The title is pretty straight forward… I have added the Environment category on my blog. It’s about time that I expand my vision of my blog, it’s been 7 months since I started blogging consistently. So why the environment? Well I’ve always been fascinated by the earth and how it works sustaining itself for all these years but more recently have I learned about how serious issues like global warming is and the effects it has on the earth. I guess my real interest in earth sciences started in high school with my earth science teacher, Paul Berger and carried on through with my AP Environmental teacher, Sai Yu, both great teachers at Murry Bergtraum High School I might add.

Now I work for an organization called NYPIRG which stands for New York Public Interest Research Group, which does amazing work for the environment as well as consumer rights. I advocate for the environment everyday and being surrounded by awesome co-workers who also care about the same things makes environmental awareness even more important to me. So Cate from NYPIRG, if you read this, [[your the greatest!]] cause I know you have the word “NYPIRG” subscribed to you.
Oh and a little addition to my main menu, I’ve added the New York City PlaNYC 2030 campaign. Click it for more information about creating a sustainable New York City today!

So fellow friends and subscribers, enjoy what looks to be another great addition to my blog and thank you all for reading. I wouldn’t be doing this if I knew no one reads it.

Wow, great, finally something awesome in the video gaming world besides the actual release of Rockstar’s GTA IV, which I think will be the hottest GTA ever! You know how they have the crazy radio stations on GTA the game? Well now you have a chance to be one of those crazy callers on Laslo’s talk show.

What you have to do is call this number: 212-360-2368 and wait for the beep and start to record your own little random things to say. Once that’s done, Rockstar will screen all the calls and pick out the ones they feel is the most funniest and random calls of all and put them in the actual video game coming out this November for Xbox 360 and soon after for the PC.

So yeah, go ahead and give them a call, tell them whats wrong with American society, bitch about the girl next door, yell the guy down the block out for kicking your dog!

Today is Saturday and I didn’t have to canvass Saturday for NYPIRG (My Job). So I have a lot of extra time and now is a good idea to blog up and catch up with everything. Since working for NYPIRG and helping prevent Global Warming, I’ve stumbled across this picture on the web and thought to myself that PIRACY isn’t all that bad. Not that I do it but it makes sense, the more you download, the less hard copies of everything that has to be produced.

I mean, when software is purchased, you buy the disc, the box, the manual, the jewel case and print. So don’t shut down PirateBay RIAA, you’re only hurting the environment.

So next story, in the OpenSource community, GAIM was recently (well two months ago) renamed and completely remastered to be Pidgin. I’d say, things look different but it’s about time they changed their whole marketing. The website looks a lot more web 2.0 friendly. GnomeAIM (GAIM) was getting too old and now it’s revamped with new icons and a new mascot.

Notice the transaction? Yep, it’s pretty neat. Sean the original developer is still in charge!

So, I’m in the market for a new laptop computer. Will it be a Windows PC, a Linux PC or a Apple? I’m leaning more towards to the Macbook’s because for one, I’ve never owned a recent Mac. I’ve owned one of those ClamShell iBooks but they’re pretty outdated. I’ve yet to own a nice polished White/Black Macbook. However, I’m awaiting for the new Apple OS to be released.

Ahh, nice fresh Apple Mac themes. Yes, I know I can change my current PC to look like that but those customization packs are never perfect. Genuine Mac. Gotta love it.

Next hot stuff, Need to make a quick call? Try ViaTalk for free and don’t pay a penny. Enter your area code and phone number in addition to the digits you’d like to dial. Get talking and enjoy up to 10 minutes of talk time. My ViaTalk VoIP subscription expired and I have to renew it again, unfortunately, I’m not qualified for the new user perks and the discounted price. Maybe, if I call them and threaten to quit! Muhahah.

So finally, one thing I can’t wait to do, go back to Stony Brook. I mean, summer’s great and love the job but it’s starting to get too repetitious and boring. I miss those long nights and partying and shitty food an the dining halls. Can’t believe I just said that but yeah. There’s a lot of random things in this post that I hope finds you interested. Till next time..

P.S: You might have noticed the little changes on my blog header, yeah well I decided to do it and freshen things up a little, and yeah, I’m officially a SBU blogger for admissions!

Amy Remix Jay-Z

I would have never thought that I would like another Pixar movie ever again after Toys Story. I mean I’m sure they’re good but none of them appealed to me. I guess I grew out of the stage of watching CG animated films or cartoons in general but I was wrong. A bunch of friends from work and I decided to go to the movies on Friday. Movie of choice was “Ratatouille“. I was like WTF is that? Since I started working, I haven’t had much time to watch TV, so therefore I didn’t see the commercial for it and had no idea what it was.

Ratatouille was awesome, Remy the mouse is so adorable. It takes place in France and the story plot goes like this. Remy becomes a chef at a famous restaurant in France.. well watch it for yourself. Trust me, it’s a movie to watch on big screen.

Camille - Le Festin

Just 3 days late to report the release of the iPhone. Going through Digg and other social networking sites, I’ve learned a lot about the news surrounding the release of the iPhone. Heard of some places being sold out but Apple did a good job with it’s stock supplies. Other AT&T retailers forcing buyers of the iPhone to also purchase at least two accessories or else no sale, what a gimmick! A report on Fox news about this lady who purchased her way to being first on line to buy the iPhone only to get there and learning that store policy is only one per customer. Her plan was to buy like a couple and make a profit on eBay. Stupid women!

