Mortgage Pal for Palm WebOS finished

March 4th, 2010

I just finished a rather simple mobile app for Palm WebOS. It’s just a simple mortgage calculator, but there did not seem to be a good one out there. It hopefully will soon be approved for $.99 in the app store.

Check it out here: http://coolate.com/blog/?page_id=210

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South Bend Drivin’ Movies now has a facebook group to follow

February 19th, 2010

I just created a facebook group for our South Bend Drivin’ Movies club. Go ahead and join to be notified when and where movies will be shown.

About: SB Drivin Movies is a group of people that show public domain and independent movies for FREE. Just like a drive in, only in a parking lot! We will list the movie and location ahead of time, and you can show up in the parking lot and enjoy a movie! We will broadcast on FM radio, and have some snacks available.

Join the group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=326341034456

More about guerilla drive-ins : http://mobmov.org/

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More Cowbell! The Game. Published today in the palm app store!

February 5th, 2010

Check out my latest app in the palm app store! Its only $.99, and will give you a good laugh. Check it out here! http://coolate.com/blog/?page_id=198

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Tea Pal for WebOS Approved by Palm! Buy it now!

January 19th, 2010

You can buy it now for only $ .99! Go to the Palm App catalog and download it today!

Read More about it here!

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20 min on 6 seconds of audio. The Amen Break and its influence

January 15th, 2010

This is a great video about the Amen Break first recorded by the Winston’s back in 1969. It brings up some interesting info and makes some great points about copyright issues and the need for more public domain work and things like Creative Commons. It also shows the effect on our culture six seconds of drums can have. Google it for more information, there have been whole studies on why the six seconds are so effective.

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Tea Machine review: The Fine T Tea maker from IQ innovations.

January 15th, 2010

I have previously posted this on Amazon, but someone recently asked me what I thought of it, so I decided to post it on my own site also! I plan to soon hack this and modify the times with an adriano micro-controller, so stay tuned for plans and updates.
The Fine T Tea maker from IQ innovations.

Good:
-Makes 4 cups
-Has a rinse feature for tea. Although I would like to tweak that a bit.
-Mostly stainless steal and glass.
-Mostly very well made.
-Self cleaning, handy.
-Infusion basket is full size, so the tea has room to expand. It also is removable, and easy to clean sense it is stainless steal. This was one major draw back of the Zarafina, it’s infusion basket was only half the size of the amount you could brew.
-Timer, it can be set the night before to make you tea in the morning!
-Has an automatic function for a second brew.
-Keeps tea warm for up to 30 minutes.
Bad:
-Very little temperature control. I though this would be the best part of this machine, with the lcd display and menu interface I assumed I would have more temperature chooses then 205 and 160. This also is to cold for some Black teas, and a bit to hot for some white teas.
-It’s huge! Well this really is not that bad, but it is almost twice the size of the Zarafina and does not really fit under my cupboards on the counter. Of course it does make 4 cups.
-Some oddly cheap plastic parts. For example the infusion lid is made of plastic and puts off a plastic smell when brewing black tea.
-An interface only a programmer would love. It is not terribly user friendly, yet it is not hard ether. It does end up being tedious to deal with.
-Bad viewing angle on the LCD, I am taller, and find myself leaning over to see it clear. If it had more features, I would be impressed, but when I can not even dial in a temperature I wonder why we need it for the basic settings. That is until you use the timer for tea in the morning, then you will like it.

Over all it has a feeling of a beta tea maker. A great first attempt for them, but obviously has a few bugs and corners that were cut un-neededly. You can tell they really understand what is important about brewing tea, with features including the pre rinse, but for some reason they fumble with only two temperature settings. Maybe they had internal pressure to cut costs or to rush its release? The tea comes out tasting great. Sure it is not as good as a gung fu method, but it is fairly close if you do not have time to make it by hand. So long as you don’t need to brew at a temperature besides 160 or 205. If this tea maker was not so expensive, I would be more impressed, but at a retail price of $299 I would not recommend it unless you really needed 4 cups at a time, would like to wake up to fresh tea, or are independently wealthy. Now if you can pick one up on ebay for cheap, then thats a different story.

