So I installed Office 12 on a couple machines yesterday and it's definitely got some potential.  Right off the bat, one of the features that I love is that in Outlook, you can add feeds from your favorite sites...and the neat thing is, it fully integrates with IE7's feed feature as well.  What that means is that, if I visit a site in IE7 and get the icon that tells me that there's a feed, and I decide to add the feed.  That feed will show up in Outlook, as well.  Pretty damn cool.  Also, there's a cool tab on the right side called the "To Do" bar, and shows your appointments, tasks, etc.  You can set it up pinned or unpinned...but it's pretty neat feature, as well.

Now, I also tried a couple things.  I launched Word and the feel is so much different.  I composed a test message with an image and some text.  I then opened it up with Word 2003.  Now, I was opening it from a remote location but it seemed to take longer than expected to open...but the good thing is, it did open.

Well, we'll see how it goes...I may have more comments in the future when I start using it more and more in my day to day tasks.

Microsoft must've released this sometime earlier this month...but I just noticed that they have released the first Release Candidate for IE7.

You can download your copy here.

 

And while we're at it...I've been using IE7 Beta 2 and 3 for quite sometime now and aside from a couple sites that haven't rendered correctly (and I can't tell whether it's IE7's fault or not), I have no complaints about this new version.  In fact, I absolutely love it.  Who cares if it's just "now" that Microsoft is introducing tabbed browsing or whatever else flame arguments people have...the fact is, this product 'now' is pretty solid.  I definitely recommend checking it out.

I stepped into my lab (aka kitchen) and came out with a tasty and extremely HEALTHY smoothie.  After much personal deliberation, I came up with the unique name of "Grape-Banana Smoothie."

 

Grape-Banana Smoothie

(makes 2 servings)

Google just release a new version of Google Talk, which adds features such as File Transfer, Voicemail, Music Status and Trends.

Learn more here http://www.google.com/talk/whatsnew.html.

 

If you use gtalk and want to add me, my account is jayson.go@gmail.com.

I just added Media Player to this site...I can't quite decide whether to have it set to Autoplay or not.  I know when I was on myspace, it got pretty annoying when people's songs would autoplay...but then again, why have it on the site if the song never gets played?  It's not like someone's going to visit my space just to click the Play button on the player.  And then, even if I did have it off, it doesn't display what song it is (I don't think) that you would be playing in the first place.  Kind of like that surprise present from mom that you have no clue what's inside.

 

So, I'm leaning towards keeping it at Autoplay, but maybe putting songs on there that aren't to "invasive" to your audible space.  Something more chill, I guess.  I don't know yet.

If you have any opinions on this, please comment on it.

 

Also, if you want to know how to add the Media Player to your space, this is how you do it:

 

1. Go to your space and be in the 'edit' mode

2. In your address bar, append the following text:  &powertoy=musicvideo

3. Click 'Go' on your browser (or Enter or whatever that visits that new URL)

4. Now, Customize your site, you should see the Media Player in there.

I'll give credit to this site/url [1], but I just googled for it and that was one of the first links that came up.

 

[1] http://www.pcdoctor-guide.com/wordpress/?p=768

The company I'm contracting for, Navitaire, held a 'team-building' day today.  From 11am to about 7pm today, we ate lunch and went to a sponsored team-building event.  The event was thrown by The Prouty Project.  It was pretty cool.  It started out with a short session about teams and collaboration, then we split up into 3 teams of about 6.  From there, we were given different missions, with each mission having 8 tasks to complete.  Each task resulted in an envelope being found, either in the building or outside.  So it was sort of like treasure hunting.  The envelopes had puzzle pieces that we all had to then put together.

Pretty fun experience.  We all then had to reflect on what we learned.  Honestly, I'm sure, we all could've come up with all these answers ourselves, but hey, it was a chance to get out of the office and really expose all ourselves to the rest of the team.

Fun day, indeed.

