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Blinka.me – Trying To Connect People… Again!

I’m not sure why, but I remember as a kid reading through the classifieds and finding a section of "ads" from people who had met each other randomly but didn’t really exchange contact information. They would put up an ad and hope the other person would read it and remember the event.

blinka-me-website-uncovered

The Blinka.me website is attempting to take that whole "reconnect" effort and webify it with some good ol’ Web 2.0 charm.

Combining the simple idea of the classified ad, with the power of the Internet, GPS, mapping and social media should make those efforts pay off in a significantly higher rate of return for individuals.

The Blinka.me website is a little more pro-active with their efforts though. With Blinka.me, when you meet that guy or girl at the supermarket and have a nice, unexpected conversation, just tell them "Blinka Me" later. Then you can list the event on Blinka.me with the date and a bit about the interaction that will make it unique. The other person will come to the site and "look for you".

You can then follow-up on the conversation and learn more about each other, but still without sharing any real personal contact information or data. After you decide both of you are normal and not a psycho axe-murderer or the type of girl that boils a rabbit in your kitchen, you can pursue the relationship a little further.

Go uncover a new relationship, again, at Blinka.me

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OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro Portable Drive

I’ve misplaced my USB thumb drive at some point recently. The challenge with having a device so small is that it’s easy to misplace. I usually take it out of my computer bag only when I need it and put it right back. I don’t guess that happened this last time.

owc-mercury-on-the-go

If I’m going to be looking at replacing a portable drive, why don’t I just plan on upgrading from my 2GB Cruzer Titanium drive to the OWC Mercury On-The-Go Proâ„¢ model. It’s the first multi-combo interface device that requires no external power and offers a full terabyte of storage space.

The storage explosion, as well as the affordability of that storage, is absolutely amazing to me. About 6 years ago I purchased my 2GB Cruzer Titanium drive for about $80 if I remember correctly.

Now the 1TB drive is available for just over 3x that amount. A full terabyte. If you’re not sure what that equates to, let’s just say you could more than likely store your entire DVD collection on the device and most radio stations could hold every song they ever play on it.

The Mercury On-The-Go Pro has connection options for FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, USB 1.0. Various versions of the device allow you to choose the one that will work best for you.

The other great feature of the Mercury On-The-Go Pro is that it doesn’t require an external power supply. That always makes carrying it around a much easier affair. If it weren’t for that the AC adapter would probably be about the same size and weight as the entire drive.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a PC or Mac person either. The Mercury On-The-Go Pro will work with both, giving you plenty of room for all those spreadsheets or video edits you’ve been working on all week.

Images: OWC Product website

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Replacing Vista with Windows 7

Tonight I’m working on installing Windows 7 on my wife’s laptop. I’d originally thought that I’d have to do a completely clean install. Although I was willing to do that, I didn’t want to take the time to find all of her files and settings and back those up on an external drive so they wouldn’t be lost.

windows-7-install

First I downloaded the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor just so I’d be aware of anything that might be important before I started. No real major issues to report. A warning about RAM size. RAM available was listed at just under 2GB, Microsoft recommends 1GB as a minimum, but more if available. The laptop is holding as much as it can.

I’m proceeding with the install and am told I’ve got to uninstall Windows Live OneCare. It’s interesting that nothing was reported about that having issues with the upgrade advisor scan. Now I’ve restarted and I’m trying again.

I’m really afraid that I’m going to absolutely love Windows 7 on my wife’s computer and then want to install it on my own business laptop. That will prove to be too much of a risk in case of unknown issues. I’d be open to looking at dual-booting to give it a try, but the stupid hard drive on my laptop is excruciatingly tiny.

I’ll follow-up with a post tomorrow on my experience with the rest of the upgrade process and what I think about Windows 7. Here’s crossing your fingers.

Image: Windows 7 Installation Screen