Oiled Bronze Appliances - Trendy or Traditional?
Posted on December 31, 2008
After a long, exhaustive search we decided on the Oiled Bronze line of appliances from Jenn-Air. We stuck to just the 4 basics - fridge, single oven, cooktop, and dishwasher. Also available is a warming drawer, a built-in microwave, and the “sometimes y” of the Oiled Bronze line - a vented range hood which appears and disappears from the Jenn-Air website with no indication as to why it’s only available occasionally.
We love the simple, elegant look of this line. There are no controls on the front of the dishwasher, no chunky ice-maker on the front of the fridge. The slightly curved design on the front of the oven and dishwasher add interest. The finish is very versatile - they can compliment a modern design or look at home in rustic decor.
We paired these appliances with natural, light maple cabinets that were glazed with a hint of a copper and a walnut quarstone countertop. We painted the kitchen walls a deep, rich green and have natural, light maple hardwood flooring. Our lighting fixtures have scrolled, bronze metal with aged champagne glass. To balance out the warmth of these warm colors we installed stainless steel faucets and used matching cabinet hardware, which ties in well with the stainless steel handles on the appliances. The sinks are a black granite composite and our small appliances are either black or stainless steel (usually a combination of both). It all goes together well and looks great.
There has been a lot of interest in this new color from Jenn-Air. Some people have concerns about whether it’s the next avocado green of the 70s, when kitchens were blighted with green appliances that soon became glaring eyesores.
Although we knew it was the perfect choice for us (and we believe it’s also the perfect choice for this house) it’s not going to appeal to everyone. Some people prefer a sleek, industrial look with lots of cold steel. Others like a gleaming white design for that fresh, clean feeling. But we don’t think bronze is going to be considered out-dated any time soon. It’s a new color to most homeowners who’ve only had black, white, biscuit, and stainless steel to choose from, which makes it appear like a trendy, “here today, gone tomorrow” color at first glance. It is trendy in the sense that it’s an unusual choice right now and because it’s only available from a high-end label that comes with equally high prices.
But in actuality, it’s been available as a color choice for custom appliance panels for a long time. There are smaller, boutique firms that have been supplying designer kitchens with bronze and copper appliances for years. It’s only with the introduction of Jenn-Air’s oiled bronze line that we can get the look of coppery bronze without having to sell our kidneys to afford panels made from the actual metals. And unlike the green of the 70s, it goes well with many color schemes.
I can’t imagine our kitchen looking any other way - it has given us a very modern, stylish kitchen with old-world colors and simple-looking appliances that fit perfectly with the character of the house (a 130 year old Victorian).
These are not commonplace yet. It will probably take 10 years for this color to be saturated into the general market. We had to order them online as there were no dealers near us that carried this line or had even seen them in person. They aren’t available through the big box stores yet (most of them have never heard of it) and although I’m sure there will be competition in the future, so far no other manufacturer is making appliances in this color for the general public. Things need to become commonplace and overused before they become dated and out-of-fashion (like shoulder pads, which are making a comeback, yuck). So it will be a while before this color reaches that point, if it ever does. I mean, some people are still ordering almond/bisque appliances.
I think copper & bronze are traditional colors, as they’ve been around for eons. Stainless steel is a much more recent look. A blue fridge or an orange dishwasher would be trendy for a minute and it’d loose it’s appeal very quickly. But as both a material and a color, copper and bronze can be found in both modern products and antique items. They’ve been used successfully in a variety of products from ancient times through today.
Just like how stainless steel appliances has come to be thought of as a neutral color in kitchen design, I think bronze/copper appliances will eventually be used in the same way. I think the trick to any kitchen is designing a classic look that will age well throughout the years.
Change Your Blackberry Signature
Posted on December 26, 2008
I love my Blackberry, but the signature my wireless service adds to the end of each email I send is beyond annoying. Other Blackberry users find this equally annoying and we’ve been searching for a way to change or remove it. Business users already have this option but for the rest of us (individual, private users) it’s been frustrating. As almost every major wireless company has decided to add a signature to the emails of their private Blackberry customers. The message varies depending on the service provider, but it’s generally something like, “Sent from my Blackberry Smart phone provided by Verizon”.
As other BB users have pointed out, we’re not being paid to advertise for our wireless companies. There are certain circumstances when it’s okay - for example, when Yahoo appends an advertisement at the bottom of an email in exchange for providing their customers with a free service.
But we paid for our Blackberries AND we pay for our wireless service. And long before we had a Blackberry, many of us purposefully chose an email provider that does not splash advertising all over our email because it’s a distracting eyesore.
It also takes away privacy and for this reason I’m especially annoyed at my wireless provider. I personally don’t need everyone I email to know that I have a Blackberry. I’d prefer that to be left to my discretion.
More importantly, I’d prefer not to advertise that I’m away from home. One of the great things about having a Blackberry is that I can email on the go and I don’t have to wait around at home for an important email or tote a laptop everywhere just to have email access. (Yes, I do love my email.) It should be a seamless operation, whether I’m using a computer or my Blackberry. But having the sig line added to every Blackberry email against my wishes makes it very clear to everyone that I’m not at home. It should be my choice if I want someone to know that I’m emailing them from a mobile phone. This has been a major concern for users who want the flexibility and freedom of responding to business needs at a moment’s notice by using their Blackberry, but don’t necessarily want their co-worker or boss to know that they aren’t sitting at home in front of the computer when they send an email.
Even worse is the appearance of conceit: an acquaintance thought that I had added the signature myself because I was bragging!
