If TechCrunch is right, and Google Voice will soon offer number portability, I’ll be there in a flash. The only reason I have Vonage at home is to keep my current number. If I could move it to Google Voice, I’d do that in a flash, and simply route it to either my or my wife’s cellphone depending upon who’s calling.
For a while now, I’ve been using (or, rather, attempting to use) both TripIt and Dopplr for travel planning and sharing. I reported almost a year ago that I believed TripIt was substantially higher quality. I even had conversations online with representatives of both companies who tried to convince me to continue.
Sorry, but Dopplr sucks. It is as close to worthless as any website I’ve ever used, and could even potentially cause problems because it is so bad at travel data (like, for example, someone going to the wrong city to meet you).
Dopplr interpreted a Best Western hotel reservation as a trip to Western, Nebraska.
It interpreted a trip with a change of planes in Dallas as a trip to Dallas.
It interpreted a 15-day trip as a series of one-day trips, each day returning home after visiting the next city on the list.
TripIt provides such vastly superior service that I cannot in good conscience even recommend that someone give Dopplr a try. They’ve had at least a year to work on it, and it’s not getting better.
Rather than drive two cars to Texas this summer, I decided to see how much it would cost to have my son’s car shipped. So, I found a car shipping site, requested a quote, and then all hell broke loose.
Seriously, I had six emailed quotes from various car shipping companies within 30 seconds (I’ve since received more than 20). Also, the phone immediately started ringing off the hook. Luckily, it was my cell phone and I was able to turn it to silent mode since I was still at work.
Seriously? There’s that much competition in the car shipping industry? And, if that’s the case, why do I get a dozen companies’ quotes from one company’s website? Something about this just doesn’t smell right. (Note: it turns out that car shipping scams are fairly common.)
Plus, why in the world would I give my business to someone who makes annoying phone calls to me at work without respite? There’s a reason I went through the Internet, you know.
Anyway, as it turns out, the cost of shipping a car is about double the expected cost of gasoline to drive it. I think we’ll drive.
As you certainly know by now, I’m a fan of your products. If you were an airline, I would be a Platinum Premier frequent flyer. I’ve bought three laptops, an iMac, three iphones, and at least four iPods in the last 10 years. And (as you’d know if you read my blog), my son is going to college in a month or so.
I wanted/needed to get him a laptop to use at college, instead of the old, slow, Windows XP-running PC desktop. We jointly determined that the MacBook was the appropriate choice. Since it needs to last four years, I decided to get it with as much RAM and disk as I could afford, and include an AppleCare warranty. That was back in May.
Having heard rumors that the MacBook lineup was going to be enhanced at this year’s WorldWide Developers Conference (WWDC), we decided to wait until yesterday. Sure enough, the MacBooks are now MacBook Pros, with substantially upgraded RAM and disk specs and (yay!) the addition of a SD card slot (the first non-DVD removable media device on an Apple in, well, forever?). I immediately got online and placed my order, since the machine we wanted now cost $400 less than it did last week.
And there, Apple, that’s where you decided to say, in the biggest, boldest words I can imagine, “WE DO NOT WANT YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS!” I had $2,000 (Note: exactly $2,000—not $2,001) set aside to buy the laptop. With the addition of the accessories and the (free after rebate) iPod Touch, the total came out to be approximately $2,100. No problem; you offer the option to split the charge over two credit cards. I selected that option, and chose to have $2,000 charged to one card, and the remainder to another one.
I’ll be honest—I haven’t really been a fan of Hulu until now. I was one of the original beta testers before the site opened, and I could just never get into it. Frankly, watching a TV show in a little window inside a web browser had a few problems:
I used (and still use) videos purchased through iTunes quite frequently. In fact, I own an Apple TV and we use it all the time; since we’ve gotten it, we’ve nearly given up on DVDs. The quality is great; it works on the TV; and, even when viewing it on my computer, the full-screen view feels like I’m watching TV.
Yesterday, however, Hulu released Hulu Desktop, a “browser-free” tool to view video content from the Hulu website. And, I have to say, this changes everything for me. Since it’s now a standalone app, there are no more distractions from the web browser. It can run in full-screen mode, giving it a feel that’s much closer to real TV. And, it works with my Apple remote control, which means that I don’t have to be moving a mouse around to make everything work.
Is it perfect? Well, not quite. The video quality is still limited to that which is available over the web (in other words, mediocre). Apple TV, for example, allows me to purchase and view HD content in, well, HD. And it’s stunning. On the other hand, Hulu gives me instant access to an enormous library of TV shows and movies, and all for free (ok, I have to watch a few advertisements, but it’s still a better experience than television). It’s almost enough to make me lose the DVR—almost; I can lose the DVR once Hulu supports high-def video.
Hulu Desktop is available for both the Mac and Windows PCs.