Why Dance? It Doesn’t Take A Genius!

I’m a typical guy! I think Led Zeplin is the best rock band of all time, I drink beer, I watch football and my celebrity crush list includes Salma Hayek, Catherine Bell and Tanya Memme.

I am fortunate however in that I learned something very early on…Women Love Men Who Can Dance!

Knowing how to dance is like knowing several different languages. Most people understand Rock, Funk, Classical or Rap…but not many can also understand Tango, Waltz, Salsa or Swing.

My Revelation: I was aproximately 15 years old and our school was organizing a dance in which parents where invited. Parent attendance was rare so they planned to have a Waltz contest for the … ‘old folk’.

I had discovered the previous year that I liked moving around to music when a  friend put on Midnight Star’s “No Parking On The Dance Floor“. I really had never heard this kind of ‘electronic funk’ before and it pretty much blew my mind.

Aware of my newly found appreciation, my friend Lilas looks to me and says, ‘We should learn to Waltz for the contest’. Understandably, most 15 year old boys when confronted with a request to ‘learn the waltz‘ would tend to shy away, if not literally run away! Fortunately, my 15 year old, puberty bent mind processed the idea of spending time in close proximity with a pretty girl..and I accepted the challenge.

Now I hardly remember the school dance, nor the contest. As a matter of fact, we may never have even attended. But I do clearly remember going to the library, finding an ‘Arthur Murray book of ballroom dance’  and learning the basic waltz ’box step‘ with Lilas.

**Did you know that when a guy knows how to do a basic waltz box step, there are ENDLESS girls lined up to be taught?? This is something I learned almost immediately.

After my schooling I ended up visiting one of those Arthur Murray dance schools in Orange County CA. The next 5 years found me teaching social dance professionally. Ultimately I grew tired of all the egos, boas and glitter and left…but the education was invaluable!

Disclaimer: I am NOT telling guys to stop everything and walk into a dance studio… God No!

I completely understand guys cringing at the thought of dance lessons. Shows like Dancing With The Stars don’t help matters at all! The representation of dance in the media is piss poor.

Guys, the reality is this…telling a woman you can swing or salsa has more effect than telling her you’re rich. Being lead around the dance floor is something very few women experience anymore…and women LOVE to dance.

If you are secure enough with yourself to walk into a dance studio..do it! If you feel better with private lessons, there are plenty of teachers in most any city, simply ask their training. Most independent teachers did, at one time, work through Arthur Murray or Fred Astaire studios.

Learn from books, learn from online videos. Learning the basic step patterns is important, but utlimately I recommend working at least a little with a female instructor to build your skills in ‘leading’.

Dances I recommend learning: (in order of ease)

Rumba: it’s easy and slow. The rhythm of a Rumba works with most any slow song. (anything but a waltz song)

Waltz: the basic pattern is the same as the Rumba, just different rhythm.

Fox Trot: great casual walking around the floor dance, perfect for those Sinatra fans

East Coast Swing: (aka Jitter Bug) same rhythm as Fox Trot, just more rhythmic than smooth

This Blog will be growing with actual instruction, please bookmark it for more later.

SOPA/PIPA – A Bad Taste In My Mouth!

Even though we are active members of this society, it seems as though nothing we think or feel truly counts. It appears as though the government runs everything and we are but a tiny voice yelling down a dark cold chasm. Unfortunately it is that feeling that has led this country into the piss poor shape it’s in today…if we don’t get involved, nothing will change or improve.

H.R.3261.IH better known as SOPA  (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a legislative nightmare.

Listen, I’m a web developer who has built numerous interactive interfaces for countless organizations. I’ve had MANY creations ripped off and have made other people abundantly wealthy from MY hard work. Nobody is more agitated by Intellectual Property theft than myself. However SOPA is not the answer.

As a web developer and hosting service, SOPA could hold me responsible for the acts of others. It will open the door for fraudulent accusations with laws that would support those accusations before defending my rights as a responsible server/sight owner working in a global market!

