This summer brought me an opportunity to experience the power of unplugging life’s digital information fire hose. I wasn’t trying to study the effects of unplugging like a group of neuroscientists recently did. Rather, I was helping my son and the other Boy Scouts in his troop earn some merit badges and enjoy a week of camping.

We didn’t camp extremely far from civilization, but we didn’t bring a television, DVD player, radio, iPod or video game. I had my cellphone, but the cell signal was weak and the phone had to stay off to ensure that I had enough battery power left in case an emergency arose.

Three significant things happened during this electronic-free week:

• We completed tasks
• We communicated
• We had fun!

Without the electronic distractions, my son had the time to complete a rank advancement, the environmental science merit badge and the archery merit badge. I also had the time to help him with the work and encourage him through the tough parts.

We walked almost everywhere during that week. Walking is a great time to chat with people and get to know them better. My son and I had time to talk about matters great and small, he got to know his fellow scouts better and I got to know the adult leaders better.

Finally, we all had a lot of fun! There was plenty of time to enjoy the summer weather, do some fishing, canoeing, or just watch the sun set.

When we returned, I was actually reluctant to turn everything back on. It took me a day to fire up the email and many days to open up Google Reader to see what had queued up in my RSS feeds. Eventually, I was back up to speed with my digital life, but I had a new appreciation of the power of turning the digital distractions off.

The next time you have an important task to finish, try turning off the distractions. Shut down your email client, instant message client, web browser and cell phone for a few hours. Then, focus on the task at hand. You will be surprised at how much you can accomplish!

I recently decided to violate my “never install a dot zero release” rule and installed iOS 4.0 on my iPod touch. The features that I could use on my second generation hardware were nice, but I immediately noticed that the battery drained in a couple of days, even though the iPod was in sleep mode.

Apparently there is a bug where the Wi-Fi will stay on even when the iPod is asleep. That does no good because none of the applications that could benefit, like email, stay on.

I’ve found that the workaround which does the best job of preserving the battery’s charge is to switch the iPod into Airplane Mode. The switch to turn on Airplane Mode is right at the top of the Settings screen.

In practice, I turn on Airplane mode and then hit sleep. When I unsleep, the Settings screen is still there and I just turn off Airplane mode. It is a couple of extra steps, but it is doing the job for now. I had high hopes for a fix in iOS 4.0.2, but no luck there. Hopefully iOS 4.1 will have a fix!

This morning I read about Ellen Degeneres' iPhone commercial spoof. I couldn’t believe how Apple took a golden marketing moment and turned it into a PR disaster. Ellen poked fun at herself in the commercial, fumbling her way through a couple of text messages. Apple was offended, Ellen relented and apologized, sort of. The full commercial and pseudo-apology is below.

This evening it appears that Apple may have learned from its earlier mistake, as this next story about a woman who couldn’t purchase an iPad with cash illustrates.

YouTube celebrated its fifth birthday on April 23, 2010. The Chicago Tribune has a nice summary of YouTube facts that you can use to amaze your friends at the next trivia contest. For example, the first animal to appear on YouTube was also in the first video to be uploaded:

So, happy birthday, YouTube, and thanks for letting us share ourselves with the world!

Thanks to the team who wrote and supports MobilePress, michaelwlind.com is now available in a mobile version! Just point your iPhone, iPod Touch, Android phone or other mobile phone to http://michaelwlind.com and you will automatically see the mobile version. You can also switch back to the full version using a link at the bottom of the mobile page.

WordPress feed has a nice summary of plugins that can take your WordPress blog mobile. I wound up choosing MobilePress because it worked with every mobile device I had available and it did not require a signup with another service to convert the page to mobile format. Some plugins looked slick on an iPod Touch, but didn’t work on older mobile browsers. Other plugins promised to work with any mobile browser out there, but required you to sign up with a separate service. MobilePress fit my requirements best and worked without having to tweak any code!

Here is a screenshot of michaelwlind.com as viewed on an iPod Touch.

My Y2K started at 6:00 PM central time. We watched the clocks on the network equipment we supported roll over to 00:00:00 Greenwich Mean Time. I didn’t live far from the office, so I drove home and celebrated the new year, decade, century and millenium by watching the the ball drop in New York City at 11:00 PM central time. After a quick New Millennium kiss from my wife, I went back to the office for the central time rollover.

All of our preparations paid off and we didn’t have a single Y2K-related incident on the network! As we predicted, Y2K was just another working holiday.

For the kids out there who don’t remember Y2K, watch the video for a taste of the pre-Y2K hysteria. For those of you who were there, what do you remember most?

If you are a fan of vintage video games, then stop by your nearest bookstore and pick up a copy of the Fall 2009 issue of American Heritage’s Invention and Technology magazine. Mark Wolverton has a great interview of Ralph Baer, the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey video game, which was a forerunner of Atari Pong.

Baer first had his idea for the video game while working on early television test equipment, but it took 15 years before he started to develop the game and another five years before the game was released as a product.

Although you can read the article on the web, the magazine has many more photos and other interesting articles about the history of technology and is definitely worth the cover price.

Unseasonably warm November weather made my recent visit to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin that much better. From simple handcars to the Union Pacific Big Boy steam locomotive, there is plenty for railfans to see and enjoy. Photos only give a taste of how magnificent the old locomotives and rolling stock are. Enjoy the photos below and the next time you are in Wisconsin, plan a visit!

A recent trip to San Diego turned out to be a great opportunity to do see large and scale size railroads. I stayed downtown, only blocks from the old Santa Fe Depot and with easy access to the city’s light rail system. I finished off the trip with a visit to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, where a HO scale model of the Santa Fe Depot is featured on a layout under construction. If you are a railfan and are planning a trip to see San Diego, be sure to add these sites to your itinerary!