PC Magazine's Review of the HP Touchpad

PC Magazine - HP Touchpad

Another good review. The common theme among all of the reviews so far is that the HP Touchpad has an intuitive user interface with cards and stacks, true multi-tasking, and snappy performance. Those are truly the best of WebOS.

HP Touchpad Review

 webOS takes on tablets: Ars reviews the HP TouchPad

Take it for what it's worth...I think they are really fair in their assessments.  However, Ars tends to lean Apple.  So the whole comparison to the iPad is a little slanted.

I would love to get my hands on a Touchpad.  I have exactly $124.99 in the HP Touchpad fund! I would love to see it in action to get a better idea of look and feel.  I'll have to head over to my local Walmart to take a look.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Why Do Liberals Hate?

Here's a website I think you'll like: What Do Michele Bachmann and a Serial Killer Have In Common? | Power Line

More specifically, Why Do Liberals Hate Conservative Women?

At the end of the article the question is asked if the strategy to label Bachmann as a crazy will work.  I believe that it will work.  Here's why: It worked with Palin.  I think that Sarah Palin is a smart and gifted pollitician.  However, I don't want to see her get the nomination.  The media has spent the last 3 1/2 years finding every way to destroy her not just as a candidate, but as a person.  We Conservatives try to convince ourselves that what the media says doesn't matter.  People still listen though.  Even if they don't accept the media version at first they will over time because the media will repeat the nonesense as long as they have to.  See Dan Quayle, Clarence Thomas, etc.  

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Tom Hanks...Stay Away From Math

Tom Hanks

So according to Tom Hanks, President Obama has saved a billion jobs or something. These guys must be so far from reality that they actually believe the nonsense they peddle. Are there even a billion jobs in America? Well, there are about 300 million Americans. I would guess that at least half of them are either old enough or able enough to work at said jobs. We know that there are not more jobs than people to work them. 150 million is a long way from 1 billion.

NOTE: I think my estimation of 150 millions jobs is high. It seems to me that it is actually in the 70 - 80 million range.

Currently Reading...The Girl Who Played with Fire

I just finished reading, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and immediately started in on the next book. The books are a fun read. A little hokey at times, but I'm guessing that is the result of them being translated into English. Either way, they are worth the $10 - $15 you'll pay on Amazon.

HP (Palm WebOS) Touchpad

I gotta get me some Touchpad.  I have a fever and the only cure is an HP Touchpad.  I gotta hankering for some tablet and the HP Touchpad...OK you get the point.  I want an HP Touchpad.  I used to want an iPad until HP announced the Touchpad.  The main reason? WebOS.  It is by far the best mobile operating system around.  Couple that with fact that HP loves developers and you don't need permission from HP to test an application on your device.  I'm not saying that Apple doesn't like developers, but they do make it difficult both in cost and language.

Cards, Stacks, and Gestures...

Apps are opened as "Cards" in WebOS.  Switching between open Apps is as simple as swiping to the card and tapping on the card.  Sometimes, when you have many open Apps running, finding the open app by swiping through all Cards might be a bit tedious.  That is where Stacks come in.  Stacks gives the user the ability to group together any open Cards.  If you have multiple Apps open, grouping them makes it easier to find them when you need to interact with them.  So if you are working on a document, having the document stacked together with email and the browser Cards makes it simple to switch between them all.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Microsoft Dumping .Net? Not So Fast...

 Windows 8 for software developers: the Longhorn dream reborn?

The above link from Ars Technica makes an interesting point: Maybe what Microsoft is planning is full integration of .Net and Win32.  So instead of .Net being the un-loved stepchild on the desktop it will instead have full access to the OS hooks.  Coupled with a modern display API, .Net's future is brighter than ever.  

As an interesting side note, most of the information comes from leaked builds on the interwebs.  Could it be that Microsoft needed to quell some of the rumors? Especially since thousands of developers started asking questions?

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Hey Danny Glover - You're gettin' to old for this

Canada wants to build an oil pipeline from their oil sands to refineries along the Gulf Coast. It is estimated that the US would net at least half of what we consume and buy from the Middle East with this pipeline. So what does the wacky left want to do? They want to stop it. Most of this pipeline will be underground. Of course they will find something that might be threatened by the pipeline to justify their silly stance.

Danny Glover is asking people to go to Washington this summer to protest. Do these guys really believe what they peddle or are they just being jerks? Either way it doesn't make any sense. Maybe this is why he has given up acting...He is only good at playing the fool.

