Everything
Arizona – Day 6
Day 6 of Arizona was so fun. It started off with a ~5 mile hike! Oh yea, it was amazing. Next, we drove around Sedona and the surrounding areas visiting parks and walking on other trails. That’s pretty much all we did today…hike. We then came back to the rental house and grilled. So, here are pictures from today. They are few, but I think amazing. Tomorrow, my sister and I are planning the ENTIRE day. We have the final say on what we do! So pumped. Talk to ya all later.
Boynton Trail Hiking
Pictures from a 5 mile hike near Sedona. Called Boynton Canyon Trailhead. And yes, the second picture is me being totally clueless.
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Arizona – Day 5 – Grand Canyon!
Here is day 5 of our Arizona vacation. Today was jam packed with the Grand Canyon.
In the morning, around 4:30am, I woke up to the sound of pelting rain and loud thunder. 30 minutes later, the entire family was up…we showered and had breakfast. Then we were on our way to the Canyon. This 2.5 hour drive sucked. It took forever and was raining the entire way.
But, soon enough, we arrived, paid our dues and were on our way. Once inside the park, we checked out a lot of view points, a light house and just were amazed by the views. My sister and I began a trek on one of the trails…we probably ended up hiking a few miles down the Canyon. The views from that standpoint were amazing. Its so different than standing at the way top. Everything was amazing.
We took a shuttle around at this point and checked out other regions of the park. Lastly, we had delicious dinner.
As I type this, we are on our way home to the rental house. Here goes another 2.5 hours. Thank you iPod!
Here are my pictures for the day. Enjoy!
Grand Canyon 2
Like I said before, here are some more images from the Grand Canyon. More will be coming later, specifically from the sunset. I will have more images tonight too. The ones I post are from my phone. The vast others later are from my pro camera. Enjoy.
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Grand Canyon 1
First set of Grand Canyon pictures. Expect more later.
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Arizona – Day 4
Hey everyone! This post is for day 4 of my adventures in Arizona! On day 4, we went all over Arizona. Started in Sedona and went to Flagstaff then back to where we are staying. In Sedona, we visited a a Chapel, which was very cool…images are below. Then we went driving, taking the scenic routes and enjoying the views. We also went to new parks and then went on to a ski resort to go up to 12,000 feet on a mountain. Kind of like before, I am going to allow my pictures to tell the story. From 12,000 feet, we saw some amazing views, and those appear towards the end of the album. Today there are only 60 some images, so a lot less than yesterday. Day 5 takes us to the Grand Canyon! Expect a few hundred pictures from that excursion.
The vacation is still an awesome experience. We have been able to catch up with some family, have had a great time at our rental house and have had some amazing food. The weather is getting better, and it is no longer 115 degrees…it’s more in the upper 80′s and lower 90′s, which is tolerable. We leave on Friday and I will be sad to see it end.
So, Grand Canyon is coming up and I will talk to ya all later! Take care!
Ski Lift Scenery
Hey guys. I am in Arizona. I forget the town…but we are on a ski lift looking at amazing scenery. The ski place is called Agassiz. We started at 9000 feet on the ground and we rode up to 12000 feet. The view is incredible. Let me share it with you. Enjoy and take care.
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Chapel of the Holy Cross
Yet another day in Arizona on vacation. We went to the Chapel of the Holy Cross near Sedona. All around was amazing scenery, mountains and cliffs. I will have pictures of the Chapel later. For now, here are two pictures of scenery.
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I Clean Pools for a Living…
So, as you might have guessed, I am on vacation in Arizona. Last night, I went swimming in the community pool. I decided to do a job that was not mine so I could enjoy the waters. I cleaned all the bugs out of the water. Call me crazy, but I still swam afterwards. So. Here is a picture of the bugs I gathered in the net. I also want to add that the net was completely empty before I began doing my part to better the pool.
I do an excellent job cleaning pools, if I don’t say so myself. Yep. Okay, thats all for now. Enjoy the new week…I am off to Sedona for the day…pictures later.
You will want to click on the image for a full screen effect.
Arizona – Day 3
Today we went to a few national monuments and on a 4 hour train ride around Verde Canyon in Arizona. Instead of me telling you about these things, I am going to let these images tell the story. There are 105 images in all. Click on a thumbnail to view the full image. Enjoy!
