I mean we’ve all seen (and ridiculed) the people buried in their cell phones as they walk into stuff (and people) – but is it a fine-able offence? Meh.. I don’t think so.. but I’m curious if you do? I’m sure there will be some iPhone and RIM BlackBerry accessories that come out sometime which will give you a retina keyboard or something I don’t know, but until that day comes.. stop the madness!

This week I ran across some pretty interesting posts that I’d like to share with you all.. and since I’m up early – I’m going to post them so you can peruse them during your morning coffee (yes.. I did just use peruse in proper context before 8am).

The first post I’d like to draw your attention to is actually an event happening here in Charlottetown tomorrow from 10am – 2pm.. it’s a fund-raiser for the Tsunami/Earthquake ravaged Japan being held at the Confederation Court Mall. Please go take a read and come on down if you have the time or perhaps can donate a prize.. lots of information located at the 1000 Cranes For Japan Facebook Page.

My favorite site Lifehacker has posted some more tips on getting a better cup of coffee. I’m not too concerned with this due to the fact I just got my Keurig machine and love it – but hey, for those of you whom don’t.. some great ideas/tips in there for the coffee lover in all of us.

One of the last things before I go to bed usually is do some reading via my iPad, my iPhone, or computer.. did you know that this could be causing me to lose sleep? Reuters.com has an article on just that.. worth a read. “Nearly 95 percent of people questioned in an NSF study said they used some type of electronics in the hour before going to bed, and about two-thirds admitted they do not get enough sleep during the week.”

And one more.. since I’m guilty of this (although not in regards to maternity clothes of course), Apartment therapy offers tips on keeping clothes that you’ve worn once – but are not dirty – organized. You know what I’m talking about right? I know personally I hang my once-worn jeans on the side of my hamper. Obviously, I’m not going to wash a pair of jeans every time I wear them for 1/2 a day.. especially when all I’m doing in them is sitting in a chair.. they aren’t dirty.. come on! Anyhow.. a few tips worth reading in order to help organize that and avoid what I hate.. ‘folding’ every day

MONEY MATTERS

First off, I was able to save up the money up over a period of time so that I paid cash for it instead of putting something that was $650 on my credit card which of course I didn’t want to do. This was a huge deal for me, as I truly believe when you pay for something with cash, it makes a big difference in terms of how much you appreciate it. I most definitely appreciate it more for that reason.

Secondly, price difference. I waited until the iPad 2 was announced in order to purchase mine. Instead of paying $650 for it as I did before – I paid $369 plus taxes (I didn’t realize that the taxes were on there, but sure enough.. they were).. so it came to around $412 I believe.. still a savings of over $200 for waiting a few months.

SOFTWARE

When I purchased the iPad the original time, it didn’t have the most up to date software which is on it now. The software was clunky and seemed to be lacking a lot of features that my (then) new iPhone 4 had, and this disappointed me. Now, however.. my iPad is actually more up to date than my iPhone as it’s running 4.3 and my iPhone is running 4.2.1. Not huge differences, but they’re there.

Also there’s another big plus to waiting a few months before purchasing – back last year when I purchased the iPad, there were hardly any iPad apps developed strictly for the iPad. Now there are TONS of them! In fact, I really can’t stand NOT having an iPad application designed specifically for it, if it doesn’t have an app designed specifically for it.. I won’t install it.

FEATURES

Ok, this is the fun part of the article.. basically getting to tell you the new ways I’m using the silly device.

First off.. TV – Using the (paid for) app AirVideo, Liz and I sat tonight and ate our dinners watching a few episodes of ‘the big bang theory’ which were streamed from my home computer in the other room.. (slick much??)

But yes, there’s more.. on the same line as the above – I have just now set up my iPhone as an ‘AirPlay Speaker’.. and plugged it into an older stereo we have setup in the kitchen. Ok, I’m going to repeat that so that it makes a bit of sense.. I have setup my iPhone to connect to my speaker system..

So, with this, I can play any music on my iPhone over my speakers in the kitchen. What’s this have to do with the iPad? Well, as I mentioned above I’ve also turned the iPhone into an AirPlay speaker.. that means.. iTunes from my home computer can push music to it.. and also.. my iPad.

