Media consumer, tech enthusiast, and gamer
Switching from one search engine to another is simple, right?
Well, I thought I’d try a couple new options, but it was difficult. I had to consciously remind myself that I was going to use new (for me) search engines. If I didn’t think about it, Google is always where I ended up.
First on the list, the other two of the big three: Yahoo and Microsoft / MSN / Live (come on, Microsoft, I still don’t know what you want to be called here).
While computer chips are known for doubling in capacity every two years or so, battery improvement is at a measly 10% a year. And experts in the field seem to have even more bad news: (a) things are unlikely to change, and (b) the situation may get worse before it gets better. Since computer chips are shrinking so rapidly, the consumer electronics industry is able to include more bells and whistles as part of your gadget. But those extra features tend to drain batteries faster than ever before.
According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), which cites its favorite source of “people familiar with the matter,” Google is working on a new search service for cellphones that will help consumers search for and buy ringtones, games, and other mobile content. Google has even considered including a “social-networking component” (whatever that means in…
Read More “Google Goes Mobile Even More, Now Wants to Sell You Stuff” »
I subscribe to the Economist and received an intriguing email yesterday. It looks like the Economist might be getting into podcasting, er, sort of. This comes not long after the magazine decided to implement RSS, though this latest move is a bit more unique. Check it out:
Read More “First Magazine Offered as a Complete Audio Edition” »
As promised, I thought I’d share how I sold Computers.net and made the move to TechConsumer. Back in June of 2005, I approached the original owner of Computers.net (who I had known for sometime) and asked what his plans were for the site (which was nothing more than a survey page at the time). As it turns out, he had always been interested in selling it but felt it was worth more than the highest offer he had received at that point: $50,000.
So I offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse: I would put together a blog, generate traffic, get advertising revenue, and then put Computers.net up for sale. In the process, I’d pay him a percentage of the ad revenue generated in exchange for a portion of the final selling price. Since he had done nothing with it since 1995, he figured my offer was worth a shot.
Read More “How I Used Blogging to Sell Computers.net for $155,000” »
*Update* We’ve updated the fake articles with today’s date and have made it easy for anyone to use this as a prank on office workers. “How to” at the end of the article.
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I work in Indianapolis and have a coworker who is obsessed with all things Apple, especially the iPhone. He’s ready. He’s got Indy Apple stores and AT&T locations on speed dial and is set for the biggest release since the iPod itself. This Friday at 6:00 p.m. was to be the beginning of his best weekend ever…. until…
A group of us at work decided to spoof an article in Indy’s most prominent local paper: the Indianapolis Star. What we did was scrape the website, pasted some of our own content into it, and changed DNS settings such that any browsing on our local network at work would reroute IndyStar.com to our fake site that was made to look exactly like the real thing. We even did the same thing for Apple.com so that we could mock up Apple’s site “crashing” due to heavy traffic in response to the unfortunate news of the iPhone being delayed.
Click on the images below to see how it looked. The first is the actual fake article that was displayed when the front page story was clicked on, and the second is the homepage with the title story about the iPhone delay. We could only let the joke run for so long (a couple hours). This guy was/is determined to get an iPhone and was considering purchasing a ticket to New York to avoid the supposed disaster of the iPhone being delayed for Indianapolis. And we’re not that mean.
See below for the text of our fake press release:
Read More “How to Punk an Apple Fanboy the Week of the iPhone Release” »
Hi everyone! We’ve sold Computers.net (long story which I’ll share soon) and have moved all our previous content to our new site here: TechConsumer. More coming soon… If you have any questions, feel free to email us: TechConsumer at gmail dot com. *Update* Check out the About page for more details.
There are rumors afloat that Amazon may be purchasing Netflix. One source has the purchase price at around $1.5 billion while another pins it at $2.1 billion. As a result, Netflix shares are up 5 percent today. The online video rental/download/purchase market is still in its infancy even if crowded with the likes of Apple, Blockbuster, Netflix, Amazon, and even Wal-Mart. And those are just the big boys playing in that space.
Read More “Amazon to Buy Netflix? Cool. But Then We’d Have to Pay Sales Tax” »