The first thing that sucks is checking bags.  Damn terrorists and their liquid bombs.  What they need to do is lather themselves up with their liquid bomb and jump into a barbecue pit.  Anyways, D.I.A. (airport) wasn't too bad at all last week.  I think I only waited 10-15 minutes for my bag to hit the carousel.  Normally, 10-15 minutes waiting for bags would probably incur some evil thoughts about checking bags...but I revoke those thoughts.  That's because yesterday, I waited for 30 dog-gone minutes for my bag at the Minneapolis airport.  Uh huh...Carousel 12.  Right.  Apparently, someone screwed up and placed the bags on Carousel 13.  So while all of us patient passengers waited at Carousel 12, Carousel 13 was piling up with our bags, along with everyone else's bags that were suppose to go there.  Then you have those really bright passengers who choose to gather around right next to the carousel.  What about the people behind you who's watching their bag go 'round and 'round?  Fortunately, mine only went around once.  I had to stiff-arm an old lady to get into the front.  Thirty-one minutes later, I'm on my way to the light rail.

 

The second thing that sucks is the Hilton in Downtown Minneapolis.  That's right.  I'll go as far as even say that this place is worse than the Embassy Suites down the street.  Yeah the entrance is really nice and bright and shiny...but then again, I'm not sleeping there, am I?  Where should I start?  Walking into my room on the 16th floor was anything but pleasant.  Well, the smell wasn't.  It smelled like a doused out ash tray and supposedly it was a non-smoking room.  Uh huh.  Then there's the old ass furniture.  I guess I wouldn't care so much of the furniture if it weren't for the nice flatscreen tv sitting on it.  Speaking of clash.  Then there's the bathroom...there's nothing more enjoyable than doing #2, reaching for the toilet paper only to have the TP holder unsprung and fall...and having to chase the rolling toilet paper as it unravels across your floor.  The beds are mediocre at best.  Then this morning, I got up to use the bathroom and what do I see?  Some black stuff in the bathroom sink.  Either I was really drunk last night and spewed out sewage out of my mouth or the sink is clogged and backed up; I only had two Bud Lights.  At this point, I'm disgusted at staying at this place.  Moving on.  The internet connection is horrible.  And by horrible I mean that I paid $29 for 3 nights worth of wireless access, only to find out I can't even browse to google.com.  I can ping it and everything is set up correctly...I even allowed popups from the site so that it can tell me that I have 3 days left on my service.  What it should really say is "You've been had" and then play a wav file with a devious laugh.  Yes, I said wav file...not mp3.  I figured, since the connection is so sloooooow, it would take a wav or mp3 file forever and a day to get to my machine so might as well go with the lossless format...eh?  I don't know what to do with this place...Oh Marriott, where art though?

Last week, there were some issues that came up with the contract/offer I (we) submitted the week prior.  I offered for the condo at asking price + closing costs ($5500), but under the premise that I would be going through an outside lender.  The contract merely stated that I would just at least apply through Shea Mortgage "for my benefit" of comparing both lenders.

The issue was that Shea Homes only gives out $3500 in incentives to start out with but my offer is already giving me 3% ($5500).  However, they're only willing to dish out the $5500 if I go with Shea Mortgage, otherwise, the incentive goes back down to $3500.  Obviously, none of this was communicated with me.  Because I was showing good faith in buying this home by submitting all the paper work, and taking time out on Friday to do the design center, and submit $1000 earnest money, the actual rep for Shea Homes gave me an even better deal.  If I went with Shea Mortgage, he would give me $2000 more in incentives...that's $7550!

I felt pretty good about that and so...we shook hands on it.  And at this point, the house is mine.

Only one minor thing is left that needs to be worked out...and that's the structure of the 80/20 loan that I'll be getting...specifically, the 2nd mortgage.  Currently it sits at being a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit), but I want to see what my options are with going with a Fixed one, or maybe a HELOC with some fixed rates option and the option to convert to a Fixed.  Just minor things.

 

So with all that in place, I now have December to look forward to.  Particularly, it'll be around the first couple weeks of December that I'll be closing on my new home.  Wo0t!!!  I'm so excited.  Here are some things that I picked out on options that are worth noting:

Last week, I was approved by my company to be on the data plan.  Before I could say "gadget fund", I was already trying to figure out which phone will satisfy my 'new' needs.  After much research and polling, I decided to go with the iMate SP5 (same phone as the SDA, etc.).  The device is a smartphone and comes loaded with Windows Mobile 5 (WM5).

It's been a few days now that I've had the phone and aside from a few minor things, I really like it.  I love being able to get my work and personal emails the minute they come in.  I also love having Media Player on it.  I bought a 1GB miniSD card for it, just so I can store some of my songs and pictures taken on it.  I'm pretty much trying to make the transistion from using my iPod Shuffle to just using this phone.  And with my current job status of always traveling, it's a definite plus.  I also like the Tasks from Outlook, which is actually one of the main reasons why I got the phone in the first place.  With up-to-date and sync'ed up tasks, I can stay better organized.  There's a plethora of features on this phone, and I'm still discovering them everyday.

