I found these on 99-X’s website today.
AirClick
Griffin Technology, maker of the iTrip that Eric has, makes something called the AirClick, with one piece that connects to the top and receives signals from the other piece, a remote to control the iPod. That way you can hook up the iPod to the stereo and still skip songs and control volume from across the room. Also you can keep the iPod in your pocket or somewhere that isn’t that convenient to get to and then use the remote to control it. It uses radio signals instead of infra red to control it, so it doesn’t need a clear line of sight to work. The remote comes with a strap you can attach to your bike or steering wheel.
New Web Page
Last year I wrote a blog entry about connecting an iPod to my car stereo. Sony had come up with an ingenious system for the CD changer to talk to the stereo, but it was proprietary and made connecting 3rd party sources difficult. Some newer car stereos (like Aiwa) have an input jack right on the front so you can connect any source you want. Anyway, after using a cassette adapter for a while, I decided to spend my as yet unpaid Ad Sense money (I might get my first $100 check at the end of this month; stay tuned) on an adapter.
Short URL’s
Some time ago, Jeb wrote a post about TinyURL, a web service that takes a long web URL and gives you a tiny one. This is useful for e-mailing someone a URL because if you just give them the whole URL it will be broken onto two lines and no longer work. Though I knew about TinyURL for a while, for some reason I didn’t use it for a long work web address and I would get people who would say it didn’t work because the very last letter had wrapped to the next line. I sent out an e-mail yesterday and got three comments about the links not working so I decided it was time.
I entered in the long address and TinyURL, as always, gave me a very short link that takes people to their website before instantly forwarding them to my site. The shortcut always starts http://tinyurl.com/ (not even a www, which shows how serious they are about short URL’s) and then has five (used to be four) random numbers and letters.
Well, the shortcut it gave me ended with 3 letters of a 4-letter word I would rather not repeat here. Being a smart guy I thought I would just enter it again and get a new TinyURL. But TinyURL, being even smarter than me, spit back the exact same nearly indecent URL.
I figured TinyURL was such a great idea that somebody had probably copied it. I searched for an alternative and soon found URL123. They have essentially the same service (except one less letter!) and I wound up with the much more pleasant:
Priceline
For my trip to Denver in June I was tasked to come up with a hotel reservation for the first two nights (the Peace Corps Reunion is only 3 nights and we’ll be there a week). I have no idea about Denver but I wanted to stay downtown near all the stuff. A friend at work had recommended Priceline, so I decided to try them out.