6th Healthiest Isn’t That Good

6th isn't goodSo I saw this “News” item in Google News today and just thought I would point out a few things. First off the title stating that Connecticut is 6th healthiest state in the nation, OK that’s nothing to be too happy about its not like they are first or second or even third so why waist our time with this? Second if they are “Healthy” why have a photo of a bunch of fat women walking down a street that doesn’t show they are all that healthy. And finally this is the real point of this story “high number of people who get immunized”!

What this is, is a story that was paid for by drug companies to promote that being healthy means you get immunized! But why do they care all that much, its because you cant sue them if you get sick from any immunization, they get you to take there drugs with out even being sick, and they are all putting a lot of money in new immunizations as there new money makers because the patents on expensive medications are starting to run out giving other companies the ability to produce generic versions and let people who need them not have to play a large amount of money for them because one company controls the formula that may save some ones life but only if they are willing to pay!

I’m not saying that all immunizations are a bad thing, most of the ones that you can get for free from a heath office when you were a kid and have been given out for a long number of years should be safe but the ones that are advertised to you on TV and have big budgets you may want to look into what it relay dose, or even better why should you even need it before you get too excited on what it may offer.

This is just something that I noticed and just had to write about, its not my normal thing to bring up but something I want people to understand. May start adding more of this stuff if I feel like writing it up.

Tek4.ME My New Technology Blog

A few weeks ago I quit my normal crummy job that wasn’t helping me with my goal of working with computers, technology, or the internet. I had gotten my degree as an Information System Administrator but the job market for IT workers is very hard because there aren’t that many jobs where I live, but I had a few ideas on how I can still have an income.

First I have done some service calls for a company installing Internet, and those pay good for the work, I also have some friends that has been offering to get me doing the service calls they do but in my area. Because these calls aren’t consistent I plan to do some other stuff with my time when I’m not just taking care of my kids.

So my plan is to write on my Technology and Gadget blog Tek4.ME as much as I can. It will have topics such as news about upcoming Apple, Microsoft, Google, and other Companies new products and services. The blog will also have tips and tricks for best using your technology and online services. Some of the articles already up include my Hands on Review of the Nexus 7, information on why YouTube won’t be part of iOS 6, and what’s new in Windows Essentials 2012.

Finally I would also like to start building a few websites a month; this would be things like setting up and building a site using WordPress or Drupal for any type of business or organization. If interested check out more information at Grand Junction Computers web site.

Please follow us on RSS, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook for all the updates!

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Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS

Just found this on Google+ its an amazing time lapse from space over earth at night. Some of the coolest things are watching the lightning as they fly over the different parts of Earth. Check it out its worth going and seeing it on the HD Vimeo site because there lame and wont let you embed it.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Google’s New Look

Over the past month or two Google has been changing how things look on their sites such as the search page, G+, news, docs, and recently Gmail, Reader, and calendar. I have the new look running on all my Google stuff except GMail. I don’t know why but with the extra spacing I was having problems reading my inbox, but as writing this I did switch to the new look and after seeing that you can change the “Display Density” I kind of like it too.

All the new looks are meant to make things nicer and more modern, along with make all the Google pages the same look across their sites. I have one problem with them having dynamics width and not a fixed with once they get too wide. But not vary many people are running there screen at 1080p and maximize there screens like I do, I think. Writing this in Word I only have it using half the screen because it would look bad so I need to go back to keeping my GMail in a smaller window. G+ dose have a fixed width though, humm.

Now that G+ is on my domain apps things are working better, since I can stay logged into one account now. But it seems that the new look dose make it much easier to use the sites. Seems that I’m just rambling on about this so will call it for now.

First Blogging / Podcasting Month Post

So this is my first post for blogging month. It can also be podcasting month too and I plan on doing that also because I am trying to grow both of those. So I am going to give an overview of some of the things I have been thinking to cover.

On the blog I will be talking about some of my experiences with playing with new Linux distributions. I have also just setup Google+ on my domain since that came out a few days ago so ill have some posts about the experiences with it. Also I am trying to use Google Docs to work out my posts before I put them in WordPress on my site so will see how that goes for typing things up over using Word.

On the podcast I will be talking about some of my designer to do a podcast or show. There will be coverage of some of the tech news stories, and what I think of them. I finally will work to expand some of my thoughts about technology and how we are using it right and how we are missing out on other things.

These are just a general listing of things I want to try and work out, if I can get something that works out good I may turn it into a regular show. Also the blog will probably get some more focus.

And to close typing this out in Google Docs has worked out not too bad, will see what else I can do with it.

Also if you noticed it was late L had it written up, just didn’t post it yet hehe. 10 min shot.

