801-738-0668

 Let him know your name, how old you are, and what you would like him to bring you for Christmas. And, if you would like to have a recording of your message e-mailed to you, send an e-mail to Santa at santa@claus.fami.ly with the date and approximate time of your call as well as the child’s name and age and Santa will do his best to send your message back to you for your own enjoyment (Ask your parents for help with this part).

Pass this along to your friends and family so they can call Santa too.  http://stevemart.in/2009/12/10/call-santa/

Merry Christmas!

Pandigital PAN1502W02 15 Digital Picture Frame $149.97

Ok, so it’s sold out but maybe they’ll get more in stock. It was selling for $149.97. We had purchased a Pandigital as a gift once and the quality really was nice.

___________________________________

SmartParts SP15MWA 15 Walnut Wood Digital Photo F $119.99

I have a client with a SmartParts digital frame that his wife gave him for Christmas and it also looks very nice.

___________________________________

Smartparts 15 4:3 Ratio Digital Photo Frame $119.99

I tend to see a lot of the SmartParts frames available from many sites. Hopefully that means that they make a good product.

___________________________________

Sunpak SF-150-42001SL 15 TFT LCD Digital Frame - $81.97

I’ve never heard of these guys but the price is sure right. Hopefully the quality is at least decent.

___________________________________

I just double checked the prices before posting this. They could always change by the time you read this and they could sell out. Enjoy.

This beautiful, extra large digital multimedia frame plays music and supports most video formats. Choose the ViewSonic VFM1530-11 with a high resolution 1024×768 LCD panel for clear and crisp photo images. The 4:3 aspect ratio gives you minimum distortion or data loss. It’s equipped with a USB connection for easy content download and remote control. Handy brightness and contrast ratio adjustment and energy savings with programmable on/off, keep your photos right within view. This makes a lovely gift for special occasions and for anyone wanting a grand view of all their images. Effective Viewing Area: 12″ x 9″ (304mm x 228 mm) Brightness: 400 cd/m2 (typ) Contrast Ratio: 500:1 (typ) Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Viewing Angle: 120° (H) / 100° (V) Memory Card Supported: SD/SDHC, MMC, MS/MS Pro, CF Image File Format: JPEG Video Format: MJPEG, MPEG 1, MPEG 4.

This is my gift pick for this Christmas holiday. I bought another 15″ digital picture frame similar to this for my wife for Mother’s Day. She loves it. The reason I pick this one is that, as of this writing, it is selling for $139.99. Also, it is made by Viewsonic. I have always been happy with Viewsonic products in the past. And last but not least, it is large. A 15″ frame mounts nicely on the wall. We have so many digital pictures just hiding out on a hard drive that we don’t get to see very often. This allows us to be able to see the pictures and enjoy them. So, check it out and snag one before they are gone. I have already watched Amazon sell out of them and I’ve watched the price fluctuate up to $199, so get one ordered while you can still get it cheap and while it will still make it before Christmas.

Any ISP you use has DNS servers setup for their customers to use. Usually everyone just uses them without thinking about it because it is automatic and they don’t know they even have an option. Well, you do, and opendns.com claims that they do a much better job at DNS than the ISPs. If it were as simple as that, that may be enough reason to start using opendns.com but there is SOOOOO much more to it than that. Opendns.com is a way to actually control the DNS for a computer or network. Let’s say you don’t want the people in your home to be able to go to a particular website or even a particular catagory of websites. Can you imagine a scenario where that might be possible? If so, you would create an opendns.com account and program the opendns.com IP addresses into your router so that whenever someone connects to your network, all their website requests go through opendns.com instead of your ISPs DNS. Then you customize your opendns.com account to block certain catagories of websites or even individual websites as you see fit. Now anyone on your network that tries to visit a site that is in a blocked catagory will not be successful in visiting that site. They will get a page that lets them know the site is in a blocked catagory. Pretty nifty eh?

If you choose not to setup an opendns.com account, you can still simply program your router to use opendns.com or even individual computers and at the bare minimum, they will be a bit more protected against certain threats online. You see, opendns.com actively blocks many of the domains that certain viruses are known to “phone home” too when a computer gets infected.

I have opendns configured at several of my clients’ locations as well as my home and it does a great job of resolving DNS requests. And, we get a little bit of extra protection to boot. You’re probably wondering how much an amazing service like this costs as it is quite useful and would be so nice to use. Well, the greatest thing about it is that it is 100% FREE. That’s right, you get everything completely FREE. As of tomorrow, they will be launching a new enterprise version which I assume with carry some new bells and whistles but it will be a value added service which you won’t have to use. So go to http://www.opendns.com and check it out. You have absolutely nothing to lose and quite possibly a whole lot to gain.

