A New Blog Announcement!

Hey everybody. I want to take the time and announce a new blog I am working on. For the past few months I have been working on starting up a new blog with a friend of mine that is music themed. That is why I have taken a short hiatus from posting to Tech Trends because all of my free time has gone towards site design.

So I wanted to take the time and introduce you to my other blog just in case you have a music interest as well. The new site is called Music Sourced and you can find it at www.musicsourced.com.

The sites goal is to share as many FREE MUSIC downloads to many of your favorite artists and bands as we can find. Music nowadays is moving farther and farther away from the money of album sales. The trend is moving towards free music, free giveaways, and free perks for following bands on their fan sites with the goal of attracting people to their music and to come and see their live shows. Many mainstream artists and bands release free albums and song releases to their fans and its our goal to find those links and share them!

As well as sharing links to album and song downloads, you will also find blog posts about some of our favorite bands and artists. You will also find some posts about some up and coming artists that we have come across. Lastly, we will also do concert reviews of the live shows that we attend.

So now that you have been introduced, feel free to navigate around the site and check out what we have to offer. If you like what you see, LEAVE COMMENTS! You can start to expect more and more content as the new year roles around and we find our groove. Thanks for visiting, we hope you enjoy!

A Grooveshark Update: VIP Rates Will Raise

Just as a little update:

The news has been passed around for a while now that one one my favorite online resources (Grooveshark) will be raising its prices for membership. If your are familiar with Grooveshark or if you have read my previous article, then you know that it is a FREE service. The VIP service however gives you more options and perks. The VIP service will run you only $3 a month, so if you are a big Grooveshark junky you might want to consider the “paid” option before the monthly cost jumps up to 10 or more dollars starting in December. T-minus 43 days and counting.

I myself have taken the plunge and paid for a year of Grooveshark VIP for $30 (This also gave me two months free!). I made the switch not necessarily because of the price increase news but mainly because I found out that some networks that I use frequently block Groovesharks online streaming content by disabling certain browser plug-ins. By becoming a VIP member, I now have the ability to download and install the Grooveshark desktop client that runs independently from the browser for a more rich and reliable user experience.

Some of the other advantages of VIP are Last.fm integration, first crack at new features, no advertisements, personalizing your interface with a choice of backgrounds and modifying the layout, and VIP’s are allowed to add 10x more music to their “favorites” list. For more information on what the upgrade provides, check out the registration page at the following link: http://vip.grooveshark.com/

Also, as I mentioned the price will increase from $3 a month to probably $10 or more dollars a month if you compare it with other live music streaming services. If you become a member now then you will lock in a $3 a month service rate for the entirety of your membership. In my personal opinion it would be good to act now because music streaming services are becoming a major trend. There are many online streaming services that charge a higher fee for less (Mog, Rhapsody).  Also expect Apple to offer a music streaming service through their social PING network and also expect the European Spotify music streaming service to be available in the states sometime next year. When this happens, expect music streaming services to become very competitive. Free probably won’t last forever.

CNET also provides a nice brief breakdown of the changes at the following link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-20017633-27.html

Happy Groovesharking!

Best Buy – A Best Bet for Tech

When it comes to the latest tech and gadgets, I just don’t talk the talk on this blog. I like to back it up by taking my paychecks down to Best Buy and taking a few toys off of the wish list. But of course, Best Buy is just a store providing a product like many other stores out there. Not including online merchants that offer better prices. Despite the competition, Best Buy over the years has a proven track record with me for customer service.

I am not talking about the Geek Squad or good employees here. I am talking about price matching, rewards programs, and a full featured spread of tech.

Lets start of with the Best Buy Rewards program. I have been a member of the Reward Zone program for over three years now and have accumulated approximately $250 of free gift certificates. These certificates have been used to purchase many items of my choice from their store. It’s a pretty simple process. You spend money, you earn 1 point per dollar spent, and then you get a $5 gift certificate for every 250 points you earn. If you spend $2500 annually (which I do) at Best Buy, then you receive even more perks like free shipping for online orders and no certificate expiration dates! I am sure you have heard of credit cards, airlines, and other services paying you back for your loyalty. So if you enjoy your tech toys like me, it pays to be a loyal customer.

