Cameron's Thoughts

This show aired a few nights ago, Michael Moore on The O'Reilly Factor. Anyone who has seen this show will probably know how ridiculous Bill O'Reilly can be. I have only rarely watched an episode because it's like watching a grown up 2nd grader trying to argue points that you can clearly see make no sense. I think somehow in his mind it does though.
This episode would have been something else. I didn't want to watch it because I know I would have only gotten pissed off, but there is a transcript of the episode. It's unbelievable how O'Reilly will sit there and actually try to argue that Bush didn't lie about the WMD. It's a fact that he did. It's as simple as that, but for some people, only a distorted reality is true in their minds.

Not sure if Gmail is the best choice for your web-based e-mail? Flexbeta has a review that asks the question, Gmail, Is It Worth The Wait?
The review goes over other newer mail systems that offer lot's of storage similar to Gmail, and details what each system has to offer. It's a good read for anyone wondering what's so special about Gmail. So, if you haven't got an invite yet, and want to know if you should wait, now you will know. And if you don't want to wait for the Gmail public release, I might have an invite to give out if you ask nicely.

The Jackito is a device that has been announced at a number of websites. One such news story was this one at Brighthand. This device is not a PDA as the company that makes it says. It's a 'TDA', Tactile Digital Assistant. Why is this? You don't use a stylus, you use your oily fingers to touch the screen. The website for this product has a lot of good to say, such as "7 parallel processors" and all kinds of features such as a color screen, high-sound quality, wireless capabilities and weeks or use on a single AA battery. But, is it a lot of talk, or is there any truth behind this greatness? So I investigated. First, a trip to the pricing. The base unit, $600. Oh, but you wanted color? Not included, an extra $138. And what about the wireless capabilities? Also, not included. Bluetooth, an extra $80, WiFi, another $150 on top of that. Would you like a camera, add on another $100. So, just for a decent PDA, and by that I mean color screen and WiFi, this device is already going to cost $888. For that price, surely this thing must be powerful. How much RAM is there? 2.5MB. Yes, that's not 256MB, that's 2.5MB, or about 2500KB. Don't worry, they do throw in 14MB of NOR Flash memory so you can store your apps and things somewhere. That is, if anyone makes any apps for it. Must have a good sound system since it's advertised to have "high-quality sound". To start with, the MP3 function, which is also not included, will cost an extra $45. But, they do offer an FM radio, for $30. So, what kind of speaker is built in? From the webpage: "LCD loudspeaker 100Hz-10KHz - 0.1 Watts". Very low range, and a tenth of a watt?? Plus, I have no idea what an LCD loudspeaker is, almost sounds like the LCD screen is the speaker. This was a bit too strange for me, so I didn't feel like researching that any further. They do mention that you can buy headphones for $20, or a Bluetooth headphone for $100. I just hope they have a standard 3.5mm minijack so normal headphones can be plugged in. I wouldn't be surprised if this was some proprietary jack they use forcing you to buy there headphones. Hmm, so what about the "7 processors". This raises a number of thoughts.

• Won't it be hard for developers to program for seven processors?
• How can a single AA battery last 'several months' powering all those processors?
• With such little RAM, why so much processing power?
• Is this even for real?

The main CPU is a Mitsubishi CPU (M30803) and from what I can find, that tops out at 20MHz. The other "CPU" mentioned is the Texas Instruments CPU (MSP 430), a 50 cent processor that, while it has low power consumption, doesn't seem to be all to powerful. Couldn't find any specs other that it's a 16-bit processor. Seems that it's mainly used to perform simple tasks such as controlling an LCD screen. The other "CPU's" mentioned are simply programmable logic chips probably also used to control other simple functions on the device such as sound and video. So, there are just a number of simple microchips all performing basic tasks to power this device. Every PDA or computer has a number of chips that back up the main CPU to perform tasks. These are never mentioned, but at the same time, if your main CPU is only 20MHz, you certainly can't advertise that either. So, for $600, you are getting a device that, hardware-wise, competes with the $20 PDA's found next to the calculators at Wal-Mart. The only thing that this device has going for it is the 'no-stylus' marketing gimmick. Also, during the reading of the discussion at Brighthand about their news artice, Ed Hardy mentioned Roland Piquepaille's site. He had an interview with the maker's of the Jackito. Somewhat interesting, but didn't really touch on any of the issues I brought up here. It does have a video of the device. I would have to say the software doesn't look all that bad. But time will tell this devices fate. And I don't think time will play nicely.

