Jeremy G.

Help in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - Sound crazy? Sure! But you can help SETI scan narrow-bandwidth radio signal data by downloading the *******@home screensaver. Basically, while your computer is idle (while you're not working) *******@home uses your computer to process data and send it back to SETI. You can read more about it and download the screen saver here: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_about.php

Good site for free fonts - The interface is great -- it shows you all the fonts in great big letters. Also, most free font sites are filled with ads and try to trick you into buying crap. Dafont.com doesn't do that. Net net -- good place to pick up some free fonts.

YouTube for Ideas - Backed by Larry Summers, Peter Thiel and one the Nantucket Nectar guys, Big Think is an ambitious site which is trying to change the way ideas are shared on the internet. By providing 5 minute interviews with luminaries (academics, CEOs, politicians, etc) talking about important topics (war, environment, culture, etc), the site hopes to inspire viewers to engage in discussion on these topics and upload their own videos with their own ideas.

Right now, with the site in closed Beta, Big Think still seems rough around the edges. When you land on the homepage, you're prompted to view a long video of snippets from interviews, which is neither interesting nor informative. It's unclear what you're meant to do next. However, visit the Browse Experts section, and you can see a decent list of expert interviews: http://www.bigthink.com/experts/

From a pure content standpoint, this site can't compete with the video offerings on sites like www.charlierose.com but in the long-run, it's an important public good for people to be better informed on the issues that matter to the world. So if a few more people spend less time on Facebook and more time thinking about how to make the world a better place on sites like Big Think, we will probably all be better off. I'm rooting for these guys.

Good brain exercise; a bit expensive - The idea of creating an online mental exercise regime is a good one. However, I don't think science has quite caught up with the concept. That said, Lumosity has an interesting set of brain exercises that are fun and could well marginally help memory, awareness and mathematical processing. The games are fun, although there are not that many. The biggest drawback is the price--$49.99 for two years. But the site is definitely neat enough to try the 14 day free trial.

Steven Levitt is great - I'm not a huge Stephen Dubner fan, but Steven Levitt, the UChicago behavioral economist is consistently smart and entertaining.

Good value, good quality IP firm in the Bay Area - If you are a small business, having a quality IP attorney file your patents for a reasonable price can be invaluable. Jim Haan of Haynes, Beffel and Wolfeld is just that. Jim is a former IP partner at Townsend & Townsend, and is a reliable, knowledgeable, and efficient IP attorney. I used him to clean up some IP for a medical manufacturing company, and he did a great job. And because he and his firm are located in Half Moon Bay, they have lower overhead and charge a lower billing rate than most Silicon Valley and San Francisco based firms of similar quality. I would highly recommend Jim and the firm.

$100 laptop for children in developing countries--a very good idea - Food and healthcare are important, but laptops could provide children in developing countries with the ability to learn from, and communicate with, the rest of the world. And thereby give poor children the resources to one day provide all the food and healthcare their families and countries need.

Pandora is a simple, clean and effective way to discover new music, based on songs and artists you like. Also, unlike Last.fm, you don't need to download anything. Now you can manually add multiple songs and artists to each channel to customize it. Another great feature is the ability to share your stations with your friends- just click on the station on the left and select "share." Note: Pandora has been showing more and more ads recently making the experience clearly not as good as rival Last.fm which is now, in my mind, a better choice.

Best news hub for biotech - My only gripe is the site design, which is pretty awful. Otherwise, very useful for industry news (less useful for scientific news) as well as job postings and industry events.

Best daily summary of biotech news - Short and sweet -- the biotech news daily email is the best I'm aware of. It's great for managers in bitoech, pharma or healthcare.

Rented a car from Dollar at the Phoenix airport. Returned in the way I got it. Just received a $250 bill for unspecified "damages". They neglected to describe what the damages were--all they did was send a bill. I've rented dozens of cars and never received a bill for damages. I expect that if I ever did receive such a bill for damages it would include a detailed report of the damage and proof that the damage occurred during the period of my rental. Even if I successfully appeal the damage charges it will have been a waste of enough of my time to make it never worth renting with Dollar again.

Update: I was able to resolve the dispute but it took me about an hour. I switched my rating from 1 star to 2 stars.

Android is a second-rate mobile operating system. Why? Because it just doesn't work. I have an HTC phone running Android and the software often locks up (I have to restart the phone several times a day), the user interaction is non-intuitive (I accidentally delete text messages frequently), bugs crop up all the time, and it just generally provides a frustrating user experience. I'm not a huge Apple fan, but Apple's OS is much much better from a user's standpoint. Also, I had a Blackberry before this Android phone, and the Blackberry OS also was much much better (it just worked). Google really has done a very poor job of executing on Android, at least from a consumer standpoint.

Airbnb is a great concept: people who have spare rooms in their apartments and houses (on a regular basis or when they're out of town) can rent that space to other people who are looking for a place to stay. This allows occupants to make some money and the people renting to save money or perhaps stay in a better location or room than what they might find at a hotel.

