Category Archives: General

Continental did listen to us

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I was on my first flight of the year on Continental a month or so ago and was perusing the magazine to see what was going on and noticed that they have switched from the crazy ear muffs style headsets to in-ear ones.

That’s not the interesting part though…the interesting part is that they are normal 1 plug headphones with a DETACHABLE converter to two plugs so it works on the plane. COOL.

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They even want you to use your own headphones. I had thought about buying one but never got around to it. So I sat in First Class (upgraded) on a 3 hours flight from Houston to San Diego and watched The Day the End Stood Still and could actually hear what they were saying! Amazing.

Thanks Continental. Keep on listening.

Plane Laptop Mount

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The last time I was sitting on a plane, in coach, trying to get some work done and I came to the conclusion that unless you have a 10 inch screen you are doomed. Especially when the person in front of you reclines their seat.

It is doable but your wrists are so contorted that it is almost not worth it.

I have resorted to angling the laptop up so the keyboard rather than being flat is at a 45 degree angle and the screen ending up at your eyeline…ish. I like it. You are not crammed in and the screen is at a great viewing height, There is one problem though..the 45 keyboard angle. It makes it great for reading email but bad for answering.

I think a plastic, foldable mount that rests on the tray table and angles the laptop would be the answer. It would stop the laptop from moving when you move the keys and could contain an additional USB keyboard under the raised laptop that is flat so that you can type easily.

I bet that business travelers who do not get enough airline status to guarantee First class seats would pay $30 to get something like this. I know I would. 3-4 hours of quiet time with the ability to work is invaluable.

Dark Room

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I have been getting up early again for the past few days and reverted back to an application I have been using for a while.

The application is called Dark Room. It is a c# word processing application that has a black background and green text. I know it sounds strange but when your eyes have not adjusted to the light yet this app is wonderful.

I use it for about 30 mins until I can brave using normal bright tools like Outlook. I then simple copy the email(s) I have been writing into new outlook messages and send them. Done.

I stopped doing this a while back as it was hard to type properly but with my new laptop and it’s backlit keyboard (just bright enough – not too bright!) it makes sense again.

Streaming Video

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About 2 years ago I stopped my Netflix subscription. One of the issues with DVD delivery is that the time between deciding you want to watch a movie and actually been able to start watching it is days.

We were not using the DVDs and it made more sense to just use the On Demand feature from Comcast when we want to watch movies.

That worked for the last few years but every time we want to watch a movie there is nothing that we would like to see.

I got a Xbox for my Xmas and noticed that it can stream Netflix movies. The benefit of Netflix with the convenience of streaming. Now, they only have about 10% of their inventory that is stream-able but that is good enough by now.

I have been watching a few movies today and I must say that I am REALLY impressed. Easy to use and for people that never know what we want to watch or when we can watch it it is looking like a good prospect.

More on this as I try it out more. So far so good!

Happy New Year

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Well 2009 has rolled around quickly. Things are busy at work and at home so no consistent blogging which is a shame. I have a bunch of blog posts as drafts that I need to finish up and post so hopefully that will happen in the next few days.

Happy a healthy and prosperous 2009.