So recently I’ve been playing with a couple different hosting options. The two services I’ve tried so far are GoDaddy and Dreamhost. Let me tell you a little about likes and dislikes of each.

GoDaddy Likes

• Quick, 24/7 customer service - I’ve called at 11 PM, I’ve called at 1 PM, I’ve called at 10 AM and the longest wait time I’ve had so far has been about 2 minutes. Very impressive. Only once was I less than impressed on the help, I got, too. Their guys really seem to know what they’re talking about.
• Easy to integrate existing domains registered w/ GoDaddy. - Makes sense that it would be - and it is.
• Affordable Pricing

GoDaddy Dislikes

• One click install feature is cool, but pretty buggy. I’ve fallen in love with Drupal as of late and can’t really imagine building a site without it from here out. I’ll post about that, too. Anyway. GoDaddy has a one-click install. However, it’s weird. It takes some tweaking to get certain modules (like a very important ‘clean urls’ module) to work. Why save trouble with the install when it takes more time to configure later? I wound up doing a clean install by just FTPing the files and using Drupal’s built-in install method.
• Confusing interface at time and excessive windows. Opening hosting manager opens a new window. Opening phpMyAdmin opens a new window. It gets cluttery quick. And you can’t find certain stuff you’re looking for (like the domainhost location for the DBs you set up).
• Limited MySQL databases and domains hosted on basic plan.
• (This was the clincher for switching to DreamHost) Slow. Just slow. I build my Drupal sites live, which means you’re loading a page every time you save a change or navigate the changes you can make. That means a LOT of wasted time spent on the aggregate. It’s not just inefficient, it’s very frustrating.

DreamHost Likes

• Much faster
• Affordable with the right coupon (I got 1 year hosting for about $70)
• Plenty of space - 500 GB and like, 2 TB transfer - way more than I’ll use
• Free domain with purchase ($1.99 w/ Godaddy hosting purchase)
• Smooth interface
• 24/7 Email Support

DreamHost Dislikes

• Right now the only thing I’m not crazy about is that you don’t get the 24/7 phone support. But the email support so far has been pretty quick, so I’m happy.

So, right now, looks like, as my friend gthing says, it’s Dreamhost ftw.

Now, I don’t agree with the advertising to get people to visit Vegas, but I do make the occasional trip for work. I just got back last Friday after a very informative PubCon 2007. As part of the trip, Joe Morin, a Pubcon evangelist and president of Boost Search Marketing, put together a “Bloggers’ night out” - tempting us with some tickets to great shows in reply for an honest review of the night. What a great idea!

The Show
Some friends and I who were attending the show were able to get in to see Blue Man Group, a quirky hard-rock meets silent film era entertainment show (you can’t well call it a play). I had a great evening - it was really something of a sensory overload at times, but was just a great show. Blue Man Group, if you’re not familiar with them, is a hybrid percussion-comedy troupe. The three men with silicone wraps on their heads don’t say a single word during the performance (or when you meet them afterwards, for that matter). But even without words, you’ll laugh and smile until your jaw just hurts.

Worth Seeing
With the flood of advertising for myriad shows in Vegas (and there are PLENTY of shows in Vegas), I probably never would have picked Blue Man out of the deluge of other options. I’m glad I got the tickets though, because it’s taken its place as a show that I will now recommend to friends and family who might be looking for something to do in Sin City.

Family Friendly?
Speaking of Sin City, there are plenty of shows I would never feel comfortable taking my family to. Blue Man Group doesn’t fall in that category. The noise from the band (it does get pretty loud) might bother smaller children at times, but that’s about the only offense of the show. The comedy is slapstick and very three stooges (sans the ‘yuk yuk yuk’) in nature, just as innocent and possibly more funny.

Thanks
A special thanks goes out to Joe Morin for hooking us up with the evening (just being a nice guy - the world needs more of that). Also, as a note, I did get the tickets for free by writing the review so if Matty Cutts is out there keeping note, it’s been officially disclaimed.

Some recent developments led me to a whole new level of “wow that’s a cool product” regarding the USB to DVI High Res adapter. We got the latest model in today - the one capable of resolutions up to 1600×1200 (so it can drive a 20 in. display).

