Ohhh the blessed day has come. We have now welcomed a 1080p 120hz 55″ Vizio VF550M HDTV into our household. For the last 3 years we had a 50″ 720p LG HDTV and while it was good, it just wasn’t cutting it in the REALLY high def arena. Tonight, we fired up the good ol’ PS3 (which has a built in blu-ray player for those of you that didn’t know) and we watched the best movie I could think of to really kick start this relationship between me and the TV, and that my friends, is Avatar. Just the opening Blu-ray movie menu had me floored. I got a huge grin of pure bliss on my face and my wife looked at me and just laughed. I was in TV heaven people, TV heaven. I had always seen this kind of quality in the stores and always longed for it to be mine, but alas, it was just a dream, never a reality. But now it’s in my house and man, is it ever welcome. We also have a Vizio sound bar that tries to imitate surround sound all from about a 3 foot wide bar. Did it rock? Yes sir it did. Did the sound totally immerse our bodies as if it was coming from all around us? Nope. I got a $30 subwoofer from a local pawn shop and it did a great job. It was booming the house when those dang Navi were fighting us humans. It was great stuff. All in all, the TV is amazing, the picture kicked my face in, and the sound was really good coming from a small little bar and subwoofer. Oh by the way, if you’re wondering what subwoofers work with the Vizio VSB200 soundbar , I’d have to say that any one with an analog input connection would work. Take a look at the video to see what I’m talking about. But anyways, I am totally happy with my setup and it was loooooong overdue.

Here is the video that shows the whole set up. I’m just saying here, I almost wet myself with pure joyful joy (:

So about a year or so ago I signed up for Google Adsense. To be honest, at the time I didn’t really care about putting ads on my blogs, didn’t really understand why I would even make one. Well, here I am, typing away, wanting to put adsense ads on my digital work of art. So the question needs to be asked, can I? Nope, I cannot. Why? Because in my opinion, Google is an all powerful empire that can ban or accept whoever the crap they want and whatever they do they will still make boatloads of money. We basically have to bow down to the almighty Google and take whatever the say to us and if we don’t like it? They could care less, they are Google, you are small little peon man. So here’s my story with Adsense. So the first time I put it on I didn’t read the terms and conditions I had no idea Google was psycho Nazi people with their ads. I’m a teacher and once my ads were on my blogger blog, I told my students, click on my ads people, make me money! It was more of joke than anything cause I knew them doing that would make me like 40 cents. Well in a few weeks I get a happy little email from Google saying, YOU’RE ADSENSE ACCOUNT HAS HAD IT’S HEAD CHOPPED OFF SUCKS TO BE YOU!!! At first, I didn’t care, those ads were just my experiment of trying to learn how to get ads on a site. So I just shrugged it off and said, “Whatever Google, you don’t own me!” Well time went on, my wife has about 2 billion friends that blog so I decided to put a WordPress blog on our server for her so she could be like all her little friends (: As I watched her make posts and do cool things with it I thought to myself, “That looks cool, I want to do it too dang it!!!” So this little blog was born. Then it came to me, that maybe I could make 2 dollars in a year by putting ads on my blog. So I signed up for Google Adsense again with another account promising to myself to be a good little child and not make the almighty Google angry with me so I wouldn’t get virtually smote. All was good, the ads were working, and I’ll admit… I clicked on my ads two times, and it wasn’t to make money. The ads actually were interesting to me and without thinking I clicked them!!! So sue me dang it!! And of course the omniscient hand of Google came down hard again and they revoked my privileges of making them 2 cents every decade… jerks… This time I even filled out the appeal form to plead my case. I told them I recognized what I did wrong, I told them I felt sorry for what I did, I asked for their forgiveness, and I promised them I’d never do it again (which I didn’t) and no, Google has no forgiving heart. They sent me another email basically saying, “Haha, you’re dumb, and oh ya, the answer is no.” Now I gotta say here. I LOVE GOOGLE. Google Voice, Earth, Docs, Gmail, Analytics, Webmaster tools, etc are all amazing FREE services. They are an incredible company that I believe really follows their motto of “Don’t be evil.” Well Google, I’m feeling some evilness here and sensing a non forgiving spirit so go repent and be good little Googlers. But anyways, I decided to try and be sneaky and get an account one last time. So I made a whole new Google account and attached adsense to it. Again, the ads showed up perfectly, and I did NOT click on any of my ads or do anything that would upset the Google gods. But yet, again, I got another email killing my account. After that moment I read around on others blogs and it seems I’m not the only one who has been messed over by Google. I mean I can totally understand why I got banned but seriously Google, no forgiveness in your “don’t be evil” company? I was dumb, I learned my lesson, I’ve changed my ways, but I still have to bow down and accept the fact that frankly, Google doesn’t care. So basically admitting defeat and disdain for how freakin nuts Google is about their ads, I threw in the towel, got down on my virtual knees, and crawled back to my nemesis Google to find an alternative to Adsense. Enter the stage, Adbrite.

