The Doppler Effect » free

AT&T Wi-Fi Part II

B. Tan — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 02:02:14 +0000

The session window for AT&T Wi-Fi

For those of you who frequent Starbucks, you surely know about the free 2 hours of Wi-Fi access you get as a Rewards member. I was always dubious about the 2-hour limit; the access was provided by an AT&T account you sign up for and thus it didn’t appear as though Starbucks had any sort of control over the network. The account you sign up for doesn’t come with any sort of identifier as being associated with Starbucks Rewards either.

Today I spent a good chunk of time there working on various projects and had the opportunity to test what would happen to my Wi-Fi access after two hours. Apparently nothing. Awesome .

How to score free groceries

B. Tan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 23:38:37 +0000

Plan a late-night trip to Wegmans with your roommate.
Wander around the store finding things you need and even more things you don’t (don’t forget the milk!).
Check out and load up the car.
After arriving home, realize that there is only one jug of milk in the car. Where’s the other jug? You probably left it in the shopping cart.
Go back to Wegmans and go to the service desk. Explain your missing milk situation like an idiot.
Kind/tired Wegmans will give you free milk.
Return to the car only to find that the missing jug has been there all along.
Get your daily dose of calcium.

AT&T Wi-Fi

B. Tan — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:51:26 +0000

A while back I wrote about Starbucks’ Rewards program. Any registered member of the program receives “up to two hours of free AT&T Wi-Fi service, everyday.” I was previously under the impression that this meant you needed to purchase something to get wi-fi access, however it appears (upon closer inspection of the terms and in real-world trials) that no purchase is necessary.

This makes things more convenient for road warriors. I would suspect that this trick works at any AT&T Hotspot. Of course anyone with an iPhone or other qualifying AT&T plan automatically gets hot-spot access and you can even enable automatic login with iPhone OS 3.0:

Anyways, if anyone has confirmed that with Starbucks Rewards, you can use AT&T Wi-Fi at any AT&T hotspot, be sure to share in the comments.

Check out more about Starbucks Rewards at http://starbucks.com/cardrewards.

WordClock

B. Tan — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:24:59 +0000

One of the draws of Macs is their hardware deign and elegant UI; not only with Apple products and software though. Third-party developers drive the Mac user experience by creating beautiful applications (and accessories) that show the same focus on excellent design. (i.e. Tweetie, Coda, and Pixelmator). Something as simple as a screensaver is no exception. Mac OS X comes with a collection of stunning wallpapers and screensavers, however I wanted to set my computer apart with something a little bit different.

WordClock by Simon Heys is simple, yet elegant screensaver I found that serves also as a clock. It can be customized in a variety of ways. Check out the video to see what I mean.

Word Clock for Mac, PC, iPhone from Simon Heys on Vimeo.

Keeping tabs on your wallet

B. Tan — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:53:01 +0000

In todays rough economic times, it’s always good to play it on the safe side when it comes to your finances. A little while back, I wrote about Mint, a great way to manage and see you finances across all your accounts and assets. Another favorite of mine, is BillShrink. While it’s credit card recommendation tool is similar to Mint’s, they also have a great tool for figuring out the best cell phone plan based on your current usage.

While both those sites are a great way for you to get a sense of your money, it’s also important to know how companies view your financial situation. By law you are entitled to a free credit report every 12 months. You can get this report from each of the three credit reporting bureaus at sites like annualcreditreport.com. What is lacking from this report however, is what most people are really interested in; that is the actual credit score. A site i found (via the Mint blog), is CreditKarma. Upon (free) registration, you will have access to your actual credit score and see how it compares to other demographics. They also provide a bunch of tools to help you calculate how different factors (such as taking out a loan or applying for another credit card) would immediately impact your score.

Having good credit will only make things easier down the road so these sites are definitely worth a look. For more information on all the credit report and credit rating business along with tons of other useful personal finance information, be sure to check out the Mint blog!

Web Apps Galore

B. Tan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:11:17 +0000

It seems nowadays, there is a web application for everything. In a few short years, we’ve seen explosive growth in a movement called Web 2.0. This has resulted in a shift towards spending more and more time in our browsers, and less time in standard desktop applications. With so many new web applications popping up left and right, you will invariably see clones and companies trying to best each other. It can definitely be overwhelming trying to keep track of them all. The following are the web apps that make the cut for me. Those who know me well, know that I am extremely particular about the technology I use so I hope you will find these sites as useful as I have.

I’ll start off with a name everyone recognizes. Google. Aside from Google search, Google provides a number of staggering number of services ranging from Picasa and YouTube, to Google Docs, and Grand Central. However, Google’s shining star (aside from their search of course) is Gmail. In the free webmail arena, Gmail is the clear cut winner, scoring major points for innovative features and UI and also keeping everything free (you have to pay Yahoo for anything “advanced”). Another strength of Gmail is that you can port it for use on your own domain name. Anyone who’s used the webmail interface provided by their web host can appreciate Google Apps. I’m assuming most people have already experienced for themselves the power of Gmail; and since I have enough to say about Gmail to merit its own post, those who are unfamiliar can read up about Gmail at Lifehacker.

