New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys

The New Kids on the Block and Backstreet Boys are sharing the stage together on our block. Here are some Tweets on the subject (oh, yeah, I know how to feed the trolls):

New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys are on the stage...girls with daddy issues are swooning.

New Kids on the Block & BackStreet Boys on the same stage... together... My ears just threw up.

Wait...are we saying goodbye to 2010 or 1990? I think I've been watching too much Back to the Future.

I'm not sure what is more disturbing. Dick Clark's condition or the Backstreet Boys/New Kids On The Block mash-up ABC is going with.

New Kids on the Block and The Back Street Boys together! The world just might be coming to its end.

Intentional or not, the Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block provided me with a great final laugh of 2010 :)

Backstreet Boys-New Kids On The Block playing together. This answers the question "What's the opposite of a Supergroup?"

For those that complain about D Wade-Bron-Bosh formation, you clearly haven't seen the Backstreet Boys-New Kids On The block collabo.

Backstreet Boys and New Kids On The Block performing together. Do you need more proof that the apocalypse is coming??

Hey Soul Sister

As we prepare to usher in the New Year, Dick Clark's show just featured Train. Watching Katie cut the carpet to "Hey Soul Sister" is hilarious. As I reflect upon the semi-coherent lyrics to the chorus, I think it is very fitting song for Katie:

Hey soul sister,
Ain't that Mr. Mister
On the radio, stereo,
The way you move ain't fair, you know!
Hey soul sister,
I don't want to miss a single thing you do...tonight

This should be Katie's theme song. After spending the last several months chasing her around, Wife and I agree - the way she moves ain't fair. We also agree that we don't want to miss a single thing she does.

You can see the song performed here:

Ke$ha

When I hear people mock Ke$ha as a talentless hack, I've always felt badly for her. It's not her fault she's not Lady Gaga. I just heard Ke$ha perform on our street. I don't feel so badly for her any more. Feel free to mock away.

Gmail Tip of the Day - Star Important Messages

Sometimes you’ll have an email that needs your attention but you don’t have time to get to it right away. By putting a star by it, it allows you to quickly find the email later. I frequently use this trick to keep track of emails that I will need to reference later, even if I don't need to respond later (such as directions, shopping lists, etc.).

Will 2011 be the year that Gmail catches up with their competition and offers unlimited storage? Let's hope so.

This is the picture daddy intended to upload yesterday, but he uploaded the one without me smiling

Here I am all ready to go to my second Christmas Eve church service

Gmail Tip of the Day - Importance Indicators

One of Gmail’s features allows you to instantly know which emails are meant just for you and which are from mailing lists and less important sources. Simply select this feature from the options, and you’ll get a helpful indicator arrow next to each email letting you know the degree to which the email is exclusively for you.

Now, we just need to hope that 2011 will be the year that Gmail catches up to the storage limitations that Yahoo! put in place in 2007.

Our Blizzard in 38 Seconds

Click HERE for a nice timelapse of this week's blizzard.

Gmail Tip of the Day - Event Invitations

You don’t need to use Outlook to send out invitations to an event or meeting. Gmail has the same function. Simply create a new email and select "Add event invitation."

All these features and such archaic limitations for email storage.

This is my head shot

Gmail Tip of the Day - Viewing Documents

Gmail can view PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files without an external viewer.

Now, if Gmail would just offer the same storage space their competitors do.

Yummy

Gmail Tip of the Day - Gmail = Googlemail

Email can be sent to @gmail.com or @googlemail.com - they both route to the same domain. If you are sending email to another Gmail user, you can skip the "@gmail.com" or "@googlemail.com." Just type their username in the "to:" field.

Thus, I can send an email to any of the following and they will be received exactly the same way:

• jsmith@gmail.com
• jsmith@googlemail.com
• jsmith (assuming I am using a Gmail account to send this email)

Now, wouldn't it be great if Gmail would start increasing the amount of storage they provide at the rate that they used to?

We Had a Blizzard!

Gmail Tip of the Day - Searching for an Attachment

If you are searching for a particular email that has an attachment, add to your search string "has: attachment" so that only emails with attachments will be displayed. You can then search for mails that have specific filetypes as attachments, like this: "has:attachment filename:doc" or "has:attachment filename:pdf."

