Saturday, November 27, 2010

PDX Car Bomb Plot Should Raise Questions

When Mohamed Osman Mohamud walked away from his car bomb to detonate it using a cell phone, what if a Portland police officer who was not in on the sting tried to act? Portland has been plagued with public outcry over police shootings and the atmosphere surrounding the the use of deadly force makes officers question themselves before they act. If an officer had reason to believe there was a threat I would hope he would act without restraint to protect the innocent lives. Unfortunately, the likes of Jessie Jackson and Police Chief Mike Reese create a real threat when they punish officers for taking action to protect the public.

Portland Police Chief Mike Reese fired Officer Ronald Frashour for the fatal shooting of a suicidal man who failed to follow police instructions. Although the man was later found to be unarmed, repeated requests to stand down, and the initial shooting of non lethal rounds also failed to stop the suspect. Aaron M. Campbell was killed and Rev. Jessie Jackson stepped into the media spotlight to further prosecute the Portland cop and make a national sensation of the situation.

Fast-forward to Friday night, during the November 26th Portland tree lighting ceremony and think about who you have running your Police department. The leadership will fire officers for using deadly force, and here you had a potential situation where an unarmed man had the intent to kill 1000's of innocent lives.

Fortunately this situation was all a sting, the explosives were fake, and the FBI had control of the situation. Remember Portland withdrew from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2005. God help us if we need to rely on Mayor Sam Adam's leadership or Police Chief Mike Reese for protection in any future attempt.

A big thanks to the FBI for catching this terrorist, but as for your fearless Portland leader, don't worry, he is on the Q-Patrol,


Friday, November 26, 2010

New EPA Disinformation Stickers


The Environmental Protection Agency is now propping up it's car company, GM with new fuel rating stickers to convince consumers that Hybrid and Electric cars will save the planet.
With a 37% government stake in GM, is this not a a conflict of interest? Why allow the EPA to be the credible source for fuel efficiency data on a company the government holds a large share?

Notice how they use a 60MPG claim when doing a comparison to "compact cars" yet this 60MPG economy rating is a composite of using a plug in charging source, and not purely gallons of fuel. This is totally bias and an unfair comparison to real world economic measures, especially when considering how there are little to NO all electric or plug in charging vehicles on the road.

The real numbers are the tiny energy cost numbers in the lower right. When you compare the "Never Charge" numbers you only get 9 cents per mile. An economy diesel fuel vehicle will cost you between 6 and 8 cents per mile depending on the price diesel of fuel in your area.

What is sad about this farce is they want you to be environmentally conscious but fail to inform you that the majority of electricity in this country is produced by burning coal. The EPA won't promote diesel engines because they want you to believe the are a bigger pollutant, but when you calculate the extra miles you go on a gallon of diesel it actually pollutes less than gas.

The other major flaw in this EPA sticker is the price per uses 11 cents per kilowatt hour and $3.20 per gallon of gas. At the time of this post, the US average kWh is 12 cents and the gas price is less than $2.87 per gallon. This EPA sticker grossly mis-represents both energy costs to favor the electric vehicle. If you live in CA you will pay 15 cents per kWh to charge yet only 3.14 for a gallon of gas. New Yorkers will pay 19 cents for each kWh of power, yet only $3.00 for a gallon of regular gas. Worse yet, they show a cost per year if you use the car exclusively Electric OR Gas further swinging the bias of this sticker. How can they reliably publish this information considering the volatile energy market and regional differences in cost?

Now consider that Obama hopes to electric rates "necessarily skyrocket" and his administration supports banning oil drilling and exploration, no matter what you use to power your car you will be paying more than ever before. Obama has no interest in america's energy independence, but is more focused than ever on killing any effort to develop domestic oil supplies. What does you car run on? What can you afford to buy? At a $41,000 price tag, I won't be buying a "VOLT" any time soon.

Don't get fooled folks, until we get serious about developing affordable energy supplies, it won't matter if your car runs on hopes or dreams, it will cost you plenty.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Mr. K's Doomsday Plan



"Create the fundamental conditions for long-term job creation and prosperity. Achieving these conditions will require transformational changes in a number of major systems including education, public finance, health care and energy."

