You’ll soon realize how much Flash is overused on many sites. After I started blocking Flash, the static ad images that appear on sites don’t bother me enough to continue running my ad blocker. Try it yourself.

• Flash Blocker for Firefox
• Click-to-Flash for Mac Safari

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, I have an easy way to find which channels your neighbors are using. Grab the app WiFiFoFum and see all channels which are in use in your WiFi area. I love this app. It is extremely helpful in many ways beyond this single example. I highly recommend it. I’m sure desktop solutions are available, but I prefer using my iPhone for portability.

Once you can see a map of channels in use nearby, choose a channel for your network that is not in use by other nearby networks. Technically, each channel number represents a range of frequencies, many of which still overlap each other. To get as far away from other networks in the channel spectrum, choose a channel number that is 5 points away from other networks. For example, if everyone around you uses channel 6, choosing channel 1 or 11 would be best in that case. You won’t always be able to space your network that far from the others, but choosing any number not being used by others would still be helpful. I am providing a link that you can read for more information about this topic.

In addition to wisely choosing your WiFi channel, also make sure you also have renamed your network from the default (such as “linksys”) and have turned on WPA or higher security. For additional security, it is also wise to change the router login/password and disable wireless access to the router setup page.

Foursquare is an app for your mobile phone that allows you to check-in to places around town, meet up with friends, and explore your city. Foursquare users collect achievement badges and become the official mayor of places that they visit more often than other users.

I originally heard about Foursquare on the TWiT podcast network. Once I finally got an iPhone a few weeks ago, I was eager to try Foursquare, having heard so much about it. I installed Foursquare on my iPhone, as well as GoWalla, a Foursquare competitor. I’ll go ahead and say that I prefer Foursquare, largely because of the badges and overall fun nature of the app. It also helps that it is much more popular in my area than GoWalla. I’ve never had to add a location into Foursquare in any of my check-ins.

I found GoWalla to be adequate. The user interface is nice. The problem for me was that after many check-ins using both services, GoWalla did not have the place I was visiting in their database even once. I found myself having to add places manually, which eventually wore on my nerves and took some of the fun out of using the app. If it is popular where you live, you may feel otherwise.

Give Foursquare a try. You can install it on iPhone, Android, Palm, and Blackberry devices. I have my check-ins forwarded to my Facebook account so that my friends can see where I am even if they aren’t using Foursquare. Sure, it’s kind of nerdy, but I enjoy it.

The iPhone version of Plants vs. Zombies is absolutely fantastic. It is likely the best iPhone game I have never played. The desktop version is perfectly recreated on the iPhone. The touch interface fits the game like a glove. I played for hours last night. If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, this game is a must-have.

Some of Adam’s theories truly live up to his crackpot title. I certainly don’t subscribe to all of them. I admit that I don’t often agree with all of their political leanings either, but the dynamic of these two guys is fun to listen to. I enjoy it when they tear into the propaganda embedded in a lot of commercials and TV dramas that air today, as well as all of the celebrity media “distractions” that are thrown at the public.

John C. Dvorak is my favorite of the two, and his pet peeve of the day is always amusing. Together, their laid back, unscripted conversation-style show combined with their refusal to spoil it with sponsors makes for an enjoyable listen. Check it out.

Since dumping Quicken 2007 in search for a better alternative, I have experimented with numerous other programs. Those include Moneydance, Moneywell, iBank, Cha-Ching and others. I have never been completely satisfied with my experience with any of them. I believe Moneywell is the best program I’ve used, but lately I’ve grown frustrated with a few issues that I believe must be software bugs.

A wider question is whether to use money management software at all these days. A lot of people don’t bother. I can think of three alternatives to not using said software: 1) Not keep track of your money at all, 2) Use an online solution like Mint. I am not interested in using an online service to house my banking information, so that option can be tossed out immediately. 3) Track your finances using a spreadsheet.

Quicken has been promising a new Mac version for a couple of years now. It has been delayed time and time again. In fact, some in the tech press have called it vaporware. However, it seems that they are finally about to release it. I received an email from Intuit saying that the new version will be released by the end of this month. It is called Quicken Essentials for Mac. The screenshots look attractive, but is it worth it for me to spend any more money on software to help manage my money? After all, I find something that I dislike in all of them.