Of course, with Gmail's storage limitation, you may not be able to store too many emails with attachments. Let's hope they increase the limitation in 2011 to catch up to their competition.

Our New, Winter Saturday Morning Tradition

As our regular readers may know, Wife and I have made weekly tradition out of Saturday morning breakfast. When we first moved to Greenwich Village, the excitement of real New York bagels kept us busy for our first year. Every Saturday morning, we would go to a bagel shop and enjoy a bagel (and usually share a coffee) at the most famous bagel shops in the area.

When we moved to Midtown, our Saturday tradition evolved into getting breakfast and taking it to eat in Bryant Park every Saturday morning (we went about 18 months without missing a Saturday morning). However, now that it's getting cold and we don't want Katie to freeze, we have developed a new tradition over the last couple of months: Saturday morning breakfast at Westway Diner which is located extremely close to our apartment. I realize that means nothing to everybody who reads our blog, but I thought I would share this because this diner is legendary amongst locals, and is particularly popular with tourists for one reason. Westway Diner is the spot that Larry David approached Jerry Seinfeld about what would finally become their incredibly popular "show about nothing" (rather than at Tom's Diner on the Upper West Side which is the facade that was used in the show).

Larry David (the co-creater and producer of Seinfeld) used to live in an apartment building called Manhattan Plaza just up the street from us. We understand that his neighbor, Kenny Kramer (whom the character "Kramer" was based on) still lives there.

The Manhattan Plaza offers nice apartments to those who are in the "arts" (i.e., actors and actresses). The waiting list to live there is HUGE. If you want to see some passion, ask Wife how she feels about the fact that we can't rent an apartment, but instead need to pay considerably more.

According to Wikipedia (which is always reliable), here is a partial list of current and former residents that you may have heard of:
* Al Pacino
* Alan Menken
* Alicia Keys
* Adrian Pasdar
* Zachary Quinto
* Conan O'Brien
* Terrence Howard
* Tennessee Williams
* Marin Alsop
* Dylan Baker
* Mike Freeman
* Dexter Gordon
* Charles Mingus
* James Earl Jones
* Jack Warden
* Mickey Rourke
* Andrea McArdle
* Thomas Adcock
* Lewis Black
* Larry David
* Kenny Kramer
* Tiki Barber

Samuel L. Jackson worked there as a security officer in his first and only non-acting job.

Bruce Willis used to work at the West Bank Cafe at the base of the building.

It's Starting to Snow!

Katie opening up a Christmas present - notice that she is using a loaf of Panettone bread as a stool.

Huh...I guess this is one way to teach kids geography

Gmail Tip of the Day - View Only Unread Messages

If you've gone a few days (or worse, weeks or months) without organizing your inbox, it can quickly become an unwieldy mess of read and unread emails. By entering the search string “label:unread label:inbox” only the unread emails in your inbox will be displayed. You can bookmark this search string so you don't need to put it in the search box whenever you want to run it.

Gmail's features blow away their competition - sure would be nice if their storage capacity caught up with the competition.

Something is growing out of my belly!

Gmail Tip of the Day - Add Keywords to Emails

My email account has a lot of emails. I'm collected somewhere in the realm of 100,000 emails in my primary email account (my Yahoo! account). I keep those emails because I anticipate that I just may want to refer to something in an email again. But finding a particular email can be impossible. For example, let's say that in an email sometime over the summer, my wife gave a hint about something she wants for Christmas. Finding that email is impossible. Even if I know that the email is one that I will want to refer to again, it is difficult to properly file an email from a person that you get a lot of emails from and be able to find it again quickly.

With Gmail's unique "conversation" view, I can quickly add a note to the email that says "christmas gift present wife" (or whatever other keywords I want to quickly add). When I want to find that email again, I can simply search for "christmas gift," and Gmail will pull up the conversation.

Of course with Gmail's limitations on storage (which radically smaller than it competition), I may not have the capacity to save the thousands and thousands of emails that I did with Yahoo! (despite Gmail's slogan, "Never delete another email again").

