Shyzer.com

For as much as I’m into technology and newfangled whizbangery, every now and then I’m way off the mark. I dropped the ball on RSS feeds being useful only to reverse course six months later after I finally stopped being a bitch and tried them out. I once thought Macs were far overrated until I actually tried one and became a poster fanboy. And now after this weekend, I can’t figure out how in the hell I ever used to watch non-HD TV.

Long story short, one of our TVs had HD capability but we never bought the upgraded cable package since all of the other TVs in the house were analog. Then while waiting for game 6 of the ALCS on Saturday, I happened to figure out that we actually got a few HD channels, but I couldn’t find them. 10 minutes later and I’d stumbled to channel 103.1131 (which makes plenty of sense for a channel, right?…) I thought it was some sort of screw up, but then the picture popped into view and Holy Christ.

I’m not really a huge TV watcher, but this stuff is like crack. I’ve currently got Univision on and while I can’t understand a damn thing they’re saying, it certainly looks good. Are there support groups or anything that I can join?

You know, if this is the kind of stuff Microsoft is spending the bulk of it’s time developing, I have no problem turning a blind eye to Vista.

One of the cool things about running a site as big as Hey, It’s Free! is that whenever I need a break from working on it, I can spend some time looking through all the different ways people got to the site through Google. I won’t lie, Google is awesome when it comes to driving traffic to HIF. Without it, I very well might have given up on the site long ago. But, as things played out, the Google Gods apparently liked what they saw and started rewarding us with traffic.

The only thing is people have no idea what they’re doing once they go to Google.

I think I’ve written about this before on Shyzer, I’m not sure. I distinctly remember mentioning once how God-awful Clay is at Googling something. I’m mentioning it again simply because I still find it hilarious. If he’s looking for the phone number of a local pizza joint, I’d fully expect him to go to Google and type “pizza call ring ring hello” and then wonder why he’s getting crappy results. But I’ve come to realize that he’s not alone. There are plenty of other people out there who don’t know how to converse with a search engine.

Take for instance the pizza scenario. If I wanted to ask you the number of the local Papa John’s, I’d say something like “hey, what’s Papa John’s number?” and you’d know instantly what I was talking about. Yet try asking Google that very question and you’ll get anything but the local phone number. For some reason, people in 2008 still don’t grasp the differences between asking a human and asking a computer the same question.

For those of you scoring at home, the correct way to ask Google that question is to type your zip code then the business name, so this would be “12345 Papa John”

In other awesome Google news, Shyzer is #3 for “Somebody please punch the free credit report guy.” I love that.

Back in 2004, I got an iPod for free and the world was awesome.

Months later, Waynus broke it, but it was still under warranty and thus replaced. The world was still awesome.

Last year, it started acting goofy and would no longer work. I then discovered that I could freaking spank it and it would magically work again. The world remained awesome.

Then last Christmas, it bit the dust and completely crapped out on me. Spanking was no use, paying to have Apple fix it was beyond absurd, and the world suddenly sucked.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that you could open up the iPod and fiddle with the insides. After searching around Google for a while, I came across hundreds of comments and blog posts by people who swore that sticking a business card inside the iPod would fix it. I was a bit skeptical, but it made sense on the surface. The iPod uses a traditional spinning hard drive and after years of jostling and bumping around, the outer casing loses fractions of an inch worth of pressure. Suddenly the drive won’t spin and the iPod won’t turn on.

So I set to opening up my iPod this morning. I worked on getting the backing off of it and despite what most on-line tutorials say, the initial removal is a bitch and a half. It’s specifically build and designed not to come off, but after a while I got it off. I ripped one of my HIF cards in half, folded it up, stuck it on top of the hard drive, put the iPod back together and…

The fucking thing works like a charm now.

Something that costs fractions of a penny just fixed a hundred dollar piece of technology. 10 years ago I never would have been able to do this. I love the Internet. I’ve gotten three or four iPods for “free” since getting this first one, but it’s held a special place in my heart since I got it for free all those years ago and now I can synch it up with my Macbook Pro and listen to it for another few thousand hours. I’ve also got an idea for a new website, though in my current state I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.

Is it wrong that the only things I can think of after watching the video below is who made the music and what program were the animations made in?

I completely agree with the video, though. As opposed to some of the far out videos I’ve posted on here before, this one takes a pretty fair assessment of the future to come. Just as I’ve ranted and raved against businesses that have yet to figure out how to harness the Internet, I think it’s pretty clear that any individual at this point who doesn’t know the difference between a wiki and a widget is a step behind the pack.

At the same time, it’d be nice if they referenced their facts at the end of the video………

I hate it when a new video game comes out and completely takes over my life. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also gotten better at avoiding such pitfalls. In the last few years, only Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 have managed to ensnare me to the point where I sacrifice all health and hygiene so I can beat just one more level.

That said, Super Smash Brothers Brawl has managed to bitch-slap me into submission and I have a feeling that when the sun rises tomorrow, I’ll still be sitting in this chair, bleary eyed and slightly foaming at the mouth. It’s like crack and I’m just eating this shit up.

