In my email today (picture below) I got an email from Apple, pushing the new Adobe Creative Suites software.  In the midst of the brouhaha over Apple trying to kill Adobe’s Flash software, they’re still pushing other Adobe products.  Is this:

• Apple being fair-minded?
• Apple making an explicit peace offering ?
• Just a random occurrence based on product availability and consumer email marketing schedules?
• Is Apple just trying to make more money on a lucrative software suite ? (likely)
• Is Apple being ironical? (That would be awesome, but not super likely methinks.)

In any case, it caught my eye, so I’m sharing it with you, satisfied reader.  You know who you are.

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It’s awesome for playing music, reading eBooks, and watching movies – the Netflix app rocks if you already have an account.  But still, is all that worth the six hundo? Probably.

But, just in case you needed one more reason to own an iPad, see the video below.

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“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

- Grouch Marx

“I don’t want the world.  I just want your half.”

- Ana Ng, TMBG

“Sweet buttery Jesus, please STOP comparing these to AK’s!”

- Random shopper on Deals.Woot.com, talking about the AK-47 vs. the AR 15 assault rifle.  :)

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On a scale of 1 to 10, more people should really be backing up their hard drives.

You know you should.  We all know we should, but most of us rarely do.  If you go into a room of 10 people and ask: “Do any of you back up your hard drives?”, usually only 2 or 3 people will raise their hands.  If you ask a followup question: “Have any of you ever lost data or had a catastrophic hard drive failure?”  I’ll lay down a bet that the same 2-3 people raise their hands.  My friend Jeremy likes to say that “people don’t like to think about loss – it’s depressing, and our minds just don’t want to go that direction.”  I agree.  Most of the time it takes a severe loss of data to make someone a true believer when it comes to data backup and redundancy.

To fight that apathy, I am making September “Back It Up” month on 1to10reviews.  This month’s posts will all be related to storage solutions, data backup, and other related topics.  This will cover the gamut from:

- cloud-based storage solutions like Box.net

-to external HDD (Hard Disk Drives) from companies like Seagate and Maxtor

- and heavy-duty solutions like RAID, NAS (network attached storage) boxes and DROBO

Many people in September will be thinking about back to school.  Folks in Quahog are starting to worry about those damn leafers from New York.  But here on 1to10, we’re going to explore the depths and variegated folds of that tortured terrain called data backup and storage. If you have comments, objections, personal horror stories or other ideas to contribute (things you’d like us to review) let us know.  You can comment on a post, or email us at: david [AT] 1to10reviews [DOT] com

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Cautionary note: this post contains profanity. A 28 year-old guy named Justin is writing down the things his 73 year old Dad says and sharing them on Twitter. His feed is titled “Shit My Dad Says.”  The tweets are awesome.  Justin’s Dad is awesome.  I can only surmise that Justin must be awesome as well, despite Dad’s frequent and colorful critiques. As of the time of this post, he has 129, 825 followers (Yes, that’s more than pictured below.  Since I took the screenshot below, he’s gotten 429 new followers. Dude.)

This is my favorite tweet.  It has a personal connection to me, to Sol, and to our buddy Joel.  If I were forced to give this a numeric rating from 1to10, it would be a 10.  No holds barred.  Justin is the man right now, and so is his Dad.

Update:

Techcrunch picked up this story on August 28th, and graciously gave a link back.  Following that, the LA Times also covered this phenomenon on September 2nd.  According to Mark Milian at the Times, Justin’s in coversation for a book deal.  Mazel Tov!

Also, at the time of this update, Justin has more than doubled his Twitter followers since my original post.  He’s currently at 308,955 followers.  Egad.

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It’s been a little while since we had a silly post on 1to10, so I decided to have a little fun and review my own recent haircut.  I was hanging out with Sol and decided I needed a change.  Truthfully I had been thinking about it quite a bit. We spent last Saturday building a chicken coop (I know, right). We were hot, sweaty and tired, and decided to call it a day around 7:30PM.  After a few minutes of rest and a beer, we decided that we should cut off all my hair.  The pictures below tell the story far better than I ever could, so I’ll let you peruse those.  Needless to say, several friends criticized me for not keeping the hawk.

My new haircut on 12seconds.tv

If I were forced to give my new haircut a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I think I’d give it a 5. I don’t hate it. But I don’t love it either. I’m relieved that my head is not so misshapen that I look freakish, but I’m not sure this is the right look for me either. One of the best things about shaving your head though, is that hair grows back. Any thoughts or feedback on cut are welcome in the comments.

