Beat That Funk!
The Dumb Little Man blog has a nice posting on how to get out of a crabby mood. The list has some good ones on it and includes my sure fire way to beat a crabby mood.
6. Make Someone Else Happy. Who could you cheer up today? Who could you thank or compliment? Who could you send a quick handwritten note to? You can really have fun with this, so go ahead and do it!
Whenever I am in a crappy mood other than listening to some good music, buying flowers or a card for my wife helps me get back into a happier state. Try it next time, it works!
via lifehacker
How To Listen to Subscription Music on the Xbox 360
For almost a year now I have had access to thousands of songs and albums through the Rhapsody subscription service. I have also been able to transfer these subscription DRM’d tracks to my Sansa 280R mp3 player. One thing which has always bothered me was the lack of a way to listen to these files on my Xbox 360. The Sansa e280R uses the .rax extension by default which is incompatible with the xbox 360 for playing over a USB connection. This left streaming from my desktop as the only option, which for some reason stumped me for the longest time.
I recently figured out how to play DRM restricted rhapsody tracks by using the WMP 11 streaming to my Xbox 360. The solution is less than ideal because you need to download each track before it can be played on the Xbox 360. Check out the brief how to below.
- First you need to be set up with a way to stream content to your Xbox 360(Microsoft).
- Next you should have Rhapsody downloaded and installed.
- Sign in to your Rhapsody account.
- Click on the Tools Menu and Choose Preferences.
- Click on “My Library”
- Choose “Download Tracks to my Hard Drive”
- Choose the file format, “WMA (Windows Media Audio)
- Go ahead and save your settings, just a warning this will eat up Hard drive space on your streaming PC.
- Find a song/album/playlist you want to be able to stream to the 360.
- Right click the song(s) you want to download and stream, choose Download Track(s)
- Now that the songs are downloaded to your computer in .WMA format open up Windows Media Player 11.
- The default location for your downloaded files is My Documents\My Music\Rhapsody\youremail@domain.com
- In Windows Media Player, Choose Add to Library and add the folder from step 12.
- If you have already turned on File sharing you can now power up your xbox 360, hit the media tab and choose your computer. From there you have access to all the tracks you have downloaded.
- You have to download the songs to the local hard drive for this to work!
A similar setup should work for Napster and Yahoo subscription services so long as you can download the DRM’d files to your streaming computer in .WMA format.
It is great to have access to all these tracks on the Xbox 360 without paying any more per month. It has always surprised me none of the subscription services has teamed up with Microsoft to offer this, though I am guessing it has something to do with bandwidth limitations.
Sprint SERO Deals and Ohio Coverage Updates
Sprint has some great deals available from their employee and friend program which is available to pretty much anyone. The program is known as SERO and you can sign up online at the SERO site. If you enter the email address savings@sprint.com as the referral address you will gain access to the deals on monthly plans and on handsets including the new Mogul for $289.99! The deal is only valid to new Sprint customers and you can port over your number so long as it isn’t currently with sprint. The plans are insanely cheap.
You can’t have a family plan in the SERO pricing but depending on your current carrier and needs it may be cheaper with 2 SERO accounts. The accounts also come with 7PM nights and Weekends.
With this great deal, I have been checking into the local coverage in Northwest Ohio. One problem with Sprint right now is that this areas is still loosely defined as a Nextel region and isn’t available for this deal. If you live in an area without coverage, search for a large city nearby. This zipcode is your area of frequent usage, not your home zip code, for my purposes I chose 43601 the zip for Toledo, OH. I talked to a knowledgable Sprint rep att hte local store who is anticipating EVDO coverage in the Findlay, OH region for Sprint by the end of the calender year. It is surprising how behind the game Sprint is in a nationwide rollout of highspeed data coverage, especially considering Alltel is ahead of them with coverage similar to Verizon’s. If Sprint can get the rollout going soon these SERO deals could gain them a lot of subscribers in more rural areas, and more subscribers on their full price plans.
Stay Tuned for a comparison of EVDO coverage in the near future.
Advantage Rent a Car Customer Service, Fixes My Problem!
Providing good customer service is so very simple yet many companies can’t seem to get it right for all the customers on the net. Recently I had a bad experience renting a car from Advantage in San Antonio, in reality it was a combination of bad things which led to a bad experience, if only one of them had occurred it would have been an OK experience. Late Last Tuesday I posted my letter to the CEO of Advantage here on my blog and followed up with a postal mail letter to the CEO and CFO which I put int he mail Thursday afternoon. I was very surprised when I received a email Friday at 12:57PM apologizing for my experience, promising to correct the issue for future customers and refunding my full rental fee. This was less than 24 hours after I dropped my complaints into the mail leading me to believe that Advantage was reading the complaint on my site and responding to it. Congrats, that is a proactive method of fixing problems customers have already had. You can check out the full text inside as well as my “patent pending” method of how to fix a problem a customer has had.