Joel mentioned to me that you can get 2GB of free storage on Hotmail with an @msn.com address. There are instructions there how to sign up for that. While it's a very nice offer, though strange that only MSN Explorer users can access that. Maybe there are just testing the service out with those users, and will maybe expand the offer to all users in time. Once GMail is out of beta, the other free e-mail services will need to come up with something.
But I don't plan to sign up for this. It is very nice that it works in all browsers, such as Opera, but rumor seems to be that Opera is working with Google so that version 7.6 will be compatible with GMail.
Not only that, while Hotmail does have some nice improvements recently, the features and ease of use in GMail would make it very hard to switch away from it. Plus, I have already imported all of my e-mail and contacts into GMail, so I don't want to have to do that all over again.

Now that GMail has support for importing your contact list, it's now time to upload your address book to GMail from Opera.
But, GMail currently only imports CSV (comma separated values) format files. Not a big deal as most programs work with this format, but Opera doesn't export to CSV.
Fortunately, there is a web-based tool that will convert Opera's format to CSV format. Address book conversion: ADR to TAB or CSV-separated will convert the .ADR Opera address book format to CSV or tab separated files. What you need to do is either locate where your address book is located on your hard drive, like the site mentions, or even easier, just go to the File Menu and choose File-->Export-->Opera contacts. Then save the contact list somewhere (probably not a bad idea to have a backup anyway). Then upload the file to that site, choose 'Comma seperated' then click 'Send File'. You will be prompted to save a .php file. Save that, then rename it to something.csv.
But, GMail won't take this file exactly as it comes. One little edit needs to be made. If you view GMail's info on how to import contacts, you will see that the CSV file needs to have a header, which isn't included when you convert using the website above. Don't worry, this step is simple. Just open the CSV file in your favorite spreadsheet app, like Excel, or my favorite, OpenOffice.org. Then add a row to the beginning of the file. The first column should say 'Name' and the second column should say 'Email Address'.
Then simply save, go to GMail, open your contacts, then click 'Import Contacts' and upload this CSV file. Much easier than adding all those by hand, unless you only know two or three people.

Just posting to say that I had to replace the batteries in my mouse today. I am very impressed though since this is the first time ever doing so. When I first bought the mouse, I worried since it wasn't a rechargeable model. Yet, it was advertised that it would last 6 months on a pair of AA's. I figured that was average usage and a bit exaggerated, so I only expected 3-4 months of usage. But, I bought the mouse in the beginning of December, so it's been over seven months on one pair of batteries. And that is with me being on the computer all the time. It's pretty impressive since the LED's on the bottom never shut off and are fairly bright.

This Land, Starring George Bush & John Kerry

DirecTV has been offering local channels now for the last couple weeks and it is a very nice service to have. It does have it's plus and minus's though. For one thing, we don't get all the same channels that are available on cable. This is due to laws that the satellite services have to follow, so they can only offer channels in my market. So I can only get Lansing stations. This means that I can get ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. There is also a Lansing UPN station, but there are not on the service. DirecTV is required to provide the channel if the channel wants to be rebroadcast. Apparently they do not. I have tried contacting them over e-mail, but never got a response. We also don't get the WB, but for that I don't really care.
One thing that is real nice though, digital local channels. You can't get this with an antenna, and the cable companies don't have this. Actually, on cable, the local channel range always seems to have a lot of static and ghosting. Now I have crystal clear channels and they can record right along side all my other shows on the Tivo.

You're an Etch-a-Sketch!! You're the creative,
artsy type who doesn't need to actually utilize
a single muscle group in order to have fun.
Doesn't matter though, you're still cool.

