haggaret.com

A while back my dad had contacted me saying that he wasn’t able to log into the email account for his curling club anymore. Just as a side note, they were using Hotmail for their email. Anyways, after a few questions to him, I realized that he had been tricked into ‘confirming’ his account and had basically given up the password. D’oh! Suffice it to say that I berated him enough that I don’t think he’ll be tricked again. :)

Anyways, since I knew the account had been compromised, I was trying to think of a way that I could trick the scammer into giving me the new password. I was presented with an opportunity on March 20th when I received an email from the curling club email address – WARNING: You may find this REALLY long and boring.

I recently got a chance to be a beta tester for an iPhone application. Specifically it was for an updated version of the RunKeeper Pro application. (iTunes link) This application will track your speed and distance for a particular activity (walking, running, cycling, etc) and then plot your course on a google map for you to look at and share with others (if you like). They even have integration with Twitter so you can tweet your results!

How did I get this chance? Read on for a bit of background before I talk about the experience.

Back around the middle of January, I noticed a tweet by iphoneincanada saying that for one day only the RunKeeper Pro application for the iPhone was free. (As a side note, I read later that the reason it was free for a day had something to do with being able to introduce two versions (free/paid) but allow existing customers access to the ‘Pro’ version for no charge – some shortcoming of the iPhone App Store I think) Anyway, with me being such a fan of free stuff, I decided to download the RunKeeper Pro version for free, just in case I’d ever want to use it. I remember thinking at the time that I couldn’t see myself ‘lugging’ my iPhone with me on runs, it just seemed too bulky. This is kind of funny when you consider I used to drag my Garmin eTrex Legend along with me on some runs just to be able to get a GPS track of the run, but maybe not as funny when you consider I had been using an iPod shuffle on my runs in the not too distant past.

First things first – I’m not taking credit for this. I was sent this link from a friend and the only reason I’m writing it out here is in case that blog goes offline in the future. He does an excellent job explaining everything, so I suggest you go look there for detailed instructions. Secondly, since I’m sure most people who read my blog won’t care about this, I’ll split the post here before going on. :)

Late last year I borrowed a friend’s Apple TV and wrote up a post about my experience with it and what I felt was missing. At the end of the post I basically said that despite its shortcomings, that I would still like to get one, but that I’d likely wait until after MacWorld, just in case… Well that is exactly what happened, and instead of me purchasing it myself, Amy bought one for me! How awesome is that?!

My initial thoughts still stand and I still think Apple could easily improve the product with a few software updates. However, in addition to what I was able to try out back in November, I’ve also installed Boxee onto my Apple TV and that has definitely added to it. Boxee is constantly improving – for instance they just added ABC to their list of content (in 720p no less) – so things are only going to get better and better. As for my old MG-35, I’ve moved it down into the basement for use with the old 32″ Sony CRT, so it certainly hasn’t been discarded.

The subtitle of this post should be, “December was a write-off” or something to that effect. I heard about a contest that was being put on by NameCheap though twitter. NameCheap is a domain registrar, and coincidentally I had just transferred haggaret.com to them back in October. The contest involved answering questions and getting the chance to win domain credits. The questions were asked every hour, on the hour, from Dec 1st through Dec 25th. Since it was December, the questions were all Christmas related. Unfortunately I didn’t hear about the contest until the 2nd day it was on (I think) so I was a bit late to the party, however, that didn’t stop me from making out like a bandit in the end. :)

Way back at the end of March I read a post on Duane’s blog about RAID 5 – Raid 5 & Cheap Storage – and I remember thinking at the time that it was a great idea. However, I didn’t really have any ’spare’ cash to pick up some extra drives to implement it in my server. I made a mental note to come back to it when time / money permitted.