I’ve tried changing the settings for my email and but I can’t edit the signature line put there by my wireless provider. Many other users have the same problem - most service providers have blocked the ability to edit and delete these sig lines.
I was just about ready to gumblingly accept that there was nothing I could do about it when decided to search online one last time for ideas. There are lots of tips that just don’t work, but after wading through those I came across this: How To Change Your Signature on a Blackberry
It’s not 100% easy-breezy but it DOES work. The trick is to figure out how to get into your Blackberry account using a web browser - and every service provider has a different web address. Once you figure out your wireless company’s web portal for the Blackberry, it will take you to a page where you need to enter in your Blackberry username and password. From there you can change your phone’s email settings. It’s similar to changing the settings using your Blackberry but with one BIG exception - the online portal allows you to edit the signature line or remove it altogether!
If you know your service provider’s Blackberry portal and your Blackberry account info, then you’re good to go, in just a few clicks you should be able to remove or alter the irritating signature line and send future emails with more privacy and no more forced advertising. If you don’t know your provider’s Blackberry website or if it won’t let you log in then keep reading.
Finding The Web Portal
Try a Google search, like “verizon blackberry” or “verizon bis” (bis stands for Blackberry Internet Service). If you still can’t find it, you’ll have to do some experimenting. Most portals follow one of 3 formats; I’ve listed them below, with the #1 being the most common format. See if you can figure out your provider’s address using one of these:
- https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=YOURPROVIDER
- http://www.YOURPROVIDER.blackberry.com/
- http://www.YOURPROVIDER.com/bis/
Replace “YOURPROVIDER” with the name of your wireless service. Sometimes companies use abbreviations (Verizon is vzw) or attach other words to their name, like “myPROVIDER” (such as Cingular, which is “mysingular”). For companies that have hypenated names (like T-Mobile) try it with and without the hyphen to see what you get. Like I said, you might have to experiment a bit. Here are some known Blackberry portals for several of the popular cellular companies:
ALLTEL @ http://www.alltel.blackberry.com/
AT&T @ http://www.att.blackberry.com/
CINGULAR @ https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=mycingular
SPRINT @ https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=sprint
T-MOBILE @ http://www.t-mobile.com/bis/
US CELLULAR @ http://www.uscellular.blackberry.com/
VERIZON @ https://bis.na.blackberry.com/html?brand=vzw
Other companies follow a different format. For these companies you might need to visit their main website and search for a link to their Blackberry portal. It might be under something like “My Account” or “Blackberry Internet Service” or “Manage Your Blackberry”.
Logging In To Your BIS
Once you find the right online portal, you’ll be presented with a simple screen that has 2 options - create a new account or login to an existing account. There is very little information on this page, and the login fields are deceptive - it looks as if you only have to enter your email username and password (the same as what you have stored on your phone), but that doesn’t work. You have to have a Blackberry username and email - this is not the same as your email username and password. If you don’t have a Blackberry username and email (I didn’t) you’ll have to create one.
Here’s how I figured this out:
I thought the logging in part would be the easy, because I already had an email account set up on my Blackberry phone. I entered the same email username and password that was stored on my phone. I got an error message. Maybe I misspelled it? I tried again… nope. Maybe I had to sign up for a new account? I clicked “Create New Account” and entered my ESN and PIN. No, that didn’t work either - I was told that “an account already exists for this PIN”. Hmm…
I couldn’t understand what the problem was, so I picked up my phone to check the email settings. I looked at “E-Mail Setup” on my Blackberry to verify that the email account information stored on it was correct. It was. I scratched my head for a while, then I noticed another option under “E-Mail Setup”. It said “Create Username”. Didn’t I already have an email username? What was this option about?
I clicked it and found a little message that told me by setting up a Blackberry username I could access my email settings from a web browser. Ah! That’s what I wanted! So I chose to create a new Blackberry username and password. I was “warned” that I would need this information whenever I wanted to go to the Blackberry portal online. On the next step it asked me to cornfirm the password for my email account (which was stored in my phone from a long time ago when I first set up my Blackberry).
After I did this (it took perhaps 2 minutes total) I went back to my online Blackberry portal, entered in my new username and password and Voila! There I was, logged into the Blackberry Internet Services. I was finally able to edit my email account and delete that annoying signature line!
To review: I first had to create a Blackberry username, which I did by going to “E-Mail Setup” on my phone. It might be different on other phones - perhaps under “Options” or “Setup Wizard”. You might have to look around until you find the place where you can create a username. Alternately, you might want to call your service provider or check with Blackberry to see how to set up a username.
Alternate Method
Some people have reported that it’s possible to change the signature using the Blackberry Desktop Manager. Going to Message –> Options –> Email will supposedly take you to a spot where you can edit your signature. I haven’t confirmed this yet (mainly because I haven’t hooked up to my Desktop Manager in ages) but for some users it may be a quicker fix. I’m not sure if you need to already have Blackberry username to change it through the Desktop Manager.
“Single Girls” Is Alright
Posted on November 25, 2008
I don’t care for 99% of Beyonce’s music but this one is catchy and it has good rythmn. It’s been my long held opinion that she can’t dance — and I’m still not convinced that she can, but she gets an A for effort and the video team gets props for good camera work and stylish editing. I like it.
Perhaps even better than the official video is Shane Mercado’s YouTube mash-up in which he dances as if he was the choreographer on set. I have to say that I think he out-dances Beyonce, even without all the fancy camera angles. Give this guy some backup dancers and stick him on stage.