and by making this post I shamelessly entered the contest. I have to say that it seems to be a cool blog however, and has since been added to my NetNewsWire.

I can do it. Of course knowing about it this far in the future does help. I am not only going to take this as my computer but all devices. My cell phone, iPod, laptop all gone for the day. I think it will be rather refreshing. Who knows maybe I will like it and plan more day’s like this. Can you do it?

I found this out from Jeff over at (jeff)isageek.net

Well March 24, 2007 is being called “Shutdown Day” where people all over the world shut their computers off and do something else. Could you do it?

It is obvious that people would find life extremely difficult without computers, maybe even impossible. If they disappeared for just one day, would we be able to cope?

Be a part of one of the biggest global experiments ever to take place on the internet. The idea behind the experiment is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if we all participate!

Shutdown your computer on this day and find out! Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer?

Well Google Apps for your Domain is now simply Google Apps and is also now a paid service. The small business service is not a bad price in my opinion at $50 per year/per user for 10gb of space with 99.9% uptime and also 24/7 support.

It is also very nice to say the they still have 2 free editions, one for schools that includes the 24/7 support and another for families and groups. The family and group edition will have all the features that were currently available. This is really good news because now I will not have to switch my robertnelson.com domain back to its regular mail service. I had been using Google Apps with it for a while. Even though I did like the service I was not ready to pay for it, it gets very little traffic and simply would not be worth the money for me.

Well Google has a paid service. Looks like the next will be expanded email storage for Gmail. One could only hope then we can stop hearing so many “important” people bitch over and over about lack of room in Gmail. I am glad to be unimportant, I never even come close to my limit for Gmail.

Either way great services and great news from Google. Check it out here and sign up if you have a domain to use.

Via: Google Operating System

Google Apps Premier Edition is the promised offering for small businesses. It includes 10 gigabytes of mail storage, 99.9% uptime guarantee for email, APIs to integrate with the existing infrastructure of a business (single sign-on, user management, email gateway), 24/7 phone support. Everything for $50 a year per user (there’s a free trial until April 30th).

The Tampa/St.Pete Blog Writers Inaugural Meetup

When?
Monday, Mar 5, 2007, 6:30 PM

Where?
Panera Bread
3181 Tampa Road
Oldsmar, FL 34677

I am going to try to get out to this, it may be fun to meet some other local bloggers. Mondays can sometimes be rough for me, but with the advance knowledge I may be able to make it down for this.

Can you guess what it is?

Well I did something I did not think I would do again. I took an actual job. Well maybe not a 9-5 or anything crazy like that but it will require me to have a clean cut and dressed up appearance from time to time. Basically just keep my hair one color and a normal style of cut (ie: no mohawk) and get a few pairs of dockers and a few dress shirts. You know play the part, I can do that well I did it for just about 10 years at my last job. Speaking of that job, its been almost a full year since I have been on my own. March 18th, 2006 was my last day.

I am still acting as an independent contractor but I will be in a professional setting. So I guess it works out real good for me, I do not have to go into an office and do not have any one to answer to other than myself. I will still set my own hours and use my current home office and meet at clients home’s or local meeting spots.

So the job? What could it be? Well…

I had gotten my Mortgage Broker License a while back when a company that I was going to work for offered to pay for my class, shortly after getting my license they went out of business due to the owners not getting along. With that I just put my license on a back burner and did not really think to much about it. I had a good paying job at the time and really did not want the extra work. However I have always wanted to work in the mortgage industry.

I recently came into contact with a Mortgage Company and am going to actually use my license again. So I am sort of a professional again. Of course the current home & internet work that I do is not going to stop. Not yet at least. I can at least say and very proudly I may add, “That I am a Mortgage Broker”.

I am still going to refresh my knowledge by reviewing my course book and also taking an updated course. I have pretty good knowledge of what is going on in the industry because my wife currently works in the same field doing closings & processing.

Bet you would not have guessed.

Well I have bitched about Flickr lately but when it comes down to it I am pretty sure that I will keep my Flickr account active and not switch over to Zooomr. The YahooID is really not that bad, it’s more the principal and the fact that I do not like change. Not to mention I am pretty established at Flickr with just over 1100 photo’s uploaded.

Anyway one thing that has bugged me about Flickr is not being able to get notified of comments via email. It always seemed like it was so obvious that it should have been that way. Well good news! They now have email notifications for comments.

