Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

All posts that don’t obviously fit in one of the sub-categories go here.

SiteMeter

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Last week I started using SiteMeter to get a better sense of who’s
visiting smays.com. There’s a wealth of data that I haven’t taken time
to explore but I did come across a section that lists where people are
"coming from."

Location

Most of these are the result of some bizarre Google search and never come back but it illustrates how connected –if only in this small way– the world has become.

And for any international visitor who might be reading this… I am very sorry about George W. Bush. I hope we can make it up to the world.

Why no iPhone for smays.com

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IphoneGiven my love of tech toys in general and Apple stuff in particular, I find myself frequently explaining why I don’t have an iPhone (or plans to own one). Put aside the fact that I might make or receive 5 mobile calls in a week… it’s really a matter of time.

The time it would take me to get up and running is manageable. But I know I would be tweaking and “playing” with the phone until Steve Jobs is called back to that Garage in the Sky. It would be all-consuming.

For someone with very few real-world responsibilities (kids, chores, community service, etc), my days are full. Work, reading, exercise, dogs and, yes, blogging. Oh yeah… and Barb. She doesn’t get her share of my time.

The iPhone would be one more digital child I don’t have time to raise, care for and play with.

Audio Highjack Pro. Good product. Great customer service.

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Rogue Amoeba makes a great application called Audio Hijack Pro. I’ve heard nothing but good things about this tool so I jumped on their website and bought it. A great price, too. Just $32. (Mac only). They had a free trial option but I was positive this was what I needed.

Turns out it wasn’t. I screwed up. But for the hell of it, I emailed the support guys at AHP, told them what I had done and asked if they’d give me a break. And they did.

I got a well-deserved scolding first for not taking advantage of the free trial offer but they went above and beyond and deserve a little link love for it.

And I promise to always do the trial before I buy.

“Go-to device for local information”

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Lost Remotes Corey Bergman predicts the iPhone (and the apps that will be written for it) will have huge impact on local news and information:

“…the location-aware phone (and similar phones that follow) will become the go-to devices for local information. In fact, I believe local information ultimately will be consumed more on mobile than PCs.”

Where have we been getting our local information? Oh yeah, radio.

Stephen King’s Webcam

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Officecam062508No matter which direction I point my office webcam, or the time of day or season, it surprises (and delights) me with tiny, empty moments in time. I got all creepy last time I posted on this so I won’t do that this time.

This is what my webcam sees, hour after hour. This particular image brings to mind a hospital room in the wee hours. The patient can’t sleep and listens to the awful sounds of a hospital floor. Now and then a nurse or orderly passes by. But mostly it’s the empty corridor. (shudder)

Man, I gotta aim that thing out the window.

Crackberry cold turkey

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Images

“A couple of weeks ago, ABC News writers were forced to surrender their BlackBerry hand-held devices when the network clashed with the guild over after-hours work. According to people familiar with the situation, ABC asked writers and producers to sign a waiver acknowledging that they may use their BlackBerrys to monitor and compose work-related e-mail after normal working hours. When the writers guild advised its members not to sign, the network took the BlackBerrys away.” [Broadcasting & Cable]

This is one of the reasons I’ve always owned my own laptops (and most other work-related) toys. Even though the company would have probably provided some of these. I take the “carpenter’s tools” view. I know that all hammers are not the same. I want the best.

HP Elite webcam demo

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Morrisvideo

Dave Morris shows off the HP Elite webcam. This little bugger ($60?) does face-tracking and auto-zoom/auto-focus. The audio on this demo is with a pro mic, however. Not sure what you get on the webcam

Update: I misunderstood. Dave says the audio was recorded with the webcam’s on board mic.

Side note: I’m surprised the Blogger video didn’t offer option of embedding. Perhaps Dave simply didn’t have that enabled.


Flip Mino

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Mino2

I bought a Flip Ultra video camera last week, just to play with and show friends. Henry has it now and I can’t wait to see what he (an extremely talented professional digital artist) comes up with. Everybody that sees this little gadget seems to love it.

And now there’s a smaller/cuter/cooler version. The Flip Mino is 40% smaller than the Ultra and comes with 2GB of memory (records up to one hour of video). Pick one up at Amazon for $179. Shit. If I had waited a week…

Replaced Dell with Mac Mini

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I’ve had a PC running Windows in my home office for… well, since there were PC’s running Windows. And before that, a Zenith running DOS. I went through a long Gateway phase before switching to Dell. And my latest Dell tower is several years old. Since getting the Mac Book Pro a couple of years ago, I only turned the Dell on to download/install Windows security updates.

And I noticed I was spending less time in my office because I wasn’t using the PC much. And I really like my little room. I missed it. So we’re sending the Dell to the farm where it can chase rabbits and play with the other computers. Replacing it is a Mac Mini.

Mac Heads will be familiar with the Mini but for your PC folks, it’s a square little slab about the size of a cigar box. No monitor, no mouse, no keyboard… just a miniature computer. But a powerful little bugger.

Dellmacmini

But the real power is how easily it networks with my Mac Book Pro. George set it up for me and I won’t try to explain it but suffice to say I can get to all the files on both computers from either computer. Lots of syncing via .mac.

Update my iCal at work… and the Mac Book Pro iCal syncs… and the Mini syncs. I can access all the photos in iPhoto on the Mac Book, as well as my iTunes library. And so on and so forth. I know my IT friends can make all of this happen with Windows but I could not.