Howtos, Rants, and Reviews

PayPal 2.0 Lets you Bump Phones to Submit a Payment
Thursday, March 18, 2010 3:55 PM

Paypal is a great service for making secure payments online and to people you know. I am sure that at some point we will never need to have cash because everyone will have ways of excepting payment without it. With the new version of Paypal for the iphone you can bump iphones with someone and request or send payments to them. They also have a new feature that allows you to split a check, include a tip, and request the amount from everyone else.

If you have a Paypal account make sure that you connect your bank account to paypal. That way when you make payments to friends there will not be a fee to transfer the funds. You can also make sure your friends do the same that way when you exchange money via paypal you never have to worry about transfer fees. If you use a debit or credit card it will cost you 2.9% of total plus $.30 USD for each transfer. Even though that is not that much I still don't like to pay to move money around.

Checkout the new version of Paypal on the iPhone it's a free download.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Good Beers by Category that will not break your Diet
Thursday, March 18, 2010 2:12 PM

I am a huge fan of beer and that being the case I drink way too much of it. The problem is I like drinking expensive beer from micro brewers that are better than the average beer. If you are on a diet or just trying to cut down on calories drinking the right good beers will help you avoid the good beers that will ruin your diet. If you pick the right good beer you can drink two for the price of one heavy beer. I submit this list for your consideration.

Guinness – 120 Calories – 2 Weight Watchers Points!

Ales
Newcastle Drown Ale – 140 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Bass Ale – 140 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Oberon Ale – 170 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Fat Tire Amber Ale – 159 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points

   IPA
       Harpoon IPA 170 Calories - 3 Food Points
   Porters
       Kallisti Pottsville Porter – 165 Calories - 3 Food Points
       Redhook Blackhook Porter – 163 Calories - 3 Weight Watchers Points
       Flying Dog – Road Dog Scottish Porter – 165 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points

Lagers
Harp Lager – 153 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Spaten Premium Lager – 160 calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Leinenkugel's Red Lager – 166 calories – 3 Food Points
Leinenkugel's Creamy Dark Lager – 170 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Kona's Long Board Island Lager – 173 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points
Flying Dog – Old Scratch Amber Lager – 150 Calories – 3 Weight Watchers Points

Dunfel
       Warsteiner – Premium Dunfel – 150 Calories – 3 Food Points.

These are all much better than your cheap beer you buy in bulk and will also keep the calories down. Keep in mind if you think drinking miller lite is better for you think again. Miller lite and most other lite beer is still like 96 calories which is 2 Weight Watcher points. I much rather drink good beer that is has a few more calories and only one more food point than cheap watered down beer like Miller lite.

Here is a more complete list of Beers with their calories and Weight Watchers Points

Beer Name	Calories	WW pts.
Amstel Light	93	2
Anchor Steam	152	3.5
Beamish Red
Beamish Stout	146	3
Beck's Light Beer	105	2.5
Beck's Oktoberfest	140	3
Beck's Orginal	292	6
Beck's Premium Light	64	1.5
Blue Moon	171	3.5
Boddington’s	154	3
Boulevard Bully Porter	194	4
Boulevard Irish Ale	182	4
Boulevard Lunar Ale	157	3
Boulevard Nutcracker	224	4
Boulevard Pale Ale	163	3
Boulevard Stout	149	3
Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat	155	3
Boulevard Zon	153	3
Bridgeport Black Strap
Bud Light	102	2.5
Budweiser	143	3
Chimay
Coors	148	3
Coors Light	102	2.5
Corona	148	3
Corona Light	109	2.5
Delirium Tremens
Demon Hop Yard IPA
Dos Equis XX	145	3
El Presidente
Fosters	125	2.5
Goose Island Honker’s Ale
Goose Island Nut Brown
Guiness	120	2
Harp	153	3
Harpoon Ale
Harpoon Summer
Harpoon’s Octoberfest
Heineken	160	3.5
Heineken Light	99	2
Holy Grail Ale
J.W. Dundee Honey Brown	145	3
Kalamazoo Two Hearted
Killian’s Irish Red	163	3
Leinenkugel's Honey Weiss	149	3
Leinenkugel's Red	166	3
Magic Hat #9	215	4
MGD	148	3
Michelob Light	133	3
Michelob Ultra	95	2
Miller	152	3.5
Miller Chill	110	2
Miller Lite	96	2
Murphy’s Irish Red	171	3
Murphy’s Irish Stout	150	3
New Belgium 1554
New Belgium 2 Below
New Belgium Fat Tire	159	3
New Belgium Skinny Dip	108	2
New Belgium Sunshine Wheat
Newcastle Brown	150	3
Orval Belgian Pale Ale
Pete’s Strawberry Blonde	160	3
Pete's Oktoberfest	189	4
Pete's Summerbrew	163	3
Pete's Wicked	174	3
Pete's Winterbrew	170	3
Red Stripe	153	3
Rock Bottom
Rock Bottom
Rock Bottom Red
Rogue American Amber	176	4
Rogue Imperial Stout	363	7
Rogue Shakespeare Stout	201	4
Rolling Rock	142	2
Salvator Doppel Bock	251	5
Sam Adam’s Cream Stout	195	4
Sam Adam’s Light	124	2.5
Sam Adam's Ale	160	3
Sam Adams Octoberfest	165	3
Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown
Schlafly's Pale Ale	155	3
Schlafly's Pilsner	170	3
Shiner Bock	143	3
Shiner Light	120	2
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale	171	3
Sierra Nevada Stout	210	4
Smithwick’s
Stella Artois	140	3
Warsteiner Dunkel
Warsteiner Verum	152	3
Widmer Bros Hefeweizen	159	3
Yuengling Lager	135	3

