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011110 – Palindromes are sweet

On a scale of 1to10, palindromes are neat and a little trippy. Since we’ve been talking about dates anyway, and my buddy Jim just brought this to my attention, I thought I’d share it with you. Today is January 11th, 2010. 01/11/10

011110

Sweet. I’ve always liked palindromes. For the uninitiated, they’re words that spell out the same way in either direction. Simple ones are words like mom, or dad. A favorite one of mine that I learned in the 10th grade goes as follows:
“Satan oscillate my metallic sonatas”

Do you have a favorite palindrome or word game? If so, please share it in the comments so we can all enjoy. In the meantime, enjoy this great example of Nerd Rock by They Might Be Giants: “I Palindrome I” (notably not a palindrome, which is part of the fun.)

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2010 01 11 David Speiser Beyond Categorization Comments (2) Permalink

The entirely non-exclusive and barely official unboxing of the Google Nexus One Android Phone

On a scale of 1to10, the Google Nexus One is a sexy bitch.  Sol decided to pick one up on the way to Vegas (he lost his iPhone in Kettleman City) and had a Nexus One overnighted to our hotel in Las Vegas where we’re staying for the Consumer Electronic Show (CES.)

This is our 5th CES in a row, and it’s our annual tradition to drive.  We stopped for some lunch and Sol lost his phone, which is normally a panic-inducing nightmare of an experience.  But Sol stayed pretty zen about it (he’s in a good place right now.)  As it turned it out, it wasn’t really lost, and because I’m a genius we found it in about 20 minutes. But by then the Nexus One was ordered, and it only seems right to have one. After all, we’re at CES and we love shiny new phones the way little kids love puppies, or the way gravediggers like a good exhumation.

Below is the video of our unboxing. Ours is non-exclusive, non-exhaustive, and only mildly interesting. You can find much more professional (and informative) unboxings on Into Mobile, on Engadget, and on Ubergizmo (among others.) But Sol is better looking that anyone at those other pubs, so we’ll add ours to the mix anyway.

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2010 01 08 David Speiser Gadgets
Technology
mobile Comments (1) Permalink

1/2/10 – an opportunity lost

IMG_0652

On a scale of 1to10, I deserve a 2. At best.

On January second of this year (about a week and ago) an amazing opportunity arose. My good friend Jeremy pointed it out to me. The date, January 2nd, 2010. Or, written another way: 1/2/10

So cool. Our blogging namesake there, right in the date. On the evening of the 2nd, Jeremy and I were hanging out, and he suggested that I blog about it, use it as an opportunity to reflect on the blog, on life, etc. I agreed, went out to sushi, drank too much sake, and forgot to write a post. And I’ve been so busy I never followed up.

That’s been the story of this publication for a while now, and it’s a bummer. I like writing, and I like 1to10. I’m at CES right now (the Consumer Electronics Show) and being around so much gadget porn and so many bloggers is making me want to write. I missed a cool opportunity on 1/2/10, but I’m going to try and make the most of 1to10 in 2010. :)

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2010 01 08 David Speiser Beyond Categorization Comments (0) Permalink

The Bissell Spot Bot for pet stains…

On a scale from 1 to 10, I’m talking about cleaning up poop.

51MY853YTHL._SS400_We got a dog recently, and adorable Golden Retriever puppy we’ve named Cash. He’s a part of this family, and 100% awesome.  But he’s got a weak tummy (or worms) and he’s lost control of himself a couple of times, both at the office and at home in our bedroom.  Cross my fingers, we’ve so far avoided any squishy toes (thanks to Ron H. for that lovely and descriptive term.)

In deference to those incidents, and in the interest of a clean home and good relations with my co-workers, we decided to get some help with cleaning up aging diarrhea stains.  Enter the Bissell 1200A Spot Bot Pet – a portable, spot cleaning vacuum.  This sucker uses water and cleaning solutions to pull out aging (and gross) stains better than I could ever hope to with a spray bottle and a rag. We used it on three spots so far and the thing seems to be pretty darn effective.  The reviews on Amazon are pretty compelling as well.