If I understand this correctly he will create jobs simply by "Changing" our education, "PUBLIC" finance, health care and energy systems? Since when did ANY of these systems create substantial job growth or reverse economic recessions? Were DOOMED!

John Kitzhaber's "Actions"

"Create Access to Capital" Isn't that what the Obama stimulus and bank bailouts were for? More loans and debts for business will not create jobs. Cutting taxes, red tape, and eliminating bureaucratic roadblocks will.

"Promote Energy Efficiency" How does this create jobs in Oregon? Will someone explain this to me? Sure saving energy saves money, but not when the global warming mafia will then tax your use of energy to off set any savings you may gain.

"Connect Oregonians to work through training for high demand jobs." What does that mean? Is that even a sentence? I had to click through his website to figure it out.Mr K will get out-of-work Oregonians, specifically those in the construction trade to learn how to do commercial insulation and weatherization work, build windmills and install solar panels. Some may become nurses and Dr's too because you know the health care industry will need all those unemployed people after they complete their 8 years of training.

I have to hold back my urge to use profanity as I read the Kitzhaber plan for Economic Prosperity. We are DOOMED, if we don't get this state off the backs of the small business. I am still in shock that this election was decided by Multnomah and Lane counties. Even more disappointing is how so many don't understand how continuing these business hostile policies do nothing but kill jobs and stifle economic growth.

Those of you unemployed, or underemployed, better jump on one of John's job programs soon. There are nearly 400,000 unemployed Oregonians that will be looking to John for a job thinning forests, something tells me those jobs will go quickly.

If your suffering like me from lack of inspiration, read his plan for yourself. I did because were now stuck with him, I want to know what to expect. As I feared, my it is worse than I originally thought.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Looking For Jobs? Hope Is Not Enough


Obama defends his economic policy, claims the 814 BILLION in stimulus spending "worked" but unemployment has gone UP to 9.6% and Obama's newest economic adviser warns this high rate will continue. He passed this as economic stimulus when it was nothing more than political hand outs to states, who support him and not to those who don't while leaving those who need it most empty handed. It was supposed to keep Unemployment under 8%, the only thing it stimulated was delay, with studies, and review that only complicate otherwise routine infrastructure projects. Now he want's more regulation of business, higher taxes for those who hire, and more hand outs to labor and public employee unions. Unions may have given us the weekend, but today they are giving jobs to China & Mexico, leaving US workers off indefinitely.

How do you stop this economic disaster? Vote, call your congressmen, voice your displeasure with your government.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. - Gerald Ford

Monday, May 24, 2010

More Gmail Goodness

For the last year I have migrated from using two mail services, to just one: Gmail. Before this my work email was separate and I had a Blackberry that merged the two into one inbox. Since loosing the enterprise services for my Blackberry and now using the Motorola Droid phone, keeping my mail communication simple was getting sticky.

Gmail can handle checking in to any email account easily enough, yet I still needed a traditional email program for business use so I have entrusted Thunderbird for that task. Outlook was just too heavy for simply managing my mail and address book, Outlook Express was being a nuisance and would take eons to load and lacked fast keyword searching. Thunderbird loads quick, has a simple search and allowed me to easily import contacts.

The last piece of the puzzle just fell into place when I discovered gContactSync, a plug-in for Thunderbird that synchronizes my Gmail contacts into a new address book within the Thunderbird system. Now when I add contacts on my Droid, it syncs both to my Gmail cloud and then when I launch Thunderbird I have a hard-copy on my laptop too.

Now I might just be more inclined to clean up my address book as well.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Android 2.1 Letdown

I'm still waiting for Motorola to release the latest upgrade to my Droid OS, Android verson 2.1. The main reason I have been craving this upgrade is it was expected to provide multi-touch into the OS in native form. Currently only the Google Maps 4.0 supports multi-touch pinch for zoom, a major improvement over trying to tap a tool button and only getting incremental zoom. As for the web browser, fortunately PC world pointed me to a free browser called Dolphin I need to try out to fix the lackluster zoom provided in the included web browser on my phone.

Don't get me wrong, my Droid kicks my blackberry to the curb in most every way, it is still just disappointing how it still needs to catch up to features my 1st generation iPod touch offered years ago.

