don’t have to “Login to my computer, wait for boot applications to load, click the icon, let it load up, select where to go, etc”. And that’s why I love it. Any computer (with internet), any operating system, any day, any time, I get to use Google Calendar. I love Google Calendar and I will continue to use it.  Next on my list of wonderful things is Google Docs. Google Docs is great. I have touched it lightly and can already understand the power behind it and love how simple it is to use. Businessmen, stock trades, real estate agents, IT professionals, marine biologists, pharmacy technicians,   etc. you name them they can find a use for this bad-a$$ application.  Google “Word” equivalent and Google “Spreadsheet” not only have the common features of the Microsoft, and Open Office, but it has the awesome power of the Google.com search implemented right into the program. With the spreadsheet, you can use the common functions like “=SUM(A1,A2)” and others, but the functions that I’m learning to love are the wonderful “=GoogleLookup(entity, attribute)” function. Here you can insert just about anything you freakin want into this bad boy and it will use the power of Google and Unleash your results. Just as an example, one of my company’s customers is “Kroger”. Lets see. So say I wanted to make a list of C.E.O.’s to send a Christmas Present to for the Holidays or something stupid like that. All I would have to do is simply type in the cell “=GoogleLookup(“Kroger”, “C.E.O.”) ” and BAM, just like that, it loads in the results using Google . “David B. Dillon” is the CEO of  Kroger.  So going on with that I do believe there’s like an auto complete feature you can use to auto fill the rest of the form with  the C.E.O. lookup formula. The “=GoogleFinance(symbol, attribute)”  is also quite nice,  using this I can pull Financial information of a company using the stock symbol. So technically I could put together a spreadsheet that pulls “=GoogleLookup(“Kroger”, “ticker”) and it would give me the symbol and from there create a spreadsheet that then shows financial information like:

• price: market price of the stock – delayed by up to 20 minutes.
• priceopen: the opening price of the stock for the current day.
• high: the highest price the stock traded for the current day.
• low: the lowest price the stock traded for the current day.
• volume: number of shares traded of this stock for the current day.
• marketcap: the market cap of the stock.
• tradetime: the last time the stock traded.

and many more. Overall I could see myself moving to a more “mobile” operating system with the use of these applications and the technologies already used in the internet. (Ajax Windows, etc). I haven’t really looked much further into the other Google Applications available online, as I do, I will definitely keep you updated on them and how awesome they really are.

You need to visit www.ajaxwindows.com . In order for you to understand why this is so cool, you just have to experience it yourself. First off, the basic “definition” to me would be, an online operating system. Everything is light and it has great tools. It is obviously made with AJAX techniques (hence the name) and I really like the integration with the Google Apps. I will blog later about the google apps. Anyways, lets see, Ajaxwindows is neat because it integrates with your Gmail and allows you to upload/download your preferences of Ajaxwindows as well as files used with Ajaxwindows.  Bottom Line on Ajax Windows, You need to visit the site, this is where Operating systems of the future are going.

World of Warcraft is a really fun game. That’s all I’m going to say about it. I like it, I play it, but honestly, its addicting. It’s taken too much of my life. I try to keep it to a minimum. The End.

Blackwing Lair (horde) – Pyrom

This is an amazing player, I found it with a Stumble! but dang, this wasn’t a stumble, this was a life changing experience. (haha) I’m going to go ahead and let this video explain more about it cause it explains it much better than me rambling on here. I just suggest you download it and try it out for yourself. At first, I was a bit sketchy because I am not into the whole media player thing, I just use what my computer gives me, (Windows Media Player ). But after a simple stumble, dang, I don’t think I will go back. This player just has it all. It works with your MP3 and/or Ipod. Anyways, here’s more of an explanation.

If you’re interested please click on the SongBird Link under my BlogRoll, or the wonderful Bird at the top of this post.