On a Train in Arizona
I’m currently on a train ride in AZ. Here’s a picture of a picture. More will be posted later!
This is a test from my BlackBerry. If the image does not show up…my apologies.
16 Fun Facts about the Blackberry
We all know of BlackBerry, heck, I own the Curve 8530 and LOVE it! Here are 16 facts about BlackBerry that I found interesting. The info-graphic was originally created by Cellphones.org. Enjoy!
Via: Cell Phones
Arizona – Day 2
Day 2 of my vacation in Arizona is almost done. Here is a summary of what went down today.
We woke up around 9am, had breakfast and chatted with some family over the new Gmail Phone. Then, we got in the car and went to this castle thing that was built into the wall of a mountain. Pictures appear now. Click the image for a larger view.
We then got into the car for an hour and a half to go to another Arizona town to see family and attend an art festival. We roamed around the town and festival for most of the day. Then we enjoyed dinner, I had shrimp linguini. Twas very amazing.
After that, we ventured our way back to our rental cottage and here I am. Overall, the day was not packed full of things to do, but it was a fun day that allowed us to just relax and see family.
Tomorrow, is my birthday! And we are going on a 4 hour train ride around a few towns in Arizona. I should have a lot more pictures to share then. For now, enjoy this one of me 
Talk to ya later!
Arizona Day 1
Hey everyone! The next several blog posts will consist of me talking about my current vacation in Arizona. So, here goes Day 1.
It started at 8:15 in the morning. I was woken by my parents and told to get ready. After a shower and breakfast, we were on our way to an airport. This would be flight one of two. This first flight was a connecting flight and only took 30 minutes. We had a two hour layover in a larger airport, in which we ate chinese food. It was quite good. After boarding the second plane, we buckled in for a 2 hour and 30 minute flight from Minnesota to Phoenix. The flight went fast, as my sister and I watched The Big Bang Theory on my laptop. The flight also had built in TV’s in each seat back and overall it was a good flight.
After landing, we got on a shuttle, which took us to a rental car place. Oh, I should mention that by this time, the temperature was over 115 degrees. That’s HOT! But, it cooled down as we got into our rented Impala and sat for another 2 hours while we headed to a small Arizona town where we are renting a cottage for the week.
Next, we went grocery shopping, got settled into the house and then went out to eat near 8pm. It was a Mexican place, and I enjoyed a Combo #2…an enchilada and taco with rice and beans. Delicious meals today. If this is the way things are going though, I know I will be gaining 15 pounds on this vacation.
At this current moment, we are sitting in our living room of the cottage, watching TV and getting things planned for tomorrow.
I will continue to update the blog on events taking place while on vacation. I will also include more pictures in each post. The one above is one from Flickr. I didn’t take any images today. But wanted to give you a sense of what is coming up. Yep, the Grand Canyon is on our agenda. Stay tuned for more updates! Enjoy the weekend, everyone.
Cool Use of HTML5
This has been passed around the Internet the past week, but I wanted to touch on it here. If you visit the website http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com using a browser other than Chrome, you are prompted that your experience might be limited on the website. That being said, you might want to download Chrome JUST for this website. Let’s talk about it in a nutshell.
You go the the site, type in your address and hit Search. Yep, very straightforward. What you might not realize is that it is then pulling Google Map data for the location you specified. After a few seconds your video is ready. It plays a music video, using HTML5 and pops up windows that continue the story line. Your address is then converted to Google Map data and is shown in some of these windows. It showcases your address from a satellite standpoint and from a streetview standpoint. In some cases, you might have to pick a well known place, like the TWiT Cottage in California, to get this to work. I live in small town Iowa, and of course my house was not on Streetview. So, I chose to enter in the TWiT Cottage. (8 Keller Street, Petaluma, CA) The video was amazing. Me talking about it does not give the site justice, you have to check it out!
So, go get Chrome. Open Chrome, and type in http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com and type in your address or an address that you are certain is on Streetview.
Let me know what your thoughts are on this project and HTML5 as well.
