Mike Zupan Photography & Tech

Re-thinking my backup and storage strategy

2010-01-03T01:39:00.000-05:00

Remember the days when backing up your data meant saving it to a floppy disc, and a 40 MB hard drive was considered HUGE? Well, that's not the case in today's world of affordable 2 TB hard drives.

I have a 1.5 TB hard drive which holds my media consisting of 69.5 GB music, 44.5 GB photos, and 168 GB of videos. My collection is growing daily as I continue to digitize all of my media. And if you're wondering... yes, it is all legitimately purchased. I want all of my media digitized so that I can stream it to my various televisions without the need to bother with a disc.

I currently use Acronis True Image Home 2010 to back up my data to a Western Digital My Book 500 GB external hard drive. The problem that I run into is that I have outgrown the ability to do a full image backup of my system drive.

Options that I have considered include:

Purchase a larger external drive to accommodate the larger backups.
Purchase another 1.5 TB or 2 TB internal hard drive.
Only back up my media files and not the entire system.

Well, with my goal of streaming my media to other rooms in mind, I decided not to go with any of these. Continuously purchasing larger external hard drives would be costly. And I really don't want to have to keep my computer up all the time, preventing it from entering sleep mode.

I decided to look into NAS (Network Attached Storage) options, and I found an affordable solution that meets my needs. I chose the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo RND2110.

The Netgear ReadyNAS Duo that I ordered comes with a 1 TB hard drive. That's more than enough to store my media. But by adding a second hard drive to the NAS, it will automatically clone the existing hard drive so you have a complete backup of all of your data automatically. And it is DNLA compatible, so you can share the media with a compatible device (such as an Xbox 360, PS3, or any number of devices for streaming media) without the need for the computer to be on!

One of the nice things about a NAS is that it is expandable. This one comes with a 1 TB drive, but I can toss a 2 TB drive in there now as the second drive, and when I set aside some money to upgrade the original 1 TB drive to a 2 TB drive, it is as easy as pulling out the existing drive and putting in the new one. It will then mirror the 2 TB drive over to the new one. If I want to keep an offsite backup, just get a third drive and rotate them out on a schedule.

This is much more appealing than my original three options. It saves electricity by allowing me to shut down my power hungry PC while making my media library available to devices for playback on my televisions. And if I bring additional computers online, all of my media is instantly available via the NAS.

Digital media for your living room

2009-12-30T22:21:00.002-05:00

Digital photos and audio have been extremely popular for several years. Programs such as iTunes and Picasa make them easy to integrate into our daily lives, especially with the death of DRM (Digital Rights Management) for music files. DRM basically tied your music to one computer and forced you to only use the music player which you purchased the songs with.

Digital video has been around for a while too, but it has always been limited (and somewhat taboo) due to the complications involved in either converting a DVD to a digital file, or downloading that video illegally from the Internet.

Just recently a push has been made to legitimize digital video content with services such as Amazon Video on Demand, iTunes Store, and Netflix streaming. There is also Digital Copy, which is a digital copy of a movie that comes with several new DVD and Blu-Ray movies. Unfortunately, all of these options use DRM and tie you to using a specific computer, or a specific program to play it. The Amazon and Netflix services mentioned can easily be streamed to any computer that you are logged into their service with, but what about if you want to copy that movie to your laptop or iPod to watch while riding a subway to work, or when you are traveling and don't have Internet access? And if you don't have a device that is compatible with the service then you are pretty much out of luck.

That's a huge problem, and is what is holding back the adoption of this technology from the mainstream public. And Blu-Ray is in a weird limbo too because it is sandwiched in between the established DVD technology (which everybody has), and this new digital media technology.

Digital Copy was also poorly executed. I have several movies that came with Digital Copy versions of the movie, but I haven't activated a single of them because you have to choose at the time of activation whether you want a version that will play in iTunes or if you want a version that will play in Windows Media Player. You can't have both, and you only get one activation. How do I know what computer or devices I want to use that file on in the future. If you have an iPod/iPhone, only the iTunes version will work. But what if you have a Zune HD, or any other device? Digital Copy will never take off as long as it contains DRM and you are limited as to what you can use to play it.

I want to watch movies/videos on my television!
The other challenge has always been how to get the movie/video files to play on your living room television.

Media Center PCs have been around for several years. I have built a few myself, and they work relatively well, and are usually the most diversified in what they will play on your TV. But they are generally high maintenance. You've got to keep up with Windows updates, driver updates, software updates, and antivirus protection. You pretty much have to be an "IT guy" with lots of time and patience in order to even consider this option. And who wants a huge ugly PC sitting in their living room with the loud fan buzzing away? There are some more attractive Media Center PC options available today such as the Dell Inspiron Zino HD and the Apple Mac Mini, both of which have a small footprint.

AppleTV was the first device which made it simple to stream content to your television that was purchased or rented from the iTunes Store. This works great for iTunes content, and is the only device which can play iTunes video on the TV. It has a beautiful simple to use interface. But that limitation of only playing iTunes content is what eventually caused me to get rid of mine.

Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 will stream content from your PC, but both are very finicky about what file formats they support. And neither will play DRM protected audio or video, unless purchased from their own respective online store.

I recently purchased a WDTV Live for a couple of family members. The user interface is nothing to write home about, but it is completely silent and it plays a wide variety of video file types. It has Pandora, Flickr, and Live 365 built into the box. And you can use a program such as PlayOn to stream a plethora of other content to the box, such as Hulu and Netflix. If you need/want something right now, I highly recommend WDTV Live.

However, Boxee has recently announced that they will be releasing the Boxee Box. Speculation is that it will be available Q2 2010, but no official release date has been announced. It has an extremely polished and intuitive interface and connects you to an extensive amount of online content (Hulu, Netflix, etc.) natively without the need for additional software to be run on a computer. And just like the WDTV Live, Boxee has long been known to play a wide variety of video formats. I'm not too fond of the sunken cube look, but the Boxee Box uses an RF remote. This means that you can hide the box in a cabinet because the remote control does not require a direct line of sight to work. I think the Boxee Box is going to change how a lot of people watch their video content. Watch out for this one!

Here's the announcement video for the Boxee Box.

Photo calendars make great holiday gifts

2009-12-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

For the past few years, I have been creating calendars for my family using my photos and family birthdays. They've been well received and I'm constantly reminded to do a new one right around Christmas time.

Gather your dates
The tedious part of creating a calendar is gathering and documenting birthdays and anniversary's of everyone that the recipients of the calendars might want. If you are from a broken family, or are giving the calendar to multiple families, then this can be a lot of work. I find that it is best to document all of the birthdays in your address book and group each of the people into tags or groups based on what calendar they should be included in.

If you are just creating one calendar for your parents, then it is pretty simple and straight-forward.

However, if your parents have separated and have families of their own, it becomes much more complicated. You have to split the birthdays into separate groups... one for your father's family and one for your mother's family, because your father probably isn't concerned with the birthdays of your mother's side of the family and vice versa. If you have a sibling who is married, then another group of dates might be required to include their spouses family. When you account for the birthdays/anniversaries of aunts, uncles, and cousins, it adds up.

I find that it is easiest to use Google Calendar to create a separate calendar for the dates that you want on each of the calendars you are going to create. Here is a list of the Google Calendars that I have solely for creating photo calendars to give out at Christmas.

Mother - Includes her side of the family, as well as the dates of her husband's family.
Father - Includes only his side of the family.
Me - Includes everything in the Mother calendar and Father calendar.
Sister's husband's family - Includes only her husband's family dates.
My Sister - Easiest one... includes everything from all of the calendars listed above.

Choose your photos wisely!
The first year that I created calendars, I just used some of my best photos... no people at all!