Katie's first french fry - She had it at a Chinese restaurant

Gmail Tip of the Day - Color Code Your Labels

Keeping my email organized is very, very important to me. With Gmail, I can add an extra layer of organization by color coding my labels. So, I can give a different color label to emails that come in from my wife, bills, friends, etc. When I log into Gmail, it is then instantly obvious what is in there.

Gmail certainly has a great number of wonderful features. It sure would be nice if they provided the same amount of storage capacity as their competitors.

Eating is hard work.

Gmail Tip of the Day - Never Again Forget an Attachment

How many times have you sent an email that says something like this: "Sorry, here's the attachment I referred to in my last email." Yeah, I've done that before. Gmail has a new feature (that can be turned on or off - it is off by default) that will scan your email and warn you before you send an email without an attachment if the text of the email indicates that there should be an attachment.

All these great feature, and yet Gmail still provides less storage space than their competition.

As we walked by the theater for the new Spiderman show, a stranger pointed out that my fleece snow suit looks like a Spiderman costume.

Gmail Tip of the Day - Bookmark a Single Email

Each Gmail message has a dedicated URL. What does that mean? Rather than printing the message or copying down information, you can hit CTRL+D when you read an important email and refer to it at your leisure.

Now, if only Gmail would get with the program and provide more email storage.

Hehehe...look what I found

Evidence Google has a Sense of Humor

1) Go to Google Translate
2) Set the translator to translate German to German
3) Copy and paste the following into the translate box: pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk
4) Click "listen"

Google decided to make it more obvious that this is an Easter egg by replacing "Listen" with "Beatbox."

If you like, you could use this permalink, but it's not as fun.

This is fun too

Gmail Tip of the Day - Create an Infinite Number of Email Addresses with a Single Account

I constantly use email, and I get a lot (I mean a lot) of email. For years, I've used various filter/label/rule features to help me organize my email. Gmail provides some innovative ways to allow me to better organize and control my email. In this post, I will address one of those ways.

With a single Gmail account, an infinite number of email addresses can be created. Let's say my email address is "jsmith@gmail.com." I could add a period anywhere before the "@." So, an email addressed to j.smith@gmail.com will be delivered to jsmith@gmail.com.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, there are only so many places to put a period. That's not infinite." But wait, there's more. I could also use this email address "jsmith+***@gmail.com with anything I wanted taking the place of ***. So, I could use jsmith+spam@gmail.com or jsmith+work@gmail.com.

I know what you're thinking now. "So, why is this useful?"

Let's say I use my email address for both personal and business purposes. I can give my all of my friends the email address "jsmith@gmail.com." I can give all of my business contacts the address "j.smith@gmail.com." I could then create labels so that I will instantly identify and/or automatically separate my personal and business emails.

As a bit of background, for years I've used the "filters" feature in Yahoo! Mail to cause my emails to automatically be filed where I want them to go. For example, all of my emails from "JetBlue" immediately go to the folder "Airlines" - emails from JetBlue never go to my inbox. But what if JetBlue were to sell my email address? My email address could be filled with spam, and I wouldn't know who was responsible for this problem.

When I sign up with JetBlue, I could use the email address "jsmith+jetblue@gmail.com." I could then set up whatever filter I like for emails that come to that email address. And if I start to receive spam to the address "jsmith+jetblue@gmail.com," I would know that it was JetBlue that sold my email address. But what if I decide that I've had it and I never want to receive another email from JetBlue or anyone that they have sold my address to? I can simply create a filter so that any email that comes to "jsmith+jetblue@gmail.com" instantly goes to the trash.

I could sign up for my utility bills with the email address, "jsmith+bills@gmail.com." Then, I could create two labels "Unpaid Bills" and "Paid Bills." When the invoices arrive, I could create a filter automatically labeling them as "Unpaid Bills" which I could then change to "Paid Bills" after they are paid.

Now, if only Gmail would catch up with Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and AOL's web base email which all provide free unlimited storage.

This slide is a lot more fun.

A Few More Thoughts About Free Email Accounts

Over the last week, my posts about emails accounts have generated quite a few visitors, so I thought I would post a few additional thoughts.

