May 2007 Archives

Other great photo sites

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Branch reminded me that he is a photography buff.

I am getting ready to dive into doing panorama shots, but trying to figure out which HW and SW I
should use. I just downloaded RealViz’s software (http://www.realviz.com/ ) since a bunch of
pro’s seem to like it.  I am also looking at Really Right Stuff (http://www.reallyrightstuff.com/pano/index.html
) and Manfrotto’s (http://www.manfrotto.com/Jahia/cache/offonce/pid/2356?livid=80&lsf=80&child=3
) tripod head gear to do panos.  Have you tried your hand in doing panorama’s
yet?

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Doubly Special Relativity

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Calvin and I have been reading a really interesting book about the politics of physic (yes there is such a thing called) The Trouble with Physics about the big issues with string theory. Thanks to Peter for sending to me.

He describes a really interesting theory called Doubly Special Relativity that although highly speculative makes more sense to us then a 12 dimensional universe. Basically it says that just as there is a speed limit for light at C, there is also a smallest possible length which is called Planck's length. As things get smaller and smaller (remember as you go faster, everything gets shorter and time gets longer, until you get to the speed of light when time stops and distances are zero), that the all observers can agree that nothing is smaller than Planck's length with is

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Best Seattle Restaurants

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Someone was asking me for the best restaurants of Seattle. Lots of controversy, here, but

The Seattle Times has their best list.

Notable new ones as opposed to boring old ones (but they are still great like the Herbfarm or Rover's) are:

  • Beato Food and Wine. It's more of a local place in West Seattle, but got a 3.5 stars from them
  • Coupage. Its in Madison Park and is actually French-Korean if you can imagine that. The signature dish is ground short ribs and foie gras which is called Coupage Burger. Its another neighborhood place.
  • Crow. Another neightborhood bistro this time in Queen Anne.
  • Marjorie. Its in Belltown and is now an exotic bistro where there are is an adventuresome memnu including Hanoi sprint golls, Sri Lankan Curry and Southern pork ribs all on the same menu.
  • Nell's. I haven't been there since it was called Saleh Alago's, but it is supposed to be wonderful.

Brasa's, Cascadia, Tulios (love their gnocchi!) and Campagne of course make the list as well.

The Seattle Weekly has a great alternative list as well:

Go once a year is a great list including:

Coupage, The Georgian, Brasa and Lampreia

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Well with the lenses I know I have, I cover just about every situation well but indoor sports for things like basketball.

The 100-400 is just too slow but has great zoom with the 1.6x lense factor, so everything looks blurry.

The 24-105 F4/L is also too slow as I need 1/500-1/1000 second to freeze movement and I can't get this without shooting at ISO 1600-3200 which looks really bad on my now old Canon Digital Rebel XT. (The biggest reason to upgrade now is not to go from 8megapixel to 10 megapixels, but to get the faster sensors with good quality at ISO 800-1600)

  • The 50 F1.4 is actually really good on speed, but unfortunately in basketball, you need quite a bit more zoom. It is really good for portraits indoors and it is wicked fast.

The folks at The Digital Picture have the problem well nailed. Basically, you should either get the 135mm if you have the dough or the 100mm if you don't or the 70-200 F/2.8 is you have dough and have a really fast modern camera like the Digital Rebel XTi that can take decent ISO 1600 pictures:

Canon EF 135mm F/2.0 L USM. This is the fastest lense you can get with the equivalent of a 200mm with the lense factor. It has incredible image sharpness. It does add another 1.7 lb or 750g to your kit though and it is $800 so expesnive, but with a Canon Digital Rebel, it is the equivalent of a 200mm lense, so perfect for taking those indoor available light ballet recitals or basketball games.

Canon EF 105mm F/2.0. This lense is relatively cheaper at $400 and also throws pretty well to an equivalent of 165mm.

