Tretakoff Musings

In some ways, blogging is a fusion of diary writing, watercooler discussion, and Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame. I like being able to share my observations and experiences here, but some people clearly take it too far. Take, for instance, Jeremy Hermanns. A proud owner of a Treo 650, including the integrated camera, and a blogger. Jeremy experienced one of the nightmares I dream of: a plane, at 30K feet, suddenly having a hole in the fuselage and explosively decompressing. Faced with panic, fear, and his fiancee elsewhere in the plane, what did Jeremy do in the heat of the chaos? He whipped out his Treo and started snapping pictures for his blog, including a self portrait with his oxygen mask on. Jeremy, I don't know whether to salute you, or use you as a cautionary tale for others. What I do know is, with your insights, as well as your non-union stance, my friend Pete clearly wants to be you someday. He's flying shortly; let's see what he comes up with!

If you are reading this, you know I cannot live without my Palm. One annoying thing: when you sync appointments, you sync reminders as well. All good, right? Except when your Palm clock runs faster than your PC. Thus, every minute, your computer or Palm is reminding you. AAARGH!!! Keep them in sync, for free, with TimeSync XT v1.0 , It adds a conduit, and, every time you sync, you sync your Palm's clock to your PC's clock. Since Windows lets you keep your PC's clock in sync with the Atomic Clock, you'll never be out of time! ;-)

A nice tip on using Trillian to send Text Messages to a Mobile Phone . I'll definitely be adding this.

Ok, I'll admit it. I've been a bit obsessed with the Internet phenomenon of the ultimate Xmas light diplay. As we say goodbye to Xmas 2005, it seems only fitting to see the ultimate collection of the truth about this amazing display, including an interview with the man himself, his family, and even another video. Carson, my thanks for bringing such a great thing to the world. I hope Miller Lite helped you recoup some of that $10K investment and your electric bills for the commercial they used your house for. Thanks again...and happy holidays!

Now this is potentially a world changer. You know blogs, of course; after all, you are reading mine! Imagine coming across a web page that seems interesting. A small icon pops up, and you can see excerpts of what bloggers have been saying about that page! This is truly what blogs were made for. It's the Wikipedia-izing of the entire web: no page exists in a vacuum. Imagine a page that looks like it's talking about a charity, and the blogs point out it's a scam! Or an eBay auction that looks legit, but the blogs tell you your money is about to be stolen! If you use Firefox for a web browser, you need this. Now. Read more at www.google.com/tools/fi...

Year end, time for year-end lists. But this one is pretty good: the top 50 gadgets of the last 50 years. Overall, I think they got it right. Towards the end, there are a few I'd quibble with, but this is a gadget historian's dream. Now, where did I put my old Sharp Wizard OZ-7000... Read more at www.pcworld.com/news/ar...

OK, maybe I am starting be a believer. Not only is my query on the mysterious radar facility now definitively answered, but is seems Woot has finally allowed me to win a random bag of crap! After several tries with massive failures, it appears I have won! WOOT!!!!!