Oh crap, I just lost a life while typing this.

I just managed to watch last night’s episode of The Daily Show since I wasn’t able to 24 hours ago. There’s something about enjoying a few too many margaritas that prohibits me from being able to comprehend and absorb an episode of my favorite television show, much less remember how to operate a TV remote. The guy Jon Stewart interviewed had recently written a book about how the Internet and computers have invaded a bit too much of our lives (not in a 1984-esque sense but more of a “it’s taking the place of daily interaction with the people we love”). Jon started to defend the Internet, blah blah blah, but it got me thinking.

I’ve gotten to the point where I first look for certain things and activities off the Internet before succumbing to find them on the internet. Let me explain.

If I need the address of a local pizza joint or the date and location of James Monroe’s birth, I turn to Google (actually, Blingo as I’ve won $75 from them in the past few months alone). If I need directions to Tulsa, I turn to Mapquest. If the Mariners played a home game the previous night, I know ESPN.com will be there to back me up as soon as I want the score.

These are all pointless and small obscurities that in years past would have taken far too long to locate or find out. I would have had to find my copy of the Yellow Pages or drive to the library to use their encyclopedia Britannica or rely on a friend to not give me false info. For the information I was gleaning, the action of obtaining it was too time-consuming or difficult. These are situations where the Internet is a freaking Godsend.

But the Internet isn’t usually applauded for these types of actions. When people speak fondly of it, they reference examples such as how it’s now easier to find a marriage partner or stay in touch with family or discuss a specific topic with other like-minded individuals, like politics or quantum physics. And frankly, these are areas of my life where I don’t want the Internet invading.

Well not quite invading. I’ve met friends on the Internet whom I’d never give up. I’ve become members (and created one!) of tight-knit communities that are downright awesome. And while Fellner hates me for never calling him, at least we have some fun on each other’s Facebook walls. The point is I just don’t want to rely on the Internet for said actions and events.

Take LOST, for instance (and believe you me after the stuff I read today, this very topic is going to get it’s own post in the near future). I love the show. I love talking about it with Clay and Juls right as the episode ends. I love dissecting it and trying to find the hidden meanings surgically planted throughout the episodes. But if I want to get into some real mind blowing debates and conversations about the philosophical oddities of our Lostie’s names or the dark matter theory, I have to turn to the Internet. No offense to Clay and Juls, of course.

Some people would point out that without the Internet, I wouldn’t be able to have these debates and discussions in the first place. They’re absolutely correct. The Internet didn’t make smart people vanish from real life. I should be grateful, therefore, that I’m able to even have these debates in the first place. So let’s take it back a notch. How about political debates? Well, not many of my friends are into politics, so onto the Internet I go. How about baseball? Eh, again, most fans you run into in real life can hardly tell you the starting lineup of their favorite team, much less talk intelligently about WAR or OBP. You name it and, sadly, you’re going to get better results turning to the Internet than you are turning to real life people. But somewhere along the line, people have stopped even trying to find the good results offline and have instead come to believe they can only be found online.

Let’s be clear here. If my choices are lose touch with old friends or stay vaguely in touch via infrequent e-mails, I’ll of course take the latter. I don’t give a shit that I’ve forgotten how to quickly locate something in a library just by looking at the numbers. I looked at a map the other day and it took me a minute to see the clearest route to where I was going. These are skills that, while nice to have, are quickly growing obsolete due to the Internet. And they’re skills I won’t miss.

But I don’t want to forget how to read the body language of a person I’m meeting for the first time. I don’t want to lose my game for picking up hot chicks (insert joke about me having no game here). I don’t want to never go to family functions or out to the bar with the guys simply because I talked to them on Facebook already this week. There’s something about human interaction that we don’t think much about. WebMD will never be able to fully diagnose you. I can download all the music I want, but it’ll never be as good as going to the local hole in the wall and catching a live show every once in a while. And no matter how much porn is available within five keystrokes of any site you’re on, I promise you the real thing is much more entertaining.

The Internet is great for a lot of things, but I think people these day not only use it, but rely on it for a little too much. Let’s just all try and keep this in mind, okay?

This “review” of what websites looked like back in 1996 is easily the funniest thing I’ve yet to find in this early new year. In fact, it reminded me of a post I’d half completed over two years ago and so I went back and finished it up. But before you read anything else, please, please click that link above and read it. It’s been ten minutes and I’m still cackling uncontrollably.

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A lot can change in 10 years.

I’ve written a little about how much has changed from since I was a “kid” and now, especially with regards to technology. But I wanted to share a quick story with you.

My earliest memory of on-line gaming was back when I was in 7th grade. It was the end of 1995 and my dad had just built a new computer which at the time was smokin’ awesome but if it was sitting in my room today, would be around the 19th most powerful electronic in a 10 foot radius. A few days later, he bought a game called Air Warrior and installed it, to which I quickly became addicted. Yet beyond that, I never touched a computer for any other reason.

