You know you are a super rich tennis star when your cellophane tennis racket bags bear your personalized logo!
The announcers were as surprised as I was when Federer reached for a replacement tennis racket during the Wimbledon 2009 final.
The Musings of Dale Dietrich
In another terrific Wimbledon final, Roger Federer defeated the terrific Andy Roddick (7-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-3, 14-16) making him the undisputed best tennis player of all time. With 15 slam titles he passed Pete Sampras’ 14 and stands alone. With his French Open victory a few weeks ago, he has won all four grand slams.
(click images for larger views)
See also: Brooklyn Decker Cheers for Andy Roddick at Wimbledon 2009
Sampras travelled to London (his first time back since winning in 2002) to attend the final match where his record 14 grand slam title record was surpassed. It’s too bad they didn’t have Pete hand the trophy to Roger.
Nobody could be certain that Roger would win, however. Following on from a fantastic semi-final win over Andy Murray, Andy Roddick played a beautiful final match – perhaps the best of his career.
Continue reading “Federer Wins Wimbledon 2009 – Sets All-Time Grand Slam Record”
Sorry, folks, but these are the best shots I could get of Federer’s tennis shoes during Wimbledon 2009. The camera never went up close in any of the matches I watched.
Continue reading “Roger Federer’s Designer Tennis Shoes – Wimbledon 2009”
Since my post about Brooklyn Decker being engaged to Andy Roddick drew such a huge number of visitors to The Daleisphere, I snapped these pictures of Brooklyn cheering her new husband, Andy Roddick, on at Wimbledon 2009.
As always, click the images for larger views.
Continue reading “Brooklyn Decker Cheers for Andy Roddick at Wimbledon 2009”
Today, July 4, 2009, Robert Jones became the 100th person to follow me on Twitter. Dave Zatz was the first non-automated follower to follow me. Thanks Robert & Dave. Joining Twitter on June 4, 2008, it took exactly 13 months to go garner my first 100 followers.
Having reached the 100-follower milestone, it’s as good a time as any to reflect on my experience to date.
Who I Follow: For the most part, the only people I follow on Twitter are those that I have an ongoing relationship with (about 15 to 20 people) and thought leaders (about 35 people). In order for me to continue following someone they must have a high wheat-to-chaff ratio. Meaning, most of their tweets must be about topics I am interested in – not what they ate for lunch.
Loyalty: I am a rather loyal sort. If I follow someone, I follow them. The reason the list of people I follow is short (by Twitter standards) is because I read/scan most every tweet that comes in.
The Kawasaki Exception: Early on I followed Guy Kawasaki. He was/is an interesting Twitter user. But this guy (pun intended) doesn’t know when to stop! He sends out torrents of tweets each day. I couldn’t take it any more. He is the only person I unfollowed because of too many interesting tweets. FYI his post: “How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter” is pretty good except for his advice to follow everyone that follows you – ugh!
How I Found those I Follow: The best way of finding interesting people is to mine the following list of the people that I already follow.
Who I do Not Follow: Anyone else. I know, this makes me an anomaly on Twitter. I don’t have the time to follow many more people. If I follow someone new and stick with them, I’ll usually remove someone else.
I Do Not Follow to be Followed: Most people that have huge follower lists also follow a huge number of people. How can someone follow 10,000 people? 1,000 people? Really!? I can barely keep up with the 50 people I follow.
Continue reading “My first 100 Twitter Followers – My Twitter Thoughts and Experience to Date”
I upgraded my iMac and my Windows 7 machines to Firefox 3.5 (available here) today.
All went well. The total download/install time was about 4 minutes on my iMac – 2 minutes on Windows 7 RC.
This isn’t a particularly important release for me. I was happy with Firefox 3.0.1. But they promised more speed so I gave it a whirl.
See also:
On Monday June 29, 2009, during a fourth-round match between Amelie Mauresmo and Dinara Safina, at 6-4, 1-4. the new Wimbledon Centre Court roof was closed for the first time during a match. (Safina won) The subsequent match between Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka was the first full Wimbledon match to be played under the new roof (Murray won).
The video above was shot by me off broadcast TV while I watched the match.
Click the roof-closing images below for larger views.
Continue reading “Wimbledon Roof Closes for First Time During Match”
While I am rather discouraged that Microsoft is not following Apple’s lead with aggressive Windows 7 pricing (snow leopard will retail for $29 U.S. in September), from June 26, to July 11, 2009, American and Canadian consumers can pre-order Windows 7 upgrades at deep-discounts (50% or more) off the retail price that Windows 7 will be selling for when it launches on October 22, 2009.
Below are tables showing the preorder and retail pricing available to Canadian and American consumers with links to Amazon.com and Amazon.ca where Windows 7 can be pre-ordered at the discounted price until July 11, 2009.
Note: See Paul Thurrott’s ‘Windows 7 Product Editions – A Comparison’ to see a detailed chart comparing the features of each. While I purchased the Vista ‘Ultimate’ edition in 2007, this time I will be purchasing the Home Premium edition for my PCs and laptops. I’ve been loving the Windows 7 beta and release candidate and heartily recommend it.