Adbrite is now what I’m currently using. So far so good. I’ve learned the evilness of my ways and I’ve found peace in another home. It was easy to sign up with, and in about 15 minutes or so I had all the code manipulated with the new ads in their new places. So all I can say is this is the first time Google has let me down, I almost didn’t make it through. My life was in shambles, but that’s ok I’ve found a new friend in the ad network world, and their name is Adbrite and I’m pleased to meet them. Hopefully that 2 dollars a year will now come to be a total reality. We can only hope.  Thanks Adbrite **insert cheesy smile and thumbs up here**

I have to start this out by saying I LOVE VEGAS.  It’s like an evil Disneyland.  It has all the cool stuff that Disneyland has but it throws in a bunch of evil stuff into the mix as well.  Which I’m not really a fan of.  For example,  I hate the fact that you can smoke in the casinos, those buildings are so beautiful and they are destroying them with the cigarette smoke.  But if you didn’t let them do that in there then all the customers would be gone so I understand why they allow it.  Also I gotta say, gambling is exhilarating.  I can see why people can get addicted to it so easily.  I won $20 on the slot machines and that was quite the rush.  I yelled out in jubilation when I won.  When my neighbors heard me they looked to see what I had won, then thought I was a complete moron for yelling out about a measly $20.  Oh well, maybe I am a little dumb.  Anyways, love the city, it’s amazing but you do have to put up with some crap.  The best part of Vegas for me are the shows…. ohhhhh the amazing shows.  This post is meant to talk about the shows we saw and hopefully give you some insight on which ones rock, and which ones are kinda eh…  Again, these are my opinions so take them for what they’re worth.  I mean these shows are dang expensive so it’s important you get your moneys worth.  I’ll rate each show between 1 and 10, 1 sucking and 10 being most awesome.

O – Bellagio Casino

O was my favorite show we saw in Vegas.  The stage transforms to a solid platform and in the blink of an eye it becomes a full out swimming pool.  You see a lot of aquatic acrobatics and other things that are amazing as well.  I don’t want to talk too much about them but I’ll just say you see a ton of cool stuff.  The way the show starts and ends is very, very cool.  One tip though, if you are going to see it get the “Limited View” seating in section 203.  Don’t sit in the first few rows, get as far back in the limited view area in section 203 that you can.  That’s where we sat, we paid the cheapest price, and the sucker sitting right next to me paid full price…  The seats are THAT good.  There is nothing that limits your view.  There would be if you say in the front rows of section 203 but if you get 2 or 3 rows up you’ll be fine.  There’s no story in the show, just amazing acrobatics that will leave you speechless.  Love the show, HIGHLY recommended.  If I went back and could only see one show, this would be it.