By the 8th grade, my dad bought a new service known as AOL, which provided blistering surfing speeds of up to 56kb/sec. I would sign onto my account whenever I had the chance, only to realize there was nothing really to do and quickly grow bored with the whole experience. The only person I knew that had an account as well was a snobby girl from school, so the IM feature was of little useless to me. Oh, you could go into chat rooms and play .wav files of Homer saying Doh and cars crashing. So there was that. Or you could go in the religious chat rooms and just type “satan satan satan” over and over and watch people get immensely angry at you. Actually, you can still do that today, but I digress.

It was around this time that companies began advertising their websites in television commercials. I don’t know if anybody really remembers this, but I clearly do, if for no other reason than I started writing them down.

That’s right, I had a notebook where I wrote down all the websites I saw on TV since I was that desperate to find something to do on the Internet. Each page was filled with nothing more than lines of random companies with their websites next to them.

Pepsi – www.pepsi.com
Sunny D – www.sunnydelight.com
Nike – www.nike.com

You know you’ve got a brilliant piece of technology that people are starving to use when they’ve resorting to going to Sunny Delight’s website. I just wish the purple juice had had a page, I would have been all over that.

By 9th grade, I no longer needed my notebook. Lycos and Excite had finally entered my life and with a few (ok, a lot of) mouse clicks, I was able to find at least something somewhat interesting on the Internet during my alloted hour of computer time every day. It wasn’t until the 10th grade that the wonders of AIM finally burst onto the scene. Actually, I only had AIM for a few months that year before getting in trouble with my dad. My punishment? He “deleted” the program by taking the icon off the desktop.

Think about that for a second. I was a 10th grader in high school and was convinced that AIM had been removed from my computer simply because the icon was no longer there. Wow.

I remember starting an angelfire page in the 11th grade. When we were moving right before I went into 12th grade, Napster had just been ordered to shut down and thus I loaded my computer up and schlepped it across town to our old house since it still had Internet, hooked everything up, and sat on the floor in an empty room for about 5 hours so that I could download maybe 30 songs on dial up. For you see, when Napster was finally shut down, file sharing would finally be eradicated!

Now? I’ve got cell phones. Myspace. X-Box 360. Facebook. Google. AIMSKYPEMSNYAHOO. And I don’t bat an eye when it comes to not only understanding it all, but knowing how to work it. I’ve come to expect my cell phone to not just give me directions if I’m lost, but to also let me know where the nearest pizza joint is since driving makes me hungry. I carry in my pocket a thumb drive with more space on it than was on the first three computers my family owned – combined.

All in the span of 10 years. I can’t freaking wait to see what we’ll have in 2017.

I can’t say that I see this happening as quickly or quite this way, but this video is onto something. To say that LIFE is about to shut their doors later this year is a bit or that Google will one day be financing space exploration in search of new customers is far beyond absurd. But take for instance electronic paper, which I think will be absolutely revolutionary. Once it’s easily and cheaply mass produced, we’ll see a huge shift in the way not only we acquire information, but live our daily lives. Prosumers will be able to tap into whatever they want no matter where they are, making traditional newspapers, books, magazines, and even carrying around laptops obsolete. And as a guy who gets back pain just from carrying a laptop on a shoulder strap, I can’t wait!

[via TechCrunch and John Chow]

One benefit to listening to NPR and surfing Digg throughout the day is that you stumble across all sorts of cool little sites and applications. From desktop sticky notes to live updates on where the cheapest drinks in town are to websites that will call you and remind you to pick up milk on the way home.

A lot of the sites are dependent on social interaction though. People sign up for the accounts, share their info, location, actions, or whatever else the service curtails to, and in return the benefits are that they are able to interact with all their friends who are also using the service, making it easy to communicate and coordinate. But that raises one small question.

Who the hell is using this stuff? Because I sure as hell know it’s none of my friends.

For instance, you’ve got Twitter. It’s basically a glorified AIM Away Message, making it one of the less helpful of all the Web 2.0 startups you’ve got out there. But nonetheless, you’ve got millions of people who can either IM or text message Twitter to change their away message and at the same time, you can just surf around looking at other people’s away messages. So every few minutes, you get text messages letting you know that Paul just ordered another rounds at O’Rileys or Sally just put some muffins in the oven.

Riveting, huh?

I guess I just don’t get the point of this. Even with sites like Dodgeball, I don’t see why people use them so much. Basically, you text your location to the website simply so that the website can update your map and tell other people where you are. When I was living in Columbia or Spartanburg or Newcastle, I had heaps of friends in the areas and even still, there were only a few local joints we all hung out at. If I needed to get in touch with somebody or meet up with them, I could either A) Walk to the pub we usually frequented or B) call them to see where they were. Why get a third party involved in the interaction?

I see that a lot of people using these services live in big cities, like New York or San Fran or the likes. Do people really have that many friends they keep up with that they need real time practical GPS accurate tracking of them? Or is this just yet another fad where people can stalk others for no reason other…well, ok, stalking is kind of fun. But still, why bother updating your own profile then?

Of course, my favorite new startup site is Going.com, which allows you to update your current bar location via text messages. Why? So that your friends can buy you a beer while they’re sitting at home.

Now that’s my kind of friend. *winks towards the giant, frosty mug on the sidebar.*