Canon EF 70-200mm F/2.8L IS USM. You can use this lense only if you've got a camera with great performance at ISO 1600 which isn't the Digital Rebel unfortunately. For instance the Canon Digital Rebel XTi a.k.a. the EOS 400d is just a little less noisy than the 350d or Rebel XT, so doesn't help that much. Actually the Nikon D80 shows the best noise characteristics at high ISOs, but that's the wrong family. This by the way is a function of the in-camera noise reduction programs. Most cameras today are good to ISO 400 and then at 800 and 1600, the noise reduction software is key.

The last problem with the current setup is that Canon really doesn't have a completely versatile superzoom like the AF-S Zoom -Nikkor ED 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6G IF DX VR. I realize this is 10x level of zoom, but for really on the go use, that would be ideal. In fact, right now, if I were to start over, a Nikon D40x plus their 20-200mm lense would probably be the right way to go. Too bad, it is hard to know which way to jump. Nikon or Canon. Test show right now that in terms of image quality, the Nikon D80, D40x and Canon Digital Rebel XTi EOS-400D are identical in picture quality. The main thing is that sharpness is excellent although at the long end 200mm, you should use F/11-F/16

For $750, it's expensive when paired with a $800 camera, but for most folks it is the only lense they'll ever need. (Or get the 12-24mm F/4G AF-S DX is you need a really wide angle).

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Boy Genius reports that the Curve launches June 7. New Macbook Pros launch June 11 and the iPhone right after. It is going to be a great June!

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Disc Golf in Seattle

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Here are some great things to do if on a rainy day you want to play frisbee (a.k.a. disc golf). Here are some resources:

Places to play. Seattle Parks and Recreation: Mineral Springs Park (formerly North Seattle Park) Mineral Springs Park is home to one of Seattle's two disc golf courses. (It is really a nice park that is right by Northgate. Also close to Northgate Mall so you can go CPK later for pizza or Starbucks for a hot chocolate. It is close by at 1500 N 105th St, Seattle, WA

Another option is Juel Park in Redmond which is on Avondale road if you are an Eastsider.

You can't really play that effectively with a regular frisbee. You need one of those solid disks that can cut through the brush. If you need those special disc golf things, you can get them at the Gas Works Kite Shop. They have a great selection. The Aerobie folks have a starter kit that has a driver, a mid-range and a putter. Basically, these are different weights and fly straighter.

Finally, you want a score sheet which is no different from a golf one.

The rules are pretty intuitive like Ultimate Frisbee. The main lessons are that you can't lean forward. The "plant" foot which is where you put your wieght has to be as close to the font of where the disc landed. The other foot is where you want it but can't be any close than the rear of where the disc landed.

That site also has some great strategy advice that sounds much like regular golf and see discgolf.com which is filled with tips

  • The most important throw is the putt. If you can make a putt from 10 meters out, you'll nearly alway win.
  • You typically release 45 degrees away from the target

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PSP Video Encoding

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It is very confusing what you can encode on the PSP, it has all kinds of strange restrictions. Like, the file names have to be of in a directory called MP_ROOT/100MNV01 and the file name has to be MV*.MP4. The PSP is really a picky device. Also, when you are encoding, you have to be pretty careful what you use. Here is the data

How to encode a movie for the Sony PSP with ffmpegX (MacOS X)
# If your source is 16:9 sources, you may also use non-standard size of 368×208 . Note that the PSP screen has a resolution of 480×272, but for movie playback, width x height must not exceed 76800 pixels, so the smaller sizes listed above have to be used. Note that no matter the non-standard resolution used, the picture will be always scaled to the full 16:9 PSP screen size.
# If your source is 2.35;1 you must prior reverse it to 16:9 by using black bars.
# For 4:3 sources, always use the standard 320×240 resolution. To gain a little quality if you don't mind for the bigger filesize, you may use a video bitrate of 400 kbps. And you can use a bit rate of up to 128Kbps

