I don’t use my home phone that much, but the new phone number we got is getting all kinds of crazy calls: from services trying to sell us something to people trying to reach previous owners of this number. I got fed up and decided to port my old number that didn’t have any of these problems.

Called up Optimum and they told me that there is a $40 fee to “buy the number from the other company” and $34.95 fee for a technician to come over and “install” my new number. When I pressed for details about what it means to “install” my new number the gave in and waved the installation charge, but were not willing to wave the $40 fee even though it wasn’t mentioned when I originally signed up.

I ported that number at least 3 times before without any charges. Pretty ridiculous. Interestingly enough there is not that much outrage on the web about this. This is one of the only links i found: http://text.dslreports.com/shownews/Cablevision-Charges-Excessive-Fee-For-Phone-Number-Transfers-91543

Issues with Smush.it

• Cannot upload the image to Smush.it, have to reference existing internet-accessible image
• Cannot download only specific images, have to download all images in the batch

Logic

• Allow drag and drop of files or pointing to directory
• Create a “timestamp task” — used by Smush.it to download all images associated with current batch
• Helper uploads to S3 “smushit” bucket — need to think about not overwriting
• Once all uploads are done, it tells Smush.it where to find the images
• Once Smush.it responds about all the files we display the savings and allow user to download (Future: allow user to choose which file to download, in reality it will still download the files but will not overwrite)
• Based on user’s choice we either overwrite or backup existing images

Future: allow to compare 2 images

http://www.nochump.com/blog/?p=15

VMware Fusion which is running WinXP/IE6 takes up consistently less CPU than Firefox. It seems to me that “virtualization” is somewhat more complex than HTML parsing… but that’s probably just me.

• Outlook — Entourage 2008 (see my previous post)
• Windows Live Writer (blogging software) — Ecto. Very capable alternative with a few nice features, but issues with multi-level bullets. All posts about “Switching to Mac” are created using Ecto
• Remote Desktop — Microsoft developed Mac version
• Roboform (password manager) — 1password
  • You can read reviews here
  • It is also able to import most of Roboform data
• Evernote is available on Mac
• SnagIt — Jing. Free product from the same vendor. Simple and handles most tasks.
• ZoneAlarm (or any other firewall) — Little Snitch.
• http://www.transmissionbt.com/

http://www.johnhaney.com/backdrop/

http://freelanceswitch.com/working/35-absolutely-essential-mac-apps/

http://smileonmymac.com/TextExpander/

http://osxdaily.com/2006/12/04/mainmenu-mac-maintenance-made-easy/

http://www.koingosw.com/products/macpilot.php

http://www.opendoor.com/DoorStop/

http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

http://www.flip4mac.com/

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/think_freeverseinc.html

http://www.donelleschi.com/stickywindows/

http://iweinfuld.blogspot.com/2008/08/update-svn-on-leopard-to-play-nice-with.html

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/08/16/enhance-productivity-multiple-monitors/

http://www.usingmac.com/2007/11/21/mac-os-x-leopard-200-productivity-booster-hotkeys

http://www.naschenweng.info/2008/04/12/microsoft-project-plans-on-os-x

http://www.pocketmac.com/blackberrydownload.php

Intel’s X25-M (80G) solid-state drive outperforms by a big margin 4200/7200rpm and even Ridata NSSD-S25 SSD

www.greensherpa.com – cash flow projections. in addition to tracking your spending also allows you to forecast how the purchase of a new tv will affect your budget

www.isearch.com – people-search engine that helps you reunite with long lost friends

www.tableau.com – visualize your data better than Excel

Black Friday deals:

• www.bfads.net
• blackfriday.gottadeal.com
• www.BlackFridayAds.com
• http://dealnews.com/features/The-dealnews-Black-Friday-Strategy-Guide/197209.html

Top Sites for Bargain finders: http://www.pcworld.com/article/141808/top_sites_for_bargain_hunters.html

www.topica.com – recommended email marketing service

www.pidgin.im – multiprotocol IM client

www.syncplicity.com – sync multiple computers

Billing/Invoicing – Zoho launched that service but only supports paypal for online payments. www.freshbooks.com supports more online options and offers to send invoices by mail (extra cost)

Password utilities

• www.roboform.com – I am a long time user, very happy with it
• www.passpack.com – didn’t sound interesting/secure
• PwdHash – Firefox AddIn, based on you single password, it generates different “hashes” for each site. Sounds interesting and convenient
• www.guardid.com – sounds like RoboFormToGo

http://www.pcworld.com/article/123728/top_10_external_hard_drives.html

MP3 Manager – MediaMonkey

HDTV on USB: Pinnacle’s PCTV HD Por Stick outperforms Hauppauge’s WinTV-HDR-950Q

External Video Card: http://www.evga.com/uvplus/, 2 versions: 1440×900 and 1600×1200. (20% discount UV16PWNOV)

Cannon Pixma MX700 – Best Buy Multi Function Printer, $200

SlideSlide – app launcher

Lists:

• 100 Incredibly Useful and Interesting Web Sites
• 50 Tools to Speed Up Your PC

Employee Monitoring:

• www.ascentive.com/pcw3 — BeAware

www.VirusTotal.com – allows you to upload a file and site runs it against 35 different anti-virus tools

Online virus/malware cleaning tools

• BitDefender
• ESET
• F-Secure
• Trend Micro

www.adtunes.com – helps you identify tunes used in ads and other tv content

www.failblog.org – fun stuff

www.cartoonbank.com

www.drivesavers.com

Scan type:  Auto-Protect Scan
Event:  Threat Found!
Threat: Downloader
File:  C:\Documents and Settings\Mike\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\DTKTQ6BK\gnida[1].swf
Location:  C:\Documents and Settings\Mike\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\DTKTQ6BK
Action taken:  Clean failed : Quarantine failed : Delete succeeded : Access denied
Date found: Wednesday, January 09, 2008  9:21:56 PM

I was a bit surprised that Norton found a threat in SWF file, but after a few searches it seems to be a real issue:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/default.aspx

http://seo.mhvt.net/blog/?p=180#more-180

I usually do not download anything sketchy, so it’s good to be reminded that Norton works!

P.S. Judging by the name, it was created, or was intended to imply that it came from Russia. “gnida” is not a very nice word in Russian.