Pre-order |
Retail Price |
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$119.99 U.S. |
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$199.99 U.S. |
Pre-order |
Retail Price |
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$129.95 Cdn |
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$129.95 Cdn |
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$249.95 Cdn |
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$249.95 Cdn |
Continue reading “Steep Windows 7 Upgrade Pre-Order Discounts in the U.S. & Canada until July 11”
With a few easy steps that take only minutes to complete, iPhone users the world round can get access to some (but not all) of the iPhone Apps that are only available in the U.S.. I’m surprised it took me so long to try this. I just used it to d0wnload the Lose It! which was previously not available to me in Canada.
[Note: Rogers is somehow still blocking Pandora and Skype even when I removed the SIM card. Grrr! Here’s a Skype iPhone App workaround for Canadians – I haven’t tried it yet.]
Setup is a breeze. It took me about two minutes. You essentially set up a VPN connection to the U.S. through the HotSpot Shield servers. This, of course, would also be useful for safe surfing at coffee shops and other wifi locations.
Once you have set up your account, configured and activated the VPN (see instructions below), navigate to the App Store on your iPhone. Search for the app you want and (if its there) download it. It’s that simple.
I was concerned that if I downloaded apps this way, they would be wiped out after I synced my iPhone with iTunes to my desktop. Not so. The sync went fine and the apps remained on the iPhone.
You only need to activate the VPN to download the app. Once downloaded, you can use the app with the VPN shut off.
Continue reading “How to Get U.S.-only iPhone Apps with Hotspot Shield”
Last year (see my 2008 post), both live and downloadable versions of most Wimbledon matches were available to all over the Internet through the Wimbledon Live service for a flat fee of $24.99.
Unfortunately, Wimbledon’s 2009 licensing regime makes it so that honest viewers from many countries, including Canada and the U.S. (see complete list below) can no longer access the service for any fee.
Amercian’s can watch online through NBCSports or ESPN360.com. Unfortunately NBCSports must be using the same proxy-shield blocking technology as hulu because Hotspot Shield users can’t access the site outside of the U.S.
Below, I include links to several bootleg services offering 2009 Wimbledon matches live streamed. Some are fantastic. Some less so. When I clicked around I could usually find the match I wanted to watch in English.
Of course, these only work when Wimbledon matches are underway. To schedule your viewing, the play schedule is here.
As far as I know there is no legal way for me to watch streamed Wimbledon matches in Canada. Fortunately there is at least one bootleg service available where Canadians, and anyone else, can view live matches – Channelsurfing.net.
Once on Channelsurfing.net scroll down to the Wimbledon logos and click on one of the several available streams – available in different languages. As I’m watching now (June 24, 2009 at 3:00 pm Eastern) there are 7 available live streams. I am watching the ESPN stream on both my iMac and PC and both are working fine. [Update: The ESPN stream cut out midway through a Roddick match and hasn’t returned as 11:30.am Eastern June 25]
Continue reading “Wimbledon 2009 Live Streaming – Bootleg Version”
Windows has not provided .iso file burning functionality before. Rather than use a specialized tool, I have, until now, used my iMac to burn iso files. This morning I discovered that with a couple clicks of the mouse, Windows 7 users can now burn .iso files.
Here’s how:
That’s it. I’m surprised it took Redmond this long to finally include this functionality.
My first $100 in AdSense revenue was generated from my three blogs in approximately 10 months. My second $100 was generated in just over 3 months – from March 4 to June 7 2009. It took 327,383 served ad impressions to generate the first $100, 189,290 to generate the second.
As I described in my ‘Analyzing My First $100 from Google AdSense’ post, for this last three month period I dropped footer ads in lieu of what I hoped to be a more lucrative ad type – inline text ads. I was right. Some how I also benefited from higher per-click revenues (see details below) for the second $100 than I did for the first $100.
For the last three months each of my sites used the following three primary ad types (channels in AdSense parlance) – each as depicted in the image below:
Continue reading “Analyzing My Second $100 from Google AdSense – in One Third the Time”
Continue reading “New iPhone 3G S Announced – Available June 19”
I am a loyal Leo Laporte fan. I have enjoyed his TV shows and have been listening to/watching his podcasts and net streams for years. He is one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet. Honest as the day is long. He is so kind tempered he reminds me of Mr. Rogers. I have never seen him loose his temper, let alone swear on his shows, podcasts or feeds.
I admire Arrington as well, but I too have grown a bit weary of his bullying. In light of their history, to my mind, Arrington’s calling Leo’s integrity into question crossed the line – especially when he followed up with a childish ‘… what are you going to do about it” comment.
Normally this kind of thing would have been laughed off by Leo. But I’ve heard Arrington go after Leo’s/Gilmore’s guests unnecessarily hard in recent shows and its time someone called him out on it. It would be one thing if Mike didn’t know Leo well. He does. Leo assiduously discloses all conflicts of interest at every opportunity. Michael knows this.
Good for you Leo!