So I’m sitting here… typing this.. controlling my music in the kitchen with my Ipad – as well as typing this on my bluetooth keyboard also, on my iPad. Yes.. I’m CREATING something on the iPad.. who would have guessed?

Ok this article is getting rather long.. so perhaps I’m continue in a future article.. but as of now.. I am LOVING this device!!

The point which I wanted to make (and did a bad job at it admittedly) was that the next physical item which we use today which is going to be gone by the wayside are books.

With digital e-readers becoming more and more common, publishers are publishing old books and new ones in digital format. This is great for the e-readers of the world – but like music, movies, games and TV – it has a mighty big drawback.

Piracy.

I can tell you that going digital is a HUGE problem for artists and content creators. When is the last time you bought a CD? On the other hand, when’s the last time you downloaded an mp3? It’s getting to the point now where people don’t even realize it’s illegal to download an mp3 or movie. They think that since it’s on TV, or perhaps in a music video, that by downloading it from a torrent site or heck, sometimes just Googling for it is just fine.

What happens when this happens to books as well? What’s next?

I’m a technophobe to the extreme and I can tell you that I have no idea when the last time was when I rented a movie from Blockbuster or Jumbo (that said, I’ve been to the theatres a LOT .. I love the experience.) When was the last time that I had to rush downstairs to watch TV since it was on at 7:30 PM exactly? Hmm.. not since the FRIENDS days.. (yes.. I was a big fan.. c’mon.. Rachel is HOT!).

I’ve told many people over the years that I think they could have seriously avoided all this digital piracy way back in the day if they did just one thing.. limit CD burners. Or regulate them.. perhaps number them, I don’t know.. but if they never existed – I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn’t have the problems we do today with piracy. People may disagree and say it would happen anyhow, but I don’t know about that.. and you don’t either! It happened, they got cheap.. people bought them, ripped and burned.. and the rest is history.

Think about it, if they never came out with CD-Burners, no one would be able to ‘rip’ CD’s.. and if you couldn’t rip CD’s, you wouldn’t be able to create mp3’s. The same with DVD burners, and now BluRay Burners, what do the companies that create these things honestly think? “Yeah.. they’re using BluRay burners to burn their own home movies.. all 32 gigs of them”.. whatever. They are a huge part of the piracy blame as far as I’m concerned.

So what’s going to happen with Books? Well, pretty much the same thing I’m afraid.. however.. there is a big shiny light at the end of the tunnel!

On-Demand

I will call it on-demand for a lack of a better term. I’m talking about the Netflix, the Apple Stores, the Amazon Book Stores, etc… these are the way of the legal, digital future. First, instead of having to purchase the whole “Tony! Toni! Toné!” album for that one song you like.. "If I Had No Loot", you could buy just that one song. Ok I’m sorry, this was one of the first albums I had every purchased cuz I really liked that song way back in 1993, and unfortunately.. it was the only damn song I liked.. that was a lot of trouble switching CD’s for one song! So instead of having to go through all that, you could purchase the song in the Apple Store for 0.99.. consider it done!

Netflix!! $8.00 a month unlimited streaming of movies?? Are you kidding?? What a great deal! Sure, I’ve heard their catalog isn’t the most up to date, but it’s just as good as that DVD library you have I’m sure eh? And it’s only going to get better.. this is the future folks.

And finally, the bookstores out there.. obviously Amazon is a big one with their Kindle reader being the #1 e-reader – you can download books directly from their store at a much discounted rate. How much difference? Well, the kindle edition of Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book is $9.97 for the Kindle, $16.49 for the paperback, and you don’t have to wait for shipping and don’t have to have a bulky book taking up space in your shelf (of course there are those that like that sort of thing.. like Ron Burgandy for example)… I like this idea.. REALLY like it.

Really though, I have to honestly say that I wish piracy never existed – as there really isn’t much good that comes from it. The problem however, is it’s gotten WAY out of hand – and no one in the world has a way to stop it…. I wish I could come up with a way, as I would become an instant millionaire… to which I could purchase all the legal mp3’s and books to my hearts content

Not that we needed any more festive excuses to tip back some adult beverages…but I do need to share the latest and greatest shooter that you may not have heard of…The Bottlecap.

