Never Fear, Blog Fans!
I know, I know - slow blog news week. I've been busy and tired and lacking in inspiration, but it's only temporary. I'll just note a few news items.
In theory, at least, the photos and photo albums on my web page should now load faster. I can't guarantee any substantial improvement for dial-up internet users, but it may be worth a shot if you previously had difficulty getting the photos to appear. Hopefully you can see them now!
I'm planning to join the "Voice Over IP" revolution, at least temporarily, while in Iowa, such that we'll have a "local" phone number (local to Maryland!) even though we reside in Iowa for about 7 weeks. So you'll have lots of opportunity to call us and make us feel less homesick for free (presuming you're in Maryland)! I'm going to test out using Skype, which is (allegedly) offering free outgoing calls to anywhere in the US through the end of the year. I say "allegedly" because there appears to be a catch 22 in actually getting these free outgoing calls, but I hope to work that out. This is a service that works on your computer, but with "SkypeOut" you can call regular phones, and with "SkypeIn" you can receive calls from regular phones, on your computer. You guys will call us on your phone like normal - no computer needed - and it will be a 410 area code number, so it will be free (to Marylanders) and very cheap to us (10€ for 3 months of incoming call service - that's currently $12.64 for 3 months service.)
Speaking of that, we are going to have broadband internet at our apartment, so email, chat, blog entries and photo albums will be possible on the trip, not to mention visits to pbskids as needed. Yeah! It should also be possible to video conference with us (voice with video) via AoL Instant Messenger (AIM) on Windows (make sure your copy is fairly recent) and iChat AV on Mac OS X. I'm hoping to have a new MacBook laptop in time for the trip that has a built-in webcam, precisely for this purpose. Maybe I can even set up a webcam webpage for you guys to spy on us with. Uh... err... or maybe not!
In theory, at least, the photos and photo albums on my web page should now load faster. I can't guarantee any substantial improvement for dial-up internet users, but it may be worth a shot if you previously had difficulty getting the photos to appear. Hopefully you can see them now!
I'm planning to join the "Voice Over IP" revolution, at least temporarily, while in Iowa, such that we'll have a "local" phone number (local to Maryland!) even though we reside in Iowa for about 7 weeks. So you'll have lots of opportunity to call us and make us feel less homesick for free (presuming you're in Maryland)! I'm going to test out using Skype, which is (allegedly) offering free outgoing calls to anywhere in the US through the end of the year. I say "allegedly" because there appears to be a catch 22 in actually getting these free outgoing calls, but I hope to work that out. This is a service that works on your computer, but with "SkypeOut" you can call regular phones, and with "SkypeIn" you can receive calls from regular phones, on your computer. You guys will call us on your phone like normal - no computer needed - and it will be a 410 area code number, so it will be free (to Marylanders) and very cheap to us (10€ for 3 months of incoming call service - that's currently $12.64 for 3 months service.)
Speaking of that, we are going to have broadband internet at our apartment, so email, chat, blog entries and photo albums will be possible on the trip, not to mention visits to pbskids as needed. Yeah! It should also be possible to video conference with us (voice with video) via AoL Instant Messenger (AIM) on Windows (make sure your copy is fairly recent) and iChat AV on Mac OS X. I'm hoping to have a new MacBook laptop in time for the trip that has a built-in webcam, precisely for this purpose. Maybe I can even set up a webcam webpage for you guys to spy on us with. Uh... err... or maybe not!
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