14 Jul 2001
A Final Internet Freebie on the Phone. With the track record of other free internet services, how long do you think TellMe will stay free? This article leaves out the most interesting aspect of TellMe — the ability to create your own free custom VoiceXML applications (like my telephone weblog).
12 Jul 2001
A dream come true.
For the week of Thursday, July 12th, to Wednesday, July 18th, I get to be a
Nielsen household and report what I’ve watched on TV (I randomly received the tv log book in the mail).
I’m excited and stoked by the responsibility, but couldn’t they have tapped me back in September or October when all my favorite new shows were getting pummeled in the ratings and subsequently canceled?
I watch a lot of cable instead of network TV, so I’m curious to see how many of the shows I watch this week show up in next week’s Nielsen ratings (I’ll have to make a graph).
The other curious thing is that they take VCR recording into consideration, but there’s nothing in the booklet about TiVos or other
PTVRs. I called their question line and the person told me to write down what I watch as if I was using a VCR. But of course, we all know TiVo is so much more. It seems like it’s going to take Nielsen a while to catch up with how they impact television watching (the lady on the phone told me she had only gotten her first question about TiVos the week before).
So anyway, check out what I’m watching this week.
11 Jul 2001
Following a recommendation by John, I’ve ordered a new desktop (or beside-desk) through gamepc.com. It’s a decent system and I’m looking forward to the increased processing power I’ll have, but I must admit I’m most excited by the needlessly extravagant aluminum case.
Here are the specs:
- AMD “Thunderbird” Athlon-C 1400MHz
- Taisol CGK760092 Cooler for Socket-A
- MSI K7T266 Pro VIA KT266 Motherboard
- Crucial PC-2100 DDR 512MB CAS2.5 - 2 DIMMS
- IBM Deskstar 60GXP 60GB
- Plextor PlexWriter 16×10x40 EIDE CD-RW
- Toshiba 16X EIDE DVD 48X
- Creative Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1
- Linksys Etherfast 10/100 PCI Network Card
- Matrox G450 ETV 32MB
- Lian Li PC60 Aluminum Mid-Tower
Once the new box arrives and is set up, my current PII 350 will become my new web server.
11 Jul 2001
Psion to exit PDA field
Psion to exit PDA field. Well, I guess I won’t be buying a EPOC-OS handheld after all.
11 Jul 2001
And we’re back…
My network card nightmare is over and my server is back online, allowing my to get at my email achives for the first time in a week.
Being without this website for a week has shown me how much I’ve grown to depend on it as a personal content management system. A dozen times over the past few days I’ve wanted to visit a particular site or recall a specific piece of info and have been unable to call it up.