isnoop.net blog

We live in a world where people are increasingly finding writing more than one paragraph to be a physically painful experience. These days, you are probably less likely to find stationary in your desk drawer than at any time since the great depression. I certainly don’t own any stationary. The closest thing I come to proper letter writing paper is a yellow notepad and several pads of graph paper.

Enter incompetech.com’s Plain Paper Grapher. You can choose from a variety of very useful lined paper generators; all sorts from graph to dots, logarithmic to polar graph paper, music notation to traditional simple lined paper and much more!

All of the paper generators have a variety of options to make your graph or lined sheet experience the best you’ve ever had. Once you’ve set the parameters, the tool quickly generates a pristine PDF for you to use once or print off a whole notebook with. All this and no ads on the final product!

This is a very good idea and it is very well executed. Kudos, incompetech.com!

Search Google for real estate. As of a recent Google update, you should see Google’s newest search integration feature. (If not, try refreshing. This appears to be in a testing phase right now.)

This new feature seems to go head-to-head with the most basic of features (mapping properties for sale) offered by real estate mapping guru site zillow.com and to a lesser degree redfin.com.

Don’t want spammers emailing you through your website’s contact link? The answer is simple: Forget email. Give the internet your phone number.

There are a number of services available which provide a cheap or free voicemail box with a number based in just about any major city. I’ve used k7.net to create my own voicemail/fax line that feeds straight into my email box.

If you’d like to reach me, feel free to give me a call any time, 24×7 at 206.666.3187. If you ever lose the number, don’t worry. You can find it on the front page of my website.

It is very uncharacteristic of Apple to have announced the iTV months in advance of release. However, if you’ve been looking in the right places, you might have noticed that you can enjoy your networked HDTV media on your big screen TV today!

Your video options are nearly limitless:
• HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)
• Component Video
• Coax Digital Audio
• Optical Digital Audio
• Composite Audio and Video
• S-Video

The connectivity is fantastic:
• 802.11g Wireless
• 802.11b Wireless
• Wired LAN: 10/100Mbps Ethernet
• DHCP or Static IP Address
• UPnP AV 1.0
• USB 2.0
• WPA-PSK Encryption
• Hardware-based WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
• Up to 128-bit Encryption

As an aside, I’m particularly pleased that they added WPA-PSK into a network appliance.

The idea of putting the power supply inside a device this size was brilliant, but the best part of all is the price: You can buy it now for $199, an entire 33% off of Apple’s iTV suggested retail price!

(click for larger image)

As far as speculations on whether the iTV is going to revolutionize the way home media and electronics are purchased and enjoyed, I am doubtful. The D-Link MediaLounge DSM-520 (see listed specs above) has been available for close to a year now and it has made only a little splash in the media consuming community.

This is a photo from today’s Apple press event.

Your pocket is protected.