The new Apple iPad may be a game-changer:

• An iPad would encourage me to change how my personal email at shawnreed.com is served.
• An iPad may encourage me to change how my Linux Servers are accessed.
• An iPad could potentially retire my iPod Classic.
• An iPad likely would support all of the activities that my heavy 17 in. personal laptop does for me.
• An iPad might raise awareness of Safari-compatibility on my websites.

There are plenty of reasons that netbooks will continue to make worthwhile alternatives. As the iPhone proved, great applications make for pleasing experiences. A linux-based netbook will still make for a better (and safer) user experience, but it may not be enough.

There’s no such thing as a smooth transition these days. It appears that the even planned anxiety can be challenged with unexpected problems.

Most of my free “hobby” time is spent on vbulletin-based forums. My experience with vbulletin doesn’t yet span half of my total experience in building and managing communities, but I feel that my technical expertise and knowledge of the vbulletin system is greater than anything I’ve ever used. VB was never perfect, but it isn’t difficult to apply some creativity and mold it to what is needed.

The true Tragedy is that whatever the new vbulletin 4 becomes, it’s potential may never be realized. Although there are many, including myself, that are emphasizing a sit-and-wait approach over making a change – it appears that the revolt has grown greater and faster than I thought. Consultants and Lawyers write about this as an example of what not to do as a brand-retention strategy, and other news/blogs are more focused on the customer perception than the potential of the new version.

Can the remaining steadfast take whatever vb 4.0 becomes and transform it into impressive communities that attract participation? There are frequent improvements every time I check the vbulletin website, but can’t visualize or make a connection that would encourage a normal user to contribute. I like the direction the software is going, but they are going to need some well-developed communities to build the trust enjoyed by the previous jelsoft organization. The current licensing and pricing isn’t going to help.

My last holdout, a Sony KV-36XBR800.

It was a wonderful TV, manufactured at a time when HDTV was still a developing technology (it’s HDTV interface was a DVI plug instead of HDMI). During the six years of service, it was not only the centerpiece of my living room, but a source of comfort for several children during my foster parenting years.

CRT television technology had reached it’s pinnacle, representing a choice of large and extremely heavy televisions. It was the last year Crutchfield offered them as an option, going completely to flat-panel displays the following season. The unit was so heavy that we had planned to just leave it behind if we ever sold the house.

During it’s lifetime, we saw the proliferation of LCD technology. Circumvented at times by ingenious projection-based approaches, early plasma attempts, and the amazing new LED options.

For me, Crutchfield is shipping us a new Plasma-based unit. I’m sensitive to refresh rate and even the best LEDs don’t come close to the performance of Plasma in this area. The tradeoff will be an awareness to burn-in and reflection, which are both addressed on the new TV using recent solutions and technologies. Plasma also doesn’t have the power-consumption advantage of the latest LED options, but in a few years I would think that LEDs will catch up.

Search Engines have been indexing and cataloging all types of websites, and have improved over the years. I didn’t rewrite URLs on TriumphRat.Net for several years and it was indexed in search engines just fine. In fact, I didn’t have to submit the site to search engines or generate any sort of sitemap either. Near the end of my tenure on Rat.Net, URL rewrites and Sitemaps were implemented with positive results that were frequently described as expotential.

So if rewritten URLs aren’t “technically” necessary why go through the trouble?

The bottom line is that while some search engines can index pages regardless of format, many search engines cannot. Also, if you depend on link popularity with other sites and search engines it doesn’t hurt to remove ampersands, question-marks, and other characters common with dynamic URLs.

From a useability standpoint, discussion forum owners frequently debate the value that users place on “friendly” URLs. For this site, a rewritten URL doesn’t offer much. I do it, but probably not in a format that is easily understandable. On Motorcycles International, user-friendly examples are:

http://www.motorcyclesintl.net/triumph
http://www.motorcyclesintl.net/ducati

From a content cataloging and advertising standpoint, it is much easier for marketers to create channels that associate to keywords in URLs. This is a commonly overlooked issue represents a technology/opportunity that frankly many webmasters don’t take time to learn about or implement. It also works well for grouping content.

