As someone who has bought several of these “daily deals,” and more than a few offered by Groupon, I can say that I have been reluctant to buy a Groupon deal simply because their deals are not very good. When I first used the service in 2010, Groupon regularly offered deals that were 50% off at places that I would like to go. In a one-month period, for example, no fewer than four restaurants in my nook of Long Island City offered excellent 50%-off deals. But in the last year or so, the deals have been less impressive. They deals are at places that I wouldn’t want to go, in neighborhoods I never travel to, and the discounts aren’t very good. The problem seems even worse when for their Groupon Now deals.

In the morning, when the deluge of “daily deal” emails arrive, I don’t pay much attention to the Groupon offers. It’s not because I have anything against them per se, but it’s really the deal that is going to make me take action. The same goes for Gilt City, Travelzoo, Living Social, and Thrillist.

However, Groupon has insisted that one of the things that sets it apart from its competitors is the “Groupon Voice,” the punchy blurb included with each deal. I’ve considered these little else than poor attempts at humor, filled with a lot of impenetrable references. Take for example today’s featured New York deal at the Village Pourhouse:

Microbrews are lauded for their craftsmanship and distinguished by the tiny medals draped from their every molecule. Sample the finest of particles with today’s Groupon to Village Pourhouse

Where’s the humor?

The joke is supposed to link beer with chemistry. I get it, but I don’t see how it’s funny. Is it because medals are bigger than molecules? Is it, because since it would presumably take a lot of molecules to make a glass of beer, that there would be medals everywhere? These blurbs would be better if they explained how a friend and I can taste good beer, not just yellow, American-style corn swill, for cheap. And that they wash down all kinds of savory snacks.

60 Minutes devoted a ninety-second web extra clip to the “Groupon Voice,” without posing any skepticism. Instead, we just let Editor-in-Chief Aaron With insist that the “distinct, unusual, unique” voice is a competitive advantage for the company. This was the same subject in a May 2010 New York Times article about how Groupon’s “funny” words set it apart from its competitors. When I read this article, it was the first time I had thought about those blurbs because I deliberately ignore them. No one I know ever mentions those blurbs, and I doubt that any in my peer groups reads them or looks forward to reading them in the daily email.

Nope! We just all want a good deal.

This morning, I took a photo with my iPhone and wanted to include one of those photos in a lengthy message I had composed on my Mac. I opened the Photo Browser, pictured above, hoping that Apple had perhaps made the Photo Stream as one of the sources. Sadly, that was not there. I had two options. The first is to open Aperture to synchronize the new Photo Stream additions. The Photo Browser will then show a Photo Stream from my Aperture library and I can add the photo from there. The second is to save the message on my Mac as a draft. On my iPhone, I would go to the Camera Roll and copy the photo. Then I would open Mail and retrieve the draft. I would then paste the image in the message composer and send it. The first is a much easier process than the second, but I think including the Photo Stream in the Media Browser would make this process a lot easier.

To implement this, Apple would have to move the access point of the Photo Stream from the desktop apps, specifically iPhoto and Aperture, to the OS, presumably through the iCloud System Preference pane. This way any application can use the Photo Stream, perhaps even non-Apple applications. Personally, I would really like it if MarsEdit could tap into the Photo Stream so I could add Photo Stream images to a blog post.

This is the same problem that Michael Williams encountered and blogged about in August with iOS 5 beta. He suggested a tricky workaround: initiating a restoration and then yanking the USB cable from Mac when that process starts. That causes the sync to fail and, after iTunes chides you for disrupting the restoration, it reestablishes the normal synchronization process.

When I tried to follow this process, I got a different but equally effective result. First, I backed up to iCloud to ensure that if iTunes wiped my phone in order to restore it, I would have a very recent backup. Second, when I initiated the restoration, iTunes did not actually try to restore the phone. Instead, it performed a normal sync, and all seemed well. The only issue was that it restored all of the apps I had once downloaded but since removed from my iPhone. (I had done so because I was trying to stop the infamous iPhone’s battery drain that many users encountered after upgrading to iOS 5.)

Based on the commentary on other blog posts, it looks like this might be a side effect of WiFi sync. However, I have also been doing that with my iPad since the release of iOS 5, and nothing like this has happened with that device.

Dymo partners with Endicia to power the postage printing functions of the printer, and both appear to subscribe the Gillette model for doing business. While the price of printing the postage is the same as retail prices, the generator of revenue appears to come from the labels necessary to print the stamps. If you go to an office supply store, you’ll find that 200 stamp/labels cost about $20. That’s a terrible deal.

