Seven Songs for the Ultimate Road Warrior’s Playlist

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Ammon

Some travelers jet set to glamorous locations—London, Paris, Madrid, Sydney, Shanghai, etc.—then there are those of us who fly into smaller, regional airports and then drive along rural roads of small-town America. We are the true Road Warriors.

In my current role I spend at least one week a month in Arkansas. The only thing that’s kept me sane on the long drives from LRNA to our field office has been a steady stream of great music.

Here are seven of my go-to tracks for the Ultimate Road Warrior’s playlist.

On the Road Again – Willie Nelson

This track signifies the beginning of another trip away from home. I’m never as anxious as Willie to be back on the road though.

Available on iTunes and Amazon
I’ve Been Everywhere – Johnny Cash

Sometimes it feels like I’ve been everywhere, seen everything, and done everything. The Man in Black gets that like few others do.

Available on iTunes and Amazon
Working Man Blues – Merle Haggard

Yeah, it’s a big job getting’ by with three kids and a wife. This song reminds of why I take these trips. So, I can provide the best life I can for the ones I love.

Available on iTunes and Amazon
Truckin’ – Grateful Dead

“What a long, strange trip it’s been” ‘Nuff said.

Available on iTunes and Amazon

Midnight Rider – The Allman Brothers Band

When my flight has been delayed (and delayed again and again and again …) this song provides the perfect soundtrack for those long, late night drives from the airport to the hotel.

Available on iTunes and Amazon
Ramble On – Led Zeppelin

By the end of a long week, I’m just ready to hit the road. This song not echoes that sentiment, but gets serious geek fred for its Lord of the Rings references (both Mordor and Gollum).

Available on iTunes and Amazon
Take Me Home Country Roads – John Denver

This is the perfect song for driving back to the airport. My trip is over and all I want to do is go home and see the wife and kids.

Available on iTunes and Amazon

For someone who claims not to be a Country Music fan This playlist is fairly fluid, but right now these are the songs I want to hear in my rental on my way to and from the the airport.

What do you want to hear when traveling along the open road? Sound off in the comments below.

All album art courtesy of Amazon

Use Email Shortcuts for Popular Webapps

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Ammon

Image via Wikipedia

Much like the pleading peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, email is not quite dead yet (it feels fine … it’ll go for a walk … it feels happy). Did you know that tons of the Internet’s most popular apps and services let you interact with them via email?

Yup, you can send notes to Evernote, post a video to your Facebook wall, upload an image to Flickr, send an article to Instapaper to read later, send PDFs or Word documents to your Amazon Kindle, add tasks your To Do list on Remember the Milk, and even post to your WordPress blog—and more—all through email!

The problem is that most of the email addresses you get to interact with these services tend to be a little hard to memorize. Usually, they’re something like r3411y10ng3m4i2314akwhch@yourwebapp.com. If you can’t easily remember that gobbledygook of an email address then you won’t use it.

To help myself take better advantage of these apps I’m already using I came up with a simple address book hack to simplify the process. You can do the same to easily make sense of your accounts.

Create a new entry wherever you keep your contacts (I use Address Book on OS X, but this works equally well in Outlook or even Google Contacts).
Give the contact the first name “SendTo”.
Use the service name for last name.
Add your unique email address (some services have more than one address, go ahead an list them all).
Additional details can be provided in the notes section. Remember the Milk, for example, provides some additional syntax for your tasks.

Repeat steps 1-4 for each service you use.

After you’ve organized all your email accounts, fire up your favorite email client and give it a test spin.

In the To field type SendTo. You will be presented with a list of services available to you. To illustrate this point I’ve selected my SendTo Flickr email account and attached a screenshot to the email.

Please note that the email’s Subject became the title of the Flickr image.

So, there you have it. Email once again proves itself useful. It ain’t dead and it ain’t just for mailing your boss your TPS reports. What are you waiting for? Go on and try it out for yourself.

What’s your preferred way of interacting with cool Web apps and services? Sound off in the comments below.

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

Eliminate Duplicate Address Book Contacts

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Ammon

Is your Mac’s Address Book teaming with duplicate contacts? Do you have multiple cards for the same people—one with the home number, one with the work number, and one with the mobile number?

Have no fear! OS X has a built in shortcut to help you tame your Address Book contacts in no time.

Simply select two or more duplicate contacts and hold the shortcut combo key Shift, Command, and I.