My needs in money management are pretty simple. I manually enter the data and I just want to know the bottom line to avoid possible overdrafts. With that in mind, I’m now trying a new approach to managing my checkbook. I’ve created an Excel spreadsheet that will house my transaction data. I tried a few iterations of my own, but I’ve taken a liking to the attractive Excel 2008 checkbook template that Microsoft offers for download on their Mactopia website.

So far, I like the complete control over the fields and information that I can store using Excel over a money application. Over time, I’ll see if tweaking the spreadsheet will be enough to satisfy my needs. If not, perhaps I’ll test drive Quicken’s new offering. Maybe they’ll get it right this time.

Of more than a hundred iPhone apps installed on my iPod Touch, Tweetie2 has become my favorite. It’s often the first app I click when I turn it on. I often take the iPod in the bathroom (ha) or in the bed to scroll through the latest tweets and trending topics. Tweetie2 is a fantastic Twitter client and I recommend it above the competition.

I post at least one tweet to Twitter every day. That much is easy. I’ve been try to post daily to this blog. Due to the long form format, it takes time, and I won’t be able to continue it indefinitely. Often times when I see a great movie or find out about something amazing, I’ll tweet about it, versus hammering out an essay on the topic. I suppose that I’ve become lazy by the 140 character limit of Twitter.

Twitter is valuable. Over time, I have carefully managed the list of people that I follow. Today, I follow 175 people and companies, and I read their messages daily. I find out about things the instant they happen. With Twitter, I feel completely plugged in. This is especially true for tech news, which I am very fond of.

If you aren’t using it, I don’t know why. Everyone can sign up, and nobody forces you to post messages of your own. The value in crafting a list to follow of people who are important to you is immeasurable. In fact, I have exchanged direct messages with people such as the editor of MacWorld magazine, and others. It’s quite a community. I foresee using it for a very long time.

My latest Twitter updates are on display in the right sidebar of this blog. You can follow me @blitzcraig.

The eatery is called Goodberrys and only has locations in Raleigh, Durham, or Cary North Carolina. Goodberrys has a good reputation in the Triangle for their ice cream and frozen custard. I don’t particularly have a problem with their desserts, but I can say first hand that their hotdogs are a complete abomination. They are so bad, I imagine that eating one could possibly take a year or more off of your life.

I remember the meal like it was yesterday. We each ordered hotdogs from the location in Cary and ate them on our way back to work. I have to say that the Goodberrys in Cary is historically the worst of them all. Neither of us could choke down an entire hotdog that day. My teeth simply could not separate the internals. I liken it to biting into a rubber, steel-belted garden hose. To this very day, it remains the single grossest thing I have ever eaten from a restaurant in my life.

Hilariously, Laura has had the same experience. She told me that her encounter with a Goodberrys hotdog happened almost fifteen years ago. She said the hotdog had the consistency of a rubber stick with a bone in the middle. Disgusted, she threw the rest of her half-eaten hotdog to the stray cats that had made themselves a home around her house. The stray cats would not touch it! That says it all.

I realize that it has been over a decade since I ordered food from Goodberrys, which isn’t really fair to complain about now, but it may as well have been yesterday. It continues to haunt me as the most terrible meal I have ever consumed.

To summarize, if you are in the Raleigh area, for heaven’s sake, do not order a hotdog from Goodberrys. Trust me, they are absolutely dreadful. I seriously have my doubts that what they are serving even legally qualifies as food. You’re likely to get more flavor and nourishment from ingesting a dead cat on the side of the freeway.

Criticism of Flash reached a head last week when Apple announced their new iPad. As everyone knows, the iPhone OS does not support the Flash Player. Apple’s lack of support for Flash on their mobile devices is quite deliberate. The general consensus is that Apple hates Flash and wants to use the iPhone and iPad as weapons to try to kill it. This irks me.

The exclusion of Flash on the iPhone and iPod Touch is understandable, but I believe that the lack of Flash support on the iPad is a huge mistake. I don’t want to buy the iPad, but if I were interested, the lack of Flash would be a deal breaker for me. Far too many websites rely on the richness that Flash provides. Sure, YouTube videos play on the iPhone and iPad via H.264 video support in a dedicated app. However, web video isn’t the only area where Flash is popular.

