I’ve had to deal with SSL certificates in the past (it is definetely not easy to do) and now I can get them installed easier and cheaper than before. Again, Dreamhost will be my one-stop shop for hosting, domain registrations and future SSL certificates

[photo credit]

SSDs are known for awesome reads and slow writes and the obvious advantage of not having any moving parts, so they are ideal for housing an OS and applications (any flavor of OS).  SSD’s are also dropping in price every single day, but they still can’t compete with the massive storage of regular old spinning hard drives (any computer geek will tell you this), so regular spinning hard drives are ideal for just storage. And you can buy 1TB worth of hard drive space for about $100.

Hint, hint, computer makers, start offering computers (laptops or desktops) with dual hard drives, a fast 32 GB SSD for the OS and app, and a huge spinning drive for data (music, pictures, movies, etc). This would also simplify the idea of backups, where one could run two different backup sets, which would be clearly differentiated; one is stuff and the other is apps (counting the OS as an app). Hint hint laptop makers, offer a hybrid drive in your next round of high-end laptops, people will gobble that up.

I want this just because of instant messaging. I use AIM, MSN and Yahoo Messenger, and even though Palringo does a good job, it isn’t enough. I’ve been looking at BeeJiveIM but I’m hesitant to spend $16 on an app with functionality that should be built into the IPhone.

2. Slingplayer

Sling announced many months ago that they were developing a Slingplayer for the IPhone but they haven’t delivered yet. C’mon Sling, it can’t be that hard! They say Q1 2009, again and again.

3. Sirius Satellite Radio streaming

Again, another promise that hasn’t been delivered. I mean…how hard can it be? Many other does it already (Pandora), it basically needs to authenticate a username/password, display the chanels and start the stream…we don’t need fancy time-shifting or anything, just a mid-quality stream. But, then again, it might be closer than we think

No more Pantech Duo

This post is in response to an older one I wrote back in January titled “Why I won’t trade my $99 Pantech Duo for an iPhone”. Well, I’ve done it, I bought an iPhone, although I haven’t received it, I reserved on at an at&t store, and I should have it in about a week. I refuse to stand in line for hours at an Apple store. I will address the reasons why I didn’t want one:

3G: Do I need to explain? The 3G iPhone has, uhhh, built-in 3G.

Real Keypad: Now that I’ve played with iPhone enough, I’m willing to trade the tactile response of an actual keyboard for screen real estate. I usually don’t type anything long on phones, 250 characters at the most, so I’d rather have a nice big screen to see web pages on and videos.

A2DP: I realized that I don’t even use 2nd earphone on my Voyager 855 that often. Listening to music via Bluetooth kills battery life, which I’ll need when I’m on the road all day long. If decide that I want to listen to music via Bluetooth, I’ll just get an adaptor.

Flexibility/Apps: With the advent of the App store and jailbraking, I’m pretty sure I’ll get the programs want/need on my iPhone. I just need Slingmedia to hurry up and launch their iPhone player ASAP!

Exchange: The 3G iPhone now syncs emails/calendar/tasks/contacts with Exchange. Sweet.

Tethering: Can be done with a jail-broken iPhone. 

Price: I sold my Pantech Duo on eBay for $200, minus shipping and charges, I’ll be down to about $185. I paid $215 of the iPhone, which means that I got the iPhone for $40 plus an extension of my contract. I already have a ton of minutes and unlimited data, so no worries there. I’m also pretty happy with at&t, never had a problem with them and coverage in LA is good. 

So there you have it. The iPhone now has all the features I want/need to have. I’ll report on using the actual device once, ummm, I receive it.

I hate to use caps in a title, but this time I’m forced to. Whatever you do, avoid AVG 8.0 which was released yesterday (2/28/08) . For that matter, avoid AVG altogether. I installed AVG Antivirus Network Edition on all the workstations at a clients’ and everything started to crash. EVERYTHING! Servers and workstations. I can only blame myself for installing a brand new version without testing (bad, bad mistake). I’ve used AVG extensively in the past, and I’ve never encountered any problems. As a matter of fact, I prefered using AVG because of its easy to administrate (install, monitor and update all the clients from the server) and because of its small footprint on the systems. My second choise has always been Bitdefender, and only because it costs about twice as much as AVG, but now it is my only choice.

Again, avoid AVG 8.0, at least until they get their act together. I believe they rushed version 8.0 out the door and therefor delivered an extremely buggy program. I can’t trust company like this anymore. It was nice to know you, AVG.

My new favorite antivirus is Avast. They offer a free version, but it really shines when you buy it. It is unintrussive, effective, and lightweight (it won’t bog down your computer). It scans fast and so far I haven’t had any issues, anywhere. Check them out by clicking here!

EDIT #1 – Check out my followup article

Ever since Paypal redesigned their whole interface I’ve been having all sorts of issues. First of all, it is almost impossible to change your address. In my case, I needed to add the apt/unit number on the second line of my address. I tried several times, after adding new credit cards/deleting credit cards, but nothing worked. I finally gave up and decided to contact support via phone. After being on hold for about 45 minutes, the service rep (with a very heavy Indian-accent) added my aptartment number.

The second issue I’ve had with them is trying to obtain another debit card. The last step on the website just takes you back to the main profile page. I contacted support via email, and 2 days later I was told that they had ordered the card manually for me, but it never arrived.

I came across these issues about 2 months ago, right after they added some web 2.0 spice, and they still haven’t been addressed. In my opinion, Paypal just jumped into the new interface without fully testing it, and they still haven’t fixed all the bugs. Rather disappointing for such a huge company (they’re owned by eBay,  after all).

