Pickle’s Perspective

The internet is a fountain of information.  We can use it to get the facts straight on all kinds of confusing or mysterious topics.  You can get reviews on the latest electronic,  hints to solving the latest video game, or find tips for alsmost any project under the sun.  People will rate almost everything, but…

have you ever asked yourself “How good is my doctor?”  “What do other patients think of Dr. ______?”

Well, guess no more, the website  http://www.ratemds.com is the place to go.    A large database of Doctors in USA, Canada, UK, and Australia, this site doesn’t require registration to view or rate doctors, however it will log your IP address.

Doctors  are rated on a scale of 1-5 in four categories.  1. Staff 2.Punctuality 3. Helpful 4. knowledgeable.   Comments are also available for each rating.

So, next time you’re referred to another doctor, check his/her ratings to see how others rate the “Doc.”

Hi All.
I’ve put a new feed up. I will be using the Feedburner feeds from now on. You can re-subscribe the the pickles perspective by clicking on the RSS Icon in address bar if you use firefox, or you can add the following URL to your favorite RSS reader

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PicklesPerspective

I’m hoping to get a feed for the comments also, as they’ve proven to be a popular place for people to hang out.  Like this everyone can see new comments by looking at the RSS feed.  With a little luck I’ll have that working soon.

Don’t support these guys. Why? Simple. I’ve taken a new approach. I hate Spam and in your face advertising. A German Singer/Songwriter named Reinhard Mey said it very well when referring to wathcing a movie that was being interrupted by commercials. “I pay attention to those companies that advertise, and then I don’t buy any of their products. You see, I tell myself, I can’t buy the coffee in the morning from the company that steals my time in the evening.”

So with this very reasoning in mind I’ve decided to have the same approach. These Gentlemen spammed me today. So they stole my time, and internet bandwidth in attempt to sell me a service I don’t want, nor need. Since there’s little I despise more than spam; I urge you to use a competitor that doesn’t solicit via spam when you purchase or sell your next home.

Hear Reinhard Mey’s quote from above here mp3(155k) and wav(2.2MB)

I recently heard an interview with a British band named Steadman. They have a pop music style, some songs having an Oasis type sound. The band was signed by a major label a few years back, and then the label was merged into another company. When that deal went sour, they went Indie and moved to the USA. They then signed under Elektra. One morning they showed up at the office and they asked, “Where is everybody?”. to which they were told, “Oh They’ve been fired”. Elektra was bought out by Atlantic.

At this point the band said that Atlantic had nothing invested in them, and wanted out of the deal…. 12 months later, they were free of their contract, and back in the Indie scene, selling their music in places like Amazon.ca. Now, Steadman has decided to stay in the Indie scene as most labels don’t offer publishing contracts. (I believe publishing contracts are the contracts where the artist maintains the copyright, but I’m not sure.)

Steadman has gotten rave reviews from some real music icons. For example, Paul McCartney said the following about Steadman:

“The band steadman have the songs, the musicianship, the energy and the enthusiasm to blow the top any club, arena or if given a listen, have the rare quality, the ability to deliver. I Like this band”

So, what’s with the free music you ask? Well, Steadman wants to be successful in self marketing, and will be selling their future albums through indie channels. So, Steadman is giving away their entire back catalog for FREE off their website, http://www.steadmanband.com. There is a donation button on their site. If you like the music, consider donating, or just enjoy all 150 songs. Simon Steadman, is hoping that Podcasters will help spread his bands music and that people will enjoy it. I’ve downloaded most of their tracks already.

I hope Steadman does really well. It will be nice to see another band show the music industry that the times of them pushing artists around is over; so go download the music, copy it for all your friends and crank it in your radios.

While checking to see if my Lotto 6/49 ticket was the $22 Million winner, I came across another “Win a Free ipod” Link. So since I have ipod envy I clicked it followed the instructions and went on. I had to sign up for Columbia House video, but no biggie. There I’ve now done some Christmas shopping.

Now I need to do the referrals. Would you help me? All you need to do is click this link. http://ipods.freepay.com/?r=23913819

My referral id is in the link, and that is what will make me eligible I think. Click the link for me, and leave me a comment. When/IF I get my iPod, I’ll let blog it here, and then I’ll do my best to help you win yours by visiting the link with your referral id.

Thanks.
the Pickle.