I understand that we all want to think and hope that the government should be able to facilitate SOPA efficiently, but the internet is EXTREMELY complicated with VERY vague laws. The government can’t even run Amtrak or the United States Postal Service, less complicated entities that have been around for decades & decades.

Please make an effort to demand SOPA be brought back to the drawing table!

Looxcie Into The Future!

A bluetooth earpiece that doubles as a camcorder..that would be cool!

This is a quick shout-out for the Looxcie bluetooth camcorder. I’ve had this device for about 8 months. I have the first generation…which is a bit bulky, but still very cool!

Here’s what it is and how it works:

Looxcie is basically a Bluetooth audio device for your smartphone, I have an Android. If I want to make a call, or if my phone rings, I can speak using this little gadget in my ear. However, Looxcie also contains 4GB of a flash memory and can act as a camcorder.

The tip of the device (the white part) is a camera lens. If you where to simply press the red button (on top of the ear piece) you would start recording whatever you are looking at. You can twist the camera very small turns to ensure you are getting a stable recording (make sure everything is not crooked).

How do you see what you are recording? You use the Looxcie app that goes on your phone! Looxcie has two applications, well three now, more on that later. In general you have LooxcieCam and LooxcieMements. To be TOTALLY honest, I really don’t understand the difference between them. I have BOTH on my phone..but still don’t quite understand what the difference is except that the interfaces are different…they appear to DO the same thing (start recording, view previously recorded videos etc).

Regardless, in a nutshell, you turn on your phone’s bluetooth, you turn on the camera and turn on your LooxieCam application. As you record you see your footage on your phone, pretty darn cool. Because this is video delivered via a bluetooth connection, it appears a bit jumpy, but rest assured the actual footage is not jumpy at all. On that note, when you review your footage via your phone, you are initially viewing it from the earpiece to the phone..so that footage is also jumpy because it’s Bluetooth that is still pulling from the earpiece to the phone display. You need to SAVE the footage to your phone before you get the actual footage as it really is.

The video format is MP4 and the camera has two settings (set on the LooxcieCam application settings). You can set the resolution to either 480P (30 fps), this is youtube ready footage, or you can use 380P (15 fps) which is smaller and better for emailing.

You can view Ariel Winter from Modern Family via Looxcie here.
You can view lots of users samples here.

One very cool feature from Looxcie is the 30 second clip button. Let’s say you just recorded something cool…with one click of a button on your ear piece, the last 30 seconds of footage is taken and uploaded it to your Facebook account…pretty bitchen!

Now, as I mentioned, I have the first generation Looxcie, it cost me aprox $149.00 down from $200.00 after about 3 months sitting on the shelf. It clearly was a bit over priced and I don’t think people understood what it was.

Looxcie 2 is now out (pictured left) and is a bit more sleak and attractive with an all black, more lightweight design.

And finally, one of the coolest features just released from Looxcie (1 & 2) is their Looxcie Live! Now I do allot of live streaming (I developed and own Bspot.tv) so my natural assumption is that I’d be able to use this feature to stream to Bspot.tv..too cool!!! But, that is NOT yet the case.

Looxcie Live only works with other people using the Looxcie Live app on their phone. I personally had to upgrade the firmware on my Looxcie 1 in order to use the feature at all. So currently you can not broadcast live to other peoples computers..only their phones IF they have the looxcie Live app on their phone. While this feature is basically useless to me personally..it’s a step in the right direction and I have to think home computer viewing is right around the corner!

Here’s Looxcing at you!

Square Up – Credit Card Processing Made Easy!

As a web developer/designer who works with a lot of small start up businesses, The most popular question I get asked is “How can I take credit card payments?”

The time and expense of setting up a merchant account with your bank so that they can lease you a credit card machine while also charging you per each and every transaction..can be daunting, frustrating and expensive!

Paypal now has a virtual terminal that you can use if you are a Paypal member. However the virtual terminal requires you to ‘apply’ to this service and you may get turned down based on your credit rating. You also still need to be sitting at the computer to process the transaction when using Paypal.

