Techcraver.com | Craving tech, craving life!

I’ve been messing around with the idea of getting a Smart Phone. Recently, I was given a Treo 600. While it has some good features, it also is roughly 5 years old. It has no Bluetooth and no EV-DO and the resolution stinks. Plus I’ve had to restart the thing 3 times in 2 days after hard freezes.

However, having a Treo has taught me two things 1) I REALLY want to have a Smart Phone (SMSing is better, contact lists are better, and I like having more info on one screen!) and 2) the Treo 600 is not the one for me.

So here’s my idea: Verizon Wireless should let me test drive a BlackBerry and a Motorola Q (or some other PocketPC Device) and in return, I’ll grade them and post in-depth reviews right here on the blog.

Why not try to make evangelists the old fashioned way (through word of mouth) in the new medium (blogs)? I think it’s a great idea - similar to Sprint’s Ambassadors program.

I’m all for trying out any other smart phone on another network - but I’m currently on Verizon, so I thought I’d ping them first.

I’m very easy to get ahold of - my phone number is on the right hand column of this blog and my email address is jason <at> techcraver <dawt> com

Technorati Tags: vzw, verizon wireless, sprint, pcs, sprintpcs, blackberry, microsoft, pocketpc

My PocketPC peeps will enjoy this!  Someone took the iPhone interface and made it a ’skin’ over PocketPC

I love Technology!

Technorati Tags: iphone, pocketpc, skin, UI, User Interface

I bought my SD800IS from Dell. I was really excited because I ordered it on Friday morning and it arrived yesterday (Tuesday). Really fast delivery considering I chose the free ground shipping.

Anyways on to the good stuff! This camera is awesome! Such a huge improvement over my Powershot A80 that I bought over two years ago. Power on speed is amazing and the time between when I press the button and when the shot taken is super fast! The images look amazing - even in low light. The higher ISO combined with the image stabilizer makes for great images!

So I finally ordered the digital camera I’ve been wanting.  I have been watching prices on two Canon models - the SD700IS (the one Josh has been recommending) and the SD800IS.

These cameras are identical in looks but the 800 offers higher video resolution, an additional megapixel, a wider lense, and the Digic III chip.  I’m not sure how much of that will translate into better looking photos - but the price difference was only $30 so I said what the heck.

The SD800 is $400 at most places - but dell is having some really good prices now so I got it there!

It comes on Thursday and the unboxing will commence then!

Technorati Tags: canon, camera, sd800is, sd800, sd700, sd700is

So looking at an AOL blog - they’re making moves to support hosting OpenIDs.

Clip:

It’s not really a secret that AOL has been experimenting with OpenID.  As I’ve said,
I think that user-centric, interoperable identity is hugely important
to enable the social experiences we’re trying to provide.  This is a
work in progress, but things are coming along thanks to our
authentication team’s diligent effort.  Here’s where we are today:

Every AOL/AIM user now has at least one OpenID URI, http://openid.aol.com/<sn>.

I think Google should as well - what do you all think?

Technorati Tags: google, openid, aol, blog

Awesome YouTube Fun!

So I had OpenID enabled on this site - you could leave a comment by logging in with your OpenID.

But this morning I noticed that if you went to leave a message and typed your openid in the box, wp-comment-posts.php would error out and give the following message: Please leave a comment.

Has anyone who has used VerseLogic’s OpenID plugin seen this - have any ideas? If so please email me or leave a comment on this post.

I am really bummed and would love to get this functionality working again.

EDIT: - it appears to be working right - my procedure for use was wrong :) 

Technorati Tags: wordpress, openid, plugin, error, verselogic

Looking to settle a score at work? Why not let this thing to the dirty work for you?

It’s a radio controlled office roaming missile launcher. It can shoot 20 feet accurately and can scale rough terrain such as hills and carpet.

Very Cool!

(photo credit to Engadget)

Yahoo has been unofficially dragged into the OpenID space by Simon Willison and his project IDProxy.

Here’s an Idea from the Techcraver to Google - free of charge - you guys should host OpenID’s as a service. This makes sense on multiple levels. It’ll help speed adoption, and many people (such as myself) use Google for services already - so it would blend naturally. And people trust Google. Google could implement OpenIDs in a friendly and easy way, just like the way Apple helped podcasting by incorporating them into iTunes.

Plus Google has always been behind open source and standardized projects, so this might make sense for them to throw their hat into the ring.

So if anyone at Google is reading - please take this into consideration!

Technorati Tags: openid, wordpress, .net, bloggers, google, yahoo

I’ve seen a lot of blog press lately about this new fangled thing called OpenID. An old acquaintance of mine, Scott Kveton, has been passionate about OpenID and is heading up a company called JanRain who is are the forefront of the OpenID movement.

What the heck is OpenID?

Well basically it’s a way to sign on to multiple sites using ONE login/password. In my case – my url is my login. It’s kind of like Passport
which Microsoft was trying to push a long time ago – one login for the web.

Why should I care?

Well how many accounts do you have on the web?

Me, I have hundreds. One on yahoo, one on google, one on every other stinkin site that requires registration. OpenID allows you to use your web address as a login/password combination and the information is kept at one location. Anyone with a domain name
or blog can register and get started with OpenID

Techcraver isn’t the only site that supports OpenID – zooomr.com, jyte.com, and soon yahoo.com will support it. Microsoft just made an announcement that they’re going to make an effort to support it. So OpenID is about to become a very big deal.

So use your OpenID if you want when you leave a comment on
this blog!

I urge all wordpress bloggers look into supporting OpenID on their blogs - if we don’t start using it, how can we expect others to get on the bandwagon?

Links:

Wikipedia Article

www.janrain.com

www.myopenid.com

Technorati Tags: openid, wordpress, .net, bloggers