Once you start adding people to photos, it complicates things. You run into the same challenge of segregating your photos based on who is in the photos. In the calendar examples above, I wouldn't want to put photos of my father in my mother's calendar. And my sister's husband's family probably wouldn't enjoy photos of my parents. Someone is bound to be offended.

If you don't want to drive yourself crazy spending countless hours sorting photos, stick to a common subject or stay away from people photos completely. One year I made a calendar of just photos of me and my sister growing up (there are some embarrassing ones in there!). And for the past two years, the calendars have been of my niece, so that is appealing to everyone! When picking photos, I just try to pick ones that don't include other family members.

Creating and ordering your calendar
Choosing a calendar service for creating and ordering your calendars is important. So far, I have used Apple, Kodak Gallery, and Shutterfly.

Apple - For Mac users it's a no brainer! Create your calendar in iPhoto and order the calendar from Apple. They have the best quality calendars of all three services I have tried, but they are also quite a bit more expensive. Calendar creation in iPhoto is a simple and seamless process. It pulls dates directly from your iCal calendar(s), and the photos directly from iPhoto. I created my calendars in Google Calendar (as described above), and then set up iCal to pull those calendars by the Google Calendar links. Sadly, I don't use a Mac anymore, and I haven't found any other calendar services that offer that level of integration with your existing data.

Kodak Gallery - I used Kodak one time. Overall, I was pleased with the quality of the calendar, but the spiral binding was too small for the calendar pages to turn. So you ended up having to force the pages to flip to the next month. Also, everything was a manual process. You have to upload your photos to the Kodak service using their proprietary photo web uploader, and you have to enter the dates manually. It was a lot of work! In the end, I chose not to use Kodak again due to the issue with the spiral binding.

Shutterfly - This is my second year using Shutterfly, and overall I like them. The overall quality is nice and the pages flip easily in the spiral binding. Unfortunately, you do have to upload your photos to the Shutterfly website using their proprietary web uploader, and you do have to manually enter all of the dates into their website. But the site maintains those dates on your account, so you only have to enter them once. Unfortunately it does not allow you to group the dates or assign tags. Pricing is nice and the calendars are very customizable. I will continue to use Shutterfly in the future unless something better comes along.

Ideal calendar solution?
What I really want to see is a company that lets me use my existing data where it currently resides. I am a Google person, so I would like to use my own Google Calendars, and my own GMail contacts, and my photos from Picasa or the Picasa Web site.

Google already has all of the functionality in place that Apple has for a fully integrated calendar service. Google just needs to add an add-on/plugin built into their Picasa application. Picasa can already pull data from my GMail contacts. I am sure it would be simple to have it input the calendar information from my Google Calendar too. Google wouldn't even need to build the integration. Calendar websites, such as Shutterfly or Kodak, could build plugins so that you could build the calendar in Picasa and then automatically upload the compiled calendar data/photos to Shutterfly or Kodak for processing.

Seems like a no-brainer, but so far nobody besides Apple has made photo calendar creation a seamless process. We'll see what happens next year.

What are your thoughts and recommendations?

Blogger comments needs improvement

2009-11-29T22:50:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, my main gripe with Blogger is their comment system. I am a big fan of people being accountable for their actions/comments. Most people are honest and considerate. But there are a few who hide behind the anonymity of the Internet and sling rude comments, disrupting the experience for others.

Unfortunately, the only way to dissuade this behavior is to require people to create an account and sign in to post a comment. I don't feel that this is a very good solution, because that's just one more login and password for you to remember.

About a year ago, Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect were created to be your personal centralized identity that you can use to log into any sites that choose to adopt the technology. I run into sites left and right that have implemented Facebook Connect for their commenting system, but aside from Blogger, I haven't seen Google Friend Connect anywhere else.

Google/Blogger was one of the first to embrace OpenID, and I applaud them for that. But what about allowing comments for users of other popular systems that tie an identity to that person, such as Twitter, MySpace, and most importantly Facebook Connect?

Over the past couple weeks that I have been considering switching back to Blogger from a self-hosted Wordpress site, I have investigated options that allow this kind of freedom. So far, I have found only two that are worth mentioning...

DISQUS is free. Their system allows visitors to your site to choose to leave a comment with their Facebook, OpenID, Twitter, or DISQUS identity. Nearly everyone is going to recognize what Facebook and Twitter is, but who in the heck (besides the tech savvy) is going to know what OpenID or DISQUS is? Probably not many, and that's why I won't be implementing DISQUS into my site.

JS-Kit ECHO is not free, but they appear to be on the right track. ECHO allows visitors to choose from several identities, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Blogger, and several others. They also allow the visitor to subscribe to the comments thread, include images and video, and also re-post their comment to their personal site (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) if they choose to do so. These features can all be enabled or disabled as desired. The fee for this service is $12 per year.

I am considering JS-Kit ECHO for my blogger comments. It is a nice system and offers a lot of flexibility. They have a 30-day full refund policy if you aren't satisfied, but would much more prefer a 15-30 day free trial instead to see if I want to purchase it.

That said, if Google would just add Facebook Connect as an identity option for posting comments, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

I'm back on Blogger

2009-11-29T03:55:00.001-05:00

After switching back to my self-hosted Wordpress site for the past year, I have decided to hang that up and come back to Blogger. Maintaining a self-hosted blog has a lot of benefits. You have so much more flexibility with what you can do with your site.

But it's a lot of work to maintain. You have to perform upgrades to the software, and do regular backups of the site and databases. If you want to switch themes then you have to make sure that any extra code that you have added is copied into the new template. I just decided that I wanted something simpler that I can focus on writing instead of maintaining the site.

Blogger has come quite a ways. I like that you can now easily use photos from your Picasa album. The one thing that I am going to miss is the ability to use Facebook Connect to allow Facebook users to leave comments via their Facebook account. I know that Google has their Google Friend Connect, and I like it... but I hope that they consider adding Facebook Connect as a means to leave comments and subscribe to a Blogger site.

A lot has happened since my last post. I'll provide details soon.

Upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Release Candidate

2009-05-10T11:10:00.000-04:00

I am an early adopter by nature. I love new tech! Sometimes it bites me in the ass (Windows Me, Windows Vista), but other times it is a wonderful thing!

I have been beta testing Windows 7 off and on over the past several months. I started testing it on my Mac Pro using VMware Fusion (virtual machine) early on in the beta program. I was impressed with the stability and speed so early in the beta.

As the beta matured, I started re-thinking whether I wanted to stick with my Mac, or switch back to PC. I had originally switched to Mac after experiencing the abomination of Vista during it's early days. Vista was unstable and XP was having stability issues of its own, so I switched to the greener pastures that Mac OS X.

Between the news of Diablo III began circulating (which I knew I was going to want to play), first-hand knowledge of the stability of Windows 7, and my thirst for new technology, I decided to build a new PC and install Windows Vista Ultimate x64. Vista has come a long way! Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised with Vista's stability and driver support. However, it still feels like a sluggish memory hog compared to Windows 7.

About a week ago, Microsoft released the Release Candidate for Windows 7. I had thought about installing it in a dual boot configuration and keeping Vista as my primary OS until the final release, but after reading the forums and finding no show-stopping issues, I decided to dive in head first and install it as my primary OS.

Upgrade: I performed an upgrade from Vista x64 to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. The upgrade process took about an hour, but once you start the upgrade you can walk away from it and it will do the upgrade with minimal user input at the end of the upgrade. This is the most smooth upgrade in the history of Windows!

Driver Support: All of my devices that were working under Windows Vista were still working under Windows 7! On May 6, nVidia released a WHQL-certified driver (version 185.85) for Windows 7. Creative Labs also has a Windows 7 beta driver available for their sound cards, but I did not install that yet. My audio is working fine with the existing driver.