Via: FlickrBlog
f you’ve ever wondered, “Wouldn’t it be grand to be notified when someone comments, tags or adds a note to my photos?” Well, wonder no more — we’ve added a couple of new email notification options to your Account page.

You can now set up immediate, daily or weekly email digests about new activity within your photostream, as well as set up an email alert when your contacts upload new photos.

To set up notifications, head over to your Account page.

…but I also really don’t mind if someone else wants to.

I personally do not like the smell and cannot imagine why anyone would want to buy cigarettes now, they are so damn expensive. I saw this article about “No Smoking For You” over on Autoblog.com and it made me think of a bumper sticker that I see and laugh about. The bumper sticker reads “At Least I Can Still Smoke In My Car”.

Well according to this article Germany may (or at least) try to ban you from smoking in your car. They are stating that it will help keep passengers away from second hand smoke and also that smoking while driving may lead to traffic accidents.

While I am not sure I fully agree with this, it is really funny!

Some of you may know that I had in the past played over at Full Tilt Poker. I am not really into cards or poker but liked to play every once in a while. While I am not the best player I am far from the worst. Either way I like the idea of being able to play.

Lately it has become hard if not possible to play online and I have stopped as of a while ago now. For me I am a casual player and getting in trouble is simply not worth the few minutes of fun. I do get upset by the fact that I am a responsible grown adult and I am being told that I am not aloud to spend my money on this. That to me is very unfair.

Full Tilt Poker is trying to do something about it. They have a new site set up called the Poker Player Alliance. You can go there and sign up to support the cause. They have a few levels of membership including one that is free. I would ask that if you care to please sign up and support this.

To me this is just poker, but if they can take this away what may be next? I sure do not want to find out, I like the whole internet and want it to be open and free.

So for anyone who reads this you already know that I picked up a new VW Jetta back in December. I actually got it just before the new year. I took delivery on December 30th. I went for the VW just because I have always wanted one and the price was right. And by price was right I mean it was a lower monthly payment than what I had with no money down.

So, Saturday morning we were sitting around watching TV just laying around on the couch and being lazy. We had been sitting there for a little while and I went to get up to get something to drink and looked over at the front door and sitting there was a huge box. I was pretty sure I had not ordered anything so I was wondering if they delivered this to the wrong house.

I went over to the door and saw the VW logo on the box and was surprised, I looked at the name and it was mine along with my address, the delivery was correct. I opened it up and to my surprise I found a nice shiny new guitar. I am sure this is not a super high quality guitar but hell I don’t even play so what can I ask for. It will make a nice learner “first” guitar.

I have always (since I was a kid) wanted to learn to play I just never put forth the effort. Well sometimes I really believe things happen for a reason, kind of like fate and this must have been. I guess this is my time to learn to play.

It turns out that any new VW (leased or purchased) from Oct 1, 2006 thru Dec 31, 2006 meant you got this free guitar. What a surprise! Well if anyone has any hints or tips for someone to learn send them over my way.

So I finally got a camcorder over the weekend. I drove down to Circuit City on Friday night to pick it up. I am sure its not the best out there, but for me it is most likely more than I need. I decided to go with the Canon HV10. I went with Canon partly because I have a (approx) 4 year old Canon Powershot S400 camera that has always worked great and has lasted a long time and also partly because the price seemed good compared to other HD/DV camcorders. Hopefully this will be just as good in the future.

I bought a few accessories to go with the camera, I got a second battery, a nice 4 hour Energizer because the one it comes with only gives you about a 1 hour run time. I felt that the battery was a must have. I also picked up a miniSD card to go with it, I got of course the biggest they had at 1gb. That way I can take digital stills with it, and man this takes some nice pictures.

I had not thought I would want to use it much for stills but after taking a few I changed my mind, this takes much better pics than my current 4mp camera. I am still learning about camera’s so I am not really sure why it takes better pictures although I am sure there is a logical reason.

A few things that I have noticed since I got this on Friday. Granted I have not played to much yet, but give me some time.

• I am glad to be a Mac user.
  When on photo mode iPhoto launches when the camera is hooked up via USB, and when on video mode it works very well with iMovieHD. Its nice to be a Mac user and not have to worry about drivers and programs to install before use.
• You really need a powerful computer, my G4 Powerbook 1.67 with 2gb ram is running hard to get this video pulled on to the laptop.
• When using HD video (1080i) you really need alot of space. This video takes up a huge amount of space. I am sure an external hard drive just for video will come in the not to distant future.

This is the first time I have had a video camera of mine. So I am pretty excited.