If you search on eBay, you can find stamps/labels for as little as 2 cents each, if you buy multiple packs of them. I don’t know how long it will take me to buy use, say, 800 labels, but I imagine that it should last a few holiday seasons. With so many stamps, I might even start mailing in checks to pay my bills again.

Earlier this week, I ordered a four-pack of these cut-rate labels from an enterprising seller on eBay, for about two cents per label, and the labels arrived today. At first sight, it’s obvious that these labels are not the genuine article.

There are two differences that are apparent right away. First, there’s the color. The pink border is slightly different in color than the genuine labels. It’s not major, but it is apparent upon first opening the package. The second difference is the size of the labels. The bargain labels are somewhat bigger than the original ones, but it seems to allow for the print area to register the postage properly.

The other difference is that the genuine labels contain a branding on the side. This might cause problems when shipping, since it is not technically an Endicia label, but I suspect that the postal service won’t care too much.

Printing on the bargain labels appears to be fine. It registers with good quality on both the genuine and the bargain labels. The only problem is that when you print a single label, the printer feeds two stamps: one printed and one blank. I imagine that it has something to do with the little hole in the label that guides the label into the printer.

I dispatched a letter to Sarah at her work to see if the postage printed on the bargain labels would clear the postal service. I’ll report those results to see if I did get a bargain after all.

I lost a book that I needed for research, and it’s checked out of my library. They do however offer access through as an electronic book, but it’s through the web based Ebrary service. It’s almost unreadable.

First, the interface requires you to be connected online so you can read it offline. Second, the text is way too small to read at 100%. You basically have to read it at 200% to be able to sustain reading for any particular amount of time. Third, if you try reading it on any screen that’s not at least 1200 pixels high, then you can’t fit the whole page. And if you’re reading a book on an iPad, something that ebrary touts, then you are out of luck because you can’t scroll. It’s just an example of poor HTML coding and failure to adhere to web standards.

I am going to continue the search for my lost paperback or recall it from someone.

Update: You can actually scroll on an iPad. You have to swipe on the contents section on the right of the text. It’s not the most intuitive gesture since you’re use to swiping on the actual content not the side of it.

Although I wasn’t one of the 800,000 subscribers who cancelled their Netflix subscriptions, I did cancel their DVD-by-mail part of my subscription and kept the video streaming since I use that more anyway. Two days ago Netflix charged me for the new billing period, which includes only the streaming service, and today I received what should be my last DVD-by-mail from Netflix, at least for now.

This marks the end of an era for me. I joined Netflix in 1998 when my first DVD player, a Toshiba branded deck, came with a card that offered a free trial for an unlimited DVD by mail service. At the time, the service cost $15 a month and you could have 4 disks at a time. I remember wondering, when I first signed up, how are they going to send me a DVD by mail, considering that I was used to getting DVDs encased in those jewel boxes. Little did I know that they had designed those now ubiquitous red-and-white sleeves.

I held on to the service for a few years until I moved to New York, mostly because I thought that the DVDs had to come from California, where the company was based. Little did I know that the service had gone national.

I re-upped in 2004, partly in an effort to get the airline-mile bonus that Netflix offered to new customers. At the time, the subscription offered only three disks for almost $20 per month, and over the years, I scaled back to two disks, then to one disk, and, after this week, to none.

The streaming service proved to be the “disk killer” for me. The convenience of watching a movie or television series, even if it’s not my first choice, is much better than waiting two-to-three days to watch a movie on DVD. I was a bit late the streaming service when it was first offered. I had a Powerbook G4 as my only computer from 2004 until 2009, and the PowerPC chip wasn’t good enough to run the streaming service. I didn’t do Netflix streaming until I bought a Roku in 2009 to watch Netflix Instant through a TV. Since then I have linked my Blu-Ray player, iPad, and iPhone to my Netflix accounts. It’s now possible to see Netflix just about anywhere I can get a 2 megabit Internet connection.

Will I miss the disks? Not really. DVD was always a problematic medium, given its rather short life.

I know that Neflix gets blamed for killing the local video store, and that studios are withholding streaming content from Netflix because they fear that Netflix is going to kill the DVD format and then the multichannel video distributor. I have theories behind the decline of each of these institutions, and I don’t think Netflix has had a substantial role. I’ll save that discussion for another day, but for now, I know that my mailbox will be a little emptier for the time being.

