Waptop Woes

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/30/07 at 03:11:33 pm

Last week I hinted at an upcoming laptop review and I think I may have even mentioned the new notebook that I had purchased, the Dell XPS m1330.

I received the new notebook and everything but I’ve been having some initial difficulties with a documented problem that I was aware of before I purchased it. After having a Dell technician come out to my home and rip apart the laptop to replace the suspected part which happened to be the motherboard… The laptop just feels tainted to me, I didn’t pay this much money to have a tampered-with-laptop and in response to this feeling Dell has agreed to send me *another* brand new m1330.

Don’t let the remarks from this entry give you a scary first impression on this computer though; it’s a wickedly sexy machine. So sexy in fact that I’m willing to go through the trouble to obtain a perfect one (or at least one up to my standards) to use and enjoy rather than just return it and buy something else.

So on that note, I leave you with the promise of a full product review to come very soon, hopefully.

Wishlistr: All of the items I desire listed in one convenient spot.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/26/07 at 08:11:49 pm

Remember when your parents would ask for your Christmas Wish list in like October so they could plan out all of their holiday shopping in advance? Well at least that’s how it was in my family and still is to this day…

Making my Christmas wish list every year used to be a big deal, I would get my favorite toy catalog and go through and circle everything that I wanted with a highlighter. If you fast forward to now, it’s essentially the same deal. The only difference is now I normally go to all of my favorite online retailers such as Amazon and ThinkGeek and I use their built-in list features. The problem with doing it this way is that I may want 1 or 2 items from one retailer and a couple from another and pretty soon I have all of these lists on different websites that I have to send people links to. Lame.

Wishlistr is a new service I stumbled upon yesterday that allows you to create wish lists that link to products on other websites, so you can link to say something on Target.com and another thing at Best Buy and so on. Wishlistr also has the ability to import lists from Amazon and Del.icio.us Bookmarks. The website is mostly Ajax based so creating the list and sorting the items was super quick and easy.

Check it out for yourself, you can find my new *official* holiday wish list at http://www.wishlistr.com/markodageek

Apple iPod Touch – An Epic Product Review

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/25/07 at 11:11:42 pm

Well maybe not epic, but if your looking to learn a little more about the wireless/web browsing capabilities of the Apple iPod Touch you have come to the right place.

I received the 8GB Apple iPod Touch to review this month and I gave myself a week or so to get used to the interface and learn about some of the features and options it has to offer. I wanted this product review to stand out from the others that I’ve done in the past so for the first time ever I created a short video showing some of the wireless browsing and multimedia functions the iPod touch has become famous for.

Who wants to see another product review with some guy sitting at a desk somewhere? Boring and overrated right? This afternoon I hopped into my mini-van with my new iPod Touch and digital camera in hand. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to get out of the house for a while.

So what have we learned from the video? Well, the Safari browser and wireless capabilities on the Touch totally rock the casbah and according to an out-of-state friend I have a very “Minnesotan” accent. But I’m not done just yet.

Some other things I wanted to mention about this beautiful piece of Apple hardware was the durability of the unit. As you may have noticed in the video I have the iPod encased in a clear plastic Griffin iClear case that I purchased shortly after receiving the iPod. I noticed that the chrome backing is very easily scratched. However, from what I’ve seen so far the screen itself is nearly bulletproof. I believe the surface is made of some sort of glass just like the iPhone and there are plenty of videos floating around the internet of people taking pins, keys, and razor blades to the touch screen and they simply don’t leave a mark. Very Cool.

The iPod Touch is surprisingly small and thin, even with the plastic case it’s about the same size as my Motorola Q and it can easily be slipped into a pocket. Despite its small size the unit feels very solid, like I could drop it and it wouldn’t shatter… Actually it was dropped onto a hard floor shortly after I received it, it didn’t shatter.

The iPod Touch came with the typical accessories you would expect such as the sync cable, apple ear buds, and a little plastic deal that acts as a stand for viewing videos etc. In addition to the case I bought a wall-outlet power adapter that utilizes the sync cable. I found that I won’t always have the iPod around a computer to charge via the USB.

This review may have only been focused on what’s important to me such as the browsing and mobility features but the iPod Touch really does offer a ton of great multimedia functions such as cover flow, the integrated iTunes music store and countless others that I can’t even begin to show off here.

On that note, if you’re interested in picking up an iPod Touch for yourself or as a gift for someone this holiday season and you want to learn more about what this gadget is packing — Apple has an awesome guided tour of the iPod Touch on their website that shows off some of the other features. Take a look.

GTD Day, Catching up on Life.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/24/07 at 10:11:27 pm

Today was all about getting things done, I feel so behind on life right now and I needed to just spend a day catching up. I can tell you now that I’m still far from done.

Here’s how it all panned out – I woke up at 11:00 am, got ready and left for my credit union in North Branch, MN to take care of some business, I then headed to Wells Fargo in Forest Lake to make a quick deposit. After I was done I continued south to Maplewood to return a couple items I had picked up yesterday at Best Buy. I didn’t want to waste time heading back home but on the way I hit Arby’s for lunch and then decided I needed to clean out my van at the local car wash.

For me, cleaning out my mini-van is an entire process that takes about an hour – first the automated wash, then hand dry with spray on wax. Next was vacuuming out the interior, front, back, seats and cargo area. Lastly was wiping down surfaces with cleaning wipes then armor all for that glossy clean shine. I repeat this process just about every weekend and my vehicular investment looks fantastic because of it.

