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Sun 02-26-12 04:51:50 PM #

Ceiling Cat
Ptw Ceiling Cat

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Sun 2/26/12 1:06pm #

Random Non Sequiters

About once every month or every other month I like to post some rambling blog post or another about something I'm thinking about. Usually this involves much typing about tech. So with yet another of these installments her I go.

I think I last rambled along these lines on 2/1. Where I talked mostly about novelty of the internet wearing off a bit. That attention was going to continue to gain in scarcity, and getting in the middle of indirect transactions was the near term way to go, since we are in a world of digital abundance and noone really wants to pay for much online. Twenty odd days out, I think I still more or less agree with those musings.

Going back to 1/14/12 it looks like I got off on 3 tangents:

Tangent 1 - It looks like I rambled on for a paragraph about whether you should buy an iPad 2 or an iPad 3, I'm guessing that paragraph came out of a place of just seeing way too much iPad 3 speculation that month, but really does anyone much care until they announce or officially release the thing? No, not really.

Tangent 2 - 3D Printing. This topic was pretty much at the top of my list in December and January. Now I'm just a little disappointed that these things don't look like they are going to be anywhere near reasonably (sub $500) priced any time soon..

Tangent 3 - CES. Yeah, nothing much came out of there.

On 1/2/12 I mused abit and posted a positively weird video about Social Media. I mused mostly about the future social media tech solutions not being corporate ones, maybe I was a bit hasty in that, maybe they will be corporate ones, but maybe they'll be corporate solutions not quite used as intended.

So what's on my tech mind now?

Video anywhere. This week Yahoo launched some new video comedy channel or something. I really don't know what that's about. All I know is that Bill Maher helped them launch it with a 1 hour stand-up stage show: Crazy Stupid Politics So, I booted up the Mac connected to the TV and we watched it for an hour.

When it comes to video, I don't really care if it's downloadable, on Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo or whatever. Your "web station" branding doesn't matter, all your station branding really tells me is: Oh that's on such and such, I won't be able to play that on my iPad. That's what video site branding is reduced to in my head, is that site iPad friendly or not. Other than that, I don't care, I'm relying on my various informational streams in RSS, Flipboard, etc. to notify me of the what and where of the content I'm interested in, there's loyalty to the content or individual creators, but not to the station or production company brands at all.

Books anywhere. I got a Kobo eReader this week. Won an eBay action for it last week for $46. The device is listed at $99. But you can regularly find it on sale for $70 at Kmart. Essentially it's basically the same eInk screen as a 2nd generation Kindle. It's light, it has an SD slot, it has an online store, wi-fi and for the most part, you hit the next button, the page changes and you read. It's a lovely example of technology getting completely out of your way and just letting you do the thing you want to do without spending much time thinking about the technology itself.

Data anywhere. Dropbox did a great little update to their Android software last week. If you have it installed on Android you can check a box and every time you take a photo, your picture will be uploaded to Dropbox's cloud with out any action on your part at all. This is cool because it means photos taken on my phone are automatically synced to my desktop or automatically accessible on my iPad. I'm sure in another couple years most of our data will function like this. Cloud syncing and cloud accessibility looks poised to become more and more a reality. And it's kindof neat.

Data independence form the device that creates it, is going to continue to be a really cool if invisible progression in tech. We've already forgotten about floppy disks, we've almost wiped CDs/DVDs from our data memory. USB sticks are next. (Desktop harddrives have some life in them yet though, I think.)

Sharing everywhere. I'm not sure we're close to this yet, but Pinterest made a neat step forward the last month or two, in helping people share and save, while categorizing. I'm sure Facebook had grand plans to get this accomplished but, services like Pinterest, Instagram, and Foursquare are really letting people segment their types of sharing better, I think, than one monolithic social site can. Different people use it in different ways, but I think there is a consensus developing that people, in the near future, would rather segment their sharing by service than by categories, circles or whatnot within one services.

Probably enough rambling for now, more later at somepoint soon, I would imagine.

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Sun 02-26-12 10:02:14 AM #

Cat does not understand why the ferret won't share
Cat does not understand why the ferret won't share
Jennifer always gets these great effortless shots. I love the light in this one and it's a great little moment between Peppy and Leki.

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Sat 2/25/12 7:28pm #

Reading

Today I began reading Adam Christopher's Empire State which is a depression era superhero novel with lots of crime noir and I'm a couple chapters in and so far it's pretty good.

Also I've been reading it on my new Kobo ereader and so far that's been a very enjoyable experience.

