SAM.I.AM

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I just filled up my car's gas tank last night. It cost $30.63!!! That's the first time I've ever paid over thirty dollars for a tank of gas in any of my vehicles. Figuring that I get about 300 miles/tank, that's around $0.10/mile! At this price, gas costs me $1.40/day just to drive my SHORT commute to and from work. Also, considering we moved 9 miles closer to Greensboro and I'm there every night, the move saves us about $54/month in my gas costs alone! Ridiculous! Thanks, Shrub, et al!

Where Are The Good Christians? / The fanatics and nutjobs now running the show sure give honest believers a bad name
Another great article by Mark Morford! Hallelujah! --Sam

Kevin Kelly -- Cool Tools
Check it out! This guy's got some very useful reviews of lots of cool stuff. --Sam

YaGoohoo!gle
Funny, but useful, too! Searches the 'Net using both Google and Yahoo! at the same time and shows the results splitscreen. --Sam

PhotoPortfolios.net - Online Photographer Porfolios
Wonderful series of photos of nature --Sam

Do You Need A Living Will? / Keep Congress and rabid Christians off your sad, brain-damaged body -- fill this out today!
Another Mark Morford column that I wholly agree with... I created a Medical Power of Attorney last fall when I had my surgery. In addition to the medical decisions about me, it addresses my desire to NOT be kept on life support systems for an extended period of time. Of course, it's more detailed than the previous statement! Do create a living will or some such document. It is important because it not only ensures your wishes are known (and hopefully upheld), but it takes the stress off of your family and friends to "determine" what you would want. --Sam

brevity's 50 people see... slideshow on Flickr
Wonderful artwork produced by merging and averaging 50 different photos from fifty different people. I like the four seasons picture. I'd love to have some of these as artwork for my home! --Sam

TEKHNA3D - Flash Kaleidoscope
Cool 3D stuff on this site. --Sam

An email I sent to Tech Support Alert, an excellent resource and publisher of a really good newsletter for geeks like me:

I was looking for a reminder solution because if I don't write it down, put it in my PDA, email myself a reminder or leave myself a voicemail, whatever I'm supposed to remember likely will be forgotten. After cutting the landline phone service at home, my main "gotta-remember-this-but-I'm-driving-so-how-do-I-remind-myself" device (the answering machine) was unavailable. I didn't want to leave a voicemail reminder on my mobile phone because it notifies me of new voicemails every few minutes and that can get pesky if I need to remember something hours later. I knew there had to be a solution where I could call a number and have a message sent to my email account. Sure enough, there are many; I found about eight. After reviewing them all, K7.net best fit my needs and I am very pleased with them.

K7 is free and easy to set up. It assigned me a phone number I can call and leave a voicemail. Immediately (and I do mean immediately!), the voicemail is sent to my email account as a .wav file. It's that simple. Here's the catch: the phone numbers they assign for the free service use Seattle, Washington's area code. Now this is no problem for me for I only use it with my mobile phone and have nationwide calling. The free part still doesn't quite jibe with me because it's such a wonderful service that seems like it would have some pricey overhead. But, they state on their site that their revenue comes from advertisements on the site. (They also offer other fee-based services.) I gave them a unique email address when registering about a week ago. I have received no email (including spam) addressed to it other than the registration details and the voicemails I've left for myself. I'm very impressed with them, so much so that I put a link to them on my site's front page (www.samiam.com). They do not have an affiliate program and I'm not employed by them in any way. I am simply a consumer who is very pleased to have found exactly what he was looking for and an excellent implementation of it.

Perhaps my fellow readers of your newsletter would like this service, too. Thanks for all the wonderful goodies you direct me to in each edition!

Kind regards,
Sam Moore


www.k7.net

Cathy Weaver: Readers share in computer problems
Cool! I got mentioned in Cathy Weaver's column in the News & Record:

Sam Moore of McLeansville is a PC Engineering Specialist at Konica Minolta Manufacturing USA in Whitsett and also has his own business, PC Installations and Maintenance. He emphasizes the importance of clearing these pesky advertising programs and viruses from our computers.

“These boxes of technology can do amazing things, but they can be very frustrating, too,” Sam reassures us. “Often, though, I’m cleaning malware (viruses and spyware) from systems to simply get them working like when they were first used. Malware has become the biggest challenge facing both business and home PC users.”

Fair Housing. It's not an option. It's the law.
I just saw this ad on TV. I wasn't really paying attention until it was mostly through. Fortunately, I was able to rewind it on the DVR and watch the whole thing. Take a look at the "Do You Still Like Me" video. It's powerful. While its main purpose is for fair housing practices, I think it speaks volumes about discrimination in general. --Sam

Home Coffee Roasting Supplies - Sweet Maria's
A friend told me of this site. He's very pleased with their Fresh Roast Plus 8 Coffee Bean Roaster and their green coffee beans. I think we'll give them a try for our home coffee bar. Thanks, Wayne! --Sam