That’s neat. But what’s really cool is that, when coupled with some recently updated drivers, you can actually use more than one with a computer. I just finished playing with 5 displays at once - one on my laptop, one off its DVI port, one off my docking station’s port and two off of the USB to DVI adapters. The performance was great. I opened some sample business documents (as well as a YouTube video) and they all loaded fine on any of the displays. There is a minimal lag time when dragging a window from one display to another, but virtually none while working on a single screen.

While I couldn’t get it to show the 1600×1200 resolution as an option while driving two screens, I’m assuming it was because of the multiplication of the screens. So, maybe I’ll figure that out for another day. Maybe not. Either way, it’s way cooler than the low res version for the ability to drive multiple screens regardless.

It’s also a slick graphite color, which I really enjoy. Pic below.

The USB to DVI High Resolution Adapter retails at Sewell Direct for $150.

Here’s a new toy we just recently got from Addlogix: the InternetVue 2020. Basically, it’s a way to stream whatever’s on your PC to your TV/projector (for presentations, watching videos, etc.). Now, this idea certainly isn’t new - we sell tons of the pc to tv converter at Sewell. What really stands out about this device is that you can connect to it remotely without any hardware on the sending side. For example, with the wireless PC to TV converter, you need a box by your PC that sends out the signal and then one by the receiver. This is a problem if you’re wanting to make a laptop acting as the video source that you want to keep portable.

The InternetVue 2020 uses a software interface to mirror your computer’s screen on the target display. This means that, provided you have the software installed, you can display the video from any computer on your network via LAN or use the player’s built in 802.11g antenna to stream over WiFi.

The downsides? Not too many. The display resolution isn’t fantastic (running it over component cabling on a high def projector, we could read text, but it certainly wasn’t very clear and not practical). It would work very well, however, for streaming videos or powerpoint presentations. I did hit a glitch with some video formats not displaying (just black on the screen). I’m assuming this is a codec issue and could probably be solved if you put more time into it than we did… but we didn’t. For example, it would play live flash-embedded videos on pages (eg. YouTube), but I couldn’t get it to play a DivX-embedded AVI or a standalone flash player (FLV Player) correctly.

The InternetVue 2020 is available from Sewell Direct.

So Microsoft recently started Club Live, an online game area with mostly word games. The games are pretty fun, but nothing extraordinary (although I do like Flexicon, their crossword game). Normally, this wouldn’t be much to speak of, but the catch is that all of these games have a half screen with an embedded window that goes to MSN’s pathetic online search function. Now, on the crossword puzzle, it simply keeps it there for a resource and auto-searches the last word you filled in. Not anything extraordinary, there.

However, in the anagram game, Chicktionary, you attempt to make as many words as you can out of a 7-letter combination. Every time you search, whether it’s a word or not, it does an MSN search for whatever you typed. This means they’re getting hundreds of searches for each time an individual plays that game. This is pretty obviously meant to jack up their number of monthly searches. Pretty sad.

What I don’t understand is, what’s in it for them? Is their Alexa ranking going up all that big a deal? That’s about all I can see in it from an industry-advantage standpoint. If they’re trying to show some superiority over Google in their algorithm, they’re doing it all wrong. I’ve been so frustrated by their responses that I’ve had to switch windows to get to a Google search open for good help on the anagram game.

Bottom line: Microsoft should be putting their resources into making an actual usable algorithm if they want to win searchers back from Google, not “tricking” them into using MSN through word games.

Although I have honestly never seen a GoDaddy commercial (though from what I hear, I would not like them), they are my top pick for domain name registration. That doesn’t mean I necessarily love their service, it’s just good enough and what I know. I do want to throw out some caveats, though, for people who may be considering using GoDaddy to register a domain (or other services). Since I’m an optimist, I’ll tell you what I like about them first:

The Good

• Fast Propagation - This means that your site becomes visible relatively quickly (I’ve seen some go “live” within an hour). Some services, like Yahoo! domain registration, can take much, much longer.
• Easy To Use Interface (up to checkout) - GoDaddy’s URL availability search is very easy to use and makes good recommendations for alternate domains you may be interested in if your first pick isn’t available.
• Competitive Pricing - You may find people that will register your domain for cheaper, but not by much.