Making a Car Mount With Line Out For The Sansa e200 Series
Frustrated with the lack of a manufacturer of a car adapter to both power and provide line out functionality for the Sandisk Sansa E280R and the whole E200 lineup I decided to cobble together the first version of my car mount. Lets get to the good stuff.
What you need:
- Griffin Powerdock for Sansa (23.99 @ Buy.com minus additional $10 for new Google Checkout)
- Arkon Mount – CM925-S : Flexible Steel Gooseneck PDA Mount (~$25)
- USB Power adapter for cigarette lighter ($5-20)
- Pack of Zip Ties small and large (~$3)
Tools:
- Drill with bits
- File or Sharp Pocketknife
- Tin Snips, Wire Cutters, or a Dremel (to trim down Arkon Mount)
The Steps:
Step 1. First you need to take the Griffin Dock apart. To do this simple pull the metal parts in opposite directions and slide the black inner part out. Then remove the “guts” of the dock.
Step 2. Next determine where you are going to run your large zip ties and file or carve out a place for them.
You can see the markings I made as well as the areas carved out. I used a pocketknife to do this for lack of a better tool.
Step 3. Drill Your Holes in the PowerDock.
Your hole drilling should line up with the notches you just carved and with the Arkon dock you want to hook this to.
Step 4. Route Your Large Zip Ties
Next Run your large Zip Ties through the holes and in your notches.
After routing these put the “guts” back into the black part.
Step 5. Put the Metal part of the Dock Back On.
Step 6. Prepare Your Arkon Dock
I don’t have many pictures of this since its basically a judgment call on where to cut and where to drill.
- Take Apart the PDA mount part of the Arkon mount
- Get it down to just the bottom part of the mount (where it hooks to the gooseneck)
- You need to snip off about an inch one end to make the bottom of the Arkon Dock the same length as the Powerdock.
- Next drill 8 holes in the bottom of the Arkon Mount, and run 4 zip ties through the holes. (See Picture Below)
Step 7. Put it Together and Zip It Up.
Step 8. Trim the Zip Ties
Step 9. Almost Finished
You should have a stable mount now, you may want to use electrical tape to cover the edges.
Step 10. Mount it in your Car!
I used a ear plug to keep the mount from sliding out. Enjoy some finished pictures.
Conclusion:
This is version one of my car dock for the Sansa e200 series. This summer I hope to make a more elegant version, when I have access to tools and a garage as well as time.
Good Luck on your own endeavors, and I welcome your comments, though bear in mind this is more for function than for looks.
I Lowered my Citicard APR and So Can You
Well, since my knee surgery and the associated expenses are more than we have in savings we will need to put them on a credit card while taking several steps to pay them down quickly.
My first step was to call Citi to get a lower rate. It took 3 calls before I reached Darnell who was able to transfer me to Amber an “Account Specialist”.
I had explained to Darnell that I had been a Citi customer in good standing and had a credit score in the high 700′s and that I would liek a lower APR even for a short period of time. On the previous calls I had been told that 13.74% was the lowest they could go on my account. Miraculously the account specialist was able to offer me 7.99% for 9 months.
Granted carrying any debt on a credit card is less than awesome, but sometimes expenses happen, in this case an unexpected knee surgery and a high deductible. The plan is to be out of CC debt by the end of this promo period!
Just In Time for Easter: Peel a Hardboiled Egg in Seconds
Check out this clip on how to peel a hardboiled egg in seconds.
For those who hard boil eggs once a year, check out Mr. Breakfast’s How to Hard Boil an Egg. A good guide but I’d add a few minutes to the simmering time unless you like softish yolks.
Del.icio.us Firefox Extension Plugin Tip
If you have Firefox and a Del.icio.us account I highly recommend the plugin provided by Yahoo toorganize your bookmarks. I started doing this when I migrated to Ubuntu last week. I just found out today that if you highlight something on a page then bookmark it with del.icio.us the highlighted text is entered as the note!
I also found that you can insert a del.icio.us toolbar into the Firefox browser and use it rather than the default bookmark toolbar and group your tags on the toolbar resulting in an efficient bookmark system which is easily replicated on other systems as well.
Josh Smith is a blogger, database manager and adjunct professor of business and technology. 
