The Power of Induction

The other day my electric toothbrush died on me. I asked my wife to buy me a new toothbrush the next time she was at the store. I was quite surprised that the model she bought is recharged through a method called induction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_induction For those who don't know: induction is a method of transferring electricity wirelessely through a coil. Most people probably don't think much about induction, but for an engineer like me this is an engineering feet being used in an every day product.

Tempted by Tech

While at work today, I received a call from my wife. She was calling to tell me that Amazons deal of the day was a GPS. She wanted to know if she should buy it for me. I couldn't believe my ears. My first instinct is to say go for it. But deep down I knew I really new that I didn't need one more electronic toy. So as tempting as it was to hear my spouse want to spend money on a tech gadget for me, I tapped into as much will power as a man could muster up and said no. For now when I need directions I'll just have to rely on what man has from the beginning of time, the sweet voice of my wife telling me to turn left in .2 miles.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Junk or treasure

Occasionally in my business I have clients that have equipment that is so old, that they ask me to get rid of it. The most recent acquisition was a rack of old audio equipment. Before I saw what equipment they had, I envisioned equipment that I would value and have a use for. I was a bit disappointed when I took my first look and could tell the the gear almost predated my existence. I remember thinking to myself, now I know why they wanted me to dispose of it. Being a recovering electronics pack rat, I let the gear sit around for 6 month and then decided to list it on eBay. To my surprise there is quite a market for this stuff especially internationally. With that I'll end with the time honored quote: "One man's old dusty vintage electronics is another man's pay pal deposit".

Getting Schooled on eBay

This past weekend I listed two items on eBay. It has been a few years since I've sold anything on eBay. My wife is the master of eBay in our house and so I usually elicit her help in selling stuff. This time I decided to go solo, which was a big mistake. I used their quick format for listing the items. By using this method, I did not put in the typical jargon about restrictions on where I ship to. The first item sold for the buy it now price to someone in London. So now I'm trying to figure out the cheapest way to ship a Wii game internationally. This has become quite a hassle. Instead of shipping from my house, I now have to go to the post office and fill out customs forms. I like to think that have most things mastered when it comes to tech, but alas I must concede my crown to my wife when it comes to eBay.

The Joy of Backing up

Before upgrading my PC to Windows 7, I decided to try an online backup service. What I did not realize is the time commitment involved with uploading all of my data. It's been about 7 days and I only have about 60% of my data backed up. The reason behind trying this method of service is that I'm not diligent enough to backup data on my own regularly and I value the importance of having an off site copy of my important data. There's 4 days left on my free trial of the backup service. That should be just enough to upload the final bits. Oh how I wish someone would create an indestructible, high capacity, high speed, non-stealable hard drive.

Care for a mint

Being the geek that I am, I decided to download and try a version of Linux called Mint. It's a free open source operating system optimized for media. Overall it seams to be a solid OS. I don't foresee myself using Mint on a regular basis. But if I need a PC for web browsing and other standard computer aplications, I would consider using Mint. I recommend a copy of Mint on a bootable CD in case Windows starts having issues. This allows you to run Mint from the CD drive to troubleshoot problems. The OS also has links to a number of applications that you can download for free. So go ahead and unleash your inner geek and give Mint a try. It will make your breath smell good also.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Social Media No no's

I've been thinking lately of the down side of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and how they should not be used. For the most part I love using these using these sites and really enjoy seeing what is happening in the lives of people I both know and don't know. I also feel the pros of this technology. outweigh the cons. But I have also recently seen these sites used in unhealthy ways. So I've adopted a few rules I feel are proper etiquette for my online persona.
Rule # 1: Never engage in a personal dispute using social media. No one needs to see you have an online fight.
Rule # 2: Don't combine your account with your significant other. Everyone on the receiving is always wondering which of the two people composed the post. (e.g. Bob & Susie Smith: great time shopping with my girlfriend today).
Rule # 3: Do post things that are either interesting, monumental, witty, cool, or informative.
By the way my profile has recently been posting items that I didn't post. Not sure if I should have a rule about letting the wife post for me or not. I must be big time now, to have people do my posting for me. Or maybe I'm just to busy following the latest celeb tweets.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

To Wii or not to Wii

For a while now I've been contemplating purchasing a Nintendo Wii. This weekend, I finally got permission from the wife to buy one, along with the Wii Fit Plus. My justification is that I need to exercise more with a method that will keep me motivated. I personally hate most forms of exercising and was looking for a way to make it more entertaining. We have a treadmill in the corner of our living room that I've been sporadically using. Walking on the treadmill is just plain boring. For the short time that I have tried the Wii, I have had fun exercising. It hasn't only been fun for me, but entertaining for the whole family. My wife and son enjoy watching me make a fool out of myself trying the different exercises. My son has even tried getting into the action. He's not bad for a three year old.

Computer Control Via iPhone & iPod Touch

I found an app for my iPod touch that let's me remotely connect, view, and control my work laptop. I'm not quite sure what kind of use I'll have for it, but I don't care. Just the fact that I can do it is way cool. If interested check out RDP Lite in the app store.