PSP Videos

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PSP Video 9 is a free transcoder that takes common formats and converts them into something you can put on a memory stick and watch on your PSP


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PSP Firmware

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Want to really be a geek then get to know all the firmware that is available on the PSP. Sony is a constant battle trying to close up loopholes, but you can easily download hackware, although you can also brick (e.g., destroy your PSP). Pirates! for instance requires version 2.82, so I upgraded, the only note, is don't go beyond 3.03. I actually took the upgrade but I probably should have used "Open Edition" on 1.5 instead of a hard upgrade. Oh well. Don't make the same mistake look for "Dark Alex":

PSP-Vault :: PSP downloads, community, news
Given the current situation, PSP-Vault recommends you do not upgrade past firmware version 3.03. No downgraders are available for firmware versions beyond 3.03. Think of firmware version 3.03 as the "one way door" of homebrew -- go beyond this door and you will not be able to come back inside. Going to firmware 3.11, for example, will deprive you of your ability to downgrade.

PSP-Vault :: PSP downloads, community, news
At the time of this writing, there are five downgrades possible for TA-081 or below PSPs: 2.00/2.01 to 1.50, 2.50/2.60 to 1.50, 2.71 to 1.50, 2.80 to 1.50, and 3.03 to 1.50. Necessary files and instructions for the 2.00/2.01 to 1.50 downgrader are offered here. Necessary files and instructions for the 2.50/2.60 downgrader are offered here. Necessary files and instructions for the 2.71 downgrader are offered here. Finally, necessary files and instructions for the 2.80 to 1.50 downgrader are available here or here. Finally, necessary files and instructions for the 3.03 to 1.50 downgrader are available here, though you will need an unpatched version of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for this particular downgrade.

PSP-Vault :: PSP downloads, community, news
Is there a way I can "sample" the new features offered by 3.10 and above without actually upgrading my PSP? Yes. If your PSP is running firmware version 1.50, you are able to install "Open Edition" firmware on your PSP, which brings full homebrew capabilities to your PSP while retaining the functionality of the higher firmware version. The current highest Open Edition firmware available is 3.10 OE-B, availabe at Dark_Alex's site. Dark_Alex regularly updates his Open Edition versions to that they conform to the latest available official firmware release by Sony.


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Hitachi Travelstar 7K100

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Storagereview.com says the Hitachi Travelstar 7K100 is the nicest drive around. I need yet another one because my homebrew ASUS M3p seems to eat drives for breakfast. I've lost two so far. I think that notebook doesn't do a good job of handling shocks. In any case for a mere $107 or so I'm back in business. Pricegrabber has them for $107 while mpire has them for $113 currently.

If you have a later notebook which uses SATA rather than PATA, then Western Digital has just launched a 250GB (!!!) drive in notebook form. Wow, that's amazing storage.

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Smarter Wrap Cord Manager

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Etymotic has these really useful cord wrappers. This is just a small piece of rubber that you can wrap your cords around. They cost $5 each plus shipping, so a little bit of a rip off.

A little google shows that Amazon has these same little things, but you get 3 for $11 including shipping so a little better deal. This is actually from some reseller call IGgFactory Handhelditems.


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The Good Death on Cold Case

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I just loved this episode 23 of Cold Case. Called "The Good Death" it was to me really touching and as I've always loved the last sequences on Cold Case, the song Good Day was just terrific. Paul Westerberg sings it from track 11 of Eventually. For those of you who don't know Paul was the lead for The Replacements, one of the best alternative bands of the 80s. Eventually by the way was his second solo album from 1996.


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Think Secret - MacBook Pro update planned for June with new display
MacBook Pro update planned for June with new display May 8, 2007 - Apple placed an initial order for 15.4-inch LED backlight displays with Asian manufacturers last month, targeting a June announcement that would make availability of a new laptop on or within days of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on June 11, sources tell Think Secret.
advertisement Apple placed its first order in mid-April looking for in excess of 100,000 15.4-inch LED backlight displays. The call went out to a number of LED backlight display manufacturers, including Samsung


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VaBene 华万意 and SOAHC

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OK, I'm way behind on blogging restaurants, here are some:

Va Bene. This is an Italian restaurant that looks like a villa. You don't know you are in Shanghai. The clientele is mainly western, so its kind of a nice spot.