The Bad

• Ugly, Ugly, Ugly Checkout Process - Not only is it hard to follow, the checkout process is riddled with up sells (not only are these irritating (I hate up sells), but they make the process very difficult) they try to snag you with. Additionally, adding a single feature, like private registration, is a difficult process as they try to sell you on big packages before giving you the option to just add private registration.
• Ugly, Ugly, Ugly new GoDaddy Girl - If your whole marketing strategy is degrading women, you might as well get a more attractive one to act as your face.

So, I don’t wholeheartedly support GoDaddy, but they’re definitely worth considering when registering your first domain. Oh, and if your doing it as a blogger, you should consider hosting it with IncuBlogger (you get free hosting on a VPS (it’s quick) and training on how to make a monetizing blog).

I long for the day somewhere down the road where a cell phone camera becomes good enough to take pictures you can at least publish with respect to the web. Even some of the nicer ones now boast a 2.0 Megapixel resolution. While this enables you to take larger photographs, it certainly doesn’t necessarily mean you can take better pictures. I’ve had the same argument against people who go out and spend $300 on a digital camera that has 10+ MP resolutions but a cheap Chinese lens. My 2.3 MP Konica Minolta will smoke it for picture quality, guaranteed.

I digress. The main point here is that I would like to see someone come out with a camera that has an actual decent lens and a 2.0 MP receptor. If anyone knows of one, I’d be glad to find out more about it. So far, here are the best pictures (perhaps) that I have ever taken with my 1.0 or 1.2 MP camera phones. Granted, they’re not horrible, but I would never take pictures of my little girl to send to her grandparents with my phone either. . . yet

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With my Samsung Blackjack inside Chadder’s

Taken with my Treo 650 at a BYU Football Game

So recently, my wife and I stopped by a Maverik for a quick Icee (never a bad idea). The total came to $.84 after tax, but me, being a dufus, didn’t have any cash on me. Feeling bad about making a company pay credit card processing fees on a < $1 order, I used my debit card. Big mistake.

My wife points out a couple days later that we were, in fact, charged $20.84, as if we got $20 cash back. This means the lanky guy ripped us off $20. Anyway, I called Maverik corporate to find out who the store owner was and they gave me his Cell #. He was actually really good about getting back to me promptly. He was very apologetic and said we’d get our $20 back. I said that the money wasn’t as big a deal (not that I mind getting it back) as making sure he got fired so he didn’t do it any more. The nice guy (Ross, I think) said, “Oh no, I’ll check out the security tapes and we’ll get him arrested.”

“Wow,” I thought. That’s pretty tight. Ross then goes on to explain:

“Yeah, this happens about once a week at Maverik.”

The lesson - don’t swipe your Debit card as a debit card at a Maverik.

I’ve already made mention of my joining of facebook and some components of the social web like online dating through eHarmony and others and the idea sort of piqued my interest in what type of people participate in such. Obviously, with things like eHarmony, you have to pay to subscribe and I’m not that dedicated to find out how it works.

However, I was amused at Yahoo’s personals pages. They’re one of the top-ranking online dating sites and you can actually sign up without a fee (though you do have to post your personal profile first, which I wasn’t willing to do - too many pages). But their ranking system for evaluating your compatibility (at least initially) is your ZIP CODE. Seriously, if you just type in your gender, the gender you’re looking for and your zip code, they have a list of individuals with their compatibility ranking. The closer they are to your zip code, the more compatible. Naturally. Check it yourself if you don’t believe me. I guess it’s good that true love is based on geographic proximity.

Now, granted, you can be more specific later on down the road, choosing everything in your perfect pal from eye color to religious preference. But if you just don’t have time for that, someone in your same ZIP is obviously your best choice.

Disclaimer - I just have to remind readers (especially my wife) that I’m actually very happily married and not looking for anything better. My interest in online dating is purely scientific.

So there’s a site online where you can generate your own church signs. I just found out about it today through a friend who received an email with a bogus “church sign” message they thought was amusing. Anyone who knows me well is aware of my loathing of all things forwarded. If you don’t actually want to tell me anything, simply don’t email. Thanks.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, the church sign image maker is actually pretty funny. Here’s one I got from BuckBuck (slightly modified), admonishing me to work rather than read fake church signs:

Or, in classic Simpson’s style:

Good times.