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Month: February 2009

iPhone Geocaching with Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhone App


Monday February 9, 2009

Reading Time: 3 minutes

 

iPhone Geocaching with

Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhone Application

 

 

Geocaching is a global treasure hunting game where participants locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors using GPS enabled devices and then share their experience online at http://www.geocaching.com/
iPhone Geocaching puts this sport in your pocket!
Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhone Application Features:
  • Direct access to Geocaching.com’s database of worldwide geocaches
  • Search by current location, address or lookup code
  • Access geocache details, including description, hint and recent logs
  • Save geocache listing for quick retrieval
  • Log geocache finds and post notes in the field
  • Filter your hides and finds from the Geocaching.com search results
  • Navigate to geocaches with a simulated compass arrow
  • Look up trackable item detail, including item goals, while on the trail
  • NEW Tweet your new iPhone Geocache finds thru Twitter!
The Geocaching iPhone Application is available in Dutch, French German and Japanese language versions. Groundspeak’s Geocaching Application is best supported by the iPhone 3G but it is also compatible with the iPod Touch and 1st generation iPhones. (USE THE FORCE LUKE!)
Please note: You will need Wi-Fi access for the application to work on the iPod Touch. Also, without GPS, compass navigation will not work on the 1st generation iPhone.

iPhone Geocaching How it works

The iPhone 3G uses a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi positioning and cell towers to determine your approximate location. Groundspeak’s iPhone Application then queries the Geocaching.com database in real-time and provides a list of geocaches near you. The application can also geocode addresses, search using a location from your address book, or look up a geocache or trackable item by it’s GC (Geocaching.com) code.

 

Ready to go iPhone Geocaching?
Hit the iTunes Store to download Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhone Application now!

 

 
 
 
 
 
 



Reading Time: < 1 minute

A billionaire, a passionate techie (QUICK GET THIS MAN AN IPHONE!) and a shrewd businessman, Bill Gates has changed the world once, while leading Microsoft to dizzying success. Now He plans to do it again with his very own style of philanthropy. Gates hopes to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, from building great teachers to stopping Malaria. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider these two big questions and how we might answer them. (Check the Q&A on the TED Blog. http://blog.ted.com/ )

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Have you seen He’s Just Not That Into You? This film opened yesterday and since today is Saturday I thought I would provide a little preview of this romantic comedy. Technically speaking, He’s Just Not That Into You, was not on my to-do list for February 6th, so I have not yet seen the movie, but I have seen the previews. I think this is one of those films that I might be able to convince my husband, Dennis, to see. Why? Eye candy! There are enough “big” stars, both men and women, in this film to keep everyone happy for 129 minutes. For your convenience, I have included a trailer for the movie in this post. You will see that the producers feel that the basic interactive groundrules for men and women are established when we are very young children, which is “he says one thing, but means another” and “she hears what she wants to hear.” As an aside, I remember my first little boy “friend.” In 1954-55 we walked to kindergarten each morning holding hands. His name was Raymond Wood. I think he was always nice to me!

Ok, here is the scoop: He’s Just Not That Into You is based on a self-help book that was written by Greg Behrentdt and Liz Tuccillo. No, neither Greg nor Liz is a psychologist. Both were writers for Sex and the City, they based this book on a famous line from the 6th season episode called “Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little” which originally aired July 13, 2003(yes, the episode title is the name of an annoying song from The Music Man). Six years later and with a reported budget of $25,000,000 we now have a romantic comedy that will either make you laugh or help you escape today’s crazy technical world for two hours.

Probably the most poignant message in He’s Just Not That Into You is this: In today’s world, unlike when I was wondering “why doesn’t HE call?,” a person can’t just expect to hear from someone via a landline phone, they need to worry about every known “SOCIAL NETWORK:” myspace, facebook, youtube, plurk, plugoo, brightkite, ping, twitter, yammer, and the fatal text messaging via the cell phone. As Mary, played by Drew Barrymore, says: “It’s exhausting!”

The fact is love, or what we hope will turn into love, makes us do foolish things. We are all guilty of this, we are human. In 1965 Martha (Reeves) and the Vandellas released “Love Makes Me Do Foolish Things,” it never made it to #1, but many of us loved this song, because in 1965 and for a long time after that, our social networks consisted only of a phone and the Friday night mixer (dance). This song made us cry and if we were really lucky that special someone would ask us to dance and we would forget all our troubles. Escape!

