pmoa.net » design

Holiday Airfare Blues

Perry — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:52:57 +0000

We have all been in the situation where you purchase an airline ticket and then find out that it becomes cheaper the next day or week. Now we don’t have to worry about that issue. Farecast.com is a great site to let you know the prices and trends of the trip you are trying to book. The way the site is layed out is very intuitive and extremely cool and innovative. Why don’t you give it a shot and see if you can save some money by looking at airfare “stocks”.

The one feature I really enjoy is the suggestion of a destination based upon the length of stay and budget. The site will then create a little map of the destinations you can fly to. This is Tom Smakowski’s “Jump to Conclusions Mat” come true. That is an Office Space reference if you don’t know who Tom Smakowski is.

The site also has an interesting feature called Fare Guard. It will let you “guard” your fare for one week once you decide to guard it. You have one week to redeem the Fare Guard. The service will refund the difference between the Fare Guard price and the lowest price that you find. It’s a win-win if you ask me. The best thing about this service is that it is FREE! Sweet. If any of you are going to try it for the holidays let me know how it goes. Or if I decide to do it, I will post an update.

AMEX Foldable Card

Perry — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:16:16 +0000

American Express wanted to get crazy with their design and make it easier for people to use their Gold Card. Problem is, is that the easier it is to use, the less secure it is.

They made their new ‘butterfly’ card (Mariah Carey is all over this) foldable and portable. You can unfold and use it normally or you can fold it up and just reveal the magnetic stripe. Maybe I’m crazy, but is’t the whole purpose of signing the card on the back is to check for identity? Insanity. Hey why don’t we just walk up and say ‘charge (insert name here)’ and walk away? Or better yet let’s just get multiple cards with REALLY high limits and just hand them to the thieves?

Sorry it’s Friday and when I read this about the AMEX card, i had to flip my sh*t, being a victim of identity theft.

Google Spreadsheet is Here

Perry — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:26:50 +0000

Just like all the other Goolge products, Google Spreadsheet is going through a beta run. I just received my invite and I am using the online spreadsheet application. From what I can tell, it’s pretty much like Microsoft Excel, but I still haven’t quite found all of the cool features Google places in these things. The interface is slick and overall looks really nice. Could this finally be the rival that Microsoft needed to improve their buggy products? I will have to say, YES.

ESPN.com Switches to Style Sheets

Perry — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 16:49:22 +0000

ESPN.com, every males favorite website +/- 2%, switched over to a Cascading Style Sheet to save gobs of internet bandwidth. A style sheet is a group of stylistic preferences a web designer can set to place text or images on a web page. It comes in handy when you use a web page editor and just right click text or an image and apply a style to it. Since ESPN.com has served up to half a billion web pages a month, something had to be done. When switching from the traditional table layout to more dynamic space saving style sheets, they have saved over 730 Terabytes (Terabyte = 1000 GB) a year! That is simply ridiculous.

Web 2.0 Is Sweet

Perry — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 05:16:30 +0000

As we approached the versions of the web applications, we are encountering new obstacles. This new version of web apps is dynamic and functional. I came across this great site that allows an instance of Instant Messenger in the web browser window. It allows the user to drag the window and minimize it and see people log in and out. It is much better than the AIM express that AOL provides. So check out Listible and see what you might like to use.

Windows XP on a Mac is Heresy!

Perry — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:48:09 +0000

The new Macbooks are shipping in February and there are rumors swirling all over the web about XP running on the new Intel based Macs. Since the new Intel chipsets might possibly allow Windows to be installed, the
question is, Why would you want to do that? The reason why we bought a Mac is because it works and it’s refreshing to use something that doesn’t crash all the time.

Mac’s user interface is easy and intuitive to use. There may not be as much software out there to do the crazy things we need, but I truly believe that about 40% of users are using a computer to word process and surf the web and occassionally we will edit photos and listen to music. The Mac can do all those things well and even without crashing.

Basically, I bought a Powerbook because I wanted it for it’s great interface, powerful video editing (Final Cut Pro), and it’s stability. It does what it needs to do. And probably the least important part, is the fact that it looks good while it is doing all these things. So keep XP off of the Mac. As far as I’m concerned, XP will be the first large scale virus for the Mac!

Blowfly Alarm Clock

Perry — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 21:17:24 +0000

Designer Ena Macana has won an award for an alarm clock that will “take off” while the alarm is going off. It is a little ball shaped clock with a propeller on it that will buzz. She claims that this will give you motivation to get up in the morning. All I can say is “batter up!”

