Great coffee shop in Ely

Oct 22, 2006 | blog

We stopped at a great (and I really mean it) coffee shop in Ely. They had simple sandwiches and soups as well as dessert stuff. The place is called the “Front Porch Cafe”, and also had Internet connectivity, though I didn’t use it.

Amy had one of the best Mochas in a very long time. I had just a regular coffee and some chili, also very good. This place is on my recommended list for places to stop when passing through.

A great thank you to the staff there, it was a warm welcoming place.

(I wrote this two days ago while in the car – didn’t have mobile service at the time. Also, when we got to Crosslake, I was very successful in relaxing, so I never connected up.)

On the road to Ely

Oct 22, 2006 | blog

So we are heading fro the north shore inland to Ely. Fantastic scenery, and we’re crossing the Superior National Forest, and the skirting the Boudary Waters Canoe Area.

It’s about 29 degrees out and its snowing. Its been snowing all morning, and here in the forest is quite stunning. The rolling wooded hills are starting to gather a light coating of snow, creating some of my favorite nature scenes.

Well, I’ve no Internet connection at all, so I’ll stop here for now.

smile_regular

(I wrote this two days ago while in the car – didn’t have mobile service at the time. Also, when we got to Crosslake, I was very successful in relaxing, so I never connected up.)

Paul Thurrott’s Road to Gold – Part 2

Oct 19, 2006 | blog

Windows SuperSite - Road to GoldHere is Paul Thurrott’s second installment in his Road to Gold series.

In the first part of the series, Paul talked about the 2001 to 2002 timeframe where Longhorn emerges from the secret corners of Microsoft engineers.

In part 2, 2003 is covered talking about leaked builds, the beginnings of delays, adding of features, troubles of WinFS, and more.

It really has been a long road to RTM for this Windows release and the more I think about it, the more I ask if current and past approaches to Windows (and Mac OS, and Linux) are valid any longer.  With the potential of Web 2.0 coming to fruition by many, many new talented people – do we need a fat legacy client any more?

That said, Windows Vista is an impressive piece of code, and its history detailed in Paul’s articles are a fun read.

Paul Thurrott’s Windows SuperSite – Road to Gold: The Long Road to Windows Vista Part 2: 2003

Want to ditch the landline and go all-wireless?

Oct 19, 2006 | blog

This post at The Wireless Report talks about Detroit leading the nation in wireline telephone replacement with wireless.  It also points out that Minneapolis/St. Paul is at about the same wireless penetration rate for wireline replacement.

I’m not surprised, I’m one of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area residents that dropped wireline service about 5 years ago.  While it seemed a little ahead of its time back in 2001, many of my peers, and more importantly, parents, have followed suit.

Both my parents and mother-in-law have gone wireless as well, in addition to my sisters, cousins, friends, and many business associates.  Its rare to run across someone who has a home phone any longer.

Most people I know actually saved money by switching to a mobile phone plan in place of a landline phone.  With the wide selection of minute plans, included long distance, roaming and such, a $50 cell phone plane for a single user is much more cost effective than a $35 phone plan plus add-on services line long distance, voice mail, caller id, call waiting, etc…

Moreover, most of my family is on the same carrier (T-Mobile) so we all benefit from unlimited calling between each other.  Landline service can’t compare.

Are you still using a landline?  Why?

Via The Wireless Report – Want to ditch the landline and go all-wireless? Move to Detroit

Free WiFi Rocks

Oct 19, 2006 | blog

Almost seems like I’ve started some kind of weird “Rocks” series of posts.  Well, ok, yes, but it wasn’t intentional – it just kind of happened.

But we’re at our hotel in Duluth and its nice to be able to catch up on news & post a little on things at “full speed”.  Brianna was swimming, Amy was reading, and I was keeping on top of news and such.

We were able to make it to Canal Park for dinner, and enjoyed a walk along the shore afterward.  Tomorrow we’ll be heading up the north shore to Grand Marias.

An aside: Amy and I both came up the the word “Locatability” at the same time – yikes, that’s weird, even for us.

From there, we’ll head towards Ely, and then on down to Crosslake for a day or two before heading home.

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