Aptly named after the delicious candy (you do remember “bottle caps” as a kid don’t you?), you may be lucky enough to have the ingredients for this in the back of your liquor cabinet that you thought you would never drink for a long time…

0.5 oz Root Beer Schnapps
0.5 oz Sour Puss Raspberry Liquor

Drop the shot into a beer glass consisting of enough 7-up & if you have it, sweetened lime juice to hide the shot glass (like a jagerbomb).  Pucker up and enjoy!  If you don’t have either of the ingredients above, the Schnapps can be substituted with Blue Curacao, and the Raspberry Liquor can be substituted with Amaretto.

If you wanted to use your other ingredients to make creative drinks, use the iPhone App “Mixology”, which is free and gives you the opportunity to input all of your types of booze and it gives you drinks you can make.  For more detailed information, you can find it here: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/mixology-drink-recipes-free/id320926534?mt=8.

You can also submit your own recipes with your own unique names…so get creative and make some awesome Holiday shots to spice up your next party!

RBC (my main chequing account bank) is about to launch an iPhone app which will allow me to pay bills via my phone. This may sound like an application that you’d only use for viewing balances or something – but I have an idea which seems to make sense (in my head at least).

Ever since I started budgeting and really getting a grip on my finances, I no longer spend money that I don’t know I’m spending. I watch my bank account daily, and also track my spending. So what I plan on doing, is pay everything with my credit card – and when I have two seconds, simply transfer the money from my bank to the credit card. Bill payments are free via RBC, so why not take advantage?

Which brings me to my next point.. why would someone want to go through this process? Easy.. Free Rewards!! I have an "Air Miles" Mastercard and I would have to guess that every year I get approximately $200 to $300 worth of free groceries just from whipping out the Air Miles card at Sobeys and also by my Mastercard purchases such as my home heating oil, some urban clothes, online purchases, etc.. Previously, I’d avoid using my Mastercard for most purchases as I didn’t want to use it if I didn’t have to, and sometimes I’d forget to make the payment immediately for the purchases I just made when I eventually did sit at a computer – this way I don’t have to!

Yes, hypothetically I could do the exact same thing now by using the web browser on my phone and such, but putting in all my login information and trying to navigate around on the tiny screen would be kind of a pain to do it on any regular basis, so I’m really looking forward to the launch of their iPhone app – I’ll be doing a full review of the application on the blog once it’s launched

Shipping To Me

In any case it was sent the same day my support ticket was put in – and I was a happy camper. Now that said – as usual.. the courier (UPS/Purolator) sucked. Here’s how it went down..

A few notes – Notice the 5 day wait from Dieppe to Charlottetown? Yes.. it was remembrance day on the 11th.. no problem – but what about Friday? I called and they said that it was out for delivery.. NOPE! I called at 5:30pm and they told me that they would still deliver it up to 7pm.. NOPE!! They don’t here in PEI – Purolator (which delivers for UPS) is open 8-5PM and their office is out past the airport. I will get into this in a minute.

So of course no weekend delivery, not surprised – not a big deal. Definitely Monday right? Nope!! “Missed at the UPS Facility”.. wtf does that mean? UPS doesn’t have a facility here in PEI – so where the hell is it? Ok.. coming tomorrow.. perfect.

I should mention that I have a SNR on my door – meaning “signature not required” for Purolator – however since this was being delivered by Purolator.. but FOR UPS – it wasn’t valid. I got a nice yellow sticker on my door advising me to wait until tomorrow..  GRRR!!!

I called them up (at noon) and asked if they could re-try as I really needed my phone (this is almost a week since it landed in New Brunswick), they told me to sign the yellow card and they would see what they could do. Well, obviously they could do nothing .. nothing arrived that night. Now IF Purolator had any brains at all, they’d stay open until 5:30PM like FedEx so that at least it gives people that work until 5 every day a chance to get out (to Brackley) and pick up their package, but Noooo.. .close at 5PM. Brutal!

