Portable Speakers!!!

When I’m on vacation, especially with my girlfriends, we want to share our music. There is nothing better then laying on the beach listening to tunes on my inMotion portable speaker system or jamming out while getting ready for a night on the town. If you have a portable music device or even a PSP device, portable speakers are an absolute must. Think of them as the new “boom box.” They range from $80 to $150 and are well worth the money. I use mine all the time around the house and especially on vacation. What’s nice is that most of them are battery operated and have the option to plug in, so you can take and use them anywhere. Check out my Plugged In story to see what kind of portable speakers are out there.

XM or Sirius? Tough Call!

Choosing XM and Sirius satellite radio is a challenge. Both are the same price per month and both offer over 65 different music channels. Of course, Howard Stern is on Sirius, but it’s also got Martha Stewart. XM has Oprah and Ellen. The BIG difference between the two is when it comes to sports. You can’t have both the NFL and Major League Baseball, sorry! XM owns Major League Baseball, NASCAR, the PGA tour and the NHL. Sirius is home to the NFL, NBA and NCAA football and basketball.

Another difference is in their portable devices. XM has a leg up! It offers three on-the-go portable devices that receive live satellite radio. Sirius offers one portable device, but you can’t receive anything live. It all must be pre-recorded. Sirius does plan on launching a live portable device by the end of the summer.

I have to admit, I have the XM Delphi MyFi device. I absolutely love it!!! I rarely listen to any regular FM station these days. What I love about my Delphi MyFi is how versatile it is. I can use it in any car and also plug it into any home stereo system, plus if I’m really feeling dorky I can attach a mini antenna to my shirt and take XM along on a run. I have yet to do that though!

Since my XM/Sirius story, I have discovered three new stations I absolutely love. Here is my top ten; 90’s, Top 20 on 20, Kiss, Flight 26, XM HitList, Top Tracks, Highway 16, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.

The price of satellite radio is very affordable and you’re missing out if you don’t have it! As far as which one is right for you…the choice is yours. I feel bad if you’re a sports fanatic. You face a tough decision.

Celebrity Similarities

Wanna know what celebrity you look like? Of course, secretly, we all do.

Well, check out MyHeritage.com. All you have to do is click on Face Recognition, then download a good picture of yourself, check My Heritage Celebrity Database, and then run the face recognition. The site scans over 3,000 famous faces. You’ll get ten ranked results and they can include men and women.

So of course, I had to run the program with my own picture.

The number one person I look like is Sarit Hadad, a popular Israeli singer.

I had no idea who she was, but my other celeb look-a-likes include Heather Locklear, Hilary
Duff and Mariah Carey, so I can’t complain.

It’s not like I really look like any of them, but it was still fun to find out.

In addition to the celeb section, MyHeritage.com also offers users the chance to create family trees that will help loved ones stay in touch, celebrate birthdays, share photos, and preserve their family’s history.

You can download the Family Tree Builder for free. The face recognition technology lets you tie your photos to individuals in your family tree. Now that’s pretty cool!

I ran pictures of Michelle Wright and Wendy Bell through, and I bet you can’t guess the results!

Michelle’s number one celeb look-a-like is Evangeline Lilly, from “Lost.”

Wendy’s celeb look-a-like? Pamela Anderson.

MyHeritage.com is easy, not to mention fun, so try it out!!!

Computer Deals

First of all, I can’t believe summer will be drawing to a close soon and everyone will be headed back to school. How depressing, where does the time go! The difference is that this year I won’t be going back to Point Park. It’s actually exciting, but sad at the same time. Those days of sleeping in and skipping class are over. It’s actually quite depressing, but I have this fantastic job, that I love, so I can’t complain too much.

So anyway what I was saying is that there are great “Back to School” deals out there if you’re shopping for a computer. I visited Circuit City and couldn’t believe the price of computes…they’re so low! They had package deals where you would get a laptop, carrying bag, anti virus software, USB cable and a wireless router for under $600. I just bought a laptop less than two years ago and it is a piece of junk compared to the ones on the market today and I paid a lot of money for it. Even though desktops are fast becoming a thing of the past, there are still some pretty cool desktop computers out there too. I still can’t get over the prices of some of the computers. I’m talking flat out ridiculously low. Check out my Plugged In story.