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: beer, watchers, weight, diet

SkiFree Windows 3.1 Game now Free on iPhone
Thursday, March 18, 2010 1:02 PM

You remember the SkiFree game for windows 3.1? I do and I remember it being awesome. Now you can get the same game on the iphone. It's a very simple game, all you have to do is make it down the hill while hitting the rainbow colored jumps. If you tap or swipe on the iphone while in the air you do flips that get you points.

The game is brings back so many memories and is definitely a blast from the past. The game however doesn't feature the snow monster which was my favorite part. I use to go down the mountain after the race was over just to see how far I could get before the monster came and got me. Gizmodo said that Skifree without the snow monster is “like a Rolling Stones reunion tour without Keith Richards.” and I would have to agree with that statement.

The game developers are planning on adding the awesome snow monster, the slalom mode, and other easter eggs from the original game in the future. Pick this game up it's free it's sure to bring back memories of Windows versions past and old school computer gaming.

SkiFree on iTunes

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: iPhone, itunes, games, skifree, windows 3.1

Phonebooth an Alternative and Google Voice Contender
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:08 PM

For all you anti-google people out there that feel the sting of not being able to take advantage of some of Google's applications like Google Voice checkout Phonebooth. They have some of the same features and each of them have a leg up on the other.

Phonebooth is much like google voice in that you get a free phone number that you can forwarded to all your phones. You can route calls to different phones using groups and have your voicemail transcribed and sent to your email.

The main differences between the two services is that Phonebooth has a digital attendant that makes a menu for people to press one to call this person or 2 to call that person. With Phonebooths free membership you only get 200 free minutes for incoming calls. The free and paid membership will not let you place outgoing calls with your phonebooth number at all. This I feel is their biggest weakness in that you can't place outgoing calls and you only have 200 minutes on incoming calls. Google Voice has unlimited local calling and outgoing calls all for free.

I think the service has gotten a great start and I think they are going to do very well. They are more geared toward businesses that need a call menu to route calls than for personal use. This is why I think they are going to do very well. They perhaps will see less individuals using their service because of the lack of outgoing and free calling.

Phonebooth Website

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: google, voice, alternative, phonebooth

Windows Phone 7 isn't going to have Multi-tasking or Copy/Paste
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 1:22 PM

So after Microsoft made fun of the iPhone for not having multi-tasking and copy/paste features, which was part of the iPhone 3.0 update, their phone is rumored to not have them either. The fact the the iPhone hasn't had multi-tasking has been a big feature that other phones in the same market are trying to hit to give their phone something the iPhone doesn't have. Microsoft has attacked this weakness and they perhaps know understand why Apple has been reluctant to include this feature.

According to interviews with Microsoft they are not going to allow multi-tasking for third party applications because they don't want it to slow the phone down and drain the battery. This is a good point and was the problem with windows mobile phones, which would crash after you forgot to close your applications after using them.

It seems that Microsoft is going to implement a feature similar to the iPhones push notification feature, which allows servers to do most of the heavy lifting and is a limited strain on iPhone's battery and speed. This is still seen as a work-around but it's a good trade off to prevent a mobile phones from crashing and loosing battery too fast.

