iPod CPR

Yesterday my iPod died.  There was no response when I pushed the buttons, nothing when I plugged it into the charger.  The screen was dark and I was left wondering what I would listen to during my drive home?  Panic was starting to set in, but luckily I found salvation on Google.

I searched for “iPod reset” and found the directions I needed to revive an iPod on the Apple website.  The directions vary based on your model, but here they are:

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
2. Press and hold the Menu and Center (Select) buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 8 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

If that doesn’t work try this

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
2. Press and hold the Play/Pause and Menu buttons simultaneously until the Apple/iPod logo appears, about 6 to 8 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

The second set of directions brought up the familiar Apple logo and all my music was still there.  Phew!  As much as I would love to get an iPod Touch it is kinda hard to justify after my recent purchase of a new alternator and belt for my 12 year old Subaru.  If I hadn’t just paid for the car today I might not have tried so hard to bring my iPod back from the dead. 

Netflix Referral Bonus

I’ve had good success posting my Netflix referral links on the site whenever they offer the 1 month free trial.  People get the extra 2 weeks of free service and I get 5 bonus rentals.  Lately we’ve been getting so many people using my links that I max out my bonus rentals the first day.  To take advantage of the traffic we’re getting, I invite any other Netflix users to post their referral codes and/or links in the comments of my Netflix post.  If we get a lot of comments, I will add all the codes to the main post and mix them up occasionally to try and get bonus rentals for everyone.

If you received codes in the mail or a link in an email from Netflix, go to my post and add them in a comment.

Good luck!

Facebook Reunion

At the start of the school year I became increasingly involved with Facebook. Going to Ethan’s open house before the start of kindergarten brought back a flood of memories from elementary school and I hit facebook where I found many of my former classmates. For the past 2 weeks we’ve been retelling stories from our days in school and I have uploaded scans of my class pictures from K-8th grade. We’ve been having a blast reconnecting and remembering our times together.

I have to admit that I actually joined facebook over a year ago, but I didn’t get it.  I connected with a few people, but didn’t see the point of all the silly features.  That has all changed now.  I have found it an amazingly useful tool for finding and staying in touch with old friends.  We’ve setup a group for the class of 91 at my school and other people are adding their own photos.  A lot of memories that I had forgotten are coming back to me and I am also hearing new stories for the first time.

At the same time, Ethan is coming home with his own stories from school and is so excited about his classmates and his teacher.  I had always remembered school being a lot of fun, but I’d forgotten the details and the individual stories until now.  It is also fascinating to hear a story from someone elses perspective now that we’re adults.

If you haven’t already, try joining Facebook and see if you can find some old friends.  It can be tough to find people by name so searching by school is often the best bet.  Once you find that first person you can usually find a lot more people who they are already linked to.  Once you’ve got the gang back together online, start scanning and uploading the old photos.  It’s worth it just for the hair and the outfits.  I’m in the backrow, 4th from the left wearing the yellow shirt and stylish plaid pants.

How to set the sleep timer on your iPod

A few nights ago I took the boys to football practice and we listened to Crazy Dave’s Star Wars episode in the car.  When we returned home we still had 15 minutes of the show left so I decided to try something new.  When I put the boys to bed I asked if they wanted to listed to the end of the show while they went to sleep and they, of course, gave me an enthusiastic yes.  So I got an old pair of Walkman speakers out of the garage and setup the iPod on their desk and turned it on after they were tucked in.

When I was a kid I used to love listening to the radio when I went to bed.  Being a geeky kid, I didn’t listen to the music, but to PBS programs, reruns of old radio shows, and Dr Demento.  With all the great content available for free on the internet I’ve decided that the occasional iPod night will be something fun for the boys, but my concern was how to limit the length.  A normal Crazy Dave’s Kid Show episode is almost 90 minutes. Thank goodness for Google.

Did you know your iPod has a Sleep Timer?  You can set it to turn off automatically in intervals of 15, 30, 60, 90, or 120 minutes.  The directions couldn’t be easier.

To set the interval before iPod turns off, select Extras > Clock > Sleep Timer. Then select the time you want.

When you set the sleep timer, a clock icon and the number of minutes left until iPod turns off appear near the top of the Now Playing screen.

This should curtail any Crazy Dave all nighters and also save some juice in the battery so I can listen to my geek podcasts during the morning commute.

If you’re thinking of buying a new iPod, hold off until after Tuesday.  Apple is announcing changes to the iPod product line and the prediction is the iPod Touch will have its price reduced.

My baby is starting KINDERGARTEN!!!

This week’s blog blast is sponsored by Hanes (I was lucky enough to review some of their great kids socks and underwear earlier in the month) and the Parent Bloggers Network and its on The First Day of School. Its obviously fitting for lots of people this time of year but especially me since I’m sort of half excited and half dreading the start of the school year right now!