If you can’t remember the shortcut, go to the Card menu and select Merge Selected Cards (or you can search for it using the Help Menu).

The only downside of this approach is that you’ll have to go through your contacts, one-by-one. However, the granular level of control you have over your contacts more than outweighs this.

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

Hot Links: Project Implicit

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Ammon

So, just how prejudiced are you? Head on over to Harvard’s Project Implicit and find out.

Image courtesy of Project Implicit.

Their site will present you with a series of tests (take only the ones you want) which are designed to gauge the associations you have with with race, gender, weight, etc.

Whether or not you agree with Project Implicit’s methodology, taking these tests will certainly open your eyes and perhaps uncover biases you had no idea you were harboring.

Favorite Things: Belkin Mini Surge Protector and Dual USB Charger

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Ammon

If you’re a geek like me you probably carry a plethora of gadgets and gizmos around with you everywhere, even when you travel. This can be especially problematic if you’re staying at an older hotel with limited outlets available to recharge your laptop, iPad, iPhone, etc.

English: A Belkin surge protector. This is a s...

Image via Wikipedia

Several months back I picked up the Belkin Mini Sure Protector and Dual USB Charger from Amazon to remedy this problem and it quickly became one of my Favorite Things.

Not only does this travel-friendly little wonder power up to five of your favorite devices, but since it’s a real, bonafide surge protector and not just a power strip, it provides extra peace of mind knowing that your gear will be protected.

You can pick up the the Belkin Mini Surge Protector for between ten and fifteen bucks. It is a must-have for any (US-based) road warrior. You’ll be thanking me, I’m sure.

Belkin Mini Surge Protector Dual USB Charger (kk.org)
Belkin Mini Surge Protector and Dual USB Charger | Tools and Toys (toolsandtoys.net)
You Don’t Need All Those Chargers: How to Consolidate Your Extra Bricks and Still Power Your Gadgets [Power] (lifehacker.com)

Power Lords: Revenge of the Misfit Toys

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ammon

I previously established that we had some pretty lame toys back in my day. Following that theme, I’d like to reacquaint you with the Power Lords.

This was the kind of toy that I was probably given by my grandma who got it for me on a whim while shopping at K-Mart (I know I certainly never would have asked for it on purpose). Not that there’s anything wrong with grandma’s generosity, it’s not her fault she was out of touch with what little boys wanted back in the 80s (I love you Grandma!).

Looking at these toys I think it’s fairly evident why no one is clamoring for the Power Lords movie, the Power Lords 8 part mini series on SyFy, or the complete Power Lords reboot by DC Comics to wipe away all the years of bad continuity and make him more accessible for today’s new comic reader.

I had to consult Wikipedia to remember the basic storyline, In a nutshell, Adam Power was a huge nerd with a big nose and bad hair who liked to dress up in a bright orange jumpsuit to fight the evil extraterrestrial despot known as Arkus.

When Adam Power harnessed the power of the cosmic Power Jewel (at the push of a button) he became (feigned excitement) Lord Power (yawn)! As Lord Power, Adam now had blue skin and protruding red veins, his hair was even worse than ever, he had a jewel stuck in the middle of his forehead, and he was still stuck wearing the same orange pants from his jumpsuit.

It’s not worth going into the even lamer supporting cast of heroes and villains, it would only bore you to tears. However, if you’re reading this late at night and feel the urge to click a link you can check out images of all the action figures and vehicles over Action Figure Archive or read all about them back at Wikipedia .

This is one misfit toy that Santa should ~~accidentally~~ leave on the island. I’m sure most kids would rather have a Charlie-in-the-box over an Adam Power action figure any day of the year.

What’s the dorkiest toy you remember from growing up? Did you have one? Did you despise it or secretly love it? Sound off in the comments below?

All images are from my flickr, unless otherwise noted.

The 36 Worst Action Figures From Iconic Toy Lines (neatorama.com)

Two Keys Chained Together

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Ammon

I think it’s great that every time I rent a car they give me a set of two keys!

So many, many circumstances could arise (I came up with three) where this would be handy.

Someone else might need to take the car out
I might (heaven forbid) lock myself out of the car and need to get in
I might (perish the thought) lose a key

Yes, having two keys to the rental car would be great … if they weren’t bound together on the same indestructible keychain without any possible way of ever separating them.

Why do you think they do this? Sound off in the comments below.

All images are from my flickr.