Well if you are a listener of my Podcast, available on my other blog. http://uberoddgeekpod.blogspot.com then you’re probably aware of my problems with getting the InternetArchive and ourmedia.org to host the podcasts. I’ve read a few things on their site forums about how unfriendly and frustrating this is for others that I decided not to put up with it anymore. I took the plunge and signed up with a webhost. I don’t know how well they work yet as I have to wait for the account to be setup.

So what does this mean? A new .com and a new place to host my content. Well To you, the reader it means that wedding information will move from http://thewedding.homeip.net to http://www.germanpickle.com This blog mayl also slowly go extinct and become joined with the podcasts blog. as I may have blogger update an html file on my new host instead for personal bloggings.

This will all happen after I return from the honeymoon. For now, I’m just going to copy files over and get the bloody podcast working.

Out.

Hi all.

The podcast is up again after some difficulties at Feedburner.com. I had technical support wipe out my account and kill off my feeds so I could start new. I don’t know what happened, but for some reason I couldn’t see or update my feed.

The feed’s been updated now. The feed location is new also, so please update your podcatchers. The new URI is http://feeds.feedburner.com/uberoddgeekpod I apologize if this messed you up, but now that I was able to syncronize the feed name with the blog and email name I jumped on the opportunity.

Sorry, but it should be smooth saling from here forward.

We’ve recorded the initial episode of the UberOddGeekPod. It should be available soon. the Link for show notes will be http://uberoddgeekpod.blogspot.com hope you all check it out.

Good Day,

Some people may ask what podcasting is. Well in it’s simplest explanation, it’s a like a home based radio show that is saved to mp3 file, then posted on the internet for other people to download. Podcasting empowers the people to have a voice and be heard in a way that was only available to those that worked in radio which is heavily controlled by corporations and government. Here’s a quote from another podcast called the daily source code.

Something remarkable is happening here. Radio is springing free of the regulated gate keepers who’ve managed what you can hear since radio was invented. It’s jumping into the hands of anyone at all with something or nothing to say.

The name podcasting may imply the listener needs an iPod but this isn’t true. Any mp3 player would work for listening to podcasts. Podcasts can be downloaded off the show’s website or by using tools that automatically monitor the podcasts you’re interested in for new episodes. Why am I telling you this????

I’ve decided to start podcasting. I don’t have a podcast up yet, but I will soon. It will be called the Uber Odd Geekpod. My fiancee named it for me. She says I’m odd and that I’m a geek so she put them together and came up with the name after I had recorded the initial show (which at the time was called the TTTCast.)

I’ve decided not to post the original episode as the contact info in the show is all wrong now that I’ve renamed it. I was also quite tired during the first show, and as such sounded even more monotone than I normally am. I expect the first podcast to be ready before July 10th so that I can still hit part of the iTunes wave.

the show will be 80% tech 20% everything else. I will discuss, usually with a co-host tech related items ranging from wireless headphones to digital cameras and everything in between. We’ll also discuss some interesting programs that may help you with your computer experience. I’ll also have an interesting website reference for each show, and then answer a computer question from each person.

I don’t know the dot com for the show yet, but I expect to have it up in the next day or two. I’m still mulling over .com names.

Tuvalu, what is it? Many of you may ask? Well, Tuvalu is a tiny country in the south pacific. How small? Well the country, which consists of several coral atolls, has an area of 26 Square Kilometers and an estimated 11,636 residents. The country has approx. $22.5 Million dollars in annual revenue, but aside from some phosphate mining and postage stamps, has no exports agriculture or minerals. So how do they make their money? Tourism you may think, but only approximately 1000 people visit Tuvalu annually.

So, how does this tiny country have the huge impact I am claiming it has? Well there’s 2 reasons.

1. tv! Not Television, but .tv. Tuvalu’s Top Level Domain on the Internet is .TV Tuvalu leased out it’s .TV TLD for $50 million in royalties for roughly another 10 years. This money was said to go toward development. So every time you go to a .tv website, you know that royalties went back to the little country of Tuvalu

2. Telecommunications. Tuvalu’s access number is a “900” number. By selling access to their “900” area codes, they can generate revenue.

It’s interesting how a little group of islands, among the most remote areas of our planet can impact our daily lives, in a way that we don’t even realize. So next time you register your Internet Domain consider a TV domain as it will help develop the islands.