Score: 10/10

Mystere – Treasure Island

I have to admit when I saw the previews for this site I didn’t really want to go see this.  It looked kinda lame and not that cool.  Plus it’s one of the oldest shows in Vegas so I thought it couldn’t be that amazing.  Well, my wife basically said she wanted to see it and made me get tickets.  I’m glad she did.  The show was great.  The mix of humor and the acrobatics was quite amazing.  Be prepared for tripped up stuff though.  Like a baby running around saying “Ba ba” randomly, a huge snail, and all kinds of weird costumes.  There were points in the show where I thought to myself, “Cmon, I paid a ton of money for this, do something cool” but then a few minutes later they did something amazing so I was good to go.  The 2 strong men were amazing.  Oh, during the show they play and sing live music.  The sounds you hear are being produced at that moment as the action is going on.  That was quite amazing to me.  Now, where to sit?  Eh, doesn’t really matter in this arena.  To be honest, the expensive seats up there at the front really aren’t the way to go.  Your neck will break because you’ll be staring up at the action the whole time.  I’d say go for the cheapest seats you can that are the most in the middle.  You could be at the back of the arena and still see things perfectly but you may miss some things if you are on the side.  It’s not that big of a stage so really anywhere is ok, I just think the middle is better.  Overall, this show rocked, I’m dang glad I got to see it

Score: 9/10

KA – MGM Casino

Man where to start on this one… I wanted to love this show so much.  It has a storyline.  Something that I thought the other Cirque shows lacked but now that I’ve seen KA, it’s probably better that they stick to the non storyline type shows.  The whole story was hard to understand.  Things happened that made us go, “Huh?  I thought he was the bad guy!”  I mean Cirque shows are about wowing you with amazing human feats, not telling a story that plucks at your heart strings.  I applaud them for trying to accomplish the whole story thing but in my opinion, it didn’t really pan out with KA.  The thing that will make you wet yourself is the stage.  OH MY GOSH.  You walk into the room and your jaw drops.  It’s huge and incredible looking.  The detail paid to the whole arena is staggering.  You feel like you’ve entered a whole new world when you take your seat.  There are parts in the show where layers of the stage drop and you can see even further back into stage and you start to get an idea of how freakin huge it really is.  To be honest there were parts where I wish we had sat closer or had binoculars or something because of the immense size of the stage.  That being said I’d recommend getting middle closer to the stage seats if possible.  We went for the cheap seats when we went so we were kinda far back.  The stage goes back very deep so the closer you can be without breaking your wallet, the better.  Technology wise this was the best show.  The stage was the coolest.  Part of the stage can go vertical and it moves around all over the place with the actors on it.  There’s a scene where they fight on the stage while it’s standing straight up vertically.  I mean it’s one of those things where you have to see it to know what the heck I’m talking about.  It’s good enough to say out of all the shows we saw, the decorations, atmosphere, and the way the stage worked in the arena, KA came out king.  But when acrobatics and stunts come in, that is where KA starts to waver.  I’m not sure if this is part of the show but there were parts where all the action just stops.  They get into this flying machine at one point and the wings just sat there flapping with nothing else happening for like 2 minutes.  It was really weird.  And those kind of things happened a few times later as well.  It killed the pacing of the show and created a lot of confusion for the audience.  The fight scenes were kind of lame and slow nothing like we’re used to seeing in the movies.  The costumes were amazing but the story was hard to follow.  All in all, great show but it had some issues that were just a little weird.

Final Score: 8/10

The Beatles Love – The Mirage

Hmm ok I think I’m going to have people shooting me for saying this but this was my least favorite Cirque du Soleil show I saw in Vegas.  And yes, I will first admit that I’m not a fan of the Beatles.  I don’t hate their music, but don’t really like it either.  During the show there’s a lot of references to the lives of the Beatles that I would have never got if I didn’t see it with my father in law who’s a complete Beatles fanatic.  After he explained to me some of the stuff it became a little cooler but not by much.  There’s really not a lot of acrobatic stuff in this show and that’s probably what killed it for me.  There’s a rollerblading part that was pretty cool but nothing compared to what was in O and Mystere.  It’s a very busy show in the fact that there is always a TON going on and you gotta keep on your toes to try and see everything that’s happening.  Again, just like Mystere, where you sit isn’t a big issue.  It’s even less than with Mystere because there are like 4 different sections in the arena and from any of them you can see everything that’s going on.  I would definitely recommend sitting in a higher up seat because there’s a part in the show ****SPOILER AHEAD**** where they cover the whole bottom half of the audience with a HUGE bed sheet and to be honest, it would of sucked to have been under there not knowing what the heck was going on above the sheet.  It looked SOOO cool when they started going up and down when the sheet was cover everyone.  You got like a parachute effect.  That was by far the best part of the show.  *****END OF SPOILER****  We got the cheapest seats in the house and sat in the first row of that section.  They were great seats and didn’t have any regrests with where we sat.  A weird part of the show is at the beginning they have these dividers that separate each section from each other so you can only see a small portion of the stage but when everything starts and gets rolling it became a pretty cool effect.  So to sum it all up, it was a pretty boring show for me.  Not a lot of “cool” stuff goes on like sweet acrobatics and things like that.  It’s just a bunch of people dancing with cool costumes and props.  For me, spending that kind of money, I wanted to see some more wow type stuff and Beatles Love didn’t do it for me.  Now if you’re a Beatles fan you will probably poop your pants out of excitement but as for me, I won’t be seeing it again.