Problems Found: The only problems that I have experienced so far are:

My iPhone (1st gen, 8 GB) is having conflicts with the CD/DVD drive. Whenever I plug the iPhone in, I get the regular sounds associated with Windows detecting new hardware. But then I get a series of sounds of hardware being added and removed. This happens several times and usually results with the CD/DVD drive being disabled. One time, this even crashed Windows Explorer. After I undock the iPhone and scan for hardware changes (or reboot the computer), the CD/DVD drive returns.
I received the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death) when I left my computer on overnight. When I woke up the next morning, I found a message that my computer had recovered from an a bluescreen error. I have since updated to the WHQL-certified nVidia video driver and have not been able to reproduce the BSOD. I suspect this fixed the issue, but I sent Microsoft a bug report with all of the pertinant information so hopefully they will blast that bug before final release.

Final thoughts: Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista. It is faster, feels snappier, and stable. This will be a must-have upgrade for all Vista users, and Windows XP users finally have an OS worthy of upgrading to. I don't recommend everyone installing the Release Candidate as their primary OS (wait for it to hit retail), but if you do decide to do so then you won't be disappointed.

Epson Artisan 800 All-in-One for $179

2009-03-18T20:43:00.001-04:00

If you're in the market for a quality printer or All-in-One (AIO), you might want to consider the Epson Artisan 800. It retails for $299, but Microcenter and the Staples website have it on sale for $229. Staples still has it priced at $299 in their stores, but they told me that they will price match their website and sold it to me for $229.

Staples also currently has a promotion where if you turn in a printer for recycling, and buy a new one for $179 or more, then you will get an additional $50 rebate. That brings the total cost for this $299 printer down to $179.

Here's a trick to save even more money! If you already have a halfway decent printer that you are upgrading from, go on Craigslist and find an old beat up printer for $5 or $10, even better yet find someone who is giving one away (free is best!) and turn that one in. It doesn't even matter if it works. Then you can sell your existing printer, or give it to a family member or friend.

I did my research before purchasing Epson Artisan 800. It was between this and the HP C8180 Photosmart All-in-One Printer, but after seeing the Epson and reading customer reviews I went with the Epson.

I've been using it for a few days and have been impressed with the photo print quality. I've been printing on Epson Premium Photo Paper Glossy and they come out as good or better than photo lab prints. Scans have also turned out great! The Epson software that comes with the printer is easy to use. I have also effortlessly printed some photos from Picasa. I haven't tried printing from Lightroom yet, but I'll try that this weekend when I have some free time.

I decided to set up this printer as a wireless printer. Setup was a breeze (as opposed to my HP wireless printer that this replaced) and I was up and running in minutes. The instructions are very clear and walk you through each step. You also have the option to connect the printer via USB or network cable.

Building a new PC

2009-01-26T00:27:00.002-05:00

It's been a few years since I built my last PC. Since that time, I became a Mac user for a couple years, but now I'm ready to switch back to Windows, especially with Windows 7 coming up.

After extensive research and consideration, here are the parts that I have chosen for my PC...

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz
CPU fan: Cooler Master V8
Motherboard: EVGA X58
Video: EVGA GeForce GTX 260 SC
Memory: Corsair Dominator 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
Hard drive: 2 Seagate Barracuda 750GB SATA 300
Power supply: Corsair 850TX
CD/DVD: Samsung 22X SH-S223Q SATA
Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech Wave Wireless

For the LCD, I'll use my 23" Apple Cinema Display for now. Dell has some LED displays becoming available next month which have my eye.

I keep telling myself that I'm not going to get into PC gaming again, but I'd be lieing if I said I wasn't excited to break this machine in with Diablo III whenever it's released.

Once I get the parts I'll post pictures of the build process.

Is Apple losing its appeal?

2009-01-09T23:00:00.003-05:00

I made the switch from PC to a Mac Pro a little over two years ago. I wanted a taste of the simple life that I had heard so much about. I liked my Mac so much that I went fanatical about Apple products. Here are some of the Apple products that I have purchased:

Mac Pro
Aperture (for photography)
iWork '08
iLife '08 upgrade
.Mac
Apple TV
iPhone
iPod
Airport Extreme
Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse
Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard
23" Apple Cinema Display
Lots of music from iTunes

That's a lot of stuff (and money). But I'm starting to see Apple in a different light. Sure, the TV ads are fun, but what are you really getting when you buy into Apple?

GOOD COMPUTER HARDWARE

One thing I have to admit is that the Mac hardware is excellent!

The Mac Pro case is well designed and you can easily install a hard drive or memory in less than 5 minutes without even breaking out a screwdriver! I wish I could find a PC motherboard and case like this at Newegg. My only complaint about the Mac Pro system is the weight due to the all-aluminum case. This thing is a monster, weighing in at close to 45 lbs.! I had to take it down to an Apple Store one day to have WiFi installed. If you ever have to do that, bring a dolly to roll it around on.

The 23" Apple Cinema Display is a beautiful screen. It's bright and the colors are rich. It too is quite heavy. I have experienced some ghost images in the dock area, which may be burn-in. That's disappointing, and I will probably contact Apple about it soon since it is still covered under Apple Care.

NOT SO GOOD COMPUTER HARDWARE

I purchased the Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard because it had such a small profile. It lacks a number pad, which I really don't miss as much as I thought I would. Number pads are convenient if you type in a lot of numbers, but otherwise it's pretty much just wasted desk space. However, I find that I miss the deeper keys of a regular keyboard. I have gotten somewhat used to this keyboard, but I still find that I have an easier time typing on my regular Logitech keyboard at work. Also, I frequently see "Lost Connection" messages for the keyboard, although the keyboard still functions fine.

The Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse takes a lot of getting used to if you've never used one. Some people swear by it... I swear at it! It doesn't feel comfortable at all. I have big hands, so that may be part of the problem, but I have to make a kind of umbrella shape with my hand to use the mouse. I have to squeeze the left and right sides of my hands together to get a grip on the sides of this skinny, low-profile mouse. My hands often feel cramped. If my hands are dry (as they often are in the winter), it makes it even harder to keep a grip on the shiny, slick surface of the mouse. The small scroll ball constantly stops working due to dust/dirt/particles that get in there with regular use. Since you can't open the mouse and remove the ball to clean it, you have to go through this ritual of turning the mosue upside down and rubbing the scroll ball around rapidly and tapping the mouse against the desk. The bottom of the mouse also gets dirty pretty quick and I am constantly scraping the dirt off.

The AirPort Extreme router is simple to set up (with a Mac). What can I say... it's a router! It only has three network ports, instead of four like most routers. Mine is one of the earlier ones, so it lacks Gigabit speeds. Unfortunately, the wireless signal was not very reliable. I ended up replacing this router with a D-Link DIR-655 Extreme N Wireless Router which has worked flawlessly for me.

SOFTWARE

Now let's talk about the real reason why people switch to a Mac. The software and its ease of use.

Apple ships iLife on every new Mac. iPhoto '06 was the probably the most significant factor towards my purchasing a Mac. I wanted something simple to use to organize my photos and fell in love with iPhoto. Great piece of software! If you like doing creative things with photos, such as calendars or photo books, iPhoto does this very well and photo calendars that I have ordered from Apple have been excellent quality. Much better quality than calendars that I have ordered from Kodak and Shutterfly.

Getting drawn into the world of Apple, I got a .Mac (later renamed MobileMe) subscription so I could have a cool @mac.com email address. But I soon realized that .Mac was complete garbage. The email contacts would not stay synced between my Mac and the online .Mac web mail. There was no online calendar to sync with the calendar on my Mac. The photo sharing site was a nightmare to navigate or tell people how to get to. And, Apple was charging about $100 per year for what other companies such as Google were giving away for free.

