1July2009

iPhone @ $99

In case you hadn’t heard, the iPhone is at $99 now. Which makes it the best phone you can afford now. Unless you only use your phone to make calls.

26May2009

Twitter Hyped Out

I have been a member of Twitter since it was created in 2006. It has grown into something quite amazing since, with millions of users finally “getting” a new way to communicate. But what I don’t understand, is all the hype around it. I am personally unhappy with Twitter’s innovation in the past year. This could be due to their growing pains. Twitter has taken away more features in the past year than created. And they have completely lied on why they took them away, and whether they would be returning. For such a widely used service, Twitter needs to get its act together.

The latest hype revolves around a Twitter TV show. Seriously people? Are we so obsessed with Twitter that we need a TV show , about Twitter? Granted, Twitter provides an excellent way to communicate with listeners or viewers of programs (ex. CAVERadio*). Integrating Twitter can provide a new provocative way to combine our information overload, but this Hollywood focus, and celebrity oriented phenomenon needs to stop.

I think Twitter needs to start innovating with some new features, and stabilizing current ones, instead of relying so heavily on the API community to do cool things for them while they hold up the walls. If you haven’t yet, please check out FriendFeed. It’s everything Twitter is and more (stable, real time, feature rich), and you don’t have to completely abandon Twitter to use it. And seriously… a TV show?

^{* Unsolicited Shout-Out}

29March2009

Shower Time With Clark Kent

Hello there. It been a while since there has been a post here. And I think we can all admit that Blog A Day failed.

Anyhow, with the help of some friends we made a new video. Check it out.

Shower Time With Clark Kent from Jared Cherup on Vimeo.

30January2009

More Sketching … YOMP

YOMP.

I seriously couldn’t resist.

29January2009

Jared Answers #1

You have asked now I will answer. Prepare to be shock and awe’d as you peer into the mind of dark slumber and awesomeness. … what?!

Read the rest of this entry »

29January2009

Winter Go Away!

Posts are coming soon. Until then enjoy this little sketch I made. I thought it was funny.

22January2009

Ask Jared #1

A way for my limited viewing audience to interact with me. Ask me something. Anything. Go to comments and ask away.

I don’t care if it ranges from serious, mature, or what my favorite mythical creature is. Go for it. Or don’t.

?

22January2009

Blog-A-Day™ Status Report – January 22

This blog-a-day initiative has fallen apart recently. I think I’m an entire week behind. It’s hard to write everyday. Today in particular. I can’t think of anything of any substance that I want to talk about. I think it may be contributed to the fact I only had 3.5 hours of sleep last night.

If you don’t already, follow me on Twitter, and check out my link blog to the right. The links I share are often what I’m reading or interested in at the moment. The links are aggregated from my Google Reader shared items, my delicious, and my Vimeo likes.

I have received a few punishment suggestions for not updating. The top two, and only two are as follows:

Tazer.

Or to watch Britney: For The Record until I’m caught up.

So, if you have a better suggestion let me know.

This counts as a blog post.

15January2009

Central Ohio Driving

Central Ohioans do not know how to drive when something is falling from the sky. While this may sound as a complaint, I think there should be a study comparing accidents, and driving behavior during rain and snow compared to other demographics. I have several friends (and while this may be anecdotal) from outside the Central Ohio area who claim drivers around here are idiots. I tend to agree.

by ahhyeah via Flickr

A couple of notes, and advice to people who will never read this and then I’ll leave this up for discussion.

SUVs do not make you invincible. Momentum and physics still exist in your four wheel drive monster. (I own a Jeep, and I can tell you, 4 wheels do not matter on ice).

One does not need to go 5 miles an hour to be safe. If the road is straight they will be fine.

Don’t ride my ass because you think I’m going too slow. I’m trying to avoid an accident, and so should you.

For you safe drivers that read this, do you tend to agree with Central Ohio being the bad driving capital of the midwest?

15January2009

Radio Poll Results

Not that many of you responded. Is anyone reading? Here are the results to the poll I put up about Radios.

For the 6 of you who answered, you all listen to FM in the car. 1/3 listens to NPR. Hoorah. I think there needs to be some sort of new innovation in radio, but, I’m not a genius so I can’t think of what that innovation would be. I think it would be something to make it more interactive. Do any DJs have Twitter accounts?

12January2009

Radio. Schmadio.

Radio. Do you listen to it anymore? Any type? I do. I love radio. It decides what I’m listening to. I signed up for an XM online radio account. They have some good stations. One of my faves is Hair Nation. It’s all 80’s hair bands music. Great music. I also have some quality classic music listening in there. XM has a pretty broad range that will allow you to expand your music listening.

I also have an app on my iPhone called WunderRadio. It aggregates several radio stations streams and let’s you play them on your phone.  They can be be from anywhere too. Most of my local radio stations are there. CNN and NPR are also listed. It also has police scanner channels and railroad channels, which allow me to be an old man. Clear Channel came out with their own radio streaming app called I :heart: Radio. It only had 12 stations when it first debuted. It’s slowly growing now. NPR has their own iPhone app out too.