Ignoring price, it is better then the Zarafina. But considering retail price, the Zarafina is a much better buy.
I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

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Bank with the small guys!

January 10th, 2010

Yeah it’s common sense, but bears repeating. Big banks broke the system, don’t give them the power to keep doing it. Check out the site below for more info, and the video to help convince you.

http://moveyourmoney.info/

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Minority Student wants to kiss his girlfriend goodbye, could face jail time and fine

January 9th, 2010

Sorry about to rant a little here, so if your not interested in politics, keep moving…

Haisong Jiang is currently in jail because he “breached” security at an airport to kiss his girlfriend goodbye. People are angry not because he is in trouble, but because he will not be able to face more jail time. This is all after new security measures put in place after the recent bomb attack. What is interesting is that we have gone beyond logic, compassion, and humanity all so we can FEEL safe. We will give up our freedoms and flexibility just so we can think we are secure.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I finally finished Tea Pal 1.0 for Palm WebOS!

January 8th, 2010

After a few months of learning and coding, my Tea application is finally done! It was just submitted to Palm, so I hope they approve it with no problems. I posted the description and screen shots here on my webpage, check them out!

If this gets approved I will begin my next application. I am planing on doing one a month. It was a great learning experience . This was the first time I really worked a lot with Javascript(before I was only coping and pasting the code snippets I needed), and to be honest, I really like it.

Read the rest of this entry »

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In case you can’t tell… that’s the worlds largest pile of Cans

November 12th, 2009

pile of cans in ndOk well that’s not confirmed I guess, BUT it is the biggest I have ever seen. This is in Casselton, ND. Bit tricky to find.

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…and it was THIS big! World’s largest catfish, and that’s right, me with it.

November 12th, 2009

words largest cat fish with meBeat that fish! This is in Wahpeton, North Dakota. More info here: www.realnd.com/wahpetoncatfishindex.htm

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With a face like that, it’s gotta be good!

November 12th, 2009

Keith's Kettle

Unfortunately when we drove by Keith’s Kettle Family Restaurant, it was closed for the night…. Look at Keith, I know that food has got to taste great! This was somewhere in Minnesota.

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Tea on the road, any time is tea time!

November 12th, 2009

I was looking through pictures from our vacation to Yellowstone today and thought I would post this one.I had to be creative on the road to get my brew on.

Tea brewing on the dash

Sure it’s not loose leaf tea, but it was nice green sun tea. :)

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Homemade Tamiflu or an Italian Snow Ball as others may call it…

October 18th, 2009

In my job I get ALOT of exposure to people, and a lot of times I have to touch their keyboards and mice, which is a breeding ground for lots of nasty bacteria and viruses. This Friday I began to get sick, soon after I find out I have been exposed to at least two confirmed cases of the “swine flu” or H1N1.  Not being a huge fan of the doctor, and preferring to do things my way, David and I decided to create a super smoothy that will kill just about any virus infection you may have. Sure it does not taste the best, but to be honest, it’s not too bad! Check it out! Read the rest of this entry »

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Introducing Robot Radio!

September 29th, 2009

I am officially releasing my set of applescripts to the world. In short if you have a Mac, and want your own robotic DJ to tell you what’s playing in iTunes  your in luck! Use it to start your own pirate radio station, neighborhood radio station, or just make your music listing more enjoyable and educational. After I went to use another computer for awhile, that did not have it running, I was surprised just how much I missed it!

It will:

  • Say four or more catchy robotic disc jockey sayings.
  • Read an RSS feed at the top of the hour.
  • Take requests, and dedications via email.
  • Tell you the time
  • Much much more!
  • Did I mention it’s free?

I made a page to explain it much more. Check it out!

If you have any comments, suggestions, bug fixes, or feature request Please Contact Me!

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