Good Samaritan?

Ok, so this will be my first non-technical blog post. Should be fun writing about something more personal. I'm writing about being a Good Samaritan. Before I start my little rant, I want to quote some scripture, which is the story told by Jesus about the "Good Samaritan". So, Luke 10:25-37:

25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.


  So Jesus has called us to be Good Samaritans. So here's what has me going. Thursday, I was on my way home with my son, who was eating his dinner in the van because we were short on time that day. Now I'm already running late, and we get into some traffic, and I'm pretty mad about it. So it turns out, this 1/2 mile worth of backed up traffic is due to people breaking their necks to see why a car is pulled over onto the side of the road. This always gets my feathers ruffled, because my thought is either drive, or pull over and help. So as I'm driving by, looks like a car pulled over, no obvious signs of an accident. Couldn't even really tell if anyone was in the car. So after I drive by, I take a look in my rearview, and the window is completely smashed. It looked like someone had cracked their head on it. I immediately pulled over, got out and went over. She said she was fine, and a state police officer came up as I was walking to the car, but let me tell you, I'm absolutely SHOCKED that nobody bothered to even stop to check on this women. People will take the time to drive 10 MPH on an interstate to see what happened, but are in too much of a rush to get out and help someone. There were *NO* first responders there. I can see not stopping if there's police/fire/medical there, but there was no-one. 


  So, that's the end of my rant. I also want to mention though, many years ago, a couple came along that helped me in a time of need. I was walking home in blizzard like conditions, and this couple actually stopped to not only pick me up, but went about 15 miles out of their way to bring me home. It was my own stupidity that I was walking in the first place, but these people took time out of their day, to help a kid in need (I was a teenager). Fast forward about 5 years later or so. I had the opportunity to help someone else in the same way, and if it wasn't for that couple, I probably wouldn't have stopped. Two guys were walking along I-95 in Rhode Island. It was pretty late at night. I didn't know it at the time but they were in the Navy. They were coming back from the airport, and their van had broken down about a mile back. When I picked them up, they were so happy, and it felt so great to help someone in need. They talked about how they were from down south, and that where they were from, you couldn't walk 10 feet before someone would pull over to pick you up, and how shocked they were that it took that long for someone to stop. The wanted to pay me, and I refused, for 3 reasons. First, I was already going to Groton, so it was only a few miles out of my way, but also because they were from our country's military. I also got to share my story with them from years earlier that I had forgotten until I saw them stranded. That couple when I had offered them money for gas also refused, and told me some day if I saw someone that needed help, that I should help them also. Kind of like in the movie "Pay it Forward". It felt so good helping those two guys, for many reasons. 


  So the moral of the story I suppose, is that we should all be Good Samaritans. It doesn't take much to touch the lives of others. You have no idea how much it can change someone's life by just lending a helping hand in a time of need. So for anyone out there reading this, next time you see someone on the side of the road, take a few minutes of your time, and see if they need some help, instead of just causing a traffic jam.....

Bluetooth Headsets

  Ok, so in my epic failness, I ruined yet another bluetooth headset because they don't like to be washed and dried with the laundry. I have to say though, if you tend to forget to empty your pockets, Motorola makes a fine product, the last headset survived 4 or 5 washing and drying cycles. In all honesty, I think the only reason it didn't survive this time around is because the laundry took a lot longer to dry. The ear piece had started to melt this time around.

  So, enough of the failness.... onto the reason for this post. I needed a new bluetooth, so I wanted one with A2DP. A2DP is essentially the support for STEREO audio over bluetooth. Bluetooth started out as MONO audio, because it was most commonly used as wireless headsets for phones. There are tons of uses now for bluetooth that I won't get into. The reason I wanted an A2DP headset is because on Android, if you want music, or other audio from your phone (besides calls of course) to be piped through to your headset, you need A2DP. For instance, say your using your phone for GPS navigation, the internal speaker isn't going to work well if you're jamming out to some tunes. Now your alternative is to get ALL your audio through your car's speaker system, which means either a wired or FM transmitter, which is nice, but not convenient. I had a tape deck adapter (my van has tape and cd). This is great until you get a phone call. So now you've lost your music, if you decide to take the call. All in All, A2DP is the way to go, and I'll explain why.