The next big deal maker for me is that if you ask (Keyword ASK!), Best Buy will match the prices of any competitor (Target, WalMart, Office Depot, ect). I cannot tell you the last time I walked out of a Best Buy after paying full price for one of their items. The key here is having a way to scan for cheaper prices. Since I am an IPhone user, I rely on the app RedLaser. Simply scan the barcode with your IPhone and it will look up all the stores that have that product along with their corresponding prices. Scroll through the list, find the cheapest price and show it to a customer service rep, and walk of Best Buy with a little more money in your wallet. An argument here is that the lowest price is usually an Amazon price. Amazon is not considered a direct competitor to Best Buy because it is an online-only store. But if you find the right person, my experience has proven that a lot of times they will match the Amazon price as well (depending on the demand of the item).

The last point that puts Best Buy way over the top for me is the fact that they go above and beyond what is expected from a store. Case in point, I recently purchased a new desktop computer from Best Buy. The computer cost $640, but my handy RedLaser app told me that another store had the same computer for $600. I purchased the computer and took it home, used it and loved it. It was just what I was looking for. Everything was great for about a week when I spotted an add for the exact same computer at Office Depot for $500!!! I was immediately bummed because I thought I missed out on a better deal. But I didn’t give up…… I took my receipt into Best Buy along with the Office Depot add and the customer service representatives immediately agreed to credit my credit card the $100 difference. In the end, I saved nearly %22 percent on the overall cost without any resistance from Best Buy. They were there to serve.

Moral of the story is, be a smart shopper. Let Best Buy work for you and get paid back for your loyalty.

Enjoy your TECH!

Location Services – Is it time to reduce your digital footprint?

Right off the heels of Facebooks latest “Places” announcement, it seems like there has been a lot of news about location services recently. With all of the capability of geotagging, facial recognition, gps and cellular triangulation, it is starting to get me thinking of reducing my digital footprint and not opting to freely give away my privacy.

The potential of these technologies was always something that I had thought about in the back of my head. But one story from the New York Times sparked my interest and tied my concerns of all these technologies together. The story featured the IPhone geotagging technology and how it took Adam Savage from the hit TV show “The Mythbusters” by surprise. To sum it up, Savage took a photo of his Land Cruiser and posted it to Twitter with a tag of “Now it’s off to work”. Since that photo had geotagged data embeded into it, anyone could take it and most likely determine exactly where Savage lived. To any thief or celebrity stalker, this information would be extremely valuable. And I can just imagine the ramifications if paparazzi photographers started paying attention to Twitter photos to determine where their next shot for People magazine was going to come from. A group called the “White Hat Hackers” is trying to raise awareness about inadvertant information sharing by creating a site that analyzes tweets for geotagged photos. It shows these photos in a Twitter feed on its site as well as letting you know exactly where the photos were taken. It also sends the owner of the Twitter account a notification that they have shared location information from the picture tagged in their tweet. This is how Adam Savage was notified and he has since turned his geotagging off on his phone. See the article I have referenced here: http://yhoo.it/ar41Z7

Now back to Facebook “Places”:

I find what FourSquare has done with their check-in service very interesting. I mean who wouldn’t want to be rewarded for hanging out at their favorite places with coupons and special perks. You always hear about customer loyalty for frequent customers, but this takes it to a whole new level. And now that Facebook is looking to provide the same service, who knows what this monster will turn into. My concern here is that once again a large group of people are going to know your exact locations and trending habits by checking the largely public Facebook and Twitter services. You sign up for Facebook Places and then your status updates are going to fill up with exactly where you are at certain times. And if I’m honest with myself, I would never want ever single one of my Facebook friends or Twitter followers for that matter to know exactly where I am and what I like to do all the time. I listened to a CNET Buzz Out Loud podcast a few weeks back and one of the hosts basically explained how FourSquare automatically checked him in to a shop that was blocks away from one of his friends houses. The problem was that he had already informed his friend that he was “busy” and wasn’t in his buddy’s general area to stop by and hang out. {Busted} This again gets me thinking…..Where is our privacy going, and what will this turn into?

