Underwater Tech Guy

Hilma Hooker

2012-04-16T19:46:00.001-07:00

The Salt Pier And Vista Blue Dive Sites

2012-04-16T17:05:00.003-07:00

This is a combo video of the Salt Pier which is a working salt production facility. The pier is a series of conveyor belts that move the salt to ships awaiting pickup. This structure makes for some nice habitat for Tarpon, Spotted Eagle Rays as well as all the other usual suspects.

Vista Blue dive sight is the second part where we run into the coolest little sea turtle. Great reef here as well.

Bonaire Quick Tips

2012-04-15T21:01:00.001-07:00

Bonaire Quick Facts -

Local Currency - US Dollar
Local Beer - Polar
Local Industry - Salt and Tourism
Local Cheese - Gouda

If you want freedom in your schedule and want to do some great dives, Bonaire is for you. Also, you have the freedom there to modify your spending to fit your budget.

In our experience, we paid the same amount for one dinner out as we did for a full week of air ($160 after a coupon we got and with free nitrox upgrade if you go with Dive Friends Bonaire). For this reason, we ended up doing a couple BBQ's at our rental villa (that we found on vrbo.com) and those meals turned out to be two of our favorite meals.

As for the diving, it was great! Really, the whole island is a dive site. The fish seemed to me to be more friendly than most in other countries, and they were plentiful. We saw tons of parrotfish, tangs, grouper, eels, gobies, and on and on. We also ran into a feeding Spotted Eagle Ray and a very friendly little sea turtle. Some of my favorite spots include, the Hilma Hooker, the Salt Pier, Vista Blue, 1,000 Steps, and the reef right out in front of our villa, Yellow Submarine.

Other highlights include the local Flamingos hanging out in Lac Bay and the donkeys and goats roaming freely around the island and, phew, talk about your big lizards!

Overall, I'd recommend Bonaire for a dive trip where you can set the pace yourself, but if you are on any kind of budget, plan to visit a grocery store when you get there because food can get pricey quickly.

Check out my YouTube channel to see my videos of Bonaire

Me on Twitter

2012-04-15T10:34:00.001-07:00

ME on Picasa

2012-04-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Me on Facebook

2012-04-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

GoPro HD Hero 2 and the new iPad make for a traveler's editing powerhouse

2012-04-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Edit full 1080p at 30 frames per second from the GoPro HD Hero 2 on the new iPad using iMovie. You won't believe how slick and easy this is. I'm really looking forward to going on a dive and being able to post an edited 1080p video of the dive within a couple hours. Check out this YouTube tutorial I put together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPtfRB9efA

New Toy - GoPro Hero 2 Camera

2012-03-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

Jenny just picked this up for me from Werner at Ocean Enterprises! GoPro HD Hero2 Can't wait to try this puppy out underwater in 10 days! I got a flat lens housing from eyeofmine.com to adjust for focusing under water as well. So far the picture quality looks awesome and this thing is tiny for what it does! Still need to work out the editing of the videos but I think I have a plan for making soundtracks for the videos. I'll post updates as I generate some content.

Spring Cleaning Time means Money - Gazelle.com and eBay Instant Sale

2012-03-20T08:00:00.005-07:00

Happy spring everyone!

Time for spring cleaning. This is kind of an update on our Gazelle.com and ebay instant sale experience. Today we got the last of our Gazelle.com checks for our old idevices we recycled for cashola. Still waiting for anything from eBay, hmmm. But now eBay instant takes a lot more stuff than gazelle.com (they only take a very limited selection including only Apple stuff and some other cel phones).

But we have a bunch of our own eBay auctions going now and really that's the best way to maximize spring cleaning profits, it's a bit more work, but whatcha gonna do...

-update- my lovely wife has just read about another site, glyde.com, that might be worth a look as well

new iPad initial observations

2012-03-17T16:48:00.008-07:00

I've now had a day to use this new gizmo and, wow, it looks and feels great. In my opinion, it's all about the combination of the amazing new display and the unrivaled touch accuracy on that screen.

If you are into taking pictures, making videos, or playing games, you will definitely see and feel the difference. Going back to another device will be difficult because all you'll see are those little jaggies you never noticed before. In fact, I'm noticing a lot of iPad apps have jaggies in them because they haven't updated yet. It's a little odd when they mix text with graphical text objects (like a button in an app). Time for the app developers to do some updating.