The thing is pretty brain-dead simple to use too.   Fill up the reservoir with cleaning solution and water, place over the stain in question, plug it in, and hit “go.”  ”Go” = one of two choices, either a “fresh stain” setting that runs for 3 minutes, or a “set stains” setting that runs for 6.  I opted for the 6 minute clean.

And it works.  At $130 it isn’t super cheap, but not excessively expensive either, especially compared with a couple of visits by Stanley Steamer. Of course, I need to keep buying cleaning fluid too, but hey, Bissell’s gotta eat too.  And this vacuum is reassuringly heavy and solid – doesn’t feel like a cheap piece o’ crap.  And it’s kind of fun to watch it washing, rinsing, gurgling and scrubbing away in the magic viewing window.

Seriously, if you have (or anticipate acquiring) a number of small, contained stains on the carpet, this thing might be a darn handy tool to have around.  Here’s a video of the Spot Bot Pet in action at the office, working on week-old diarrhea stains:

Poop Be Gone. on 12seconds.tv

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2009 11 26 David Speiser Gadgets Comments (0) Permalink

Is Facebook turning into MySpace?

On a scale from 1to10, I’d say probably not all the way.  But still, spam accounts are becoming more prevalent on Facebook.

When I first joined MySpace in 2005, it was relatively new, and allowed me to connect with a lot of people I hadn’t seen a long time.  Facebook was only available for college students.  Social networking was still a young-ish enterprise, and no one had ever tweeted. Ever.  Hard to believe.

MySpace quickly became less fun as more and more profiles turned janky, and more and more fake profiles started asking me to be their friend.  You it’s relatively easy to tell when a fake profile wants to friend you, because it will have a profile picture  that looks like a model’s head shot, and they have only 3 friends.  The same thing happens on Twitter – same kind of profile pic, and though they’re following 3,000 people, they in turn have only 7 followers (hapless schmucks who most likely have auto-follow turned on.)

FB_Spam_screenNow, for the first time since I’ve been using Facebook (~3 years) I got a MySpace-style spam friend request.  See picture on the right.  I’m pretty sure I don’t know that person – I’d remember a stunningly hot woman named Miles Michaels.  And I notice that the fan pages “she” is following are both for clubs in Las Vegas.  Huh.  What do you know.

I was surprised to get this request, and kinda bummed.  I don’t spend as much time on Facebook as I used, but as it becomes pervasive enough for even my Dad to to have a profile, it’s increasingly useful as a way to share information (like pictures of my new dog, Cash.)

If I had to give this a rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 2.  Spam is lame in all it’s varieties, and Facebook is no exception.

Post Script:

If anyone believes that I’m wrong, and Miles is actually a sensitive, passionate woman who deserves friendship like anyone else, here’s her info.  Have at it:

Basic Information:

Sex:
Female
Birthday:
February 14, 1981
Hometown:
Manhattan Beach, CA
Relationship Status:
In an Open Relationship
Interested In:
Women
Men
Looking For:
Friendship
Dating
A Relationship
Networking

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2009 10 30 David Speiser Web 2.0 Comments (0) Permalink

Best Buy Kiosks are rad. Right up until you freeze on the BIOS screen.

photoOn a scale from 1to10, this Best Buy kiosk is experiencing a serious fail.

The Best Buy Kiosk is a great idea.  People like to make awesome, spur of the moment gadget and electronics purchases.  Those not least when traveling and on vacation.  Doubtless Japan has been doing this for many years.  Damn they’re on the ball.

Essentially (in case you live in 29 Palms, CA and you’ve never seen one) these kiosks are like a self-serve gizmo vending machine.  iPods, camcorders, headphones, and other fun items are ready to hand for spontaneous shopper.   They are un-manned, which is obviously a huge costs savings in labor.  Right up until Windows goes into a tail-spin spiral of death, and/or DELL chokes on the BIOS screen.