Congress and Google

So I hear today that Congess is talking about doing an anti-trust investigation of Google.  Why? Plain and simple: Money.  The Federal Government needs money and Google has plenty of it.  Now I know what you are thinking - Uncle Matty is off his rocker.  The Federal government would never waste precious time and money investigating Google.  They must have a good reason...Yeah 50 billion good reasons.

When the DoJ went after Microsoft...What did you get out of the deal? You can sort of uninstall IE, but who does that anyway.  Chrome works just fine on my Windows 7 box and that isn't the result of the government imposing a big fine on Microsoft.  The Federal Government and the states walked away with a big chunk of change and the folks most affected got nothing.

Big Tobacco...again government got and spent billions.  What did you get? So the government wants money.  In a couple of years they will go after Facebook.  Then they will go after...Whatever the next big company or thing is.  

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Hall Pass - Save your money

I just finished watching "Hall Pass."



Let's just say that it could have been very funny. The premise is that Owen Wilson gets a Hall Pass from is wife to have a week off from their marriage. So now you are thinking, "Wacky hijinx commence!" Two funny moments from the entire flick: the first is from the ad where the ugly girl surrounds herself with even uglier girls. The other is when Wilson and his friend don't know that they are being watched as they rip the hosts of the open house they are attending. Find both on YouTube and you will have seen the best parts of the movie.

James Hubner - Romans 1

I'm listening to James Hubner preach on Romans 1...He starts out talking about the un-Biblical view that non-reformed churches have of the office of Pastor.  

The New Testament mentions only two offices: elders and deacons. For whatever reason folks glom on to that and say that having a senior pastor is not in the Bible.  However, our form of worship and church leadership comes from the Synagogue form.  A Synagogue had at least 3 elders in which one of the elders was the bishop or elder of elders.  So there you go.  I think it is kind of funny because they (reformed) describe one elder as being more forward facing and in the public...Well what you have there is a Senior Pastor.  

Sometimes our reformed brothers get a little hung up on the wrong things...Or if you are not reformed then you are Arminian.  

This isn't meant to be some deep discussion...just a pet peeve...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Deal Detectives...Where Have You Gone?!?!

One of my favorite sites is DealDetectives.com.  I've got their RSS feed on my phone and my Google Reader.  Along with DailySteals.com, they are in my stable of daily deals and coupon sites.  What I like the most about Deal Detectives is that their site is nothing more than a simple list of deals and coupons.  Nothing fancy or elaborate.  

I went to the website and they are still there.  However, they are in the process of revamping their daily deals.  I'm not so sure I like the sound of that.  Up to this point their site consisted of some of the best deals on the internet for any given day.  I hope they are not changing to compete with the likes of Groupon where the deals are artificially created and targeted to specific demographics.  

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Is Groupon a Ponzi Scheme?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/13/why-groupon-is-poised-for-collapse/

This is an interesting article for two reasons: it gives a good explanation of Groupon's business model...Which up until this point I didn't quite understand.  Secondly, it gives a little clearer picture of why Groupon could be a big bust.

So if I understand this correctly...a business bids on doing a deal with Groupon and if they win the bid the offer is made.  So if a business has a product or service worth $100, Groupon offers the deal at $50.  A certain number of purchases have to be made in order for the deal to open up to all Groupon users...Some sort of minimum threshold agreed upon by Groupon and the business.  So, for every $50 dollar deal that is purchased by the customer, Groupon gets %50 and the business gets %50.  So a product or service that a business charges $100 for, they will get $25 back from Groupon for each customer.  Groupon pays out percentages of the money over a 2 month span.  The payoff for Groupon? They are making a %50 commission on every sale.  The payoff for the business is the potential of thousands of new and instant customers.  According to their public filings, Groupon appears to be under water in the hundreds of millions of dollars at they float this money back and forth between the customers and the businesses.  The logical conclusion would be that Groupon is using money from current deals to pay off businesses for past deals.  That is where the whole thing begins to sound like a Ponzi.  Groupon has to continue rapid expansion just to keep up with current and past offerings.  

I just finished reading "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis.  It is all about the subprime mortgage industry and how it crashed the housing market and the economy.  An interesting analogy used in the book is that of a balloon.  The subprime market was a balloon and all of these banks and brokerage houses were holding on to the balloon while at the same time trying to make it go higher and higher.  I think the same analogy could be applied to Groupon.  The value of it is being pushed higher and higher and yet nobody seems to be thinking about how it will ever be able to sustain the amount of growth needed to keep the insane amounts of money flowing.  

