Board game facelifts

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Wes Johnson

Over this past weekend, my family insisted that we play some board games.  I’ve played these games hundreds of times before and was getting myself prepared for what I thought would be a boring time.  But instead of bringing out one of the old games from the closet, my daughter brought out a brand new game she had just bought from a department store.  However, it wasn’t really so new at all. The name of the game was a familiar one but the rules had been changed to make it more interesting.  Continue reading →

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I need an iPad

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Wes Johnson

I finally got  a chance to play with an iPhone tonight.  I was visiting Matt Beckwith from Podcast Stockton.  After I arrived, Matt was more than happy to show off his new toy.  It was beautiful.  The screen was gorgeous. He showed me some of the interesting Apps that were developed specifically for the iPad.  It was very interesting because these Apps behaved differently.  Some took advantage of the screen real estate while some others worked okay but could have used the extra space more efficiently.

Matt also showed me his iPhone Apps running on the iPad.  Then he showed me the iPhone App zoom mode that zooms an iPhone App to fill the entire iPad screen.  For some programs, games like DEMONLESS, Continue reading →

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Fighting SPAM

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Wes Johnson

The other day, I wrote a post called “Will SPAM kill email?” Since writing this email I’ve noticed several people announce their twitter account as a way to reach them.  This works since you can send them a direct message using Twitter.  Another popular podcaster announces his email address but suggests that you never have it written down anywhere that SPAMbots can abuse it.  In this post I am going to talk about another tool you can use in the fight against SPAM.  It’s called MailWasher Pro. Continue reading →

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Multi-platform notes application

Posted on April 1, 2010 by Wes Johnson

Today I learned about an application called Evernote.  It’s a note-taking program that helps people keep track of things like pictures, notes, voice recordings, etc.  There have been many apps that keep notes, but Evernote also records geo-positioning information, so you can remember where you were when you had that epiphany.  Another amazing thing about this application is that it is not limited to one or two platforms.  It has been developed to share data across most desktop and mobile platforms.  It can share data across OS’s like Windows, Mac OS and most web browsers.  Getting access to the notes across any browser means that the data is available through practically any computer.  It can also share data across mobile platforms like iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Pixi, and Windows Mobile.

So far, from what I’ve seen and experienced, I am impressed by how it all works together.  I am surprised that they offer this application and service for FREE.  The premium version offers more features, data storage and data transfer rates for $5/month.

You can find it at www.evernote.com.

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Will SPAM kill email?

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Wes Johnson

The other day, I came across an article “E-mail: Communication dinosaur.” It got me thinking. How has email become a dinosaur?  The article discusses why people are moving away from email and towards other technologies for instant communication.  Then I came across another article, “Killing Email: How and Why I Ditched My Inbox”

Today, while wading through the SPAM to find the emails that I care about it became crystal clear to me why so many people are moving away from email.  Email has become a burden to use because of all the SPAM.  It wastes productivity.  I think Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.Net  had it right when he wrote about ditching the inbox.  I am seriously considering a change in how I will communicate and collaborate in the future.  All I need is a workable exit strategy.  I don’t know if I can totally eliminate email, but perhaps I can create an effective SPAM avoidance policy.

Here are a few articles I have found that discuss SPAM prevention:

You can find other articles by doing a google search for “prevent SPAM”

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