A New Cord for iPhone, Plus More!

The battery life on my iPhone is nice, but for me, it drains quickly due to the fact I listen to music while at work. So to help from having a dead phone by the end of the workday, I bring my power cord with me. Unfortunately, after 5 months of carrying it around in my pocket and pulling it out several times a day... I wore it out!

The cord had gotten so bad, wires were exposed. And some of those wires were frayed. Yikes! I had gotten so bad, it was time to buy me a new cord. I wasn't too happy with the price though! $20!! Ouch!

When we went to Walmart to purchase a new cord, Lydia noticed something else... A charger/battery-pack for only $30! Wow, not bad! Designed by Case-Mate, it also gives you the USB cord to sync your player to the computer. That's exactly what I need! Plus the benefit and being able to charge the phone is awesome, and well worn the extra ten dollars.

The device also comes with a mini & micro USB cord so that you can also use it for charging other phones and devices besides the iPhone/iPod. One of my favorite features is that it keeps the cord nicely wrapped, preventing the problem I had with apple's cord. However, the cord is much shorter then I like.

So far, after having it for almost a week, I'm really satisfied with the device. Oh, it's also much better in price than the others! I'm n you can buy! I'm not too keen on spending $50+ on the same type of product!

BTW, if you're looking to find this item on the internet, good luck. I couldn't!

~Matt

Facebook Users' Info Published Online?

In more news... an online security consultant (Ron Bowes) took the public information available from Facebook, put it into one file, and posted it on Pirate Bay. This has caused some 'terifying' responses from facebook users.

Do I think that facebook users' info has been compromised? No, I don't. Nothing criminal happened. Furthermore, if you think about it, he just "republished" the info. It's already available online on facebook!!!! All he did was put it into one massive file.

Bowes claims it's "a scary privacy issue". However, I disagree. All that information is voluntary put up there by users. The users themselves are to determine what's private or not. All the info that Bowes grabbed was "public", therefore, not a privacy issue.

And guess what..? I agree with Facebook's response:

"People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want. Our responsibility is to respect their wishes. In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher. This information already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook. No private data is available or has been compromised. Similar to a phone book, this is the information available to enable people to find each other, which is the reason people join Facebook. If someone does not want to be found, we also offer a number of controls to enable people not to appear in search on Facebook, in search engines, or share any information with applications."

~Matt

Warning: Facebook May Expose Cheating... or A Second Wife???

Love it or hate it... Facebook is part of our life! In fact, there are now only a very few of my extended family that are not on facebook!

Facebook can be good, or bad. It all depends on what you post. As a user, you have the option of what you want to share or not. As I have posted before, if you don't want info available, don't post it! You'd think that would be simple.

Well, in some of the most hilarious news articles I've read all week, it seems that a woman has found out, via facebook, that her husband has a second wife! Wow...! The woman came across the wedding pictures! I guess some could consider it sad. And yes, it's sad that he was cheating on her, and even got married again... but at least she was able to find out. If it wasn't for facebook, she wouldn't have known!

I guess the guy should have told his second wife not to post pictures... but then again... did wife #2 know about wife #1? I'd sure like to hear what she thinks about the whole thing as well!

~Matt

SG and Photoshop!

As many of you know, I follow Southern Gospel news and blogs. I had once thought about blogging about it, but have found that there are several out there that do such a great job at it, I just leave it up to them. Plus, I like to ramble here, and could never stay on topic! Since my posts are so random, today is about Southern Gospel!

Well, to get to the point.... Yesterday, I read about the possibility of the the Hoppers getting photo-shopped in one of their photos. To be specific, Connie.

Now, I will agree that it does look that perhaps some of the winkles have been wiped away, but that could have been done with a good make-up artist as well. The photo looks good, and I don't think that it misleads anyone on how they look. She still looks like herself, and doesn't give a false impression.

I guess some consider it wrong to "touch-up" an image. However, I don't think so. I also use photoshop occasionally on the photos I post. I have kids, and when you take pictures... things show up. For example, I had taken a great shot of Malachi smiling. I was getting ready to post it and share it, even get it printed at Walmart. But there was a problem. Unbeknownst to me, at the time of the shot, there was a huge, nasty, green booger in one of his nostrils! YUCK! I quickly touched up the photo, and no one knew something was missing.

I don't think people should misrepresent themselves in photos. But a little touch-up in the right way doesn't hurt!

 Anyway... as you can see in the attached picture, I decided to have some fun and give Claude Hopper a new look! :) I guess this would be misleading! LOL!

~Matt

Dropbox

I carry around a USB thumbdrive. I holds files to current projects I'm working on, so that I may be able to access them at almost any time. It also contains files that may be needed, like a few soundtracks and documents. It has been useful, like at church, when I needed to give our youth pastor some logos or artwork he's needed.

Well, now that the internet is everywhere, I stumbled across a website that provides the same type of service! Dropbox allows me to have (for free) 2GB worth of storage, accessible through the internet. Not only that, but they aslo have moble apps availble to access and organize those files!

This service works great for me, I can use it to keep the files of my projects at hand! If you'd like to join, click here and you'll get extra space just by using me as a referral!!!!

~Matt