On Robert Scoble’s blog today, Robert suggested we all buy playstation’s and HDTV’s on credit at Best Worst Buy and and justify it by saying it’s only $140 in payments.

I think it is extremely irresponsible for anybody to suggest buying tech toys on credit if you can’t afford it. In a world where consumer debt is at an all time high, one should not be promoting people to go buy things on credit just to keep up with the Jones’s. These are wants, not necessities.

What happens in an emergency, you’ve run up your credit cards on toys that you can’t afford, and an emergency comes along like your furnace going out in the middle of the winter… Get that credit card out and dig yourself deeper into debt. Once someone starts living on debt, it is hard to get out of the vicious cycle.

Scoble, I am hereby calling you out as this being one of the most irresponsible thing you’ve ever said. Everyone else should be saying the same thing!!!

[tags]Robert Scoble, Scoble, Scobleizer, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, HDTV, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, Playstation, Playstation 3[/tags]

Google released their Docs & Spreadsheets online Application today and it supports blog publishing to what seems like any type of blog. I ‘m currently writing this post in a Google Doc and will be publishing it from google’s publish tools. I’m curious to see how this works out and if I can add images inline and they automatically get posted and how it all works. I can see it not being the most efficient way to post to a blog already. We’ll see, here we go…. now with the post.

**Update** So I posted this and a title wasn’t added. Not sure what I have to do to get a title added. I should probably read the google docs first. I hate to read technical docs 🙁 So far I will not be making this my blogging tool of choice. But I find it a great way for someone to create and read word and excel docs without ever having to install an office suite on their machine. Have we finally come to an age that we know longer need an office suite on our machine? For most users google Docs & Spreadsheets will be able to handle most if not all their document needs. The power user probably still wants to keep excel and word handy. All google needs now is a online presentation suite and a database and google office will be complete.
[tags]Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google, Office, Online tools, word, excel, office killer[/tags]

Was just wondering if there are any Chicago readers heading to Tech Cocktail?  Shoot me an e-mail and we can hook up and chat over a beer.

[tags]Tech Cocktail, Techcocktail, Chicago[/tags]

Google updated their online RSS reader yesterday and I have to say it is more visually apealing than Bloglines and very easy to use.  I find it fits into my RSS reading workflow extremely well and has shortcuts.  I’m not sure if the old version supported shortcuts as I never really used it.

If there are any bloglines users out there, I recommend checking it out.  I think you may convert.  Some of the shortcuts you know and love still apply.  I even convinced my wife to drink the RSS Kool-Aid with Google Reader today.
Here is my RSS reader History.

1:  Onfolio – About 2 years – Purchased by Microsoft and it doesn’t look as if they are going to support Firefox anymore 🙁 I loved this app, one of the very few apps i’ve ever purchased.
2:  Rojo – Very short time, maybe 2 weeks
3:  Bloglines – for the last 3 months – Hated the Uglyness of the interface!
4.  Google Reader – Today -> the future!!! Pretty and Functional

[tags]Bloglines, Google Reader, RSS[/tags]

My new chair. I finally spent some money and bought a decent chair because my back is in pain for sitting at a computer 16 hours a day in crappy chairs. I’ve sat in hundreds of chairs over the last month and it was down to Eurotech’s Ergohuman Chair, a Herman Miller Aeron, and a Steelcase Leap Chair, and this won out over the Aeron and Leap chair. Now I just need it to come in and then I can do a proper review on the chair.

So until I can do a proper review, check out this YouTube video. The chair comes in Mesh and leather, i’ve opted for the leather and I am not completely convinced of the durability of mesh chairs. Supposedly the mesh stretches and starts to sag after a period of time. I don’t know about the validity of that, but I liked the leather more than the mesh model. Now I just have to get my boss to pony up some money for a new chair at work too.
[tags]Ergonomics, Ergonomic, Ergonomic Chair, Aeron, Herman Miller, Steelcase Leap Chair, Eurotech, Ergohuman, office chair, Mesh Chair, Back Pain[/tags]

Unless it is absolutely necessary.  Chris Pirillo’s post titled “10 ways to Eliminate the echo Chamber”.

I’m taking Chris Pirillo’s advice, and i’m not going to check my feed reader for one week.

During this week, i’m going to blog every day at least once about an Idea that is original and not being talked about in the blogosphere, or at least that I know of because i’m not seeing my feeds :)  You can call me out if I post about what some other blogger is saying.  I’m done talking about
[tags]Echo chamber, original, thinking, writing[/tags]

It has been in the rumor mill for quite while that Microsoft was going to release a blog publishing tool. Well they did it and released “Windows Live Writer” I thought it was going to be more of an integration into office rather than a stand alone blog publishing tool.

So far it looks decent, but I will reserve more critical judgements until I have posted more with it. This will be my first post using this tool and I am going to try and use it for 10-15 posts then write a review of my experiences detailing the the input, output, tagging, multimedia, & wordpress integration.

**update** if you want a more detailed commentary, check out Om Malik’s blog post regarding this.[tags]Microsoft, Windows Live Writer, Blogs, blog tools, blog publishing [/tags]

Everybody, be extra nice to your system administrator tommorow, and shower us with lots of presents. 😉

I’m taking the day off in celebration, not really… My day off tommorow just happens to be coincidental.

[tags] [/tags]

Well i’be been an onfolio user for quite some time and microsoft bought them recently which pretty much kills the idea of them supporting firefox ever again.  So for the last week, i’ve been trying out new RSS readers.  Most have them have been online as I currently use 3 diffferent computers and would like my feeds accesible wherever I go.  The 2 front runners have been Rojo and Bloglines.

I have resisted bloglines for some time as I just can’t stand the looks of the interface.  step in Rojo.  Rojo is incredibly pretty and I really like what they are doing in the the social aspect of a blog reading, taggingn, etc.  Only one problem, there aren’t any shortcuts to quickly run through my feeds.  Reading feeds with a mouse can be extremely time consuming.  So i’m giving bloglines another shot and have been using it all day.

Does anybody have know of a way to change the interface of bloglines and make it look less circa 2000?  Right now the looks are my really only complaint with bloglines as the shortcuts they have provided make it easy to blast through my feeds efficiently.

[tags]RSS, RSS Reader, Bloglines, Onfolio, Rojo, feeds, shortcuts, GTD[/tags]