It is fast. I haven't noticed a lag yet.

The battery life seems great. I've played a lot of 3d action games today and as of right now I'm at 76% on the iPad as I write this post. Very impressed here.

The only drawback I've noticed is some fatigue in my fingers. I went from the original iPad to the new one. This may sound odd but I think this one might be a little thin for my hands. I might go out and buy one of those big grippy cases like OtterBox Defender Series for The New iPad 3 3rd Generation & iPad 2 - Black
And as an added bonus, with this case I can drop it too :)

--UPDATE-- just wanted to mention that full Siri was not included on the new iPad. I think this might just be because the Apple servers can't handle the increased data traffic load yet and I expect to see it soon, but I am missing Siri on this iPad. The voice dictation is very cool though.

smart phone security check

2012-03-14T22:05:00.005-07:00

It occurred to me today that I see a lot of phones that make me feel uneasy because of potential security problems.

The first thing I do with a new phone is assume I will lose it. I have a lot of sensitive data on there like contacts, emails, passwords and other data. It would be frustrating to lose the phone, but potentially devastating to lose that data.

So here's what I do to my iPhone -

- set the screen lock password. Yes, it's a little annoying, but you can set the lock time to be higher if locking after a minute bugs you too much.

- set the phone to delete all data after a specified amount of attempts. If someone has enough attempts, they will guess your password.

- set up a remote management app like find my iPhone. You might get your phone back but if you don't find it you can delete everything off of it.

and really, that's about it. pretty simple, but trust me on this, if you ever lose your phone, you'll feel better knowing someone doesn't have your data.

So Apple server outtages are ok now?

2012-03-11T19:31:00.003-07:00

Just making an observation here but I think the newest thing about the new iPad is that apparently we all are now used to the Apple store servers going down at a product announcement. Previously, it seems like we'd read at least an article or two about how the servers couldn't handle it, but to my knowledge I'm the first one mentioning it this time.

That's ok though, I think it's clear that this is a case a massive product interest instead of a weak server farm like it may be interpreted with a lesser known company.

My intent on recognizing this is to hypothesize what this phenomena means in regards to investing in the company. I think this shows how much trust consumers have in the pattern of successful products Apple has. Even detractors don't bother to point out the Apple Store going up and down on product launch.

So considering Apple seems to know what they're doing financially (they're in the elite $500 billion club) and they still put out products people snap up almost by reflex, I'd say Apple is still a good investment at this point in time.

Happy Friday!

2012-03-09T19:00:00.001-08:00

Friday finally! That is all...

Last Chance to sell your old iPad!

2012-03-06T15:21:00.005-08:00

The big day is tomorrow - iPad HD (or 3 or whatever) will be announced!

Jenny and I are planning on upgrading but it seems like a waste to have our old ones sitting around neglected. I highly recommend selling yours as well very soon because once they announce the new one, resale supply for the older models will drive down prices.

I think the best way to go is to sell it to a friend or co-worker who has a cute child in need, but if that situation doesn't apply to you check out gazelle.com and instantsale.ebay.com. These services will lock in a price at which they will buy your old electronics. They pay shipping.

Compare prices and sell them now. It makes it much easier to justify buying the new model :)

My take on the Amazon Kindle Fire.

2012-03-05T14:26:00.015-08:00

-- Kindle Fire key points--

PROS
- it's $199
- nice size and a surprisingly good display
- it's tough
- it comes with a month of Amazon Prime
- web browsing is pretty good
- would make a great kid's tablet

- it's $199

CONS
- it's not an iPad
- feels a bit laggy if you forget it only cost you $199
- limited app store

The first thing I have to say on this subject is that you shouldn't compare this to an iPad directly. They are vastly different products and should be thought of as such.

The Kindle Fire costs $199. This is a huge point. That's a fraction of the cost of an iPad and that needs to be considered when looking at what it can and can't do.

It comes with a free month of Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime lets you stream movies and TV shows on the Kindle Fire and gives you free two day shipping on Amazon.com. It also lets you check out one book at a time from some selections from the Kindle library. Prime is actually a pretty neat service and I'm considering continuing to maintain the service at its annual price of $79. I watch a lot of TV and it seems like Amazon prime has some pretty good exclusive content. Plus if you're in the market to make some big purchases (physically big) this might be a good reason to pick up the Kindle Fire because it could potentially save you quite a lot in shipping costs.

