Huuuze Reviews

If I like it, you'll know. If I hate it, you'll REALLY know. 



September 19, 2008

Hate "Pressing 2 to talk to an operator"? Then check out Fonolo.


Get to know the name Fonolo, as it may become a permanent fixture in your bookmarks.  

Fonolo, which is currently in private beta, is a free web app which attempts to solve a major annoyance everyone has faced -- navigating the endless menus you encounter when you call a customer service hotline.  In a nutshell, Fonolo will call the number for you, drill down until it hits the point where you can talk to a *gasp* REAL PERSON, and then Fonolo calls your phone.  You pick up the phone and simply wait until a nice young Indian man or woman says, "Thank you for calling Acme Corp, how can I help you?".  Fonolo has no answer for the level of frustration that may ensue at that point, but their service is certainly headed in the right direction.

In addition to the menu navigation, all calls can be recorded (this may face some legalities) and your call history will be stored on their servers.  Hopefully, this service lives up to its billing and it'll become something that reduces the stress of dealing with customer service hotlines.  Stay tuned.

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September 16, 2008

Try not to laugh at "Disaster Bear"


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September 15, 2008

* TWEET * family members shovel earth into grave * TWEET *

Twitter is a great service for people that want to make sure the world knows that "they're happy RIGHT now" or "i'm having a bad hair day!!!".  However, Rocky Mountain News reporter, Berny Morson, has taken the use of Twitter to new heig...err, lows.  

He "twittered" a kid's funeral.  

For fear that he'll he'll make his Twitter page private, I've included a screenshot of the "tweets" below.  As a parent (and occasional blogger/Twitterer), I really hope this guy loses his job over this boneheaded act.  It's thoughtless, careless, and shows almost no journalistic integrity.

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September 14, 2008

Tina Fey FTW

Good Lord...she's a dead ringer for Sarah Palin.

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September 10, 2008

D'oh Biden



You gotta love these zany vice presidential candidates. Here we see Joe Biden ask a man in a wheelchair to stand up. Well played, Joe, well played.

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September 10, 2008

Ocho Cinco: Name tag has a high price tag



Love him or hate him, Cincinnati Bengals star wide receiver, Chad "Ocho Cinco" Johnson, certainly knows how to get his name in the news.  In case you missed it, as of late August, Johnson had his last name legally changed to "Ochocinco".  Clearly, this is a publicity stunt, but now the NFL (often referred to as the "No Fun League") is making near impossible for Johnson to wear a jersey with his new surname.  Per the Cincinatti Enquirier:

Before he can wear a jersey with his new surname emblazoned on the back, he first must buy every "C. Johnson" jersey for sale nationwide. And there are thousands of "C. Johnson" replica jerseys available, with a production cost of about $48 apiece. "When a player requests a name change or a number change, the player is responsible for that unsold inventory," NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said.

I can appreciate the NFL's stance from a business/contractual standpoint, but this just seems a little excessive.  What say you?

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September 6, 2008

Long Overdue: Picasa Web Album Uploads from iPhoto

Looks like I missed the launch of this one.  Regardless, it was long overdue.  Google finally added the ability to upload photos from iPhoto directly into Picasa.  Click File, then Export, and *presto*...your images are uploaded to your Picasa web album.

In addition to this functionality, Google has added some other cool features that make Picasa a serious competitor to Flickr and Photobucket.  If you've never tried Picasa's web albums or gave up on them long ago due to some Mac-related annoyances, now is the time to jump back in and give them a shot.

UPDATE: Looks like I was right about missing the launch.  This feature came out in December 2007.

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September 4, 2008

Django 1.0 has been released!



Web developers woke up this morning to a rather nice surprise.  Django, a Python web framework that is similar to Ruby on Rails, made it official and released version 1.0.  This is an incredible milestone and certainly warrants the attention of anyone doing web development.

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September 3, 2008

App Review: Sportacular

Just the other day I was lamenting the fact that the iPhone did not have a solid sports-related application.  Granted, many of the sports websites have an iPhone-based web presence, but the App Store was lacking a good sports app that would stream scores and statistics.

Thanks to developer Jeff Hamilton those days are now over.  His app, named Sportacular, not only streams in live scoring for all of the major sports, but it also lets you create a custom team which can track the progress of particular players.  In other words, you can enter in all of your fantasy players and quickly see how they're performing on game day.  Couple that with a slick user interface and you have a really tremendous application.

Surprisingly, this application is FREE.  Jeff could've easily charge $0.99 for the app and he would've made a tidy sum. However, I'm guessing the live stats information is scraped from various sites, which would mean charging for the app would violate the terms of service for those sites.

Regardless, if you're a sports fan and an iPhone/Touch owner, this app is an absolute must.  Download it now.


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August 24, 2008

Real Life Mario and Luigi

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