Sharing and Printing Pics Online

There are so many photo sharing sites out there these days. Which one to choose? Here’s the list I talked about in my Plugged In story.

Check out AOL Pictures or Kodak Easy Share. Both of these sites are pretty easy to use if you’re not technologically advanced. The photo sharing site FilmLoop has pictures that scroll across the screen, and Shutterfly and Snapfish both offer great photo gift options.

I’m a fan of Shutterfly. I was introduced to the site by a friend and it has changed the way I print my digital pics. I still hit-up Wal-Mart, Target or Rite Aid if I just need a couple of pictures printed, but let’s be honest it can be annoying waiting in line and waiting for every one of the photos to print. I use Shutterfly when I am printing out my memory card because I don’t have that kind of time to waste. The site lets me edit individual pictures and I love the photo books and other gifts they offer. I’ve given gifts from Shutterfly and received gifts from the site. Another nice thing about most of these photo sharing sites is that you have the option of making your albums public or private. When I got back from my semester abroad I had about a thousand pictures to print out, I used Shutterfly. I received the pictures in just two or three days!

World Music

National Geographic has launched a World Music site. It connects you with music and artists from different countries worldwide. That’s amazing! The international music site lets you discover different artists, religions, and types of music from around the globe through videos, maps, photos and special features. Now you can learn how different religions influence music.
I can watch and listen to artists from Brazil to Italy, Morocco, Thailand, Japan, the United States and thousands of others.
The site even allows you to search by artist, albums, genres and countries. National Geographic calls the site a soundtrack to the world and you can even purchase tracks for 99 cents.

I love this site! This site may open your eyes and ears to how big the world really is and the different music will connect with cultures from around the globe. The music is soulful. It doesn’t matter if you can’t understand the words; you can still feel the music. I’m fascinated by other countries and cultures. There is so much beauty to be seen and heard throughout the world. Check out my Plugged In story. You’ll be moving to the music in no time!

Internet Lingo???

Thanks to the Internet, we now have an entirely new language. For example, “Google” is now considered a verb! What?
So how do you keep it all straight? Let NetLingo.com be your online dictionary for anything and everything related to new media. I was impressed with the site for the lists and lists of acronyms it offers. Check out my Plugged In story, you’ll be impressed too. I thought I knew a lot, but I have a lot more learning to do.

Kayak.com

I’m always interested in travel deals, not that I have been doing a lot of traveling lately, but I always like to look. Kayak.com is a new travel search engine. It kind of works like Google, but it only searches travel sites. Kayak searches over 100 sites to find you the best deals, depending on where and when you want to go. Ironically, the day I did this story, I saw a commercial on TV for it. I’m sure you’ll be seeing them soon too. The site is definitely worth checking out. I mean, these days people book their vacations online, but there are thousands of sites to choose from. Kayak will just help in that search.

iPod and iTunes

AWW, the iPod and iTunes…what a fabulous creation! But how does it all work? Well, with the iPod you can only use iTunes to upload your music, but you don’t have to have an iPod to use iTunes. You can download iTunes for free off the Apple Web site.
Currently, iTunes offers 150 different TV series, movie trailers, music videos, audio books and podcasts. They hope to soon offer full-length movies too. But if you just don’t want an iPod, check out iRiver or Creative. They both offer products with special features different than the iPod.
For other music download sites, check out my Plugged In story. You can learn more about iTunes and the iPod, and the alternatives that are out there to buy.

Costly Gas

Gas prices just went up AGAIN! I can’t take it! Now it costs me close to $50 a fill-up. Ugh!!! That is so much money, but I have to pay it. I mean, I have to use my car. I definitely have taken steps to conserve as much gas as possible.

I actually found some websites that offer great tools and tips to save some extra $$$ at the pump. Check them out: GasBuddy.com, GasPriceWatch.com and of course The Gas Gauge on ThePittsburghChannel.com. Also, maybe we consumers should invest in a credit card with gas rewards. Really, whatever you do to conserve on gas just isn’t enough. It seems to be a never ending saga that we will continue to deal with. I do know that when I finally can invest in a new car, I’m going for some sort of Hybrid. Of course, I won’t be doing that anytime soon, so who knows what new technology will come out to help us at the pump by then.