Office anywhere

My work finally got my laptop set up with a VPN (virtual private network) that actually works. My job requires me to spend a lot of time at clients sites rather than at my office. Before I had a reliable VPN I would have to go into the office to get specific task done. Now my computer gives me access to everything I need. The tricky part is making the mental adjustment of doing work in the field that I used to only do in the office.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Internet killed the record company

I recently saw a Twitter post by Moby promoting his latest album on www.twt.fm it's a site that allows musicians promote their music. Now more than ever technology gives musicians the ability to get their music heard. Sites like this may drive the final nails long into the record companies coffins. It has been far too long that record companies have profited off talented artists while the talent receives next to nothing. If you're trying to make it in the music business, tap into the power of tech to make yourself known.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

iPod blue tooth

During a break today, I decided to try to connect my blue tooth headset to my iPod touch. I was pretty surprised that it worked and that I was able to listen to music through it. Now when coworkers come by I can pretend that I'm on the phone when I'm actually just listening to a podcast. Sometimes I just love technology. Now if I could just get the microphone to work over blue tooth.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Windows 7 Finally

After countless hours of downloading and troubleshooting, I finally got Windows 7 installed and working. I ended up installing it on my dad's 5 year old Dell laptop. At first use, I really like it. Of course I'm one of the few who actually likes Vista. One of the features that I think has the most potential is the Gadgets on the desktop. This to me seems like a way to make the computer desktop function more like an Iphone. Hopefully no lawsuits will be filed. The only unfortunate thing is that Microsoft only offered the $50 upgrade for a limited time and I missed it. I'm hoping that they offer it one more time.

The digital mixing conversion

A few weeks ago I had my first opportunity to mix sound on my church's new digital mixing console. The DigiDesign SC48 is quite a powerful tool and a much needed upgrade from our old analog console. The console has so many tools that it's easy to get overwhelmed with options. It took quite a bit more mental energy for me to get used to this new tool. Included is a video I took of the board in a demo mode. I added some ambient music that I composed many years ago for your listening pleasure.

Dumping my Bluetooth headset

This Tuesday morning, I found myself at the hospital to get some testing done on my 8 week old daughter. She had been sick all weekend and she did not have any of the typical symptoms. The testing took 3 hours, so to pass the time I went to seek out a snack. The cafe had individual bundt cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes . Since it was still breakfast time, I decided to be healthy and buy the cinnamon swirl flavor instead of chocolate. On my way out, I discovered some trash in my sweatshirt pocket. I reached in and threw the trash along with my Bluetooth headset away. I should of known something was up, because just as I was about to exit the cafe, an alarm went off. The alarm triggered the doors to automaticly close. I was thinking, "Shouldn't we evacuate the building?" But everyone was just sitting around like normal. The cashier pushed the door open for me and said that I could go ahead back upstairs. Once back upstairs I found a staff person blocking my way back. Once we got the all clear, I returned to my wife and daughter. This is when I realized that my headset was missing. So, I made my way back to the cafe and pulled out my phone to see if I could sync to my headset. Sure enough I was able to pick up the signal. Now came the fun of digging through the trash to find it. Thanks to the help of my wife we were able to retrieve the headset. It's a good thing I did get the headset back, because it just happened to be the day our local law inforcement had their hands free crackdown day. They issued over 600 tickets for driving while holding the phone. Oh and my daughter tests came back normal and she seems to be healthy.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Rethinking a career in installing (digital) wallpaper

A customer of mine showed me this video of the future of home TVs. Forget about LCD's vs. Plasmas. Here's a TV that's the size of your entire wall. By the way, it's not just a TV but an entire multimedia, interactive, touch sensitive, display with the thickness of a piece of paper. Even though it won't be available for quite some time, I want one now. The only problem I see with it is that you have to get up from the couch to use it.

New laptop and getting organized

I finally convinced my boss that I needed a new laptop for work. It arrived this last week and is wonderful. The new laptop is a Lenovo and has a keyboard where all of the keys actually work. My previous laptop was a Toshiba that I inherited from a co-worker that was fired. So by the time I received it, it was already pretty worn in. At the time it was a great improvement from my Compaq brick. I got some good use out of the Toshiba for about 3 years. But it had started to become so sluggish and I was starting to get regular BSD's (blue screen of death). I was becoming concerned that the hard drive was getting ready to die. In the tech world they say it's not a matter of if a hard drive will crash but when. From the first time I opened the Lenovo I was quite impressed as to how fast it booted up and how fast applications would open up. Not wanting to clutter up this new laptop, I decided I need to work on my computer organization. I'm really bad at managing electronic files, programs, and e-mail. My computer desktop looks as messy as my real desktop, which goes hand in hand with my messy office and car trunk. So to help me with my organization, I downloaded an audio book from audible.com called Getting Things Done. We'll see if this finally helps me.

Palm Pre and Itunes

Last week Apple released a new version of Itunes that blocks direct access from the Palm Pre. This is such a stupid thing for Apple to do. I guess Apple feels the need to discriminate what platform is used to buy music from their store. What is next, is Apple going to block Windows users from Itunes? I guess Steve Jobs is back in full force. He must still be pretty bent about the Iphone team leaving Apple to go work for Palm and develop the Pre. It's things like this that make me want to go out and purchase a Palm Pre just to stick it to Apple.

Wifi on the open road

On my way to work the other day I ended up behind a bus in traffic. There was a sign on the bus that said it had Wifi access. This is the second time I ended up behind a bus advertising this. Both times I felt compelled to pull out my Ipod touch to see if I could get a connection. I know, probably not the brightest thing I could be doing while driving. The first time I was not able to pick up a signal, the second time I did. Unfortunatly they had enabled security on the router and I did not have the password. It's probably a good thing that I was not able to connect. I can already picture the senario now of me explaining to the police officer that the reason that I was tailgating the bus was to get internet access. Of course then I would become a case study for Californians to pass another law to ban the use of Wifi on buses.

Video calls on your TV

In the Mercury News today there is an article that talks about How Cisco is heavily investing in developing a way to video conference through your TV. It appears by their projections that they expect this technology to be used in the home as commonly as a phone. It makes me wonder, are we ready for a world where we're seen by whoever we are talking to? It's estimated that 60% of communication is non verbal, but through body language. What will I do now when a telemarketer calls me and sees that I'm not the mean person I pretend to be when I typically say "not interested" and quickly hang up? As a caution, if you end up adopting video calls into your home, please disable the auto answer feature.