Author Archives: Vanberge

A Chink in Google’s Armor

I am about the biggest advocate of Google products on the entire face of the earth. I use Google reader, Gmail, Google SMS, Google Talk, Google Analytics, Google 411, Google Desktop, Picasa, Google Earth, I even use Gmail to send text messages from Gmail account with growing frequency. (Much to my friends’ dismay). I also pimp Google products whenever I can… If I see somebody using Mapquest or hotmail I try to nudge them to use Google Maps or Gmail (including my wife, who still hasn’t switched from her yahoo mail.)

But recently there have been a couple things that have put a bit of a damper on my Google sunshine.

1: Google Sync for the Blackberry.
This product is functional. It will technically synchronize my calendars and contacts. But, has a tendency to remove and/or duplicate appointments. It also has completely borked my contacts once, and sporadically removed secondary numbers or emails from several of my contacts. It’s a great idea for a product – I’d love to have my contacts synced reliably. But it forces you into bi-directional synchronization when I would rather maintain one master list and have a few “slave” copies off from that. So, Google, write a new version of Google Sync that has that feature.

2: Where the hell is Google voice?
I have seriously been trying to get a Grand Central/Google Voice account for over two years. Google purchased Grand Central in 2007 and the product has been in a “closed” beta status since even before that. On March 11th, Google revealed it’s Voice product to the world – albeit still a closed beta. Their site and blog stated that they would be opening up the service in “a matter of weeks”.

Well, that was like 6 weeks ago… We’re now looking at “months”. Come on already!!!!

I’m really anxious to use this service and it bothers me that I don’t even have the option. I understand the concept of beta software where there may be bugs/quirks that hinder the service in the early stages, but really I don’t get why they are being so “closed” with this product. Even when Gmail first launched, members could invite other people to join… Why not do that with Google voice??? WHAT COULD IT HURT, GOOGLE? >:O

My anger is a result of impatience and stubbornness, but I’m still angry.

Grand Rapids Sonic

Today I had a brief glimmer of a true miracle… I heard through the grapevine that the Sonic drive-in restaurant was open for business.

My wife had reported that her coworker’s husband had eaten at Sonic and even went into details that he had eaten a chili dog with onion rings. My heart was skipping beats with excitement and my human spirit was shining with anticipation.

I was trying anything I could think of to confirm or deny this. Vanlandw and myself searched for a number, and email address, facebook groups, anything that might be able to shed some light on our situation. I even emailed ‘news@woodtv.com’ to see if they knew.

Finally, Vanlandw learned the bad news by contacting Steak n’ shake nearby. The truly angelic Steak n’ shake employee actually walked over to the nearby Sonic and somehow managed to learn that they were not opening until the 27th. Blast.

Right about then is when news@woodtv.com decided to email me back; confirming the bad news. Below you will see their response. Thank you “Andrew” for the bad news.   🙁   Anyone want to drive to kalamazoo/portage tonight?

This is from a viewer email we just received….

Hey, I thought you would like to know that opening day for the new Sonic Drive-In Resturant in Wyoming is going to be April 27th at 6:00 AM. Everyone is hyped about this, in fact I have made a group on Facebook about the new upcoming opening and there are already 1,285 members! WE are also getting a group of already 120 people together to go there for the opening at 6:00 AM….
Here are links to the group I made and the event on the 27th:
Andrew Gillfillan
WOOD TV Assistant News Director


Ringtones, Middle Finger, etc

Over the past few weeks my wife’s cell phone has been acting funky. It’s rebooted, not received calls/voice mails until days later, made calls randomly while being in her purse or at home (and its a flip phone so there’s no chance the buttons were pressed accidentally). Long story short, she needed a new phone and was long past her contract renew date – so she could get anything for a pretty reasonable price.

I tried to convert her to the land of the blackberry but she was having none of the Pearl; even though the Alltel salesman claimed it was the “best phone ever made” which I chuckled heartily at.

She ended up going with an LG Banter – which is basically a reincarnation of the LG rumor sideslider with a full keyboard. The phone is actually very nice and I’m a real fan of the full qwerty keyboard and slider action. But most of all I found myself really digging all the pre-loaded factory ringtones.

I started to try and get these ringtones over to my own Blackberry via MMS message, but was greeted with a “Not supported” when I tried to attach the files.

I paid 1.99 for a 1 day internet pass on her phone, pointed the “browser” to my gmail and tried to send myself an email. No ability to attach a file with that hacked down browser.

I connected the phone via bluetooth to my laptop and tried to use audacity to record the audio as I played the different ringers. It wouldn’t work no matter what.

At this point I was completely PO’d and was doing anything and everything I could think of. I put my SD card into her phone but there’s no option/function built in to copy existing files to the card… I could only save new ones.

I finally took an old headset, cut the wire, and spliced that into a normal headphone jack to plug into the line-in port of my computer. This time instead of audacity I tried Windows XP’s sound recorder. It actually worked somewhat by recording the keypress sounds; but the ringtones wouldnt record.

I just couldn’t believe it. I can’t believe that a company would go to such great lengths to prevent somebody from copying the stock pre-loaded ringtones. Even now it totally makes me want to throw the phone out the front door and drop kick it across the street.

So, I resorted to scouring the internet and looking for any normal type of ringtone. I hate song based ringtones – I am in search of plain, clean sounding, simple ringtones. But it’s pretty dang hard to find those types of ringtones. If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

As of now I copied the Skype default ringtone to my phone and am using that even though I’m not a huge fan of it… blargh.

Pre-cap

I’m looking forward to a few things coming up soon…

1: Metal 09.
April 31 through May 2 will bring a trip to Chicago with VansFloRuss in which we will take in some Metal and partake in merrymaking via Medieval times. Even though there are probably 3 other concerts this same weekend that I’d rather go to, I’d still rather make the trip to Chi town than to stay around GR that weekend. GG and I’m looking forward to it. BTW We have to purchase Tix to medieval times everyone!! And I REALLY need to figure out our hotel situation.

2: House? boat.
The last week of June, we (wife + myself) will be scooting across Dale Hollow lake in TN via a 40+ foot “house boat”. This is a 4 day event that makes me think of “Deliverance”. We did this trip a couple summers back and it was really a lot of fun. Can’t wait.

3: Economy U-turn.
I don’t know when this will happen – but I am definitely looking forward to a time/date when Mr. Obama can yank up the hand brake and whip that sombitch around into a 180. Because it is pretty effing dicey out there man.

WoW

WoW VanhawkClearly JJAFuller’s WoW post states that I am definitely back into Warcraft neck deep.  I’ve played this game for probably 20 hours over the last 3-4 days and really I can’t believe I ever stopped playing it.  I encourage everyone to sign up again and transfer to Earthen Ring where we can battle eternal.

Chouse if you’re reading this, please review JJAFuller’s most recent WoW posting on his site and accompanying comments.  🙂   I would love for jja to get back into the game.

This is a screenshot of “Vanhawk” my character.  He is currently a level 38 Human Mage