Last month I posted about a new vacation rental website called Dwellable. My blog quickly rose to the top of their leaderboard and I was featured in an interview on their website. Though I have yet to use their service to plan any vacations, my blog posts are linked all over their website. My travel plans are taking a back seat until after our second child is born in less than a month. Once our trip planning picks back up I’m sure I will start using Dwellable even more, especially now that they have a beautiful iPhone and iPad app.

Where Are You Going

When the app is first launched the prompt is simply, “Where are you going?” When this is clicked a list of popular travel destinations immediately displays or you can simply type your desired location, whether that be a particular city or an entire state. The background of the launch page is a soothing ocean scene with a looping wave splash. One thing I did notice is that launching the app does stop my background music from playing. That is something that should be fixed as I find it nice to listen to music when making plans.

Colorado Ski Areas

Say you are planning a ski trip to Colorado. Well you can easily view the number of rentals in each of the locations along with a featured image of one of the vacation rentals. You can then select each ski area and see a list of available vacation rental properties. A filter page is available to select certain criteria for your search and a date planner is also available. It doesn’t appear that all the properties have their available dates posted, but I’m sure that will only get better with increased use.

Property Listings

Dwellable reminds me most of vacation rental website VRBO but the two are very different. I’ve always found VRBO to be lacking search filters and overall it is very ugly and cumbersome to use. Dwellable’s app and website are much more visually appealing and the filters are well designed. Last October my mother planned a large family trip to Hilton Head for later this summer. I helped with the property search using VRBO and we struggled to find the right size rental, on the beach, with a pool and hot tub. Look how easy it would be with Dwellable’s filters!

Search Filters

We are taking a last-minute trip to French Lick, Indiana this weekend. I used the app to try to find a vacation rental but there was only one result and it didn’t fit our needs. Again, I think the amount of properties available will only increase over time, but it is limiting currently. It would also be nice to see the blog posts that are featured on their website somehow integrated into the app as well. Overall I’m very impressed with Dwellable’s search capabilities and can’t wait to use it more for vacation planning.

Awhile back I posted that our Jetta had finally crossed the 100,000 mile mark. It was at that time that I was alerted to a piece of maintenance that we had neglected to have done, replacing the timing belt. I believe it is recommended to be replaced at 60-100k, so we were well overdue.

After talking it over with my dad, it was decided that replacing the belt was more work than we wanted to take on ourselves (with him doing the work and me mostly supervising). So I made a few calls to area service shops and even a dealership to get quotes. A couple of places, the dealership included, gave me a roughly $750 to $800 quote for the work (replacing belt and tensioner along with water pump, serpentine belt, and replacing the coolant). The last place I called, Dubwerx, wanted to see the car before providing a quote.

So I drove the car down to them a couple of Fridays ago for them to take a look at it. After an hour or so inspection I was given their price for the same replacement service the other guys offered, but their price was only $670. Since they work only on Volkswagen and Audi cars, I guess they are able to perform the job quicker than others and do it at a lower cost. My decision was made immediately and I scheduled an appointment to have the replacement done.

We dropped the car off to them last Wednesday evening so they would have it first thing Thursday morning. About 4pm on Thursday I got a call from the service director telling me that it would be done and ready for pickup before their 5:30 closing. I asked if I could leave it again overnight and pick it up on Friday morning, which was not an issue. The car was running great (just as it was) after picking it up the next day. I experienced wonderful service at Dubwerx and I will not hesitate to take my car back to them in the future.

I’ve been rocking the iPhone 3GS for well over 3 years. I passed on the iPhone 4 and then the 4S, but once the iPhone 5 was announced I knew I had to have it.

iPhone 5 Packaging

Many have said that it isn’t much different from the now discounted 4S (and free with contract iPhone 4). The feature I had to have was the larger screen. I feel that with the increased space there are things that the older hardware won’t be able to do. It also can’t hurt to have a faster 4G network (though not in Cincinnati on AT&T yet) as well as the updated A6 chip.

Open Box First Look

Another common argument against the phone is the new Lightning power/syncing cord. While it is true that I will likely need to purchase another one or two of these new cables, I will not have to buy the adapter they are selling for the older style docking devices. I’ve never owned any of these devices, so one less thing to worry about.

In Box Accessories

An added bonus to the deal are the new headphones. While I do own a pair of noise canceling earbuds that offer premium sound, the changes Apple has made to their included earbuds sound quite nice. Plus they included a carrying case, which I feel should always be true.

3GS vs 5

So long 3GS, it was fun while it lasted. I’m not getting rid of the old phone, as I can still keep it around and use it on Wi-Fi networks, just like an iPod touch. I figure I’ll get the most use out of it as an easy way to play my entire iTunes library throughout the house.

In case you missed it this morning, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. A recap of the events can be viewed in this video. It’s well worth taking the 10 minutes to view this history in the making.

We got a Dragon by the tail.

A week ago Microsoft announced that it would start automatically upgrading its Internet Explorer browser next year. For anyone who has tried to design and support even a basic website across the plethora of available browsers, this should come as great news. Internet Explorer version 6, which is still widely used, is the hardest browser to support and it often has to have code designed specifically for it. This browser is ten years old and desperately needs to be retired. The current version released earlier this year is version 9, so it’s easy to see why the upgrades are necessary. If you are still using IE6, do yourself (and web developers everywhere) a favor and download the latest version. Or better yet, switch over to Chrome, my preferred browser.

