Tom Eppenberger Jr’s blog

Microsoft sure is getting better at naming their products! Windows Live SkyDrive is sure better than Windows Live Folders (the previous name of this service in the earlier betas), or Windows Live Online Data Repository Home Edition…

Even though I was registered for the earlier betas, I never really paid too much attention to it until they announced the name change earlier this week. I kicked the tires by using it to send share some files with Lance, and am now storing some application backup files there. I’ve got nothing but praise for this thing. Simple UI, easy to use, 500 MB of disk space, permissions, Windows Live Messenger integration… what more can I say?

While the product is still in beta, they have opened this thing up and are allowing pretty much anyone to register. Go check it out, and put some data up in the sky… or just check out the Windows Live SkyDrive team blog.

This is a rant, so you are warned.

I think it is criminal that any web site or service let you sign-up for an account without making it simple to remove your account should you ever want to stop using the web site or service.

This has bugged me for a really long time, and Box.net is just the latest service to piss me off.

Box.net is an online disk service that I have used on occasion to transfer or store files. With the Windows Live SkyDrive service offering me far more now, I no longer required an account or the 100 MB of disk space that they had been giving me. So, tonight I logged in with the sole purpose of removing my account…

Let me just say that as a user, I should never have to refer to a “Terms of Service” legal document to find out how to remove my account. That is totally ridiculous. As it turns out, I have to email their support and ask for my account to be removed. No problem, but just put it in your FAQ or on the same page where you are trying to get me to sign up for all your “professional” grade services.

Am I asking for too much here? I just don’t want to have to refer to legal documents on a web site to find out how to deal with canceling a service, or removing a user account.

Next time you find yourself trying to fix your [insert name of consumer electronics device here], and you’re about ready to throw it out the window… try and remember to check out FixYa.

FixYa has user guides, user-generated advice for fixing problems, and you can even submit questions to get help from others. Heck, I was able to find manuals for a few items I have here at home that no longer have a company to offer me support. I’m pretty impressed with it.

There is also a program where you can earn money helping others. Their premium tech support program offers $5 for every successful problem that you help a user solve. Just sign up and start browsing the active problems looking for solutions.

I like to sign up for all kinds of weird web services, many of which I remove myself from inside of 5-10 minutes. “Web 2.0″ applications are everywhere, but only some are worth using.

MyMileMarker looks like it is one of the good ones, at least right now. The premise for the application is something that I have done off and on for years… track my car’s gas mileage.

Some people use little notebooks that get stored in their glove boxes, while others do some quick long division in their head to get the current MPG right before they forget about it pulling out of the gas station…

MyMileMarker is quite possibly the nerdiest way to do it yet, and you even have three possible inputs to choose from… 

1. You can logon to the website when you get to a computer and manually enter the data.
2. You can use your cell phone’s mobile browser and login to their mobile website and manually enter the data.
3. You can send them a text message from your phone (via a Twitter direct message) and have the data input for you.

I think the Twitter integration is what makes this application the most interesting. Sending a quick SMS is the best case model for me, and one that I think I can actually keep up with using.

d mymm 6500 12 3.15

That’s what the text message would look like. The twitter username is mymm, followed by the current odometer reading, the number of gallons or liters, and the price per gallon or liter. Quick, easy, simple.

After putting data in for the first time, you will start to see all kinds of pretty graphs and figures that show predictions up to one year out. Really cool stuff, but I can’t see it being terribly useful without at least a few months worth of data in there.

This is presently a beta web application (what isn’t these days), but at this point anyone who wants to can join.

I’ve been using this service for a few weeks now, and absolutely love it!

Jott’s premise is simple. You have an idea, remember something you have to do, want to remind yourself of an upcoming event… and you are sitting in traffic (as just one example). Just call the Jott service from your cell phone, wait for the beep, and then speak your mind. A few minutes later, you get an email from Jott that has converted your voice message to text (and includes a link to listen to your original message in case things don’t jive).

This is a free-service right now, but will likely have charges or be ad-supported at some point in the future. All you need to do to sign up is provide your cell phone number (they use Caller ID to identify you) and email address.

Anyone who spends any time in their car on a daily basis should love this service. I know that I do. It fits perfectly into my GTD system, letting me get the crap out of my head and another step closer to a mind like water…