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On a scale from 1 to 10, 12seconds has done something really cool.

Today 12seconds.tv has done a few cool things:

1. They’ve re-designed their website – cool new look and feel, with a strong focus on video consumption
2. They’ve concluded their invite-only Alpha phase and opened up in a public Beta where anyone can register and use the site

3. They’ve had their iPhone application approved and launched in the iTunes App Store (for $0.99)

I’m happy for their progress from Alpha to Beta, and I think the re-design looks great.  But I’m most excited about the iPhone app.  You all know (both of you) that I’m an iPhone user, and one of my few frustrations with the device has always been the lack of a video recorder.  Apple steadfastly refuses to release one, and there’s no third-party video recording application available (unless you choose to jailbreak your phone.) This annoys me.

12seconds did not manage to sneak a video recorder through Apple’s QA team.  But they did create about the best possible workaround.  App users will take 3 photos (or choose 3 from their picture library), record twelve seconds of audio, and then post their creation to their 12seconds account (unregistered folks can create an account on the fly, in their phone.)  Somewhere in the cloud, the pics and audio are combined and then spit out as a twelve second video slideshow.  Users can email a link to their video directly from their phone  Each video has it’s own unique URL on 12seconds.tv, and can be emailed, embedded (as HTML) or downloaded onto your hard drive.  Here’s a demo of how the app works:

iphone app for 12seconds.tv from Sol Lipman on Vimeo.

One thing I really like about this app is the story telling aspect.  The series of pictures with audio narration really give you that James Earl Jones feeling of comfort.  Also, if you flub the audio and need to re-record, you can do so as many times as you like.  With traditional video, if you blow it, it’s blown.  The moment has passed.  Here’s one video I recorded with a trial version of the app:

Cold Cuts – Chinese Food Style on 12seconds.tv

The app is a first draft.  It works, and it’s intuitive, but there are some features I’d like to see added, including wanting better flexibility in choosing photos and saving drafts.  But on the whole I think the app is very usable.  There’s just room to improve.

Kudos to the 12seconds team on a great launch and a cool app.  This is the best solution to the video-recording conundrum that Apple’s created that I’ve seen yet.  If I were forced to give the iPhone app a numeric score between 1 and 10, I’d call it an 8

Related Posts:

MG Siegler at VentureBeat

Greg Kumparak at MobileCrunch

Rodney Rumford at Face Reviews

This post is also published on LIVEdigitally.

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My buddy Kurt turned me onto this video when I was down in Phoenix for a meeting.  I’ve since watched it 6 times, emailed it to seventeen people, dugg it, and enjoyed it immensely.   The gist of the video is a call between the sales department and the IT department, also known as Sales Guy vs. Web Dude.  The video is called “The Website Is Down” and can be found at the URL of same name.  I’ve embedded the video here for your convenience:

My favorite part of the exchange is when the IT guy manipulates the exchange server to remove an email that he never read, making it appear as though it had never been sent at all.  If you’ve worked with IT people before, that’s their bread and butter (CYA, always.)  :)  But the entire scenario, from the fact that he uses a Mac, to his switching between apps, to the remote desktop, Linux / Windows virtualizations, Skype telephony and playing Halo on work time are all freaking awesome.

Let’s be clear.  If you’re not somewhat techno-geeky, this will probably not be incredibly amusing to you. There are some funny conversations, but a lot of it will seem boring.  However, if you have even the slightest peripheral interest in computers, IT, and the inanity of some human beings, you’ll find a lot of comedic value in this video.   And almost everyone can find some joy in the final minutes when they’re discussing Chip’s desktop.   Josh Weinberg (the director of the video, and the voice of “Web Dude“) did amazing work here, and I think it’s brilliant.  Johntash, a guy in IT, also thought it was awesome.  That makes him awesome.

If I were forced to give this a numeric rating, I’d call it a nine out of ten.  Great work guys – so awesome.

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Malaise – a general feeling of weakness in the body?  Downer.

Ennui – weakness or discontent due to boredom?  Get over it.  Start a blog.  Buy an Xbox 360.

Je ne sais quoi – a certain… “I don’t know what?”   Shut up.  Figure it out.  Figure out what you’re trying to say, and then say that thing.  Gosh.