Skype Introduces 10-Way Calling
In a new release of the Skype 5 Beta, they have expanded the group calling feature to not just five people, but to 10-way calling at once! I thought I was being spoiled by the 5 person calling feature, but now the ability to call up to 10 people at once and talk together is just amazing. I really want to see this come out of beta though, because to have a conference call, you have to have all members install the beta.
This new release also boasts automatic call recovery, which is useful for me because my Internet connection is spotty. So it will automatically recover a call after it’s dropped…amazing new feature.
There is one thing that I cannot stand about the Skype Beta…no Mac support! Come on! Is it really that hard to build a beta for multiple platforms? If anything, release it for Windows and Mac. I can see holding off on Linux until it becomes stable. But, Skype, please release the beta for Mac. Thanks!
Have you tried the Skype Beta recently? If you use Windows, give the beta a try…although it is known to crash and contain bugs. It’s worth a shot though to try it out. Let me know.
What are your thoughts on the new Gmail Calling Feature compared to Skype?
The New FREE Calling Feature in Gmail
In this video I talk about the new calling feature in Gmail which allows you to make calls on your computer for free to any number in the US and Canada. I also compare it to the paid Skype Credit service.
I also learn how to answer my own questions… Enjoy!
There’s a New Digg?!
Yes, you read correctly, there is a new Digg.com. Digg version 4 to be exact. I was finally invited to the Digg v4 Alpha months ago, so that let me take a sneak peak at what was to come. And I won’t lie, the new Digg was amazing in Alpha. It is more social than ever and allows you to auto submit content from a verified RSS feed of your own. Submitting content is so much easier now, and all submitted content doesn’t have that annoying Digg Bar. YES!
Screenshot Credit: Tyler S. Miller
Yesterday, Digg rolled out the new Digg v4 to everyone and if you go to http://digg.com, you will surely see the new Digg. If not, you get a clever error page. I compare this error page to the fail whale….because it is appearing a lot. The site was fine for me yesterday, but today they must be experiencing a lot more traffic. So, the Digg version of the Twitter Fail Whale appears.
Once you get beyond the broke axle, the new Digg is awesome. It’s sleek, social, easy, and fun. I notice less ads on the site and thank them for making it that way. Not sure how long it will stay like that, but let’s hope for a while. I love the social aspect of the site now, by making a new feature called My News, Digg allows more stories to hit the users’ homepages. Before, there was one homepage, which showcased few stories daily. The new logged-in user’s homepage showcases stories relevant and dugg from their friends on the site. More stories are becoming popular and more sites get the Digg Effect. There is still the normal overall home page by clicking on Top News, where you can find all subtopics as well, but the new My News feed is key.
Overall, I like the new Digg and will keep using the site. I liked it before, but now, I actually will make it a point to log into it and check what my friends are up to. What are your reactions to the new Digg?
The Way It Should Be – Episode 17
In this edition of “TWISB”, I attempt to fly solo for the first time. Tyler has always told me that I can talk politics by myself with no problem, and it turns out he’s right. Just a microphone, and myself with some thoughts. Of course there was a little inspiration. All it takes is someone trying to pervert the education of our country’s youth to light a fire under my growing belly. It turns out the N.E.A., National Education Association, has recommended reading on their website for teachers and administrators. One of the books they recommend is, Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. To say that I don’t agree with the book’s agenda is beyond an understatement, and the fact that they would recommend a book to learn how to organize to achieve political goals would be bad enough. However we’re not talking about some innocent organizing. This is a book that examines how the “ends justify the means,” and using tactics that would “otherwise seem unethical,” may be fine as long as you are able to achieve the end result that you’re looking for. The author, a hero to Progressives such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, also lays out rules that those seeking political change, revolution against the conservative enemy as he calls it, should follow in order to not only achieve those ends, but how to be unethical in the pursuit of those ends. To top it off, the book is dedicated to Lucifer. This episode’s a bit of a ramble, but you can find the N.E.A.’s recommendations here - http://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm – and for a glimpse at the page of the book with the tip of the hat to Lucifer you can search Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky on Amazon, click on the book where it says “Click to Look Inside!” and search the word “first.” The third quote is an Alinsky quote with the dedication to Lucifer. For some reason when you search the word Lucifer, nothing comes up. Hmmmm. Enjoy!