As for the device itself I think my favorite part is the size. It is large enough to comfortably read and watch movies or TV shows but it is small enough to fit in my back pocket. Plus this thing seems pretty rugged. It has Gorilla Glass and I haven't found a need for a screen protector yet and I must say I haven't treated it delicately. I must also say that the display is pretty darn impressive for a $199 tablet. I think a lot of parents will be or have already gotten one of these for their kids. There was an issue in the beginning with kids auto-purchasing content and racking up credit card bills but that has been resolved now that you can require a password for purchasing things.

Really, the intent of the Kindle Fire is to be a storefront to the world of Amazon. I can't really comment on e-books since I'm not an avid reader. But I must say it streams the heck out of Netflix.

You can get a lot of apps that are commonly found on the Android AppStore but I must say I am a little disappointed that the selection isn't as complete as I would like. It seems pretty clear that they want to keep you locked into Amazon products so they limit the selection. You won't find your Google apps here without finding a way to side load them onto it.

Web browsing is pretty good. Not great, but good. It's clunky at times but really that's all about whatever website you get to. It will do Flash content, but it tends to feel strained. Again it's $199.

Also if you're a geek, you can root this thing and put android on it which is pretty. eat, but wai until your Prime trial ends because that will break.

All in all, for $199 it's pretty neat-o!

how to auto data mine yourself

2012-03-04T12:35:00.005-08:00

There's been a lot of talk lately about Google's new unified privacy policy. How much of an issue is it for you?

It's time to Google yourself. I find that using my name comes back with WAY too many results that don't apply to me. But here's a short list that brings back useful info

- your email addresses

- the username/usernames you register as on websites

A LOT of websites you register with have social functions that you won't even use, but they will still show up on Google.

So now that you've seen your tracks on the web, it's time to automate your web privacy. It's simpler than you might think. Go here:

http://www.google.com/alerts

Set up alerts to include your usernames and email addresses and you'll see what new information Google learns about you on a daily/weekly basis.

Ahhh, peace of mind. Now Google can sell you all kinds of stuff that pertains to your life and you don't have to worry about being big brothered in a bad way.

We're back - all photos posted

2008-02-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody. We're back now. What an awesome trip! Great diving, great food, great people.

Check out my picasa web page at - http://picasaweb.google.com/thoma004 for all the pictures.

(We got some good ones, but there's some junk up there as well. We'll weed it down when we get a chance).

Pictures!

2008-02-13T12:09:00.000-08:00

Hi all, we finally made it down to the "Mousepad" to upload some pictures!

ok, so here is our private plane that took us from Belize City out to Ambergris Caye.

These are a couple shots from the plane.

Jenny in the Supermarket. All the comforts of home :)

Our room.

Our View from the room. This is the third floor. Great view but a bit of a hike up stairs after diving.

Our dive operation - Amigos Del Mar. Awesome place, they take care of everything. We haven't had to mess with our gear since we dropped it off on our first day of diving. We are diving with Captain Rene and Divemaster Tony - both are excellent!!

Our first dive - Jenny petting a shark and a curious grouper.

A neat little school of fish hiding out from the current.

Oh my! Sharks :)

A neat little neon purple sponge (these are all over as well, very neat).

And this is Jenny's new little baby. Yes, that's a shark...

Wahoo!!

2008-02-12T18:15:00.000-08:00

Hi all, still no pics - too lazy to go down to the internet cafe to get access to a better computer. Too tired from all the diving :) Well, we have some good shots now (heehee) and we hope to get them up tomorrow. But wow, the diving is just awesome! The food is also awesome so there goes that whole exercise and diet thing :) But I guess we're doing more kicking here than in Cozumel so that's burning more calories, right?

Anyway, wish you were here!! Pics tomorrow (if we can get that working, otherwise I'll just google some generic diving pics and say that we took them :)

We're here!

2008-02-10T18:40:00.000-08:00

Hi all, we made it here. The trip was pretty standard. Wait in the usual lines at LAX, then in El Salvador. Get on the plane and smell the chicken until we get to Belize. But then it got interesting. We got our own private plane to Ambergris Caye. We've got some pictures but we're blogging on a shared public computer that's kind of locked down (I'll try more later to get pix going.)

Anyway, diving is GREAT!! I forgot how to use the wite balance on the camera but I'll get better pix tomorrow. Amigos del Mar so far seem great. I don't think we'll have to mess with our gear again until we go home :) Also Scott, I'm using a 100cf tank. Yay for Jenny!