I can’t wait to get XM on my iPhone. That will be sweet. Do you listen to any radio, or have you moved to podcasts and mp3s? I am curious.

11January2009

Zombie-zene Energy Drink

With it still being January and many peoples hopes of losing weight yet uncrushed, I’ve come up with the perfect diet and exercise plan. It’s a little new age, and a bit gimmicky, but I think it’s marketable. It is: The Zombie Apocalypse. That’s right, zombies, an apocalypse, and a better you. Let me lay this down for you.

First, no good exercise plan is without cardio. And what better cardio than running from zombies. You can get your heart rate up and have a great incentive to continue: not getting eaten by zombies. Your terrain will change depending on your location, so you will have some flat land running, down hill running or even, up hill running. Also different types of terrain will also give you more complex types of running workouts. Sewers or rivers will add weight to your clothes. Running through fire will let you feel the burn.

Second, zombies are not great climbers. They have a fear of heights. This will allow you to tone your upper body. Again depending on your location you could be climbing up ladders, stairs, or even rock climbing. With all that climbing you will need to develop a good grip, and flexibility.

Third, moving large objects will help round out your workout. On occasion you will need to block your path from persuing zombies. You may have to move a bookshelf, an armoire , or a boulder.

Now on to your diet. Since it’s an apocalypse and depending on the way the zombie infection circulates, food will most likely not be commonplace. Not only will this control your portion size, but since you are always going to be on the move you will need to move to more nutritious and energy abundant foods instead of empty carbs.

Few people think about the mental workout, or for those who don’t know what that is… thinking. You will need to be steadfast and clever to outwit foes and survive in the new world. Developing strategy will allow you to work smarter, not harder.

Besides the emotional soul breaking and destruction of the world part, this diet and exercise plan is excellent. So stay fit, alert, and alive.

8January2009

iPhone = Connected

I love my iPhone. It has really been the best decision I’ve made in a while. I haven’t been able to be at home as often, and thus, felt like I was drifting away from the interwebs. Well no longer.

With my iPhone, I am able to sync my contacts to my Gmail Contacts, and sync my calendar to Google Calendar over the air. The iPhone doesn’t support this functionality natively unfortunately. I use a service called NuevaSync which has been pretty reliable and totally free. When I make an update to a contact on my phone, it’s instantly in my Gmail Contacts both for accessibility and for backup. Same for Google Calendar.

I use Gmail through the iPhone mail app using IMAP. It works flawlessly, and the email application on the iPhone is so integrated with everything else.

The Google Reader webapp is very nice is almost like using it from my PC. It’s easier to keep up with 100+ blogs daily.  It’s nice because anything I read on it marks read on Google Reader, and with Safari I’m never limited in my browsing experience. I have yet to see a mobile browser as awesome as Safari on the iPhone. I tried a Samsung Instinct once for internet. It was horrible.

Twitterfon for the iPhone is well programmed too and is my preferred way of reading tweets, next to Twitterfox. Both are programmed by the same guy, which I just found out recently.

Text messaging and just the plain ole phone are even better on the iPhone in my opinion. I love the conversation view for texts.

I also have Remember The Milk for my iPhone which helps remember what I need to do. It doesn’t matter if I don’t do it, I still know what I need to do.

I could go on and on, but I’ll save that for another post. So, have you thought about an iPhone? What do you like or not like about it? (besides cost, and carrier). I’m interested to find out.

6January2009

Cookies Are A Sometimes Food

Who brainwashed Cookie Monster? I know this is old news but I want answers.

On a completely different note: I’ve been twittering more and more these days. You can find me at http://twitter.com/jcherup . I’ve been using and not using Twitter since it came out forever ago. It’s amazing how many people, groups, and businesses are using it. If you haven’t given it a look, try it out. You can become as involved or uninvolved as you want. It’s kind of neat meeting new people in 140 characters or less. Our local anchorman posts to Twitter. So does my favorite meteorologist of all time: Jym Ganahl.

I’ve recently taken a look at my Flickr account and noticed I haven’t posted diddly lately. Well, that’s going to change. I have some photos I’ve been storing. I also want to get out and capture the bleakness of Winter. I hate Winter.

What have you been doing recently?

5January2009

Sad Season

Trying to get my obligatory post in before midnight. I just got done watching the Ohio State game. It was a roller coaster of emotion. I think Todd Boeckman was good tonight when he was in. I seriously would like to see us win a bowl game. This season has been bittersweet since we never won a big game. Not to USC, not to Penn State, and now not to Texas. Here’s to next year.

On a completely different note. For those following blog-a-day™ you may have noticed I missed a day. I think there should be some sort of penalty for me missing a blog post. Leave your suggestions in the comments. The best one gets a prize.