Amusing Google Voice Translations

Now don’t get me wrong I LOVE Google Voice but, sometimes the translations can leave much to be desired.  Other times they can be a source of amusement.  Here are my top translations from actual messages.  In all cases the message was NOT what the caller intended to leave.

1.  Hey Clark nature of the district.  I know they need to make a great jazz but you don’t have to take my word or cheese and of course.

2.  …I just wanna let you know with Hi agreement calls there are fat kids over here playing and if can keep any to cook.

3. …200 leaders including [name] of the Ball Builders Yelstin Services taxes and the taxes of taxes for your rights.

4. Hi, this is [name], my husband, Roger and I learned a person calling in circles everyone in our neighborhood to remind you that tomorrow is the last day to boot for your hay board.

5. …He has been in doors by all 23 Hey State members

6. This is superintendant Maria car starving calling….

7.  …I’ve 238 years a married.  I can tell you that Paul is honest…

8.  Hey it’s I was here.  I was just calling to see if you were there..

9.  …I’m gonna have to be in town tomorrow for business in havel.  But flexibility potentially before and sort little bit after the meeting I calves.

10.  Hey, it’s me.  I’m on my way and forgot to call and remind you that your stupid again…

Twibes – Filtering the noise of Twitter

What is Twibes? from Adam Loving on Vimeo.

Twibes is a site built on top of the Twitter feed.  For those trying to find “conversations” that interest them or are baffled by the noise that often comes when you start following a large number of people twibes may help.  Tweets are categorized by topics you care about and help filter out a lot of the noise that comes across twitter.  I’ve just started using it but, already find it helpful to stay on-topic when I am participating in a conversation.  It is also useful to find people to follow talking about subjects you care about. The video above gives a good explanation of what the site does but, you really need to signup and start using it to see the power.    

Spider Oak – Is it better than Carbonite?

I was recently looking at online backup solutions for a new laptop I purchased.  I have Carbonite on my main desktop and have been quite happy with it.  So why switch?  We’ll I’m always on the lookout for something new and I’m been seeing a “slowdown” in backups with Carbonite so I wanted to compare and see if it’s their software or just my internet. 

So I found spideroak doing some quick searches on bing and it looked reasonable to try as they offer 2Gb of backup for FREE.  I currently have about 300 Gb backed up on Carbonite but, 2Gb would be a good start for my laptop.  In looking at spideroak it’s actually a lot more than just an online backup solution.  They also have a sync to keep data in sync across all your computers and online sharing of folders that you select.  I didn’t try the sync but, it looks straightforward to setup.  I’m currently using LiveMesh from Microsoft to sync my computers and didn’t want to mess that up.  The online sharing actually works really well.  You create a secure ShareId and then you can create “rooms” for collections of folders you want to share.  The rooms also have a password so when you share the website with someone they will also need the password to access the files.  Pretty slick and the website to download from is very clean and easy to use.

Another nice feature of spideroak is you can use the same account across all your computers and pay one price.  Carbonite requires a separate license for each computer.  Spideroak however does not offer unlimited backup storage but, increments of 100Gb.  The pricing for 100Gb is on par with Carbonite but, it you have significantly greater storage requirements Carbonite may be cheaper for you.  The interface to setup your backup is clean and easy to use.  Where with Carbonite you can right click a folder in explorer to add to a backup with spideroak this is all done with their application.  I can see the advantages of both but, my preference is they way Carbonite does it. 

All in all if you need backup, syncing and sharing of your files spideroak is a solid contender.  Is it better than Carbonite?  That’s for you to decide.

Technorati Tags: online backup,spideroak

iPad – Why no camera Mr. Jobs?

I’ve been thinking about this, Why didn’t Apple include a camera on the iPad?  It seems every electronic device has a camera these days; PC’s, laptops, smart phones, not-so-smart phones, iPods, etc..  So why not the iPad? 

I think I understand the challenge of putting a camera on device of the iPad’s intended use.  It’s primarily meant to be held like you would a magazine or newspaper in your lap.  So if you wanted to do a video conference holding the iPad in the same position what would you be showing a video of?  Your double chin?  Your nostrils? What ever it shows would most likely would not be very attractive.

Holding the iPad out like you would a camera taking a picture of yourself wouldn’t be comfortable either.  So what to do?  My thoughts are either a retractable camera that could be clipped to any handy objects or folding arm camera something like those book lights you see.  In any event I think the Apple engineers are hard at work on a solution.  In this day it’s pretty simple.  You need a camera!

Technorati Tags: ipad,apple

iPad – My thoughts

So I’m sure by now everyone is seen apple’s iPad.  Here are a few on my thoughts.  It’s a pretty good concept and it looks like they are going after the eReader market which is still immature.  That’s a good start as the Kindle is gaining acceptance so there IS a market for such devices.  

The device also may be a winner since it has Apple’s brand.  iAnything for Apple seems to turn to gold lately and this may be another hit for them.  I do not think however it will be an overnight success.  It’s going to take some time to sell the public on the new form factor and find the niche for it.  Games may help, high-profile periodicals, music and video content and the 100,000 iPhone apps can all help make it a success. 

So now to what I think is REALLY missing to make it a run away success.  I hear everyone talking multitasking but, that’s not high on my list although it would be nice.  A HDMI interface would be huge and also a camera for video conferencing.  Come on it’s 2010 and no HDMI? 

Like all Apple products I’ve learned to never buy the first release.  Remember the first iPod, first iPhone?  Seems like 6 months later the new rev was out and the first devices paled in comparison.  So although I like the iPad overall I’ll wait for the iPad 4G/HDMI/Camera version.

Technorati Tags: iPad,Apple

Vista – 129 years to compress a folder

I had made a backup of my system prior to installing a new 1TB drive.  I did this about a month ago and contemplated deleting the backup as I think I have everything I need but, I thought hey, I can recover some space by compressing the folder.  So I clicked the compression checkbox on the folder properties and let it go.  I knew it was going to take awhile and I was prepared for that but, I wasn’t prepared to see 47166 Days and 15 hours remaining. 

I figured this must be some miscalculation so I let it run for an hour or so.  It now says 47166 Days and 14 hours.  What????  I’m sorry but, I don’t know if I’m ready to change my will to ask my grandchildren who aren’t even born yet click OK when the compression finishes in 129 years. 

I think I’ll let it run overnight and if it hasn’t gone down a few decades I’ll click cancel and just delete the files.  I can’t wait to try this in Windows 7.

VPN errors on Vista SP2

This was really annoying.  After installing SP2 I could not connect to the several VPN sites I need.  After contacting Microsoft here is the resolution they provided that worked.  I’m posting here to save others the trouble I went through.

First turn on RAS logging to diagnose the problem.  You’ll need to open an administrative shell (cmd) to run these commands.

create a trace:
netsh ras set tracing * enabled
try your VPN connection (i.e. failure)
netsh ras set tracing * disabled

Look in your \windows\tracing folder for RASGCW.LOG
If you see a string like:
     ConnectThread:RasDialDlg failed with error: 800

This should fix your problem.  You’ll need to reinstall some drivers.

first uninstall:
netcfg -u ms_l2tp
netcfg -u ms_pptp

then re-install:
netcfg -l %windir%\inf\netrast.inf -c p -i ms_pptp
netcfg -l %windir%\inf\netrast.inf -c p -i ms_l2tp

That’s it.  Let me know if you had this problem as I am curious.