Justin Bieber 800 Times Slower
Love him or hate him, what I am about to share with you might change your mind about how you view JB….or not. Anyway, someone on the Interwebz took his song and slowed it down by 800%. This song has gone around the net for a few days, and the likelihood of you having already heard it is pretty high. But, incase you have not heard it, take 35 minutes (yea…35 minutes) to listen to this song. It’s very different, almost surreal, and quite amazing. It sounds NOTHING like the actual song by Bieber and you hardly know it’s him. The only way I know is because the almost vocals in it are so high pitched Ok, on you go, listen!
What do you do to a brand new Mac?
Credit: Apple
The title of this post says it all. What do you do with a brand new Mac? Let’s back up a tad first. Ok, so I was browsing the Apple store the other day and came across the 17 inch Mac Book Pro. This computer is something I have always wanted. I’ve wanted it longer than I can even remember. So, on a slight whim and while using my 5 year old HP laptop, I ordered said 17 inch Mac Book Pro. On the upside, I was able to use my college discount, but on the downside, that’s a mega chunk of change!
I have never owned a Mac before…unless you count installing Mac OS X onto my netbook PC. None-the-less, I don’t know what to do with my Mac. I am anticipating on doing a video unboxing, but I then want to get into using the new OS. I’ve used Mac’s before, but only in school, where everything and anything is blocked and monitored. So, what’s the first things you do with a new computer, more specifically a Mac? Do you install certain applications or test out some features? Please let me know. Fill me in on all the things I need to do first off with this new machine. I’m all ears and I need your help!
Leave a few comments telling me what to do first and what to check out. I will be posting videos of my Mac in the coming days and am thinking about doing tutorials once I get into the OS more. So, go for it, leave some comments. Thanks!
Looking for a place to blog?
Hola people of the Internet. This site has served a lot of things in the past. It used to be a total technology site, then it began hosting podcasts I produce, and now I turned it into a personal weblog to capture any aspect of my life. I want to transition it again into a place to allow guest bloggers. The site averages thousands of page views per month, which I find to be a great number for an audience. But, people get tired of posts coming from just one person, so, that’s where you come in. If you want your post to reach those readers then become a guest blogger on tylersmiller.com. It’s totally free and easy to do. You can post on anything you want. Tech, social media, YouTube videos, etc are all acceptable. Showcase your posts and personality to a growing crowd of readers. Your post will also be featured on my personal Twitter and Facebook feeds for more exposure. So, what do ya say? Wanna have a go at blogging? What do you have to lose?
More information can be found at http://www.tylersmiller.com/guest-writers/
If you are interested, please contact me and I will create you an account on the site for you to post.
I look forward to hearing from some readers and I look forward to some new content on the site! Take care.
Internet Explorer 9
Credit Microsoft
There has been a lot of hype recently about the new version of Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 9 is set to come out in beta form in September. Microsoft is actually planning an event to launch the browser. Why? Has a browser ever gotten an event for a beta announcement? Not that I can recall, however I may be wrong. I usually am wrong. Anyway, yeah, what’s the big deal with IE9? Is it going to be a big hit? I think probably not. Wanna know why? Here’s why: everyone still uses Internet Explorer 6! We are currently at a (slightly) solid build of IE8 and yet most of the browsing market comes from Internet Explorer 6. The browser that will NOT die. So, how will Microsoft encourage all users and corporate users to upgrade to yet another version of the browser? I wonder if this San Francisco event will do the trick? Are their upcoming flashy changes going to be better than rivals Firefox and Chrome (which I currently am using to write this blog post)?
If you look at the screenshot above, Microsoft is claiming this to be the Beauty of the Web. In a story run on CNET, Ina Fried talked to Ryan Gavin of Microsoft and he said the following about the new tagline:
Microsoft hasn’t said much about the design of IE9, but the company’s Ryan Gavin told CNET that the goal of the browser is not to block the view.
“The browser is the theater,” Gavin said. “We’re not the play.”
Gavin said that Microsoft is hoping to see wide adoption of the beta. “The beta is not for everyone, clearly,” he said, “but if you are comfortable downloading and installing software, I know I am going to want you to try IE9.”
Credit CNET : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20013511-56.html?tag=mncol;txt
Do you think the new browser will beat the rivals? My current opinion…no. Thoughts?