Ethan will be starting K and I am nervous that he might not like it at first and I fear its a big change that I’ll then follow up with adding another sibling to his life the month after! He went to orientation on Wed for 2 1/2 hours without us and it went well. He has one friend in the same class and so that is a great thing. I am having a tougher time with it than he is but I still worry that he might come home that first day and say he hates it! His school is just finishing up a huge new playground that will be open for the start of school and that has been fun for him to watch. He seems fine with it when I bring K up (but I try not to talk about it too much so I don’t freak him out or annoy him). He got a letter in the mail from his teacher but we won’t meet her until the night before school starts. I am making John take the day off so that he can go with me to drive Ethan on the first day. He can be the calm one while I can try not to cry too much and take a few pictures.To make the day a bit special I plan to take Ethan’s picture holding a sign that says “my first day of kindergarten”, I already have some cookie dough frozen for him to have as his snack with lunch and we’ll probably go to Friendly’s for dinner that night. I know Ethan and I will adjust to school and by the time Ben starts K in another year I’ll be a pro at it (and Ben loves school so I won’t have as many fears for him) BUT until we get past that first day, week, month of school I will be a bit on edge worrying. I also will be a mess waiting for the bus in the afternoon that first day! I really didn’t want to have him ride the bus at all but picking him up in the afternoon would be too hard with Jamie (and soon the new baby) napping when school gets out. Plus I am driving him at 8:30, then Ben to preschool at 9 and then I pick Ben up at 11:30 so that is enough in and out of the car time with the kids 5 days a week for me already. Can you tell I am a mess! Come Thursday September 5th life will change a lot around here and I wish summer could last longer to delay that first day of school!

*Stay tuned to find out how the start of the year goes and hopefully I can post about how silly I was to worry so much! Oh and I can’t post without a picture (okay so I came back already and added 3 at the top of the post) so here is Ethan on his first day of preschool 2 years ago, I was a mess before that day too but it all worked out well!

Twitter

Does anyone here use twitter?  I’ve been hearing about it for a long time on the podcasts I listen to, but never tried.  I finally broke down and signed up, but didn’t bother going back to check the feeds I was following.  Today, while upgrading to Firefox 3 (awesome!) I discovered TwitterFox, a Firefox plugin for following and posting on Twitter.  Works great, but now the question is…who to follow?  I added a few of the tech podcasters I listen to and the feeds are pretty interesting so far.  Do you have any recommendations?

For those less geeky than me, twitter is like text messaging on the internet.  The idea is to tell your followers what you’re doing in 140 letters or less.  People in the tech industry are using it pretty heavily.  For more information check out the Twitter FAQ.

High School Student Isolates Plastic Eating Bacteria

I came across this wonderful story about Daniel Burd, a Canadian 16 year old that isolated bacteria that can eat a plastic bag in 3 months!  Amazing story and the logic he applied is so wonderful in its simplicity, yet no one else has done this.  Here it is in a nutshell.

1. It takes 1000 years for a plastic bag to biodegrade.  Yet, it DOES biodegrade so something has to be eating it.
2. He collects dirt from a landfill and creates and nurtures a bacteria farm, feeding it only ground up plastic
3. He isolates the bacteria that are thriving on his plastic meals and tests them individually.
4. First he finds the bacteria that eats the plastic the fastest
5. Second he finds the combination of bacteria that works the best
6. His controlled tests find a 50% reduction in plastic bag mass after 6 weeks

Absolutely brilliant.   Can’t wait to see what this  project leads to.  For Burd’s efforts he won a $10,000 prize and $20,000 scholarship although I expect there will be several universities offering him a full ride.

Podcasts and Audiobooks for Teens

I’ve been listening to a lot of podiobooks and audible books lately and find myself saying “the kids will love this…when they’re older”. Since some of our readers have older kids or are themselves young at heart I decided to post a list of some of my favorites. These are all for the Harry Potter crowd and are stories I really enjoyed.

Free stories from Podiobooks

• Max Quick 1: The Pocket and the Pendant
• Max Quick 2: The Two Travelers
• Shadowmagic
• Origin Scroll

Audible.com Books

• Ender’s Game
• Eragon
• The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
• The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials Book 1

Here are some other great podiobooks suitable for mom or dad

• Quarter Share, Half Share, and Full Share
• Singularity
• Brave Men Run
• The Immortals
• One Among the Sleepless
• The 7th Son Trilogy (Descent, Deceit, Destruction)
• Anything by Scott Sigler (Ancestor, Infected, Earthcore, The Rookie, Nocturnal)
• Crescent

I’m sure there are others I have forgotten, but this is a great list to get you over 100 hours of audiobooks, most of it free. If you have an ipod and spend any time in the car, train, or are taking a long summer trip, please download a few of these and try them out. Podiobooks.com is a great site for getting audiobooks and it is important to support these authors so they keep giving us more great content.

