S1dd - My Other Blog..

I’ve noticed that most flavored yogurts in grocery sotes have gelatin in them. Now there is no particular reason Yogurt needs gelatin. I would venture to guess that gelatin is cheaper than yogurt and is a tasteless filler material that probably saves companies money and makes the consistency arguably better. However personally, I see no particular consistency difference in yogurts with and without gelatin so I say it is all a gimmick to save money and also cheat customers into paying more for so called “All Natural” products which have fewer nasty ingredients. Dannon is one major national brand which does this - try to sell you a more expensive “All Natural” yogurt.

Proof that gelatin is more of a filler than for consistency comes from the fact that even yogurt drinks such as Danimals contain gelatin. Even expensive ones such as La Crème contain gelatin! I examined the possibility that gelatin could increase the nutrition of yogurts because of the high amount of protein, however gelatin causes a net loss of protein.

Note to vegetarians - almost all gelatin in food products comes from animals (e.g. Dannon’s comes from cattle hide). There are many brands of yogurt that contain no gelatin especially organic brands and yogurt marked “all natural”.

Some brands that I know of are Stonyfield Farm, Brown Cow (their cream top yogurts are my new favorite), Horizon, Dannon All Natural only, Harris Teeter store brand. If you know of others, please comment and I’ll add to this list.

Acer just lowered the bar on pricing on Ultraportables. The Aspire One starts at $379 for a linux version with an 8GB SSD, $399 for a Windows XP verrsion with a 120GB HDD both with a 3 Cell battery. A Linux version with SSD and a six cell battery is $449. A 6 cell battery costs about $119.

Now I’m torn on whether to wait for the 6 cell Wind or just get 3 Cell Acer + a six cell battery if I really need it in the future.

Feature wise, the wind has a larger 10″ screen compared to the Acer’s 8.9″ and the Wind has bluetooth. But considering that I haven’t used bluetooth on my laptop in ages now and I can get a cheap bluetooth USB key, is the 1″ difference in screen size worth the extra money? Also the Acer has 120GB of storage vs the 80GB on the Wind and the really cool blue color.

I think I’ll just pre-order the Aspire One too as soon as the blue is available at some known retailer and keep whichever comes first.

Update: Acer Aspire One in stock at Amazon - White Linux 3 Cell 512MB RAM, 8GB SSD
Update:Aspire One in stock at Newegg - White Linux 3 Cell 512MB RAM, 8GB SSD

After following the MSI Wind for a while and realizing that the 6 Cell is probably delayed at least another month from now, I’m looking at other alternatives. The EEE PC 1000H and 901 are too expensive. The only other worthy contender that will be available soon is the Acer Aspire One. Plus the blue color is really fantastic. CDW is taking orders but a quick phone call revealed that they have no idea about what color it is and expected availability is mid August. And the price is a sweeeet $422!!

I’ve been following the MSI wind closely and finally the 3 Cell is available at Newegg and in stock. I’m still waiting for the 6 Cell though. Newegg is charging 499 for the 3 Cell, which is 20$ more than the MSI price of $479! Amazon has also upped the 3 Cell price to $499!!

Anyway, click here to buy the Wind from Newegg.

A few weeks back I blogged about Bill H.R. 5921. This is a part of three bills introduced by Rep. Lofgren. The other two are H.R. 5882 and H.R. 6039

Here is an email I received from Adsense today:

Hello,

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as http://www.ibookdb.net/book/78456.

As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on pages with adult or mature content.

Please make any necessary changes to your web pages in the next 3 business days. We also suggest that you take the time to review our program policies (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) to ensure that all of your other pages are in compliance.

Once you update your site, we will automatically detect the changes and ad serving will not be affected. If you choose not to make the changes to your account within the next three days, your account will remain active but you will no longer be able to display ads on the site. Please note, however, that we may disable your account if further violations are found in the future.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

As soon as I got this email I removed all Adsense ads from ibookdb and replaced them with YPN because currently I have no means of turining off a particular ad for a particular page and I can’t ensure that I find all adult books on ibookdb reliably and accurately.

Also, this same book is displayed on many other sites with Adsense showing on the side, so I emailed Adsense support with links to other sites as proof. Some of these other sites are a lot larger than ibookdb, so I’m hoping that Adsense will just let me use those ads because after all the adult content is in the book, a limited preview of which is available to anyone at Google Books, and not on ibookdb.

Here it is - 5% off upto $15. Enjoy!!

Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the 3 Cell Wind

I just pre-orded a 6 cell MSI Wind from Buy.com and here is a 10$ off coupon. This is the second time I’ve ordered anything from Buy.com and during checkout I got this page with a lot of fine print offering me $10 off my next order if I sign up for a shady sounding service. The no thanks button was tiny and nearly invisible. Be warned, click no.

It looks like MSI still has a few(<20) black and very few white (<10) in stock today (1:35 PM). Looks like a lot of people are waiting for the six cell. Also inspite of their one Wind per customer policy many people were able to order multiple Winds thanks to an error on the MSI website. Some of those got cancelled and are probably what is available today.

The MSI Wind is now listed at the MSI website. The 3 cell it seems will be shipped on Jun 21. I’ll wait for the 6 cell in July before buying. Here is a link - shop.msicomputer.com. The site is still not taking orders (1:09PM Eastern).

Other retailers who have it listed are:
1. Amazon
2. RK Computers (link from MSI website
3. Low Price Joe
4. Q2 Designs

Nobody still has it in stock and most retailers who mention dates, mention 20th Jun or later. I wonder why MSI pulled this stunt, stating boldly that they will start shipping today. Also the retailers don’t know if they will get the 3 cell or the 6 cell battery versions.

Update (1:52PM Eastern): MSI has taken off the 6 Cell and Linux Winds and the 3 Cell ship date has been pushed back to Jun 27. Maybe the EEEPC 901 and 1000h will show up before the Wind?

Update (3:10PM Eastern): MSI has taken off all the Winds from it’s website now and there is no official release date any more. The msimobile.com main page still links to the press release with today as the release date. I now have my doubts that I’ll find one next month too. Crap!

Update (3:56PM Eastern): 3 Cell Ones are back and in stock (limit one per customer) - currently 56 black and 24 white in stock. Shipping Jun 27. For a product that created so much hype these low numbers are ridiculous!! I’m still waiting for the 6 Cell.