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Windows 8 has no love for .Net?

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/06/13/microsofts_preview_of_windows_8_has_developers_horrified_report.html

I know I know Microsoft is not getting rid of .Net.  However, I do think it is interesting that in all of the hoopla surrounding Windows 8 not a single word was uttered in regards to .Net.  I do think that HTML 5 and javascript are the future of the web desktop.  Do you like that? Web desktop...You heard it here first.  Just as HP is moving forward with WebOS on the desktop I think it is smart of Microsoft to follow suit with their Windows 8 knockoff.  Here's the kicker: a lot of developers have invested in .Net - myself included.  It'd be nice to be given some assurance that .Net is part of a Microsoft future.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

What's The Deal With Groupon?

So I read a while back that Google wanted to pay some insane amount to buy Groupon.  I've used Groupon a couple of times...It depends on the deal you are getting, but it wasn't bad.  I purchased 4 tix for $50 to see the USF Bulls play at Raymond James.  I saved a few bucks over the worst and cheapest seats.  

Here's what I don't get.  How can anyone in their right mind think that Groupon is worth billions of dollars? I've read that Groupon isn't always a good deal for the businesses involved because in some cases a business will offer deep discounts via Groupon as an enticement hoping to get repeat customers.  I don't think Groupon has that kind of customer base.  I probably won't go to another Bulls game unless I can get another Groupon like deal.  

I think that the current economy is driving this from both ends.  Investors are looking for the next big gold rush.  Times are tough and consumers are looking for the best deals.  

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Why WebOS Rocks - Reason #3

Notifications

I have not used an Android personally, but from what I have heard, the notifications are OK. They stink on the iPhone. Notifications are supposed to subtly let the user know that they have received an email, message or an application needs their attention. On WebOS, there is a notification bar at the bottom of the screen.

When you click on the notification, the notifications expand into a stacked list (see the above image). The notifications can be dismissed either by swiping them individually, or by touching the application on the top half of the screen. If you click on say the chat notification, the chat window is opened to the point in the conversation when the last message was sent. Clicking on an email notification opens up the email that prompted the notification.

WebOS notifications rock.

Darth Vader and Dancing with the Star Wars Stars

Why WebOS Rocks - Reason #107

Just Type 

Looking for an App? Want to send a quick text to a contact? Looking for something on Google.  Side open the keyboard and start typing.  So instead of having to scroll through your entire list of apps, you can start typing the name and WebOS will find it for you.

I had an iPod touch before getting the Palm Pre Plus.  The biggest habit I had to break was scrolling to find something or someone.  

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

My top 5 numbers under 5

5. 3

4. 5

3. 4

2. 2

1. 27

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Got to get me some new WII U

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/it-is-a-whole-console-here-is-the-wii-u-deck.ars

It was love at first sight for me...
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/06/hands-on-with-the-wii-u-its-here-its-amazing-its-smart.ars

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Why do liberals hate so much?

Here's a website I think you'll like: The dangers of bone-headed beliefs

I have a much better idea.  How about those that believe in climate change get a tattoo on their foreheads or their hands to identify them.  That way when they are proven correct we deniers will know who was right and can offer our congratulations to each as we come into contact with them. 

Even better! How about allowing only those who have a tattoo to buy and sell.  If you don't have this mark you will starve.  That way we deniers will suffer for our "stupidity."  All that will be left are those who take the mark.  I expect it will be utopia for at least seven years for the climate change believers...They can run the world anyway they see fit.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. (Romans 1:22-24 NET)

My Top 5 Favorite Words Today

Not in any order...

Thibble

Mungo

Pronk

Widdiful

Seven

Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get my thibble and stir my porrige.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

This is interesting...http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/06/hp-plans-to-license-webos-to-other-companies-manufacturers.ars

And Now Something Completely Serious

I realize that this is a touchy subject.  I hope to be discreet.  I hope to be compassionate to those who suffer.  However, it is important that we talk about Facebook hemorrhoids.  Facebook hemorrhoids are the "friends" that feel the need to comment on every post you make.  They have to "like" whatever it is you like.  They attach themselves to your Facebook life.  They are an embarrassment.

PhattMatt likes to take walks in the rain...

Facebook Hemorrhoid likes your status...

Facebook Hemorrhoid likes rain...

Facebook Hemorrhoid wants to invite you to to join a group that likes your status.