Email Shill

Got an email from one Mary Ann Rementilla:

Hi,

E-readers – Reading a book will never be the same again. I will miss the days where I ran my fingers through every page and the anticipation and wonder, that one single book has to offer.

Nonetheless, I’m writing to you on behalf of Starbucks. They’ve recently introduced a brand new flavor to their lineup – Vanilla Frappuccino Light. This rich beverage contains 50% fewer calories and 60% less sugar than their classic Vanilla flavor, making it that much easier to justify the indulgence!

In our busy lives, it’s hard to remember to stop and take a moment to ourselves every once in a awhile. Our new campaign with Starbucks is about indulgence and encouraging people to cherish their personal moments, whether it’s curling up with their favorite book or tucking their kids to bed.

Every Monday, we’re asking our blogger friends to post an image dedicated to the time in the past week that they were able to sneak away from their hectic life for a bit of relaxation – even if only for 5 minutes. It could be a photo of yourself, an illustration, a picture of your cat- anything.  

Your Monday Moment post doesn’t necessarily have to have anything to do with Starbucks, but the drink might help you to find that special moment!

Let us know we’d love to send you some Frappuccino Light to try out. I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,
Mary Ann

*At YouCast we support ethical blogging, WOMMA best practices, and strict adherence to the new FTC guidelines pertaining to free samples and gifts.  Participants in our campaigns are expected to do the same and we are here to assist and guide you as needed.

Mary Ann Rementilla
Community Manager
YouCast Corporation
401 Fifth Ave. 4th Floor
NY, NY 10016 USA
em. mrementilla@youcastcorp.com
W3. YouCastCorp.com

Nice.  She wants me to whore out my blog for a shitty Starfucks Frap.  All I can say is NO WAY.  This blog is advertising and sponsor free.  Anything I write about is MINE, not some company’s.

Ethical blogging my arse.  You can’t blog ethically about something you got for free.

Besides, I don’t like vanilla frap. Blech.

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E-Readers

I’ve been looking at e-readers for e-books.

I have a bunch of e-books that I’ve gotten off of Project Gutenberg and I’m not reading them.  Why?  Because reading on a computer screen is a pain in the butt for too long.

Yes, I know, I spend WAY too much time in front of the screen but I’d like to get away from the computer every once in awhile and opt for an e-ink screen.  I still read traditional books (I’m still in the middle of one I started awhile ago) and I love love love magazines.  I’d sub to more magazines if I could get them in digital form, I think, because, what the heck do you do with the mag when you’re done with it?

Anyway, I think this would be a neat thing to try out.

I’ve looked at the Kindle, the Sony e-readers, the Nook by Barnes and Noble, and a couple others made by other manufacturers.

The Kindle looks sweet.  I don’t know if I’m cool with the keyboard on the front of it.  It looks like a very nice gadget, but I can’t play with it or look at it before I buy.  And a picture on Amazon doesn’t count.

The Sony e-reader is massively expensive for the one I’d want (about $50 more than the Kindle or Nook).  The one that’s in my price range ($200) is much smaller than the Nook or Kindle, and has fewer features.

The other brands seemed very expensive with fewer options.

This brings me to the Nook.  There were a few bad reviews of this device saying it was slow, and that it had some quirks.  What really sells this reader to me is that I can play with it in the store (I did this the other day), that it has wifi and 3G connectivity, that it works automatically with Barnes and Noble (my local book chain), and that it will work with the books I’ve downloaded.  I’m hoping that there will be some new reviews up soon with the updates in the software.  There’s supposed to be PDF support; this is important to me because I have some magazines (Linux Journal and BSD Magazine) that I’d like to read on this device; they are in PDF format.

I’m thinking that I’d actually read more with this thing.  We’ll see if I actually get it.  It’s *only* $259.  I have a good selection of books to read on it, and I can stick it in my purse/bag to read when I’m out.  This would come in VERY handy when I go to Indianapolis in June; I’d have something to read when I’m waiting for people and other things.

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Good News

I’ve enabled posting without moderation again for people who’ve posted before on this blog.

I won’t have to follow email as closely and approve comments.

It seems like the spam issue is resolved.

Please refer to my comments policy for information about comments.  The TL;DR version is basically, “don’t be an ass”.  :)

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New Mouse

Ah, more new hardware.

Ended up getting a new mouse; my old Logitech was getting long in the tooth so I decided on a Microsoft Blue Track mouse, which is MS’s new laser tech.

I quite like this mouse.  It’s got a very precise tracking and has a decent heft.  I was used to my wired Logitech which had no batteries.  This does, being wireless (2 AAs).

Also, having batteries makes the mouse heavier than what I’m used to.  I liked the lightness of the Logitech.  Having a wire made it a little more tethered than this is.  I’m slowly getting used to the weight of the mouse as well as the rubbery grips on the side.  Awesome.

