I got this file emailed to me today. A youth minister in Colorado was talking about Lot and how he “pitched his tent” close to Sodom. It didn’t come out that way. I could see myself making a mistake like this. Click here to listen to the mp3.
New Sprint-Nextel Wireless Plans
The merger between Sprint and Nextel is complete. They’ve got some new coverage plans which look pretty good. One that I haven’t seen from Sprint before is the free incoming minutes plans. Check them out here.
More on Gas Prices
Great post over at invertedsm.org on the reality of gas prices. He talks about how people are canceling $750 vacations over $30 in gas. Worth the read.
More Big Donations . . . What’s the NFL waiting for?
I think we will see more stories of people and nations donating to help with recovery efforts. The biggest donation I’ve read about by far is from Kuwait. They have pledged $500 million mainly in oil-based relief assistance. Their Prime Minister, Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah (coolest name ever), had this to say: “It’s our duty as Kuwaitis to stand by our friends to lighten the humanitarian misery and as a payback for the many situations during which Washington helped us.” That’s pretty cool.
Also, John Grisham the author, a Mississippi native, has set up a relief fund to help his fellow Mississippians who have been hit by the storm. He and his wife have donated $5 million to get the fund started. Lance Armstrong has donated $500,000 to help cancer patients who have been affected by the storm.
Which brings me back to something I’ve mentioned earlier. The NFL’s revenue last year “climbed to $5.2 billion” and they have only donated $1 million!!! That’s ridiculous. That’s less than pocket change for them. To put it into perspective, that’s only 0.02% of their annual revenue. This really makes me mad. They have a franchise that not only is from there but has been relocated because of the storm. This is ridiculous and the NFL needs to raise the bar. I wouldn’t be surprised if the NHL makes a bigger donation than them.
Gas Prices
I must admit that I really don’t have a clue how gas prices really work. I even read a little bit of an article at HowStuffWorks.com, but that didn’t help clear it up. This past Monday morning, before Katrina hit, I paid $2.53 per gallon. That afternoon, after Katrina hit, the price shot up to $2.88 and has gone over $3 at most stores. Wal-Mart’s gas prices are typically how I gauge where we’re at. They had gone as high as $2.98, but today dropped down to $2.83. I don’t understand.
What really gets me is that the prices have very little to do with how much the store actually paid for their supply, it seems. The gas that has shot up over fifty cents this week isn’t new gas. It’s gas that, for the most part, they paid for last week before the price went up. That just doesn’t seem right and that they’re taking advantage of the situation. It’s hard to point the finger because we’re kind of at the mercy of the gas stations. We don’t want to stop driving, so we have to basically pay what they say.
Check out GasBuddy.com to find where the cheapest gas in town is.
American Compassion and the NFL
I didn’t know if I would post anything about Hurricane Katrina, but I’ve been motivated by the donations that certain organizations have made toward relief efforts. Let me first say that I’m always impressed on how much compassion and generosity we show in response to disasters. Money and other donations come pouring in.
The Kidd Kraddick Show raised close to $330,000 in one day alone. Wal-Mart originally donated $2 million, but has since committed $15 million toward the effort. Which is good, considering that the CEO makes over $5 million a year and their annual revenue is close to $300 billion.
The one organization that I think has under-committed is the NFL. They have committed only $1 million. That’s only $1,000,000. The freaking New York Yankees alone are donating that much money. I would think that the NFL would take this more personally, since one of their teams is from New Orleans and their stadium is in the middle of the aftermath that’s going on. The NFL is one of the richest organizations around. They just struck a deal with ESPN for the Monday night games that makes them $1.1 BILLION!!! They can afford to donate more and they should.
Come on NFL. Make a real mark and donate A LOT MORE!!!
New Xbox 360 Rumors
IGN.com is now reporting that Microsoft plans to release the Xbox 360 on Friday, November 25. That’s the day after Thanksgiving. It was originally thought the system would be released around November 4, but it looks like they want to give game developers a little more time to finish tweaking some software title.
My thought is that this date is the best date they could possibly choose. People are already insane when it comes to shopping then and retailers generally have massive sales and open their doors early. I think Microsoft could hit a jackpot by releasing the hottest system on the biggest shopping day of the year. If this story turns out to be true, I think Microsoft did something right. Now if they could just get the brains that work on Xbox to help the Windows OS people . . .