Mint Logo

Right in line with the usefulness of Google’s apps, lies a website known as Mint. Mint is a financial tool that allows you to consolidate all your financial information presents it in an easy to understand format. It lists all your transactions across all your credit and debit cards and generates graphs of your spending trends (so you can see your financial mistakes in pie chart form ). Also, Mint keeps track of your interest rates on your credit cards, and bank accounts and suggests offers from other banks to help you save. There are also notifications (via email or SMS) that you can setup for your accounts (ex. have Mint txt you about a low account balance). Mint also recently added a feature for tracking investment portfolios, student loans and mortgages. Naturally, having all this sensitive information in one place is a reason to be wary. However, Mint does not store your personal data and uses bank-grade encryption. If you’re still skeptical, Mint has been featured in the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Time, BusinessWeek, CNN Money, The NY Times…the list goes on and on (read: Mint is pretty legit). In the future, Mint plans add feature such as bill pay making it an even more powerful tool. Like every good web app, they have demo video which you should definitely check out.

The next app, Dropbox (still in private beta but I have a few invitations available…) is one of those tools that you’ll wonder how you lived without. In my quest for a free iDisk alternative, I found this nifty app that seems to be much better implemented than services such as Box.net and free unlike SugarSync. Another plus is that the developers seem extremely in tune with the user community, in terms of addressing concerns, feature requests and being active on the Dropbox forum. It’s sort of hard to explain exactly how Dropbox operates, so I’ll just let you watch yet another screencast (I promise it’s worth it).

While those are the web apps I use on a daily basis, there are still many helpful apps out there I haven’t mentioned:

http://epassportphoto.com/ – Essentially free and instant passport photos
Pandora – Must have if you like music (who doesn’t?)
Hulu – Free, fast and legal web TV.

As you can tell, I basically live on the internet; computers do everything for me. But hey, what’s wrong with that? I hope you find these web apps useful, or if you know of any better ones I’d love to hear suggestions. Do you have any favorites I missed?

Organized – Widget Style

B. Tan — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:11:41 +0000

Yesterday, while surfing the interwebs, I came accross a helpful looking little Dashboard widget called Organized by the fine folks at iSlayer. After downloading it without hesitation, I have concluded that this will perhaps be the most useful widget I have installed. Being the sucker for efficiency that I am, I like how this widget consolidates several widgets (Google Calendar, Checkmarker, Clock, Stickies) into one. It also doesn’t look like it was designed by someone who failed second grade art class.

Another iSlayer Widget that many Mac users swear by is iStat Pro, which provides lots of useful and not-necessarily-useful statistics about your computer. And Windows users needn’t feel left out this time either. iSlayer makes similar widgets for Windows Vista’s sidebar as well as Yahoo’s Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator).

Now with the amount of time I spend on my computer, this widget eliminates any excuse for me being late or not getting things done.

Poking Holes In The Long Tail Theory

B. Tan — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:30:08 +0000

I found Chris Anderson’s book interesting and it’s good to see that someone is challenging the long tail theory.

Just because the Internet makes it possible to offer a near-infinite inventory of goods for sale does not mean that consumers will start wanting more obscure items in any great numbers.

Interesting read if you’ve read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. For those who have not read this book, I recommend it to anyone who liked Freakonomics.

Update: Here’s some further reading that gives a brief explanation of the Long Tail Theory debate.

Evil Eyes and Shipping

B. Tan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:36:36 +0000

Yesterday, I was at Lenscrafters looking to check out a pair of these Nike Maxsight sport-tinted contact lenses. I think they would have totally creeped out anyone I would run against next outdoor track season. Except they don’t make them anymore. Does any one know of any similar products?

Also, I recently stumbled upon a website called Track the Pack. It allows you to track your packages, but the reason I like this site is because you can track all your packages, regardless of service, in one place. Plus the all FedEx’s website is hideous anyways (not that the other ones are much better). Another cool feature is the ability to save your packages so you can simply log in later to check your packages’ status as opposed to having to copy-and-paste several tracking numbers each time you want to check. Track the Pack also displays a mini Google map to provide a visual as to where your package is geographically. There’s a spiffy webapp for everything nowadays isn’t there?

Starbucks Rewards

B. Tan — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:44:51 +0000

If you’re the consumer whore that I am, you probably go to Starbucks. I know for me, Starbucks runs occurred at fairly regularly intervals (funded by the Starbucks Cards I received from my graduation party). While I’m not one of those people who necessarily believes in Starbucks’ superiority over other coffees, it’s a chill place to hang out. Well, Starbucks just got even better with their recently unveiled rewards program: Starbucks Rewards.

To qualify for the program, all you need is to purchase a $5 Starbucks Card, or use an existing one to register with the rewards program. If you do so by July 14th, you’ll even receive a free drink! Once you have your card, can register for the rewards program online at http://www.starbucks.com/cardrewards/. If you haven’t heard about it already, the program offers a few really nice benefits such as:

Free “tall” drink when you purchase one pound of whole coffee beans
Free syrup, soy and half-and-half for your drink
Free refils on brewed or iced coffees while in the store
Free AT&T Wifi (my favorite perk)

Sounds pretty good, although the free internet isn’t without a catch. You are limited to 2 hours per day, and your two hours must be consecutive. So if you sign on in a Starbucks store in the morning, you won’t be able to later in the afternoon. While it’s certainly not quite as good as straight up free wi-fi (like Caribou Coffee offers), it certainly beats paid T-Mobile subscription before. One note however, if you do plan on making a purchase on your Starbucks Card, and getting all set up with the rewards program and surfin’ away right away on your next trip, be aware while you are able to access the Starbucks website in store and register for the rewards program, the AT&T account activation requires email verification. That’s tough to do when you don’t have full access to the internet, so plan accordingly. My advice is to maybe reload your Starbucks card (for the sake of having a recent transaction) and register for rewards at home.

But that’s the Starbucks way of drawing customers, and it’s working. What’re your favorite places to go?