Techcraver.com | Craving tech, craving life!

Yesterday Apple gave an additional option for those considering an AppleTV. It used to be you could only get it with a 40GB hard drive, but as of yesterday you can upgrade it to 160GB directly from Apple. Not a bad upgrade, but the new price is $399!

Wow. I’m an Apple fanboy, but $400 for a little box that plays my iTunes bought TV shows and movies on my tv in crappy resolution? hmm….no thanks!

Technorati Tags: apple, itv, appletv, iTunes, movies, TV

I just recently upgraded my wordpress instance to 2.2. Late last week I noticed that in Firefox (and camino on my mac) the blog looked fine on the front page. However in IE and Safari, only one (old) post showed up and the sidebar didn’t load at all.

I was about to blow away Wordpress all together and build it up from scratch but before doing that I disabled ALL my plug-ins. Wa lah! everything was back to normal. I re-enabled my plug-ins one at a time and discovered that TwitThis 1.1 was causing the problem. I’m not sure if it was TwitThis, or Wordpress 2.2, but everything is back to normal!

Yay!

In the spirit of Scott’s recent blog post, here are the tech
items that have changed the way my day-to-day life goes.

Tivo (DVR) – I know this may be a little redundant but it’s
impact has been pretty powerful. It’s so
nice to be able to free yourself from the TV schedule and being able to watch
YOUR content when YOU want to. Yeah it’s
nice to be able to skip through some commercials, but just having the show
ready when you want to watch it is so valuable.
In fact, I just recently switched from DirecTV to cable and if Comcast
dind’t have a DVR, I wouldn’t have switched.
Actually I *hate* the Comcast DVR and when Tivo actually comes out with
an HD Tivo that isn’t $500+, I’ll buy one and kick Comcast’s piece of crap to
the curb.

VoIP (Internet telephony).

VoIP replaced my conventional landline about 2 years ago. I have had both Packet8 and Sunrocket. I was lucky enough to get Sunrocket last year

for $199 for 2 years. That works out to
be like 8 bucks a month. It’s so
liberating to be able to call someone whether they’re across the street, a
couple of towns away, or across the country.
No toll charges, included CallerID, Call Waiting, etc – sign me up!

iPod. The only reason I even listen to any radio nowadays is for news and traffic when I’m driving. Otherwise I have my iPod on. Again it’s awesome to have *my* content on *my* schedule.

Technorati Tags: tivo, iPod, apple, voip, sunrocket

I really think someone needs to buy me one of these…it’s a USB powered mini fridge and it’s awesome!

It’s only $33 and is from Brando. I love how it reminds me of old-school Coca cola style refrigerators. Sweet!

Yesterday I rode in Reach the Beach, a great fundraiser for the American Lung Association of Oregon to fight lung disease. I rode with my brother Sean and 8 of his buddies. We all stuck together throughout the 36 mile mountain biking course.

We left Grand Ronde, Oregon at about 9:45. The beginning of the ride (about 7 miles) is on-road and then you go off-road on logging roads for a uphill-downhill-uphill mountain course. After meandering through the woods, you end up on 101 for the final 10 or so miles into Pacific City. The ride is beautiful as you wander alongside the Nesctucca River through lush and dense forest. The 9 of us has a wonderful time hanging out and experiencing this together.

My wonderful wife met me at the end and we all enjoyed a great meal and beer to cap off

a wonderful day. It was SO much fun and it really meant a lot to be biking for such a great cause with my brother. I can’t wait for Reach the Beach 2008!

Check out my photoset for more photos.

Well it must be happy days at Apple Headquarters today - the iPhone was given approval from the FCC today.  I imagine the June launch date is still intact.  Yay!

Related Article

Technorati Tags: iphone, apple, FCC

 I upgraded techcraver.com to Wordpress 2.2 so if you see  any bugs or issues please let me know…leave a comment or send me an email.

The upgrade process went very smoothly - if you do it, just follow the instructions.

I was riding my bike around yesterday and I came across this sign. You know how many real estate agencies have automated call-in where you can enter in a code and get information on a specific property? Well this Realtor is smart enough to allow us to txt for more information! Brilliant!

This is kind of like in Europe where if you’re waiting for a train, you can txt a code with the Stop ID and find out when the next train is coming. I wish Tri-Met would employ this in the Portland area, rather than they’re little call center that’s only staffed part of the day.

Technorati Tags: sms, realtor, real estate, txt, biking

I have a website that is static HTML.  It’s a site that needs to be updated about once a month.  I want to stop having to do these content updates and allow a few people (less than five) to have the ability to edit/add content.

I want some suggestions on content management systems.  My web host uses PHP/MySQL so a .Net solution won’t work for my current set up.  I’ve thought about doing a hosted wiki such as WetPaint and I’ve thought about doing WordPress.  I don’t like the fact that WetPaint puts ads all over the page (I’d be willing to pay to not have time) but it seems very lightweight and the look and feel is great.

I want some other suggestions…please leave a comment.

Technorati Tags: wiki, sms, php, cms, mysql

My training in preparation for Reach The Beach is going very well. I am *really* enjoying getting out on my bike and going for longer and longer training rides. I’m lucky to live on the edge of town which puts me very close to some amazing country roads that make for wonderful rides. I ride by hundreds of cows, lots of Alpacas, and the other day I was surprised to see a deer cross the road right in front of me. I have been faithfully biking 3-4 times a week and I’ve kicked it up to 30-35 miles with a nasty hill at the end. I live at the top of a hill that is roughly a 400 foot ascent in less than 3 miles. It’s great practice for the ride - which is only two weeks away from today! Yikes!

My fundraising is going pretty well also. To date I’ve raised $290. I’d love to be able to raise some more before the race, so if you’re interested in donating please see the previous RTB entry.

Technorati Tags: biking, fundraising, reachthebeach