This also leads me into a technology that has been around for a while, but it is now turning public: Facial Recognition. The technology is here now where some companies (largely Google) can basically start storing facial recognition information about anyone who posts pictures on their services. Google is already offering facial recognition for their Picasa web albums service to easily tag your friends in your photos. It makes me think that it won’t be long until Facebook grabs a hold of this and then starts analyzing pictures for all the random people standing in the background of a picture of you and your best friend. I can just imagine seeing a little bubble popping up next to a blurry image of a guy in the background that says “This is Joe Johnson” with a subtitle options of “Tag Joe in this photo”, “Become Joe’s friend” or “Visit Joe Johnson’s profile” Then at that point you can see Joe’s Facebook status’s that are filled with all the locations he has visited as well as where all of his pictures are taken, and then see Joe’s exact and current position. Hah!

Now I am not trying to say that these technologies aren’t useful. They are extremely interesting and can be very helpful if used correctly. The jury is still out on where this technology is going and what will come of it all. But for now it has certainly grabbed my attention.

Speaking of good uses for technology, I am a fan of Picasa as a means to share pictures with friends and family. They have a new feature available that I will be trying out in the near future called Face Movies. Check out the video below and share any comments that you may have about your fears of location services!

Picasa Face Movie: http://bit.ly/c7BNiD

IPhone 4 – iOS 4

It has been quite a summer of news and breakthroughs for Apple’s IPhone, and I have been one of the many people that have gone along with the ride. I made the IPhone jump 2 summers ago so I was really interested in Apple’s IPhone refresh because it was time for an upgrade. I waited for the first wave of reviews to come in after the release and after the “Free Bumper for Everyone” announcement I made my purchase and I am very happy with it. You can find a review of the IPhone 4 on every tech site, so I wont dive into a review here but I really enjoy the speed of the new IPhone and the multitasking functionality. It makes a tremendous difference.

I would like to touch on one of the major reasons I decided to upgrade even though I had a fully functioning IPhone 3G. I heard many of the rumors about how iOS 4.01 really wrecks the usability of the 3G with app crashes and extreme application lag. I tested 4.01 out on my 3G, and it was clear to me after the update that I was holding an outdated piece of technology. So I went ahead with my IPhone 4 purchase and chose to sell my 3G.

Even though I have updated to the new IPhone, I still have many friends that have the IPhone 3G and were asking me for tips on how to fix the speed issues after the iOS 4.01 update and I came across a couple of solutions. One solution is a quick and partial fix, and the other is a downgrade back to iOS 3.1.3.

The first thing I tell my friends to try is to turn off the “Spotlight” search on their phones. This is the quick search feature you get when you scroll to the left from the home screen. Most people I know rarely use this feature, but it can really zap your resources when it is running on the 3G. If you turn this feature off on a 3G running the iOS4, then you can regain some of the speed your phone once had. To do this navigate to Settings > General > Spotlight Search and then “uncheck” all of the options so that the phone will no longer search these items.

Another approach is just to completely remove iOS 4.01 and downgrade to the previous 3.1.3 version. I watched a tutorial video on how to do this on CNET’s website and it looks like a pretty easy process. I myself have not tried this fix, and I do not know of anyone who has, but I have always had good luck with information I gather from CNET’s website. To check out the video for the fix, click the following link:

http://bit.ly/dbyhYF

Grooveshark – Your music, on demand

It hasn’t been fully announced yet, but I am a pretty big music fan. I observe all genres of music that doesn’t scream or yell at you and I also like to play music as a hobby. I really enjoy live concerts, and I also like to travel so a good playlist is a must! But no matter how many MP3’s, CD’s, tapes, or 8 tracks a person has, you can never take it all with you. For the longest time I was looking for a way to access any song I wanted at any time. And for at least the time being, I have found what I am looking for!