Then in early 2008 Apple released iLife '08 for about $79. Even though iPhoto is the only application that I use in the iLife suite, I purchased it anyway for the revolutionary upgrades to iPhoto that I had seen Steve Jobs show off at Macworld. Once I got it, I was less than impressed.

Apple just announced iLife '09 a few days ago (another $79), which does seem like an improvement over last years version, but guess what else got released a few days ago... Google Picasa for Mac! Picasa is a great photo manager just as easy to use as iPhoto... and IT'S FREE! With Picasa now available on Mac, I will no longer be forking over $80 a year to Apple for iLife.

I wanted to get more serious about photography, so I was faced with the decision to choose between Apple's Aperture 1.5 and Adobe's Lightroom 1.0. After trying them both briefly, I chose Aperture because it was a little easier to learn and it was something else with the Apple brand to buy. After only 3-4 months of using it though, I saw how more functional Adobe Lightroom was and I ended up switching to Lightroom. Aperture was a huge memory hog and chugged at any less than about 1.5 GB RAM. I have not tried Aperture 2, but I have heard good things about it. I am happy with Lightroom 2.

At the same time that Apple released iLife '08, they also released iWork '08. This was Apple's answer to Microsoft Office. They had previous versions of iWork, but they lacked a spreadsheet application to compete with Excel. With my Apple goggles on, I dove in with promises of ease of use and full compatibility with Office. It is a pretty application... I'll give it that much. But I found that Office files that I opened in iWork (and vice versa) usually did not retain the proper formatting. This is vital! If Apple wants to be a serious contender with Microsoft Office on Macs then they have to get formatting issues resolved. I ditched iWork after a couple months and went back to using Microsoft Office.

One area where Apple truly excels is their operating system. Mac OS X is an extremely solid OS, and at $129 it is at an attractive price. OS X only comes in one version too, so there's not any confusion with multiple versions such as the case with Windows Vista (4 different versions!). The downside is that software is not widely available for Mac OS X as it is with Windows, and those Windows programs that do get ported over to Mac are usually inferior to their Windows counterparts.

OTHER STUFF

The final Apple products that I want to mention are the iPhone, iPod (5th Gen), Apple TV, and iTunes Store.

The good: All of these devices/services are outstanding. The hardware is built well and looks aesthetically pleasing. And the interface on each of these devices is extremely well designed and simple to use.

The bad: Apple likes to have absolute control over the services it offers. In order to use any of these devices, Apple makes it so that iTunes is the only software that you can use to sync your media to each of the devices. Apple doesn't license it's 'FairPlay' DRM to anyone else, so anything from iTunes that has DRM can only be played on an Apple device such as Apple TV, iPhone, or iPod. Apple has created this closed system that doesn't play well with outsiders. Apple has recently announced it's intent to drop DRM for the music it sells, which is definitely a welcome step in the right direction. Unfortunately if I want to upgrade my iTunes music purchases to non-DRM versions, Apple is going to charge me to do so, squeezing out even more money.

CONCLUSION

The smoke and mirrors of Apple is fading for me. In the next few months I think I will be building myself a new Windows PC and selling my Mac Pro. I am currenlty beta testing Windows 7, and that is leaps and bounds better than the disappointment that is Windows Vista. Even though it is still in beta, Windows 7 is solid and snappy, and feels like a retail product.

I have additional thoughts on iTunes, the iPhone, and Apple TV, but I'll save those for another day.

Amazon Video on Demand $0.99 movie rentals

2008-11-13T23:44:00.006-05:00

Some great deals on rentals at Amazon Video on Demand to take you through the weekend.

$0.99 RENTALS
Stargate: Continuum
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Made of Honor
Deception
Son of Rambow

$1.99 RENTALS
Girl Next Door
Saw
Saw II

Great deals on Amazon Video on Demand

2008-11-07T21:56:00.010-05:00

There are quite a few excellent deals available for Amazon Video on Demand rentals and purchases. These are just a few of the ones that I found while browsing the site. Not sure how long they will last, so grab them while you can!

UPDATE 11/8/2008: It appears that the movies that were on sale for $1.99 are back to their regular prices. Apparently the prices were only good for Friday because those movies were not that price on Thursday. I will continue to monitor this and see if it is a regular event.

$0.99 RENTALS:
Serenity
Idiocracy

$1.99 PURCHASES
~~Battlestar Galactica: Razor~~
~~Ghostbusters~~
~~Dreamcatcher~~
~~The Happening~~
~~Sex and the City~~
~~Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone~~
~~Speed Racer~~
~~The Mummy Returns~~
~~Troy - Director's Cut~~
~~Last Samurai~~
~~Superman: The Movie~~
~~Superman Returns~~
~~Outbreak~~
~~The Matrix Revolutions~~
~~Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines~~
~~The Matrix Revolutions~~
~~One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest~~
~~Blazing Saddles~~
~~Goodfellas~~
~~Unforgiven~~
~~Full Metal Jacket~~

Comcast CableCards in TiVo = poor customer experience

2008-10-09T21:50:00.001-04:00

I am extremely frustrated with Comcast's customer service and their inability to get CableCards to work in my two TiVo boxes. I have had two technicians out and have had to call their technical support four times so far resulting in several hours of my time wasted as well as theirs.

I have had Comcast Internet for quite a while with my own personal cable modem. It took Comcast about two weeks to get that working, but it has worked well ever since.

For the past year I have been using an indoor antenna to get over the air HD signals into my TiVo Series 3. I wanted to see some shows on cable so I called up Comcast to see what kind of deals they have. This is my experience so far.

October 2, 2008 - Initial Call

When I called Comcast, the person that I spoke with seemed pretty confused about the fact that I wanted to get four CableCards total to go into two TiVo boxes. However, one of the very first things he said was that they don't get very many calls for CableCards in TiVo boxes.

I was on the phone for about 30 minutes with him and then we got disconnected. I'm not sure if it was on his end or mine. I figured that he'd call me back since we were in the middle of a transaction, but he didn't and I called back right away.

CALL-BACKS: Why is it that Comcast Technical Support does not call their customer's back if they get disconnected? It's very frustrating to have to start over from scratch. This happened with Sales and Technical Support.

As I mentioned, I called back and luckly there was no wait. The exact same person answered the call, so he knew what I was calling about. I was on the phone for another 60 minutes, most of which I was on hold or sitting there in silence. The problem was that he could not locate the codes to enter for the CableCards. However, he was polite and he presented me with a good deal, so I was happy. He scheduled the technician to come install the CableCards on Monday evening.

October 6, 2008 - Technician Visit #1

My scheduled window for cable installation was 6pm to 9pm. The technician called around lunch time and said that he was in the area and asked if I was available earlier. I couldn't get away from work, so I kept the same time, but I thought it was a nice gesture. I called him back at about 5pm and he was at my place at around 5:30pm.

The first thing he said to me was that he had never installed CableCards in a TiVo before.

TRAINING: There are only three TiVo models that accept CableCards: the TiVo Series 3, the TiVo HD, and the new TiVo HD XL. You would think that Comcast would train their installers and Technical Support how to install and troubleshoot CableCards in these three popular TiVo boxes. I mean, there's only three of them! Comcast should know which of their CableCards work best in each of these three TiVo models and be able to get them configured and working in minutes. There is no excuse for not being prepared.

Rather than working on them one at a time, the technician installed all of the cards at once. The TiVo documentation which I had printed out for the technician clearly explained that Slot 1 of each box should be configured before adding another card to Slot 2, but he all he did was set the instructions aside. I thought this was funny (at my own expense) since he had already told me he had never done this before.

