In case any of you are interested, I just ran across a new web-based news site called OneNewsNow.com. It’s got a Christian bent to it (read "Right Wing" for those of my friends who also abhor FoxNews).
Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category
New News is Good News!
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007Black and White World
Sunday, December 17th, 2006I just finished reading Cox & Forkums’ third book of their editorial cartoons, Black & White World III. As usual, it’s great stuff! I say that because it makes me think about things that I enjoy contemplating, and they usually agree with my viewpoints, though not always, especially when it comes to the role of religion with regard to politics.
You can check out their work on their website at http://www.coxandforkum.com/. If you like what you see and you want to buy for yourself, you can find it on Amazon -dot – com. I recommend any of their three books.
I first found them through my friend Matt Hoy‘s website about four or five years ago, and I’ve been checking in with them ever since.
Forget Big Brother
Saturday, November 11th, 2006Forget Big Brother. I’m watching!
Not in real time, of course. I downloaded Google Earth this weekend. I spent a little time strolling down memory lane from my laptop on my kitchen table in Japan.
One great feature about this is that I got the coordinates of my house. That way, in the one-in-a-billion chance the entire neighborhood gets leveled by an earthquake or typhoon, I can still theoretically find where I live fairly easily. Of course it would be my luck that I’d be at work or on vacation when my house got levelled, and I’d have to find it again. I do understand this was a huge problem in the wake of Hurricane Andrew back in 1992.
Hey, everyone! I can see your house from up here!
More Technology
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006I’ve started using Skype and a new IOGear Bluetooth headset to make international phone calls. I put about $12 on deposit with Skype a month ago, and haven’t gone through all of it yet. The only thing I cannot do so far is call my wife’s cellular phone.
I also managed to get a local telephone number back in my home city. If I’m online, my folks can call me for free. Skype includes voicemail, so if I’m not online, I still get the message. That service cost $40.00 per year, and it goes into the Yellow Pages as a commercial number. Most of my voicemails have been from AT&T trying to get me to sign up for an 800 number.
I’ve talked to my elderly grandmothers this way a couple times now. Trying to get them to understand that I’m walking around my living room in Japan while connected wirelessly to my laptop in the kitchen through my wireless fiber-optic Internet connection is quite the challenge. Once they understand, they’re probably chuckling to themselves about my connectivity problems and thinking we’ve come a long way since the party line.
Technology Update
Monday, September 18th, 2006I just watched a class live via the Internet. Then I called my brother, grandmother, and uncle via VOIP.
If you’d told me that you could do any of these things at all ten years ago, I’d've thought that was really cool. Today it’s just another routine achievement that thousands of others have done.
What made this particular event special was that I did this all from my laptop in my kitchen. Wireless is definitely the way to go!
My wireless router is connected to the Internet via fiber-optic. I just downloaded that class I watched in under four minutes. It was about 62 MB. DSL used to take anywhere from 20-45 minutes.
Life is good!
AOL
Monday, September 4th, 2006Question of the Day: If AOL service is basically free now, why do they keep requiring me to give them my credit card information in order to sign on?
Fiber-Optic Internet
Monday, September 4th, 2006I keep mentioning ‘firsts,’ since this is my first time living in Japan, it just seems to be the thing to do. That, and being in my mid-30s doesn’t leave a whole lot of new experiences, so perhaps I cherish them a bit more than normal. Today my wife and I got an Internet connection. It’s a fiber-optic line (hence the title). I’ve never had fiber-optic anything before.
I can’t tell whether FO is a whole lot faster than normal DSL, but then, the real test will occur when I try to download lectures from school!
For right now, I’m just happy to be connected to the rest of the world. My next feat of skill and daring will be to figure out how to re-install my LinkSys wireless router without the installation CD-ROM. My guess is that the CD is in a storage facility on the East Coast, and I won’t see it for another three years.
Thanks * 10^100!
Sunday, June 11th, 2006Good news, everyone! Weltanschauung has finally made it to the Google search engine and also into the Technorati search engine.