That said, there are some issues. I'm sure problems will arise around safety, insurance, logistics, etc. My particular experience was that the web interface for renters is made to look a lot like a traditional hotel travel site. You input the dates, location, and other specifications of the accommodation you're seeking, you get back a list of options with prices, and you click "book it". Unfortunately the similarities between a typically hotel site and Airbnb end there. I tried to book four different apartments for a weekend in Boston, and none went through. I had to wait days for occupants to get back to me, and when they did all of them said either their place wasn't available or they decided not to rent it (although they were all very friendly). Net net, the site seems to have inaccurate information on availability and does not have proper incentives in place for occupants to adhere to their listed proposals. I would try Airbnb again, but only as a last resort, until they clean up their service.

I used to order often from 1800Contacts (customer service was okay and generally experience was fine) but I found that my Acuvue lens were actually cheaper at VisionDirect.com mostly because Vision Direct always has coupon codes that you can search for online.

Geico car insurance is expensive. I saved about 40% (I said 30% in an earlier comment, but it was actually 40%--I just checked) per year by switching to AAA (with the same level of coverage). I also did not find Geico customer service to be particularly helpful or impressive. I'd use AAA over Geico.

Ticket Master works fine, but to me, it appears Ticket Master charges fees well beyond they value they provide. This seems to point to some market imperfection which allows these profit margins to persist. Personally, I am happy for a band to get my money if I pay to see a show, and I understand that a venue should be compensated as well. But it seems a little odd that an online ticket reseller charges as much as 30% in fees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketmaster#Service_fees

I'd love to see a competitor disrupt Ticket Master's market, but it seems for the time being their exclusive contracts with large live venues will keep their pricing power intact. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/15/arts/pearl-jam-bows-to-ticketmaster.html

We subscribed to LinkedIn's "premium" services for businesses, and I have to say it's a bit of a racket--their billing is recurring and it is very very difficult to cancel. We could not figure out how to cancel OR contact customer service on my own. Eventually we had to Google "how to downgrade my linkedin account" and then follow a convoluted set of steps to send an email message to request a downgrade. If they don't respond to the request quickly I'll be lowering my rating to below a "Meh." Bad showing LinkedIn. You clearly care more about taking my money than the service you're providing. You've just lost a fan.

I signed up for Mozy to back up my computer which has been crashing. The service has been abysmal for 6 reasons:

1) Cost of Mozy Pro and Mozy Home were not clearly stated on sign up
2) Mozy client did not easily let me select which files I wanted uploaded
3) I could not log into Mozy in Safe Mode (which I am now writing this review in because my computer has been crashing) OR run the Mozy client.
4) I could not contact their technical support because I cannot log in (their support line is just a recording)
5) I emailed Mozy on the support email provided to me, only to get an auto-response saying that email address is no longer accepting support questions.
6) Even the the Mozy sales office is closed (it's 5:05pm I guess?)

If you need to back up your computer, get an external hard-drive or use another online backup service. I would not use this one.

UPDATE: once I was able to log into my Mozy account I requested a cancellation and a refund and received both promptly so changes my rating from a S#@! To a Meh.

I signed up for Mozy to back up my computer which has been crashing. The service has been abysmal for 6 reasons:

1) Cost of Mozy Pro and Mozy Home were not clearly stated on sign up
2) Mozy client did not easily let me select which files I wanted uploaded
3) I could not log into Mozy in Safe Mode (which I am now writing this review in because my computer has been crashing) OR run the Mozy client.
4) I could not contact their technical support because I cannot log in (their support line is just a recording)
5) I emailed Mozy on the support email provided to me, only to get an auto-response saying that email address is no longer accepting support questions.
6) Even the the Mozy sales office is closed (it's 5:05pm I guess?)

If you need to back up your computer, get an external hard-drive or use another online backup service. I would not use this one.

UPDATE: once I was able to log into my Mozy account I requested a cancellation and a refund and received both promptly so changes my rating from a S#@! To a Meh.

At this point, Wikileaks appears to be a big and interesting idea (transparency for all information can make the world a better place?) poorly executed. Founder Julian Assange was careless at best when he released the names of Afghan civilians helping the fight against the Taliban--putting their lives in great danger. A cynic might think Assange rushed to publish the documents to maximize his personal prestige, particularly since he has since asked for help in editing the now public documents (why not ask for help ex-ante?). Assange's apparent anger toward human rights organizations also seems misplaced http://online.wsj.com/article/SB****************************558.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsTop

The site does contain a tremendous amount of interesting information not just on the Afghan war. However, I do believe it should all be read with a grain of salt because much of the information lacks the context needed to truly understand it. Net net, I believe Wikileaks to be an interesting project that I hope will actually make the world a better place. But for now, I really think it's a wait and see.