First, both Yahoo! and Hotmail advertise that they offer unlimited storage. However, when you read the fine print, these offers are conditioned upon "reasonable usage." What is reasonable? Yahoo! and Hotmail, respectively, are the sole decider of reasonableness with respect to the accounts of their users - and there is no appeal. It seems to me that these companies could legitimately argue that anything above a few gigabytes of email storage exceeds a "reasonable" amount of storage.

Second, yes, I realize that Gmail's account space is "always growing." For the first few years, Gmail provided reasonable growth. However, that growth has slowed to such a slow rate that it's not even useful. Currently, Gmail grows at a rate of approximately 0.0144 MB/h. That's nothing (I think of that as about one newsletter a week; at this rate it will take about 20 years for Gmail to hit 10 GB of storage space). Back in 2007, the rate of growth was approximately 5.37 MB/h. That was real growth that I was excited about. Realistically, users should just consider their Gmail account storage space stuck at a fixed amount of approximately 7.5 GB.

Third, a free web-based email account is only as secure as the company that maintains it. For example, if you have a free email with Lycos and Lycos goes bankrupt or decides that it can no longer financially support the service, your email is gone. Let's be honest, Yahoo! isn't providing a lot of comfort about the long term security of its free services. Yahoo! closed all Geocities accounts earlier this year. Yahoo! gave its users reason to panic this week as internet rumors from respected sources persist that many of Yahoo's free services will be shut down or merged with other products (no, email is not rumored to impacted).

Fourth, am I the only person concerned that Google's global invasion of privacy may cause severe financial ramifications which may negatively impact Gmail?

Finally, as noted in a previous post, I over-analyze the weirdest things.

This is an uncomfortable slide

Roar! I'm a lion with a hair pick!

More About Email Accounts

As long as I started talking through my thoughts about email accounts, I thought I should continue the conversation. Gmail's current size limitation bothers me. It bothers me a lot (at work, I would fill their 7.5 gb limit in a couple weeks - in my personal life, maybe a year or two). However, Gmail is exceptionally powerful (and cool), so I have a couple ideas how this could work.

First, using filters to forward mail in Gmail is awesome. I can set up Gmail so that when my wife sends an email to my Gmail account, not only do I get it on Gmail, but I also get a copy automatically saved to my "Wife" folder in Yahoo. This email that goes to Yahoo doesn't look like a forward, it comes to Yahoo just like it was sent from my wife. This actually solves my main issue - I want to collect a lifetime of our emails that we exchange in one location (we email each other a LOT). In thirty years, I don't want to have our emails spread out over a dozen different email accounts.

Second, while I really hate this idea, I may start using my Gmail account for personal email and my Yahoo account for everything else. I would like to keep my email centralized, but (1) Yahoo doesn't work well on a Blackberry and (2) Gmail doesn't provide enough space for me to store everything there. Thus, using either of those options as my sole email account doesn't work well. Maybe Gmail will catch up with their competition and offer unlimited space in the future. Or, maybe Gmail will continue to use their space limitation as a revenue generator as they rent additional space for a fee (frankly, that's what I would do if I were Google).

Third (a combination of my first two points), an idea that I'm toying with is using my Gmail account for personal email, but then setting up a filter for each person so that when they send me emails at Gmail, I automatically get a copy at my Yahoo address for archiving. But that's a lot of work. And I'm not sure if I really I really need to archive everything I get to a second email account.

Fourth (another combination), the reason I will eventually run out of space on Gmail is due to attachments. If I set up a filter in Gmail to forward any email with an attachment to my Yahoo account, and then delete the Gmail copy of the message after I read it, then I will probably never run out of room in Gmail.

Fifth, I could probably live with 7.5 gb of email space if I stopped archiving absolutely everything and didn't email myself all of my important files for storage. Of course, there's a good chance that I will want to check what coupons Dairy Queen sent me a decade ago and I like having my important files saved nicely in my email account.

Sixth, I make everything way too complicated.

This is a cool toy I found

Bring me my dinner.