I’ve been using a Mac Book Pro running OS X Leopard as my main PC for about 2 weeks now, and my goal was to adapt without Windows (either via Parallels or Boot Camp) using native software. Browsing, well Firefox and all the plugins I use work in OS X. iTunes? Well…iTunes. Video/Codecs? VLC. FTP? Cyberduck. Office 2007? Well, there’s Office 2008 for Mac.

Everything seamed like a smooth transition until I started using Word, Excel and Entourage. Everything looks different. Tool bars and menus are totally different from their Windows counterparts. It is not easy for Mac-switchers as it is, getting used to not having a taskbar, jumping icons and what not, but why oh why does Word for Mac have to be completely different from regular Windows Word? Why is Entourage the complete opposite of Outlook? I mean, its the same program in essence that does the same stuff, but these having different UIs is confusing and just plain stupid. If Adobe can do it with evey single Creative Suite program Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, etc) why isn’t Microsoft doing it?

My guess is that Microsoft doesn’t care about Mac-switchers and they aren’t the core target. They care about providing Windows-Word like compatibility to Mac, same for Excel and Outlook (or Entourage). If I can open and edit Word documents using non-Word apps on a Mac, then what is the incentive for me to even purchase Word for Mac? I ended up installing Parallels and getting my Office 2007 via Coherence. Call me weird, but I love Office 2007′s ribbon.

I guess that is it. My first Mac-rant and I end up criticizing Microsoft….typical Apple!

• Upload unlimited files (up to 1GB each file) 20 at a time.
• Unlimited Downloading of files (so you can share the link!)
• No waiting in between files.
• Set up personalized banners for files (for free)
• No premium accounts, everyone gets all the bandwidth (huge pipe)
• The wait is only 5 seconds for members and 10 seconds for non-members, while we prepare the download.
• Unobtrusive ads and no hassles asking you to join for a daily/monthly/annual/ fee.

We conceived it about 2 months ago after seeing how the many other free file host suck. We decided to launch the first phase as an experiment, at the beginning of September, sprinkling in a bit of Adsense here and there. Along the way, we added new features, like personalized ads, which were a big hit with the file uploaders.

A month later, we saw huge growth, bigger that we had imagined. We had made a nice amount of $$ with Adsense, so we decided to redesign the whole thing, add a bunch of features and include different type of ads (of the adult type). We worked on the redesign and the new features for a whole week, spending the most part of the day and night on it. Now, lets get to the before and after shots.

Main Page:

Before:

After

The first thing you notice about the redesign is the new logo. I like to think that the new one is a bit more modern. It did take longer to design.

Old Logo

New Logo

The account page has been completely redesigned. We’ve sprinkled AJAX magic in it through-out. We eliminated tables and changed the colors. Also, the uploading feature has been included directly in the account page.

Before:

After:

The upload page been moved and is now our secondary way to upload. Now this is what you get when you click on the Upload button (and agree to our ToS first):

The download page, where the grand majority of the ads get displayed has had a complete overhaul. It was probably the one that took the longest to redesign. Unfortunately I didn’t get a screenshot of it, but here’s the new version (but trust me, the old one wasn’t great).

And this is the Download page you get when the file (or the user) has been tagged as adult-content.

This prevents (or at least makes people verify) that they are 18 years old or over.

This is the “adult” file download page. NSFW

Notice that all the Google Adsense have been removed, and the “adult” themed banners get displayed (we also have the ability to track each one the the banners to keep and eye on their performance).

Another big improvement we’ve made is the search page. We relied on tables and it wasn’t to eye pleasing. Take a look:

Search Page

Search results

Now, the search feature is directly on the main page, as week as on the account pages, so there’s no need for a separate page for the main search feature. This is how the results are displayed, with the adult filter on:

With the adult filter off:

So, hopefully we’ll be able to grow a lot with all these new features and the redesign. We spent only only about a week redesigning this thing from scratch (which doesn’t seem a lot, be we’re just a team of 2). Check the site for yourself, or rather why don’t you go over to Dumbfiles, and sign up today! Its free!

We looked at Hostgator, but of course, they’re known for suspending accounts for excessive CPU usage out of the blue. We looked at MediaTemple, but they don’t provide the bandwidth we need. And finally we stumbled upon Site5. $18 a month gives you 10 TB of bandwidth and 1 TB of storage. THAT IS TWICE WHAT WE’VE GOT WITH DREAMHOST!!!! Surely there had to be a catch, but I couldn’t find their Terms of Service, so I headed over the their sign-up page. I started filling out all the usual stuff, and as I was about the hit the "SUBMIT ORDER" button, when I decided to check out their TOS (which is located here). This is what I found.

Note: Pornography and sex-related merchandising are prohibited on any Site5 Internet Solutions, Inc. server. This includes sites that may infer sexual content, or link to adult content elsewhere. This is also true for sites that promote any illegal activity or content that may be damaging to Site5 Internet Solutions, Inc. servers or any other server on the internet. Links to such materials are also prohibited.

OK, fine, no porn and illegal shenanigans, but disallowing "sites that may infer sexual content, or link to adult content elsewhere" seems a bit extreme. That means that I can’t blog about Jenna Jameson the porn star. That means that if someone says that they are going to hump a goat on a comment on my blog, I’ll get suspended with Site5? Isn’t that a bit extreme?

So, we’re keeping Dreamhost. They’re friendly and generous. We just need to expand Dumbfiles as much as possible so that we can move to our own co-located server. As a matter of fact…you can help! Go sign up for an account….its free!

Update #1. [This guy] is having all sorts of issues with Dreamhost. I’m afraid that now that they’re 10, their network is falling apart…c’mon…a core router is down and there is no redundancy in place to remedy that?

Update #2. Anyone know of a reliable web host that provides at least 1 TB and disk space and 2 or 3 TB of bandwidth? I’ll be happy to use a referral code…