Apple's 4.0 iPhone OS release is rumored to have multi-tasking which would make things even worse for Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7. They need to release something with more features and better apps and it seems like they are going to release something with less features and fewer apps.

Good Luck killing the iPhone with your non multi-tasking non copy/pasting Windows Phone 7. :)

by willburns1 | with no comments

Spotify Officially Coming to the US
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 11:22 AM

Spotify a very successful music streaming service over in Europe is now coming to the US. If you have never heard of Spotify it's kind of like iTunes meets internet radio. If you don't pay for a premium account you have to listen to commercials but you can pick and choose what you want to listen, anything in their library is free to listen to. You can even make playlist of any of songs in their library and play them together.

Soptify had been rumored to be coming to the US for a while now but wasn't until recently Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in an interview with “The Telegraph” that Spotify would come to the US later this year. He also added that Spotify would be pretty much the same as the European service. He said that the changes will change the way people consume, discover, and manage their music.

I think this is great, I have had the chance to play with Spotify and I think it's a great service and can't wait till it's out and about in the US. It's a great way to discover new music and listen to music for free.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: internet, music, spotify, streaming

Stand at Your Desk for Better Health
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 3:25 PM

It's the latest trend to stand while you work to promote better health, productivity, and posture. Everyone knows that sitting all day isn't good for you, and being someone who spends most of their time sitting I know that this is true. Ever since I started working in computers and internet marketing I have gained about 20 lbs. I also tend to get lost in websites and get distracted when sitting down and while standing I seem to stay on track a lot easier.

So I decided after reading several blog posts about standing while working to try it out for myself. Maybe for only a month but a trial none the less. I am use to standing all day from my days of working at a coffee house and once I get my legs and back conditioned to handle it I think it will be smooth sailing.

All I did to make my standing desk was to put an old coffee table on top of my desk. I put a little bit of duct tape on the feet to prevent it from sliding around. It's a very low cost solution but I have a feeling that if I really like standing and working I might upgrade to something a little more permanent if I decide I like it.

It's important, if you decide to do something like this, that you make sure that your surface is at the right height. You want to make sure that your hands are parallel to the floor and your wrists are straight when typing and using your mouse. My coffee table just so happen to be the perfect height for me ,being 6' 3'', when I put it on the desk. Some standing desks that are really expensive don't even go as high as I need it to be so find out what height you need and either make it or find one that goes to the height you need.

I also read that you should allow yourself to change positions from standing to sitting. So my setup is not ideal for that but some desks out there are adjustable for just that reason. According to a very good article on this subject over at Macworld you should also change positions while stand to prevent your back and legs from hurting. Something you might do anyways without thinking.

So that's about all I know I'll try and update this post and any interested parties know how my test went.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: working, stand, standing desks, while

Do Weight Watcher For Free, Why Pay for it?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 1:44 PM

I know what you are thinking isn't Weight Watchers for woman in their 40's trying to loose the weight from their 10 kids they had? I would have to agree with you that is what I have always pictured in my mind, a big group of woman meeting to talk about their belly fat and how they were skinny before having kids. I have to say after getting to know the Weight Watchers system and Weight Watchers online website they have really moved with technology and the web and turned their woman belly fat meetings into a web 2.0 weight solution that anyone would be willing to do including men.

The question is with the whole system pretty much figured out why do you need to pay them to keep track and help you keep track of your points. The only thing you don't get when you do it by yourself is the support system and perhaps feedback, something you can create for yourself if you wanted. So I will tell you how to calculate how many points you are allowed each day and how to calculate how many points each food item is.

How to calculate how many Weight Watcher points are you allowed daily

Add the number together in each step.
Step 1
If you are a Man you get – 8 points
if you are a Woman you get – 2 points
If you are a Woman who is Nursing you get – 12 points
Step 2 - your Age
17-26 – add 4 points
27-37 – add 3 points
38-47 – add 2 points
58 – over – add 0 points
Step 3 – Height and Weight
Take the first two numbers of your weight and add them to your point total. I weight 245 lbs so my number is 24.
Under 5 feet tall – add 0 points
between 5'0" and 5'9" – add 1 point
over 5'10" - add 2 points
Step 4 – Activity level
If you spend most of your day sitting down - add 0 points
If you are occasionally sitting but mostly standing - add 2 points
If you are walking most of the time - add 4 points
If you do physically difficult work - add 6 points

So take all the numbers that apply to you in each step and add them together, and that is how many points you can eat each day. You also have 35 flex points that you can use up once a week. These points don't have to be used but can help if you go out to eat and eat foods that aren't good for you. You can also add points for working out I'll leave a link at the bottom to a website that will calculate how many point you get for different workouts.