La La

A new website called lala.com lets you trade your CD collection for other CDs for just $1 per CD! Now you can not only get rid of all your old, unwanted CDs and cases, but you can trade them for other music. It’s great for all you old heads out there that haven’t yet switched to a digital music store or just have a massive collection of CDs.
On the site you can create a profile with a picture of anything you want, create reviews of albums and artists, and create your own lala blog. The only catch is that you have to trade CDs to get CDs, but what’s cool is that lala.com will send you envelopes ready to send. All you have to do is drop those CDs in a mailbox. Check out my Plugged In story to learn more about lala.com and start trading.

Virtual Batting Cages

I headed down to Fan Fest to check out their virtual batting and pitching on Monday. It was great! The convention center crowd was unbelievable. Not including Monday, Fan Fest sold over 80,000 tickets…now that’s a lot of people!!!
So anyway, I decided to take a try at the virtual video batting. Why not, right? Well, I haven’t swung a bat since, I don’t know, high school. And even then it was just in gym class. So I get into the cage and for some reason I get really nervous. I don’t know why, I mean, maybe it was because 100 or so people were in line watching me. You know, I have such a girl swing, how embarrassing would it be if I did hit one. But, good news, I nailed the last pitch! I planned on saving the best for last, HaHa, it’s more like dumb luck.
You should check out my Plugged In story on virtual video games.

O*A*R Concert

I love the band O*A*R! There was a free concert Sunday night at the Chevy Amphitheater at Station Square. It was awesome!!! O*A*R was “the band” when I was in high school. Their CDs played at every single one of our parties. I went with a bunch of my girlfriends they’re to the concert. O*A*R a great live band to see. For those of you that don’t know O*A*R, there are kind of like Dave Mathews, but different. Here’s their website, check it out.

Anyway, I jammed out the entire concert. It’s funny because everyone was jamming out, not caring how they looked doing it. You just can’t help it, their music is contagious. I’m so glad I went! Here are some pictures.

This is us on Mount Washington. We took the incline down to the concert.

And this is my roommate, Marissa. We’ve been friends since we were young. She and I grew up in the same town together and I’ve lived with her for over 4 years. She’s great!

Getting Directions

There are a ton of great online mapping tools out there, but five that are worth investing time in. There’s the old classic Mapquest, which is the most popular mapping tool site on the Web, but I honestly think it’s kind of boring. Mapquest doesn’t have any cool features. Other mapping sites you should explore are Yahoo Maps Beta and Google Maps. Both offer three different views- regular maps, satellite views and hybrid views. Then there’s Windows Live Local and Ask.com Maps. Windows lets you see major U.S. cities from the point of view of a low- flying plane. Ask.com gives users a walking route option which is different than the other mapping sites.
All of the sites offer you the option to find businesses, but Yahoo has a whole section dedicated to categories ranging from restaurants and bars to doctors and banks. Yahoo and Windows Live offer traffic info on their maps that the others don’t. You can print out any of these digital maps, but only Yahoo and Google let you send directions to your smart phone for free. Mapquest offers a mobile option to receive directions on your cell, but you have to pay for it. My choice for an online mapping site is Yahoo Maps Beta. But don’t let me decide for you. Check them all out before you go on your next trip.

Web Videos Connect People Around the World

It’s the hottest media sensation out there; your own movies online. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about you’re not Plugged In.

Digital Entertainment is one of the hottest trends on the Internet right now. People are uploading videos to these video sharing sites each day and it’s so easy to use.

The most popular of the sites is YouTube.com. YouTube launched in December 2005, and in 8 months it has become the 39th most popular Web site on the Internet. It has over 50 MILLION streams of video a day. That’s unbelievable!

But YouTube has some competition. Video sharing sites like BitTorrent.com, Veoh.com, Revver.com and eefoof.com are all growing in popularity. In fact Revver.com and eefoof.com actually let users make a profit off their home videos. To learn more about all these sites you should check out my Plugged In story.

Plus I launched my own video on YouTube and you can too! Check it out below!

(If the embedded video doesn’t appear on this page, click here to watch it.)