Hoho's Log

New Book!

Like most of America, I went to the Outlet mall with some friends on the day after Thanksgiving to shop. I didn't really find anything that I wanted to buy for myself or my family. BUT, I did find this gem of a book: "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel" by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht, it's got a ton of useful information that you can use when something happens while you're travelling. Like, maybe a runaway camel, or get this, UFO abduction! Wheee! I could not resist buying the book. For $5 it was pretty tempting. Read on for more photos. You can click on the pictures for a bigger image.

This was what caught my eye first. How to foil a UFO abduction.

1. Do Not Panic.
Umm... right.

2. Control your thoughts.
How the hell am I supposed to do that when I'm busy panicking?

3. Resist verbally.
If I say "u-u-u-u-f-o", will the aliens think I'm too stupid to abduct?

4. Resist mentally.
I guess I'll also have to think "u-u-u-u-f-o".

5. Resist physically. Note that this is shown as a last resort.
Yeah, like I'd slap an alien. Then again, maybe they'll get their eyes poked out when I point and say "u-u-u-u-f-o".

HBH-200

I just received the BlueTooth headset that I ordered. It's the HBH-200 by Sony-Ericsson.

As you can see from the photo, it's an earbud styled headset with a tiny LCD display that can show various bits of information, like the T610's call list. It shows the last few calls that I've received, made or missed. The tiny LCD also displays caller ID information and the phonebook entry (if it the number is stored) of anyone calling.

It comes with the same charger that goes with the T610 box, and a lanyard if you care to hang the LCD unit around your neck. The chargers are interchangeable, which means I don't have to bring multiple chargers when I travel. Which is a big plus for me, since I already have a ton of power adapters that I need to bring, adding another one is a pain. It also means that I can use my car charger to charge the headset in a pinch. Neat!

Sound quality is pretty good not as clear as a wired headset, but better than other BT headsets I've tried before, like the Jabra BT headset which echoed badly that it annoyed anyone I called. Or the Plantronics BT headset that doesn't hang on your ear solidly that it flops around when you turn your head.

I haven't had the time to test the battery life, but it looks promising. The Plantronics headset I was using would die after about 30 minutes of use. The HBH-200 seems to last a LOT longer.

All in all, a pretty nice BlueTooth headset for the Sony-Ericsson T610.

The D2H

Rob Galbraith has posted a First Look at the Nikon D2H. And boy, do I WANT ONE. I will take PayPal donations, personal checks and money orders. Hehehe... :)

Jack this!

When iPods were introduced, they've been wildly successful as THE MP3 player of choice. Now, another trend seems to be coming out involving these tiny jukeboxes, where when iPod owners meet, they unplug from their iPod and plug into the other, listening for a brief period to what's playing. Wired has an article all about it. Quite interesting.

A New Take on an old Scam

Have you ever heard about the Nigerian Scam? There have been thousands of people who have been scammed. Here's a website of a guy who decided to have is own fun with the scammers. Baiting them, and even getting them to send photos! Too funny.

Huh?!

The Guiness Book of World Records gets into the record books as the best selling book of all time at 100 million copies. The story at CNN. Check out the advert beside the article. The woman with the most piercings in the world at 1,903 piercings, and the man with the longest tongue and ALBERT EINSTEIN (?!) sticking their tongues out.

Nice timing. Heh.

Click, Click, Click...

I finally got around to it and installed Salling Clicker on the PowerBook. And boy, it's gotta be one of the funnest (is that a word?) pieces of software I've installed.

It uses BlueTooth on my T610 and the T3 to control various apps on the Mac. It basically makes the my phone or PDA a remote. When I take a call on my cellphone, it sets my iChat status to "On the phone" or to "Away" when I step out of BlueTooth range.

It's smart enough to pause iTunes or DVD Player when I make or receive calls on my cellphone. You can customize the actions that happen, and the events that trigger the actions. Nice.

It is freaking amazing! And as a neat plus, Clicker also supports AppleScript, which means, if you can program using AppleScript, then you can almost infintely extend Clicker to control other applications. Wow. Simply amazing.

iChat!

Last night was insane. I was chatting with Vic Icasas. When he mentioned that Jill and Tonnette were going to be dropping by the Hit Production offices for some "tutelage". Both Jill and Tonnette had just recently switched to the Mac platform, and Vic, the Mac evangelist was going to help them out a bit.

We decided to do a little bit of video chatting. To start off, Vic was somewhere in the office, the cafeteria, surfing wirelessly. He had 3 people sitting nearby with various Powerbooks. Then of course, Jill and Tonnette, well, they decided to get lost on the way to Hit. :D

By the time they arrived, I was groggy with fatigue. Too sleepy to do much, I missed a whole bunch of good opportunities to get some neat snaps of Jill and Tonnette... oh well. Maybe next time. heh.

In the meantime, here's some of the snaps taken by an iSight from across the world.

Drivin'

I'm driving down to LA later today. We're supposed to surprise my big sis for her birthday tomorrow and, also a joint birthday party for 2 of my neices and a nephew. That'll be the second time in as many weeks that I've driven down, no wonder my car has way over 100,000 miles on it, and it's only 4 years old! Wheee! 325 miles of driving (each way!) ahead. Oh what fun!

Blogging on the go

Wow. I'm posting from my friend's living room in LA. No DSL, no cable and NO LANDLINE! So, how? I'm connected using my T610 via Bluetooth. Using the GSM Data mode, I dialled up to my ISP at the blazing speed of... 9600bps! I haven't used a modem this speed since... well, since... 1991! Ouch.

But, I'll take that over not having 'net access.