NaBloPoMo

Stuff I don’t get (22 of 31/57 of 274)

March 22, 2009 by kathi

I went to IKEA this morning for the express purpose of buying a single one-day-only sale item. It was sold out by the time I got there, but that wasn’t the problem. Sellouts happen, and I could have tried to get there earlier. The problem is that the item was advertised as one per household, and there were clearly more than a few people who were getting around that. I don’t want to hear about how they were all honest people and I am wrong to assume that they did not in fact live in separate households. When you see what appears to be a husband and wife with FIVE of the damn things, and no other people getting into their vehicle along with the merchandise… exactly how would you guess I am making a wrong assumption? I’m really interested to hear the interesting fiction that might spawn.

But enough about that minor annoyance and on to my real topic. I don’t get the whole appeal of IKEA. There are things there that I like well enough to buy, and also things that don’t seem any better than cheap crap from WalMart or Value City. I just don’t get why so many people are so enamored of the place. Their whole idea of “experience shopping” leaves me cold. I get that the idea of the annoying layout and lack of escape routes is to run you past as many things you might think about purchasing as possible. And I guess it must work on a certain percentage of the shopping population. It didn’t work on me, but it did annoy me and I did not buy a single thing. The food at the restaurant part did smell good, though. I didn’t buy any food either as the slowly wandering suburbanites were getting on my nerves.

That is another thing that really bothers me, but it’s certainly not unique to IKEA. I truly hate shopping so I am probably less tolerant of the slow meandering gazers than most people. I don’t mind that they might actually enjoy shopping and want to take their time about it. I do mind, and very seriously, that many of this type of shopper seem to have absolutely no concept that someone behind them might not appreciate how slowly they are moving if they are also blocking every inch of space along that path. Waiting for some of these shoppers was like waiting for a glacier, only less interesting to look at.

I feel better now that I’ve vented about all of that. I am glad that most of my shopping can be accomplished online which saves me from these experiences, and saves you all from having to read about it.

Where the f*** am I? (21 of 31/56 of 274)

March 21, 2009 by kathi

That’s a question I used to ask quite often before services such as MapQuest and Google Maps. My sense of direction is only slightly better than my parallel parking skills. I am probably a person that should have a GPS unit in their vehicle. I had some budget constraints to work with on my recent minivan purchase, and GPS was not one of the included features. Perhaps I will add GPS at a later date or subscribe again to Verizon’s VZ Navigator. For now, it’s MapQuest, Google Maps, BlackBerry Maps and my BlackBerry Curve’s semi-functional GPS (no thanks to Verizon’s limits on GPS service).

Speaking of MapQuest and other online mapping services, I know people often talk about getting routes that, in hindsight, were clearly not the best way to get from here to there. I haven’t had that problem too often. My biggest problem is discovering a few miles into the ride that the printed maps and directions are still sitting in the printer tray at work or home. I overcompensated for my recent trip to Columbia, MO. Not only did I double check to make sure the printed sheets actually made it into the car, I also made sure the directions were loaded into my BlackBerry.

On Verizon’s non-Storm BlackBerrys, GPS works fully only with BlackBerry Maps. This is probably to encourage subscriptions to VZ Navigator, which is a great service, but quite pricey at $9.99 per month (smartphone users are not offered the $2.99 per single use option that is also available for regular cell phones). BlackBerry Maps is pretty basic, but usable, especially in a major urban area like Chicago.

For my Columbia trip, I mapped the routes in both Google Maps and MapQuest on my laptop, printed out the sheets, and also loaded the routes into my BlackBerry.

Unfortunately, there is no way that I could see to sync driving directions created with Google Maps online with Google Maps for BlackBerry, so adding the driving directions to the mobile version required re-entering start and end points. This didn’t take much time and you can save addresses and directions for future use within the mobile version.

If you have created a “My Places” account in MapQuest online, you also have access to your saved maps and directions via MapQuest 4 Mobile, so that was a little easier. Unfortunately, screen capture doesn’t seem to work with this app, so you don’t get to see what I was seeing.

I used both the printed and mobile versions of the directions and maps during the trip. The printed sheets were easier to read during the day, due to the small screen size of the Curve. But when it got dark, the backlight on the Curve allowed me to read the directions without pulling over or turning on interior lights.

One thing that would have been a great help, especially since I was alone in mostly unfamiliar territory, was a mapping program that could speak the directions. None of these free applications offer that feature (nor did I expect it) but it would have been a wonderfully handy addition. After returning home, I thought about using BlackBerry Voice Notes to record the directions myself. I will give that a try for a future trip and report back. Other than the pain of listening to my own recorded voice, I think it should work.

The combination of printed directions with the mapping applications also available on the BlackBerry really worked out well for the Columbia trip. I look forward to further improvements in the mobile mapping applications, and keep hoping that Verizon will fully unlock GPS capabilities for all of its phones. We’ll see what happens before the next road trip!

Spontaneous technological combustion (20 of 31/55 of 274)

March 20, 2009 by kathi

I ran to double-check the model numbers on our two Acer computers in the office after seeing this Engadget post this morning:

Some of Acer’s Predator PCs recalled: they’ll set your games on fire, but also your desk

Yes, I know it gives a specific model name (Predator gaming PCs), but after Tuesday’s spontaneous monitor combustion, I wasn’t taking any chances!

Edited to add: I guess this is also my NaBloPoMo post for 3/20, although I didn’t originally intend it to be! Funny how the day gets away from you sometimes.

