F4i GPS RAM mount delivered and installed

It was delivered at about 2pm today by FedEx Ground. We installed it immediately. Very nice! I might wish I?d bought the longer arm when I put my tank bag on. We?ll see.

Renewed T-Mobile-To-Go today.

I just renewed. Added $100, good for 12 months. Had 248 minutes left from last year. The year before, I had 700+ minutes left from my first year. So my usage really went up last year!
It was due on 26 Oct so I?m two days early. No biggie.

Transparent pricing for medical services

It is my long held opinion that when someone delivers a service, it should be possible to get an estimate of what that service will cost beforehand. Naturally, the accuracy of such estimates reduces as the scope of the service increases. An estimate for ten minutes of work will likely be more accurate than an estimate for weeks of work. That?s fine.

I?d like to be able to get a straight pricing answer at an emergency room or doctor?s office every step of the way. ?Okay, how much exactly is the next action going to cost?? This should be possible for many procedures. For example, stitching or gluing a cut without complications.

Read this Consumerist article. We had our own experience when our daughter fell and cut her head.

I want a programmable cordless phone.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I was disappointed by a disconnect between the address book and caller ID handling of some Uniden phones I purchased. If phone was programmable, someone could fix this without waiting for the vendor to release a new phone.

Such phones would also have a community of people working on them so details about exactly how they work (like how the caller ID ignores address book entries) would be relatively easy (vs. nigh impossible) to find out pre-purchase on the internet.

PathFinder 5.0.0 released! Dual-pane views!

I opened PF today and Sparkle notified me of an upgrade from (was it 4.5.8?) to 5.0.0. Cool. I downloaded and installed it, tried it and immediately paid my $19.9x upgrade fee. I wasn?t a big fan of dual-pane file managers until Directory Opus converted me.

New knife: Pro-Tech PT-105 Runt

At the gun show at the Florida Stat Fair Grounds today, I picked up an automatic knife for $80, a Pro-Tech PT-105 Runt. Very nice. This was the first gun show for my wife, daughter and youngest brother.

GPS mount for F4i

I went on a small ride to Ocala this weekend. Having the GPS in my tank bag?s map sleeve just didn?t work. Glare and shifting GPS made it difficult and even dangerous. Couldn?t see squat. So I bit the bullet and bought a RAM-Mount set for it. $54, not bad. Maybe a little shipping will be added when they process my order. Worth it. Trying to even just read the GPS inside my tank bag map sleeve while I?m riding is not safe.

I want a Toyota iQ.

About an hour ago, a Reddit article introduced me to the Toyota iQ, an attractive looking ?four? passenger car with great gas mileage (59/51). I want it with a six-speed transmission and the four-cylinder diesel engine. It?s not yet available in the U.S.

Uniden DECT 2060-2 cordless phone

Just picked up a Uniden DECT 2060-2 at OfficeMax for $59.99 today. Two handsets, no answering machine.

First defect: As mentioned in this Amazon.com review, address book entry names don?t override the incoming caller ID strings. Damn times three. Really crappy, Uniden.

Second defect: It was not possible (or not easy to understand how) to preview a ringtone when defining a custom ringtone while adding someone to the address book. Same problem when just defining the handset?s default ringtone. How do I preview these?

The ideal cordless phone

My ideal cordless phone would have

• Caller ID

• Headset jack
• Single-push (on/off) Mute button
• Ability for user to insert ?1? in front of caller ID numbers so I can call some people back
• Belt clip
• Speakerphone in handset
• Full duplex speakerphone in handset
• Address book that overrides caller ID strings so I control which names appear
• Big address book

And some subjective things:

• Feels good in hand
• Good microphone (for normal and speakerphone use)
• Good speaker quality
• Good speakerphone quality

I?m leaving out ubiquitous features like redial and number buttons and a screen backlight.

Microsoft Office 2008 microreview

It?s love at first sight. I love Microsoft Office 2008. I?ve used Office 97 since 1942. It?s fine. Really. I?ve use Office 2007 just a little. First impression: Ick. I?ve used Office 2000 — it is Office 97. I?ve used Numbers and Pages ?08. They?re okay. I?ve used OpenOffice and it?s alright. I?ve used NeoOffice (OS X Java port of OOo.) I used that for XLS and DOC files on the Mac until last week, when I got a totally legit copy of Office 2008 from Spencer as a gift.

Office 2008 is too legit to quit. The Formatting Palette is fabulous. Wow, I just realized I prefer using the Formatting Palette with my mouse (mouse == ick) to using the keyboard with Office 97! That really is saying something. All the tools I need on a regular basis are right there.

And the rendering of pages and GUI elements is superior to NeoOffice/OOo. Things just look good. Damn good. I?m hooked and totally surprised.

Edit: Reading this entry, I realized that if I like this so much, I?ll eventually want to move my meager VB macros into it from Office 97. That isn?t going to fly since there?s no VBA in Office 2008. Funny, I had to really love it in order to be disappointed by its lack of VBA. If I hadn?t liked it so much, I wouldn?t have considered moving my macros into it.

Bailout thoughts

I was just reading this article I found on Reddit. This scenario occurred to me:

If I?d had money in the stock market when Congress (and later the Senate and later Congress again) was considering the bailout, I would be damned either way. If I bet on them approving the bailout (to keep stock prices up temporarily) I?d be winning based on the government doing the wrong thing. So I?d definitely want to have pulled my money out so I could root for the thing thing that was best overall (no bailout) without conflict. So, theoretically, if I?d stayed in the market, I?d have been conflicted.

Amazon comes through.

I bought a my Nikon D80 body last week. I’m very happy with it. Yes, the meter overexposes for the shadows but tough.

Anyway, I bought it for, from memory, $776.94. A good price. Shortly after I received the D80, I checked Adorama and B&H prices, something I do often with things I’ve recently purchased. Their prices were around $729! That’s about $45. Problem. Did I check them before I bought from Amazon? Probably — I usually check all three of these sites before buying anything photographic. But maybe I didn’t. Maybe.

But it doesn’t matter because tonight, on a whim, I checked Amazon’s current price. I was heartened when I saw that it had one of the “add to cart to see price” links, which it didn’t have when I bought it — so the price was probably reduced. Yay. And it was! About $729. Great. Amazon will credit for thirty days after receipt so I called and got stuck in a long recording. Garbage. Then I found a means of having Amazon call me via a button

iPod tracks: 9502

Current iPod track count: 9,502. Whoah. Includes voice memos, but it always has and I haven?t added but a few in years.

Dvorak

I recently ordered some generic keyboard stickers in a Dvorak layout for my MacBook Pro. They arrived and I applied them Saturday. Now, in my down time, I?ll start getting used to the Dvorak key layout.