Now you have to know how to calculate how many points are in any given food.

How to Calculate how many Weight Watcher points are in your food

1.Take the number of calories and divide it by 50. So if your item has 200 calories it 200/50= 4 point.
2.Then take the number of grams of fat and divide by 12. if it have 6 grams of fat 6/12=.5 add it to the food point total making it 4.5.
3.Then take the number of grams of fiber and divide by 5. If your item has 4 grams of fiber it's 4/5=.8 you then subtract that from the point total making it 3.8 points which we would round to 4. You only count 4 grams of fiber, if a food item had 12 you would only count 4 of those grams.

So there you have it all you need now is a way of recording your food points and figuring out what to eat to meet your goal. I would start by planning out what foods you want to eat and calculating the point totals for all of them. That way you can just stock your fridge and make sandwiches and what-not and know exactly what points your eating.

I would also suggest you drink a lot of water and eat lets of fruit and vegetables. That way you can eat more and still stay in your point limits. At this site you can find a calorie counter and workout point calculator.

There are also several websites that have Weight Watchers recipes that have the points already figured out, like Kitchen parade, laaloosh, or here. If you go to a restaurant you can find the calories of the items you ate on the restaurant's website or at other website locations like Calorie Count

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: watchers, weight, point, calculate

ScreenSharingMunulet - Quick and Easy Screen Sharing for Local and Remote Macs
Monday, March 15, 2010 2:51 PM

If you have several Macs on the same network or even Macs on a different network you can set them up so you can VNC login to them and control their screens. This is really easy if you are on the same network because all you need is there local IP address and your in. You have to remember or know what that IP address is in order to access it and this is what make this app very handy.

What ScreenSharingMunlet does for you is put a list of local and remote computers you can connect to right in the menubar. That way when you want to do something on another machine you are but a click away. It saves you time and is just plain handy to have a around and you can't beat the price of free.

ScreenSharingMunlet Website.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: Mac, application

Snowtape – Internet Radio Like iTunes Should Have
Monday, March 15, 2010 12:47 PM

The internet radio section of iTunes is less then impressive. They have a bunch of stations but not a whole lot of features, despite the fact that internet radio has been a part of iTunes for a long time. So if you are a bit internet radio fan you are going to love Snowtape.

Snowtape has several features that iTunes should have added years ago. Snowtape has an integrated online directory of it's stations. Users can even add radio stations to the directory if they are not already present. Snowtape allows you to play your internet radio stations through your airport express so you can listen to them through your remote speakers. You can even add ical events so you don't miss your favorite programs.

One of my favorite features is the recording feature which allows you to record songs from your radios stations and even add album art, tags, titles, and export them. Snowtape can automatically spit audio clips and title them if the station is broadcasting the titles of the songs as they are played. Snowtape comes with an audio editor so you can manually edit your recordings without leaving the application. You can even have the application take out commercials automatically if you would like.

If you are one the go Snowtape also has an iPhone application that can do pretty much everything the desktop application can do. You can listen to shows and record them right on the iPhone.

Snowtape is a great application, but is not free unfortunately. You can download the application to try it but the full version will cost you $30 bucks. If you are a big fan of internet radio this might be just the application for you and a great value.

If you are looking for something that can record your internet shows kind of like a internet radio Tivo iRecordMusic is where it's at. It lets you listen and record shows instantly or by calender event. So you don't even have to be at your computer when this thing records. It's not that user friendly and doesn't look pretty like Snowtape but it does provide a tivo like experience for internet radio.

Snowtape VIA Download Squad

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: Mac, internet, application, record, radio

How to set your own thumbnails on Youtube
Monday, March 15, 2010 11:48 AM

There is no way to upload your own thumbnail to your youtube video unless you are a partner. In order to be a partner you have to have a lot of videos, views, and subscribers. So for the average user you can't set your own thumbnail without tricking youtube by putting it into the video. It's actually pretty simple.

Youtube gives you three options when it comes to the thumbnail of a video. The three thumbs come from the first three quarters of the video. So if your video is 60 seconds long the first thumbnail is at 15, second at 30 seconds, and the third at 45 seconds. Or you can think of it as 25%, 50%, and 75% of the total video time, or so it seems at least. I have a couple video where this is not the case, but this seems to be somewhat true overall. I have read several comments that are saying that the thumbnails are now random but this method is worth a try. You can also place a 10 second or so banner in the video right in the middle so even if the thumbs are random you might catch one somewhere in the middle.