I have been using Keynote since 2006 to present slides in the classes I am teaching, but starting this spring, when I bought an iPad 2, I began using the Keynote for iPad to present my slides in class. The tablet edition lacks a few of the desktop features I need when presenting. For example, I like having a clock, current and next slides, and presentation notes on my presenter’s screen. The desktop edition has it, but the tablet edition can only show the current slide with notes or the current and next slides. Oh well.

There are a few real advantages to using an iPad. The biggest one is that I don’t have to tote my notebook computer around in my bag. The other thing is that because Keynote for iPad is pretty basic, lacking support for certain transitions and embedded video, and that limitation keeps you from pimping your presentation, which is one of the reasons I used Keynote in favor of Powerpoint. Less is more.

Speaking of “less is more,” presenting from an iPhone is even better. One of the disadvantages of presenting with an iPad is that you can’t present, using the Apple VGA Adapter, and charge your iPad at the same time, unless you’re willing to do a little surgery. This was an issue a few weeks ago, when I realized I was running low on battery power and needed to finish a presentation. I ended up importing my presentation to my iPhone since that device had a lot more juice, and I had Keynote for iPhone installed.

How did it work? It didn’t miss a beat. In fact, it was even preferable because you won’t have your iPhone display mirrored in your presentation. Your audience only sees what you present. That’s important because I don’t want everyone to see me enter my passcode every time the device auto locks.

But as many have said, don’t throw away your desktop or notebook computer. It is very hard to make presentations from scratch on an iPad or an iPhone. I find it easier to create the presentation on an iMac (or a MacBook Pro) because I have to add a lot of images to my presentation, and it’s easier to place those images with a computer because you have that pesky file system. Also, you can’t create a presentation using your own theme, which is a bummer because I have bought and created quite a few over the years. (If you create your presentation on a computer, Keynote for iPad/iPhone will import it with a few warnings but few noticeable changes.)

Currently, moving the presentation from your computer to your iPad/iPhone is a little challenging. I prefer using Dropbox to keep the most current presentation from my computer available on my iDevice. Make sure you have the Dropbox app installed on your iOS device, load your presentation, and open it using your Keynote app. iCloud might make things easier, but I won’t know yet until it actually comes out next week.

Have you tried to present with your iPad? Are you ready to leave the notebook computer at home as I’ve begun to do?

If you know me, you know that this is exactly the kind of thing that excites so many of my interests—television, once new but deprecated technology, some history, and, yes, the airport location. When I used to travel through here more often when I was younger, the museum had some pretty bland exhibits. I can’t even remember any of them, except for a sports-related one around football season, that were as exciting as the current exhibit.

I spent about an hour going through all of the hardware, and I snapped a lot of photos. Some of the my favorite pieces were the various TV-radio combinations. I like the idea of all-in-one devices, and one was designed to have programmed all of the New York City radio and television stations that you could press a button and it would automatically tune to that station. “It just works.”

The portable television sets were also novel since portability in the 1960s was remarkably advanced fifty years ago. Some of those sets were as small as 4-inches in size, which isn’t much bigger than a current smartphone screen.

If you’re at SFO and have a layover (or, more likely, a delay) stop by Terminal 3 and have a look, or just look at my photo album.

The other day outside of the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue, I found that my iPhone had automatically connected to the attwifi network, which makes sense since I was within a sight line of a McDonald’s. But it was a weak signal, so when I tried to turn off the WiFi radio, I saw these “open” WiFi networks with familiar names, such as Amazon, Google, Groupon, and Hotels.com.

Now, I know the downtown area is pretty well-connected with technology companies, but I doubt that these open networks are actually run by the companies in question. I am guessing is that these open networks are there to sniff unsuspecting users’ personal data, such as passwords and account numbers.

I wonder if anyone has noticed these networks around other parts of New York, and whether anyone has been brave enough to connect to them.

Although I’m not quite the music fan I once was, I know that Spotify invites have been quite the valuable (promotional) currency lately. It looks like News Corp. has realized that too since they are now dangling Spotify invites to people who get the newly relaunched version of The Daily.

I gave the application a try earlier this year when it came out (and when I bought my replacement iPad 2), but as I wrote earlier, it didn’t seem to bode well for the future of the iPad-only magazine when college students didn’t much care for it, especially since it was a subscription service (not unlike Spotify).

I will update the application, and maybe, if I am dying to look for something to read, I’ll buy a week’s worth of content. And maybe I’ll take that Spotify invite, too. After all, we all know that I can be bribed.