Category: product endorsements

best online backup software?

On By Rick McIn internet, product endorsements1 Comment

The computer in your Hard Drive will crash, sooner or later. That disk spins at up to 15,000 RPM. It’s inevitable.

I hate all spinning disk technologies. They are unreliable.

Most missed if you lose data are the music files, photos and videos.

Best way to avoid that grief, is to backup to the “cloud”.

The two biggest players are Mozy and Carbonite.

Click PLAY to watch a video review on both on YouTube.

I tried the free trial of Carbonite for Mac. If I sign on, the cost is about $3.50/month. (That’s cheaper than buying external hard drives as I’ve been doing over the past few years.)

But Carbonite in 2009 admitted loss of backups of “over 7,500 customers”. So I’ll keep doing the local backup to a 1TB drive using Time Machine software, as well.

I do have important data I don’t want to lose. This way all of my files will be backed up at least twice in two different places, one being the cloud.

UPDATE: My free trial was successful. Carbonite worked. But since my ISP only allows about 4GB / day upload, not all the files could be backed up.

I will be signing up for one or the other service … but I’m a little irritated with Carbonite because their customer service department did not reply to an email I sent them. Perhaps I’ll email Mozy and see if they reply.

unlimited SKYPE phone calls North America $2.95

On By Rick McIn product endorsements4 Comments

I’m REALLY thinking of signing up for this. I hate phone companies. I’d rather “phone” from my laptop. With this service (Skype OUT) I can call land lines and mobile phones using the regular phone lines.

Unlimited calls* to any phones in the US & Canada.

No long-term contract. No connection fees.

details

Does it come with voice mail?

Never miss a call with voicemail – it’s included with your subscription.

So, people can call me and leave a voice message online. Nice.

Next, …is there a way I can make SKYPE calls from my iTouch?

UPDATE: I’m trying the SKYPE app for iTouch (free). That should work Skype to Skype on iTouch.

I still won’t be able to SKYPE out to a mobile phone, though.

Santa’s brother – Fred Claus

On By Rick McIn movies, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I’m astonished to report that the movie Fred Claus should be an annual tradition. It’s great for both kids and adults.

Fred Claus is a 2007 Christmas comedy-drama film produced and directed by David Dobkin. The film stars Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti, marking their first time working together.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

It only got a 23% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. That’s rotten. But I liked it.

Adventure Story of the Decade – Greg Mortenson

On By Rick McIn books, education, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Outside Adventure Blog named Greg Mortenson the Adventure Story of the Decade.

Kudos to Outside. That’s a gutsy and correct call. What Greg has done was the most inspirational story I’ve heard in recent years.

… Who is Greg Mortenson?

Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of nonprofit Central Asia Institute www.ikat.org , founder of Pennies For Peace www.penniesforpeace.org , and co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea www.threecupsoftea.com , and author of the bestsellerStones into Schools www.stonesintoschools.com.

In 2009, Mortenson received Pakistan’s highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) for his dedicated and humanitarian effort to promote education and literacy in rural areas for fifteen years. …

About Greg Mortenson

This guy has done more by himself to help Pakistan than all the hundreds of millions spent by the U.S. government. I love the title of this article: He Fights Terror With Books

I highly recommend his first book. Greg Mortenson is my hero.

click for details on the book

Never has the failure to climb a mountain led to such success. After Greg Mortenson failed to climb K2 in 1993 to honor his dead sister, he picked a new mountain. He raised enough money so a small village in Pakistan could build their own school.

In 2006 he published Three Cups of Tea, a book chronicling his journey. By 2009 he had supported more than 131 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. At a time when U.S. foreign policy is governed by military might that includes Shock and Awe and a flock of high-altitude drones, Greg Mortenson took a simpler, gentler approach. He traveled on rugged roads to small villages—in the same remote regions where the United States dropped bombs from unseen and unheard planes high in the sky—to deliver cash so locals could build schools from stones and have basic learning supplies for their children. He took the war against violence out of the sky and put it in the hands of young girls on the ground.

The Top 10 Adventure Stories of the Decade

2009 a good year for Microsoft

On By Rick McIn Apple, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I still avoid all things Microsoft, but I’m softening.

They were far from boring over the past 12 months.

In fact, Microsoft was the most-mentioned brand online in 2009, Google ranks second.

Microsoft-Booth-at-CES-2009

Mashable posted an excellent year in review for MS, if you are interested.

In the meantime, Apple stock is at all-time high.