Food is great, still kind of tired though, more later! hopefully pix!

BELIZE!

2008-02-08T16:10:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody! This is where I will be posting our trip to Belize. Wahoo, my blogger account still works!

We're just hanging around the house now waiting to head up to LAX. Yay, I just remembered my earbud audio splitter for the plane, ok enough random thoughts, I don't want to bore everyone before we hit the road.

Check back soon!

How to choose someone to fix your computer.

2006-06-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

I work in k-12 public education. I get asked almost daily "do you know anyone good that can fix my computer at home?"

I have some tips that might help you figure out who should fix your computer.

Ask your IT department at work (or have your spouse ask theirs.) The way the industry works, odds are very good that your IT support people do side work. We are ALWAYS networking for jobs and very often we do this through side work. I personally have occasionally done side work for free if the person I am helping will pass my resume onto someone they have a personal connection to. If your IT department doesn't do side work they most likely can recommend someone personally. This of course only applies if you like your tech support people - there are some really bad ones out there so be careful (but you definitely know if you like them or not, trust your instincts.)

Ask your friends and coworkers. The most important thing is to make a personal connection. Chances are very good that someone you know has employed someone to fix their computer at home.

Choose someone you trust! You have A LOT of private information on your computer. If a criminal can get their hands on your computer they can gain access very easily (in most cases) to your personal email, bank accounts and whatever else you have on there. You also have to make sure they aren't going to get you in trouble with putting pirated software on your computer or getting you in trouble for having mp3's on your computer (even if you legally own them they could cause problems for you.)

Never trust someone that says they are an expert! This is a very important one. If someone tells you this, they are most likely more of a salesman than tech help. Good computer support should be humble. They will tell you that they have some experience with the problem but all of the good ones will also tell you that using computers is more of a constantly evolving process rather than something you learn for a while then label yourself an expert. By the way, this holds true for you hiring managers out there as well!!! It's not like spelling, where it is either right or wrong and there is one way to do it. There are a few more layers to this and you want someone that has a broad knowledge base and is creative enough to find a solution for you.

Don't age discriminate. Even though I personally don't fit into the 'young' category anymore, I work in the public school system and I can tell you that there are some very trustworthy and talented high school (and even middle school) students out there that would love to help you out. You might even get creative with your payment options because depending on where you live, these kids might need community service hours to clear their graduation requirements.

Consider getting a new computer. These days it, in my opinion, it is actually usually better to just bite the bullet and buy a new computer. Work the numbers here. It is going to cost you a sizeable portion of a new computer for you to fix your old one. Every day technology gets faster and prices come down. It may seem difficult to get used to a new system but with current technology it really is pretty easy to move into a new system. Check out the outrageous deals at DELL, you might be surprised how far your dollar can go. Obviously this isn't always the way to go because you may have special programs installed or specific older hardware you want to keep using.

What about the geek squad? This is a tough one and a total roll of the dice. To be honest, I have heard some bad things and I've heard some good things. I would recommend that if you do use the geek squad, don't be the first one on your block to do so. Refer to point 2. I would only use them if a personal friend or coworker has had previous dealings with a particular 'geek'. Get a name and request that person specifically.

If you're feeling brave try it yourself. This is the best person to trust. Some people are really reluctant to try to fix their own computer. But usually these people that realize they can destroy their computer do actually have the sense it takes to try and fix it yourself. Respect the fear and know when to stop, but if you can get to google, you might as well give it a shot. Just type in that error message (or problem description) and see what comes up. The fix might be easy. If you do this, make sure to include things like your version of windows (98, xp, etc) and the program you are using. Searching for tech help is an art form and takes a while to get a hang of. You might also try going to a system restore point (Windows XP only). If things are really messed up, doing this won't lose your data, but you might need to reinstall some programs after. To try this, click on 'start', 'programs', 'accessories', 'system tools', 'system restore'. Follow the wizard from there to hopefully go back to a happier time in your computer's life where everything worked.

I hope this guide has given you a couple things to think about and most importantly I hope you never get to the point where you need this little guide!

MY BROWSER OPENS TOO SLOWLY!!!!

