OMNINOGGIN

“Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players…”
- rockbox.org

The Apple iPod line has always been the bottom of my sh*t list. Don’t get me wrong, the iPod is stylish and the music quality is great. The only beef I have against the iPod is its music management. Almost everybody I know (including my non-geeky-girlfriend) hates how you have to use iTunes to get music onto the iPod. Here is the beginning of an endless list of iTunes woes:

1. iTunes is DRM compliant
2. iTunes is a slow P.O.S. software.
3. iTunes thinks you don’t know how to organize your own music, so it sticks your music into your iPod the way it thinks it ought to be organized.
4. iTunes will automatically delete songs from your iPod if it cannot find them in your library (image if you’ve moved a few of your music folders and did not update your library)
5. …you may add your own woes in the comments…

Notice that I did not mention “iTunes cannot be bypassed” in the list because, I have finally found a way that lets you do exactly that, bypass iTunes! Read on…

I would like to admit to the public that I was a smoker for 2 long years. As a blogger & coder, I was very vulnerable because I often hit writer’s/coder’s block. Now that I am an experienced ex-smoker, I would like to tell the world that smoking is not a choice or a habit. It’s an addiction. Nobody smokes their first cigarette thinking that they will continue to smoke for the rest of their life. I remember smoking my first cigarette because I wanted to be cool in front of some people. I thought that there was no way one cigarette would get me addicted. I then thought that two would not get me addicted. Then three, four, five… slowly but surely, I became a 5 sticks per day smoker. The nicotine trap is so subtle that if you are not always carefully paying attention to it, then you would continue to burn your life away. Read on…

This is an official Toyota commercial using World of Warcraft characters! I saw it on TV yesterday. Creative!

Back in my younger poor-college-student years, I’ve always been pissed that my cell phone bill was always substantially more than what my monthly plan costs due to cell phone taxes. Arnold taxes the average Californian 13.18% of their cell phone bill. If you tack on federal tax (5.48%), an average Californian will pay an extra $7.46 per month in taxes for a $40 per month plan. That’s about $90 per year. I was looking for ways to reduce this number and this is what I did:

1. Researched which state had the cheapest cell phone tax (found out that it was Nevada with 1.14% tax rate).
2. Opt for e-statement, so Sprint emails me statements instead of sending me a paper statements to my home address.
3. Change my address online to Caesar’s Palace Casino:
   3570 LAS VEGAS BLVD S
   LAS VEGAS, NV 89109
4. Start supporting the Nevada State government and watch my bill go down.

Here is the result of changing my billing address. Read on…