David Pogue, NY Times Technology Columnist, posted a story recently about using various information services over your cell phone (or your home phone). One of these services is a 411 service and all of them are free to use (text messaging costs may apply).

Those services are:

1. Goog411 - 411 Service
2. ChaCah - Over the Phone Search Service
3. Jott - Personal Notes Service

The killer service is Goog411. Your home phone provider and your mobile phone provider typically charge to use their 411 service, as much as two bucks per search. Some charge extra to send you a text message or to connect you to the phone number that your searching for. Goog411 is free to search with, free to connect with and free to get a text message. I’ve tried it and it works great. I’m going to save it into my phone for easy use when I need it. On their website there is a video that shows you how to use the service. You can search by name or by category, all you need is a city and state. You can even get a map! All you have to do is say “Map It!” You will get a link to a map (if you phone has internet service) as well as the address and phone number. If you only have text messaging, just say “Details!” It’s that easy! Really, I it is. (You can watch the YouTube video on YouTube --->Click Here)

If you happen to have an iPhone or BlackBerry, Goog411 is really rocking!

Below are links to Mr. Pogue’s video netcast and NY Times article.

Fee Voice-Activated Phone Services (Video)
Cell Services Keep It Easy, and Free (Article)

Tags: Google, Web Services, David Pogue, NY Times

Tomorrow is Father’s Day. This will only be my 2nd official father’s day; but I am already a dad many times over and a grand father once and soon to be twice. Considering my 38th birthday is still 2 months away; I guess I’m doing okay in the “growing the family” department. Mom, Dad, you said you wanted grandkids; I don’t like to waste time once I get started on a project. I may take a while to get started, but once i start....

So, tomorrow will be a day for me to celebrate Fatherhood. I have much to celebrate too. Courtney and the rest of my step-children really are wonderful and the past few years I’ve spent helping to rear Courtney I wouldn’t trade for all the MacBook Pros in the world. For me, that’s saying something. Tomorrow I also get to celebrate Father’s Day with Kristie. She hasn’t even been placed with us officially, so I don’t want to get ahead of myself; but by Father’s Day next year we will have an official holiday together.

We don’t have big plans for tomorrow, but most of the local family will be here. Tracy and I love having everyone over, it’s one of the reasons we bough the size of house we did. One day we will have more of a back patio; but for now we do have the wonderful front porch. If not for the horrible Texas heat we could probably make use of it on Father’s day. I may sit on the porch though in the morning while I enjoy my coffee and watch the sun come up.

While I am drinking my coffee I’m sure Brian will still be in dreamland, but this year he will celebrate his first Father’s Day. I would say he “only has the baby,” but to say “only” and “baby” is to make it sound SO SIMPLE. While their hands are completely fully yet, they will be by Father’s Day 2009. I remember with my grandson, year one he just laid there and smiled... year two he was doing his best to get some serious attention. So Brion, enjoy this Father’s Day because the next one may not be as relaxing.

The photo above wasn’t taken on FAther’s Day, it dates from just after Father’s Day 1975 though. It is a photo of Dad, Brion (the one in the diaper) and me. Dad was enjoying being a father for the second time, this year will be sort of that way for me. Only Courtney lives at home, but Kristie is joining us making her simillar to a second child for me. When it comes to children my life has become slightly complicated; but I LOVE IT!

Tags: Holidays

Tracy’s youngest son celebrated his 21st birthday yesterday. For 21 years he has done everything in his power to make his mom go as crazy as possible, but then that’s the job of a son. Of course now he is married and doing everthing in his power to drive his wife, Leslie, crazy. On both counts I can relate, as a son and a husband I’ve done both.

Last night we all got together with Javier and his closest friends for some dinner and fun at Kelly’s East Side, a restaraunt owned and operated by Javier’s best friend’s family. A restaraunt Javier knows well since he helped to decorate it many years ago. We all had a great time, but unfortunetly the family and I had to leave early to insure that Courtney go t a good night’s sleep so she could get up for work today.

Before we left though we got a chance to see Javier’s big 21st birthday present, a racing harness. Javier is not only into fixing cars, but also racing them; legally of course. I could tell that no other present would have been as well recieved as this one. He was smiling the same way I would be if someone gave me a shiny new lens for my camera.

Happy Birtday Javier!

Check out the Photos - Javier’s 21st Birthday or Just link to them form the Gallery.

Tags: Birthdays, Javier

Apparently yesterday there was more fun going on in Target than I had suspected. Not only were the ladies doing some “secret shopping” but they were also holding miniture trycle races. Unfortunetly for Courtney, Kristie seems to have been just a little faster on three wheels. I’m sure Courtney would just say she was destracted by all the pictures.

Go Kristie!!!

What I want to know is how they didn’t get kicked out of Target!?!

More Photos In the Gallery.

Tags: Target, Shopping

Today the whole family made a fun filled adventure up to Home Depot here in Wylie. It was some amazing and wild fun. Okay, I may be getting a bit sarcastic, just a bit.

After the ladies all returned from a morning of pedicures and maincures they asked me if I wanted to go with them to Home Depot. The girls wanted to start the process of picking out paint colors for their repsective rooms. I eagerly said yes and bounced out the door with them. (Okay, so that too might be a “bit” of exageration.) Anyway, the four of us headed off to the land of lumber, lights and lawn mowers.