So for this Saturday: Dance to this music,take a break and go away with your friend. Go to the movies or rent a movie,love the one you’re with, and let me know how this works out for you, write a comment on my blog post.

P.S. For the record, if you are wondering what happened to little Raymond Wood. We continued through grade school together as friends. After that we lost touch. In 2006, my mother passed away. As I stood outside the church waiting for her funeral to begin, I looked across the crowd and there stood Raymond. He walked over to me, put his arms around me and said “I wouldn’t miss being with you today.” Precious memories, indeed!

Reading Time: 3 minutes
PPC ad scheduling

Both Yahoo and Google have their own forms of ‘ad scheduling’.  This means that we can choose when we want our ads to be shown and just as importantly, when we don’t want our ads to be shown– well kind of.

Google fully provides this functionality- hour by hour, day by day, even down to every 1/4 hour, when to display your ads.  The campaign ‘edit status’ button has what looks like a hyperlink, which is where you can find the ad scheduling function.

Yahoo Search Marketing on the other hand, allows you to schedule a start date and an end date, which is their full and complete definition of ad scheduling.  Therefore, taking your campaigns on and offline at certain hours is a manual process– log in to the account and literally turn the account offline or back online to perform the same function.  This is ridiculous- Yahoo needs to step up to the plate.  We are not asking for voice command here.

Both search engines have the faults and points of utility, but for this function it’s a runaway: collegiate versus kindergarten.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Reiki is a Japanese technique used for healing, relieving stress and relaxation. It is done using ones ‘life force energy’ to raise another persons ‘life force energy’. If someone is feeling stressed or un-happy, then their ‘life force energy’ is low.

Reiki is a natural and safe spiritual healing and self-improvement method that anyone can use. It has also shown to heal wounds not just moods (not scientifically of course).

I have been thinking about going to see someone that practices Reiki. I’ve been told this lady has helped decrease the size of a brain tumor. She also has helped with sports injuries such as sprained ankles and such.

My brother had suggested this to me since I need a hernia surgery and after talking to her on the phone, she said she can cure it but I’m just a bit skeptical on the idea of it working. I’ve never been to one but have been reading up on it and what they do is they hover their hands over the part that hurts and as Obi-Wan said it in Star Wars “Use the Force” to heal you.

Have you ever heard of Reiki or another form of herbal/spiritual healing that works?
If you have, have you tried it yourself?

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Reading Time: 5 minutes

January was not a good month for investors. The Dow and S and P 500 indexes both fell over 8.5% and the NASDAQ fell over 6 %. Lets look at the model portfolios set up in an earlier blog.

One portfolio was 10 stocks recommended by Fortune Magazine.

Name Symbol Last price Change Shares Cost basis Mkt value Gain Gain %
Altria Group, Inc. MO 16.54 -0.3 65.74 1001.31 1087.29 85.98 8.59
Annaly Capital Management, Inc. NLY 15.14 -0.01 62.38 1000 944.46 -55.54 -5.55
Dell Inc. DELL 9.5 -0.45 96.68 1000 918.46 -81.54 -8.15
Devon Energy Corporation DVN 61.6 -1.24 15.07 1000 928.08 -71.92 -7.19
Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. DO 62.76 -1.22 16.8 1000 1054.16 54.16 5.42
Fluor Corporation (NEW) FLR 38.9 -1.82 22.06 1000 858.28 -141.72 -14.17
Johnson & Johnson JNJ 57.69 -0.59 16.55 1000 954.59 -45.41 -4.54
Medco Health Solutions Inc. MHS 44.93 -0.81 23.62 1000.71 1061.34 60.63 6.06
Pfizer Inc. PFE 14.58 -0.54 55.9 1000 815.03 -184.97 -18.5
Potash Corp./Saskatchewan (USA) POT 74.86 -2.79 13.52 1000 1012.17 12.17 1.22
Cash -2.02 -2.02
10002.02 9631.84 -368.16 -3.68%

As you can see it fell a little over 3.5% and beat the averages.

Our lowrisk portfolio fell 4.6%, not as good but better than the averages.

