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Mutual Agreement Thanks to fax machines and cellphones we are now in a signed mutual agreement with the seller. Assuming that no major problems are found during the forthcoming professional inspection, we will be the proud owners of a new condo in 7 days. Yay Us! [@168]
Real Estate Sorry for the very late linkblog update today. What an hectic day… We met with our Real Estate Agents yesterday afternoon, and spent the rest of the evening sifting through listings. Early this morning our agents arranged for us to visit a couple condos we were potentially interested in. The first one, a two bedrooms located in a gated community in Everett was indeed of interest. The second, in SeaTac, wasn't. Right after lunch we decided to make an offer. We just heard back from our agent with a counter offer. The fun begins!

[@066]
Erik's Pulse has been published.

[@880]
Erik's Pulse has been published.
Caught! The Bellevue police has arrested two kids they think are responsible for the recent arson spree. They both live in the apartment complex aside from us.

[@864]
XPC Rocks! The Shuttle XPC finally arrived. Well, we had to go pick it up in Auburn, yesterday. FedEx Ground kept on trying to deliver it on the wrong side of the street. Wow… This thing is so tiny. When they say the size of shoe box, they mean it. I probably won't set it up until the weekend, but I couldn't resist trying it out. It booted up without a hitch, so I'm assuming everything's A-OK. I'm definitely going to have to get a copy of the 64bit version of XP… [@857]
Fire! There has been a string of arsons in our neighborhood. Yesterday, it hit very close to home. Someone set a trash bin on fire about 15 feet from our building. The press was camped out it front of the building most of day, yesterday. Our neighborhood is going down the drain, fast. We also talked with a neighbor who told us they got jumped by a couple of drug addicts a few weeks back. In the parking lot, early morning, on their way to work. That's it. We're getting a new place. We've been thinking about it for a while anyway. I'm going to get in touch with some real estate people next week and start looking for a new condo. We should able to find something pretty quick. I'm also still planning on taking a trip to Barcelona at the end next month to find/buy a house. I have to wait for my mom to get back from vacation in Tunisia. I wouldn't think of buying anything in Europe without her. She's the real estate expert in the family.

[@540]

LifeBlogger 0.2

I've just released LifeBlogger 0.2 which now supports the Textamerica API.

I've also added support for posts titles when using the MetaWeblog API.

As usual the source is on the CVS server.

[@439]
Erik's Pulse has been published.
800 != 650 Apparently the Jabra BT800 Bluetooth headset is not fully compatible with the Treo 650. The issues are currently being researched and there is no timeline for a solution at this time. Thanks Imshea for the report. Moblog API Textamerica has introduced a new XML-RPC-based API. Darla has been pestering me about it. I told her I'd check it out to see if I could incorporate it in LifeBlogger. The API is very similar to, yet incompatible with, the MetaWeblog API. Why they decided to create a non-standard API, is beyond me. This is really not rocket science. Introducing yet another variation is a recipe for disaster. I think Flickr had the right idea when they implemented the Atom API for Lifeblog.

[@032]
David Czarnecki has already created TextAmerica4J.

[@956]
Vantec NexStar 2

Yesterday, I installed my secondary internal drive into a Vantec NexStar 2 USB hard disk enclosure. I did quite some research to find the right external enclosure. I can see why the NexStar 2 always gets high marks. The case is extremely light and very sleek looking. Installation is extremely simple. Plug and play all the way. There is no fan in the unit, which worried me a bit. Ventilation is provided by grids on each side of the case. It does seem to provide adequate air flow, even after letting it run for a few hours. There's not much more I can ask for, especially for less than $40. [@821]
Erik's Pulse has been published.
TuneCast II The weekend trip was a blast. It was nice to get away for a few days. We took a few pictures.

Since there was a lot of driving involved, I thought it would be the perfect time to try our new Belkin TuneCast II FM Transmitter. I was quite worried after reading the various reports of atrocious sound quality and inability to find a good reception on a busy FM spectrum. The FM dial in the Seattle area is overbooked. It doesn't matter which frequency you pick; there's always a station near by. I left the unit on the default 88.1 frequency, just to see if it worked. I was not expecting good results since there is a station located at 88.5. I was wrong; it worked like a charm. The sound quality was not bad either. Definitely not as clear as a CD, but as good, if not better, than a standard radio station. The volume is a little low though. I had to crank the Carbon up. I never had to change the frequency during the whole trip, even though 88.1 was taken by a station in the Ellensburg area. Rechargeable batteries would be nice. I'm not sure how long the batteries will actually last. We used it for about 6 hours total. So far, so good.