So it turns out that someone actually found thegoont.com by searching for “Changing Ringtones on Blackjack” on Google. Boy do I feel like a git (can anyone tell I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter lately?) now for not actually having instructions on it. Well, just in case it happens again, here goes…

1. Sync your blackjack with your PC (or do it through the removable micro SD card).
2. Find the directory called “rings” in the “Windows” directory. In my case, it didn’t actually exist yet, but it’s easy to create.
3. Throw in the MP3s you want to use (I shortened them to about 30 seconds with Audacity, the awesome free audio editor). Windows Mobile knows to look in that directory (\\Windows\rings) for new tones.
4. Now go through your contacts and assign them as you please.

Tips:

• The list of available ringtones is alphabetical so name your ringtones appropriately. You can even put a number in front of them to make them appear with the standard ringtones.
• Don’t set just songs that you actually like listening to. I’ve missed multiple calls because of my addicting ringtones.

So I just recently got sucked into Facebook after avoiding it for so long. It turns out that it was a really good idea as I met back up with some friends I haven’t heard from for years and got to get a pretty close to live update on what they’re doing with their lives. It’s fun to see.

This was just another example of how the web is becoming more and more of a social platform. It’s fun to see this transition from the old home pages with .midis playing and animated GIFs for as far as the eye can see. The social web now opens up interactive sites for people who would never have previously touched a PC or don’t know the first thing about coding.

Another result of the social web trend is the online dating site. These range from the paid services like eHarmony (I still don’t trust that guy on TV) to newer ad-sponsored sites like Just Say Hi. Sites like these make it easy for the sometimes-awkward socialites looking for people through the ‘net.

These sites are also good examples of a new trend in programming for the web called “Web 2.0” design. The basic idea is that the internet is molding itself to be more friendly to those who don’t want to mold themselves to it. Where it used to be reserved for the elite (or l33tz0r), it is now open for anyone looking for almost any type of social outreach.

Not much to say but, daaaang. So Zap! which makes (in my opinion) typically ugly and impractical electric cars, just unveilled their new Zap-X concept car worthy of drooling over. It’s designed by Lotus, packs some mad stats (see below), and hopefully will bring the price down step by step as it competes with my also-favorite but expensive Tesla. What can you do to support Zap? Go ahead and get some of their consumer-end portable electronic device rechargers at Sewell Direct.

Pictures and specs below.

Drive Train
100% Electric; 4 electronic wheel hub motors sporting an aggressive 644 horsepower with super capacitor energy bursts

Speed
0 to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds with top speed of 155 mph

Mileage & Range
350 miles per charge; about 1 cent per mile; rapid 10 minute re-charge; 9,000 life cycles

Interior
Seating for 5 +2 with European ergonomic design; all electronic touch screen controls on-board carputer: Windows XP, Wi-Fi, Blue-tooth, High definition video, iPod ready, Fire wire, USB2 and Mini USB ports

Extras
Keyless bio-metric entry and ignition, Photovoltaic glass:
thermoelectric, for heating and cooling, energy collecting windows
and windshields to harness solar energy

Standard Features
APX Light Weight Aluminum
Architecture Design
Electronic Braking System (EBS)
Rack and Pinion Steering
Solar Glass
Lithium Batteries
(Bio-degradable Non-Explosive)
Power Windows
Power Door Locks
Power Steering
GPS
On Board Carputer with
Full Entertainment System

Dimensions
Length: 15 4 (4697 mm)
Width: 6 8 (1852 mm)
Wheel base: 8 9 (2700 mm)
Track: Front 5 1(1554 mm)
Rear 5 1(1556 mm)

So, you get a new house and you can’t just keep your old RCA, speaker-kit-in-a-box system. So I decide to venture out and try to put together my own set. I searched around for a while and finally stumbled upon a Pioneer 5.1 speaker kit (I’d link that but it’s not on the site anymore) on Overstock. It got to the house relatively quickly and I had it all unboxed on Saturday. Turns out, speakers don’t do much without a receiver though, so it was time to shop. I had considered a Yamaha at Best Buy, but the store didn’t have it in stock and I didn’t want to wait for it to arrive via UPS ground. I wound up going with a Pioneer 7.1 x 100 watts/channel receiver which has 3 digital audio inputs and component video switching abilities (no HDMI at this price range) for $200 at an RC Willey Outlet store (the service was great, maybe we should have used these guys for carpeting). It had to come down from Salt Lake, so I didn’t get it until that evening, but that’s OK.

The beast took me a while to set up, mostly from inexperience and from being unsure how some pre-existing wiring in our house worked (someone had already done some wiring for surround sound, though it turns out it was just the left channel, *sigh*). But, finally, all the speakers were working and it was totally worth it. A-mazing. Seriously. The sub that came with the kit is much larger than the one I’m used to and the whole room vibrates comfortably as a result. So anyway, here are the totals (post shipped and taxed):

Speaker kit from Amazon: $84
Receiver from RC Willey: $212
Being able to understand the dialogue from Casino Royale: Priceless

Goes to show you can get a good system at a good price, but you have to put some elbow grease into the search. I’ll be able to hear the Wiggles like never before.