Also went to SOAHC which is next door. That is a local chinese cuisine. Great shrimp. Sort of like Shanghainese but actually it is Yangzhou cuisine. They do have xiao long bao though, my personal favorite. It is at House 3 Lane 123 Xing Ye Lu, South Block by Huangpi Nan Lu +86-21-6385-7777Xintiandi 新天地. It is owned by Lily Chao a famous Hong Kong Movie Star


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This lists for $15 and is the best PSP Case apparently. From Pricegrabber, the price is actually pretty bad. Logitech carries it direct for $15 plus $6 shipping. Mpire had the very best prices which is $10 from Amazon. Of course, bulk up to $25 and shipping is free!

Finally there is the dual Intec USB Cable which lets you charge from a computer. Just $6 from Madcatz

Gamespot seems to have the best games reviews. Some top ones are listed there, but I also like Gamerankings.com as another source. Here are some games to try. Also look at most popular at Pricegrabber is another way to do it.
Good ones for kids:

* Sid Meier's Pirates! One of Calvin and Alex's favorites on the PC. Don't know how this translates. But Pricegrabber has this list price
* MLB 07 which Amazon has a $40.

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Computer to TV

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OK, I just got a cable that is VGA to RGB, but it turns out you need a converter which RAM has for $100


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Computer VGA to Component Output

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OK, if you've got a flat panel TV and want to project say some movies from your computer, how do you do it. You need a magic box called a VGA to TV Convertor. Ram has one for $99 that takes VGA analog output and then converts it into component video (those three cables) or into S-Video or Composite. With component, you can get up to 1600×1200 (although most TV panels are really at most 1080i). With S-Video or Composite, you'll get 480i maximum. Ram has lots of these devices from $80 to $350.

Why is this all needed. Well, its a standards thing. Computer output analog video as RGBHV (they have one pin for Red, Green and Blue and then an H for Horizontal sync and V for vertical sync) whicle Component Video is dont as Y Pr Pb (which is Y the green signal plus sync and the difference from red called Pr and the difference from blue called Pb). See Digital Connection for the cliff notes or Atlona.com

The cool thing about this box is that it is powered by a USB input, that's how little power it needs. Kind of cool


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PSP Games, Nubs and Cases

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Calvin got so bored on his last trip that I finally dug out a PSP I had buried in a gadget drawer and gave it to him. Now he really likes it for trips, so time to accessorize. Pricegrabber has popular ones and PSP411 has great reviews.

* Memory Stick Pro 4GB. You can now get a 4GB memory stick for $50. That makes the thing into a great iPod nano replacement. The main drawback is that the silly firmware in the PSP only handles directories one level deep, so if you store things as artist then album that's a pain. Also, it only does mp3, so I need to convert all those audible files .aa to .mp3 somehow.
* PSP nub. These are the little nub on the analog joystick. They fall off so you need a replacement. What a pain. For $7, you get a set of five though called analog stick armour. Games Underground has them. Nakiworld also has a set of really big ones.
* PSP Cases. The screens scratch easily and little slip case is pretty useless. They like the Intec Leather Case for $15 and I personally like the clear Logitech PlayGear Pocket Case so it looks like all the clear iPod cases I have. After all the PSP is so good looking why not show it off? Pricegrabber has it for $17 and "Mpire":
* "USB Transfer/Recharge": . Get rid of that huge charger, with this handy $10 cable, you can both transfer files to your PC and also recharge the PSP


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Best Media Player

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Well, I use a huge variety of these, from the standard Windows Media Player to everything else. Net, net, the easiest to use is for me Zoom Player. The main reason is that it automatically installs all the various codecs that you need automatically and they are the really great open source ones like ffdshow and gabest. They auto install it. Give it a try.