And just to put the icing on the cake, here’s a cartoon that is depressing.  But it also made me laugh out loud (I have a sick and twisted sense of humor.  (Oh, and this one us even more effed up.))))

So if you have this persistent feeling of ennui, a malaise of the spirit (if you will), and you feel like your life is lacking, that there’s something missing, a certain feeling of je ne sais quoi… get over it.

If I were forced to give depressing French words that have wormed their way into the English vernacular a numeric rating between one and ten, I would give them a 2.

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Wait, hold on.  Let me explain.

While on Facebook, I saw an advertisement related to rock climbing.  I like rock climbing.  So I said to myself: “Why don’t you check that out.”  The ad suggested that the advertisers in question were seeking Beta testers to check out their new rock climbing-based social network.  I then thought to myself: “You’re on a social network right now.  Maybe this one would be cool too.”

So I clicked.  I was taken to a site offering me a free T-shirt to become a beta tester.  Interesting.  Not great.  Just interesting.  That’s a pretty old-fashioned marketing technique for a web 2.0-style site.  But hey, I wear t-shirts all the time.  And clearly these guys are not appealing to Twittering tech geeks (at least, not unless they also climb rocks.)  They are going after a niche (technically, it will have to be a niche within a niche, those who like rock climbing, and who also frequent the internet / social networking world.)  So, they decided to throw some marketing dollars into it.  I sort of get that – I guess.  I mean, they are going after a tough to reach audience.  Kinda.

What really threw me for a loop was the scammy, “sign up for 2 or more credit cards” advertisement I was shown right after I signed up for the Beta.  I gave them my info (email, DOB, gender, the basics), hit submit, and was immediately shown an advertisement displaying an awesome package deal of rock climbing gear, as long as I sign up for at least 2 services, for a fee of no more than $5.  Super ghetto.  Giant turn off.  Totally inappropriate.

I just find the whole thing frankly weird.  Are they trying to make ad money already?   On the signups to the private Beta they haven’t finished offering?  They’re throwing money away on the one hand (paying for ads they don’t really need,) and then trying to re-coup it in a totally inappropriate way on the other (serving creepy, spam ads.)  Here’s what I don’t understand:

• Crankjam is advertising on facebook for beta testers?  $$$
• Crankjam is giving away a free t-shirt for beta testing?  $$$
• Crankjam is pushing credit card schemes (and netflix memberships) after Beta signup?  Too weird.

Now I’m not just trying to be a pill here.  I like rock climbing.  And I like social networking.  I think it could be a great site.  I just don’t understand what they’re doing – seems like they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Why are they buying ads on Facebook to recruit for their private beta?  More importantly, why are they serving spam ads right after.  Here’s some of the things I think they should be doing:

• Use free social media: Twitter, FriendFeed, FB fan pages, Jaiku, Pownce, Message Boards, Discussion Forums, make a funny video on Youtube, create a channel on 12seconds - there’s all kinds of social media and services with which to create community and market yourself.  The key here is to be active in the community, spend time there, follow people, listen to what they say, and make sure they know you’re a real person, not a spam bot.  Then ask them questions.  What do you think of this idea?  Do you know anyone who likes rock climbing?  Get some real market data, and recruit some real Beta testers.
• Partner up with other people – do a little Business Development.  Reach out to the admins at rock climbing forums and retailers – tell them you want to trade some ad space and partner up.  You’re creating a rock climbing social network.  They sell gear to rock climbers (or provide a locale for them to gather and share thoughts.)  It’s a good fit and a win-win situation.
• Contact University groups – every college campus in America has a rock climbing club, rock wall, rock gym, etc.  Every one of those groups has young people who like to climb, every one of which uses the internet on a daily basis.  That’s your target audience.  Recruit them.  Buy them pizza (instead of FB ads) and recruit there.

This is the news announcement they’ve issued, and there’s an excerpt below.  Crankjam is a mass producer of niche social networks based in Columbia, South Carolina.  Lifefitter in turn seems to be a product of another “incubator” called LoudDoor, also based in South Carolina.  Now, the Lifefitter guys seem to sort of “get it.”  They have a blog.  And they’re even writing some posts that express expertise and understanding of their space.  Kudos, that’s sincerely excellent.  They are creating a bunch of niched social networks, online communities for the outdoor (and technologically) minded.  Cool.  Personally I think Ning makes more sense, where existing communities can form their own online social network, but there’s a place for this product too.  It’s even a cool idea.

