Mark Smitka

Swine Flu: No Cause For Alarm?

Today, the acting head of the CDC (pictured above) stated that while Swine Flu was not yet contained, there was no cause for alarm. His comments were brief, adding that he couldn't stay, as he was on his way to a cookout.

Buying a GPS? Same TomTom: $210 Less at Amazon Than at Best Buy

The screen captures say it all.  Same TomTom device: $210 less at Amazon than at Best Buy (and no, that's not a Deal of the Day or other Gold Box/Lightning special at Amazon).  My point: Check the price at Amazon before buying anything at Best Buy. In fact, seriously, don't buy anything at all from those Best Buy clowns. The only thing that store's missing that they should have is a jar of KY at the door.  People that shop there are gonna need it.

 

Oprah Cancels Show on Columbine: Apparently Forgot What It Was About

Oprah canceled the episode of today's show saying that after she watched the taped show, she decided not to air it because of it's focus on the two gunmen.  What did Oprah think was going to be on the tape?  After all, it is her show, isn't it?  The next time the anniversary of something terrible rolls around, Oprah should stick to what she knows best: An in-depth story of her struggle with dieting.  That'll make it all just go all away.

While Windows Users Battle Viruses and Spyware, Microsoft Concentrates On Window Tiling

Jessica Mintz wrote an interesting story that she's calling Behind The Scenes With Windows 7. She tells us that:

"• Back story: Microsoft couldn't initially figure out why people were spending so much time resizing windows and dragging them around. It turned out that users were trying to give themselves a side-by-side view of documents for easy comparison."

I think it's great that Jessica was able to get the behind the scenes scoop on what made Microsoft tick when they crafted Windows 7, but did it occur to Microsoft that it would be nice if they could figure out why people spend so much time (and money) battling viruses, phishing, and spyware. Did it occur to Jessica to ask?  What she wrote reads more like an ad for Windows 7 than news.

In any case, you can bet that once Windows 7 rolls out, it'll be exactly like every version before it in one way: It'll be a dog to manage, it'll nag you to re-start your system after nearly every update, and those updates will be frequent.

One thing Microsoft has figured out: When they release a "fix", and call it a new version, people will pay for it.

T-Mobile Misses Boat By Not Offering UMA on All Devices

UMA calling is probably one of the best features T-Mobile offers on some of their devices.  For those not familiar with it, in simple terms, it provides a way to make calls via wi-fi. With T-Mobile's HotSpot at Home service, all calls made that way are free (if you have the optional service added to your plan). What's nice though, is even without the plan, you can make calls that way, and the minutes are counted just as they would be if they were placed over the cellular network. The benefit is that you can get signal most anywhere there's wi-fi, which includes, home, work, etc.  It stands for Unlicensed Mobile Access, and more can be found about it here:

UMA Wiki

T-Mobile leaves a big gap in UMA capable devices, and I have no idea why. For example, if you want a full QWERTY phone with UMA, it'll have to be a BlackBerry. I was disappointed to find that though T-Mo has added a lot of nice features in the soon to be released Sidekick 2009 (3G, for example), there's no wi-fi/UMA.  This would have been a great feature for that phone, and one that would have made it an almost "must have" device.

UMA is a feature that no other US carrier has (to my knowledge), and one that truly sets the T-Mobile apart from the crowd. Why not capitalize on it, and add it to all devices?  Come on T-Mobile.  Your network and handset lineup is getting better every day, and your reputation with respect to customer service is the best in the business. I have no doubt that you'd grab a lot more subscribers by more aggressively marketing UMA, and adding it to every device.

Eli Lounging Around

I thought I'd test the Flip Video Ultra out on my dog Eli. He's a willing subject, though not very excited about the whole deal:

Getting a Fastmail.fm Account Configured With Nokia Messaging

Nokia Messaging (found here: Nokia Messaging) is to Nokia devices, what BlackBerry Internet Service is to BlackBerry devices. At the moment, it's a no-charge service, but they indicate that will/can change in the future. In any case, it works great, and turned what I felt was really kludgy e-mail integration, into a great e-mail experience. There was one exception though: Getting my fastmail.fm account configured. You might or might not run into problems setting up a fastmail account with the service.  If you do, check out this post.  Thanks to Inde66 on the forum for posting some great info!

Post via iPhone App

It seemed appropriate to try the App Store TypePad app, so consider this just a test. Nothing else to see here.

Just Moved In

This is my first post with TypePad hosting my domain/blog.  It's more full featured, and easier to use than the tools provided by Google Apps.  Not much more to add at the moment, but stayed tuned.  There's more to come.