Well I’d have to say this is different. Microsoft seems to be going after the non-tech people. Well I mean they usually try to do that. But anyways, I’ve just been toying with a few different things over the past few days. Microsoft Popfly is the fun and easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, and Web pages. It’s made up of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups and a social network where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users. I read about this in InformationWeek magazine which you all can receive a free copy to your door if you would like, just visit http://www.informationweek.com/ and you can Subscribe there. Nice articles, and its free. Anyways, popfly is kind of hard to explain as I haven’t had much time to look at it really, just played with it for a few minutes, seems like it could be helpful for newbies to the internet and website making, I’m not sure its full capacity really, just reading it SAYS it can do the following:

• Add some fun to your Facebook page, web site, or Windows Live Spaces page.
• Build a home page.
• Mix and re-mix photos and videos.
• Unify your online personality.

So I’m not sure, just thought I’d make a comment or two about it, it has tutorials and things to get more into it and understand the thing, I just didn’t really have time to experience all it claims to offer. So if YOU’RE interested, visit http://www.popfly.ms/.

EDIT: The phone number just spam’s all the numbers you have registered.
Also, when I was attending the Lan from the previous post, Bart sent out invites to a service provided by Google called GrandCentral. (Don’t ask him for invites, he used his last 2 on people that attended the lan!) Anyways, GrandCentral is great, it could be useful in MANY situations. You first pick a local area number (for me it was an 801 – duh) and then you add your numbers…like cell, work, home, whatever, from there, you setup your voicemail box they give you, and you give out your new number. People call that number and it rings each phone until there is an answer, so it would on mine, ring my work phone, then my cell phone, (not sure if you can edit the order it rings them) but if I don’t answer my work phone, then it will send it to my cell phone, which if I don’t answer will then send it to an online voicemail, this “online” voicemail is amazing, you can send the voicemails to your email, someone else’s email, listen to them right in the inbox, link them to places, and many more things. OK so hypothetically lets say Jack calls my GrandCentral number, it rings my cell, I don’t answer, then rings my work phone, I answer here. I will hear a prompt in my handset that will first:

1) Tell me who is calling (they are asked to say their name before the call is connected)
2) Give me the option to accept the call.
3) Give me the option to accept AND RECORD the call.
4) Give me the option to ignore the call and send it to voicemail.

You can also change the ringback tones of the call. So say I live in Europe, I can set my ringback tone (the one the caller hears) to hear a tone similar to the international tone for that country. Pretty neat there in my opinion. Also, with GrandCentral it integrates nicely with Gmail and adds all your contacts from your gmail. Just an all around great service, as of now, its in the “Beta” stage. But it will be rolling out nicely here soon i think. To find out more please visit http://www.grandcentral.com

Starting a blog. I’ve decided the only way that someone can really grasp the whole internet and what it has to offer, needs to be part of it. So, with that stated I’ve gone ahead and started this blog. I hope it will be beneficial to those that read it. I’m not sure what all it will include, but I assume it will be useful information, if not, then its just my random ramblings about nothing.

I’ve got a few new things to blog about. I recently attended a LAN (Local Area Network) Party with a couple of friends from American Fork and the surrounding areas. While there we enjoyed the wonderful new game the Valve and Steam have produced, Team Fortress 2. Team Fortress 2 comes included with the Orange Box collection of games.  I purchased the Orange Box online through Steam for only $49.95 Dollars. When you purchase the Orange Box collection, it includes the following games:

• Half Life 2
• Half Life 2: Episode One
• Half Life 2: Episode Two
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

It was a very nice price for the amount and quality of the games. We played Team Fortress 2 for a good period of time, it’s a great game and I would recommend it to anyone. Portal is also included in the Orange Box Collection. Portal is a game of interesting mind puzzles that work your brain. It is a wonderful game and I also recommend it. When I play Portal, it seems as though I’m learning. Its an overall great game, good original idea. If you would like to learn more about The Orange Box Collection, visit http://www.steampowered.com.