Billing Reminders

August 8th, 2007

Ever had one of those days where everything seems to be going okay when suddenly your realize you’ve forgotten to pay off the credit card bill? It can definitely ruin your day, not to mention ruin your bank account with late fees. These days most people have caught onto online banking and bill pay, but a lot of people haven’t caught onto the friendly email reminders available on most banking sites. Some sites will even text message the reminder to your cell phone. Among the available options, there is usually a reminder that will notify you when a new statement is available, or when a payment is due within x number of days. This can be a lifesaver especially if it means saving you 50 bucks in late fees, or that low interest rate. If you really like the idea of e-reminders be sure to check out Google Calendar where you set up email and text message reminders for any event scheduled on your calendar. Oh, Don’t Forget is another convenient site to check out that lets you send free text message reminders at a date and time you specify.

Blogging 2.0

August 7th, 2007

Over the past year or so there has been evolution occurring in the blogging community. It seems as though that bloggers have caught onto the whole web 2.0 social networking scene. We are starting to see more and more blogs composed of a collaboration of individuals, rather than just a single person.

We have learned from social networking that empowering users to create content can produce massive results. While this can be a powerful resource, it can also result in chaotic content, even if the content is based on a rating or ranking. The problem with the traditional user driven content model is that content submission by users has no regulations. There are no requirements that must be met to become a user, nor are there any incentives or penalties for content submission. This results in a sort of quasi anonymous role for the users. Thus, users are not as motivated to make a conscious effort to submit quality content, instead, content is submitted without much discretion.

The solution to this problem is to limit user membership based on credentials. In addition, create more incentives for quality content submission, and penalties for poor content. This establishes users in a more prominent role and causes them to become more passionate for their contributions to the community.

Here are some specific examples of sites I have termed “Blogging 2.0″ sites:

Metafilter
LifeRemix...

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Live Lining

August 1st, 2007

Went down to Solomons Island to visit Mehdi last weekend to do some fishing. Joel met up with us Saturday morning, and we tried our luck with live lining spot in the bay, here’s the report:

Had a great day fishing out of Solomons on Saturday. Left the dock a little late (around 9:30), picked up some spot at the mouth of the Patuxent, and made out way over to the Gas Docks to try our luck at some live lining. We couldnt have asked for better weather, no wind and absolute glass on the bay. Very few boats out at the Gas Docks, we tried drifting just south of the boundary buoys between 40′ - 25′ of water. Rockfish were EVERYWHERE, caught our limit easy with a couple close to 25″. We did see what we thought were some bigger fish following the spot to the boat a couple times but never hooked up with any.

Thanks Mehdi, I had a blast!

Medhi with rockfish

Joel with rockfish

Sam with rockfish