Sherwinator's Sanctuary of Solitude

A place to post my thoughts and views on the strange and funny things that I come across in my everyday life.

[sherwinator-blog]

My Problem with Short Links

For some reason, I've been bothered lately by Short Links. Twitter now automatically will shorten your link for you. That's helpful in the sense that you won't have to waste characters on crazy long URLs, but what about other Link Shorteners, such as BitLy.

BitLy allows the creators of the short link to track all kinds of data about the people who click on the link. Yes, I know. Other analytics programs allow the person running the website to track all kinds of data about incoming and outgoing visitors. But that's done passively (I don't see it unless I look for it). With link shorteners, the person is outwardly telling you that they are tracking your click. It'd be one thing if link shorteners were only being used on Twitter, but they aren't.

I get it. It's helpful for you to know where I'm clicking from, how long I'm on your site, what else I clicked on, etc. But come on. You can at least try to make it less stalkerish. 

Another thing that bothers me about link shorteners is that you often can't tell where the link is directing you. For example, here's the URL to one of my posts from one of my websites: http://www.androidvideoreview.net/2011/05/google-music-beta-android-video-review/. Now here's the BitLy short link: http://bit.ly/mPimxy. How would a user know where that click is really taking them?

[sherwinator-blog]

My One Interaction with Steve Jobs: Classic

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Steve Jobs <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 10:28 PM Subject: Re: New Ipod To: Ian Sherwin <****> Ian, Yes, purchase the upgrade for $9.95. Steve On Aug 1, 2008, at 6:01 AM, Ian Sherwin wrote: Hi, I received a new ipod touch with my new macbook yesterday. I was under the impression that the new ipod touches came with firware 2.0 (this one does not). Is there anything that you can do to resolve this issue. Thanks, Ian

[sherwinator-blog]

[sherwinator-blog]

My newest Fantasy Football 2k11 avatar. 

[sherwinator-blog]

WebOS: Would you buy an HP Touchpad for under $200?

HP announced today that it is halting all production of WebOS related hardware (HP Touchpad, Pre 3, Pixi, etc). Boy, am I glad I didn't buy a Touchpad on sale for $299 last week. My question to the world is this: Would you buy a Touchpad, knowing that it is discontinued, and that there will be little to no WebOS developer support, if the price was right? Perhaps, maybe, if it was under $200? Think about it. Yes, there will be no apps on the device. But it's still a 9+ inch tablet, which is relatively speedy, which users can use to send email, browse the web, or watch video, while on the road. 

[sherwinator-blog]

In the Houston airport. Can't be too many of these in the world left.

[sherwinator-blog]

Stock Market Shenanigans

What a surprise. After one of the worst single-day drops in the stock market in recent years, today, the market, is "coincidentally" up around 2%. These legal criminals, also known as stock brokers, sold off much of their assets yesterday, using the S&P downgrade as a justification for their actions. But what they were really doing, was selling off their investments in bulk (for a profit nonetheless), and thus, driving the price of the stock down. Today, these larcenists are buying everything back up on the cheap, and at the same time, driving the market upwards (making them a ton of quick money). This is constantly going on, and is not new. However, the credit downgrade gave these punks an opportunity to sell off more than usual, at the expense of everyone else. Think about it. In theory, why should the US Credit Rating have anything to do with the stock price of Google. Yes, I know that everything is interconnected, and a downgrade in the US's credit rating affect loan interests rates and other variables, but still, doesn't it seem a little silly.

My favorite example of how the broker's play with a stock is Apple. Apple is the number two, soon to be number one, most profitable company in the world. The stock, only around two weeks ago, reached an all time high of $405/share immediately following its quarterly report. Yesterday afternoon, it was down to $353/share. Now, this morning, it's already back up to around $366/share. Up and down. Up and down. Apple almost never has anything but insanely positive news. Yet, even though in the long run it's been going up, it's constantly up and down, as traders move it in large bulk to manipulate the market, making them huge wads of cash, daily. 

The average investor has no chance of competing against institutional investors, who use complex algorithms, and advanced computer systems that can trade hundreds if not thousands of times per second. These systems can even read and digest news and articles, and make "logical" buy or sell decisions based on that data. How can Joe, a cashier at Shop Rite, who has his retirement money invested in the market, compete with the likes of the big boys. It's a flawed and broken system, where the average man suffers at "the man's" expense. Things need to change.

[sherwinator-blog]

I've heard about this Archos tablet for a few weeks now. I think it has to be one of the stupidest ideas that I've heard recently. A tablet is supposed to be portable. How can you have an ultra-portable device that will skip (the hard drive) every time you move it while it's turned on?

