What is better than this?: June 2009

Monday, June 29, 2009

7 years ago today

I remember very clearly the first time Becky and I ever spoke. I was flipping through the SI Swimsuit issue in a friend's office and she handed me the phone - it was Becky. We talked and mostly laughed for an hour and I was hooked. I later told her that I loved her before I had ever laid eyes on her. I meant it.

Two years later, I waited on the lawn of the Bar Harbor Inn in Maine for her to walk down the isle. When she appeared from the door, my knees were literally weak.

I married my best friend that day.

Happy Anniversary, babe.

Here are some other interesting June 29th factoids:

1613: The original Globe Theatre in London burns down when a cannon discharged during a performance of William Shakespeare's "Henry VIII" accidentally sets fire to the building's thatched roof.

1916: For his role in seeking German help for the Easter Rebellion in Ireland, Irish nationalist and longtime British diplomat Sir Roger Casement is executed by Britain for treason.
Learn more about Sir Roger Casement.

1940: Painter Paul Klee dies at age 60, succumbing to the skin and muscle disease that forced him to adopt a simpler style in his final works.
Learn more about Paul Klee.

1954: The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission refuses to reinstate the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb," citing his past ties to Communists.

1956: At the U.S. Olympic Trials in Los Angeles, Glenn Davis breaks the 50-second barrier in the 400-meter hurdles on the same day that Charles Dumas becomes the first man to high jump 7 feet.
Learn more about Glenn Davis.

1956: The U.S. Congress passes the Federal Highway Act, which provides for the construction of 42,500 miles of interstate highways, based on a plan announced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in June 1954.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Kaitlyn at Aunt Stais's and Uncle Boom's House

Paige & kaitlyn 009, originally uploaded by anastasia.attisano.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

It's started already!

It's started already!, originally uploaded by -SPK.

Google Voice is about to launch to everyone

Image by marcopako  via Flickr

And they have 1 million (pinky to the corner of my mouth) shiny new phone numbers for you!

How I have been using Google Voice so far is as an extension to my Verizon cell voice mail. Here's how it works.

- Set your Google Voice to "do not disturb."
- On your cell, dial *71 (then your new Google Voice number). This command on Verizon means No Answer/Busy call forward.

When someone calls your cell and you don't pick up, it gets forwarded to your GV account and you get all the features of GV: transcription, visual voice mail, SMS, search, permanent archiving, and much more.

But, here's the tidbit I wanted to share with you today. When you are on the road and call to check your GV messages, they've added this awesome feature:

After you listen to a message you can press "2" to return the call. GV then uses the caller ID of the person who left you the message and calls them back without you having to write down the number, hang up then call them. IT DOESN'T STOP THERE. After you are done with this call, simply press "*" to return to your messages. Yeah. Oh, it works flawlessly too.

Do you have Google Voice? Do you want it? Share any thoughts below.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

6 tools to make Twitter better

Image via CrunchBase

I have been on Twitter Since March of 2008. Only since about December, have I been consistently Tweeting and following others.

Since I am the gadget guy and "I read the entire internet so you don't have to.®", I though I'd share with you some tools I use to make using Twitter better, easier and more fun.

1. Tweetree. The site I use most when reading Twitter. What Tweetree does is make reading and posting tweets better. For reading: when there is a link in a post the site is displayed in with the tweet, allowing you to simply stay right on Tweetree and read the linked to site/video/picture inline. For posting tweets: it's URL shortner works awesome. Just paste a URL and click Shoren URLs.

2. TwitterGadget. If you use GMail, iGoogle, or Firefox TwitterGadget is a nice little add-on. For Gmail, it resides below the chat box and in Firefox, it resides in the sidebar. It has most of the functionality you'd want in a twitter gadget - and works really well.

3. Powertwitter Firefox addon. Powertwitter is similar to Tweetree in that it adds functionality to each message, except that you simply visit Twitter.com while using Firefox and it:

-search and recent searches
-search scoped to a specific user
-status history peeking on mouseover
-Facebook status updates
-inline YouTube, Flickr, TwitPic, Google Maps, song.ly, and more
-url expansion
-url translation to page titles
-open web update (news feed) mapping
-custom settings
-@mentions
-photo uploading
-link shrinking
-#hashtags

4. TwitPic. TwitPic is a way to share photos on Twitter. You can MMS a photo or email one to TwitPic and the subject line you use will be used as the text in a tweet that links back to the photo. Here is my TwitPic page. If you are a Flickr user, they recently released an update that works similar to TwitPic.

5. Picfog. Picfog is a fun little site that aggregates all the most recent shots from TwitPic. It's fun to watch the slide show and see what others are posting in real time.

6. iPhone/iPod Touch users: TwitterFon is an awesome free app to read/post on Twitter.

Got a suggestion or a tool that you use? Share it below.

What is better than this?