At the airport I ran into a Best Buy Kiosk that was in excessive FAIL mode.  On a scale of 1to10, this scores a 1 on the “success” meter.  (It looked like this for at least 25 minutes, FYI.)

photo1

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2009 10 10 David Speiser Gadgets
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HG Wells, eat your heart out (or, my time machine is bigger than your time machine)

On a scale from 1 to 10, Time Machine can really save your bacon.

Mac has a very cool program that fits seamlessly into September’s theme on data backup and protection. Not September anymore you say? Well, things have been busy. :) Nevertheless, for those who haven’t heard of it (both of you) this software merits a little blog love: Time Machine.

From their website:

“Never again worry about losing your digital files. Time Machine automatically saves up-to-date copies of everything on your Mac — photos, music, videos, documents, applications, and settings. If you ever have the need, you can easily go back in time to recover anything.”

As with many Apple products, Time Machine is built well and built smart.  It will regularly remind you if you haven’t backed up recently.  And it’s simplicity itself to open the program, pick a day / time that you want to restore, and it will revert your computer to the state it was in at that time.  Cool?  But it gets better.

I might lose a file, delete a photo, or even corrupt my iTunes library so that it shows only gibberish instead of my meticulously labeled and organized music.  Any of these issues are incredibly frustrating, but I might not want to revert my entire computer back to two weeks ago, cause I’ve gotten new emails or shot new pictures since then, or who knows what.  Time Machine will let you restore an individual file or an individual program, without affecting anything else on the computer.  Now that’s cool.

So how do you use Time Machine?

- Well, to start with you need an Apple computer – Time Machine only comes with Mac OS X.

- Second, you need an external HDD – I use my Seagate FreeAgent Desk as my dedicated Time Machine backup drive.  You can use a variety of different external storage devices, including setting aside a partition on a RAID or in your NAS box, or even in your DROBO, but I decided to have a dedicated disk for TM.

-  Third, you’ll have to plug the drive into your Mac (or connect over your wireless network) and open Time Machine – it’ll walk you through the steps of how to format the drive correctly.  They do a good job of holding your hand through it.

And that’s pretty much it.  If you always leave your drive connected (or you’re always connected to your Wifi network) it’ll keep backing you up automatically.  If not, then you’ll get regular reminders that you need to backup your machine.  Plug in and it will back up without any fuss or muss.

One note of caution – if you set it to backup too frequently (like, say, hourly) then you will quickly fill up even a very large HDD.  The Time Machine is smart enough to only note the changes to your computer since you last backup (as opposed to making a complete copy of everything – overkill considering that 90% of your files don’t change much from day to day.)  But still, even those relatively small changes can start to add up quickly, and you will discover that your HDD is full before long.

If I were forced to give Time Machine a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 9.  It’s a great piece of software, it comes free with your Mac (as long as you buy one with OS X or above) and it works perfectly. Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah for Apple.  :)  (Like they need more kudos, self-inflated as they are.)

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2009 10 02 David Speiser Technology
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12mail is the best way to send video to your friends from the iPhone

12mail_composeDisclosure: I am involved with the 12seconds team, and I work with the company promoting 12seconds and their technology.

Today 12seconds launched a new app in the iTunes app store. It’s called 12mail, and you can download it from iTunes here.

I know that I’m biased, being that I work with the company and all, but I do believe that this app has incredible potential – it offers a new medium for communication. It’s like video visual voicemail.  It leverages all of your friends in Twitter and Facebook to build your list of “contacts.”   You can then send short videos (twelve seconds long) to those people.  If they also have the 12mail app, they’ll be able to watch the video right there on the phone.  If not, they’ll either a.) receive a DM on Twitter with a link to the video (private) or b.) a wall post on their Facebook profile (public)

Combining the ability to record and send video with the social networks you’ve built up on services like Twitter and Facebook is an excellent move.  And the twelve second limitation on the length of videos works to your advantage on a mobile device.  It’s quick to upload when you’re sending, even over clunky old EDGE.  And it’s very fast to buffer and stream when you’re on the receiving end.