[June 9 Update 1: A few hours later Leo recorded a 2nd Gilmore Gang where apologies and explanations were proffered. Click here to access it. It doesn’t start until about 13 minutes in. As you’ll hear, there is a real issue as to whether the Gilmore Gang will continue to be produced by the twit.tv network. I’m of mixed opinion. I fear that Gilmore’s personality and the kind of show he produces is not a match for the rest of the Twit network content.]
[June 9 Update 2: It seems the Internet mob has been tearing into Mike and he has shut down his Techcrunch account on Friendfeed. As I read through the comments against Mike and Leo, too many in the crowd have been unnecessarily abusive, mostly towards Michael. While I was upset with Mike’s cavalier attack on Leo’s integrity, Michael doesn’t deserve all this grief either. He made a mistake, he apologized. Leo accepted the apology. That should be enough. I’m now feeling sorry for Michael.]
See also:
(click images in this post for larger views)
Tying Pete Sampras’ 14 slam titles, and with a career grand slam under his belt (only the 6th man in history to do that – Sampras never won the French), Roger Federer is now, undeniably, the best tennis player – ever!
Federer beat Robin Söderling (6-1, 7-6, 6-5) easily. Söderling took down Nadal the prior Sunday, paving the way for Federer’s historic win. In the three sets Roger:
It was fun to watch my all time favourite men’s tennis player, Andre Agassi, present the trophies. Having won the French Open 10 years ago and being the last man to win the career grand slam, he was a fitting choice. It was nice to see his wife, Steffi Graf present the woman’s trophies.
Continue reading “Federer – The Best Tennis Player of All Time: French Open 2009”
(click on images in post for larger view)
In yet another lack-luster women’s grand slam final, the world’s number 1, and my current women’s favourite, Dinara Safina, was soundly beaten by Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4, 6-2.
This is Kuznetsova’s second grand slam title (the first being the 2004 U.S. Open). Safina has still not won a major. Good for Kuznetsova! But it’s hard to cheer for someone who doesn’t seem to have much of a personality.
On the up side, it was really nice to watch a women’s grand slam final without the Williams’ sisters. It was also nice to see Steffi Graf again!
Sony’s 2009 E3 Press Conference can be viewed here. See also my 2008 Sony E3 coverage. Click on images below for larger views.
God of War III: (demo’d – coming March 2010 ) Looks terrific! Except, that is, for Sony’s continued reliance on quick time events in boss battles. Grrr! But I still can’t wait GoW 1 and 2 were terrific games.
Gran Turismo 5 (polyphony – teaser trailer – still no ship date) – photo realistically gorgeous as you’d expect – first time cars show damage in this franchise – still a SIM that is likely only playable by extreme racing gamers.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (demo’d – naughty dog – no ship date – multi-player beta starting immediately) I’m looking forward to this one! Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is still my favorite PS3 game to date. Demo looked terrific but the female lead has changed. Elena Fisher seems to be gone :(
Nintendo’s 2009 E3 Press Conference can be viewed here. This has to be the most boring E3 conference I’ve ever watched. See also: My 2008 Nintendo E3 coverage.
Continue reading “Nintendo E3 2009 Press Conference Summary”
I was delighted to see that bing is driving traffic to the Daleisphere on only its second day of operation. Below is a clip from my Woopra dash-board showing the Daleisphere’s first bing referral (that I’ve noticed).
I find this particularly interesting because I do not recall ever seeing traffic driven from Live.com in the past. Until now 95% of my search engine traffic came from Google. Yahoo!, perhaps, drives 2%. I’m hoping bing refers more traffic in the future.
So far I like what I’ve seen of it. But I’m not ready to give up Google just yet. 😉
Eric Schmidt is the CEO of Google. In the 2 minute video below he describes what he believes Web 3.0 applications will be.
In summary, he defines, Web 3.0 as:
In my opinion, the biggest Microsoft announcement at E3 today was made after their press conference was over. They announced a new Games on Demand service (coming this August). It has two important features:
For details see:
The Microsoft Press Conference can be viewed here. See also: My 2008 Microsoft E3 coverage.
Continue reading “Microsoft E3 2009 Press Conference Summary”
When Rafael Nadal’s tripped in the third set, Mary Carillo said this picture will be famous if Nadal goes on to loose – even suggesting a title – “the Champ goes Down”. How prescient! I’m doing my part to fulfill her prophecy.
In what was a surprising and yet terrific match, Nadal’s 2007 Wimbledon nemesis,Robin Soderling (they played a 5 setter lasting 5 days due to rain delays), did something nobody has ever done before – beat Nadal at the French Open. Amazing!
This sets Federer up to accomplish three big things next Sunday:
Assuming, that is, that Federer makes it to the finals next week. This is Federer’s big break. I’ll be cheering for him.
On a related note, Azarenka defeated the 2009 French Open women’s champion, Ana Ivanovic, in straight sets. That isn’t much of a surprise to me. I have thought for some time that Ivanovic was over-rated. Go Safina go!
These are the Nike, Max-air, LunarLite tennis shoes Rafael Nadal was wearing today when Robin Soderling took him down in the quarter finals at the French Open 2009.
Note the four tennis-ball-with-flame insignia’s for each of his 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 French Open titles.
Click on all images for larger views.