One of the CableCards in my main TiVo was constantly giving an error. I suspected that card was bad, but let him do his job without interfering. He called the office several times to activate the cards but the cards would not activate.

The photo above is of the 'SA CableCARD CP Screen' on my TiVo (same for all cards).

Scientific Atlanta CableCARD

CP Information

----------

Auth Status: Waiting for CP Auth

Prog number: 0

CCI byte: 0x00

ECM count: 0

EMM count: 0

Decryption status: OK

PowerKey status: Not Ready - Waiting for Time

EID: 0x0

MKS period: 60 seconds

KSE count: 0

He wanted to look outside to make sure that the cable was set up correctly coming into my home. I let him out back figuring that he knew his way around. He walked the wrong way and then I told him that it was in a fenced in area in back. He walked that direction and I went back inside. He was back in my place within seconds and I knew that he couldn't possibly have checked the line.

I told him that the line going into my living room was good because my cable modem has been working there fine, however that I didn't know if the cable connector in the bedroom worked or not because I had never had cable in there. He absorbed (or ignored) that information for now.

He worked on it for a while longer and made a couple more calls to the cable company to activate the CableCards. The cards were still not being activated.

Then, he told me that they had figured out what the problem was. He said that when they set up my cable installation that they set it up wrong. Something about improper codes were entered. He told me that everything was set up properly and all I had to do was call Comcast to get the account fixed and then everything would work.

He had been at my place for about two hours now, so I had a strong suspician that this was just a cop-out so he could leave. It seemed extremely odd that he couldn't have had the person he was speaking with on the phone fix that while he was on the phone.

At this point, he was hurridly gathering his things and put the work order sheet in front of me to sign so he could leave. I asked him to confirm that by signing the work order that I was not confirming that everything was working. He said that it was only confirming that he arrived on time and that he installed the cards, but that it was not confirming that the service was working. Hesitantly, I signed it.

Before he left, I asked him if he was sure that the cable line going into the bedroom was working. I had not seen him bring in a line tester to verify that it was receiving a cable signal. However, he assured me that it was working and then he drove away.

After he left, I hooked up my cable modem again because I had been using that cable to get through the cable installation. Now, my Internet didn't work either! I knew that the Internet line was good because my TiVo's were connecting to the TiVo service over the network. And I was able to ping external web addresses, such as the Google website. But when I tried to open websites on my computer I was just taken to a Comcast service activation page.

October 6, 2008 - Technical Support Call #1

Shortly after the technician left, I called up Technical Support to get my account straightened out. I think I went straight to an outsourced support center and I had extreme difficulty understanding the person that I was speaking with.

The support representitive that I spoke with had no idea what a TiVo box was. I had to repeatedly explain to him what was happening and that all I needed was to have them fix my account so the CableCards could be authorized.

Naturally, there were no notes on my account of what was previously discussed.

After about 45 minutes on the phone with this person, and being placed on hold for most of it, he informed me that they fixed the problem and that everything would be working in about 10 minutes. I was pleased to hear this and we ended the call.

10 minutes went by... 20 minutes... 30 minutes... still broke!

October 6, 2008 - Technical Support Call #2

After 30 minutes of waiting for my cable to start working, I called Technical Support again. Once again my call was answered by someone I had extreme difficulty understanding. I asked him to check my account for notes of my previous call so I wouldn't have to start over from scratch.

Once again, there was no record of my previous call.

I was on the phone with this person for at least 45 minutes. As with the first person I spoke with, this guy had no clue what TiVo was. He kept wanting to know the serial number off the back of my box, and I kept explaining to him that it was a TiVo box, not a Comcast box.

He asked me why I wanted to use the TiVo box and why I wasn't using a Comcast box. I'm not sure why that was relevant. It really upset me when he asked that because it seemed like this was a message being pushed by Comcast.

It feel like Comcast's internal corporate message is that they clearly do not want to support CableCards in TiVo boxes.

I told the technician that I was not interested in troubleshooting any further and that he didn't need the serial number of my TiVo box in order to troubleshoot this issue. I told him that they need to fix this.

He then started telling me that he found that there was an outage in my area and that this is why my cable and Internet were not working. This was clearly a BS response to get me off the phone. I told him that my issues were definately not due to an outage in my area.

He put me on hold for a few minutes to do some more research. This person was clearly not going to solve my issue with false excuses so I hung up.

Once again... no call-back from Comcast after being unexpectidly disconnected (as far as they were aware). Why would a support team invest so much time with a customer and not call them if the call was disconnected? To be honest, I'm glad that this one didn't call me back.

October 6, 2008 - Technical Support Call #3

I gave myself a short breather and then I called back one more time. This time I finally reached someone who sounded like they were in my own country! She was very polite and a pleasure to speak with after the previous two calls.

I was not surprised to find out that there were still no notes on my account of previous calls.

I had give her a brief explanation of my situation. This lady was familiar with what TiVo was and seemed to understand my situation. I explained that the installation technician told me that there was something wrong with my account. She checked my account and confirmed that nothing was wrong. She indicated that it may have just been an excuse for the technician to leave. We laughed that that was probably the case, although we both knew that that kind of tactic was clearly unacceptable.

She scheduled a senior tech to come out on Wednesday. I was tired of phone calls, and I just wanted someone else to come back out and fix it anyways.

I didn't get her name, but this lady really understood customer service! If anyone from Comcast reads this, please check my account to see who scheduled the senior tech to come out and hire more people like her!

October 8, 2008 - Technician Visit #2

I took some time off of work to wait for the senior technician (I assume) to arrive in the morning. When she arrived, she had someone with her that was not wearing a Comcast shirt. I don't know if he was even a Comcast employee or not, but it made me a little uncomfortable.

Before they arrived, I had already fumbled my way through my Internet issue and managed to activate it again. I'm not sure why it had to be activated again, but I got it working... on my own.

This technican seemed to know what she was doing and I was much more comfortable with her knowledge and experience than the first technician. She even knew that it takes several minutes for these TiVo boxes to reboot, which told me that she had some experience with setting up CableCards in TiVo boxes.

She did ask me at some point why I would choose to use a TiVo box instead of a Comcast one. I am getting tired of Comcast employees asking me that. It makes me feel unwelcomed.

After trying to get the cards to work for about 30-45 minutes, she spoke with someone at Comcast and insisted that the issue be escalated. I could tell that she was getting some resistance from the person on the other end of the phone, but she kept telling them to escalate it.

I also let her know that I wasn't sure if the bedroom cable outlet was good and asked her to check it. She had her helper (?) get the tester out of the truck and she had him test it. He said that it wasn't getting a signal, but he also didn't seem very confident/experienced with the line tester so I am not 100% comfortable with that analysis. However, I told her about my experience with the previous technician and that he ensured me that it was working but that I hadn't seen him actually test it. She agreed that he was probabaly just trying to get out of there.

She informed me that the issue had been escalated and told me to call the office later that afternoon, at about 4:00pm to check on the status of the escalation. I asked her if there would be notes on my account so that I wouldn't have to explain everything. She assured me that there would be notes on my account about it.

October 8, 2008 - Technical Support Call #4

I called at about 5:30pm to check on the status of the escalation. I was pleased to once again speak to someone in my own country. I informed her that the technician escalated my issue and that it should all be in the notes on my account.

Yet again... no notes were on my account indicating what I would be calling about.

I gave her a brief explanation and let her know (in a polite and civil manner) that I was extremely frustrated over this whole experience. She asked me if I knew who the senior tech had spoken with to escalate the issue, but I did not know (how could I?). She put me on hold for a few minutes to investigate this further on her side.

When she came back, she let me know that her supervisor/manager had started an email thread and would find out from the technician who they escalated the issue to and would get it all sorted out. She informed me that it should be resolved by around lunch time the next day.