  So, I figured if I had to get a new headset, I'd look into A2DP headsets. I also have the insane problem of breaking the stupid ear hooks, so I wanted one that I could get a replacement ear hook. So I'm browsing ebay, and low and behold, I find not only a bluetooth that has A2DP, and a replaceable ear hook, but it's darn cheap too. Enter, the BlueAnt Q1. Now this puppy used to retail for about 130 bucks, which I'm just not going to pay. I mean really? My Android phone which has better specs than most netbooks (screen size as an exception of course), was only 199 with a contract! So I'm looking and I found a new one, for 27.99 with free shipping. You can barely buy a JUNK bluetooth in the stores for that price, so it's a good deal. As I'm reading up on this particular headset, I find out there's an Android app (free no less) that will READ my text messages to me. Now I know they had one out when I got my phone (which was well over 100 bucks) that would do that, but since I won't pay that for a headset, and I don't text a lot, it seemed like a waste. I didn't get the Q1 for that feature, but wow is it nice. I can be driving, get a text, and this baby reads it to me! I can then call them back, completely HANDS FREE! This baby is probably about as good as it gets for this price!

  Ok, so no product is ever going to be perfect, and the Q1 is no exception. All in All, I have to say this thing is nothing short of amazing, and I still can't believe the price (I now see it on Amazon for 29.99 with Free shipping. I got mine on Ebay for 2 bucks less, and it shipped from NY so it was QUICK!). So here's what I like about it. It does what it needs to. Pairs easily. If you have Android, it'll read your texts to you. It can pair with *8* devices. It can be connected to *2* devices at once, and answer calls on either. If your on one call from 1 phone, you can't take another call from the 2nd phone, but for people that may have 2 phones for whatever reason, this could be great! You know, if you have a work and personal cell. When someone calls, it's 100% hands free! You can say "Answer" and it connects the call! Telling the bluetooth "Check Battery" tells you not only the level (low, medium, high) of your bluetooth, but also the phone! How nifty is that! You can also use speed dials, which I don't have setup in my phone, but plan to. It will make dialing your 8 most frequent people just that much easier. I'm guessing that they didn't do the number 9 because that's frequently used for 911, and figured people might mistakenly say (or the headset might hear you wrong) and all of a sudden your explaining why you called them when you don't need help.

  So, what I don't like..... you knew it was coming right? My biggest complaint, is the fact that to use voice dialing, it's an extra step. You have to say "Phone Commands" after hitting the button. It then takes like 3 or 4 seconds to tell you it's going to use the phone's voice commands. I think this could be shortend to just say "Phone Commands" (or even nothing) to tell you it got what you wanted. This gives quite a delay in itself, but then it takes 2-4 more seconds (atleast on my phone) before I get the "Speak Now" from my phone. This could be lag, but previous headsets have been close to instantaneous. Also, saying "Battery" instead of "Check Battery" somehow thinks I want to go into pairing mode. Certainly not a killshot for this device, but more thought into what people might say would have helped. Kinda like an auto-correct.

  So that's about it for the Q1. It's an awesome headset despite the few quirks I don't like. Mine was missing the earpiece which is supposed to be mailed out to me. It actually works without the ear hook, it comes with 3 sized in-ear gels, so it can be used either way. They work pretty good, but it's not really my style. It stays in for 30-120 minutes without falling out, maybe I'm just not used to it. So if your looking for a new bluetooth, and you have an Android phone, and your on a budget, this is the bluetooth to get!

Google Voice! 1 Number, Unlimited Phones!

Ok, so new today is Google Voice. Well, it's not really new, but I just stumbled upon it. So what it is, is a phone number, that you not only get to pick, but you also choose how it works! Now people that know me know I use a different voicemail provider called YouMail (www.youmail.com). Now Google Voice is like YouMail + Vonage on crack! Now first off you can not only tell google which of your phones to ring (Work, Home, Cell, Fax, Summer Home, etc), but you can setup GROUPS! So for family, it'll ring all your phones. For that friend that just can't listen that you said "don't call me at work", you can have it just ring your home and/or cell. For co-workers, just work. I think your seeing where this is going.