Final Score: 7/10

Blue Man Group – Venetian

Again, I may be shot for what I’m about to say but the Blue Man Group was a pretty big disappointment for me.  Now if this was the first show we had seen in Vegas then I probably would of liked it a lot more.  But we saw this after we had seen the other Cirque shows and most of them are a lot better.  There were moments in this show where I thought again, “I spent way too much for this to be watching what I’m watching right now.”  Was it funny?  Yes.  They were very entertaining and comical.  Was it a good show?  Ya, it totally was.  It just wasn’t as good as the other shows we saw.  The thing they do at the end is awesome and we sat like a few rows from the front so we got wasted.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just go see the show (:  We were in the “splash zone” but we never got wasted by their crap they hit everywhere so the ponchos they gave us, were unnecessary.  I would say with this show don’t sit in the back.  It’s a pretty big arena and sitting in the back would make it harder to see.  We were right up at the front and I liked it a lot especially for the ending part.  But try to get the most in the middle as possible.  For this one I would definitely say closer and more in the middle, the better.  The funniest part of the show was when an alarm went off, the blue men stopped what they were doing on stage, the spot light went on a couple coming down the aisle and it labeled them as late comers haha.  It was so funny.  They got there late so the whole crowd needed to know that haha so awesome.  The whole show is very cool, the music and pipes they play on are awesome it just wasn’t mind blowing amazing.  I’m glad I went and would definitely recommend it to anyone who goes to Vegas it’s just there are better shows out there.

Final Score: 8/10

Tournament of Kings – Excalibur Casino

You know how sometimes when you go into something not expecting a lot it blows you away?  That’s how it was with Tournament of Kings.  And of course another thing is they do these kind of shows all over the nation where Mystere, O, KA, etc are original shows only found in Vegas.  That being said though, I loved Tournament of Kings.  I loved it so much that I saw it again when I went back to Vegas.  Basically it’s a medieval show where knights fight kick the crap out of each other and you get to cheer for whatever knight’s section you sit in.  The first time we went we got to sit in the Dragon Knight section.  That was a lot cooler than just a normal “good” knight.  But maybe that’s just cause I’m evil (: haha.  The Dragon Knight is the evil dude who runs around beating up the other Knights.  It was just cool to be different.  The food was good depending on how picky you are.  If you’re expecthing this incredibly high quality meal with all the fixings you’ll be disappointed.  If you’re expecting food that will fill your belly and taste pretty good at the same time you’ll like it.  You eat everything with your fingers which is cool and the dragon’s blood (tomato soup) was awesome.  The thing that really got me about this show is it was like being at a really intense sporting event.  They really draw you into the show and audience participation is huge.  That’s really what makes this show cool.  You’ll boo the other guys, and scream your head off for your Knight to kick some booty.  But really it’s as fun as you make it.  If you just sit back and not participate then ya, it’ll be pretty lame.  I personally screamed my head off both times and it was awesome.  It really doesn’t matter where you sit since it’s a circular arena and you can see everything from wherever you sit.  When you buy tickets go to a Tix for Tonight venue or see if your hotel sells tickets to it.  The first time we paid like $60 a person then second time we paid around $35 a person because we got the discounted tickets.  Also, it’s worth mentioning that they changed some things up the two times I went.  The first time they had this little girl doing this awesome act where she would get on this balancing board stick thing and then they’d flip her in the air and she’d land back on it.  She rocked.  Then the second time we went she was no where to be found ):  But anyways, great show, it’s totally for the whole family to enjoy and I recommend it.