I’m shopping for a new vehicle …

On By Rick McIn product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

After 11 happy years without wheels, I’m slightly tempted to buy a vehicle for travel to Mexico and the southern U.S.A. this winter.

I’m leaning towards a used Honda Element.

Click PLAY or watch a review on YouTube.

AutoTrader.ca search for Honda Element

Any advice for me? … Leave a comment.

Julie & Julia – a review

On By Rick McIn movies, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I was certain I wouldn’t be much interested in a movie about cooking. … But I was wrong.

Loved it.

… a comedy-drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron. The film depicts events in the life of chef Julia Child in the early years in her culinary career, contrasting her life with Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes from Child’s cookbook during a single year, a challenge she described on her popular blog that would make her a published author. …

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

The acting is terrific.

… Meryl Streep has been widely praised for her performance as Julia Child. Movie critic A.O. Scott of The New York Times affirmed that “By now this actress [Streep] has exhausted every superlative that exists and to suggest that she has outdone herself is only to say that she’s done it again. …

Similarly, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon magazine concluded that “Streep isn’t playing Julia Child here, but something both more elusive and more truthful — she’s playing our idea of Julia Child.” …

Stanley Tucci as Paul Child, Julia’s husband, is brilliant too.

best Apple Christmas gifts

On By Rick McIn Apple, product endorsementsLeave a comment

If you are struggling to decide on a present for that special one (not me), here are a few recommendations from the Evil Empire.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The higher priced iTouch does not yet have video. The Nano is the best iPod right now for most people.

Best Apple laptop I feel is the 13in MacBook Pro.

The best desktop is the iMac. Unfortunately you’ll have to wait to get one as it’s been delayed with monitor problems.

Apple has won the J.D. Powers customer satisfaction award for the past 9yrs.

Geoffrey Canada is my hero

On By Rick McIn education, government, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone is one of the few success stories I’ve heard in American education.

The USA made the mistake of not offering children an equal chance of success by inventing a system where some schools are good. Some are bad.

No wonder the USA has the world’s highest percentage of prison inmates. China ranks second with only about 18% of the US incarceration rate.

… Is that too big a leap? … Bad schools mean more kids will fall into crime?

Geoffrey Canada it trying a radical approach. He has 1200 inner city students and guarantees ALL of them they will go to College. Though it costs $5000/yr/student, his school is free to the kids.

Is that expensive?

Prison costs $60,000/yr. Reform school $100,000/yr.

Watch The Harlem Children’s Zone from the December 6, 2009 edition of 60 Minutes. Canada is a man who simply will not be denied.

60 Minutes also posts a text version online. It’s titled Harlem’s Education Experiment Gone Right.

Robert Heinlein – Red Planet

On By Rick McIn books, product endorsements1 Comment

Robert A. Heinlein is perhaps the greatest writer in SciFi history.

… popular, influential, and controversial …

Rockin’ recommended I revisit one of his “juvenile” classics, Red Planet (1949).

Jim Marlowe is a youngster living on Mars, and he has a “pet”-friend named Willis. Willis is a “bouncer,” a furry little guy of some intelligence whose most amazing quality is an innate capability to reproduce exactly anything he hears. Jim takes Willis with him when he and his friend Frank go off to school. The new headmaster makes life miserable for all the boys with his military discipline, and he has the audacity to take Willis away from Jim and lock him away in his office.

A bold rescue attempt by the brave lads manages to recover Willis before the headmaster sells him off to the London Zoo, but the friends’ joy soon turns to surprise when Willis plays back a conversation he overheard about the Company putting an end to the seasonal migrations on Mars. This means that Jim’s family in the South will be forced to remain where they are all winter, where the temperature easily falls below one hundred degrees freezing. Now it is up to the boys to escape from the school and somehow find their way back home (hundreds of miles away) and inform their families of the Company’s intentions. Only their bravery and a little help from Mars’ unique native inhabitants give them a chance to save the day.

The Martians are fascinating in and of themselves; needless to say, they are something entirely different from little green men. …

Good stuff. Entertaining and thought provoking.

Related …

I took a couple of dozen Isaac Asimov novels (audio) on my last long road trip. I must admit Heinlein is a far more nuanced and sophisticated writer than Asimov.

In fact, I was mostly disappointed with Asimov’s Robot series of books including I, Robot.

Two characters will stay with me, though, R. Daneel Olivaw and his human detective partner Elijah Baley. Brilliant fictional creations. Jehoshaphat!