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Sat 2/25/12 7:21pm #

Reading

I just finished Kevin J Anderson's Enemies and Allies, Superman and Batman novel set in the 1950s. It was pretty good. I enjoyed it and if you like Superman/Batman and 1950s sci-fi type stuff I recommend reading it.

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Sat 2/25/12 4:36pm #

Let's Go Surfing


Hands on With Clik, YouTube's New Remote
source: Mashable!

Very cool software. You install the App, then go to clickthis.com with your desktop browser, you scan the code on the phone and then your phone and desktop screens are linked. You can then search for youtube videos on the phone, and they will start playing on the desktop. Pause/play and even search and put your next video into the on deck circle without interupting the play of the current one. Very cool software, I'll be using it in my living room soon.

The Engadget Interview: Duracell President Stassi Anastassov on future battery tech (video)
source: Engadget

I didn't read the article, but I imagine he says that the future of battery tech keeps going and going and going...

Create Beautiful Organic 3D Models For Free With Sculptris [Windows & Mac]
source: MakeUseOf.com

I haven't tried this, but it looks interesting.

Watch the trailer for the Static Shock: Blackout short film
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Interesting.

The Privacy Pop
source: Likecool





Mark Waid designs truly digital comics
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Interesting.

Midway Arcade brings Joust, Defender, Spy Hunter to iOS without the associated coin-loss
source: Engadget

Currently 99¢. Nice 3D arcade game selection interface.

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Sat 02-25-12 03:34:44 PM #

From Pinterest#

Love the chalkboard pantry door

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Sat 02-25-12 03:33:03 PM #

From Pinterest#

This is better than a bat signal

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Sat 02-25-12 03:32:07 PM #

From Pinterest#

There they are!

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Sat 02-25-12 03:31:19 PM #

From Pinterest#

Neat outdoor lounge

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Sat 02-25-12 03:14:32 PM #

From Pinterest#

Pudding Pops -- 1 pkg instant pudding, 1 1/2c milk, 2c cool whip. dissolve pudding in milk, whip in cool whip. Spoon into 3 oz dixie cups and insert popsicle stick and freeze

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Sat 02-25-12 12:55:23 PM #

Posterous Post
Article: Primary Math: How Are State Delegate Numbers Determined Anyway?


I don't recall this being covered in High School government or civics classes...

Primary Math: How Are State Delegate Numbers Determined Anyway?
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/primary-math-how-are-state-delegate-numbers-determined-anyway/

(Sent from Flipboard)

Flipboardcover

Sent from my iPad

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Fri 02-24-12 02:30:47 PM #

From Pinterest#

Patriotic dipped strawberries

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Wed 02-22-12 06:01:13 PM #

Kobo Reader
Ptw Kobo Reader
Got a great deal on this off ebay. About half cost. It came in the original box and was like new with a 4 Gb. SD Card. Summer outdoor reading, here I come.

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Sun 2/19/12 8:27pm #

Chronicle

Jennifer and I caught the $4.50 first showing of Chronicle at Star Alpine today. Sort of 1 part Kick Ass, 1 part Unbreakable, 1 part Handcock, a half part Superbad and 4 parts Cloverfield. Mix all that together and you get a pretty good superhero story in the found footage amateur documentary style.

Slightly less than 90 minutes, it didn't need to be longer, since the movie is entirely told thru "found footage" style cuts, they actually cover a fair amount of ground in that short pierd of time.

Trio of High School kids discover this thing and then they slowly get increasingly powerful telekinetic powers, the characters themselves don't have alot of room to really develop character, the characters are more developed by the situations they are in.

The lead Andrew character comes across as a dark mixture of Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Hamill and is pretty good. The other two main leads are fairly standard teen movie types.

It's a very straight forward, fairly realistic movie, or at least as realistic as teens with superpowers are likely to be. This is not standard Hollywood or teen movie fare, for the most part it comes across as an engaging amateur edited home movie about 3 guys in unusual circumstances.

You could easily wait for this on DVD, but it's worth a cheap matinee if you like superhero type stuff or even if you like angsty teen melodrama. Good Stuff. Go See.

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Sun 02-19-12 07:46:57 PM #

Potato chips and cupcakes, i still need to frost the cupcakes
Ptw Potato chips and cupcakes, i still need to frost the cupcakes
Made the potato chips using the special potato chip microwave try I bought, pictured a bit farther down the page. They're very tasty and a modest potato makes about 50 chips.

Also made some cupcakes in the little cupcake maker, ended up frosting them with some vanilla cream frosting. Tasty.

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Sun 02-19-12 09:47:57 AM #

Me on a roof
23
Jennifer shot the above picture of me up on the roof with the inspector of, if all goes well, a house we are going to buy.