There are newer, and what I consider AMAZING, sites/apps you can now utilize to process credit cards. I predict these sites are scaring banks and causing them to lose processing fees hand over fist.

One of those site is wwwSquareUp.com

Square is an amazing application that I frankly am SHOCKED I had not heard of before! With Square (www.squreup.com) you can be set up and taking credit card payments (visa, mastercard, amex, discover) in about 10 minutes via your smart phone or iPad (iphone/ipad/Android). NOTE: this is NOT a resolution for processing online payments from your website, Square is only to process credit cards person to person or over the phone.

Setting Up Your Account: Simply navigate on your computer to SquareUp.com and sign up. They will ask you questions regarding your needs (personal or business account etc) and they will need your bank information so that they may batch transactions into your bank account. They do not ask for your full SSN, only the last for numbers along with DOB. They will then ask a few questions to validate your ID..pretty impressive really.. and it’s all done via HTTPS SSL security.

The account is set up literally within minutes and you can instantly start taking credit card payments via the Square application (load to your smart phone or ipad via iTunes or Android Market). The application will allow you to type in the Credit Card information and process the card, but they also will send you a credit card swiper that plugs into your phone headphone jack…for free!

Truth be told, my experience with the swiper is hit and miss. Some cards took numerous swipes to process correctly..but some went right through.

After entering the amount to charge and then swiping the card, the customer can ‘sign’ the transaction with their finger right on your phone! (under settings you can tell the app to not require signature for any transaction under $25.00).

A receipt containing an image of the signature can be sent to the customer via txt or email.
Every evening Square will batch your payments and deposit them into your bank account.

The application is free, the card swiper is free and Square charges only 2.75% (similar to Paypal) from every transaction for the convenience of instantly accepting credit card payments for your business! You can also have numerous users all logged into the same account with their phones processing payments (like in the case of a sales expo or a small shop with numerous sales clerks).

Other features from Square via the phone App:

• Log Sales History
• Accept/log cash transactions
• Automatically add sales tax
• Allow for tips to be added to sale
• Multiple users accept payments into the same account

The ONLY thing that would make companies like Square unstoppable is if they offered an API to allow you to process credit cards through your website…I have to think that is in the near future.

If you knew Shuzi Like I know Shuzi

Have you heard about SHUZI Technology? Shuzi Qi is a US-based technology company that is developing personal wellness and performance products using Nano Vibration Technology (NVT). Shuzi’s proprietary technology (NVT) has been shown to improve blood flow, enhance cellular communication and reduce painful inflammation. SHUZI also offers powerful protection against EMF (electromagnetic field) interference and has been tested and proven by highly respected doctors, health practitioners, physical trainers and athletes, with measurable results backed by Darkfield Microscopy Blood Cell Analysis, Thermal Imaging Centers of America and FDA Approved BioMeridian testing.
SHUZI’s technology has been shown to, not only increase stamina, strength and flexibility, but also to help alleviate the effects of stress, anxiety, joint pain, vertigo, allergies, sleep disorders and more. The benefits are as varied as each individual’s physiology.

The image to the left is actually my own hand before wearing the technology (left) and 15 seconds (middle) then 30 seconds (right) after putting the bracelet/technology on! Note the cooling throughout the middle of my hand.

This is how it works: SHUZI’s NVT chip emits a subtle energy, a nano vibrational frequency that resonates throughout the body on a healthy cellular frequency. When worn, blood tests have shown SHUZI’s NVT to improve cellular communication and re-energize blood cells that may have otherwise been compromised or exhausted by everyday environmental and physical stress.

I wear Shuzi, in fact I wear 3 shuzi items all the time (titanium bracelet, sports band and a newer item not on the market yet, the ‘Super Chip’).

I’ve watched the tests and I’m blown away every time. This is no Power Balance placebo effect..I know this becuase Shuzi has an Animal product called PHD (Pet Health Defender) (www.PetPHD.com) Countless thermal tests and blood anlysis have been done and every time there is visible improvement in the animals comfort..and animals don’t know what placebo is!!

