A look at business, law and life from a technophile.
Droid
Droid BOGO Part 2 – Buy a Droid, get one free from Verizon
1FYI – the Droid BOGO deal is back on. You can go to Droid Does and click on the upper right corner. You’ll have to add the phone to the cart to verify that the Droid BOGO deal is still on. Hope that helps you all.
–Ben
Sources: Droid Does, NBC Advertisement on 5/18/2010
Support the Event – Angel Investor of the Year 2010
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I just got an email from Funding Universe talking about their Angel Investor of the Year Award. As Utah technology and know-how is coming into the light through efforts such as Silicon Slopes and Utah Genius – we also need to recognize the people who help fund our growth. Let’s support the event and nominate some great people, who parlay their success into other entrepreneurial successes.- Award Luncheon – June 23rd at the Grand America
- Nomination Deadline – May 21st
NOTE: Entrepreneurs are encouraged to nominate as many investors as they like and self-nominations are more than welcome.
–Ben
Sources: Investor of the Year, Nomination Form
Fix – Internet Explorer 8 (IE) not rendering sites correctly
0As is not uncommon in the web development world, I was so mad at IE I was ready to delete my bootcamp partition off my Mac and microwave my windows 7 disc. I was working on a website and it would render fine in any browser but IE. As it turns out, IE thought it should be in compatibility mode. Here’s the fix – a meta declaration:
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />
You tell IE to render in its version 8 rendering engine. For those daring enough, you can replace 8 with edge. However, you can never tell what bugs will be in future versions of IE.
A List Apart has a good and thorough article on doctypes and rendering in IE 8.
–Ben
Sources: A List Apart
GUI Automation – Auto It makes automating Abacus Easy
0Wow. I went looking for GUI automation such that I could automatically dump our deadlines to PDF and email them offsite. I found:
- Automation Anywhere for $700 to $7,000
- Ranorex for $300 to $1500
- a bunch of test suites
- Auto It for FREE
I went and looked Auto It up and I couldn’t believe the power. The scripting was easy to understand and I loved that I could emulate keyboard shortcuts. It took me about two hours from install to finishing automating Starting Abacus (our docketing program), logging in, running a report, selecting cutePDF as a printer, saving the PDF with the date in the filename, exiting Abacus and using blat to email the PDF to two people.
Check Auto It out. Its awesome.
–Ben
References: Auto It, Automation Anywhere, Ranorex
New iPhone found lost in Bar
0Apparently a Gizmodo reader found a prototype next generation iPhone lost in a bar. What gives the story credence is that it was remotely wiped and they say that Apple is looking for it. It appears to be recognized correctly as an iPhone, but since the new firmware is not public, the phone cannot be re-enabled.
Here’s a small estimated feature breakdown:
- iPhone OS 4.0
- 2 Volume buttons
- Camera Button
- Forward Facing Camera
- Enhanced Backwards camera with flash
- micro-sim
See a preview video below:
Hit up the links if you want the full scoop.
–Ben
Sources: Gizmodo
Droid likely getting Andriod 2.1 soon
0Just saw an article that said there was a leaked ROM of android 2.1 for Droid. Now, most people probably shouldn’t download it because of the risks, but it does appear to be a final version.
Here’s a video:
–Ben
Source: Softsailor
Android Doomed? I think not – but PCWorld does
0On a side note, PCWorld claimed Android was doomed. Galen Gruman has a hypothesis that basically states that manufacturers can choose what features to implement and whether to allow an upgrade to the next OS.
Wow. Personally, I think manufacturer choice was a good thing. I also think that while consumers may want to run the latest OS, that we recognize that many of our devices are underpowered for some tasks. Plus, it should count as an advantage, not a detriment that there is even possible an upgrade path.
When we look at the actual world, Linux is fractured – but its still very successful and often tailored to the desired device. Ruby on Rails (the language and framework) has strange compatibility problems between versions, but its still on fire in the the development community. Both are open source. Android is open source.
In sum, I think Galen is reading tea leaves in an alarmist fashion (ie I don’t think the facts he sees add up to the death of Android – but the contrary). Microsoft has been predicting the death of Linux for years. Despite their best efforts, it hasn’t happened. I think Android is here to stay as well.
–Ben
Source: PCWorld
Verizon Speeds Lacking compared with AT&T in PC World Test
1PCWorld has a report that shows that Verizon’s uptick in phones isn’t all its cracked up to be. In fact, the report states that Verizon has had problems keeping up with the demand (see the reliability numbers). Verizon apparently has also been hampered by an uninterrupted signal – only 76% of the time was it uninterrupted.
Personally, I’ve seen in on my train ride into work. I keep dropping into 1x instead of 3G. So, let’s hope Verizon gets back on top. We bought into the network because it was the best, right?
Verizon’s come back is that their map is bigger. Bigger isn’t necessarily better if it drops speed. 1 in 4, it appears.
–Ben
Source: PCWorld
Valentine’s Day Statistics – Who gets What and How Much
0Billshrink put up an interesting infographic on Valentines Day and they’re inviting people to share it. Here’s the surprising low-down on who gets what for Valentine’s Day. One of the most surprising stats is just how many parents buy cards for kids. I thought it was a “lovers” holiday.
–Ben
Droid BOGO – Buy a Droid, get one free from Verizon
0UPDATE 5/19/2010: The Droid BOGO sale is back on. See Droid Does for more details. Check in the top right corner. You’ll have to add the phone into your shopping cart to verify the Droid BOGO deal is still going. See the current Droid BOGO post for info.
UPDATE 5/18/2010: The BOGO sale is long over, but there are some deals to be had. It looks like the Droid is available for $19.99 from wirefly.com. (I am not an affiliate – it should be a clean link).
Verizon apparently is running a special on Droid and Droid Eris. Buy one phone, get a second of the same kind for free. Of course by free, I mean that you eventually get one phone for “free”, but end up paying the $30 times 2 surcharge for data and then a voice plan plus another $10 for another line that shares the minutes (or $60 times two for unlimited voice). But hey, there’s really no free lunch. Just an awesome phone.
In any case, if you were looking for his and her Droids, now might be the time.
–Ben
Source: Verizon, Phandroid, Phones Review