Now, what I don't like are these; I don't like how the alarm isn't as customizable as I like it to be.  With my old phone, I could set the alarm for certain days.  I also don't like how it doesn't update the timezone automatically.  Supposedly, there's a registry hack for it, but it seems to not be working.  I'm not worried though, I'm sure there is a way to do it.  I think there's another thing I don't like on it either, but I can't remember...but overall, my dislikes are so minor that they're insignificant.

Anyways, I'm very happy with this phone and I'm glad I got it.

This past weekend, I decided where I'm going to move.  The lucky winner is a small but upcoming community called Reunion.  It's a subdivision in Commerce City (Colorado).  Now, most people who know Colorado knows that Commerce City is generally associated with industrial zones.  It's quite a shame because Commerce City is really making a name for itself in the residential communities.  Reunion is located north-east of Commerce City.  It's a community built by Shea Homes, who put over 72 million dollars into building just the site itself (lakes, trails, recreational center, etc.).  I personally see this community as the next 'Highlands Ranch' (high class neighborhood).  In fact, the houses in Reunion start at $230's and go as high as $2M.

The place I'm getting is a townhouse.  Technically it's a condominium-townhouse style.  The model is called Starburst, which you can see pictures of in my gallery.  It's a 2-car, 2-bed, 2-bath 1330 sq. ft. townhouse.  Perfect in size, and layout.  It's also a carriage-style townhouse, meaning that the living area is on one floor.  At first, I shyed away from this notion, but when I actually visited the model the second time, it was like putting puzzle pieces together.  As I walked through, I could imagine where my current things would go.  And this is good, because that means I won't have to upgrade and buy so many things just to fill an empty space in a bigger house.  Coming from a 770 sq. ft. apartment, I don't have much to put in a house as of now.  This will be a smooth upgrade and transistion.

At this point, I have already signed the contract.  The house is still being built and is scheduled to be delivered by December.  Hopefully, before Christmas.  This week, on Friday, I have an appointment with the design center to pick my colors and upgrades.  I'm pretty excited about this whole thing, and is working out nicely.

Since Live went live with Windows Live Spaces, I'm really making a commitment to make this my new virtual home.  I plan to do anything and everything I can with this site, including photos.  Since we can upload up to 500 new pics per month, I'm going to do just that.  They'll be shrunk and compressed but oh well, no biggie.  So in the next coming weeks, I'll be uploading everything I got.

I was a little bummed though.  About a month ago, I saw that Spaces allowed you to "upload" music.  Which I only sort tried, but still the impression stuck that I could upload music and maybe have Media Player on the site to play it.  I guess I was wrong.  I think it just allows you to either manually create your own list of songs, or from a playlist.  Just as a display of songs you like.  Bleh.

So Adam, my region's Director approved me to be on Avanade's data plan last week.  I was really happy to find this out.  Now, I can either get a smart phone or a 'pocket pc' phone.  I'm probably going to opt for a smart phone.  I'm not too keen on the idea of carrying a bigger phone that would barely fit in my pants or one that I would have to carry on my hip.

On that note, I've been doing research and pinging our community forums for opinions on smart phones.  So far, the iMate SP5 is in the lead.  I don't want to go with t-Mobile's SDA because t-Mobile isn't supplying the AKU2 update, which allows for push mail, among other things.  Plus is does have the buldge for the antenna at the top.  Which is good and bad for me.  Then there's the SP5m with the media buttons.  Real estate wasted on the phone, IMO.  You can actually map the normal buttons on the SP5 to act as media buttons.  Then there's the Qtek 8500.  The slim, flip smartphone.  If it weren't for the fact that it doesn't have WiFi, I would've been sold on this phone already.  So, SP5 it is.

My company deals with a few companies to get discounts...and they either do not have the SP5 in stock, or have to get it shipped from the UK.  I think I'll go with Mobile Planet/Expansys.  At this point, if it takes them 3 days to ship it...I should have it by next week.  The only question left is, how much discount can i really get for the phone through MP.  The initial quote from Chad, the company's rep, was $430.  I was hoping the discount would land me somewhere in the high 300's.  We'll see.