This past Saturday was a big day for my blog. Ten years ago I started my online journal as a fun-loving twenty-one year old student just starting my forth year of college. It is really hard to believe that I have been blogging for over 10 years now. Though the updates back then were often monthly, I’ve settled into a nice pattern of daily updates that allow for a quick break during the work day. I’m thankful for everyone who continues to stop by, some on a daily basis and others just from time to time, giving me another reason to write. Here’s to 10 more years!

We’ve been without cable TV since moving into our new house at the beginning of July. Even with the fall season in full swing we have yet to miss an episode of all the shows we watch. This is all thanks to a new PC that I recently bought from newegg.com. It has everything needed to easily be configured for a home theater PC except for a tuner which I solved with this little device and a rabbit ears antenna that I borrowed from my father-in-law.

The TV signal that I get with the antenna is incredible HD quality from all the local channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, etc.) as well as some PBS type channels. With Windows 7′s built-in Media Center every computer is equipped to be a DVR. Plus Media Center automatically downloads program guides online and full season recordings can easily be set up too.

Since this is only a single tuner configuration versus the dual tuner that many cable system DVR’s have, we simply watch any conflicting shows from that networks website. Nearly every show in our list has full episodes available online for streaming. We also have ESPN3 through our current Internet service provider so we can stream all sorts of sports too.

My friend Phil was the one who introduced me to the idea and he has been doing it since the beginning of the year. I’ve yet to find any major drawback to this setup. If you are even moderately tech savvy this setup shouldn’t be hard to do yourself.

For the past month or two something strange has been happening with links to my blog on Facebook.  At times when I (and others) would click on a link on my profile expecting to be taken to a blog entry on my website, the link would instead go to some malware like website.  At the time I was contributing this to some error on Facebook’s part, since when I would visit the same link from my twitter postings it would work without problem.  Then yesterday I realized that links to my blog from google were having the same kind of behavior.  It was at this time that I realized that something must truly be wrong on my website.

I first googled the URL’s that my links were being redirected to and realized that this has happened to others before and that hackers are exploiting vulnerabilities in both PHP and WordPress (my blogging engine).  My search results gave me some code to search for in the files of my website, and I did find one occurrence of the hack in my wp-config.php file.  Even after I cleaned that up I realized that the redirecting was still happening.  I spend the next couple of hours trying to figure out where the code was malicious code was being hidden.  After verifying that my theme wasn’t the problem, I concluded that it must be one of the plugins that I am using.

So I went through each plugin, one at a time, disabling it and seeing if the redirects went away.  Finally I found the plugin that had been corrupted and it was the awesome WP Super Cache.  To fix the issue I simply deleted the plugin and all of its files from my site and then re-added it.  Once this was complete, links to my site from search engines and from Facebook are working once again!  I’ve changed my site passwords just in case that was somehow used.  I hope that is the end of this vicious attack on my site.

Space shuttle Discovery launched about an hour ago on its final mission before retirement.  The shuttle is now on its way to the International Space Station and once complete there will only be two more shuttle missions before the entire fleet is retired.  In addition to the six member crew, this shuttle is carrying the first humanoid robot in space, Robonaut2, along with various pieces for the Space Station.  It is always cool to watch these launches, and now only two remain, scheduled for April 19 and June 28.

Over the weekend, I took advantage of having to move my computer desk at home to try a DIY cable organizing method I first read about on lifehacker.com.  Basically, the article describes how you can suspend a rain gutter under your desk to help aid in cable management.  To start I drove over to Home Depot and found a 10′ section of vinyl gutter for around $5.  I only needed less than 6′ but this was the closest thing they had.  Also they had it in either white or brown.  I choose brown to help blend in my with the desk.  The article from before used hooks to suspend the gutter from the matching hangers, but since my desk has a back on it, I just decided to use the hangers as you normally would by inserting screws through them and into the back of the desk.  I used three hangers for my 5’8″ section of gutter.  I also bought the matching end caps, but if I were to do it again I may just leave those out. 

Before From Above

Closeup Of Before

Yikes! That is a tangled mess of cables. You can now understand why I was trying to find something to organize them all and get them up off the ground. I thought about ordering two or three baskets from IKEA, but figured a DIY project would be cheaper.  It definitely was cheap, the hangers couldn’t have been much more than a dollar each, so add that to the gutter and some screws and we are talking less than $10.  I also managed to take the cable modem and wireless router that were on top of the desk before and hide them down under with the cables, freeing up even more space on the desk.  If you look close you can see the gutter already installed in the second photo above. 

After From Above

Closeup Of After

Wow, what a difference it really did make.  I might still have a mess of cables, but at least it is up off of the ground.  The biggest thing cluttering up the gutters are the two power strips I need to power everything (two computers, two monitors, printer, scanner, cable modem, router, speakers, and lamp).  I don’t know if a couple of PowerSquids would help or make it worse, but it is something to consider in the future.  Overall I am very happy with how this little project turned out.