Archives for May 2008

Is Recession Only Media-Driven?

KS said, “Why can’t the media stop driving recession? I’d rather turn off the telly and get on with my life.”


Tell these people whose jobs are going overseas that it’s media driven.

Hey folks! have a nice day! Take a vacation, buy a pool!”

It’s absolutely not media driven. The media may be contributing to the fear, but they certainly aren’t *DRIVING* it.

It would be entirely irresponsible for the media to say to the public :

“*IGNORE* that you’re paying 30% more for gas. *IGNORE* that you have less money after paying your bills. Ignore that your pay has been declining for the past 5 years. *IGNORE* that you have no equity in your homes to take out home equity loans. You, the general public need to go out and spend the money you no longer have! Be happy, spend money! Get this economy rolling again!!”

Frankly, if you don’t have it to spend, and if you can’t get a loan against your assets, then you don’t spend.

In our corner of the world, it’s a 30% higher fuel cost, leading to higher transportation costs, higher heating costs, higher food bills and lower disposable income. It also doesn’t help that for 100 years, we had factory jobs that paid twice the national wage and those jobs have now gone overseas.

Feel free to complain about a “media driven recession,” but nationwide, people who follow the news – and those that don’t – are all feeling the pain of higher prices, lower disposable income.

Google Maps for that Ultimate Street View Experience

DC noticed one amazing Google Maps feature – Street View. It’s simply awesome for letting you travel anywhere you want.


Actually, Google maps works better than you know. Here’s the awful truth.
Google’s street view isn’t really new. It’s been around since May 2007, but they’ve been adding new cities.


Last Autumn, before my family vacationed in San Francisco, we used Google’s Street view to take a virtual walk from the Hotel we chose to Fisherman’s Wharf. We were able to “walk down the streets” in Google maps, look around at all the buildings, until we arrived at our destination. A few weeks later, when we were physically in San Francisco, the experience of *really* walking down the streets was eerily familiar compared to our “virtual walk” in Google Maps, weeks earlier.


Here’s a real-world example. Click the arrows on the street to walk down the street.


Here’s when you can see in which US Cities Google provides a photographic street view.

Plug and Play Internet Makes the Guests Stay

According to AS, “Plug and play” should work for guests who need Internet connection and stay working once connected. Usually, all you have to do to fix your Internet connection problem is to restart the modem. You should worry more about the computers.

I agree.

Plug and play.

My only advice: Leave the router exposed so that the guest can unplug it to reset it, if needed. Or, so the guest can press the router “reset” button, in the case of an emergency. Sometimes, if the Internet connection goes down, you’ll just need a simple “power down, wait two minutes, power back up” to get it restarted. You can’t easily have the guests take care of it themselves if your router and modem are locked away in a cupboard.

Cedar Point: One of America’s Top Roller Coaster Parks

Cedar point has no sit down “theme” type attractions, but if you are fond of theme parks, you’ll find that it’s one of the top roller coaster parks in America.


In the past several years, several popular indoor water park hotels have been built very near Cedar Point. Recently we’ve stayed at the Great Bear Lodge and Castaway Bay, which have large indoor waterparks.


Check out these hotels near Cedar Point.


Mobile Working: How to Get Connected and Save Money

Question from DM:

You are planning to travel the US and you need to keep the communication lines open online with a help of an AOL connected laptop. You already have AOL Broadband on your PC. Can AOL Broadband be transferred to the laptop while you’re traveling?


You no longer need to pay AOL monthly fees to keep up your AOL e-mail address. Here are the details.

Transfer your AOL e-mail address to a FREE AOL account that requires NO AOL software.

Then use your laptop with Internet Explorer and Firefox to see the Internet without AOL slowing you down.

And save hundreds of dollars per year that you’re paying to AOL that isn’t really necessary anymore. AOL’s catastrophic member subscription decline is a true indication that AOL was once a valuable product that has now been replaced by a better, free, non-AOL Internet.