Websites for musicians and restaurants are two areas where web designers lean heavily on Flash. One can complain about that fact all they want, but it is a reality. I personally have no problem with it whatsoever.

In addition, most all of the web-based games on the Internet are played within the Flash Player. Think of the gaming destinations Pogo, Kongregate, Farmville, etc. People enjoy playing these games. To simply not include them in a product that is designed to browse the web is totally unacceptable.

Flash has been a standard on the web for a very long time. More than a decade ago, it brought static web pages to life with animation, sound, and interactivity. I’m tired of hearing the growing calls for the format to be abandoned.

The anti-Flash camp contends that the Flash Player is a slow, buggy resource hog, often hitting 100% CPU usage and crashing web browsers. I have never noticed this on any of my computers. I can stream Flash video and multitask on my aging machine without issue. In fact, I have a decade old IBM Thinkpad that sports a Pentium-III processor with 512 MB of memory. That Thinkpad plays Flash perfectly fine, without struggle, overheating, or 100% CPU usage. When you consider that modern computers have dual and quad-core processors, what difference does it make if Flash is heavy on system resources?

To conclude, I have no problem with the Flash Player. I’ve never noticed it slowing down my computer or crashing my web browser, even once. In my opinion, Macromedia and Adobe have historically done a pretty good job at maintaining the Flash Player across all platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris. It is ubiquitous, and it just plain works. So I say this to everyone who is bitching and moaning about the Flash Player: Get over it. If you don’t like it, uninstall it. See how great your web experience is after you do that.

Every New Years Eve, while the partygoers in New York City are living it up in Times Square waiting for the ball to drop, another copycat tradition is underway in downtown Raleigh. In Raleigh, we have the acorn drop. Yes, you heard right. It is a large acorn on a pole that they lower at midnight to celebrate the new year. Lame. What is the point of this? New York is in our time zone and people who actually have a life can celebrate the real ball dropping, in real-time.

Even more stupid is the fact that the acorn is dropped early every year at 8:00 PM so that families and small children can witness the drop, chiming in an hour that is absolutely meaningless to all parties involved. To artificially celebrate the new year before midnight is a complete disgrace. Let’s just do away with this. I’m embarrassed.

Today is Groundhog Day. Up in the city of Punxsutawney, PA, the famous groundhog comes out to see his shadow. Don’t get me started on how silly the tradition is. If you look at the historical records, you’ll find that ole’ Phil sees his shadow like 95% of the time. But I digress on Phil. My real complaint is that Raleigh, NC has to copy this tradition as well. We have our own groundhog celebration, except our groundhog bears the eye-rolling name “Sir Walter Wally.” Give me a break.

I’m curious if other cities and states have similar events to those I’ve listed above. All I can do is shake my head at what a complete waste of time and resources all this crap is.

The problem I have is that this isn’t a tablet computer. It is basically a giant iPod Touch. I already own an iPod Touch, and I don’t need a larger one. The iPad runs the iPhone OS. I want to see a tablet that runs full-blown Mac OS X and is a fully functional computer, complete with USB ports. I thought an Apple tablet would have Mac OS X at its core. After all, Apple invested a lot of time in writing Snow Leopard (10.6) to use less space and system resources. I figured all of that work would have coincided with developing a product like the iPad.

The iPhone OS, as it exists in version 3.x, does not allow multitasking (beyond the iPod feature and push notifications). That seems very limiting on such a large and capable device as the iPad. In addition, there is no Adobe Flash for the iPhone OS. Steve Jobs said that the iPad delivers the “best” web experience. How can that be true if it doesn’t have Flash? What about all of the Flash-heavy websites out there, not to mention all of the fun Flash games on the web? Also, the majority of online video streaming today requires the Flash Player. The only videos you’ll end up watching on the iPad are those you rip into iTunes yourself, YouTube videos, and those you rent or purchase from the iTunes Store. Of course, I am aware that the future HTML5 is going to eventually provide video streaming without Flash, but that isn’t quite reality as it exists today.