Yeah, I'll Say It. Gmail Needs to Offer More Space

I remember back in 2004 when Gmail gave me an account with 1 gb of storage space. And the storage space constantly grew! This crushed their competition. Google promised that I would never need to delete another email again. They had a great motto for their storage: "Infinity +1." I was thrilled. I thought that would last me my entire lifetime.

Gmail's storage has now grown to about 7.5 gb. But the growth has slowed down...it has slown down a lot. It grows so slowly now that I'm not sure it can accurately be described as real growth. The competition has caught up. Both Yahoo! and Hotmail now offer unlimited email storage.

7.5 gb of storage seemed like an infinite amount of storage in 2004, but it's no longer 2004. It's almost 2011, attachments are bigger, large newsletters arrive in my inbox every few minutes, and I can fill up that much storage space in a month if I wanted to.

So, now what? Gmail is awesome on a Blackberry and their features are great...but switching to a new inbox that I will outgrow in a year or two seems silly.

I think I can climb up these toys without a problem

Playing at our neighborhood park

Blackberry Email Dilemma

I still remember sitting in my University's computer lab during the spring of 1996, when I opened up my first personal email account - a free Yahoo! account. For almost 15 years, that Yahoo! account has been my primary personal account, and I have been very happy with it. (I had a brief issues many years ago when my Yahoo! Mail account reached its limit, so I opened up a second account that I only used for a short time). I have fifteen years of my life stored in this account, including thousands of messages from friends, relatives and my wife. I have many thousands of emails from my wife saved in my email account, and I don't want to lose them. I like having all of my communications saved in one place.

Almost 2 1/2 years ago, I got my first Blackberry. I'm happy with my Blackberry too. Frankly, my Blackberry has become an indispensable part of my life; where I go, it goes. My Blackberry is connected to my law firm's network, so I always have access to my work email (as well as some other work apps). But I also use my Blackberry for personal email and general web use.

That leads to my dilemma - Yahoo! Mail is absolutely terrible on the Blackberry. For the last two years, I've just put up with the terrible Blackberry interface. I hardly use my personal email when I am away from a computer. Why? Because I am attached to my Y! Mail account and I don't want to switch to another provider.

However, now I'm sick of the problem. I'm sick of barely being able to send personal emails when I'm away from a full computer. I'm sick of needing to tell my wife that I'll be in meetings most of the day, so if she needs to email me, she needs to use another email address. I'm sick of the slow, virtually unusable Y! Mail interface. I'm sick of the solutions that Yahoo! offers that are unacceptable over a secure network.

Yahoo!, maybe you're reading this. If you are, you need a better solution for Blackberry users. You're losing loyal customers. A lot of us.

But, assuming that Yahoo! doesn't get on the ball, I'm trying to decide what to switch my personal email to another provider - probably either Hotmail or Gmail. So, my dilemma...which one should I choose?

Hotmail is owned by Microsoft. Gmail is owned by Google.

Gmail gives the impression that they rule the world of free internet based email, but statistically Hotmail probably has the edge.

Hotmail overs unlimited storage. Gmail offers just under 7.5 gb, but it is constantly growing.

Hotmail allows attachments of up to 50 mb. Gmail allows attachments up to 25 mb.

Hotmail generally allows any emails to come to your account. Gmail has certain restrictions (no executable files, can't send some thing to yourself, etc.).

Hotmail allows 20 gb of file storage. Gmail allows 1 gb of file storage, but allows users to rent more space. Both services encourage users to store files online instead of using a hard drive.

Gmail is cooler.

Hotmail has more users.

Gmail is more customizable.

Hotmail operates much like Outlook.

Gmail uses a strange "conversation" file system.

I know that Gmail has a great Blackberry user interface - a really, really great Blackberry interface (this is a very, very important factor).

I hear Hotmail's Blackberry interface is good, but I haven't tried it.

It seems that Google may be more committed to Gmail than Microsoft is to Hotmail (but I don't know what goes on behind closed doors).

I don't particularly trust either company with my privacy.

Y! Mail, you would make this so much easier if you would just release a usable Blackberry app.

Any useful insights regarding my dilemma would be appreciated.