For some great details on the Android 2.1 release read RJ Raphael's review on PC world here.

Get Dolphin Here:
Latest version is V1.2.99 Scan or click the link below to download now!



(or search "Dolphin Browser"in android market)

*Don't know what the images above is all about? Use your barcode scanner on your Android phone and snap a scan of the above to see!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Droid Driving

My Droid has nearly completely replaced my iPod touch as my favorite gadget. What I needed to get the full convenience was the ProClip mount. Today it arrived and I replaced my ProClip iPod mount with my new Droid mount. ProClip has a vehicle to gadget matching system that allows you to dock your phone, iPod , or GPS to your dash allowing you to safely use your device. My iPod was always in easy reach, but now with my new Droid docked in it's place I have navigation and local search at my fingertips. If you spend any amount of time commuting it is worth the investment to upgrade to a ProClip system. They are a bit pricey compared to a universal system but they are well built and thoughtfully designed to fit each device. The Droid mount allows you to view the phone in portrait or landscape mode, and even allows the keyboard to slide out. The clip keeps the buttons jacks clear to connect the charging cable and the audio output.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Droid Does!

It has been almost a month now I have been putting my new Motorola Droid phone though the paces. My Verizon contract was up and for the past year I was planning on dumping them for AT&T so I could finally have the iPhone. This decision was not easy, and it weighed heavily on me. Yeah, your thinking it's just a phone, but my phone stays on my hip from the time I get out of the shower until I hit the sheets and serves many duties. Besides making calls, my relaible Blackberry pearl delivered my email, posted tweets, sent twit-pics, located places of interest with google maps, and accessed facebook mobile. Although it didn't have GPS, the location feature via cell service was good enough to keep me from getting lost in Yakima. I won't miss the little screen or the buggy delay of the pearl track ball, but I will miss the way it was quick to answer the phone and easy to charge. More on that in a moment.

The Droid is expensive compared to most phones in Verizon's arsenal, with a 2 year contract it sets you back $199, however I have a $100 rebate in route so if you net it out it's comparable to most smart phones. Where it begins to pay for itself is in the services it provides. The Droid comes with Google navigation, actual voice turn-by-turn directions, and unlike most car nav's it is powered by real time Google data. This replaces your VZ navigation charge if you subscribe and could save you the cost of the phone in one years time. The Android market is full of other useful apps as well, and since the phone has a large touchscreen, media player, and removable upgradable Micro SD storage chip it hold twice as much media as my 8GB iPod touch. Upgradable to 32GB you will have plenty of room for pictures, video, and music. So far it replaced my Car GPS & My iPod.

As for the Droid as a phone, it has great call quality, seems to have better reception than my Pearl, and a much louder and more clear speaker phone. As for comfort it is awkward to hold up to my ear and much heavier than many phones. Using blootooth is the best way to comfortably make calls, yet one nuance is the way you answer. W/O a headset you slide the answer prompt and it has more than once failed to function with ease. It is frustrating at times even to unlock or wake the Droid. I hope to find an app that improves the wake-up unlock gestures. The blackberry I just pressed a button, the droid takes some effort and is more likely to cause a call fumble.

Another minor flaw is the slider keyboard. A real keyboard should have been the major advantage over the iPhone but the flat keys are hard to handle. With no feel to the keys fat fingering is frustrating and frequent. While I still slide it out for most major typing every time I make a mistake I curse the designer. Motorola should have had a blind person design the keyboard but i will move on.

A major disappointment with the Droid is the the camera. It has a 5MP camera that shoots good quality video too, but don't throw away your digital camera just yet. The camera, like most camera phones, does poorly in low light, so it has an obnoxious LED flash that blinds your subjects and then casts a harsh glow on everything in the shot. The camera is also painfully slow, poor to focus, and crashes on many of the apps that use it. Don't think the Droid camera is going to be something to rely on, unless a software upgrade fixes it's slow response time, I will only be using it for the augmented reality apps I have installed.

What is "Augmented Reality"? Glad you asked. With a GPS location, and 3G connection to the information super highway, the Droid can become a window to real-time location aware information right before your eyes. Think of it like terminator vision, or a heads up display like a fighter jet pilot.. oh, yeah, and there is an app for that too.