As for the rest, I can say that the iPad looks pretty. I do think there is too much bezel around the frame, however. I’d like to see the screen reach all the way to the edge. This device would be great for college textbooks. Little was said about that during the product announcement, however. The iPad should have a camera for video conferencing, and the lack of one is a little puzzling. I imagine that the next version of the device will add a camera. I’m also surprised that we didn’t see a 128 GB version of the iPad.

On another note, I was also disappointed that while doing their iPad product announcement, Apple did not announce the rumored multiple carrier support for the iPhone, or any mention iPhone OS 4.0.

It will be interesting to see all of the apps that will be developed for the iPad. I believe the product will be a success for Apple, but it falls short of a game-changing announcement, in my opinion.

The movie has good casting, and the story is good as well. But what takes the cake is the sheer amount of over-the-top gore and gross-out scenes in the movie. Some of the gore may have been available only in the director’s cut, I am not sure about that. If you have the option, I’d watch this version of the movie, since the gore is so much a part of the overall charm of the movie.

If you like horror/suspense films, I’d guess that you’d like this one. Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll say that the parking garage and cemetary scenes were my two favorites. Add this movie to your list of rentals for sure.

The above text was my post to Twitter this evening. It’s true. I woke up my Mac Mini tonight and in the middle of writing an email on Gmail.com in Safari, the entire OS failed, resulting in a dimmed, dark screen saying to power off my computer and restart. I’d never seen that before in my life. A report was sent to Apple. What in the world could have happened? I only had three open programs at the time. Let’s hope I never see that message again.

I snapped a photo of my screen with my camera for evidence, but I’m not going to include that photo in this post because the screen showed information in my Gmail account with too much personal data.

On my Linux laptop, I’ve taken a strong liking to Bluefish. Bluefish is a great free, open-source text editor for programmers of all types. Unfortunately, the latest version of Bluefish that can be installed on Snow Leopard involves jumping through several hoops to get it on the system. Totally unacceptable.

My favorite Mac text editor for HTML and CSS is Taco. I used the 30-day trial and really enjoyed using it. In the end, I purchased the full version at a cost of $25. I believe that is a reasonable asking price for such a useful and well written piece of software. If you use a Mac and don’t want to fork out the money for far more expensive programs such as Dreamweaver or BBEdit, then Taco is the answer.

In my opinion, the number one most glaring omission on Mac OS X is the lack of a true maximize button. As a former Windows user, I’ve always found this puzzling and odd. Fortunately, that issue is eliminated with Cinch. Try it now. I absolutely love it.

Whether you are a novice or a pro web coder, W3Schools is the best site to visit for all of your coding answers.

I’ve recently been trying the incredible Notify 2 for Mac from Vibealicious. It’s an awesome product that works not only with Gmail, but many more services as well. When it comes to Google services, not only is Gmail supported, but also Calender and Docs! The Notify’s slick integration with the Mac OS is fantastic. If you’re looking for a great notifier on your Mac, then look no further!

I primarily use Gmail online for my email, but I do use Thunderbird to locally archive my messages from my Gmail account. I’ve been pleased during my limited trial of the new 3.0. It feels very fresh and new. It’s my favorite email client across all platforms.

Read an in-depth review of Thunderbird 3 at Ars Technica, and download the program at Mozilla.com.

After the show, Laura bought a pair and has been enjoying them immensely. For our anniversary, she bought me a pair, which she gave to me today. It was a very sweet, thoughtful, and generous gift. I love them already. I can’t wait until I have a chance to wear them in public. After a short time, I completely forget that I’m even wearing shoes at all. The possibilities are endless! I recommend them to anyone with a penchant for the unusual.

In total contrast, the folks at OpenOffice have made headlines of their own, for all the wrong reasons. Have you seen the new OpenOffice mouse? When I first saw it, my jaw dropped. I figured it for a joke, but unfortunately, it’s real. This mouse goes in the complete opposite direction of all logic and modern design. 18 buttons and a joystick in a wired mouse? It’s so absurd, it’s laughable. I love OpenOffice the software suite, but this is ridiculous! I still struggle to believe that these people are truly serious.