I used to love BSPlayer, but they went adware/spyware supported, so you need to find  a version like 1.36 that's older without it. The user interface for BSPlayer to my mind is actually better, but don't like the adware junk.

Finally choice is VLC which works nicely because they integrate all the codecs together. I use this one on systems that have their audio/video configurations completely screwed up. This happens on lots of machines because there all kinds of conflicts possible.


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Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About
Bloomberg provided March 2007 marketshare numbers from the NPD Group.

It revealed that for March 2007, Apple was ranked 4th for notebook sales (9.9%), 5th for Desktop sales (7.7%), and #1 for MP3 Player Sales (68.9%).

BetaNews provides a historical perspective on these numbers.

Apple's 9.9% marketshare brings Apple back into the top 5 notebook retailers after it had dropped out in February. Apple's notebook marketshare had been as high as 10.1%, however, in January of this year. The 7.7% Desktop marketshare, however, does represent the first time Apple has placed in the top 5 desktop retailers.

The MP3 marketshare, however, was a decline for Apple, who lost marketshare to SanDisk and Creative.</blockquote

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With all these plugins around for photos that do the same thing, it is a little confusing what to use. Here is one fellows view on what to do


Bluejake: Westside, Looking Northeast from 31st and 10th
I use DxO Optics Pro to correct lens distortion (but I don't use the other features). This fixes all my lenses' barreling and pincushioning really well. I save files in DxO as .dng files.

From there, I bring them into Photoshop, using Photoshop's RAW importer. I really like PS's RAW tools, for white balance. I use it to set shadow
and highlight points, add contrast, etc.

I do the rest in the main part of Photoshop. In PS I make a lot of use of Fred Miranda's plug-ins, especially his CS Pro (for sharpening), WP
Pro (to shrink to Web size), and BW Workflow Pro (for really flexible conversion to black and white). That sharpening plug-in is better than
the high-end tools I've tried, and I compared side-by-side. Fred Miranda actually does special tools for different cameras, that makes snes since there are differences. It only costs $20

For noise reduction, I use Noise Ninja Pro. PictureCode makes Noise Ninja and it is $80 for a Pro bundle of the standalone and the Photoshop plugin. The Pro bundle aloows 16-bit support for scanned imageds and multiprocessing support.

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Top PSP Games

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Calvin really likes the PSP but has lost all his games. Gamespot.

Sid Maeier's Pirates got an 8.6 and is wonderful on the PC.

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Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Rumors and News You Care About
ThinkSecret updates with claims that both MacBook and MacBook Pro updates are coming sooner than expected. (As an aside, Anandtech has seen no real world performance improvement with moving to this chipset, which means that used or refurbished MacBook Pro's could be great buys, the only big thing will be if there is a shift to an LED screen from LCD in the 15" MacBook Pro).

The rumor site had previously pegged MacBook Pro updates for WWDC, but now expects an announcement "as early as Tuesday," echoing a previous page 2 rumor by Gizmodo. The new MacBook Pro is expected to utilize features from Intel's recently introduced Santa Rosa chipset.

Appleinsider concurs with this report with their own claim that the MacBook Pro will see features such as "faster front-side bus speeds of 800MHz, and second-generation Core 2 Duo mobile processors that scale up to 2.4GHz." They also believe the new MacBook Pro will house the new LED backlit displays. Appleinsider, however, gives no time frame for the revised Pro laptop.

Meanwhile, based on dwindling supplies of the consumer MacBook, ThinkSecret believes we will see a MacBook update in the near future, but they can only speculate that the MacBook may utilize the Santa Rosa chipset. However, they do not believe that the new MacBook will incorporate LED screens. Appleinsider is more confident that the next MacBook revision will not introduce any new features (such as Santa Rosa) and instead be a very modest update.