So that's how google voice is like Vonage, but as I said it's also got alot that YouMail does also! Not only does google voice ring your phones, but it also can do voicemail. Not just your regular voicemail, but also does Transcriptions (sends you an email with what the person said!). Now you can get this with YouMail (and other places) but Google is giving you transcriptions for FREE! Now that's hard to compete with folks. You can also do custom greetings for people like YouMail, but not a SmartGreeting (where it says Hi " based on caller id info). Google Voice is in closed beta (you can signup for the list, or visit ebay and find a cheap "invite" code), but it's worth checking out. Google Voice is like the PO Box for phones. No matter where you move to, your address (or phone in this case) stays the same.

So if all that isn't good enough, there's free long distance calling with VOIP. You log into your google voice, tell it which of your numbers you want it to call you on, the number of the person you want to call, and it connects you. You can also make widgets for webpages (I have one at the bottom of my blog) so people can call you and you don't even have to give out your number! I mean I've used this for all of about 10 minutes and I can see how great this is, and how much better it can get! I'm just wondering how google is going to cover the costs for all this. The business model for google is typically ads, and I don't see this as being different. So far this looks like a great service to have for pretty much anyone!

iPhone + MobileMe + Google Calendar: A How-To

Ok, so this is my first blog, and my first "How-To", so go easy on me! I was trying to get a one-stop shopping on my iphone calendar, as well as syncing with google calendar for those same calendars. To give you a brief history, I have 3 kids, a girlfriend, her son, and of course myself. Because of confusion, all 6 of us have our own google calendars, so that way when it says "Dentist" for instance, I know who exactly has that appointment. Color coding is of course the idiot-proofing, but different people have access to each of those 6 google calendars.

Ok, so now that the basics are out there, I wanted to make it so that each of my MobileMe calendars (one for each of us) sync'd to the appropriate Google Calendar. Now there's no easy way to do this, since Google and Apple are kind of competitors (can't we all just get along?), so we have to use the infamous man-in-the-middle. Since I'm on windows (i've seen something similar for iCal on the Mac), I've got Outlook on my home computer. So the trick here is to have Outlook do all the heavy lifting. So here's what you need to do first:

1. Setup your MobileMe to sync with Outlook.
- Just head on into the "MobileMe" software (a cloud icon in the lower right) and go into preferences, then Sync. Check "Calendars" and select Outlook.

2. Next you'll need gSyncIt (www.daveswebsite.com Price: $14.99, was 9.99 sale when I got it.)
- There are other programs out there that work also, but this one is great, and it's a good price. It works right with Google Calendar and Outlook. He also provides great support as well as good directions on the site on how to setup your calendar sync. It doesn't do "push" calendar sync, but you can have it check every 5 minutes. But any time there IS a change, MobileMe pushes it to me.com which then pushes it to your phone!

3. So first you need to add a new Calendar (or Rename) to MobileMe. You need to add it to MobileMe first, because MobileMe will make a new Calendar inside Outlook. For my first one, I named it "Todd" since that's me!

4. Next head into outlook and notice your new Calendar (click the plus sign on "Calendar" if you made a new one!)

5. Next go into gSyncIt's settings (you can do this right inside Outlook!).

6. Click the New button to add your new "Calendar Mapping"

7. Input your GOOGLE Username/Password.

8. Look for "Google Calendar (Feed Path)" under the username and password boxes. Hit "Select Calendar". This is how you get those other calendars that you've either created or other's have shared.

9. This is the important part! right underneath is the "Outlook Calendar" section, hit that "Select Calendar". Now you need to remember your calendar that MobileMe added. You should hit "Calendar" if you want your main calendar, or click that + and select the calendar to sync.

10. Now just go ahead and hit that "Ok" button on the bottom. You don't need any other settings! Repeat for multiple calendars!

11. Once you've done all your calendars, go ahead and hit the Sync button for gSyncIt. Now if you've been using seperate MobileMe and gCal calendars, I'd suggest deleting all the info for one of them or you'll have duplicates to sort through. Either way, you should be all set!

Closing:
You no longer need seperate calendars, you can input once, and it's on Outlook, MobileMe, and Google! Just remember that the more often you sync to Google, the more often other's will know of your calendar updates. This is nice because I share my kids' calendars with their grandparents so everyone know about those important things like recitals! If your not a busy person you could update google once per day, or if your the business type you could update every 5 minutes. Hope this helps anyone out there! And with MobileMe syncing in the middle, you don't need to sync your phone to outlook when using itunes!

-Todd