Google Goggles
allows you to photograph objects and text and it does an instant optical charicter scan and then shows you google search results of your photo. Take a picture of famous art, a logo or sign, and it uses your location and the object to feed relevant information to you from the web. The AR feature shows push pins of google maps data within your proximity. For example, the restaurant or store location and contact information will appear if you click the little push-pin icons withing the camera view as you pan around. This is difficult to describe so check it out on YouTube.

Layar is another AR app that allows you to choose layers of data to overlay your reality view through the camera or see it on a map view of your location. Many pre made layers exist from golf courses to the Wikipedia. Great for tourists! I recently tried Layar in Portland, it was keen to find places to eat nearby, but I ended up using Google Maps to actually give me walking directions to the nearest Pizza Schmizza store.

Google Sky is another app similar to an augmented reality app but it uses the phones orientation and your location to show you the constellations based on the place and time of day,the angle you hold the phone and the compass within the Droid. Pretty cool for star gazers!

A few other camera apps that have been fun but not yet all that useful are a bar-code scanner and a streaming video app that crashes my droid when I try to use it. Hopefully the bugs get worked out on a software update so I can stream some video to this blog. I bet you can't wait! One use the bar-code scanner impressed me with was loading new apps. Some websites include digital image codes on the page that you can snap with the bar-code reader and it takes your phone to the app download page to install it. No need to input any URL or search for the app in the app market, it just finds it in a 'snap'

I mentioned Driod replaces my iPod touch but one app that has made my iTunes obsolete is Pandora. Pandora is a streaming audio app that play music based on your preferences. Make a radio station based on an artist you enjoy and it picks similar music, commercial free, and streams it in amazing quality to your phone. I just plug my headphone jack into my car radio for my commute home. No more dangerously changing tracks, or looking for albums on my iPod, I just let Pandora pick and if they pick poorly I tap "Thumbs Down" and they pick a new track. Since pandora seems to have every song at my fingertips, I don't see the need to fill up that 16gb SD chip with Mp3's. More room for apps!

The web browser on the Droid is far superior to my Blackberry but not quite as friendly as my iPod touch was. The lack of true multi-touch in the browser is odd. Multi-touch works on the droid, but I have only noticed it function with Google Maps. Pinch works to zoom in and out of maps but not on images or pages in the media app or browser. Using the zoom controls makes tapping the wrong spot and accidentally hitting a link frustrating and frequent. This is overcome by google's voice search feature. Simply touch the voice search microphone and it listens to your request and searches google for your answer. Most of the time this is reliable, but short sweet statements are difficult for me. I typically ramble and blabber a query and I get nothing. I need to practice being short and to the point. Let me continue...

Since I used to Geocache frequently I am hoping the Droid may become a paperless caching solution that can also replace my hand held hiking GPS, but there are a couple problems with that. First, my GPS was waterproof, and 2nd, some remote geocaching locations may not have good 3G coverage. Provided I pre-plan my rural trips and keep my GPS handy for rainy days, the Droid may make spontaneous urban caching a pleasure. I downloaded Geobeagle and it works but is not very refined. A geocaching app from Groundspeak is in the works. I'll keep you posted.

The Droid definitely replaced my car navigation GPS, and my iPod touch for most uses, I can't stop at that alone. The multiple apps I have tried make the Droid far superior to my blackberry so by getting 3 gadgets in one make it a real value. I won't proclaim it to be a iPhone killer as some try to do, but for those of you who realize the superior 3G service Verizon provides, love everything Google, and love to be on the cutting edge of technology I highly recommend the Droid. If you can wait, you may want to hold out for the Nexus One. It is faster and and does almost everything the Droid does. Just to recap, below is a list of what my Droid Does. If you read this please give me your feedback, comment here, Buzz, Tweet, Facebook, or email me.

Email, Tweet, Google Talk, Twitpic, Listen to Mp3's, Watch YouTube, Navigate, Local Search, Surf the Web, Geocache, Geotag, Facebook, Text, Blog, Get a weather report (With Video!) Calendar & Contact Sync, Price Search with Bar-Code Scanner, oh, and I make phone calls sometimes too.

Ben