Finally, Appleinsider adds details of the rumored "ultra-portable" MacBook. They believe that this upcoming 13" laptop model (and not the MacBook revision) will ship with the rumored 13" LED Panels that Apple has been investigating. The rumor site summarizes the features they believe this "ultra-portable" will have:

Ultra-Portable MacBook

• 13-inch ultra-thin, LED-back lit display
• No optical disc drive
• On-board NAND flash for faster application launching and boot times
• Built-in iSight webcam
• Thinner and lighter than existing MacBook offerings
• AirPort Extreme 802.11n enabled
• MagSafe power adapter
• Target launch late '07, early '08</blockquote

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I saw these Citizens while on a layover in Japan. They are way cool. They are solar powered and can last for 2.5 years on one charge. They also have dual time zone which I really need. This latest one also has standard time reception via radio waves, so it should theoretically always be accurate in US, Europe and Japan. Its called the Promaster and I'm having a hard time finding it on the core Citizen, although that site is just too flashed and way too hard to use.

A similar model available now is the Skyhawk JR3060-59F, it doesn't have the radio control function, but looks very similar. Has 22 time Zones, interchangeable analog and digital times so you can see the time in two places at once. The key feature I need. It is titanium and is available for about $280-$300 vs the $500 list. Amazon has a good list of product reviews. The main ones are that the time zones thing is great, but it doesn't know about daylight savings time. The big ones are though that the crystal scratches a lot, the alarm is very quiet (that's sort of a bummer, my Suuonto is the same way, so I use my Blackberry) and it doesn't have a good backlight (the Suuonto I have has, but it is very dim). The plusses are that it never needs winding. Another thing is the band has to be professionally adjusted.

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United Mileage promotions

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United is always running strange promotions that require signup. The latest is that if you register at http://www.united.com/chinabonus, you'll get up to 10,000 mileage points if you fly to China before June 30.

Turns out there are lots of way to track this. MileMaven.com is an awesomely cool site that shows promotions by the various legs, so if you are flying from Seattle to Shanghai, it cuts through all the confusion and shows you on a single SEA to PVG page what the offers are.

That site tells you that there is a target promotion for instance on number of round trips that they describe and tell you to sign up at ":"united.com/myreward":http://www.united.com/myreward then there is a whole bunch of, if you buy a ticket that costs so much, you get 1,000, 3,000 and 5,000 miles. This is expiring today

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Keep getting this error and Apple says that you need to uninstall and reinstall Quicktime. Let's see if that helps.

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Helen and John Don't Shop...

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Our buddies Helen and John have a resolution, they aren't shopping for anything for a year. The Anti-Shopping Year. Good luck to them!

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If you type in any tail number of any private jet from Landings.com you can search for any N-prefix which are US registered. Then if you type into google, the tail number, you'll get the registry.faa.gov site to tell you about the aircraft and then you can use Flightaware.com to tell you live where the aircraft is.

BTW, you can also see any commercial jet too by their carrier as well that shows you live where a plane is. So for example, here are where all "United Airlines (UAL):http://flightawar.com/live/fleet/UAL tells you where on a route all United flights are in real time. Amazing.

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The Gold List 2008 An incredible useful list of great restaurants, hotels and around the world. Its pretty accurate actually because it is a reader poll. At least the areas that I know, San Francisco, LA, New York, "Shanghai:http://www.concierge.com/bestof/goldlist/2007/regions/asia/china/1shanghai

I'd agree for instance that the "Pudong Shangri-La is probably the best in Shanghai

I am surprised that Beijing list didn't include the Grand Hyatt there.

I've never been to Cambodia, but they do but John has recommend a bunch there. Surprisingly, two near Angkor Wat the old Raffles and the new Sofitel

Also in Thailand, John said the JW in Phuket and I just read an article about the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai and their Golden Triangle Tented Camp. This place has just 15 tents but is nice.

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