I specifically asked her if someone would be calling me. She said "yes". I asked for confirmation that I would hear from someone by around 1:00pm on Thursday, October 9. She said that someone would call by about that time. We ended the call with that understanding. As with the other lady, this person was very pleasant to speak with and seemed to care about me... the customer.

It is now 9:50pm on Thursday, October 9, and I have not received the phone call that was promised to me.

What's Next?

I don't know what I am going to do next.

I am frustrated with calling Comcast and them having absolutely no record of my previous calls and interactions.
I am frustrated with their Technical Support team for not having the courtesy to call the customer back if the call is disconnected, forcing the customer to start over from scratch.
I am frustrated with Comcast's lack of training on installing and configuring CableCards in TiVo boxes.
I am frustrated that I was told a supervisor/manager would call me by a specific time/date and they did not.

I am just frustrated with this whole experience.

I am considering just canceling the whole order and going back to using an antenna until FIOS is available. Verizon already buried the FIOS cables in my neighborhood a few months ago, so it shouldn't be much longer before service is available.

I will give Comcast two more chances to correct this.

1) A Comcast representitive reached out to me by leaving a comment to a post I made in my other blog. If I do not hear from someone by tomorrow morning, I am going to accept their offer and email them requesting assistance resolving this issue.

Since there are no notes on my account with any record of my phone calls, I am using this post as a personal record of my interactions so that they have something to review.

2) If I don't hear from the supervisor/manager that was supposed to call me today, I will give them a call tomorrow afternoon. However, I suspect that nobody will know anything about an escalation or a promised phone call.

This isn't a new issue for Comcast. There are many other stories out there from frustred TiVo owners due to Comcast's customer service issues and lack of experience installing CableCards into TiVo boxes.

I'll keep everyone updated on the progress. Hopefully Comcast will come through and we'll be past this so my next post will be a positive one. I also hope that Comcast hears my concerns and treats them not as an attack, but as an opportunity to fix the areas of concern. I have worked in customer service (tecnnical support and IT) for most of my adult life, and this has without hesitation been one of my worst customer service experiences ever. There's simply no excuse for so many missed opportunities, and I hope that they use this information to work on their own internal processes so that other customers have a better experience. I can tell you that as someone experienced in customer service, it is much more enjoyable to be able to help a customer resolve the issue than it is to have a broken support process which causes the customer frustration and disappointment.

Microsoft MCDST certification

2008-09-29T21:07:00.000-04:00

I have been devoting a lot of my time over the past couple months to getting my MCDST certification. Today I passed the first of two exams needed for that certification. The MCDST certification is for a new IT job which I will be starting soon.

Updates will probably continue to be slow as I hit the books for the second exam. If I focus, I should be ready for the test in about a month. I could probably use a fast track method to be ready sooner, but I'm going to be expected to know this stuff and I would look pretty stupid if I didn't. A lot of people are book smart, but book smart doesn't always cut it... you have to have experience so you know how to handle the situation when it comes up in the real world.

On the photography front... I have been dabbling in HDR. Real HDR... not the fake HDR using single image in Lightroom that I posted about earlier. I don't have any images to share just yet, but I'll post something soon.

Studying and getting my Wii Fit on

2008-09-26T19:28:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple weeks since my last post. I've been really busy with some other things and haven't had much time to just sit back and relax.

I am starting a new IT job soon, which I am very excited about. I have been hitting the books hard studying up for the Microsoft MCDST certification exams. The MCDST certification consists of two tests. I am taking the first test on Monday and then I'll start studying for the second. I am pretty confident that I will pass. I was already comfortable with most aspects of troubleshooting Windows XP, but I have learned a lot, so it has been time well spent.

I have also been focusing on exercising to get in better shape and lose weight. I decided to make an experiment of it by using Wii Fit on my Nintendo Wii. I have committed to using Wii Fit for 90 consecutive days to see how well it works. I have created a blog so that anyone can track my progress, and hopefully it will enspire others to exercise. Please come check it out: Wii Fit 90 Day Experience

How to fix an iPhone which fails restore

2008-09-12T21:05:00.004-04:00

Apple released the iPhone 2.1 Software Update today. When I got home, I immediately put my iPhone in its dock, launched iTunes, and clicked Check for Updates. There it was... the iPhone 2.1 Software Update waiting to be downloaded. I told it to continue and then I popped in a movie because these updates tend to take a while.

A while later, I went back to my computer to find a message stating that the update had failed and the iPhone would have to be restored. That sucked, but I didn't give it a second thought (since there were no other options presented to me) and chose the Restore option.

As the progress bar reached the end, I was presented with this fun message:

The iPhone "iPhone" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (6).

When I clicked OK, it told me that iTunes found my iPhone in a safe mode state and I repeated the process of clicking Restore which led me right back to this same error. I went through this a third time (third time's a charm... right?) but had the same results. My phone was officially bricked!

I clicked the Help button and that took me to the "Update and restore error messages on the iPhone and iPod touch" article on Apple's support site.

I have worked in technical support for most of my adult life, and I could tell immediately that this is your very typical 'all-in-one' BS article that does not resolve the issue. I didn't even have to try the steps mentioned. Someone at Apple needs to take a good look at their knowledge base and review answers such as these. It is rediculous that you would have your customers jump through a lengthy string of hoops only to not resolve the issue or be told to call support (we all know how long those phone calls can be).

The REAL problem was that the file that iTunes downloaded was corrupt. The problem, however, is that once your iPhone is bricked there is no way to tell iTunes to re-download it.

(Note: These steps worked for me. I don't claim that this will work for everyone. I am not responsible if these steps make your situation worse, but let's face it... at this point your iPhone is already bricked so how much worse could it get?)

STEPS TO RESOLVE:

Manually download the appropriate iPhone 2.1 firmware from Apple (iPhone 2G / iPhone 3G).
On the iPhone screen in iTunes, hold down the 'Option' key ('Shift' on PC) and click the Restore button. In the file selection window, point it to the file you downloaded in step 1 and click OK.
After the firmware is installed, it will ask you whether you want to (1) set your phone up as a new iPhone, or if you want to (2) restore from a backup of . Choosing the latter will restore your phone to it's previous condition.

If you want, you can delete the original file that iTunes downloaded and replace it with the good file that you downloaded for safe keeping.

Mac OSX: ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

That's it! Now why couldn't Apple provide a simple soution such as that instead of making their customers get frustrated spending hours going through troubleshooting steps that are not going to resolve their issue or having to call support? Their support team surely doesn't need the extra workload! The customer is already frustrated and upset. They just want a quick and easy solution.

Google updates Picasa and Picasa Web Albums

2008-09-02T23:11:00.001-04:00

Google had a busy day today! The Google Chrome web browser release was the shot heard around the world. But in the shadow of Chrome's news, Google also released updates to it's Picasa line of photo editing and sharing products... Picasa 3 and Picasa Web Albums.

Picasa 3

Picasa 3 is Google's latest release of their photo organizer and editor software for Windows. I use Adobe Lightroom for my needs, but I am warming up to Picasa and tend to recommend it to friends and family who have a Windows computer but don't need the features of Lightroom. I didn't care for the first version of Picasa because it just seemed awkward and difficult for a novice to use.

Picasa 2 addressed many of my concerns and I installed it on my parents computer when they got a digital camera a few months ago. Picasa was simple enough that they learned how to use it to import and organize/display photos. They can also upload photos to Picasa Web to share with family and friends.

