The BizTechie Chronicles

I tend to talk a lot about Google on this blog because I think they are providing the services that we want.  They recently rolled out a service for Gmail that will allow users to access up to 5 external e-mail accounts to a limited number of Gmail users.  Unfortunately, I was not one of them, oh well.  This type of service would help a lot of us out that seem to have way too many e-mail accounts for one reason or another.   It sounds like this service will only work with external accounts with POP capabilities.  Please correct me if I am wrong about this.  That means I will not be able to add my Yahoo account unless I pay Yahoo for POP capabilities.  That is no good.  I am waiting for a program or e-mail account that can enter my login and password into any account, then embedd it into one e-mail account bypassing the need for POP.  I am somewhat ignorant in how this all works, so please let me know if I am wrong about any of this.  Anyone that has used this, feel free to tell me all about it. 

Found via TechCrunch, Lifehacker

The title should of said, 'How to' Create Custom Ring Tones, enjoy:

1) If you don’t already have it, download Windows movie maker for free.  It is bundled with XP service pack 2. Open Windows Movie Maker. (>)

2) Import your audio file by clicking the ‘Import audio or music’ link under movie tasks and save your project

3) Play your file and clip using the clip button (see right lower corner of screenshot)

4) Drag your clip down onto the timeline at ‘00:00’ in audio/music

5) Click the ‘Save to my computer’ link under movie tasks and select the level of quality for your ring tone so that the file size is less than 200kb.  (e.g. CD quality for 20 second clip).

Now all you have to do is stick it into the appropriate folder on your phone.  On my 8125, I put the file in Windows\Rings.

After writing this, I found a similar article at Lifehacker, and also references a Wired article that tells you how to do the same thing.  Well, now there is plenty of INFO out there, go make your own ring tones.

I've been meaning to write a post about RSS (Really Simple Syndication), but this article explains it well to those that are unfamiliar to this.

What are online RSS feeds?

I am a huge fan of this technology and it saves me time every day, especially since I am on the web way more than I should be (according to my wife).  Many of my readers are probably familiar with RSS, but there are some that are not.  If you have any questions about RSS, let me know.

For those of you who use Google Reader for your RSS feeds, you can access them on your mobile phone at: >

Lifehacker recently featured an article about how to surf the web without advertising.  This made me think and say to myself, "a lot of people who make a living using advertising on their websites probably will not like that".  The question I have for you is, "Is this activity stealing?".  I will probably put a poll up, but wanted to hear what you thought first. 

There has been a lot going on in the world of Second Life lately.  Companies have advertised, set up shop, and now a start-up is launching.  Crayon claims to be the first company to launch in SL.  We are not talking about coloring books here, but a marketing company.  A good way to get some attention for sure.  Now with a million SL users, this community is going strong.  I actually just got sidetracked looking up the latest SL economic figures and decided to sign up, it is free for a basic membership now; there used to be a small fee.  (I could have been confusing the basic free membership with the additional basic membership, go figure.)  This might be why their membership numbers are up, it kept me from joining awhile back.  Anyway, the economy is estimated to be $64mm (US dollars) a year.  Just in the last 24 hours over $500k have been spent.  More evidence of SL appeal is that IBM has had employee meetings in this virtual world.  It seems everyone is jumping on board.  Now that I am finally a SL member, I can give first hand accounts of various happenings there, as long it is not too much of a time sink. 

Related Post: >

I am gradually moving many of my online functions towards Google.  There is so much more functionality.  Yahoo recently updated their e-mail system which is okay, but included an RSS reader that is sub-par.  It is not as easy to add feeds as Google.  With Google, you just do a Google search within the feed reader and add the subscription.  But one of the main reasons I am gravitating towards Google is their Google Docs app. that launched recently which combines Google Spreadsheets with Writley's word processor.  There are many cool features, just to name a few:

1) you can save your documents as Word, PDFs, HTML, Open Office, or Rich Text (found out about this via Lifehacker)

2) easy online collaboration

3) files are accessible anywhere

4) there is even a publish function that will assign its own URL for all to see, or you can publish directly into your blog

5) you can compare revisions and look at revision history

If you haven't yet, check it out. 

Well, today was a day of customer NO service.  It started out at Walmart, I can’t stand shopping at Walmart and don’t expect much service there, but my wife insists on rock bottom prices along with the usual customer NO service.  We get there to pick up some photos of our daughter at their studio, but it turns out that we can’t pick up our photos until the clerk/photographer is done with her photo shoot.  This made me think

1) it only takes a minute to hand us photos we have already paid for, and

2) maybe they should have one person work the desk while the other takes photos.  This is just a thought.

Then it is off to Best Buy to hopefully get a laptop.  They claim to match any advertised price of their competitors.  Well, I had an ad. with me that was $100 less than their listed price.  They had to get the manager and said they would match it.  Oh, but he had to check to see if it was in stock.  Sure enough it was not in stock, how convenient.  This always happens, they never have anything in stock, especially if it is an advertised deal in the Sunday paper.  How frustrating, maybe I’ll have better luck next weekend. 

There have been many posts on the new Google feed reader (see: Micro Persuasion), and since I have been looking for the best way to go through information on the web I thought I would give it a try.  I know I talked Netvibes up recently, and still like the look and some of the features, but it tends to be a slow loader.  I aslo wonder how well it searches its feeds and how feeds are added.  I searched my own feed on there and came up with nothing.  I searched for my feed on the Google reader and it came up at the top.  It is very easy to add feeds to this reader, it has a good look, and is fast as well.  This may be the reader I use.  I will keep you posted. 

Whatever you want to call it, it rocks.  What is it?  It is Netvibes.  I found it over at A VC while trying to figure out which feed reader I should use.  I wouldn’t call it a feed reader, but it functions very similar, but looks much better than let’s say, Bloglines.  It allows you to see multiple RSS feeds at once on a single page; your page is also tabbed for better organization.  You can move your modules/feeds around by dragging and can even drag to other tabs.  I’m not sure how it compares to feed readers in terms of functionality, but it suits me well.  This is probably easier to describe while you are using, so go there and customize your netvibes account with all of your favorite web stuff on one page, from your favorite blogs, local news and weather, or your Gmail.