I’m happy to recount that while the girls did find the paint they liked, and the ceiling fans, and the light fixtures and the carpeting; we did leave emptied handed. While we did leave with no items in our bags, we did leave learning one thing about Kristie; she isn’t as shy as one might think.

While we were sitting enjoying what I suspect may be our future out door furniture, it was added to the mental lists, Kristie began saying hello to just about every person walking by. She was quite openly friendly. Courtney couldn’t dig herself deeper into her chair, not that she too isn’t one of the more friendly people on the planet.

It was actually all great fun and was followed up with a trip to Target and then to Best Buy; an afternoon filled of browsing and apparently a bit of shopping. Not sure what they all got, apparently it was top secret. Hmmmmm.....

Tags: Tracy, Courtney, Kristie

Well, today a new version of Rapidweaver was released. For those of you that don’t know, RapidWeaver is what I use to build my websites. It is the program that really got me to think long and hard about moving back to Macintosh. RapidWeaver makes creating a website, stupid easy. So does Apple’s iWeb, but the difference between them is that you can grow with RapidWeaver.

Anyway, today version 4.0 was released. While they haven’t added any major new features, they have rebuilt the entire interface and it’s gorgeous. It also seems easier to use. I really can’t pass final judgement as the Gold released was only today, but I was using the beta for the past few weeks.

In the past with each new version of RapidWeaver I have made some big to major changes on my website. The current version of the webside debuted a few weeks after 3.6; the last major upgrade. I believe that this current version of the site would be KellysWorld V3, or as software developers have begun to do --- KellysWorld ’06.

So, does this mean it is time for a KellysWorld ’08. Not sure. I have to say that when I do a new version I have a tendancy to update the site more for awhile; but eventually that comes to a hault. I’ve stopped storing photos on my website and have started using different sites in the past several months. Most recently posting my photos to my .Mac gallery. It’s the photos folks come to see anyway.

I don’t know. The fun is in the designing of the site, the graphics, layout and any new tools I can throw at the site. Of course after a month or two I go back to a minimilst approach as you see with KellysWorld in its current state.

Well, I’m sure wild horses couldn’t keep me from making at least some changes; and heck, why not. Change doesn’t always have to serve a high and powerful service, sometimes change can just be about trying on a new outfit; or a new layout.

Tags: KellysWorld, Rapidweaver, Mac OS

Don't laugh! I know it only took 5 months, but yes the Christmas photos from 2007 are finally posted. The problem with taking several hundred photos at a time is that the process of culling through them becomes daunting and well, I fell down on the job. Never-the-less they are up now, as well as Easter 2008 and Mother's Day 2008. Plus some other photos as well.

Tags: Photos, Christmas

Today I added links to both Tracy's .Mac Web Gallery and my .Mac Web Gallery. They are very simple to use and look extreamly pretty. Why .Mac, well, Tracy was already using and as it is part of our whole Apple experience; why not? It plays very friendly with all modern web browsers, works with the iPhone and the Apple TV. I still have my Flickr and Smugmug sites and only time will tell if I make the total switch; but for now it is really easy for me to publish from Aperture and it's just as easy for Tracy to publish from iPhoto.

.Mac isn't state of the art or super fancy, but it fits the need. You can download individual photos or entire albums if you like. There is also the option of adding your own photos to the albums if the feature is turned on for that album. I've not played with that feature much yet.

....................
Tracy's Gallery.............................................Kelly's Gallery

Tags: Photos

Tomorrow I will be chaperoning a small gaggle of teenagers on a high school outing to the Scarborough Renaissance Festival here in the Dallas area. It's a pretty standard renaissance festival with jousting, dancing, games, sword fights and of course TURKEY LEGS! While I have been to renaissance festivals in other states I've never been to the one here in Dallas. I've meant to go for years, but never got around to it. Last month my daughter asked if I would like to be a chaperon for the school field trip to Scarborough, and I just had to said yes.

Now admittedly I may be regretting my decision if the gaggle of teenagers drives me a bit insane, but I should be okay handling 6 or 8 teenagers. How much trouble can they get in to with sword fights, jousting and mead around. OH NO!!!

I'm taking my camera and looking forward to all the possibly great photos I might be able to get. That is assuming I have the opportunity and that mother nature doesn't decide to offer Dallas another day of rain, rain and more rain. Shouldn't matter though, in the end I'm sure I will have a great time!

Tags: School, Courtney

I've posted more photos to Flickr. They are not recent photos, most are from last year. I've been very bad about doing anything with the photos I take. I get them into Aperture, but fail to do anything with them after that. That has been a bone of contention with my wife as this means she has no access to the photos I take. Since I don't use iPhoto she can pear into my computer and see the photos I have and because of the mass amounts of photos that I do have there isn't an easy way to make them available to her. So I'm exporting the photos and both uploading them to Flickr as well as moving them to her computer.

One of the tricky thing about both Music and Photos is how to share them between members of the same house. iPhoto, for those that use it, does offer a sharing method; but while I love iPhoto, I don't like the destructive way in which it edits photos. If they would move iPhoto to a similar non-destructive format as Aperture and Lightroom i might move back to it.

Never-the-less, you are interested in seeing photos and not my personal workflow. So check out the link below. Next weekend I will work on uploading more photos from 2007 and 2006.

Flickr Photos

UPDATE 5/6/08 - I've added more photos and will continue to do so over the next several weeks.

Tags: Photos