I returned home after the car wash and spent about a half hour playing Gears of War. I then ventured to Wal-Mart with my mother to pick up a new video game and a Christmas tree. We purchased the goods, returned to the house, and assembled the plastic giant. This is the first year my mom had decided to get a fake tree rather then making a trip to the local tree farm and cutting one down, I talked her into it.

Now I’m sitting here, blogging, burning some DVD’s, jamming out on some Groove Radio, and trying to get caught up on my favorite online community, Dream in Code. As I said before, I’m still far from finished. I need to work on my Blog Battle Royale entry, clean my bedroom, and get some much needed rest.

I always wonder where all of my time in a given day gets burned on, now I know.

Giving Mint another chance.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/20/07 at 10:11:43 pm

I was actually a part of the private beta for Mint a few months ago, back then there was actually an NDA to where you couldn’t blog about or post any screenshots of the insides of Mint. I canceled my account shortly after being invited because although it appeared to be a useful tool I didn’t find that I had a real need for it.

Now that Mint has been made public and I’m sure many improvements and features were added I decided to give it another shot. I have a good budget in place but I need to get stricter with my spending habits. Right now it feels like I fulfill my monthly obligations and then blow the rest, while I may be doing it half right I find myself thinking about all of the money I could have if I were to just spend a little wiser.

I signed up for a new account and easily added my checking, savings, PayPal and IRA. The creepy ability to download all of your transactions and balances from your personal accounts is neat but the organization and analysis tools are the big selling features with Mint. It’s amazing what you will learn about your spending habits with just a few minutes of playing around.

Mint doesn’t quite have all of the tool’s I need to become a complete budgeting solution, I would like the alerts to be more customizable so I could say alert myself of an upcoming bill or the virus that is my car insurance payment. But it’s good enough to give an overview of posted transaction history so you can adjust spending for the future which for some is something worth looking into. Take a look for yourself.

Don’t worry Google, we hate you too.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/19/07 at 10:11:49 pm

This has been blogged about by countless people and the whole PR hit story is starting to get old. But for the 4 of you that haven’t heard, over the last month Google has been going around to every website and blog possible and decreasing page rankings as a penalty for having paid links and advertisements somewhere on the website. With me being affiliated with PayPerPost I definitely have my fair share of paid outbound links and in response Google has completely killed my ranking from a PR3 to a PR0, BAM! just like that. According to Google and their self-manifested ranking system, I don’t exist.

Some people have told me that I’m getting all worked up about this because a lower PR will make for lower paying opportunities with paid blogging but that really couldn’t be further then the truth. I rarely do paid blogging to begin with and money has nothing to do with it. The problem is that these days you can almost install WordPress or the CMS of your choice and start blogging and you will get a solid ranking from Google like the week after.

I had a good ranking that I worked hard for and Google didn’t just lower it, they took it away. Before I started with any paid blogging I had my PR3, so the paid links we’re not in any way artificially boosting my rank. Here’s what I’m getting at, I completely agree with Google and their decision to not count paid linking as real outbound links and in turn that may an adverse affect on some page’s ranking. But in my case my website had a ranking and I then I post a very small number of paid links that wouldn’t have had an effect on my ranking to begin with, and Google, they take away the entire ranking for all links for not just the page but the entire website. BS.

I can’t get too worked up about it though, I have to understand that it’s just a number and I’m learning that now because Google is getting so weird with the PR system that they are essentially throwing it out the window. It means nothing, my traffic and subscribers are higher than ever.

I’m not a spammer Google, this isn’t a link farm. But don’t worry Google, we hate you too.

Getting my new best friend ready to work.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/18/07 at 10:11:07 pm

It’s weird, I haven’t spent more than a few minutes on my desktop all weekend. I’m trying hard to get the new notebook ready for work tomorrow morning. It seems like there is just loads of software to install, all sorts of files to organize… I want to get it all done because I know that trying to get it ready in the office on a Monday morning will be near impossible.

I really like the m1330 so far, I plan to write up a formal review as soon as I get the time and have enough experience with it to go over all of my likes and dislikes. I have actually spent a decent portion of the weekend doing some research and learning about the known problems and quirks with this notebook so I know what to expect. I spent a lot of money on this thing and I want to take good care of it, I’d like to get the most out of my decent but short warranty.

I have also obtained another toy that I have yet to mention, so you can expect a couple product reviews from me in the next week, one of which will be unlike any other that I have written in the past, it should be a lot of fun.

Bring The Noise!

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 11/16/07 at 11:11:47 pm

Wednesday was a very busy day for me, in fact this whole week has been so far… But it was well rewarded. As I mentioned before I had plans to go see Benny Benassi perform in Minneapolis on Wednesday night. Let it be known that it was one amazing show.

I didn’t bring my camera in, I was wearing dress pants which meant small pockets and I didn’t want to carry it around all night while I was drinking and trying to get my groove on… I found this video on YouTube which was taken by another person at the club; you can actually see me on the balcony for a second there. Benny Benassi didn’t show up until after midnight and we were there since about 9, a couple of the opening DJ’s were actually pretty good so it wasn’t a complete loss.

Spin Nightclub is a great venue, the place good size and the lighting and everything is definitely quality. I’m tempted to go back on the 30th for Gabriel & Dresden.

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