Final Score: 9/10

Nathan Burton Magic Show – Flamingo Casino

The best way I can describe this show is it’s like your getting a full fledged magic show shrunk down into the Nathan Burton Magic Show.  The guy has a good stage presence and he does some pretty cool tricks.  I doubt it’s as big as Copperfield or his long distant relative (or not haha) Lance Burton but for what you pay and for what you get it’s totally worth it.  They say it’s a “family show” but it must be mentioned that it’s a “Vegas Family Show” in other words, no nudity haha.  His helpers are pretty scantily clad.  They had a kid from Provo Utah come up when we were there and they asked him, “Do you think these girls are pretty?” and he said, “No…” haha.  Then they asked him if he would want to go on a date with this one girl up there and he was like, “No…”  Was pretty funny but it was a little awkward seeing this 10 year old kid up there with a bunch of half naked girls and you could tell the kid was feeling a little weird too.  But to be honest I don’t remember a lot of the stuff he did but I do have good memories of the show.  It was your typical magic show that was a fun good time.  If you need a good family show, Vegas style, to go to, it’s a good choice.  Just be prepared for a little half nakedness.  But the tricks are pretty good but nothing that will make you die of amazement.

Final Score – 7/10

Mac King – Harrah’s Casino

The whole adage don’t just a book by it’s cover is totally applicable to this show.  If you just look at the fliers and such for this show you probably wouldn’t be inclined to go see it.  I mean some dude in a flannel suit doing magic???  Are you kidding me?  Well, this show was amazing.  It’s pretty low budget there’s no crazy special effects or anything like you see in other magic shows but that’s what makes this one special and different.  Mac King is so laid back and he’s freakin hilarious.  You WILL laugh your butt off at this show.  Think redneck comedy magic with Mac King.  We went and saw him twice as well.  He does most of the same jokes but he plays the crowd as well.  For a Vegas show he’s pretty cheap.  If you just buy the ticket outright it’s like $25 bucks.  But there’s fliers all over the strip that will give you a “free” ticket if you buy a drink.  Oh and that drink only costs you $10 dolla.  Expensive drink if you ask me but eh, you get a show with it so you can’t complain.  I’m telling ya though, this is a great show, dang funny, and he does some pretty cool tricks.  Even though they aren’t huge elaborate tricks you don’t care because you are having a great time with him making you laugh and interacting with the audience.  He’s by far, the best afternoon show I saw and probably the best afternoon show on the strip.  I loved it and so did everyone else I was with.  GO SEE IT.

Final Score: 9/10

Le Reve – Wynn Casino

So I saw Le Reve with my wife at the Wynn Casino and I gotta admit, it was pretty freaking awesome. Ok, I’m done with the review haha (: Kidding people, kidding. When you first enter the arena there is mist everywhere covering the stage and the actual environment is very soothing and totally beautiful to be honest. My wife and I just looked around the place for a long time admiring everything. There really isn’t a bad seat in the house unless you hate to get wet, if that’s the case don’t sit in the front. They do a lot crazy acrobatics while falling into the water so be careful of that. This show reminded me a lot of O since it’s a total water show. The stage is incredible it goes in and out of the water so one minute they are swimming around and the next they are walking around on dry land. Pretty amazing. At the end of the show I saw some dude backstage in full blown scuba gear so their set up is pretty cool. The show kinda tells a story about this girl who runs around meeting all kinds of characters. If you didn’t know any better you’d think this was a Cirque Du Soleil show but alas, it’s not. It’s produced and ran just like one though. Amazing acrobatics, people flying all over the place above your head, GREAT music. **SPOILER** There’s a part where a metal tree slowly comes out of the middle of the pool and these bald guys are jumping all around it doing cool flips and such and the music during that part was so insanely intense. The music itself almost freaked you out… it was sweet. **End of Spoiler** So if you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself thinking, “Holy crap the music is amazing right now.” Just like in Cirque shows they have the comedy relief. These dudes will come out every once and a while, do some funny stuff, then it gets back to the cool stuff. Now a disheartening thing is happening right now I am writing this post in December 2011 and I saw this show back in October and I can’t really remember anything else that happens in the show… I am depressed now. But that is also telling me there weren’t a ton of things that stood out to me that worthy of writing about. So all in all, it’s a great show, it’s pretty dang expensive. We got our tickets at Tix 4 Tonight for around $120 each when they are usually about $140 so we saved some but it was still a rip off. I couldn’t find them any cheaper anywhere else and I’m a bargain hunter… sad day. But it’s definitely one of the best shows on teh string but to be honest, I still think O was better.