However, this spammy approach is creepy, up and down. It’s disconcerting.  If I had to give this a numeric rating, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d call it a 2.  And that’s without ever getting a chance to see the product itself.  Purely based on the experience of finding and signing up for the Beta, I am truly uncomfortable.

New

Lifefitter to release CrankJam, a social network for rock climbers, in private beta.

Columbia, SC: Today, Lifefitter Networks announced CrankJam, a new social network dedicated to the rock climbing community. The site is accepting requests for invitations to the beta program and will be released in private beta within the next 45 days.

“Rock climbing is such an intense sport, it takes a lot of guts to go out and climb all over the world,” said General Manager Bobby Redfern.

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Warning: SPOILER ALERT

Rick Riordan is an author of both adult and teen-oriented books. He has series targeted at teens that focuses on one boy, Perseus (Percy) Jackson.  Percy is the son of Sally Jackson, a mortal woman, and the son of Poseidon, the Greek God of the Sea from ancient mythology.  In the series, the Greek gods are not myths at all, but a vibrant and lively part of Western Civilization.  Along with Poseidon, Zeus, Athena, Hephaestus and the rest of the crew come a host of monsters and mayhem including (but not limited to) the Minotaur, Medusa, the Furies, prophecies, quests, adventure, sword fighting, revenge and true love.  Sounds like the Princess Bride as described by Peter Falk. 

In any case, I am not here to review the books themselves.  I love them, I think they’re grand.  They fall into a similar genre as J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and Chris Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, also books I enjoy thoroughly and unequivocally.  I’m a geek boy for sci-fi, fantasy, mythology, and the “weird.”

No, in this review, I am getting specific.  In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I am making a prediction, a prediction about Percy’s mom, Sally Jackson (as you might have guessed from the title of this post).  That prediction is: I think she is a half-blood (half god and half human) herself.  That would, in fact, make Percy 3/4 god, instead of the normal half god, or demigod.  Here’s my thinking:

• Her eyes change color depending on the light
• She can see through mist (something that keeps most mortals from seeing monsters, gods, and the rest of the weirdness)
• In Book 1, The Lightning Thief, Sally isn’t killed when the Minotaur picks her up by the neck, but is captured and spirited away by Hades in a shower of golden light.  Maybe Hades could do that to a mortal, but still…
• I think we need something to make Percy even more special, and that would do it
• plus, it would make an interesting plot twist.  I don’t remember reading any myths about humans who had a god for a grandparent and a parent

I know this post is probably uninteresting to those who haven’t read these books.  Even if you have, maybe this degree of analysis seems like a waste of time.  Don’t care.  I think it’s neat, and I am calling it now.  Maybe in the end I’ll be proven wrong.  But I think Sally Jackson is herself a half-blood.  You heard it here first.  I’ll let you know the results when the series ends.

Oh, and by the way.  The reason I gave this review a 5 has nothing to do with how much I like the books.  I think they’re great.  I gave it a 5 because I’m making a WAG (wild ass guess) and I figure I have a 50/50 chance.  Twisted logic, but if you read this far, you’re probably right there with me. 

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This was too funny to pass up.  I personally try to never do this to other people’s pictures, though I often make funnies in my own pics.    Found the story first as a linkover from the Atlantic.com.  But the real source is the guys at ListOfTheDay They have some really funny posts.

The basic story is about messing with people’s pics, ruining an otherwise awesome photo:

I would check out the rest at LOTD.  And as I said, personally I try not to do that to others’ pics.  Though I am generally goofy in my own:

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OK, so maybe it’s biased to give your friend’s blog a high rating just because they’re your friend. But I don’t really care.  Shaan writes a cool blog, and you should read it. And then go watch the movie he recommended, because it sounds awesome.

Yum.

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I found it here. Brutal.

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My friend Allison (not my wife) likes to use the phrase “on a scale
of 1 to 10″ in unusual ways.  Rather than finishing the sentence with a
number (like 3 for instance) she’ll say something like: “on a scale of
1 to 10 that’s awesome.”  Or: “on a scale of 1 to 10  this sucks.”

I think it’s brilliant, and on a scale of 1 to 10  she’s fabulous.

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I so often feel as though this cartoon embodies my life.

That makes me both happy and depressed. Generally I have to just smile my Jim Halpert smile and shrug my shoulders.

An 8. Or a 2. I still can’t decide.

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