Did you ever have that guy that saw you playing some game with your friends and walked up and said, "I wanna Play".
That was me when I saw this hands on of the mobile Firefox beta codename 'Fennec" over on arstechnica.
This new browser from Mozilla is looking pretty sweet with some really nice features even in its infancy, features like one-click bookmarking.
This is a pretty in-depth hands on and very much worth a read if you're a firefox fan.
A new search engine has been added to the internet community, as long as you have some African American blood running through you.
Like Yahoo's new site for women, serving women and that's it, RushmoreDrive.com looks to serve the Black community with searches that are tailored toward the Black....community? Which happens to be so friggin diverse that this should be insulting on a billion different levels.
Whatever can be found on this search engine can be found on Google, Yahoo, MSN on and on. This is pandering at it's worst at a time when a young man like Barack Obama is seeking to bring this nation together as one people and leave the devisions behind us.
What in the hell is the point of this? Other than to make money off people who can't see beyond their race, whatever that may be. Is this tailored for American Blacks and closed off to let's say, British Black? Because by and large, British Blacks don't consider themselves "African American", and their cultural experience is completely different.
How about Dominican Black? Black Puerto Ricans? Hell, how about Blacks from Mississippi and Blacks from Seattle?
If a White company came out with an all White search engine, people would lose their collective minds. This kind of stuff has to stop or we are never going anywhere as a country.
NOTE: Any racist comments will be immediately deleted, so don't waste your time.
Not that this changes anything like put more food on your table, or brings us any closer to curing cancer, but if you've been looking for an easier way to get your favorite YouTube videos on your FaceBook page, YouTube is here to help.
A little update to the user interface gives you a few more tabbed choices such as social networking sites and statistics.
There are a few more helpful little updates so you should check it out and tab around.
I know you me and Dupree have been waiting patiently for this and it's finally here! Ringback Ringtones from RealNetworks.
Soon your provider will be able to offer you a bundled service of RingTones from the RBT suite of Ringback tones for your mobile device.
"The number of people who are personalizing their mobile phones with
ringtones, wallpapers and ringback tones is growing steadily," said Mark
Donovan, chief marketing officer and senior analyst, M:Metrics. "The
challenge for operators has been that the bulk of this growth is coming
from user-created ringtones and graphics, as phones and their users become
more sophisticated. Bundling graphics and ringtones with ringback tones,
which consumers are paying for in growing numbers, could help drive new
downloads and revenue for mobile operators."
Here's a little something we can all enjoy! If we were all women. Mainstream segregation has finally hit the internets with "Shine" from Yahoo!
Why am I calling it segregation? Because it's an entire website for women brought to you by a major corporation.
Shine will bring female surfers closer to food, fashion, beauty, parenting and Tom Cruise. Really? Are you sure this is just for women?
Not sure why the internet needs a site soley aimed at one demographic. This ideal seems to fly in the face of what the internet is supposed to be about. Information for anyone with a connection. Sites that segregate to one demographic should be left to the fear mongers out there.
What's next, Yahoo Gay, Yahoo Black, Yahoo Latino?
Me thinks Yahoo would be better served serving the entire community of surfers better than they have in the past, which made them susceptible to take over. What's next, Yahoo Gay, Yahoo Black, Yahoo Latino?
Besides, doesn't Martha Stewart already have a website? Women love her....... Right?
Powered by Flash 9, integrated with Facebook and Myspace and ready equipped with 2gigs of storage space, Photoshop Express is online, in Beta and Free to all.
Of course you shouldn't sign up and expect to do layers, add vector effects or even slick text, but you can crop, manipulate colors, set up slideshows and show off your pics online.
It will work in just about any Browser, so point yours and head over to Photoshop on the cheap. Actually, free.
The Washington Post is reporting that the Number 3 US auto maker will have a WiFi-enabled car in their upcoming line of new vehicles sometime during this year. This sounds awesome, since most high-end smartphones these days come equipped with WiFi, with the unfortunate exception of Treos :-(
"The feature will be added to existing vehicles by dealers beginning this year and later be installed on the assembly line, said Frank Klegon, Chrysler's product development chief.
The technology will allow passengers to search Web pages using signals from mobile phone towers. Consumers initially would need a subscription to a wireless phone carrier to ensure uninterrupted coverage.
"We want to make the radio itself a WiFi port," Klegon said."
Nothing special, it's not 3.0 but it is 2.0.0.13. If your Firefox browser hasn't already told you then yu should hit the download link and git er done.
The update address's "Security and Stability", which is what every Firefox update address's. But I hope thy're serious about the stability part. Firefox likes to crash on ne while I'm doing a post. Very irritating.
South Park and The Simpson are two shows that i absolutely love. But they have both been on the air so long that I no longer have the undying thirst to watch them, so I haven't seen new episodes in a while.