Nissan’s Self Healing Scratch Guard Coat

Perry — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 22:23:36 +0000

Nissan has developed a polymer based paint that will heal itself if it is scratched. They claim that the scratches will heal itself over a few days time. They are going to release this paint on a future SUV that they haven’t announced. This paint as compared to the regular paint on today’s cars will suffer one-fifth less scratched going through a car wash. But, in no way does this mean that you can go to the next guy’s car and key his vehicle. Man rule number 1: Never key another man’s vehicle.

Hard Drive Coffee Table Top

Perry — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:58:33 +0000

Back in the 70’s there were 26” diameter hard drives and. They took up a lot of space and maybe even could have held a few MP3’s. But now we have a new use for these monsters, coffee tables. Joe Grand, who designed this table says that it’s one of a kind and will not be for sale. Honestly, I don’t think I would ever buy one, but boy does it look cool. If you can find one of these things and have some spare time and parts, you too, can own a piece of nerddom.

History’s Worst Software Bugs

Perry — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:22:35 +0000

On the heels of the latest 160,000 Toyota Pri(i?) recall, Wired Magazine decided to write an article of the worst software bugs in history. The Toyota Prius had a problem with the check engine light and the car’s gasoline engine stalling unexpectedly. They soon figured out that it was an embedded software issue. Read the article here.

iLoad For Your iPod

Perry — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:15:49 +0000

This company has finally come up with a way to import songs from a CD right to your iPod. This bypasses the iTunes or Winamp interface completely. With a little cord that plugs into your CD player to the Apple proprietary plug and you are all set. The iLoad has not been released yet and the company has not released any pricing details yet. Make this product wireless and you’ve got a customer.

RFID to be Used in Airports

Perry — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 18:28:28 +0000

RFID has been around for a while and they needed to think of some new uses for the technology that isn’t library books. So why not put them on luggage and speed up the loading process. McCarran Airport in Las Vegas already has 3 airlines utilizing the system and the company that provides this system claims 99.5% accuracy. The bags are actually able to be re-routed back to its intended destination without any lost baggage. Boy am I going to be pissed when I lose a bag when this system is implemented!

Snore Detecting Pillow

Perry — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:20:07 +0000

Now I think I’ve seen it all. This interesting little product available in Japan will allow you to record your heavy breathing (snoring or any other heavy breathing exercise ). Then the pillow will allow you to adjust the height of the pillow and re-record your snoring. If it improves, then I suppose, the pillow works! It comes with the adjustable foam pillow and the recording device so you can play back the sounds later. I guess this is a nice way to say, “You’ve got a problem.” You can get this pillow from Nikkei. Thanks to Popgadget for the story.

Interactive….Bedding??

Perry — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 14:42:01 +0000

Imagine this. You wake up on a Saturday morning (or afternoon) and the sun is shining, but you wake up alone with no one to make you breakfast. But you don’t care because you have an interactive blanket that is wirelessly connected to your home appliances. So, without getting out of bed, you can press your ’smart’ blanket and start the coffee maker or touch another area to turn on the television, wirelessly. If you think this is a dream come true, it has.

Westpoint Home has created such a product. Right now, they have electronically woven comforters (in Cinderella print) that will light up and interact. Currently, the blanket will light up and blink. But this will set up a major precendence on new things to come. So your next question may be, how do I wash it? Simple. The fibers are completely washing machine safe. At $60 this may be a steal for a child that wants their princess and inner-geek fix.

Apple iPod News

Perry — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:34:07 +0000

If you didn’t know already, the news of the new iPods have been released and the 30GB and 60GB video iPods are slick as hell. These new iPods will ahve 20 hours of battery life! For a hard drive based player, that’s pretty good. Now that the attention is off the Nano for a little bit, the supply may meet the demand. The 30GB and 60GB will go for $299 and $399 respectively, and of course, it comes in BLACK! Sexy. So combine the 2.5″ screen and MPEG4 support and make it thinner than current iPods makes it another winner. Apple had more to release…

Not only were the iPods released, Apple decided to update the iMac G5’s. This is just a teaser to the new Intel x86 based computers that may feature up to Quad CPU performance. This is all speculation of course. These new iMac’s feature a built-in isight camera, Front Row software and remote, and a thinner overall package. It’s thinner than the 17″ iMac G5. Apple may not be meeting street estimates, but they are the king of distribution. Apple, I commend you.