So if you want a particular thumbnail or poster frame, as they are sometimes called, to be displayed for your video you're best bet is to put it right in the middle of the video. Don't be one of those people who put images in just so people will click on it but something that has to do with your video. I can't tell you how annoying that is when you click a video and the thumbnail misrepresents the video. So annoying, and perhaps why YouTube only lets Partners upload a thumbnail for their videos.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: Youtube, thumbnail

Google Wave Extension Library Now Active
Friday, March 12, 2010 3:35 PM

Google Wave is great for a lot of things but being able to an extension to your Wave makes the wave just that much more useful. Wave extension are elements that can be embeded and added to a wave that can add things like maps, video conferencing, iframes, and much more. It is by far one of the most powerful features of Google Wave

Before now in order to add an extension you had to know the specific URL where the extension was hosted. Google has added a new extensions section to Wave and it plays host to several new and old extensions that you can install right from there. Once you install them you can add them to a Wave right from the edit toolbar. This is much easier than having to keep a Wave with gadget and extension URLs in them. Now they are all there when you need them.

Google Wave is still under development and they are starting to release features slowly and it's shaping up to be a very useful web application. Recently they added email updates so that when someone sends you a new Wave you can get an email notification of the Wave which is a great feature. I don't login to Wave that often so if and when someone shares a Wave with me I'll know about it.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: google, extensions, Wave

Photo Magician - Batch Resizes and Optimizes Quality for Free - Windows
Friday, March 12, 2010 12:29 PM

Many photo management programs have features that will resize and optimize photos so they fit your needs. Sometimes though you don't want to go through the hassle of adding photos to these type of programs just so you can turn out smaller versions of the photos. This is where having a program like Photo Magician will come in handy.

Photo Magician is a lightweight program weighing in at just under 1MB that can resize and reduce quality of many images at once. With a easy drag and drop interface it couldn't be easier. The program also has several preset for devices like the iPhone, Zune, DS, PSP, so you don't even need to know what size photos those devices take to optimize your photos for them.

The Software is free and can be downloaded here. You will need the .Net framework if you are running something other than Vista or Windows 7, who already have it. Check it out and stop wasting time on your images.

VIA Download Squad

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: Windows, application, free, image, batch, resize

Manually Configuring Your Xbox Networking Setting to get a Static IP
Thursday, March 11, 2010 2:51 PM

I made a video not too long ago on how to fix connection problems in Xbox Live. You forwarded ports to your Xbox so the you could obtain a open NAT type and be able to play with anyone. This works very well but your Xbox needs to have the same IP address for this to work. The best way is to reserve the IP in the router and I showed you how to do that in the video link above. The other way to do this is to manually configure your Xbox with an IP address so the router doesn't change it. This what I show you how to do in this video.

After doing a little research I discovered that it's important to give your xbox an IP outside of the DHCP Range, which is usually 100-149 on consumer routers, but could be different for your router. The screen shot above shows you what it looks like on the main Linksys setup page. If you give it a number outside this range the router will not give out your IP to any other device. So you would want something like 192.168.1.150 or 192.168.1.151 and so on.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: live, xbox, connection, address, prolems, static, ip

Steam Announced Several Titles to come to Mac in the Spring
Thursday, March 11, 2010 1:24 PM

Everyone is excited that Steam has decided to port over some of their games to Mac. Everyone has been talking about it and I couldn't be happier. Not all the titles will make it over to Mac at least not for a while, but Steam has announced several big titles that will be coming to Mac Including Portal, Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Left 4 dead, Left 4 Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2. These are some of there best games in my opinion so I couldn't be happier to hear it.

I am a big fan of Left 4 Dead so when I read that both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 would both be coming to Mac I was really excited. I was reading an article about the announcement on Macworld and the writer was asking the question why? Why now, why start making games for Mac's now? Sure they have started to become more popular but not that noticeable when it comes down to percentages. Frankly I just don't care, I am glad that Steam is trying to reach out to Mac users.

I had a thought as to why Steam would come to Macs. If they have a couple good games and the social network to put it together on the Mac it could become really popular for Mac users. With a large percentage of Mac users playing their games it could start to add up especially if they move with Macs as they become more popular. They could one day be the only way to play good games on a Mac.

by willburns1 | with no comments

Filed under: Mac, games, steam, left 4 dead

Howtos, Rants, and Reviews

This Blog

Blogiversity Navigation

Archives

Syndication

Tags