ThruIT » Will Kievit

GE Signs Contract with Major Holiday Distributor

Will Kievit — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:45:55 +0000

Okay, so it’s not quite inside information, but this morning when I logged into my computer at work I found out that GE has signed a contract with Santa to provide a new state of the art sleigh. This is sure to impact GE’s stock price, which as of recent has been around the upper $15s.

We all know that traditionally Santa has had a rather old fashioned sleigh pulled by his reindeer, but the reindeer are getting old and so is Santa and so GE has developed mind blowing proprietary technology to solve some traditional problems. Some of the new features include OLED lighting, RFID Asset tracking (for Santa’s many gifts), and much more. Another cool thing is that most of this stuff is in development or has been developed by GE already. Take a look at the below app to learn more.

Disclaimer: The author of this article is an employee of GE Capital. The views and opinions of this article are that of the author and may not necessarily represent that of GE. This article is not sponsored by GE and is not an offer or advice to buy or sell securities. ‘Comon it’s a holiday joke people…

Nokia Maemo 5 on the N900

Will Kievit — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:00:16 +0000

Back in October, Matt wrote a post about the smartphone market, and it really got me thinking… Why is it that you can never find a handset with reliable hardware, cutting edge operating system, and any network you choose? I was reminded of back in the day when I had Nokia mobile phones. I had several, but my memory of each was that they were built tough. I had one that my friends and I dubbed the indestructible phone. It was my “drunk phone”. I dropped it off a ski lift, threw it at brick walls, and we even ran it over with an ambulance (no joke), but it just wouldn’t break. However, if memory serves, the operating system was so dinky and archaic, that being virtually indestructible was pointless. So, I decided that if Nokia ever took on the Android OS, that I would pick it up in a heart beat.

Well, even though they haven’t picked up Android, the new version of the Maemo OS, based off of Debian/Linux, has impressed, and intrigued me. I have even pre-ordered a N900 (Nokia’s newest handset with Nokia Maemo) which takes full advantage of the new OS, and I will be providing you with a full-review once it arrives. Until then Update: Due to an issue with the pre-order I was not able to get the phone rapidly.

I highly recommend all of you Smartphone fanatics go and take a look at the Maemo website, but for now here are some of the highlights:

Web browser that shows the web as its true self with full web standards support (Sort of like Apple claims to… but with Flash support too).

Multiple desktops… but not just icons… widgets too

Integrated Skype to Skype calls. They even let you use the 3g network and not just wifi.

Oh yeah and did I mention: video, mms, copy/paste, maps, email, media player, and an open apps store?

Google Voice Give-Away Winners

Will Kievit — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:00:02 +0000

Congratulations to the winners of the Google Voice Invite Give-Away:

@servnhimusa
@duggiephresh
Nikhil Suresh (fb).

If you are one of the winners, Direct Message @ThruITBlog with your email address on twitter.

ENJOY!

Keep Your Thanksgiving as Techy as You Are

Will Kievit — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:22:12 +0000

I think I can speak for all of us at ThruIT when I say that we are all lazy gadget freaks. But I know that most of us love food… and when I say love, I mean lovvvvve food. So when it comes to Thanksgiving, we reach an epic conundrum: sooo much food but way too much work to be done. There is plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving in the tech world, but every other blogger out there decided to post those lists (Wired, Crunch Crunch, IMLP Blog, etc.). So I decided to mix things up a little bit a present you with some ways to keep thanksgiving techy. This list should help you infuse technology into your thanksgiving festivities.

IntelliScanner

I have the hardest time going shopping. Now that I actually plan my meals, I don’t just walk around the store and buy what looks good, instead I buy for a recipe. My problem is I can never remember what I already have or what cabinet I put it in, or what I need to replenish. An IntelliScanner lets you scan all your groceries and use the computer to organize and plan out your next shopping list.

Wireless Talking Cooking Thermometer

There is so much food at Thanksgiving Dinner: the sweet potato and marshmallows, the variety of veggies, the stuffing, the gravy, and of course the turkey (plus lasagna if you have a family like mine). Its tough to keep track of everything, but this talking thermometer will assist you in keeping track of your bird’s meat, wirelessly.

Automatic Wine Bottle Opener

Those wine bottles have it out to get us. Seriously, those corks are always breaking and getting stuck. They’ve got so many different kinds of bottle openers, but none of them really quite do the trick like a gadget would. This fine piece of gadget will pluck that cork from the bottle with grace and elegance, and it might just make your Thanksgiving dinner go a bit smoother.

One-Touch Can Opener

I can never get those darn automatic can openers to work the can always keeps falling off or it doesn’t cut all the way around. Then there is those manual can openers but who uses those anyway, you actually have to turn them by hand! But lay this gadget down on top of any can hit the button and it will spin around in a jiffy, leaving you a cleanly opened can.