Half of that is about to change. The Parker/Stone team have started a new South Park website on the Comedy Central Umbrella that will allow you to stream and watch any episode from any season. Sweet.
Episodes like the first time Towelee made his appearance and I thought i was going to have to go to the hospital.
Or when Ophra's private parts took the town hostage. Or when Cartman had turrets. Or when Tom Cruise came out of the closet. Or when.....
You get the picture.
This is the second installation in in my review series of VisualVoicemail services. In my first post I asked which one is better, SimulScribe or CallWave? In this post I will not attempt to answer that question, yet. More to come.
In this post I will deal with SimulScribe only. At the moment I am using the service with a number that is connected to my Blackberry 8830, not my Treo 755p, so I cannot give you an accurate summation of how the service works with a Palm Treo. But I can't imagine it being too different from my Blackberry experience. An experience that has been excellent!
SimiulScribe prides itself on it's "transcription" of email messages. The company has worked very hard to fine tune it in such a manner that your message reads with 90% accuracy, almost word for word transcription of what has been said by the caller leaving the message.
But I'm going to start out with what MP readers know is my pet peeve.
"Customer Service".
For me, and it should be for you as well, customer service can make or break a company or service. No matter how good the product, if you can't get reliable, swift and understanding service from representatives, the product or service isn't worth your hard earned money.
This is where SimulScribe had me at hello. The service rep that I spoke with was extremely knowledgeable, quick to answer questions and accommodating to needs. I am on Sprint as most of you know, and by now anyone on Sprint knows that trying to setup a third party voicemail system is like trying to open a strip club in Dubai. But unlike Dubai, fun can be had on Sprint openly, but like Dubai, one has to know the secret back alley tucked away cubby hole to get into the party.
After going through this already with Callwave, and at long last figuring out how to get Sprint to make it work, I found myself in the same Sprint sea storm when I switched over to SimulScribe. Only this time I had no luck. SimulScribe to the rescue, they gave me the 411 to the Sprint White House, and calmly politely got it squared away for me. More on this Sprint problem in a later post. But this is to demonstrate the excellent level of customer service SimulScribe offers.
In the short few weeks that I have been using SimulScribe I have been very satisfied with the service itself. SimulScribe offers two services, the regular transcription service that provides you transcribed read-outs of your voicemail along with an "Audio" file that you can listen to on your device, or on your computer in your mailbox that you setup. You can forward your messages, receive them as SMS text or simply call in with your allocated number and listen to the message.
Or there is SimulSays, The VisualVoiceMail add-on that rolls just like the iPhone VisualVoiceMail, but for Blackberry. I will get into SimulSays in another post.
In practical use, the service "SimulScribe" does exactly what it says it will do. My messages have been delivered to me with astonishing accuracy, even when they have been long winded. And as a added bonus for me, the messages that I have wanted to hear have been simple. I just click on the attached file, a few seconds later the mp3 player on my Blackberry opens and plays the message. I then have the option to save it on the phone or just exit. Pick exit, save your memory. This is something that I could not do with the previous incarnation of the service I was using before SimulScribe. But that was also with my Treo 755p, and I needed to get a third party app to perform the action. Not so on the Blackberry.
As with most of these services, you can opt to delete the message, or hold on to it for the rest of your life. Doing so automatically gains you entry into the GEEK club.
Here is the price break-down for the service.
"Features
Online voicemail management
Unlimited voicemail box storage
Voicemail delivery options include e-mail and/or text messages
Dial-in voicemail management
24/7 customer service and support
Benefits
Read voicemail on your mobile phone, portable device and/or e-mail
Whether you are in a meeting, traveling, or on the golf course, you can instantly see who called, what they said, and you won't have to listen to all of your messages to find out about an important missed call
Use the SimulScribe online user interface to search, sort, archive and delete voicemail like email
You won't have to write down the information from a voicemail; important numbers, names and addresses are easy to find, easy to access and will never get lost
Respond in text by forwarding the message to another person
Voicemails delivered as text when you are roaming saves you money
You can still listen to the message as an audio file that is sent direct to your e-mail or dial in to the voicemail system
Keep the same voicemail functionality that you are used to; all dial-in voicemail functionality stays the same.
Corporate Voicemail Integration"
I very highly recommend SimulScribe as a smart easy and far better way to deal with your Voicemail on the go. The Transcribing of your messages is impeccable. Even when the service doesn't quite get a word, the preceding sentence and following sentence is accurate enough that you can quickly piece together the word that was not understood by the service.
The Audio files are crisp, clear and small, which makes listening on your device a pleasure.
I will be setting up a direct link this week for a Morning Paper discount link to SimulScribe service. But in the meantime go over and take advantage of the trial.
Also note: I will continue this series with reviews of SimulSays, and Callwave. After which we'll discuss the pros and cons of each service.
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