Movin' on over

Time to change out all your links.

I'm moving this blog to here.

Wordpress seems to have a lot more features than blogger and at the still-reasonable price on free.

Plus I'm consolidating this blog and my other one so it's all in one place and it's one less thing I have to keep up with.

Hope you'll make the move with me.

Apple TV

I've been kicking this around in my head and thought I'd get some opinions. We currently pay about $65 per month for satelite service. Because of our Netflix subscription (and newly formed Guitar Hero 2 habit) we don't watch the TV a lot.

What I'm thinking of is buying an Apple TV. I've made a list of shows we try to keep up with. We could afford to buy those shows off of iTunes and still spend less than a satelite on a yearly basis. So, for less money, we would own the shows and could watch them anytime. Plus, it would allow us to keep up with the shows. We don't have DVR and so right now, we are missing a ton of our favorite shows because they don't come on at convenient times. This way, they would automatically download for us and we could watch them at our convenience.

But, then the HD-factor comes into play. The Apple TV currently supports up to 720p. We spent a good chunk of change to have a 1080p set so I'd like a box that supports the full resolution of the TV. The other thing is, I don't really want to spend money to buy these shows at DVD quality when I'd like to have them at HD quality. HD isn't currently available through iTunes. I'm thinking of waiting until they flip the HD switch to make this change. As much as we don't use the satelite now, we do have the HD package which is really nice.

At the end of the day, it probably isn't worth even the effort I put into this post, but hey, one has to think on the heavy topics of life.

Power drain

Does anyone know how much power computers suck? I'm trying an experiment. When I'm not using my main computer I'm shutting it down completely.

It's a Mac which means I can leave it on for weeks on end (which I usually do), but I'm giving this a shot. It's a PowerMac G5 Quad hooked up to a 20" screen and a 30" screen so I figure it has to be using a decent amount of power.

Here's hoping it cuts down dramatically on the electric bill.

For the kidnapper on the go

The Ransom Note Generator for anyone too busy for such details.

Via Coudal Partners.

Guitar Hero 2

Guitar Hero 2 has invaded our house. A quick review: If you have the money, go buy it now. If you don't have the money, sell a kidney.

Also, if you have a spouse, invest in a second guitar controller. We are trying to track one down right now because we're tired of taking turns playing. Rebecca is addicted to it.

For the record, I knew she would be no matter how many times she told me it "sounds stupid."

Online apps

Over the weekend, I've switched a good chunk of my organization to the web. I'm using three 37signals apps including Basecamp for project organization, Highrise for contact management and Backpack for an online calendar and general notes.

I've also moved most of my RSS feeds from Safari's built in reader to Google Reader. I really like how Safari handles my RSS needs, but I work on two different computers and keeping them in sync was a pain. It often involved looking through tons of articles I'd already read.

That really turned out to be my motivation to moving everything I can online. I'm often not in the office and I like to have access to it anywhere. This came up this weekend when we were at my parents house for Colton's birthday and I wanted to check my reading but really didn't want to fire up the laptop for fear of work sucking me in. Now with Google Reader, I can check for new articles anywhere. So far I'm pretty happy with it. It posts new articles a little slow for my tastes. I still have the RSS feeds in Safari for now so I can see when one pops up there. It may be an hour or more before the same article shows up in Google.

The other great side effect of this is that I was able to pair down my RSS subscriptions. I had about 95 different feeds. Some didn't update often and some I found I just didn't have time to keep up with anymore. Now I'm down to just 28 and it's cut down tremendously on the time it takes me to get through it all. If I ever went away for the weekend, I might have 300+ articles waiting on me, most of which went unread. This has helped a lot.

Between 37signals and Google, I'm really enjoying this idea of using apps online. So what great web apps am I missing?

Rain

I absolutely love it when it rains. I'm sitting here with Snow Patrol coming out of the iTunes and my office door open to hear the heavy rain and thunder.

I like writing on days like this.

Spike

Ironically, I've seen a sudden spike in traffic to this blog. That's really funny to me considering I have been way to busy to post this month.

So what are you telling me? If I shut up, you'll show up?

I do keep this blog updated much more frequently. Starting this week I should be back to updating here regularly. It's been a crazy month.

One thing I want to write in-depth about is 37signals' new product Highrise. I'm in love with it and it's taken my organizational skills to a whole new level.

Another reason to love Netflix

This is another reason why I love Netflix. Not only do they offer a great service at a good price, turns out they treat their employees great as well.

I love this idea that you aren't ranked on the time spent in the office but for the quality of the work.

I need to add Netflix to the list of "People we like" on our new site.

Via AdPulp.

Brewing

This is shaping up to be one great year. On top of the great things happening at church (you can read more about that here), our largest client, Bruner Motors, has purchased two dealerships in Brownwood, Texas. We've officially begun work for the new stores so this should have a huge impact on the future of the business. I'm also still handling the creative direction on The Business Journal, our other large client which is beginning to grow. In between that, we have a steady flow of smaller design work coming in.

Between these new things and the massive things going on at church, there is a lot brewing for this year.