Grooveshark is the only streaming music service that I know of where you can practically listen to any song that you want to at at any time (with a co-existing Internet connection of course). Its not a pick a favorite artist and listen to a radio station of that artist and many other similar artists. It’s not a pick your favorite songs and listen to a 30 second sampling of them. It is a true make your own playlist, listen to any song, the whole song, and repeat your songs as much as you want music service. I have spent a lot of time searching for songs and adding them to playlists on Grooveshark so that I can listen to a large collection of my favorite songs on a daily basis by using this service.

From what I have gathered from some quick Google research, the free music database has been compiled by a large user base. Each user has the ability to upload their licensed music to the service and share that music with the entire Grooveshark community. That has made for quite a selection of songs. I am rarely disappointed when searching for a song because I would say Grooveshark has had my songs greater than 95% of the time. Even the recently released music.


Not only can you listen to music on demand and create your own playlists, but you can also share those playlists with your friends! I have friends ask me all the time about what new music I have been listening to and I have always enjoyed sharing my new song craves. If you have other friends that are on Grooveshark, you can follow them and listen to their playlists as well. To experience these features however, you will have to sign up for a free account. I also love their simple to use interface shown above. It has a good blend of album art and song information that you will have to check out.

To learn more about Grooveshark, visit the “About” section of their site at http://grooveshark.com/about.

To try out Grooveshark for yourself, visit http://listen.grooveshark.com/

SharePoint 2010 Color Calendars / Launch Event

It is safe to say that I am looking forward to the potential that SharePoint and Office 2010 will bring to the workplace. I attended the Launch event for Office and SharePoint last week and was impressed with the new functionality that was introduced. At a glance, it seems like Office is a brand new software suite from the ground up and SharePoint has a totally different look and approach. If you have not viewed the launch event video yet, it is well worth your time if you have an interest.

SharePoint Launch Event Video

I have been fortunate enough to spend some time on the new SharePoint release. Like many others I assume, I have been spending time trying to figure out how to migrate over all of the SharePoint customizations I have comes to rely on. I am speaking of mainly Jquery and CSS customizations using a CEWP. One of the customizations that has made SharePoint much better for me is color calendars. When you have a calendar full of events, color coding each event helps a lot. I have been using a solution created by Christophe from http://blog.pathtosharepoint.com/. This functionality allowed me to create an employee absence calendar (with many absences) and color code them by what type of absence it was.

After working with SharePoint 2010 calendars, I discovered that the color feature comes packed with 2010 out of the box. The feature doesn’t directly work as it should, but the end result is pretty similar to Christophe’s solution without any code needed.

I will briefly describe how to make this work on SharePoint 2010. The first obvious thing you need to do is to create a new calendar. When you create the calendar, you can notice that a “Category” column is created by default which is a choice column. The first alteration I made to the default calendar was to change the “Category” column options.

The next step for me was to create 3 custom views that display only one of the available choices of the “Category” column. So I created 3 views named PTO, Training / Conference, and Sales Visit. For each of the views that were created, I had to add a filter to each so that only one specific absence type would be displayed on the view.

After this was complete, I made the PTO view the default view of the calendar. I did this so that the colors would display correctly on the calendar. If you keep the default view as “All Events” then your calendar will have an additional color that will not be represented on the calendar.

The next step was to add additional views to the PTO calendar view. Adding additional calendar views to the same calendar is a new feature for 2010. When doing this, you can also assign unique colors to each view that you add (another new feature). 

To do this, you will have to click on the “Calendars in View” link found on the left hand side of the menu. You will then have to add the other two views to the PTO calendar view. To do this, you need to enter the web URL of the site that your calendar is hosted on and then when you click on the “Resolve” button it will populate the available calendars and views for you to add. Add the views, pick your favorite colors and then you have it.