Where does my moola go?
For money management, I’ve used a site called Yodlee in the past. Yodlee is tightly spun into the majority of the financial world and works as a central hub for my bills / accounts. When I need to go pay my mobile phone bill or check the balance of my student loan, I can type my password into Yodlee once and they will auto-log me into those accounts rather than having to remember several user names / passwords. Yodlee is extremely useful in that respect, but doesn’t offer a user friendly study of my finances or interface for that matter. This is where Mint comes in…
Juno Rewrite
Hilarious re-write of Juno from Rod Hilton, writer at The Editing Room: Link
I dig Digsby!
I started searching for an all encompassing instant messaging program a few weeks ago. For those that are unfamiliar with the idea, it’s essentially a program that controls all my instant message accounts (AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, etc.) as well as email functions. I had used Trillian years ago, but I knew there had to be some advances since then. I was perusing the net for suggestions when I came across a LifeHacker post and decided to give Digsby a shot. It was the only tool on the list to combine social networking tools into the program, a very attractive hook.
Digsby currently supports Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter accounts for their social networking portion. After entering account details for each, you will be automatically logged in and sent notification messages for new messages, tweets, comments, friend status changes, photos, etc… It’s also a fast way to reach your accounts without having to log into the services each time. Besides the Digsby layout to the left, little icons for each service will be placed in the task bar for quick access. Left clicking will bring up full mini-feeds of friend updates and right clicking provides quick access to changing status updates. By all accounts, Digsby has streamlined my social networking compulsion and general email upkeep. I just have to worry about clicking too many notifications about silly wall posts.
Digsby also handles multiple accounts of the same type very well. I have two Twitter accounts (work & personal) and two gmail accounts logged in at the same time. I can load up or update each without having to change my login information. I can also delete emails without logging into the system; fantastic for junk email. In addition to my hotmail account, I also have 4 instant messengers loaded into the system. Those are primarily accessed in the main Digsby window. You can set a status message across all your instant messengers at once as well as set it to show music currently playing.
Everything isn’t perfect though. Digsby is a bit of a memory hog. I have 4 gig of RAM in my laptop, so I don’t suffer from a lack of memory. Others won’t be as fortunate though. Secondly, I get Twitter error messages up the wazoo. I’ve turned down the number of times Digsby checks for new Twitters and it has somewhat helped. I’m not sure if it’s a problem with Twitter or Digsby. Facebook notifications, while useful, will drive you nuts if you have hundreds of friends. It’s not so bad with a small group though. Finally Digsby is Windows only right now, sorry to Mac / Linux users!
Digsby is still being actively developed and improves on a weekly basis. Digsby automatically updates itself and you can read up on their progress in the Digsby blog.
30 Rock
I also watched 30 Rock last night, but didn’t laugh once. I’m not sure if the show is losing its luster or not.
The Office struck a sweet note last night
I’ve been a fan of NBC’s The Office since the inception of the show. The story arcs are more entertaining than most dramas and the uncomfortable comedy is almost always rock solid. During the WGA strike, it was certainly the show that I craved the most. Last week’s return was filled with laugh after laugh about Michael & Jan’s deranged living relationship and I expected the same for this week. While I didn’t laugh half as hard last night, it was one of the more down to earth episodes I’ve seen in a while.
My favorite parts of the episode weren’t any particular jokes, but rather the exchange between Jim and Pam after Michael returns from his blind date, Kevin’s heartfelt victory speech and Jim’s coy “proposal” at the end of the show. I’m truly enamored with their innate ability to switch gears on the fly and blend the comedy / drama into such an irresistible package. It’s one of the few shows that can do it effectively.
I also appreciated the toned down nature of Michael’s gaffs. Too many times this season, the writers have painted Michael differently than previous seasons. He’s certainly an incompetent boss, but having him drive his car into a lake due to a GPS or smashing company property in a moronic prank war was bordering on buffoonery. The writers let the character slip away early on in Season 4 and I can only hope that he’s reigned back in. By comparison, his obsession with a deceased chair model was a decent first step back to normalcy.
Why does Volkswagen consider Shawn Fanning relevant?
While I was anxiously anticipating the return of Agent Michael Scarn last week, I spotted a face from the past in a Volkswagen commercial on NBC. Specifically Shawn Fanning, the creator of the most well-known peer to peer transfer tool at the turn of the millennium a.k.a. Napster. The commercial is designed to be a faux talk show with a talking classic Volkswagen Beetle as the host. You’ve probably seen a version of this commercial by now as there are a few variations with different guests.
While the commercial rolls on with an interview of Shawn, the viewer never hears the word “Napster” in the conversation. Since Fanning doesn’t own the company anymore, I presume it would have been illegal for Volkswagen to mention Napster without getting the thumbs up from the new owners. There’s a couple mentions of free music, but nothing specific to Shawn’s relationship to his infamous program.
The baffling aspect of Volkswagen hiring Fanning as a pitchman is that he’s a nobody for the majority of the viewers. Granted he had a few seconds of screen time in the 2003 movie The Italian Job as an opposing villain to Seth Green’s character, but his face isn’t recognizable to anyone outside the tech world. The only reason I recalled his mug was because Napster was wildly popular during my college years. Add the fact that Napster was never mentioned in the commercial and their targeted audience becomes severely limited to people that have memorized Shawn Fanning’s face.
Plus it was a silly commercial to begin with…