Likes:

• Speed of movement.
• Extra buttons: I have 2 side buttons.  They seem to be mapped to forward and back in my web browser.
• Scroll wheel.  It’s so smooth and fast.  It needs a little breaking in for clicking, but other than that, it’s great.
• Blue Track: it’s very precise.  Wow.

Dislikes:

• Weight.  Seems a little heavy with the batteries, but I’ll adjust.
• Wireless.  I really, really wanted the corded version of this mouse.  I couldn’t find it anywhere.  Maybe Microsoft doesn’t make it.  Oh well; I’ll use batteries.  At least I can take the USB dongle and stick it in a spot on the bottom to shut it off.

This is an awesome mouse.  It’s fast, precise, has horizontal and vertical scroll, two extra buttons, and rubber grips on the side.  It’s very comfortable to use.  Microsoft makes great peripheral hardware!

Oh, I have it running just fine in Ubuntu.  It says that it “requires Windows 7 or Mac OSX” on the box, but it’s a mouse!  There should be no software required to get it up and running.  If it was a gaming mouse, I could see requiring extra software, but not a basic mouse.

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New Theme and Other Changes

I’ve changed my theme.  Again.

I really like this theme (iNove).  It’s got a sweet black-and-white thing going on, plus the ability to use a ton of widgets.  The widgets render nicely in the margins.

Readers and visitors will also notice that I’ve added a bunch of pages: Contact, Profiles, and More Stuff to Read.  Pretty self-explanatory.

The contact page houses all of my chat handles, IRC information, and also a way to get to my formspring account.  The profiles page has links to all of the places to find me, including microblogging accounts and music sites.  The “More Stuff to Read” tab has the blogs I follow.

If you click on my profile picture, you’ll be taken to my flavors.me page.  I’m trying to use this as a main hub of my online identity.  Check it out here.

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Kubuntu 9.10

Yesterday while watching the hockey game, I decided to download Kubuntu 9.10 and give it a try.

After the CD booted up (it took forever; I don’t know what was going on with that), the interface was very snappy.  I liked what I saw, so I installed.  Installation was pretty quick (not as quick as Ubuntu) and overall the interface is great.

I got my desktop effects working after I installed the proprietary drivers for my nVidia graphics card.  Kwin works well; I don’t have to run compiz.

The widgets are something to get used to.  I like having weather and such on my desktop.  I know the same can be done in Gnome with gdesklets and the like, but I never had good luck with it.

I installed Wakoopa and Dropbox from the web, the System76 installer, Flock (which was already installed since I didn’t nuke my /home partition).

What I like:

• Slick interface.  KDE 4 has seriously improved from the 4.2 version I used last year.  It’s speedy, with many fewer crashes (I only had one; it was Plasma, and it came right back up).
• Kopete being integrated.  Kopete is a great IM program.  It does have a couple issues, but those will be addresed in the following section.
• Easy to install programs.  Yes, I think this is just an Ubuntu thing, as PPAs and .debs “just worked”.
• Amarok.  Other than being laid out differently than what I’m used to, It’s a very powerful way to organize your music and other media.
• KPackagekit.  This is a million times better than Adept.  I’m so happy they replaced Adept with this.  Takes a little bit of getting used to, as I’m a Synaptic gal, but it’s a very nice program.
• Speed.  Kubuntu seems very snappy (though it might be my computer, heh) on my Pangolian.  All of the effects work out of the box (after installation of my proprietary nVidia driver), and Kwin is pretty slick.
• The taskbar is awesome.  It reminds me of the new Windows 7 taskbar, but better.  :)
• Quassel. What an awesome IRC client.  If/when I got back to Gnome, I might use this instead of Xchat (though I love Xchat).

What I don’t like:

• Gnome apps look somewhat boxy.  Flock has blocky dropdowns on my blog editor.  Gwibber looks fine, but there are some blocky boxes.  This is due to the fact that I use those pieces of software and I can’t really live without them.  I know I could go to Choqok, but it doesn’t run facebook or friendfeed.  Gwibber has more features.
• Fonts seem kind of off or too large.  This is mostly in my Gnome apps.
• Knetworkmanager.  ARGH.  I can’t get it to connect to my wireless correctly.  The Gnome network manager detects and connects right away.
• The new menu.  I don’t like the “new” menu with the tabs and such.  I prefer the old version of the menu; actually, I prefer the Gnome menu.
• Single taskbar.  I’ve gotten so used to having the dual taskbars (really, a taskbar and a dock) in Gnome that it’s hard to go back to only having one bar.  I’ll get used to it.
• Kopete seems to like to disconnect from the internet all the time.

The whole KDE experience is great for someone coming from Windows.  There are many things that are similar to Windows 7 in the newest stable version of Kubuntu.

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