Final Score: 9/10

David Copperfield – MGM Casino

David Copperfield is one of the best, if not, THE best magician every to come along. He has done some pretty amazing tricks such as moving the Statue of Liberty, going through the Great Wall of China, etc. Now once you figure out how he does them, it’s not so amazing but it’s still ridiculously clever how he does them. I gotta say though at his show in Vegas at the MGM Casino… holy crap he does some wild stuff. Now just so you know this review will have a bunch of spoilers in it so if you care about that stuff just stop reading now and know that I give the show a 9/10. He does this trick where he takes a persons tie from the audience and out of the blue it starts dancing and singing… at first you’re like, ya, ok he just has strings attached but he puts it inside a glass box and it keeps moving/dancing/singing… it’s so crazy! I was almost out of seat because it was so awesome! Then another trick he did, which was small but incredible is he took a piece of paper and wadded it up and it just started moving around as well. He put his hand over and under it so it literally looked like it was being controlled by him floating in mid air. Loved it. Then he took that paper had a lady come up from the audience. He took the wadded up piece of paper, folded it into a paper rose which I’m sure made all the ladies go, “Oooh and aaahh” As I was conceding the fact that yes, he was very smooth and every woman in that audience wanted him, he took out a lighter, lit the paper rose on fire, and right before our eyes it turned into a real rose! It was very slick and I loved the simplicity, yet complexity of it. Anyways he does a bunch of illusions throughout the show and they are all pretty amazing. I definitely recommend the show. I wouldn’t recommend getting the seats way in the back but the closer you can get to the stage that’s within your budget, the better. I got tickets from Tix 4 Tonight and it cost me around $70 which for Vegas is pretty cheap. Go see it, he rocks.

Final Score: 9/10

So Youtube made one heck of an announcement the other day.  They have now created a completely mobile version of their site using HTML 5.  Just in case you’re like what the heck is that, let me tell you.  It’s just the new version of HTML that supports the <video> tag.  Basically every video you see online is shown with either the Flash Player or Silverlight (Microsoft owned technology).  Also, to embed flash movies (properly using swfobject) into webpages it would usually take code that looks like this:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”swfobject.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var flashvars = {};
var params = {};
var attributes = {};
swfobject.embedSWF(“myswf.swf”, “myAlternativeContent”, “800″, “600″, “9.0.0″, false, flashvars, params, attributes);
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id=”myAlternativeContent”>
<a href=”http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer”>
<img src=”http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif” alt=”Get Adobe Flash player” />
</a>
</div>

Now with HTML 5 it would take code that looks like this:

<video src=”movie.ogg” controls=”controls”>
your browser does not support the video tag
</video>

Are we seeing the power here?  I mean it’s a lot EASIER to do but that’s not just it.  It doesn’t require Flash to play a video.  Now with my personal experience with this HTML 5 video tag, I was kinda impressed but also kinda annoyed.  It’s still in it’s infancy stages which I’m sure will start to change with Youtubes adoption of the tag with their mobile site.  The last time I checked (and this may have changed) to embed a movie with the video tag you have to convert the video file to a .ogg or .ogv file and that wasn’t exactly intuitive or easy.  That kind of file is some open source format that is cool or something…  I searched and searched the web for a program that would do that and the only thing I could find was a command prompt ran program.  In other words, you had to type in a bunch of code and convert the file…  now a days in the GUI world we live in, that solution is pretty crappy.  Here’s the link to the example:

HTML 5 Video Test

So once I converted the dang file to the .ogg all I had to do was put the the video tag in like you see above and it worked…. kinda… it was pretty buggy.  It worked for me, I did a little dance in celebration of me using HTML 5, I sent the link to some of my students and it was a hit and miss.  On some of their computers it worked and on others it did.  It may of been they were using outdated browsers… not sure.  Anyways that takes us to the question of this post, Is HTML 5 the killer of Flash?  My answer is HECK NO.  Apple is completely foolish when they say that because of HTML 5 they are not going to adopt Flash on the iphone.  They do that because they don’t want people making Flash  based video games online and not putting them through the app store.  That would lessen Apple’s power and control over us pathetic consumers that bow down to their every whim and product they release.  No, Flash is a standalone application producing piece of software that I believe, has a lot of life left in it.  You can create full websites in it, you can create full functioning online applications in it, you can import 3D models and animations in it, and the list goes on.  And all HTML 5 does that relates to applications is…. nothing, null, zip.  It just makes it a lot easier… well kind of… to embed videos into your web pages.  As time moves on HTML 5 will become a lot more widely supported and it will rock, but will it kill Flash?  I don’t think so.  Be good people, chau.

So the new iphone os came out.  I gotta admit, I’m definitely a fan.  The folder option rocks, I went from like 9 pages down to only 2 and that makes me a very happy camper (:  I also like that you can now have whatever background you want.  I have a pic of my 2 year old pulling a very mad face and it works perfectly as my phone’s background.  The new way email is handled is pretty cool but not that big of a deal to me.  But hey, I’ll take it.  The whole multitasking running apps in the background thing is not as cool as I thought it would be.  I mean back in the day you used to have to hit the home button, exit out, and then pick a new app.  Now you hit the home button twice quickly,  get out of an app, and then pick another one.  Not a whole lot of difference there.  And yes, I know, now Pandora and other apps don’t stop playing their music which to be honest, isn’t that big of a deal to me.  I’m an old fart that doesn’t care about music as much as I used to.  Anyways enough of beating around the bush, we gotta talk about the coolest (sarcasm) part of the iOS 4 and that’s THE BATTERY EATING PROBLEM!!!



So I got the new OS and ya, it was cool.  Went to sleep that night and my battery was around 95%  Woke up and it was around 50%  That was completely nuts.  Was definitely NOT a fan of that.  So I scoured the internet and everyone was complaining about the same thing which is good because I knew that it wasn’t just me getting pooped on.  Then I found a blog that rocked it up.  They talked about things you could do to help.  There were a bunch of fixes I found in other places that didn’t do junk.  Like turning off the fraud warning in safari, rebooting the phone, kill all the apps running the background, etc.  The one that finally worked for me was deleting all my email accounts and then putting them back in.  I have a yahoo, gmail, and exchange account on my phone.  Got rid of them, put them back into the phone, rebooted the phone and BAM, it was all good again.  I’d have to say the battery still drains a little quicker than it did before but at least it’s not a percent every second.  Apple is just very good at making their technology obsolete every year or so so you’re forced to BUY MORE APPLE!!!! And keep them rich for eternity.  I mean c’mon, I got the “new” iphone 3GS last year and what the heck?  It’s already outdated by iphone 4 so what the junk!?!?  Yes let’s keep advancing and making cooler stuff but geez, give the customer a free upgrade or something.  It’s kinda annoying to have to buy a $200 phone every 2 years.  I’m sure there are a lot of you out there that disagree wholeheartedly and if so, eh, think what you want (:  Chau.

** UPDATE **

So, out of the blue my battery started dying really fast again. I was quite mad. So what I basically had to end up doing was turn off the location services and auto notifications. Once I did that the battery actually lasts for a long time now. The only annoying part is when I need to use the map app or something like that I have to go into the settings and turn it back on. Besides that it’s been ok. The lame thing is I had to even do that in the first place. Fix your apps people and Apple, fix the iphone!!! (: Chau.