I suggest EVERYONE at least check it out, it’s not cheap, but it’s not too expensive either, the technology is worth every penny.

http://secure.shuziamerica.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=65&tracking=4e7bc5d8641b6

HP Mini 1151NR – Helpful Reformatting Tips

I have the HP Mini 1151NR through Verizon Wireless. Every time I take this little guy out with me people ask questions “Do You Like It”, “How Much Was It?” etc.

Let me just start by saying that I am a web developer and purchased this Mini as my on-the-go, non-development laptop… & Yes, I love it .

I picked up mine refurbished and it was only $150.00 after a mail in rebate plus extending my 2 year data plan which had ended.

I am a Multi-Media developer, I founded and developed Facefinder.com and bSpot.tv and I likely utilize my Mini a bit more vigorously than the average user. I do all the basics (word processesing, email, FB, Twitter etc) but I also utilize it to stream live video/audio broadcasts and entertain with music at parties.

This Mini comes with aprox an 80GB hard drive, 1GB of ram and a 1.60GHz processer (all specs can be found here http://bit.ly/hEqRmX). I purposely do not load a bunch of programs to it so that it will run as efficiently as possible with my multi-media tasks.

Recently my Mini crashed. It just stopped booting saying it had a corrupt boot file. Ultimately I had to wipe it out and start fresh..this is where the frustration set in, but I am here to help you help yourself. I was able to get my Mini back up and running better than ever… You’ll find how I did it below:

Successfully Reformatting My HP Mini 1151NR

I inserted the XP disk and reformatted my drive, I then loaded Windows XP Home addition but could not get on my local wireless network nor LAN to work. I had a real problem tracking down all of my drivers so I called HP (India) and was told they could help me for $50.00… Luckily I chose to look around a bit longer and found what I had been looking for…for free.

THE FOLLOWING PAGE IS THE HOLY GRAIL FOR YOUR MINI HP 1151NR:
http://bit.ly/g2rd6R  (bookmark this page NOW & put it somewhere safe)

The page above from the HP web site has all of the drivers you will need to get back online and fully functional.

Start with the BIOs upgrade (6th from bottom), then the Chipset (second from bottom). You may then want to go for the Graphics driver (3rd from bottom) because your screen resolution will likely be jacked up.

You’ll want to load the top 2 drivers under Network to get yourself back online, but Loading the Bluetooth driver is up to you..if you are not going to utilize Bluetooth, then don’t hassle with it (I’ve used the bluetooth with Skype on my mini but was not impressed by the sound quality, sort of choppy).

The only driver you will NOT want to load is the Audio (1st on list). The IDT driver offered on that page DOES work, however it is NOT High Definition. You’ll notice that there is not both a mic and earphone jack on your Mini…only one jack wich acts as both. I believe this has something to do with the LOW Fidelity sound you’ll get if you plug in headphones or external speakers.

To improve your audio experience I tracked down the High Fidelity IDT driver and it works fantastic with the  Mini. I use external speakers daily and stream Pandora, iTunes and more..it sounds great.

Download the IDT High Fidelity Driver Here: http://bit.ly/dVIQjf
Evidently it’s a driver meant for Windows Vista but works great on this Mini with XP.

I did not load anything under the Solutions section. I’d tried the HP Connection Manager but was not terribly impressed.

If you are using this mini with Verizon: you’ll want to get yourself back online with Verizon so you’ll need the VZAccess Manager..but there are several versions so you’ll want the following:

Download VZAccess Manager Here: http://bit.ly/fyQYqW

That is it, from here you should be back online with a great sounding Mini HP!

Good Luck!

Iraq & the Dinar, 2011 could make millionaires

I am not one to spend time in foreign currency, but a friend of mine recently commented on the pending re-evaluation (RV) of the Iraqi Dinar (IQD).