Send Mine Back

Anyhow, next day it arrives while Liz is at home for lunch and I’m now a happy camper with my new iPhone replacement. Apple really takes care of their people during support – not only did they send me the new one which arrived perfectly (finally..), but they included EVERYTHING I needed in order to send my broken one back! Right down to packing tape to re-seal the box that it came in! How slick is that?? I peeled off the UPS sticker and revealed the return label underneath it! All I had to do was call up the courier and give it to them and away it went!

I’ve never had a replacement product process go so well (as far as the company goes).. NOT the couriers..

Sleep App!

So, I was reading the other day about this new application which I was dying to try. It’s called “Sleep Cycle”. It was $0.99 not on sale and I purchased it 3 days ago. What does the application do? Well, to make a long story short – it monitors how you sleep and your sleep cycles! Let me say again.. it monitors how you sleep and your sleep cycles!! My cell phone.. monitors how I sleep!! Holy sh1t!!!

Ok so it monitors how I sleep and doesn’t bother me when I’m in a deep sleep, but as I get closer to my alarm time (from 6:30AM to 7AM) it waits for me to be in a sleep cycle where I’m ‘almost awake’ – and then proceeds to wake me that way. Why? Well, according to the application (and it makes sense), when you set your alarm for a set time every day – you could be in a deep sleep and then be awoken right in the middle of it – making it very tough to get out of bed and you feel very tired when you do, etc. At least, that’s the point of the application. It’s supposed to wake you up while you’re closest to being awake anyhow, so you wake up more alert and making it easier to get out of bed.

“This isn’t really something new. These so called bio-alarm clocks have been around for years and work very well, but they usually come with a hefty $200 price tag. I realized that the iPhone has all the components needed, and decided to make an alarm clock that works exactly the same, but sell it for a dollar or two instead.” Maciek Drejak, the programmer behind the application, says.

Does it work?

Well.. tests are continuing, but I have to say that it has worked amazingly after my first 2 nights. It started waking me up around 6:45 AM or so both nights, and I can tell you that I got out of bed without issue and did not feel as tired as I sometimes do. I’m not going to call it a miracle application just yet as I want to continue using it, however I think there’s a reason Sleep Cycle has become a huge success with a #1 paid app position in many countries, including Germany, Japan and Russia.

More information:

During the night you go from light sleep to deep sleep, occasionally entering into a dream state which is called REM-sleep. These are things that your normal alarm clock does not care about, and will go off at the set time regardless of whether you are in a light sleep phase or in the deepest sleep. However, since you move differently in bed during the different phases, the Sleep Cycle alarm clock is able to use the accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement and determine which sleep phase you are in. Sleep Cycle then uses a 30 minute alarm window that ends at your set alarm time and wakes you in your lightest sleep phase.

I really have to say that I was lost without my iPhone, and with the developments and ideas that they are creating it is truly an amazing device. Kind of makes me want to spring for a new Apple MacBook Air or something just to see what they’re like, but I think I’ll hold off for now

It didn’t get wet, in fact nothing happened to it at all – it ran out of juice and I put in on a charger.. and sometime during that charge.. something got corrupted as it’s completely screwed now.

It won’t boot up. Period. It stays on the apple logo and reboots itself all day. GRRR!!! I’m not a stranger when it comes to troubleshooting, so I have been all over the Internet and I can’t believe I can’t get it going. I mean there are millions of posts on iPhone troubles and resolutions and I cannot get any to work.

I’ve gone into both recovery modes to try to do restores from Apple with no luck, and it keeps coming up with the same error when I do the restore – “the iphone “iphone” could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (9).” I have no idea what 9 means but I can tell you that I’ve been looking it up for a long time now – no luck.

What really sucks is now I have to call Apple support and likely go through the same bunch of crap that I’ve already done.. blah. Maybe I’ll get one of those Android phones or something on sale… ha.. nah, I love my iPhone too much..  I just need to get it back! I am pretty pumped however about the 2TB hard drive I bought the other day which is going to allow for me to actually save some money on my electricity bill.. but I’ll do a post on that soon… it’s late, I’m sour and have to go to bed.