The release of Picasa 3 brings several new features. Here are some of my favorites:

Add multiple word tags: Enter 'New York' as a tag instead of entering 'New' and 'York' as separate words.
Capture screen: You can now press the Print Screen button and have the screenshot automatically put into Picasa.
Retouch images: Ability to remove blemishes from an image. Similar to the clone tool in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Add text or watermark: Easily add text or a watermark to a photo. You can set the text attributes and easily choose the location and angle of the text.
Create movies: Picasa 3 includes a movie editor so you can create movies from your video clips. I don't have any videos to try this out, but it appears to be very simple to use.

There are several other features. Visit the What's New and What's Changed pages to see what has changed. Google also released the following video to explain what's new in Picasa 3.

Picasa Web Albums

Google also updated their Picasa Web Albums photo sharing service today with a couple of new features. I have been a longtime Flickr user, and I feel that it is the superior service for it's community aspects, but Yahoo! sorely needs to invest in updating the Flickr technology or they are going to lose ground to Picasa Web Albums and other services. With these latest changes that Google has made, I may be recommending friends and family that aren't involved in the community aspect to use Picasa Web Albums instead of Flickr.

Name tags: Name tags use clustering technology to identify photos with similar faces so that you can tag those photos quickly and easily. You can then display groups of photos with a specific person or set of people.

Explore page: The new Explore page displays recent photo contributions from people around the globe. There is a slideshow of new photos from members around the world, and you can also display photos by popular tags. There is also a fun game called 'Where in the World?' where you are presented with a string of photos and have to place a pin on a map of where you think that each photo was taken. You are given points based on how close you are to the actual location. I don't know the object of this game (besides to earn points), but I quit after a few rounds.

I think that Google is headed in the right direction with Picasa Web Albums. In some ways they have surpassed Flickr, but overall they are still quite far behind. In addition to the lack of community (which they appear to be working on), Google really needs to re-evaluate the amount of storage they provide.

You get 1 GB for free with Picasa Web Albums. Adding 10 GB of shared storage (used by all Google products) will cost you $20/year. Other annual plans include: 40 GB for $75; 150 GB for $250; 400 GB for $500. With online storage services such as ADrive providing 50 GB storage free, Google's pricing needs to change if they want to stay competitive.

Jim Henson's Fantastic World

2008-08-30T21:56:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, my sister and I took my niece down to Washington, D.C. to the Jim Henson's Fantastic World exhibit at the Smithsonian's International Gallery. Having grown up watching Jim Henson TV shows such as The Muppet Show and Seseme Street, and enjoying Henson movies such as The Dark Crystal, The Muppet Movie, and Labrinth, the opportunity to see an exhibit of Henson's work excited me.

Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the exhibit. I was disappointed by this, but respected their wishes and didn't try to sneak any shots with my iPhone (my DSLR would have been less than conspicuous). That said, I have found a few photos on Flickr that show a few of the displays. You can also listen to the official podcast (very informative) which is meant to be listened to as you walk through the exhibit.

As you enter the exhibit, you are immediately greeted by Kermit the Frog sitting on a log inside a display case. It is really interesting to look at these puppets (err Muppets) up close and being able to walk around the display case 360 degrees to view all sides. The only area that you can't see is the area where the hand is inserted. I never realized this, but the blacks of the eyes are made of a fabric (probably felt). I had always assumed that they were painted on.

Other Muppets on display include Rowlf the Dog, Bert and Ernie, Wilkins and Wontkins, King Goshposh and Featherstone, and Mahna Mahna and The Snowths (I may be missing a couple others). I don't know anyone who doesn't know or has never heard the Mahna Mahna song. It's a classic!

Other displays included props and clothing worn by the puppets in The Dark Crystal. There were also wall displays with original drawings and storyboards, as well as a wealth of information and behind-the-scenes photos. One photo showed Jim controlling a Muppet outside that was as taller than the building. They also had several videos on display.

My sister and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, and everything kept the attention of my 16 month old niece.

October 5, 2008 is the final day of the exhibit at the Smithsonian. I highly recommend checking it out if you are in the D.C. area! I may even go back a second time before it's gone. The exhibit will be traveling to several other cities around the U.S., so check out the tour schedule to see if it is coming to a city near you.

Lightroom HDR simulation and desaturation templates

2008-08-29T20:05:00.002-04:00

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned a quick and easy way to simulate HDR from a single image in Lightroom. That post was a popular one, and I have had a few requests for the preset, so I have decided to post it here.

I am also including a simple desaturation preset to give you one-click desaturation of an image to give you a base for a black and white photo. This is one of my most used presets. I don't know why Adobe doesn't include this as a standard preset.

HDR simulation preset
Desaturation preset

Matt Kloskowski has an excellent video on installing presets over on his Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips site.

Comcast instituting a 250 GB bandwidth cap

2008-08-29T14:44:00.001-04:00

Just a few days ago, I posted about some online data backup services. These services allow you to back up unlimited amounts of data for a single computer. I also mentioned how my ISP, Comcast, was in the news recently for throttling traffic.

Well, yesterday Comcast announced that starting October 1, they are implementing a bandwidth cap of 250 GB/month for residential customers.

250 GB/month is an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. Currently, the median monthly data usage by our residential customers is approximately 2 - 3 GB. To put 250 GB of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one of the following:

Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)

Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song)

Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)

Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

Not only are they implementing a 250 GB/month bandwidth cap, but they don't provide you with the tools to monitor your own usage!

Obviously, that can greatly interfere with online backup services such as Mozy and Carbonite if you have a lot of data to back up.

But it also hinders digital distribution growth for things such as: music, movies, TV shows, video games, and software. Digital distribution helps the environment because it eliminates the need for the plastic and cardboard boxes that the retail products are sold in. Digital distribution also does not rely on fossel fuel for shipment/delivery of these items.

So by instituting a bandwidth cap, Comcast is basically saying that they aren't concerned about the environment or growth of digital distribution.

Now, I want to be very clear on one thing... I do not download illegal files (copyrighted music, movies, software, etc.). As far as I'm concerned, that is stealing because you are taking something without permission or payment. But I do prefer to obtain as much as possible digitally rather than purchasing the physical product in a store. In this digital era that we are entering, 250 GB can be used up in the blink of an eye.

My Fantasy Football Team

2008-08-28T18:34:00.001-04:00

We had our draft for my Fantasy Football league last night. I've got to say, while functional... I was not impressed with the official NFL Fantasy Football draft website. It was very bland looking (there were two colors... black... and you guessed it... white) and the chat application had some lag and really tiny text. I think next year I will try one of the other fantasy football sites, like EA, ESPN, or Yahoo. I want something

Now, I present to you... the Crazed Meerkats:

Brett Farve (QB) - Jets
Clinton Portis (RB) - Redskins
Kevin Smith (RB) - Lions
Santana Moss (WR) - Redskins
Chris Chambers (WR) - Chargers
Lee Evans (WR) - Bills
Chris Cooley (TE) - Redskins
Josh Brown (K) - Rams
Patriots (DEFENSE)

RESERVE
Philip Rivers (QB) - Chargers
DeAngelo Williams (RB) - Panthers
Vincent Jackson (WR) - Chargers
Owen Daniels (TE) - Texans
Chiefs (DEFENSE)

Even with the disappointing site, I had a lot of fun picking my players. I'm looking forward to the coming weeks to see how my team does.

Backing Up Your Data Online

2008-08-24T23:54:00.003-04:00

Do you back up the data on your computer, such as your photos, music, and documents? If so, you deserve a gold star!
But here's the more relevant question... do you have an offisite backup of your data? If your home burned down, or your computer was stolen, or even if the hard drive in your computer went bad, would you lose years of precious unrecoverable memories and hard work?

So many people simply do not back up their data. Many of the backup software options out there are simply too complex for the average user, and they involve purchasing yet another expensive box to sit on the already crowded computer desk.