I find it funny looking at this list. The majority of these I listened to in the last year, but if someone asked me what I’m reading I would tell them that with 3 kids and too many home improvement projects in progress, I don’t have time to read. Yet here is a list of novels that I’ve enjoyed while driving back and forth to work.

Do you have any favorite audiobooks that aren’t on my list? I am always looking for more.

Here Comes the Amazon Tax

Attention all NY State residents. Starting June 1st, Amazon will start charging 8.375% sales tax on your orders to be compliant with the new internet tax law proposed by former Governor Spitzer and passed by current Governor Patterson. Amazon is suing the state in NY State Supreme court, but until then we will be stuck paying. Place your orders now and anything shipped before June 1st will not be taxed.

The quick and dirty history on this tax law is this:

• Catalogs have long been exempt from sales tax if they do not have any physical presence in that state.
• Internet retailers were given the same exemption and Bush extended that exemption to 2014 with passage of Internet Tax Freedom Act:
  “[n]o State or political subdivision thereof may impose any of the following taxes during the period beginning November 1, 2003, and ending November 1, 2014: (1) Taxes on Internet access and (2) Multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.”
• Spitzer found a loophole by considering any Amazon associate member living in NY to be considered a representative of Amazon, thus give Amazon a presence in NY State and making their sales subjected to NY State Taxation.
• NY State sales tax is 4% and each county tacks on their own tax, but the law requires Amazon to charge a flat 8.375%. If a NY State company charged a flat rate across all counties of NY they would be fined. No word on if items exempt in NY will also be exempt on Amazon, such as clothes.

The justification by the state hinges on the Amazon Affiliate program.  To me, the affiliation is a glorified advertising campaign.  Affiliates handle no merchandise and they do not collect money for Amazon.  Amazon pays them based on referrals.  By this reasoning shouldn’t any company that advertises on a NY website or in a NY publication be subjected to NY State taxes on their ecommerce sales?  The truth of the matter is that NY is not interested in other website and they have even referred to this law as the “Amazon Tax”.  They have tried taxing internet sales before, but with no legal footing they added a voluntary tax assessment to NY State’s income tax forms.  Obviously that did not work well and with no legal recourse to force NY residents to pay, they decided to take on the biggest target.

In the end, I expect Amazon will win and NY will have to pay for ALL legal fees of both parties.  They will have wasted a lot of time and tax payer money on this illegal venture.

Redefining Kid Music

Heather and I had an epiphany about kids music recently. We really don’t like it very much. There are a few songs I like, but most of the music we have for the kids we tolerate, but don’t enjoy. The litmus test is when one of these songs starts playing while your ipod is shuffling and you can’t hit the skip button fast enough.

With that in mind I’m on a mission to create a new playlist called Kid Music We Like. This will not be filled with the usual children oriented singers, but modern music that we love singing together with the kids.

This new playlist dovetailed nicely with a philosophy of music that I have been developing over the years. Everyone has their favorite songs from their generation and a lot of us become stuck with that music and a sampling of the classics, but disregard any new music. What I have discovered is that the music I listened to in my formative years is deeply tied with my memories, most likely because I listened to those songs over and over again on the radio. I made this music-memory connection in college and used it to my advantage by listening to one album over and over while studying for a final. When I took the final I would get those songs going in my head and it helped me recover the material I studied.

As a kid, my mom would always play Roger Miller in the car when we went on long trips and to this day I still like listening to those songs because it gives me flashbacks to those memories. If our kids only listen to ‘kid music’ it is unlikely that they will listen to those songs as adults, but if they listen to OUR music they will get to experience the same nostalgic flashbacks 30 years from now when they’re watch a Top 100 countdown on VH1.

The hard part for me is hunting down new music. Local radio by us is particularly awful so I always listen to my ipod. I use iTunes to track down music using the referrals and listener lists, but my favorite tool lately is Youtube. What I’ve discovered is that youtube is what MTV SHOULD have become. It is filled with music videos by top artists, new artists, and fans. They all get equal playtime and are linked. Sure, there is a lot of dredge out there like the old MTV, but there ARE music videos- unlike the new MTV. All of my favorite new songs have come from youtube. I watched the video and then bought the song off Amazon.

The Kids Music We Like playlist is still a work in progress, but here is what we have so far:

Classics

• Funkytown - Lipps, Inc
• I’m A Believer - Smash Mouth
• I Like To Move It - Real 2 Real
• Who Let the Dogs Out - Baha Men
• Upside Down - Jack Johnson
• Love Shack - B52s (Ethan’s favorite)
• We’re Going to be Friends - Jack Johnson
• People Watching - Jack Johnson

Kid Music (ok there are some kids song we love too)

• One Dozen Monkeys - They Might Be Giants

New Music found on Youtube

• A-Punk - Vampire Weekend (Ben’s favorite) (video)
• New Soul - Yael Naim (video)
• Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk (fan videos: Daft Hands, Daft Bodies)
• Here It Goes Again - OK GO (video)

What songs do you like to listen to with the kids?

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