My Next Car
This is both scary and extremely cool at the same time. GM will be launching the Opel Vectra in 2008 with a self-driving system. It supposedly can navigate through traffic and read signs even at 60 mph. I wonder if the cell phone laws while driving will apply?
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
For all my iPod owner friends, this won’t be of much help to you. However, I wanted to let everyone know that the Yahoo! Unlimited service is great. For only $5 a month (when you pre-pay annually) you get access to instantly play over 1 million songs or download them to a portable music player. In my scenario, this works perfectly. I can connect my Treo 650 to my computer and transfer songs directly from the Yahoo! Music Engine (YME) and listen to them on the go. This has been a great new feature to my already super-cool phone/pda.
At first, I liked the service, but thought it had some shortcomings. For example, you used to only get album results when you did a search for an artist. Now they’ve fixed that by letting you choose your view (albums/songs). They’ve also added the ability to listen to song from the top 100 chart. Pretty nice upgrades to an already good service.
On top of that, YME is customizable. I liked iTunes feature that allowed you to subscribe and download Podcasts directly in iTunes. I didn’t think YME could handle podcasts, but I found a plugin for it on the YME plugin page.
There is a free trial of the service, so check it out and decide for yourself.
Reinstalling Windows
A lot of people ask me for help when they have computer problems. One of the biggest frustrations with computers (at least PCs) is Windows starting to run slowly and overall system performance getting worse. One of the best and easiest, although time consuming, ways to improve performance overall is to format your hard drive and reinstall Windows. I have had to do this on my current laptop at least once before and have done it on every computer I’ve owned–sometimes multiple times.
Here is a step-by-step guide to reinstalling Windows.
Let me first warn you that every system is different. While your process should be easy and error free, things can go bad. If you run into problems don’t hesitate to get some more help.
1. BACKUP YOUR DOCUMENTS
This is the most important step of them all. Almost every software program is replaceable, but your Word files, music, pictures, videos and such are not replaceable. If you have a CD/DVD burner this should be relatively easy to do. In my own situation I was able to copy all of my files from my laptop to my desktop via network connection. This might work for you as well, although having a hard backup is a really good thing to have.
2. Make a list of all the programs/software you use on a regular basis.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget some of the programs that you don’t use very often. Just click through the “All Programs” button in the Start menu and make a list (and print it out) of the programs you want to make sure you’ll get reinstalled after the format.
3. Track down all your software discs and activation codes.
If you have a name brand computer like Dell or HP, is should have come with restore CDs and the Windows XP disc. I recommend doing a format and install from the XP disc, not the restore. The restore CD puts a lot of extra software on that you probably don’t use anyway.
4. Put the XP CD in your CD drive and reboot.
Your computer should be set to be able to boot from CD by default. If, with the XP CD in the drive, your computer boots to Windows like normal you probably need to change some settings in your bios. You can typically get into your bios by press F2 or something like that when the very first screen comes up right after you turn on your computer. Check for something like “Boot Order” and make sure the CD drive is selected.
5. Follow the options Windows offers to reinstall.
At this point, XP basically guides you through step-by-step. You want to make sure you choose new installation or something like that. Also, if it gives you the options, make sure you format the drive. This makes sure you have a clean install.
6. Download Windows updates using Windows Update.
You’ll need internet access at this point. The very first thing you need to do is click Start > All Programs > Windows Update. This might take a while if you have to download Service Pack 2 (especially if you’re on dial-up). There are a lot of securtiy updates that Windows has released and the sooner you get those on your computer the safer it will be.
7. Download updated drivers.
Again, if you have a name brand computer this is easy. Just go to the company’s website and look for a support/drivers link. They keep all the most current drivers for the computer in this one spot.
8. Download / Install your software list.
Start with Firefox and then get the rest of the programs. You’ll want to install the software from the company’s website whenever possible. The newest versions are kept there and they’re always better.
9. Enjoy your clean, smooth-running machine.
If you go through the reinstall process, please comment on how it went and if I’m missing any steps. It’s been a little while since I’ve done it myself, so I may have left something out.