I back up my Mac Pro to an external hard drive using Time Machine. Macs are known for their simplicity, and Time Machine is no exception. You just attach a hard drive and click the Enable button for Time Machine and it does the rest for you. This is a great local storage option for any Mac user. But Time Machine doesn't store data offsite/online, and there isn't a PC version.

I was looking for an online backup solution to back up the data on my computer, as well as my sister's and parents computers. While I am proud of my parents for learning to use a computer for email and Internet, setting up and maintaining backups is not something they would be comfortable with.

There are two online backup solutions that stand out as the leaders which I would trust with my data... Carbonite and Mozy. Each will run you about $50 per year, which is much cheaper and less frustrating than purchasing an external hard drive and backup software.

I chose to subscribe my parent's computer to Carbonite. And as with most technologies, I went with the wrong one first (yes, I picked HD-DVD before Blu-ray finally won the HD format war). No, I'm not saying that that the service is bad. It was simple to set up and my parents aren't even aware that it's there. One thing that sets Carbonite apart from Mozy is that Carbonite adds a little green, yellow, or red dot on each of your file icons. This is a good visual indication of which files are included in the backup and the color indicates if the file has been successfully backed up or not. But I also find those dots to be a bit distracting. I wish there was another method of viewing the files included in the backup and their status. If you are a Mac user, you're out of luck. They claim to be working on a Mac client and allow you to email if you want to be included in the beta. I sent in my email about three months ago and haven't heard from them since.

After waiting not hearing a peep about the Mac client beta, I decided to give Mozy a try since they DO have a Mac client. It installed on my Mac Pro and told it what files I want backed up (I just selected my entire home folder, but you can choose individual files and folders if you choose) and it started backing up immediately.

Security: Both Carbonite and Mozy provide a security encryption key, but Mozy also provides the option to create your own key at no additional cost. It makes me feel good knowing that if my data were ever stolen from Mozy's datacenter, or if Mozy had to provide data to another party access to their servers as a part of a legal issue, that my data is encrypted with a unique encryption key that only I have access to decrypt. Choosing your own encryption key is simple. You just type some characters that you won't forget, and it uses that simple word or phrase to generate a key. Make sure that you don't forget that word or phrase though, because unlike using the Mozy provided key, they can't decrypt the files if you happen to forget your key information.

Speed: Now one thing that you will find with either service is that it can be a slow process. If you have less than 10-20 GB to back up, it can take anywhere from a few days to a 1-2 weeks. But my photos alone are 85 GB (I shoot in RAW), and my music is another 83 GB. Add in my documents and other information i wanted backed up and it came out to about 210 GB. Carbonite can handle this, but it takes an eternity to complete at approximately 350 Kbits/sec. It's currently been about 3 weeks, and I'm only up to 36 GB backed up. I think that part of the problem is that I have Comcast, who is known to throttle the speeds for high usage customers. FIOS is about to become available in my neighborhood, so that should help.

Website: The Mozy website is hands-down easier to use than the Carbonite website. The Carbonite website doesn't show you how much data you have backed up, so you can't monitor your usage or identify if the backup has stalled on one of the computers on your account. Mozy lets you see how much data has been backed up for each computer on your account. I also found that it was impossible to open a Carbonite account from a Mac computer. It kept telling me that my computer was unsupported (since it was a Mac), but all I wanted to do was open the account and pay for the subscription for my parents account, so that it would save some time when I went to install it on their computer. However, once the account is created and paid for, you can log into the account on the website from a Mac.

I installed Mozy on my sister's computer too. She doesn't like to have to worry about things like backing up her data or keeping her virus scanner up to date. I set these things up to be as unobtrusive as possible. I was also able to password protect Mozy's settings so that she doesn't accidently get in there and change the settings. I disable all of the notifications to make it less obtrusive. If I hadn't told her that I installed backup software on her computer, she would never know its there. Once my parents Carbonite subscription runs out, I'll switch them over to Mozy too.

Bottom line... I recommend Mozy over Carbonite for two reasons. Mozy has a Mac client, and they allow you to use your own encryption key. However, if neither of those concern you then you can't go wrong with either one. At $50 per year (Mozy also offers a $4.95/mo payment option) there really is no excuse not to back up your data!

Joined A Fantasy Football League

2008-08-22T19:05:00.002-04:00

I was invited to play in a Fantasy Football league with some friends at work. I've never played Fantasy Football, so I decided to give it a shot. Sounds like it will be fun! The draft is this coming Wednesday. I'll post updates on my progress. I'm such a newb!

Switched From Wordpress To Blogger

2008-08-20T19:53:00.001-04:00

Google sure doesn't seem to want to make it easy for Wordpress users to switch to Blogger.

I just went through the tedious process of copying and pasting all of the posts from my self-hosted Wordpress blog over to this Blogger blog. As expected, several posts will need to be fixed where a Wordpress plugin was used, but I've got the frustrating part done now by manually copying all of my posts over.

Google really needs to make it a high priority to create an import tool that imports blog exports from Wordpress, TypePad, and other competitors if they want people to switch. I have read comments from several others wanting to switch from Wordpress to Blogger, but Blogger's lack of a tool to import Wordpress exports is preventing them from doing so. I should be able to export my blog from any blog service and import it into any other blog service. It should be portable and easy to switch. Instead, it is anything but.

I will probably point my personal URL to this blog in a week or so and then get rid of Wordpress and cancel my hosted service.

Lightroom 2 Released

2008-07-29T16:33:00.000-04:00

Adobe released Lightroom 2 early this morning. This is Adobe's first 64-bit program for Mac and Windows. The full version is $299, but existing Lightroom owners can upgrade for $99.

If you are a NAPP member, don't forget to take advantage of your 15% member discount. See the member area of the NAPP website for details.

The original Lightroom came with a decent manual, so I went ahead and ordered the boxed product to see if they delivered a good manual again.

In the meantime, I installed the 30-day trial. It installed without a hitch and upgraded my existing Lightroom library. This will tide me over until I receive the boxed product to get my product activation key.

IndyCar Races Through Richmond

2008-06-30T20:05:00.000-04:00

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Saturday night's SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway was my first time attending an IndyCar race. The first time that I had even watched an Indy race was about a week prior to this race. Sexy driver Danica Patrick (#7 Motorla/GoDaddy car)peaked my interest to check it out and now I'm officially hooked!

I used to be a smoker (can't stand it now) and occasionally get promotional offers from Marlboro. I usually pass them up, but this time it was two free tickets for the SunTrust Indy Challenge in Richmond. When I claimed my tickets (normally $37 each) at the race, they also provided two nice mesh bags, binoculars, a disposable camera, ear plugs, a lighter case, and two headsets (normally $60) to listen to the drivers and pit crew. I guess all those years of smoking paid off!

The first half of the race was plagued with yellow flags. 102 of the 300 laps were under caution. That's the second most in IndyCar racing history! The record is 116 laps under caution during a 2002 race at Nazareth. Most of the yellow flags took place during the first 200 laps of Saturday's race. The last 100 were relatively flag free.

Some guy attempted to throw his hat over the fence and onto the race track. I don't think the police realized who did it, so what did the guy do? He went and picked up the hat and attempted to throw it over the fence again! He then resisted when the police officer tried to escort him out, so the officer signaled for his buddies and about five other cops arrived and persuaded the guy out of the race area.

I've never photographed a race before... much less one at night, so I didn't quite know what to expect. Poor lighting, cars flying by at high speeds, and the fence were all interesting hurdles. They don't let you stand next to the fence to photograph the race, so I had to take pictures from the stands. Half of my shots were perfectly in focus... if your focus was the fence links! I had to do a lot of manual focusing that night.

7-Eleven car (#11) driver Tony Kanaan won the race. It was his 13th career victory. Danica Patrick finished 6th.

Here's a few of the shots from the race. Enjoy!

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