Welcome to simpleist.com!

I decided to move and separate my tech blog off of my personal web site. Using Blogger, it was very difficult to customize the way I wanted it being hosted on my web hosting account. Its much easier to maintain having my blog hosted directly on blogger. I now have the ability to have labels, polls, and most importantly...archives!

What do you think?

I made it on the Channel 5 CBS Eyewitness news

So I was at Best Buy one day and looking at a 10" HP netbook when all of a sudden a CBS News reporter snuck up behind me and asked me if I wanted to be interviewed. I thought to myself that it would be fun to see myself on TV. I've always had a bad habit of sneaking in front of new cameramen to try to get myself on TV. But this was an actual speaking role! In any case, I was too nervous and mumbled dumb things to the reported and they didnt air my interview. But they did get my face and my hands. I believe it aired on the 6pm news, but I missed it. But found it of course on the Internet.

You will see me at 1:09 minutes into the video.
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=42871@kpix.dayport.com

Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4)

It has arrived! Learn more.

Free WiFi at Starbucks

"Free at last". I've always been jealous of people surfing the Internet at local cofee shops like Starbucks on their laptops. Its not like I dont have free wifi at home or drink coffee. But there's just something about surfing the Internet in a public location and doing it for free which makes it fun. For the longest time, Starbucks had wifi, but you had to pay for it with T-Mobile. But now, they are offering free wifi. The catch? None really. You just have to have an ATT DSL account which Im sure many people do. Just login using your ATT DSL account (ie. joesmith@sbcglobal.net) According to the sfgate article, it starts today. Happy surfing!


SF gate article
Official Starbucks site article

2008 BMW M3 Coupe Official Photos

The official photos are out. I personally still dont like how the 3 series coupe in general. The shape is too elongated. It reminds me of a Mazda MX-6.

Check out the pics.

Read more about the car.

Adobe Announces Creative Suite 3

• Learn more about it
• Learn more about it interactively
• Preorder it

Costco Return Policy Change

Electronics purchased at Costco now have a return policy of 90 days instead of forever. This went into effect yesterday to all California Costco's. But I think you can still return your electronics purchased before that. Costco's "laxed" return policy was the best, but I knew it couldnt last forever. I think what really hurt Costco was when it started to sell Plasma TV's. First of all, it was a new technology, so in the beginning there might have been a lot of defects or issues. Secondly, plasma prices are dropping so fast, that people are returning and buying. According to the article, "People had been returning TVs they had bought for $2,000 last year and turning around and buying the same TV for $1,200."

Read the full article

"Get out of Verizon Wireless Contract" for Free

Verizon Wireless is increasing the text messages to 15 cents for receiving and sending on March 1st. Therefore, that allows us to cancel our contract without having to pay the normal cancellation fee. This is bad timing for Verizon since the new Cingular Apple iPhone is coming out in June. Verizon could potentially lose a lot of customer. I think Im on a 2 year contract, but I love Verizon because I never have any problems with them whatsoever. Read more about this here.

rogerchew.com 2.0

Happy New Year! What better way to bring in the new year with a site redesign. Yeah, yeah. I know...another redesign. I just wasnt satisfied with the design of my site. The previous designs weren't "web 2.0" enough for me. I also changed my web hosting provider in which I'll post a review of later. Anyways, I didnt add much stuff, but Im planning on it adding lots of cool new stuff this year. This year I plan to spend more time on updating my blog (at least once a week?). I'm going to try something new. Im planning on posting reviews of products, services, and web sites. So stay tuned for more.

Nintendo Wii

The new Nintendo game console is coming out is called "Wii". Its pronounced like "We". It was named like that because they are gearing the console for more team-like and multiplayer games. Also, the two i's is suppose to represent two persons.
Anyways, I dont get too excited about video game consoles because I dont play that many console video games. But this video got me excited just because of Wii's controller. It takes video gaming to a whole new level.

rogerchew.com version 3.0

As you may have noticed I redesigned my site once again. I think I over complicated my previous design by having too many sections and having 2-tier navigation. Now I combined my entire site into just 3 pages. The design is completely done using CSS. There are no html tables whatsoever. Let me know what you think, while I try to think of more things to add to my site. Im also still trying to figure out what kind of blog content I should post. Should I post deals or some of my thoughts or computer news or daily life stories?

One Red Paperclip

Another amazing and ingenious internet idea. This guy starts out with one red paperclip and tries to trade up until he gets a house. He currently has:
-One year free rent in the heart of downtown Phoenix. (If needed, the apartment can also come fully furnished.)
-roundtrip airfare for two from any major airport in North America.

Read his blog


Here is another genius who accomplished his goal and is a millionaire.
The website of Alex Tew, a 21-year-old entrepreneur, who hopes to pay his way through university by selling 1 million pixels of internet ad space for $1 each.

Tivo Lifetime Subscription Ending :(

Tivo is ending their Lifetime Subscriptions. They have extended it through April 15 only by calling to activate. I still have my Tivo Series 1 w/ lifetime and it still works great. Cant live without it.

Free San Francisco Wi-Fi

Looks like we're going to get free Wi-Fi in San Francisco thanks to Google.
I wonder what the catch will be. Gmail has those smart ads on the right hand side which are related to your email's content. Ingenious. But it doesnt bother me, though it does capture my attention sometimes. I think when connecting to the free Wifi, it will probably direct users to some google portal before surfing, which is what most hotels do. I dont mind that. As long as its FREE!

Jet Li's last movie!? - "Fearless"

Noooooo! If I had to pick a person that is my idol, it would be Jet Li. You would know why after watching one of his Hong Kong movies. Dont watch any of his US movies because they are horrible. Anyways, Jet Li is coming out with a new movie called "Fearless".

Closing Stores...

Wow. Lots of major stores are closing. Good guys recently closed. ToysRUS is closing. The cashier lady told me the closest one will be in Santa Rosa. I just heard Radio Shack is closing. And Mervyns be closing some stores too.

Geez, Target and BestBuy must be killing off all the competition.

But really... when was the last time you bought something at Radio Shack or Good Guys? I think the last thing I bought at Radio shack was batteries.

Gmail contact groups

Gmail finally has group contacts. Now I dont have to copy and paste email addresses anymore. Hallelujah. Took them long enough.

It's Official!

Adobe completes aquisition of Macromedia. See Press Release.

Im now an Adobian :)

Macromedia Studio 8 Now Available

The newest versions of our products are out.
Macromedia Studio 8 which includes Flash Professional 8, Fireworks 8, Dreamweaver 8, and Contribute 3.

rogerchew.com redesign

I felt I need to redesign and reorganize my site. Let me know what you think.