What childhood toy from the 80s are you?

brought to you by Quizilla

Have been working on more site upgrades recently. Nothing real big, but I do have a WAP version of this site almost finished, so if your cell phone is WAP enabled, you can browse here no matter where you are. I actually started to write the templates for the WAP page myself, had to learn WML first. But after starting, I decided to search around and see if anybody else had already done this. Sure enough, I did find some site that had pre-made WAP templates. I have them on this site already and if you want to try out a beta version, you can point your cell phones browser to wap.cbulock.com. Right now, some pages are generating fine, but other pages are not rendering correctly. I haven't nailed down exactly what is causing this as I only know basic WML (I have spent maybe like two hours with the code), so, it looks fine to me, but there is likely something that I am not catching yet. I am testing the pages on my Nokia 3650 and my wife's Motorola v300.
I think I might go back to finishing up my own WAP templates for this page, instead of using these other templates that I found since I think the way I was going to do it was a little more how I wanted it, and if I write up the code, it will be easier for me to fix any issues that come up.
The other update that I added is the random picture that shows up on the side of the page here. It will display a random picture from Hailey's photo album.
I also added a page that give info on this site. The about this site page will also give a look at what I plan to add in the future.

Haven't seen much news about this yet, but I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Pfizer is going to start giving away it's drugs to anyone who is uninsured and has an income of less than $19,000, or $31,000 for a family. And if a family makes less than $45,000 they can get large discounts. This is a big change in policy, not sure if it's for the good or bad though.
I am happy that people that need this medicine, but couldn't afford it will now have access, but at the same time, someone will have to pay for this, so the insurance companies will get hit with the bill. And in the end, that means higher rates. I can't say I would enjoy paying more for insurance, but I guess if it helps someone else, maybe it's not so bad.

I wonder if other companies will follow?

Pfizer sets new discount drug plan

We took Hailey on her first trip to the zoo today. We went to the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing. My sister Teddy also came along. We had quite a bit of fun. I'm not so sure if Hailey really knew what was even going on. We took some pictures, but Hailey isn't really in most of them. I will try to get them on her website soon though. We got to see a tiger up real close, only inches away with just glass between us, we also got to see the tiger get fed. Hailey also seemed pretty interested in the penguins and got to chase a peacock around for a bit. She called all the animals 'dog' or 'doggie'.

By order of the Deparment of Homeland Security, all vistors are hereby ordered to stop using Internet Explorer.
It's a strange request, but there are so many security holes that it probably is a good idea to stop using it. So, what everyone needs to do is start running an alternate browser. My favorite is Opera, but many prefer Mozilla or Firefox.
Either one you choose will work great, but everyone should seriously use one of these. Maybe I will ban Internet Explorer from my website.

I just located this great free app that will help transfer all of your existing e-mail on your PC to your GMail account. If you use a Mozilla based e-mail program, you are in luck as it will easily work with this app. It's called GMail Loader. There is a number of e-mail formats supported, but the only common one is the mBox format used by Mozilla, Netscape and any other good app. Oddly, I always thought Opera used that format for exporting e-mail, but Opera e-mails are in an .MBS file, not a .MBX file like mBox. Good news for Opera users though, there is an MBS-to-MBX utility.
If you are using Outlook or Outlook Express like many people do, check out this page for some info on how to convert mail formats to mBox. I have only tried the Opera conversion, so I can't say if converting from other apps works fine, but it's worth a shot.
Doing this in Opera was a cinch since it already has mail sorted by different categories. It was as simple as exporting each folder I wanted, then having each convert separately in the MBS-toMBX app. Then I uploaded each MBX file one at a time and applied labels to each group of messages and then archived them. Then I would simply upload the next group and do the same thing. I also made sure and try and set up as many filters as possible ahead of time so mail would automatically be organized.
One thing about GMail, it has some features that are similar to Opera's M2 client. Like having multiple labels per message. Opera also allows messages to have multiple labels, and is very useful for some messages.
What is the main feature that GMail needs to get soon? Learning filters. Opera supposedly has this feature now in it's latest version, but I haven't tried it since I have been using an app POPFile. The main reason I started to use POPFile was for it's spam blocking. It learns what messages are spam, and is able to adapt in the future. At first this does require a training period where you have to classify messages and spam or not, but it learns very quickly. And the longer you use it, the better it gets. This is why I never switched to Opera's learning feature since POPFile was 99.6% accurate. But, it doesn't just work with spam. It's good for just organizing your email. For instance, I read a lot of forums. I like receiving e-mails when posts I have posted in are responded to. So, I have a folder in my email for those messages. Before, everytime I would join a forum, I would set up a new filter for messages from that forum. But, with POPFile, it would just know that it was a forum response message and always classify it as such, even if it was the first message from that forum.
If Google was able to add a learning feature like that to labels, I would be a happy person.