No.. this isn't what it'll look like

So tomorrow I’m off to Montreal for a few days, then to NYC. This is going to likely be my only lengthy vacation this year where we actually get to take off somewhere other than the Maritimes so both myself and Liz are really excited about it.

I can tell you something that we’re not excited about though. Driving through Montreal. Ever done it?? They’re NUTS up there! In and out of lanes and going a billion miles an hour, yeah.. should be fun!

The only thing that’s my saving grace is my iPhone. You see, I have the TomTom US/Canada application and it’s a full fledged voice GPS application. I’ve tested it out around here just for fun and I can tell you it’s VERY awesome and VERY accurate. So yeah, I don’t care how good the sale is on the latest GPS technology – save the extra pennies and get yourself an iPhone 4 – or at the very least the newest iPod Touch which gives you all the features of the iPhone 4 without the phone and a few other technologies.

I also purchased for $30 last night a dock for the car which very solidly holds the iPhone in place while driving. The one that I purchased attaches to the windshield and after putting it on I can tell you that it’s very sturdy. It’s going to work great! But it got me to thinking… I wonder if there was a way for me to have my iPhone in the front, and another iPhone attached to back and stream movies maybe from a laptop or something. Would that not be the coolest thing ever? Talk about making the trip fly by!! It’s going to be 12 hours of driving and I’m hoping to fill up an Iomega eGo Portable 34897 500 GB External Hard Drive full of stuff to keep us entertained on the way.

Wish me luck!!

I would like to now show you a screenshot I’m very proud of:

No, in case you’re thinking it.. I do not have any other credit cards What you’re seeing is the result of some very disciplined spending and a lot of hard work. I’m going to have a few extra drinks this weekend in Mill River to celebrate it this weekend! I don’t think I ever mentioned exactly how much money I was in debt, but it was a VERY large amount of money.

With this goal accomplished, I am now starting another goal. That goal is to set up an Emergency Fund. Obviously the pressure is off as I’m no longer paying interest on lines of credit or credit cards – but if something were to happen and I needed some money, I would be back in debt. To me that’s not a great idea. My plan is actually stolen from Gail’s book “Debt Free Forever”. I plan on saving up 6 months worth of my crucial “need to live” items – and I plan on having a checkbox system to accomplish this. For example: I need food during an emergency. I have proven that myself and Liz can live off of $200 worth of food a month (a lot less last month) – so I setup a list with 6 checkboxes. As I save up money (going to be putting it into a TFSA) – I will check off a box once I reach that plateau. So after I have $200 saved up, well I only have to do that 5 more times to cross the food box off the list. Now this may seem excessive, and I likely will stop perhaps at 4 months or even 3 – but the main idea is that it’s important to have an emergency fund setup that you can get money from fairly easily.

In the meantime, I plan on calling my bank and getting them to lower my credit limit on my line of credit to $2000 as well. If you recall I did this for my credit card where somehow my first (and only) credit card that I owned which started at a limit of $500 (student) had increased automatically to $16,000. I had them reduce that to $2000 a few months ago. The reasoning is two-fold. One, I don’t want to ever over the amount that I did ever again, and two – it helps the credit score if I ever did want to get a loan or something else of that nature. If you have a credit limit of $10,000 – when you apply for a loan, the see that 10,000 as money spent (even if you have no balance!).. reason being? Simple.. you could just as easily walk out of that loan application office and go get a cash advance for the full $10,000. I wonder if anyone has ever done that?

Unfortunately for me, I’m REALLY fighting the urge not to buy the iPad. I’ve already told you how much I love my iPhone and once I get some more free time on my hands I’d love to sit down and read some of the great magazines that I’ve downloaded and books in pdf format. Plus it’s REALLY cool Items like this don’t go on sale at all so I’d have to pony up the full $549 for the one I wanted.. *sigh*. Then of course there’s the fact that I bought this really kick ass computer at home which can run Mac software, Windows 7 and Windows XP all at the same time, but I only have one monitor! Time for an upgrade perhaps?? Maybe!! Buy.com has a great looking Samsung BX2440X LCD Monitor – 24″ – LED one on for $279.99 so I could get one of those eventually..

Ok ok, I have to stick to my guns.. if I want something, I’m going to have to save up for it.. end of story.