So I ran into a cool application for quickly creating PDFs out of word documents, web pages, etc. It simply installs a new “printer” on your computer that actually exports the current document or page to PrimoPDF, which then converts it into PDF format. This is great for people who want to post documentation online without losing font or layout qualities. And, since Acrobat reader is pretty much a standard now, you don’t have to worry about compatibility.

PrimoPDF is not only free, it comes with additional options, including security features to limit others’ ability to modify, copy, or even print material from the PDFs you create. Basically, it’s one of those 100% must-have freeware programs out there, like unto Audacity.

Download PrimoPDF

So, I was thinking about it, and I’m really happy with my phone choice in the Samsung Blackjack. In spite of some issues I had originally with some dropped calls on Cingular, I am pretty much converted.

I enjoy that it’s a phone first, and a “smart phone” second. Since it turns out I use my phone mostly as a phone, that really works for me. An example of what I’m talking about: from the home screen, I begin dialing either a name (stored in my contacts) or a number and it starts to fill in the rest. I can then choose from a list of people who fit under the numbers I’d dialed. For example, I want to call “John Doe” whose number is 555-1234. I pick up my phone and start dialing either “J” “O” “H” (on the easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard)… or “5″ “5″ “5″… and it finds him.

Also, other little things like skinning your device, changing ring tones (including adding your own custom-made ring tones), and so forth are very easy to do. This is a welcome change from some other phones I’ve used that had to be tricked into adding a ring tone (like the Motorola RAZR from Verizon… what a pain…).

I think the smart phone features are still pretty intuitive, though. I can check multiple email accounts automatically, which is nice for business emails that I may need to reply to quickly. The browser is far from flawless, but it works. And Cingular’s 3G network is sufficiently fast for almost all of my phone-surfing needs. Throw this all into a sleek package, and I think I’m sold!

So I’ve been trying to find a clean way to put a collection of Brian Regan videos on my fan site at allregan.com. I wasn’t able to find a satisfactory way online, so I had to get dirty and just figure out the javascript for myself. Let me give you the background and then the solution.

Background
I wanted to be able to play a bunch of videos on the same page, but without using 25 different windows (individual embedded videos). These get really long and make it hard to navigate the site. So, it was like this:

Texttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttexttext….

Text

Text

Text

etc…

I wanted this:

Video 1 (this is a link that will change the single, larger player)
Text text text

Video 2
Text text text

etc…

Solution
I used javascript’s innerHTML property to fill in where I wanted the single player to be. I then made a function that would replace that coding with a variable I fed it (the unique video name of each video I wanted to embed). It would swap them out and the video auto-plays to make it a smooth looking transition. The function also jumps the viewer back up to where the video is playing so they don’t have to quickly scroll up or miss the beginning. It was a pretty simple solution, but I hadn’t seen anywhere to rip it off of online, so I had to make it myself. And I’m pretty dern happy with it. For the actual code, you can check out the Brian Regan Videos page on my site. Then just right mouse click and hit ‘view source.’ Yep. Pretty proud of it.

Though it’s convenient in a lot of ways, Google’s outsmartted themselves in this case and really gotten all up in my bidness too far. If I’m logged in to my gmail account, then close it out (without logging out, which happens often), then try to go to AdWords, it instantly brings up a “Welcome to Google AdWords *blah blah blah* then gives me the option to create an account.”

There’s no “log out” or “switch users” option. There’s only, “log into your adsense account?” or “Yes- Create Account.” This has happened enough that it’s actually getting really really irritating. In order to log into an adwords account that’s not under my gmail address, I have to sign into something else, sign out, then go back to AdWords. This seems like it would be a really easy fix on Google’s end. Who do I contact for that?

Audacity is another one of those programs I file under “must-have.” Like unto paint.net, it’s one of those programs that disproves the old “you get what you pay for” saying. It is, indeed, 100% free, very useful, and very easy to use.

Audacity is a free audio editor that will let you pretty much pull in audio in any format, including .wav, .mp3, .ogg (with the right drivers, of course), etc. You can then tweak it with the included plugins, including (see screen shot below) fade in/out, equalizer, inversion, reversal, noise removal and more. You can then export your projects as the ever-versatile MP3 or as raw audio. It also has a next-to-nothing footprint (it doesn’t eat a lot of system resources and loads very quickly). Beautiful.

This is just another one of the beauties of open-source coders sharing their talents through the internet.

Maybe it did this in the past, but I wasn’t aware of it. But Acrobat Reader ver. 8 now has OCR built in and is very easy to use (as far as the process of copying and pasting from a pdf goes). It’s actually pretty accurate, too. You do get an occasional phrase like:

“of any settlement Dr heaving of soil”

I present to you Dr. Heaving from the far off land of Soil! He just recently went through a divorce from Lady Puke of yon dirt and this is his settlement.

Anyway, still a neat feature. I do miss having my little grabby hand icon by default though and haven’t found a super easy way to get it back.