CulinaryPrep

There are only three things that I can think of that can ruin a Thanksgiving.

No Food
Drunk family members airing your not-so-favorite stories about you running around naked as a child.
A bowel-emptying case of food poisoning.

This is made to prevent the last one and apparently it can make your food taste better too.

Free Google Voice Invites!

Will Kievit — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:00:24 +0000

So they may not be as cool as Google Wave invites these days, but we at ThruIT blog just got our hands on some invites for Google Voice. The service is pretty cool and its continually being improved upon. Send and receive phone calls, voicemails, and text messages all from your personalized FREE vanity google voice number. Mine is ###-4-KIEVIT. Also, the voicemails are transcribed; although that feature isn’t perfect, its helpful in meetings to get a gist of what the person needed.

Anyway… the contest…

I am giving out 3 Google Voice Invites for Free.

What do you have to do?

Follow @ThruITBlog and Tweet about any post (except this one) on thruit.com

Share or Post a link to any ThruIT blog post (except this one) on FaceBook and leave a comment on this post.

Winners will be chosen next week. Get sharing soon!

Update: Office 2010 Released for Public Beta

Will Kievit — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:00:08 +0000

Since we have posted our review of the Office 2010 Technical Preview, Microsoft has now released their public beta. Anyone can now download a (completely legal) copy here. This version should hopefully prove to hold more stable then the technical preview.

Via NeoWin

Update: AT&T Contacts Me On Twitter!

Will Kievit — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:33:57 +0000

A couple of nights ago, an AT&T Wireless manager contacted me on twitter. Apparently, AT&T caught wind of my blog post where I talked about the issue I was having, and using their new social media initiative be proactive and reach out to me. When @ATTJason contacted me on twitter this evening, I was completely skeptical of this random twitter handle, and on defense, but I went to AT&T’s website and determined @ATTCustomerCare was a legitimate handle, which then references @ATTJason as legitimate. This seems to be one thing that AT&T needs to be careful with, and one of Twitter’s “Verified Account” badges would probably help out. With all of the phishing schemes out there it is important that AT&T presents itself well.

Long story short, AT&T followed up with me finally, saying that the issue seemed to have been resolved on the network end and wanted to make sure that the issue was indeed fixed on my end. I confirmed it had. One more satisfied customer. Love that brands are taking such a proactive approach. Well I guess they have to though, the power of social networking is such that a sour customer could do a lot of damage to a company, but reaching out and trying to fix their issue instead helps.

Have any of you had an experience like this with AT&T or any other companies? Disagree with my praise of the carrier? Let us know. Voice your opinion in a comment below!

Google Wave Invite Winners!

Will Kievit — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:00:38 +0000

Congratulations to the winners of the Google Wave Invite Winners:
@ewanjrc , @dhrosen , @justinbreese , @freddie_b , @Lilifx , @_kritika

If you are one of the winners, Direct Message @ThruITBlog with your email address on twitter.

ENJOY!

AT&T Connecting Callers to Wrong Person

Will Kievit — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:30:54 +0000

For the past two days I have been having some serious issues with my AT&T wireless connections for my iPhone. There appears to be a routing problem with the phone system’s network (potentially AT&T) that causes the wrong parties to be connected. The scenario is this: when I select Person A from my contacts and call them, I get connected with Person X.

On Sunday, I had an even better experience: I called my girlfriend, the phone rang and then I was connected to a random party who couldn’t hear me. Then the phone started to ring again and I was connected to a different random party whom did not speak English… this cycle continued on until I was connected to a total of 5 different people, all without me needing to redial. On the other end, my intended party’s phone rang and my caller id showed up on screen. When she picked up she was connected to another random woman. See the diagram below for my theory on how the problem works (I apologize for the poor quality).

Some details on my problem: I am located in the Stamford area of Connecticut. I own an iPhone 3G with all the latest upgrades and carrier settings. I called AT&T and they said it was most likely a network issue, but it was not a known issue and confirmed it was most likely not my phone.

Anyone else having this problem? Tell us about it.

Google Wave Invite Giveaways

Will Kievit — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:21:41 +0000

Google Wave. Its the all the craze these days. If you still don’t know what it is, I suggest taking a look at this post by Mashable. Its pretty cool, but I’m not going to lie, Google has a lot of work that they need to do on it still. It seems like everyone is interested in getting on and seeing what its like and since I have had the good luck of receiving some invites, I would like to share the wealth with you in celebration of ThruIT.com’s new blog release.

It’s very easy to take part and it only takes 2 steps.

For twitter users:

Follow @ThruITBlog on twitter.
Tweet something good about our blog and include either our twitter handle or our website address.

We will randomly select 5 winners on Friday, November 6th at 22:00 EST.

For non-twitter: Become a fan of thruit on facebook or comment on this article for an entry.