Don't let Archos fool you into thinking that this "hybrid" SSD/traditional drive is different than a regular drive in terms of movability. A person who owns an SSD does not have to worry about data damage/corruption because of skipping disks. A hybrid owner still has to worry about that problem. The Seagate Momentus drive in this tablet is the same as the one that I have installed in my Macbook Pro. I've noticed very little, if any performance upgrades, and I also noticed that about every 5 minutes, the drive spools down for a few seconds, rendering my laptop inoperable for that time period.

I see that Archos thinks it can lure people into buying its product because it offers such huge amounts of storage. But there is a reason why other companies are not using these types of drive (for reasons stated above). Also, with the push of data being sent to the "cloud," there is less and less reason or need to have a larger standard HDD in a tablet.

(Click the title of this post to be taken to a Cnet post on the Archos G9)

[sherwinator-blog]

Kanye West and Jay Z's new hit, Otis. I'll be seeing these rap legends perform at The Izod Center in November. Ballllllinnnnnn

[sherwinator-blog]

Braylon Edwards Does It Again

Braylon Edwards' greatest skill in life does not involve his ability on the football field, but his off-the-field knack for finding trouble. Last night, Edwards managed to have another barroom incident which could severely jeopardize his career. You would think his agents would have him on lockdown considering that he is still an unsigned free agent.

Last night, Braylon was at a bar in Michigan, with his cousins, when a barroom blitz broke out. Long story short, one bouncer was stabbed in the neck with a fork, and another bouncer was stabbed in the hand by a pocket knife. The owner of the drinking establishment stated that Edwards was directly involved with the fight. According to Deadspin, a busboy plans on pressing charges against Edwards.

Let's not forget that Bray is currently on probation for a previous bar altercation, with none other than one of LeBron James' posse members. Also, last year, Edwards was arrested for DUI in Manhattan when he blew a .16, twice the legal BAC limit. 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad the Jets signed Plax instead of Edwards. Is it possible that Plaxico is/will be less trouble than Edwards would be?

Some of my favorite quotes from the article in which I discovered this incident from:

A post on Edwards' Twitter account around the time of the alleged brawl read: "Damn. Get ya knuckles ready" and "Don't fight if. You don't know how."

He later deleted the post and claimed that his account was hacked.

P.S. Former Michigan Fab Five star Jalen Rose, who has had his fair share of legal problems recently, was also present at the bar.  

[sherwinator-blog]

Zoe had a tough day partying with Dewey.

[sherwinator-blog]

Praying he doesn't get hurt while he's in Turkey, and cost the Nets their first legitimate hope for a chance to make the playoffs in a few years...

[sherwinator-blog]

Does Google+ Stand a Chance?

I've been using Google's new social networking site, Google+, for a few weeks now. At first, I was intrigued by the site because it was something new. Not new in the sense that it was original, but new in that it was not Facebook nor Twitter. But the more and more I use the site, the less I feel compelled by it, or its chances of survival.

No one uses Google+. Let me rephrase that. 10,000,000 users have created accounts (I'm aware that the site is still in Beta testing). However, Facebook has over 750 million active users, and Twitter has roughly 200 million active users. Even if Google+ manages to wrangle some users up, it's product is not compelling enough to steal away users and their valuable time.

As of now, around 30 of my friends are on Google+. Very few of them post on a regular basis. And because Google+'s threading and commentary code is so erratic, the people that do post regularly, have their posts stuck in between other comments that run on for many downward-scrolls. Some posts have all but two or three comments hidden/shortened, whereas, other posts have the comments run on forever. It makes no sense to me.

I'll give Google+ credit for it's Hangout feature. It's a relatively well-polished video conferencing feature. Besides that, there's not that much to talk about. "Sparks" is laughable. And the whole "circles" feature only works if you have enough people to put into those different circles. I find that my "friends" circle never has any posts, nor does my family circle, so I usually just read posts in my general stream tab (which causes all kinds of weird conversations and threads to be listed all in one place).

I think the biggest thing Google has going for it is the fact that they are Google. Buzz has failed, as well as Google Labs. But far more Google products succeed than disappear, so I have a feeling Google+ is not going anywhere for at least a year.   

[sherwinator-blog]

Main Project

Prior to beginning my studies for the Bar Examination, I started a new website with a few of my friends, where we post daily video reviews of Android applications. Now that my exam is over, we plan on posting many new reviews, hopefully several a day. Check out the site, which is called Android Video Review dot net, and let me know what you think.

[sherwinator-blog]

Mic Check, Test, 1234, Check, Check