Sol, Jakey, Ethan and the rest of the team have worked really hard to put this app together, and I think the effort was well spent.  A number of different folks in the press and blogosphere have covered the app today, including Cult of Mac, AppleTell, Techcrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Download Squad, and a bunch of others. I have no qualms giving this app a 10 out of 10.  If you think I’m biased, well, you’re right.  Don’t care.

A sample video I shot is below, as is a SRIBD doc that walks through the entire app.  Check ‘em out.

You should get 12mail for your iPhone. on 12seconds.tv

12mail Overview

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2009 09 22 David Speiser Technology
Web 2.0
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Redundancy = peace of mind, especially for data

On a scale from 1to10, I’m a strong believer in redundancy.

It keeps you alive when you’re setting rock climbing anchors, and it’s extremely valuable when it comes to digitally stored data. I have 2 hard drives inside my PC. The two are mirrored (RAID 1 – see the Wikipedia link above).  Briefly, what this means is that every time I create a file or add a new program on my computer, that data is stored to both HDDs.  Both of the drives in my PC reflect the exact same data (hence the term “mirror.”)  This protects me against mechanical failure (i.e. one hard drive melting down.)  It does not protect against something like, say, a virus or worm.  This is because if it affects one drive, it will also affect the other.   The two are exact mirrors of one another, and reflect the exact same operating system, data, software, etc. So if I fubar one (by installing a corrupt file or a virus) both will be messed up.  But, if one of the disks stops turning, the other one can remain active and continue to run the computer.  This is a type of redundancy which I am very fond of.

Now, if the computer itself catches fire, or if I do somehow install a virus, the redundancy in the RAID is no protection at all.  It’s strictly a backup against mechanical failure of a single drive.   That’s why I also use an  external HDD to store independent backups of important data.  Again, redundancy.  Get it?

Spencer Boerup, a wedding photographer in Phoenix, AZ has a nice post with exhaustive detail on his beliefs in redundancy, and the steps he uses.  If you’ve got 10 minutes, it’s a good read.

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2009 09 19 David Speiser Technology
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Chrome is pretty Fluid

On a scale of 1to10, Google Chrome just got cooler.

This post is off-topic.  Meaning, it’s outside the scope of “storage” month. But I’m excited about a new feature of Google Chrome, and that’s inspired me to write.  M.G. Siegler at Techcrunch wrote a post today about Google Chrome’s latest update to version 3.0.  Chrome is also a little more than a year old – I’ve been using it consistently pretty much that whole time.  I like it a lot.

Chrome 3.0 has made all kinds of performance and benchmarking improvements and upgrades – javascript thingamajigs load waaaay faster than they did before, blah blah blah.  That’s all cool, and I’m glad the browser is better-performing and more reliable now.  But to be truthful I don’t know that much about the technical side of web-browsing, and I don’t want to pretend that I do.  I take it at face value that the performance is now better than it was (seems great to me.)

What does impress and please me is a feature I hadn’t noticed previously – the ability to create application shortcuts out of a webpage.  This is very similar to what Fluid does on the Mac OS, and this is nothing really new.  But it’s cool.  Basically, you can take a website of your choosing, and using the “Control the current page” dropdown at the top right, you can create a shortcut for that website on either the desktop, the start menu, or the quick launch bar.  For instance, I turned Pandora into a shortcut.  This does a couple things:

1. You can launch said webpage as a standalone app, as opposed to a browser tab or browser window

2. The page looks like an app, with not URL bar or other navigation tools

3. If you close your browser, that application stays open

Again, this is very similar to what Fluid does.  And Google did a nice job of incorporating the site’s own iconography and favicons to make the shortcuts look decent.  I like using the quick launch personally, cause I dislike a cluttered desktop.  Oh lord, my OCD is showing.

Fluid rocks, and this little feature is a nice move in a similar direction.  If I gave it a numeric rating, it would be an 8 out 10.

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2009 09 15 David Speiser Technology Comments (0) Permalink