Posted by Phil on October 31, 2008 – 4:33 am
Here’s a little secret; being environmentally conscious and fiscally responsible can bring with it some really good times. Newly acquired, I picked-up a really nice deal on this retro style Yamaha Vino this past weekend. Between scooting around on this 50cc to work and hoping on my trusty Marin bicycle, I’m having a ball. With Texas being such a mild climate one can ride virtually year-round aside from the far too few rainy days.
I also love the idea of parking my Camry with 190k on it and extending the life of that old ‘95 model even further. It’s still humming like it was just driven off the dealer’s lot.
I enjoy the adventure that comes from trying new things. Looking for alternatives to our resource-guzzling, over-sized and over-extended culture requires some creative thinking and flexibility. Alternative transport is just one great way to save resources as well as positively affect the environment. Some other ideas I am happy to employ:
- Be content with TV from an antenna instead of cable. With a high-def unit and a good antenna I can pick-up both the regular pbs channel and the new Create pbs channel (what more do you need).
- Stay content living in a small house. It keeps our family close (both figuratively and literally) and we save big, big bucks with small mortgage, low utility costs and we don’t have room to just accumulate more stuff we don’t really need.
- Live close to work which makes scooting and biking very convenient. I used to work 25 miles from where I live in which I would bike and bus to work. Busing is a whole other adventure.
- Shopping at Goodwill and garage sales. It’s amazing what folks will discard that is in perfectly good condition.
I’m sure there are many other things I could do that would be good stewardship for what I’ve been given. What ways have you employed?
Posted by Phil on October 14, 2008 – 8:17 am
In the past I’ve recommended 1and1.com for web hosting. I’ve appreciated there reasonable pricing and overall user-friendly administrative interface. However, their customer service is bottom-of-the-barrel. My account was suspended last Thursday due to a billing mix-up. I immediately corrected the issue on my end but it took them until Monday to rectify the problem. It seems that their tech support is handled in India and their billing in the States. After repeated phone calls with promises made that the situation would be rectified quickly it finally was resolved four days later. For a hosting company, that is really pathetic. Any web host you would recommend? I may be in the market.
Posted by Phil on October 3, 2008 – 4:29 am
Which is the best browser? That all depends on the purpose. Here’s a short summary comparison of the three browsers:
Internet Explorer 7.0/8.0: It launches slow, loads pages slow and has many irksome features in the general bloated fashion of Microsoft. I have little use for IE for home use. However, on an enterprise level, IE makes a compelling argument for it’s use with integrated authentication and compatibility with its Office and SharePoint products.
FireFox 3.0: Still a mainstay on my desktop, FireFox has an amazing array of browser add-ons that make it a browser of choice for developers. FireFox is hands-down the most flexible and feature packed browser with a large developer community. For an all-purpose browser FireFox takes the cake. One important caveaut, add-ons can slow the launch of the browser down to that of IE which is paltry.
Chrome: The fastest browser by far. It launches quick, loads pages rapidly and simply a slick browser. It’s streamline design, not surprising coming from Google, allows for more screen space. I hope that Google doesn’t get the itch to over engineer the browser as it evolves but leaves the simplicity of it alone. For Mac fans, Chrome is on its way; Just hang on.