Benefits improve with feature-rich products like vbSEO and other similar plugins for dicussion forums. One can tune a variety of options and preferences, governed on what the webmaster believes in.

Roughly four years ago, my wife made an attempt to obtain our geographically-local TV stations through DirectTV. Due to our circumstances, DirecTV was able to oblige but the install failed due to trees that obstructed the view that the special “second dish” required.

I learned this weekend that DirecTV had been charging us the monthly fees since that time, anyway.

My initial response was just a slight degree of frustration. Really, I wasn’t that upset about it. My phone call to their customer service department was to help me understand what we were paying for, and why service add-ons would increase our costs dramatically. We were already paying a significant amount per month, but no longer had several premium channels and we’ve never had HD Service. As we discussed the components of our billing, which I haven’t done myself in years, we discovered that a small amount was billed in error for the last four years.

Since I was already frustrated about my limited options, I just wanted my money back (roughly $144.00) and planned to do some additional research on what we would actually use as a family. I wanted HD Service, but was willing to call back at a later time and do the necessary upgrades and changes that DirecTV would require.

However, the twenty-something rep turned from a nice person to a nice negotiator. I encouraged her that she didn’t do anything wrong, and that I wasn’t blaming anyone for the error, but she should not be attempting to negotiate with me. After a few more negotiating attempts from the customer service rep, I felt it was time for me to consider my 14-Year relationship with DirecTV to be over. In a matter of 15 minutes, I went from loyal DirecTV Subscriber to an amazed individual. How could DirecTV acknowledge my long-term relationship at the beginning of the conversation, and then treat me like a “nobody” a few minutes after?

Part of the problem is with me. I’m a professional negotiator with an attitude. My experience with Sirius was similar, it seemed that they were more accustomed to a different kind of customer than myself. One would think that being courteous and paying on-time all these years would be enough. Regardless, on to the positive stuff.

Since AT&T UVerse still wasn’t available in my area yet, I went ahead and subscribed to the AT&T/DISH Service. There is some concern on my part about the user experience, a couple years ago the quality of their standard converter box wasn’t up to par with DirecTV or Cox. However, my comfort level change dramatically after reading several reviews and comments on both CNET and HDTV Enthusiasts Forums. It seems that DISH has a perceived upper-hand regarding satellite HD Service, and provides superior equipment.

The pricing was amazing. I’ll have more channels in both SD and HD, with HD being provided to all three TV’s in my home; and two of them will have DVRs. The satellite dish will point in the same general direction as my current DirecTV dish, and the one dish will provide all of my channels – including my actual “geographic” local channels.

I’m crossing my fingers, but if it works out the end result will be at a significant savings over DirecTV or Cox.

It’s amazing that we struggle with finding something to watch with so many channels being provided these days. At the same time, advertising infomercials are now creeping out of the graveyard shift and into prime time

I had free time today and did some additional work on my wife’s Heart Gallery site.  The redundant content has been removed, and it now facilitates both books and news of interest to those considering adoption or becoming foster parents.

Although international adoptions will likely slow down, due to a variety of issues, one of the key reasons families consider this option is due to amount of information available on the option. Even today, it still outweighs that of domestic-US options via foster care.

We plan to add some additional content to the site that will hopefully keep families hopeful that foster-to-adopt is still a viable option in today’s economic times.

I made a change yesterday evening, when voting results were starting to come in, which caused email to the ShawnReed.Com Domain to be blocked. It took a while, but the issue revealed itself a short while ago.

Live and Learn …

The new site and server infrastructure is doing extremely well, it’s cool to see the results of my efforts.

There have been some minor code/formatting tasks that have come up, but the site is better for it.

It will take a while to build a new community, but the feedback has been great.

Motorcycles International is Open!

The main domain is http://www.motorcyclesintl.net

I’m going to go clean my bike and work on the yard, maybe not in that order

The theme development effort on the new Motorcycles International site has reached it’s end and I’ve been working since last night to wrap up all of the details. Primarily coding all the little things that aren’t considered in a project plan.

It is extremely cool to see a long-time dream come to reality!

The only thing left is to upgrade the HelpDesk System, which is something I haven’t done in the past but it should give users something structured to work with.