I’m sorry to disappoint - this post has nothing to do with the Apple keynote at Macworld 2009, iTunes going completely DRM-free, the new 17-inch MacBook Pro with an 8 hour battery life, or a myriad of CES coverage. Instead, this post is about my first day of full-time work at Skribit, a startup helping bloggers cure writer’s block (among other things) that I have been working on for the last year alongside Co-Founder Calvin Yu (whose full-time gig was featured on AJC.com today). Continue Reading »
Last year I wrote a tech new year’s resolution post where I wrapped up the year and listed my goals for 2008. I stated that I wanted to reduce clutter in my life in regards to physical possessions and digital assets. I think I have successfully accomplished what I set out to do. Continue Reading »
The in-the-works Janus Privacy Adapter is, hands down, the coolest piece of networking hardware I’ve seen (via hackaday) all year. The so-called Privacy Adapter has two RJ45 ethernet jacks and is intended to be placed in-line between your computer and Internet connection. After plugged in and given around 60 seconds to fire up, it anonymizes your web traffic through your choice of the Tor network or Continue Reading »
It is not very often I find a software application that saves me time, doesn’t require much work on my end and actually gets used often. GrabUp (free, or $20 paid account) is one of those applications that I value enough to purchase. The OS X-only application intercepts your screenshot command (Command+Shift+3 or 4, etc) and automatically uploads the captured screenshot to either grabup.com, or Continue Reading »
Note: I wrote this post 7 months ago while the recently acquired and shutdown Pownce was working on a music service. As a big web-based music service user (listening to The Hype Machine right now), I was interested in what Pownce had up their sleeve with this small project called Pownce.FM. Unfortunately, the public will never get to see this creation. Now that Pownce has been shutdown (see image below) I am publishing this review as a piece of web history. Continue Reading »
This weekend I graduated (”got out” in GT lingo) from Georgia Tech, bearing the honors distinction no less. I have been looking forward to writing this single blog post for years. Ever since I started my Georgia Tech journey some 4.5 years ago, I knew it was going to be a Sisyphean challenge. I remember logging into the class scheduler my freshman year and having it automatically assume that it would take me 5 years to graduate. Continue Reading »
Amazon’s Simple Storage Service, S3, is quite wonderful. It’s cheap, secure and virtually infinite in storage capacity. Some people have begun utilizing S3 to host files for their website that would otherwise be expensive in bandwidth costs to serve from their own server. I actually used to host all static template images on this blog from Amazon S3 as I was under the impression that it would decrease load time considerably. Continue Reading »
Believe it or not, I have never used a calendar to keep track of events or anything in general. For one, I just didn’t have enough stuff going on in my life that couldn’t be wrangled by a simple to-do list kept on my (physical) desktop. That’s changing. I’ve moved from physical to-do lists to using Things. That’s one less thing always cluttering my desk. Continue Reading »
Update: Thank you everyone for entering this contest, I was completely blown away by the number of submissions (over 770 comments!). That’s more comments than any other PSTAM.com post has ever received, by a margin of over 300! I used random.org’s random integer generator to produce a value of the ID of the winning comment, with duplicate comment IDs and my own comment IDs removed from the calculation. The random winner was “Hitman”. Once again, thanks for participating and I hope you all stick around PaulStamatiou.com. Continue Reading »
Over a year ago I first got my hands on the innovative Vudu set-top box and reviewed its movie streaming capabilities. Unlike the countless gadgets and devices that I come across, I have not outgrown the Vudu box. I use it a ton. It instantly streams rental movies in HD, with the option of even higher resolution ‘HDX’ with a delay. Of course, the Vudu also lets me purchase movies for keeps Continue Reading »
Back in 2005 I wrote an very basic article on how to change icons in OS X with ones you find online at sites like Interface Lift. Unfortunately, that method of icon swapping only works with actual embedded icon files. I quickly discovered this when I wanted to make my laptop more work-oriented and use the Skribit logo for my drive icon. This post shows the Continue Reading »
Update: Apple replaced my Air with a new Rev A. I just went to the Apple Store, told them that it had a non-US keyboard from an error on their part and asked if I could just get a replacement so I didn’t have to deal with waiting for it to get repaired again.
I am only speaking from my own past experiences of having Apple repair my Macs, but this has to stop somewhere. For the past 2 weeks (I was quoted 5-7 days) Apple has had my MacBook Air to repair a bent screen bezel and dead micro DVI port. What I got in return was a German keyboard. Thanks Apple. I didn’t know I wanted to learn German. Continue Reading »
I use Flickr a lot. I have over 12,000 photos on my Flickr account, with over 500 coming from my iPhone alone (with over 2,000 on my iPhone as mentioned in this post). I was enamored when the GPS-toting iPhone 3G came out as I assumed my photos would automatically be geotagged when I uploaded them to Flickr. Unfortunately that was not the case and the only way to have Flickr geotag those photos was either by using a third-party iPhone application Continue Reading »
I was going to title this post “Atlanta Startup Weekend 2 Brings New Skribit Feature” but then I went through my Skribit account and saw that there are a lot of suggestions asking me Skribit-related questions, so I’ll devote this post to it. First, Atlanta Startup Weekend 2 went down this weekend at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center, where I also happen to spend some of my time Continue Reading »
I’ve been using the new MacBook Pro as my primary computer for the last two weeks now. Equipped with an already outdated Intel X25-M SSD (SanDisk is working on something “100 times” faster) I put in myself, this is easily the best computer I have owned to date - despite a few issues I have found. Continue Reading »