Music content is something I do want to own. I listen to my music over and over again, and cherish my collection. I don’t want to pay $15 a month to listen to unlimited music. No way. I don’t mind paying for tracks and albums. I prefer it. They are mine and I own them. Seeing the public calling for a subscription model for music irks me. That is just what the record companies want you to do, provide a steady revenue stream from subscribers. I say no! I’ll keep my music that is rightfully mine.

Too many business today are thinking of instituting a monthly or annual subscription fee to use their products. Word has it that Windows and Office may adopt that business model in the future. Yuck! Subscriptions are a way to suck more and more money from consumers. If digital content in the future will be comprised of a slew of subscriptions, then the hell with it.

I drive up Glenwood several times per week, and I’ve never seen a car in the parking lot of the Alpine Ski Center. Despite that, the store is always open, year-round, even in the 95-degree heat of the summer. How can this be? What is going on here?

I admit, I’ve never been inside the store, but I recently visited their website. They appear to have locations in NC, SC, and TN. Perhaps they make enough money through online orders from their website to keep the physical locations afloat. I could understand if they were an online-only business, but I simply don’t know how a physical brick and mortar store can make enough money to survive.

Perhaps more is going on here. What that is, I don’t know. I have always joked that the ski center is a front for something else. That probably isn’t true, but I find it very hard to believe that a ski center in Raleigh is a profitable business.

A favorite game of mine is Spore. I don’t think Spore got the best reception from PC gamers, but I personally enjoy playing it. EA Games generously provides both a PC and Mac version of the game on the Spore install DVD. Unfortunately, the system requirements for the game strictly forbid Mac Minis using the GMA 950 graphics chip. I did a lot of online research and found people who said they were able to rig it to work, and others who disputed that.

Frustrated at all of the conflicting information, I decided to try it myself. After a lengthy install, the game updated with patches from EA, but when the actual game launched, it failed time and time again. Therefore, I’m here to say once and for all, you cannot play Spore on a Mac Mini that uses Intel GMA 950 graphics. Period!

With that being said, you can run Spore on the very same Mac Mini if you boot Windows via Boot Camp. Within Snow Leopard, I activated Boot Camp and installed Windows XP SP3. From the Windows side, Spore is indeed playable with the same hardware. Go figure.

So now I am enjoying the fun of Spore, only I’m doing so running Windows on my Mac machine. Doing so, Spore runs just fine using the lowest graphic quality settings within the game, at 800×600 full-screen resolution. I hope this clears up all of the Spore/Mac Mini uncertainty that is all over the web.

Boost must be earned through aircraft upgrades. It isn’t available immediately. To enable boost, enter the Customize Aircraft menu, then add boost to the inventory. If you win unlimited boost, it will be labeled Boost 4. Once boost is enabled, during gameplay there will be a thin vertical green bar next to the throttle indicator at the bottom left. To boost, simply double-tap the square controller button (same button used for accelerate). Bam. It’s that easy. I hope this helps.

I dabbled with WifiTrak a while ago, but when iPhone OS 3.0 was released, the version of WifiTrak that I had wasn’t compatible. I removed the app and didn’t think about it after that.

WiFiFoFum is my latest choice to sniff out Wi-Fi networks. It is very detailed, showing the channel of each network, security method, signal strength, and more. If you want to gather info about networks in the area, it is the one to use. The app even has a radar which displays on a radar screen the location of each network source. I don’t know how accurate the radar is, but in my simple tests, it did a good job.

One benefit of using an app such as WiFiFoFum is being able to see the channel number of each network within the area. I realized that my own home network was using channel 6, as well was nearly ever other network within reach. I changed my channel to 8 to avoid any potential interference that may exist.

Dear N&O:

I have a great new name for the N&O. I call it “The Pews and Observer”. I don’t subscribe to the paper, but often glance through the papers of my co-workers. I find that nearly every day the Life section is filled with religious articles. Most of the Life section these days is actually the Faith section, which I find disturbing. In my opinion, the N&O is nothing more than a religious publication. It’s hard not to feel that way when I’m bombarded with regular features such as “The God Squad” and church bulletins.

Take away the advertisements, the religious propaganda, and most of what is left is collection of articles ripped straight from the New York Times and the Associated Press. That’s not much of a problem because those articles are clearly the best ones. However, I can read them in the actual New York Times, or on the Internet.