I haven’t really gone through the nuts and bolts of actually setting up opendns on your network as I really just wanted to introduce it. You can get great instructions from their site but if you have specific questions, let me know.

So, my advice to you is to leave you outdoor lights on throughout the night. If you are concerned about a higher electrical bill, maybe put a motion sensor on your lights so they only turn on when someone walks nearby. But, if the lights are already on, the burgler probably won’t even check your house and will head to a house with dark hiding spots. Also, with the newer CFL light bulbs, you can put in a 100 watt equivalent light while only actually using 23 watts of power. Or use a 60 watt which draws only 13 watts. As long as you keep things lit up. Below are a couple of pictures I took this evening. One with no light on and the other with a light on. Which one appears more inviting to a burgler? You decide.

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Smart Technology Receives 2009 Best of Riverton Award

U.S. Commerce Association’s Award Plaque Honors the Achievement

WASHINGTON D.C., June 8, 2009 — Smart Technology has been selected for the 2009 Best of Riverton Award in the Computer Consultants category by the U.S. Commerce Association (USCA).

The USCA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2009 USCA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Commerce Association
Email: PublicRelations@us-ca.org
URL: http://www.us-ca.org

###

Pepsi Max Job Interview Funny Commercial – Funny bloopers are a click away

First of all, before you create even your first e-mail account @yourisp.com, think. How much are you paying your ISP each month for Internet service? Now, if you decide to stop paying your ISP for your Internet service, do you think they will still let you use your “free” e-mail account with them? That’s right, the answer is a big fat NO! Those “free” e-mail accounts are anything but free. It is a marketing ploy by your (and every other) ISP. They want to “give” you those e-mail accounts with the hope that you will actually start using them. They want you to give all your friend’s, family and clients your new e-mail address so that you become deeply entrenched in the use of their e-mail. Then, when you get that advertisement for competing Internet service at half your current cost, you will throw it away thinking “then I would have to change my e-mail address, what a pain”. And yes, what a pain indeed. You may have used that e-mail address with your online bank account, your prospective clients (what if they try to e-mail you), All your friends and aquantences. Even your family (Hmmm, that one might not be so bad….kidding (but only kind of)). If you switch your ISP, they will all get a bounce back message that the user account no longer exists. so, it is probably best that you never switch ISPs right? Wrong!

Even if you decide to stay with your current ISP, make the e-mail switch now. Stop using their e-mail addresses. You can create free e-mail accounts that truly are free, no matter who your ISP is. Use services such as yahoo.com, gmail.com, hotmail, or dozens of others. Most of them are browser based, which means you can access them through an Internet browser window using just about any ISP. So, if you were to switch ISPs, it would not affect your new e-mail accounts one bit. If you prefer to use an e-mail client like Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, or Thunderbird, you may want to look at gmail as I know they offer this capability (not all free e-mail services do). Just get away from your ISP e-mail addresses. They are only “free” if you continue to use them as your ISP. If not, they will remove your e-mail account the day you stop paying them for their service.

So, do yourself a favor and switch to a truly free e-mail account. In the long run, you will be very glad you did.

I have been working on a project for a new company recently. The company is looking to distribute a brand new windmill technology that is much more efficient than the ones we are accustomed to seeing all over the place. So, I’ve had windmills on the brain and have had to do a little research into the benefits of wind electrical generation. It’s pretty interesting stuff.

Anyway, I was standing on my back deck looking out at the Salt Lake valley since the weather has been so nice. I looked out at the west part of the valley and noticed a big long line of power poles which I assume carry our electricity across the state, possibly into neighboring states. These aren’t the little utility poles we see in the neighborhood, these are the giant ones that are really tall and have lots of power lines on them similar to the ones in the picture.

It made me think of a GREAT idea. When a windmill is installed somewhere, a big chunk of the cost is the big tall pole that must be installed in order to get the windmill high enough to reach the higher, faster, more consistent winds. Well, why not use those poles that are already there? Lets stick a smaller sized windmill on each and every power pole out there. They are already pretty darn tall and typically in less populated areas with less wind obstructions. AND, you have a bunch of power lines to tap into right there. Each of those towers should be generating a bit of electricity as they carry the power to their various destinations.

I am guessing that there is at least a little power loss trying to send power over such long distances. By placing a highly efficient windmill on each tower, you could compensate for that loss and probably end up with more power at the destination than you initially put in at the source. The first portion of building a wind farm is already in place which means a lot of the initial cost is eliminated. And with the new generation of free power, we will all save some change each month on our power bill (my favorite part).

Now, all I need to do is get an investor or a grant from the government and make it happen. Anyone want to invest in my idea? It sounds like a winner to me.