This is how you can use CSS to get a full screen background

1.  Put the background picture you want to use in an img tag with a CSS class applied to it

<img src=”bg.jpg” class=”bg”/>

2.  Then this is what you’d put in the bg CSS class

.bg {

position:fixed;
top:0px;
left:0px;
height:100%;
width:100%;
z-index:-10000;  /*Makes the image go behind everything */

}

You can see a working example of this at my class website.  No matter what size you make the browser window the picture will always be full size.  The only issue I’ve seen with this is when we did this, the Jquery effects we have like the snow and leaves started lagging pretty bad.  It’s horrendous in IE, Firefox chugs a little but Chrome doesn’t slow down at all.  Chromes JS engine is amazing and we love it (:  Anyways hopefully that helped.

So while teaching web design I’ve always wanted to know how to center something horizontally and vertically on the page so it’ll always be right in the center well, this is how you do it:

1. First to of all create the div and give it a class name of whatever you want, we’ll use container since that’s where everything is going to go

<div class=”container”>

</div>

2. Then you style the container class to make it be centered horizontally and vertically

.container {
height: 400px;
width: 500px;
position:absolute;
top:50%;
left:50%;
margin-top:-200px;
margin-left:-250px;

}

To explain real quick when you make the left be 50% it makes the LEFT HAND SIDE of the div be in the middle so you have to offset that by making the div move back HALF of the width of the div.  Same with the height.  When you make the top be 50% it moves the TOP of the div in the middle so you have to offset that as well by making it move back up half the height.  Anyways, I’ve used this a bunch of times and it’s worked great.  Hopefully that helps someone out there.

So we just opened up a new account at US bank because they offered us $130 to do so.  Haha, we always take advantage of those deals because heck, free money is free money.  Just in case you’re wondering it was a deal where you set up a free checking account with them, attach direct deposit to it and BAM! in like 4-6 weeks you get $130 dolla.  Not a bad deal (:  Anyways, while I was setting up that up the teller asked me about refinancing.  I told him I wanted to but we didn’t want to pay a butt load in closing costs.  Every time I’ve told someone that they just laugh inside, think I’m stupid, and then politely tell me there’s nothing in existence that will do that.  But this guy had a different answer.  He said that US Bank had a refinance option that absolutely had no closing costs or fees whatsoever.  After the tables turned and I stopped laughing inside, I politely told him he was full of crap.  But he said there was no fees, nothing but a lower rate.  The only difference is it’s going to be a Home Equity Loan (HEL) instead of a traditional mortgage.  We bought our town home at the absolute crappiest time to buy ever.  RIGHT before everything went to junk.  2 months before the government decided to start giving everyone money for down payments for their houses, and right before the interest rates dropped.  We got one mortgage at 6.5% and the other one WAS at 8% but we since put that one into a HELOC for 1% above prime.  Anyways he told us that we could combine the two mortgages into one and have a 5.25% rate which saves us about $100-$150 a month with NO FEES whatsoever.  Also you can pay however much you want on the loan, the only stipulation is if you pay it off before 2 years then there’s like a $500 pre-payment fee.  Not too shabby is all I can say.  We just filled out the paperwork today, they have to appraise our house (which is also free) and then we’ll know if it worked or not and if this is the coolest thing in the world, or if it’s a major scam that will make us hate our lives…  Here’s the link to check it out if this is something that interests you:

US Bank Smart Refinance

I will also report back later and say whether all worked out or not.  Chau people, chau (:

**UPDATE** So it would of worked if our loan to value ration wasn’t so high. We haven’t paid off our house enough to qualify so that sucked for us but still, it’s a good deal if you can get it!

Ok so this is my first attempt at making a serious, halfway professional blog.  I know there’s like 2 billion blogs born every half second or something like that so this one will probably go unnoticed but that’s ok.  It’ll be a place where I can blab about whatever I want on whatever topic I want.  Maybe I need that kind of venting…  This is obviously public to the whole world so I will have to be somewhat discreet in what I say.  Hmm not so sure I can do that haha (:  Anyways just as an intro this blog will be about whatever the heck I want it to be.  I’m big into video games, politics, technology, computers, web design, etc so I should have a lot of content to rant and rave about.  I hope some of these post will be entertaining as well as enlightening…. did I just say that?  haha I did… eh, that probably won’t happen.  Oh well.  I’ll make it what I make it and see what happens.  More to come later.