Anyway, about the iPhone itself, I don’t think it’s that hot at all. I mean, it has many cool things such as the full HTML browsing, Google Maps, YouTube videos, and iPod features but it’s also lacking in other areas which a phone should have like full Bluetooth features and not just for the headset. I also saw the PCWorld Stress test for the iPhone and the unit is pretty sturdy, I was dropped a couple of times on the cement floor and it has a virtually scratch proof screen which is nice unlike the iPod predecessors.

This is iPhone version 1.0. Imagine the future iPhones. I mean look at the iPod 1st generation, and look at the 5th generation, this is history in the making right here!

Overall Average Good Rating From Apple.

Woot.com is one of the many websites I check daily for it’s many hot deals but I have yet to buy anything from them until today. I was in the market for a digital camera when I stumbled upon this great deal. The Woot purchase process was so simple, almost too simple. I felt like they needed more information from me to process my order. Guess I’ve bought too many things from other websites who collect unless information from the consumer.

Kodak 7.1MP Camera & Printer Dock Plus Bonus Bundle

Who could resist this for only $100! All that for just $100 + $5 to ship. One thing to note is that this unit is refurbished but I could care less, it’s actually better to be refurbished because the unit once had problems and now it’s been fixed and re-manufactured again by the company. So, in about 5 days, I should have the camera at hand and ready to shoot!

Ever since my friend dropped my Creative Zen and broke the hard drive, I’ve been thinking about owning an Apple iPod again. Why not today? I thought. Heck it was nice weather, I was out in Manhattan and after getting a hair cut, I headed straight to J&R Music and Computer World and purchased a Black Apple 30 GB 5.5 Gen iPod with a clear plastic protective shield for $239 (a little under retail).

When I got home, I received an email from eBay that said “Item Won“, I thought to myself “SHIT” I must have bidding on some iPods a couple of days back and forgot about it. Turns out, that was exactly what happened, so I asked my sister if she wanted an iPod as well. It had ended at $200 with shipping included, a new white iPod with accessories included. She was like yeah, why not. So I paid for it…

So my day ended with no intentions of purchasing an iPod to owning two of them. It would be totally messed up if Apple released their 6th generation iPods sometime soon.

So, you all are familiar with Facebook’s new API applications, well, those of you who use Facebook. Well, there is an application called Graffiti, basically what it does is allows you to paint a picture with your mouse and use it as your wall post. Neat idea but this picture really made my day. I came home from a long days work and I see this in my Facebook wall.

It’s Lily’s version of me in Pokemon, I was really hoping I was the Pokemon trainer but it turns out that I’m the Squirtle!! This is really funny! I enjoyed it and it was a good laugh and hope it was for you too.

It was really good artistic skills on Lily’s part, awesome!

Wow, so I was just on Digg today after coming home from work and I found out that Google Maps now has Street View technology. This is awesome technology! You can click anywhere on Google maps at certain big cities like NYC or LA and they would have a 360 degree view of the street at the exact location where you clicked! You really do have to check it out for yourself to understand how great this is.

This is probably in Beta stages now even though it wasn’t mentioned because the images generate kind of slow and I’m sure Google is working on that to fix that issue. But anyhow, WOW, this is so great! It also looks like these images were pretty recent which is defiantly cool for digital mapping technology.

Haha, I wonder how long they took to canvass the areas! Check it out here!

It’s been a year since I’ve used ViaTalk’s VoIP service and I just wanted to write a little about my experiences on the revolutionary VoIP system. When I applied for ViaTalk exactly one year ago, the company was practically new. VoIP had just been introduced to the mainstream public not too long ago before that. Some of the big companies out there that provide VoIP are Vontage and SunRocket.

Well, you may ask, What is VoIP? VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, this technology allows you to use your existing broadband internet connection and use it as a connection for your house or business phone. It’s different from services like Skype because with Skype, you do need your computer on with the program running. With VoIP, it completely replaces your traditional home phone. Some of the advantages of VoIP over the traditional phone is that it’s cheaper, plans feature unlimited calling and it has all the features you can ask for on a phone. Except that it doesn’t use your wall jack, it uses your ethernet jack with your DSL or Cable provider. Changes are is that you already subscribe to broadband internet already so your not paying for more.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of how VoIP works, it’s focus on ViaTalk. ViaTalk, again is a company that’s just about a year old coming out of it’s Beta. The company who owns it is actually a web hosting company, HostRocket. ViaTalk’s service has been really solid over the past year, the only problems I had with them were problems earlier on. I can see that VoIP technology has really evolved, I’ve been receiving better quality calls and few downtime periods. ViaTalk is particularly great because of it’s quality and amount of features for it’s price. They would occasionally offer deals such as $199 for 2 years of service! Which is great because with my old Verizon land line service, I would pay like $50 a month for normal phone service which doesn’t include features such as unlimited calling, 3 way calling or caller ID.

I would defiantly recommend VoIP to anyone. The technology has really evolved into something that you can depend on nowadays. ViaTalk is exceptionally good and I have tried many. Don’t go with Vontage because they charge a lot and their call quality sucks, they were one of the first VoIP companies but surely they did not do it right!

Sign up for ViaTalk’s VoIP today. Click here for special offers.