2006-05-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

I know this has happened to you. You are away from your computer, having a conversation with someone and you think to yourself, "I've got to google that later..." But by the time you get to your computer and open up the web browser you've completely forgotten what it is you were going to google! UGH! What's worse is that, you KNOW there was something you wanted to look for and thought to yourself at that moment "that would make for some good surfing later..."

This is my biggest computing pet peave right now!

I've come up with a couple thoughts on how to help overcome this. But I'm still looking for a good solution so please post ideas, I'm going nuts here....

On my browser, I set the start page to blank. The reason for this is because it used to be one of my webmail pages. Of course when it comes up with that, I'm going to log in like I have a million times before and start browsing my spam. Of course, this distraction kills any chance of me remembering what the heck it was I opened the browser for in the first place.

I've also played with the idea of keeping a voice recorder on me at all times so I can take notes during my day. But even though I think this makes sense, when I first tried it, I was ridiculed unrelentingly because I was trying to 'look cool'. Plus I never got into the habbit of checking my voice recorder so months later I finally did google how much tickets were for that concert that was last week.

Other than that, I'm out of ideas. Maybe I need to upgrade again because if my web browser loaded just half a second earlier, maybe I'd remember what it was I wanted to look for.

Hey John, how about a Walleteer for this??

LG VX5200 with Verizon as a cel modem

2006-05-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

I recently went through a bit of a roller coaster on getting my new LG VX5200 to work as a usb cel modem with my laptop using Verizon wireless.

End result - pretty darn cool!

I first bought a cheap cable on ebay.
I then got the drivers from this site
I plugged it in and my laptop picked it up and installed it with seemingly no problem.
I then configured a new dial-up connection (manually) with the following settings.

Set it to dial #777
User Name: "phone#"@vzw3g.com
Password: vzw

It connected, but VERY slowly.
I thought this was something to do with my service but it turned out to be a bad cable.

I tried using bitpim with the cheap cable and it could never detect the phone.

I finally got frustrated, went to BestBuy and picked up Pix'n Tunes for $30. This is actually a pretty cool package especially if you have friends and family that have different phones. It comes with 6 partial cables that fit different phones. I was able to use one for me and one for my mom (with another usb female to male extension cable).

With this new cable, everything works fine. The service through Verizon just uses minutes so for me it is great for nights and weekends especially. It connects at 115k and is very useable for email and light surfing. It is also pretty useable for remote control apps like logmein, especially if you crank down the color depth to black and white.

I hope someone out there finds this write-up useful. It kept me from buying an expensive smartphone like a Treo 700, Treo 650, Samsung SCH-i730 or Verizon XV6700.

I think this was a good solution considering the price and I already had a laptop. $30 for the LG VX5200 after rebate and just the cheapest phone plan they offer.

Healthy Geek Recipe - Soylent Salad V1.0 aka Spinach Smoothie aka Salad Slurry

2006-05-07T20:51:00.002-07:00

Salad bothers me. It takes too long to eat, it doesn't have a whole lot of flavor, and I guess I'm a messy eater because I always end up wearing bleu cheese or ranch afterward.

The health benefits are a given - tons of easily absorbable essential nutrients and it keeps the system running smoothly. Over the years I've tried to get in the habbit of eating salads but I've just never been able to stick to it, until I figured out the Spinach Smoothie (or Soylent Salad or Salad Slurry).

The concept is simple. Take whats good about the salad and just get it over with. Change your perception of salad into more of a medicinal thing instead of an eating experience.

Here's the process, buy a blender or a Magic Bullet, go to the store and pick up some greenery, add some water, liquify it, then chug!

What's needed -

Before -

After -

I personally like the Magic Bullet because it gives that spinach a nice frothy texture. This drink is perfect for geeks because you can whip one up and chug it while your waiting for some files to download. Chug your dinner during the cutscenes in that game your playing.

Of course this recipe is easily modified. Get creative. Use what you have. No tomatoes? Ketchup is a vegtable (hot sauce is too right?) Use those packets you've been saving from the drive thru, what the heck.

Throw in a Red Bull for kick and flavor. Why not, you don't drink them for the flavor anyway.

Adding a Chalupa might be going to far, but maybe not. Try it and let me know. It might just be not too far enough.

McDonalds almost had it right when they put a side salad in a cup a while back. They just didn't follow through with the concept.

The only downside of this is all of the grossed out looks you get from people that actually like eating salad. But whatever, the ends justify the means (Constructive Machiavellianism at work).

Finally - salad for geeks on the go!