I’ve spent MUCH time learning the activities taking place in Iraq, but I’ve never paid much attention to the currency value.  A simple Google query showed the Dinar currently trades at 1,160 Dinars to every $1.00 US Dollar. In laymen terms this means that each Iraqi Dinar is worth only $0.00085 US Dollars. Now consider the Dinar for investment purposes, for every $1,000 US dollars you can obtain 1 Million Iraqi Dinar.  Having 1 Million Iraqi Dinar means little when each dinar equals only $0.00085 US Dollars. But what happens if the Dinar returns to it’s Pre-War (Operation Iraqi Freedom) value?

In the 1930′s when the Dinar was still connected to the British pound it valued as high as $4.86 US dollars. As recently as 1988 each Iraqi Dinar was worth $3.22 US dollars. Coming into the 90′s the Dinar was still well over $1.00 US dollar.  While it’s highly unlikely the Dinar will ever see these values again,  It seems VERY  likely to at least reach $1.00 US dollar as the country stabilizes.

The result of the Dinar being re-evaluated and trading as 1 Dinar to every 1 US Dollar (1:1) would be countless instant millionaires. ANYONE who invested $1,000 US dollars to obtain 1 Million Iraqi Dinar could then cash out and receive 1 US dollar for every Iraqi Dinar they hold. ($1,000,000)

The US has a direct vested interest in ensuring the success of the new Iraqi government. Maliki has been made PM and 39 of his 42 cabinet members have been approved (I’ve read rumors that 2 of those 3 remaining seats have now been chosen as well).

A Re-Evaluation WILL occur, it’s just a matter of when. A full government must be in place & a budget must be approved for parliament before an RV can occur, but it appears the seats are being expedited and the budget is finished and must now simply be read 3 times to gain approval.

Speculation of the Iraqi Dinar Re-Evaluation has floated for years, every since it’s decline, So the question is: Once all of Iraq’s ducks are in a row, won’t they once again wish to trade as one of the wealthiest countries in the world and is it even remotely possible that the Dinar would trade at less than 1:1?

TweetAdder 3.0 – Not for the Birds!

In looking for a Twitter application that will allow me to monitor and grow numerous Twitter accounts, I came across TweetAdder (v 3.0).

Only if you want to truly grow your twitter follows should you take on TweetAdder. You will want to sit down and really walk through the application because it holds allot of bells and whistles, none of them a waste however.

Some might consider it’s $55 for a single license a bit steep ($74 if you want up to use up to 5 accounts) but if you truly use it, it will be money well spent!

TweetAdder allows you to search online Twitter profiles and/or millions of tweets themselves looking for specific subject matter. Those it finds it will systematically follow them, looking of course to get a followback. If they do followback you have the option of an automatic ‘thank you’ message. If they Don’t follow you back, TweetAdder will wait a few days before UnFollowing them..keeping you from having a disproportionate follow/followers ratio.

The app also lets you load your favorite RSS feeds and automatically feed them as daily tweets, do as many as you wish per day..automatically. You are able to Pre load tweets to go out in order or mix them up and much more.

Tons of good stuff that will help you manage and build multiple Twitter accounts automatically.

Wi-Fi Media Backup – Blackberry

I am a Blackberry user and I tend to like applications that make my life more efficient. I recently downloaded Wi-Fi Media Backup and I have to say it’s one of the coolest apps I have.

Once online, it copies videos, photos and any other file I suggest over to my laptop via my wi-fi. So if I’m at home and I take a photo of my kids, it just automatically copies over to my laptop instantly! OR…if I’m away and take photo’s it will wait until I’m home and then transfer the new images over…VERY COOL.

No more need to worry about losing good pics from my phone!

iPhone + Verizon?

I caught a whiff of information regarding how Apple has a chunk of code in their iPhones and iPads that allow it to work without on different networks without it being activated WITH that network. The code is evidently removed just before launch of the product…hmmmm

See More Here

Update: Nov, 2010 – I had to call Verizon for an issue I was having with my Blackberry. I brought this up and he immediately said it’s not true. I even told him about the above code… He responded “I know nothing about THAT, but I can guarantee you we are not going with iPhone”.

Update June 30th, 2011 – Well we all KNOW how this turns out ;0)