Name Symbol Last price Change Shares Cost basis Mkt value Gain Gain %
Schwab Total Stock Market Index Inv SWTIX 14.35 -0.32 181.52 2800 2604.85 -195.15 -6.97
Schwab International Index Inv SWINX 11.63 -0.17 90.43 1200 1051.65 -148.35 -12.36
Schwab Total Bond Market SWLBX 8.75 -0.02 670.77 6000 5869.26 -130.74 -2.18
Cash 0 0
10000 9525.76 -474.24 -4.74%

Medium risk did worse, but still beat the averages.

Name Symbol Last price Change Shares Cost basis Mkt value Gain Gain %
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index VBMFX 10.07 3.05 390.79 4000 3935.29 -64.71 -1.62
Vanguard Total Intl Stock Index VGTSX 9.5 -0.12 167.6 1800 1592.23 -207.77 -11.54
Vanguard Total Stock Mkt Idx VTSMX 20 -0.45 195.43 4200 3908.58 -291.42 -6.94
Cash 0 0
10000 9436.1 -563.9 -5.64%

Lastly, our simple rebalancing portfolio performed thusly

Name Symbol Last price Change Shares Cost basis Mkt value Gain Gain %
iShares S&P 500 Index (ETF) IVV 82.97 -1.76 55.31 5005 4589.03 -415.97 -8.31
Cash 4995 4995 4995 0 0
10000 9584.03 -415.97 -4.16%

So we need to rebalance to get to a 50/50 split, so we buy a couple of shares of the ishare and now have this portfolio.

Name Symbol Shares Mkt value
iShares S&P 500 Index (ETF) IVV 57.76 4792.06
Cash 4792.02 4792.02
9584.07

Hopefully things will improve for investors.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

It is important to keep your web site current and up to date. Telephone numbers, employee names, addresses and other details change and need to be replaced with the current information. Searching your site first for all the edits to be made can save you considerable back and forth time with your Webmaster.

  • Find all the changes to be made
  • evaluate the text on the page for need to rewrite
  • send changes in one Word document to your Webmaster.

 

Here is a handy search tip to help you find those items which need to be replaced or updated.

In Google’s search box:

  • type the exact text you are trying find
  • space
  • site:www.yourwebsiteaddress.com (using your address and leaving no space between the colon and the www)

For example, if I were searching www.webconsuls.com for “Darin” …

Returned will be a list of all the instances where that term appears.

If you click the link labeled “Cached” the cached page will come up with your terms highlighted for easy spotting.

Send your list of changes in a Word document to your webmaster.

After the changes are made remember to refresh your page to see the changes. This is especially helpful with larger sites with lots of text and those with blog entries.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Six More Weeks of Winter! – Punxsutawney Phil

Phil’s official forecast as read February 2nd, 2009 at sunrise at Gobbler’s Knob:

Hear Ye Hear Ye!!

On Gobbler’s Knob this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2009

Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators

Awoke to the call of President Bill Cooper

And greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths

After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers,

Phil proclaimed that his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers were World Champions one more time

And a bright sky above me

Showed my shadow beside me.

So 6 more weeks of winter it will be…

For those of us who live in San Clemente California, this is not a bad thing.

Happy Groundhog Day from Webconsuls LLC.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The iPhone has made a surge in the creation of applications by aftermarket companies. With everyday that goes by the iPhone becomes more universal and applicable for everyday life. Whether you are using the iPhone for business or pleasure, you are sure to find an application for your needs. IPhone applications are becoming more technical and more expensive! Here are three applications that are very neat and cost an unbelievable amount:

iRa Pro $899.99 – Provides touch based viewing and control of IP based video surveillance equipment. Inspired by the mobility needs of the high-end security industry, iRa Pro enables users to view multiple live video feeds directly from cameras or from video management servers and to directly control pan-tilt-zoom cameras using the intuitive touchscreen interface of the iPhone and iPod touch.

My Accounts To Go (MATG) $449.99 – Is an innovative Apple iPhone application which allows its user to remotely access their corporate account information from corporate financial management systems such as Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains) and SAP BusinessOne. CBR Technology is also an Apple Authorized Developer and uses the latest version of Apple’s SDK to produce its high-quality iPhone-compatible applications.

Lexi-COMPLETE $299.99 – Lexi-COMPLETE provides detailed information on drugs, drug interactions, diagnosis, disease management, patient education, and more. Lexi-Comp’s in-house clinical team conducts constant surveillance of the FDA, pharmaceutical industry, and clinical literature to develop timely, unbiased information that helps health care providers make more informed decisions, reduce adverse drug events, and deliver better patient care.