Google Galaxy Nexus

Google and Samsung just announced a few days ago there new Galaxy Nexus phone and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich! From the demos of new features and how slick the hardware is its making me want one of these new phones. There are some things that bugged people such as the name is backwards to the other Nexus phones out (Nexus One, Nexus S) but meeh not that big of a problem.

There was a few problems with the demos but things like voice dictation worked good but the guy tried doing it too fast and it had the first word wrong. Also the face unlock didn’t work but that could have been other things.

But as for new things such as the fonts, task switching, camera app, menu buttons, and power of the phone I can’t wait for this. You can get some info about it on the Google site  ( http://www.google.com/nexus ) or check out the YouTube video in this post. Also Twit.TV did some good commentary along with the announcement video check it out at ( http://youtu.be/lD79yTFS2-0 )

They did not have full specs of the phone or what cell phone companies in the USA would have it, but it sounds like there will be one for CDMA companies (Sprint and Verizon) and a HSPA+ version (T-Mobile, ATT&T, almost every other cell company around the world) But they did say it would have a desktop dock like the Nexus One, this is something I use every day with my Nexus One still.

Can’t wait hope it won’t cost too much and I can get one on T-Mobile unless someone wants to give me a hook up 😀

IE HTML5 & CSS3 with Selectivizr & HTML4SHIM

While reading though my book about HTML5 and CSS3 they talk about a JavaScript library that helps Internet Explorer understand CSS3, and its new ways of styling websites. Selectivizer, previously IE-CSS3, will let you use good HTML5 code and some of the new ways of doing styling in CSS3 without adding lots of extra code that other browsers don’t need.

The problem with a lot of these JavaScript libraries is that they expect you to know how to get these things working without much explanation. So after a few pages of searching Google I did find Rey Bango’s blog and he gives a good explanation on how to use it and set it up.

Here is the code snippet that he gives about how to get it running on a page:

<script src="jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="selectivizr.js"></script>
<noscript><link rel="stylesheet" href="css/ie-fallback.css" media="screen, projection"></noscript>
<![endif]-->
<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet">

Also if you are trying to use HTML5 for building new websites or fixing up an old site you should also check out the html5shim that will fix IE so that it will understand some of the new elements added to HTML5.

To get it working on your site just add this code, no downloading needed because it’s all hosted up on Google Code:

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="//html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

These are a few things that are needed to make a site work right in IE because IE is such garbage.

Google Music Beta

Just got home from getting my car fix and I found a nice email waiting for me from Google saying that I have been invited to their music beta. They announced the service less than a month ago at the Google IO conference, and I signed up to be added when they had more space for people. I also have the new music app on my Nexus One and it’s kind of nice but I don’t listen to music I have on my phone all that much.

I did try out the Amazon Cloud Player a week or so ago and it was kind of cool to just have the app on my phone and be playing the songs I got without adding them to my phone. Before that I was trying a server app combo that worked ok but it was running all the time on my computer and wanted me to donate to keep it working after a month, it was called Subsonic and works the same why that both Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player do.

So far I just clicked the link in the email (I know you shouldn’t click email links but I trust and saw who it was from,) on the page it had me accept some terms and conditions (that I didn’t read much of) and then asked if I wanted some free music, I took everything just to see what there was nothing all that amazing but whatever. Then it asked to download the Music Manager and then skip on to the player.

The Music Manager was a web installer like the Chrome installer, after a user email and password it was setup very fast. On first load it asks if you want to import music from iTunes, Windows Media, My Music, or a Other folder. Because I don’t have iTunes installed and wont install it because its garbage and none of my music is in one place I did Other folders and added a few folders to the program. It then looked at the files and after the scanning of over 1,000 files it asked if I want to upload my files. It changes over to a new window showing progress and from there you can add folders and what not.

It did have an error uploading a file and it was shown in a separate window, I wouldn’t be surprised of an error because some of my music has come from years of collecting, computer wipes, and different sources. Back on the website I was seeing new songs show up and are organized kind of nice.

So far it plays good on a computer, pages load fast and the music streams like it was playing right on the computer. As for the Android app it took a second to load up the listing in the app after setting up the account to use. When you would play a track that was not cashed to the phone a few second later it would start playing over WIFI and you can see a tinted progress bar where it shows the play progress. But it all plays very nice ill have to see how 3G works some other time.

I think that Google has it working the best, but it is almost the same thing as Amazon, one difference is that Google counts the number of tracks and Amazon counts gigabytes giving you 5GB free on Amazon and 20GB if you buy an album. Where Google gives you 20,000 tracks at this point, who knows what they will do, if it’s like Picasa they will give a usable amount then sell you a yearly amount for a good price.

If you go over to http://music.google.com it looks like they are opening it up to anyone right now for there “free for a limited time” so go check it out. Below is a few screen shots of the service. Have fun with this, it might just get me to listen to more music or ill just stick with http://di.fm 😀