Mobile music (19 of 31/54 of 274)

March 19, 2009 by kathi

I’ve never owned an iPod. I was around when the first Walkman came out, and I have to look back in amazement at how far portable music has come. Comparing the size and weight of the original Walkman to the current iPod offerings, maybe part of our workouts back then was carrying around the Walkman!

When I bought my first BlackBerry this past November, a major goal was to eliminate the need to carry a PDA and MP3 player in addition to a cell phone. That goal has been accomplished in most satisfactory style. I often still opt to bring a small point-and-shoot digital camera and Flip Mino, even though the BlackBerry Curve has a camera and video built in, but that is another post for another day.

The music player on the BlackBerry Curve is pretty basic, but meets my needs pretty well. I didn’t have any issues transferring my music from my laptop to my Curve’s SD card, since almost all of it was already in MP3 format. I had been converting my iTunes music to DRM-free MP3 format as I purchased it, since I had a non-iPod MP3 player. When Apple broke iTunes to prevent the conversion utilities from working, I switched to Amazon for all digital music purchases. Not too long after that, Apple brought out their iTunes + DRM-free versions. May I say that I still purchase from Amazon and only when a song is available nowhere else will I ever purchase from iTunes.

I am not enough of a psycho audio freak to bemoan any sound quality inadequacies or shortcomings of the music player. At my age, and with my lack of musical skills, the difference between “real” sound quality and that of my Curve is not even a factor.

I’ve currently got three different Internet radio clients installed on my Curve. They all have different strengths and weaknesses, so I’ve kept them all rather than choosing just one.

iHeartRadio is a little different from the other two, so I’ll mention it first. The BlackBerry version has about 150 stations to choose from, including major-market and medium-sized market “real” stations as well as Internet radio stations. If you are living far away from your hometown, this is great. That is, if your hometown stations are included. Currently there is just one station from Honolulu, which would not be my first choice to listen to when there, but it’s ok and nice to be able to get it in the car here in Chicago. My old van did not have an AUX jack for music players, but my new one of course does, and one of my first purchases was the cable to connect music players to the car stereo.

Slacker and Pandora are similar in many ways. Each one allows you to create your own custom stations by choosing artists or songs that you want to listen to. For legal/licensing reasons, neither one is available outside North America nor do you have 100% on-demand choice of music. With Slacker, you choose up to 15 artists for your custom station, and most of the music selected will be by those artists or by artists very similar in style. With Pandora, you choose one artist or song and Pandora takes it from there to create your station using the Music Genome Project to choose artists and songs that you should enjoy based on your original input. Both allow you to ban artists or songs that you do not want to hear again, and favorite those that you do.

I have been a fan of Pandora for a while and often have it running on my desktop computer at work. Their BlackBerry client came out just this week, so I don’t have a lot of time with it yet. One feature that the BlackBerry version of Slacker has that I have found invaluable is the ability to cache stations. This means that I can listen to these stations even in areas where I don’t have a good signal.

The free version of Slacker has audio advertisements (about 1 an hour); the free version of Pandora has visual advertisements (so far, all for Docker that I’ve seen). I haven’t yet felt the need to upgrade to the paid versions of either service. The free versions are that good (sorry, Slacker and Pandora).

Any other BlackBerry users out there? Would love to hear your thoughts on these, and anything else I haven’t tried yet!

Giving information: canine parvovirus (18 of 31/53 of 274)

March 18, 2009 by kathi

Oprah Winfrey’s loss of one of her two recently-adopted cocker spaniel puppies to canine parvovirus is a sad story on many levels. Although I have disliked Oprah for years, I do truly sympathize with her loss. Parvo is a horrible thing for both dog and owner to go through, and it is a sad fact that even those with the financial means to provide the expensive and intensive care needed will sometimes have to face the loss of their beloved pet. The fact that canine blood bank Hemopet was contacted suggests that no expense was spared to provide excellent treatment.

There have been questions regarding whether the shelter followed proper quarantine protocols, as the timeframes involved suggest that the puppies contracted parvo at the shelter. Parvo is highly contagious and lives for a long time in the environment, so it’s not impossible that the puppies got it somewhere else either.

As a psycho dog person, I also wonder about things like why a shelter would adopt out two puppies of the same age to the same person, even (or should that be especially) a famous person. Or why puppies that were basically too young to have received more than one vaccination in the recommended series of 3-4 shots would be allowed to go to the filming of a television show, where they would come into contact with who knows how many people.

I am not a veterinarian and thankfully I have no first-hand experience with parvo. Rottweilers are one of the breeds that are most susceptible to parvo, so it is definitely a major concern of mine until my dogs are over a year old and getting their first annual booster.

Oprah’s sphere of influence means that many more people are now aware of parvo and how serious it can be. I hope there will be some follow-up to also make them aware of how to prevent and treat the disease as well. Here are some links if you don’t want to wait:

Adopting puppies can be devastating: Dr. Patty Khuly’s commentary on the incident from her excellent “Dolittler” veterinary blog.

How my puppy survived the PARVO VIRUS: The BAM Parvo Treatment: Sina Norris is a veterinary technician and a Rottweiler breeder. This is a day-to-day medical diary detailing the treatment that saved puppy Jarci’s life.

Intervet’s Progard vaccine is the vaccine of choice for many Rottweiler owners as it is the one that appears to be most effective in preventing parvo when administered on the proper schedule. If you do have parvo on your premises, be aware that even with proper disinfection with bleach or Parvosol, most veterinarians will recommend that you not bring a new puppy (or an older dog whose immunization history is unknown) in until at least 6 months to a year have passed.