The only local N&O staff writer that I look forward to reading is Barry Saunders. He pens an insightful and entertaining column. Hopefully when the paper industry breathes its final breath, Barry find valuable work elsewhere. Sadly for the N&O, once the daily print newspaper is a thing of the past, nothing of value in Raleigh will have been lost.

• Visit Sedona Tourism Site

In addition to the WiFi in the sky, each seat had its own LCD monitor, complete with FREE satellite TV, live GPS, and movies. (The movies were not free.) The GPS was incredible. I hadn’t seen this before. The GPS system showed our altitude, ground speed, tracking map, temperature outside the aircraft, head wind speed, and more! The fastest speed that I noticed on the GPS was 518 MPH. Awesome. I felt like I was in a flight simulator on an actual plane. I was fascinated!

Unfortunately, our return flight didn’t have such luxuries. Oh well, at least we got home safe. But if you find yourself on such a modern aircraft as I’ve described, you’ll be glad you did.

We saw this restaurant on the Travel Channel show “Man v. Food”. We had never heard of The Pit before then.

We made reservations for a Sunday night and it was very crowded. Interestingly, they notified those waiting for a table via your cell phone that a table was now available. I don’t know if that was for those that already had reservations, or everyone.

The staff was a little uncoordinated in some ways, but that is a minor point. The food was absolutely delicious. The baby back ribs literally fall off the bone they are so tender. Everything was quite good. The nice atmosphere was the icing on the cake.

I certainly recommend The Pit.

The movie started off in a very stupid manner. It shows the nerdy director running around gathering everyone for the premiere of the film. This entire sequence was entirely too long and unmistakably cheesy. Once the actual picture starts, it isn’t half bad at first. A couple is shown making out in a cemetery where zombies ensue. The opening is very slapstick and silly, which I actually enjoy.

Beyond the opening scenes, the movie lurches into a downhill free-fall into cheesy absurdity. The movie has musical numbers! Awful! The lead character broke into song a few times and we finally had to eject the disc. Beyond the opening scene, nothing was even slightly amusing. I was hoping this movie would be so bad that it would be good, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t even that. This movie is one of the stupidest I have ever seen in my life.

Snow Leopard locks out old PowerPC users, as it available for Intel processors only. I’m at the shallow end of that requirement, using a two-year-old Mac Mini with an Intel Core Duo. You can visit snowleopard.wikidot.com for a list of potential software issues with the new OS. So far for me, in my tests, Cyberduck (FTP) won’t launch at all on the new OS, and Firefox 3.5.2 crashed once. A few other applications that I use have issued updates for 10.6 compatibility today. Expect more to come over the following days. I haven’t tried to load all of my apps yet.

In my short usage so far, the most notable difference is seem in performance and in the Dock. I’ve barely scratched the surface. Expect more posts to follow! Meanwhile, visit Macworld for updated information!

The vast majority of the time, restaurant bacon is served up as a shriveled, wet, greasy, white, uncooked blob of fat. Does anyone other than me know what a cooked piece of bacon even looks like? It is a cooked crispy brown. Everywhere I go the bacon is barely cooked, limp, and consists mostly chewy fat.

This problem is particularly bad a fast food places. They are not alone, but Wendys and Jersey Mikes stand out in my mind as being among the worst offenders. If I order a club sub at Jersey Mikes, I have to refuse the bacon. If I forget to opt out, I end up with a disgusting sandwich, layered in bacon that has the texture of stringy, sinewy, chewy fat. I lose my appetite trying to sever it with my teeth.

I’m fed up! Making bacon isn’t very hard. It’s easy to make on the stove, in the oven, or microwave. How does one mess it up? I don’t understand. I’ll no longer accept bacon in my food when I go out to eat. I’ve had enough of feeling sick to my stomach after pulling a white, fatty, uncooked blob of fat from my sandwiches. I’m done! I’ll have no more of this.

I probably sound like a crazed Apple fanboy, but it matters to me, being the Mac, iTunes and iTouch user that I am. Apple is the center of my computing world today. Hooray for OS X. In my opinion, it’s the best operating system on the market.

• apple.com
• apple.com/macosx

There are many ways to customize your notes. I found a good page that lists several ways to spruce up your Stickies here.