UPDATE:

I can link the email account for this blog (Blogger is owned by Google) with my "traditional" personal Gmail account. That may (or may not) be useful.

Katie Enjoying Her First Church Christmas Party

I'm cute when I sleep

Ooh, that looks like a fun toy

I love to read...especially when the book is upside down

Another picnic in the park

Cool...handles

So, this is a nutcracker, huh?

You Know You are a New Yorker When...

1. You say "the City" and expect everyone to know that this means Manhattan

2. You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building

3. You're always looking out for cool free things to do in the Village Voice

4. You're standing in a packed subway car with 200 hundred other people and everyone manages to avoid looking at each other

5. $150 worth of groceries fit in one paper bag

6. You live in a building with a larger population than most American towns.

7. Your doorman is Russian, your grocer is Korean, your deli man is Israeli, your building super is Italian, your laundry guy is Chinese, your favorite diner owner is Greek, the watch seller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your news stand guy is Indian and your favorite falafel guy is Egyptian.

8. You get angry at people who say they're from NY and they tell you they're from upstate.

9. You can pick out the tourists when they turn their heads to the "ladies and gentlemen this is an important announcement from the MTA" message.

10. You know what a bodega is.

11. You're on the train and you see two kids walk in and one says "EXCUSE ME LADIES AND GENTLEMEN..."

12. When you're in the background of a tourists' photo.

13. You use the rats in the subway tracks to tell you when the train's approaching the station.

14. You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

15. You've gotten jaywalking down to an art form.

16. When you're away from home, you miss "real" pizza and "real" bagels.

17. You know that Staten Island, although a borough of New York City, isn't really part of the City at all.

18. You're not in the least bit interested in going to Times Square on New Year's Eve.

19. You hate it when people that sit opposite you on the train stare at you.

20. You know the differences between all the different Ray's Pizzas.

21. Your local news is national news.

22. There is no North and South ... it's Uptown or Downtown.

23. You hate it when people who live upstate call themselves “New Yorkers.”

24. You can walk through "The City" for hours and not get tired but once you are out of NYC and walk for 10 minutes you feel exhausted.

25. You don't own an "I LOVE NEW YORK" shirt.

26. You watch movies and TV shows "filmed" in NYC and feel the constant need to correct geographical or factual errors.

27. Someone bumps into you, and you check for your wallet.

28. Rather than waiting safely on the sidewalk to cross the street, you wait inches away from speeding traffic waiting to cut through it.

29. You consider Westchester "upstate."

30. You order your dinner and have it delivered from the place across the street.

31. Rats are your new subway friends.

32. You know exactly which subway car & door will be closest to the stairs at your stop.

33. You have jaywalked in front of a cop. More than once. And they didn't care.

34. You can’t remember the last time you’ve seen more than twelve stars in the night sky.

35. You get lost whenever leave Manhattan because you're used to all the street being numbered.

Oooh...money!

Having Fun at the Bryant Park Christmas Tree Lighting

It's not too cold to play in the park yet.

The Love of Dancing Continues

Katie's dancing continues. For the last twenty minutes, Katie has twirled around in circles to Christmas music. Maybe it's time for a twirly skirt.

My Daughter Loves to Dance

This little girl loves to dance. She loves to dance a lot. Anytime she hears music - any kind of music - she instantaneously busts out her moves. She just got finished grooving to Flo Rida. Doesn't she know how very, very white she is?

I can just take this thing off anytime I want

Mmmm...picnic in the park

Guess who I just finished talking to on my phone?

I've got an African drum turned upside down and pretending it is a mixing bowl while eating birthday cake

Let the Christmas Season Begin!

I know I can climb up this toy

"Enjoying" the Thanksgiving Day Parade

They need to take the street lights and signs down for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Happy Thanksgiving from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (aka - walking outside our back door)

Ooohhh....can I play with that camera?

Mmmmm...water

Good thing you got a few last pictures with this skirt

Now my doll needs a kiss

My bear is soft

Ok. I'm ready to go outside.

Come on. Pick me up.

Just me and my bear

I climbed into my Bumbo to play with my bear

Who will win this wrestling match?

I'm gonna run and get you