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Sun 2/19/12 3:29am #

Let's Go Surfing

Guy Fawkes mask stencil
source: Boing Boing


Chronicles Max Landis takes on the death and return of Superman
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment


Ferris vs. Ferris: Super Bowl Ad and Movie Compared [VIDEO]
source: Mashable!

Aide by side comparison video.

DC Comics To Launch Smallville Season 11 As Weekly Digital Comics
source: Bleeding Cool

Great idea. Likely a bad comic.




T-Shirts & Apparel : SAVE FERRIS
source: ThinkGeek :: What\'s New

Dude, is that from that 80s movie?

No man, I'm protesting military budget cuts in the DC Universe.

Push-button vault for Book of Sith
source: Boing Boing

This is a cool way to store a book. Watch video.

MC Frontalot's Stoop Sale
source: Boing Boing

Old School Puppet Rap.


Mattel's Toy Fair 2012 booth
source: Super Punch

Platinum and Tin.

Apollo 17 astronauts singing on the moon
source: Boing Boing

It's sad that we haven't gone back.


Video: watch Photoshop CS6 cut hours of editing down to seconds
source: DVICE

Neat video, cool new features.

Happy Valentine's Day
source: Likecool

Richard Marx redux. Very cool movie mashup.

Your Wednesday Sequence 42 | Joe Kubert's Hawkman¯
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Great Art.

Illustration roundup
source: Super Punch

Great stuff.



Video: Goldeneye 64 Remade In Real Life
source: Bleeding Cool

Very funny.

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Sat 02-18-12 01:11:47 PM #

From Pinterest#

Individual Seven-Layer Dips

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Sat 02-18-12 01:06:11 PM #

From Pinterest#

great way to get air tight seal on bagged stuff

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Sat 2/18/12 11:07am #

Let's Go Surfing


The Variants wraps up its second season
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Only watched a couple minutes of this, but it was better than Comicbook Men.



[UPDATE] Scribus Portable V1.4.0
source: The Portable Freeware Collection


It isnt necessary to imagine the world ending in...
source: Hey Oscar Wilde!

Corporations are People!

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Sat 2/18/12 8:49am #

Let's Go Surfing

This cartoon is mildly educational
source: See Mike Draw

Ha. See Mike Draw is always funny stuff.

Check your computer clocks accuracy with Time.is [Daily Freeware]
source: The Red Ferret Journal - gadgets, cool sites, freeware and tech trivia

Time.is that's and easy url to remember to check the time.

Clear To Do App Has Some Surprising Design Inspirations
source: Mashable!

Clear App has some fantastic touch UI ideas.

Audiobooks.com: Listen To Unlimited Audio Books For A Monthly Free
source: MakeUseOf.com

Great idea. But at $25 a month, way too pricey.

Arrivals for Foursquare Displays Check-ins on Old-Style Airport Board
source: Mashable!

This seems like the type of app that would be really useful if you had a very mobile work or sales force. You could seeing buying an entire iPad for an office and leaving it running something like this.

First World Cat Problems
source: Boing Boing

cute.

APK puts Windows 95, 98 and XP, plus Linux on the EVO 3D
source: Engadget

Very cool. this is the sort of thing worth bookmarking and then coming back to in a year when these phones are really cheap.



Dad and kids play Depeche Mode
source: Boing Boing

Very cool. This is why copyright is bad.

Obama Is Using Square to Take Your Donations Now [Election]
source: Gizmodo

Interesting. I assume that square still gets their cut.

Bellbot: Get Notified By a Loud Beep When Someone Buys Your Product
source: MakeUseOf.com

Cute idea, but this really wouldn't take more than a half hour to write and post.

Hasbro Marvel Legends Wave 2
source: Action Figure Insider - Best Toy News on the Web!

Some obscure choices, but hey, 2 members of the Wrecking Crew. Cool.


HOWTO make pizza in a jar
source: Boing Boing



Facebook: Here Are the 35 Things That Could Kill Our Company
source: Mashable!



Do big cats purr?
source: Boing Boing

At the end you can also click on a Big Cats/laserpointer video.


Tucows launches Ting, a contract-free mobile service on Sprint's network
source: Engadget

Interesting. With as little as I use my phone, something like this would probably be alot cheaper for me. Since getting the iPad, I don't even use alot of data on my phone as most of the time I'm using wi-fi at home or work.



Add a big red camera button to your iPhone
source: Boing Boing

Nice idea. Insane price.
ref120204

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Sat 2/18/12 7:35am #

Notetaking apps for iPad

There are alot of note taking apps out there, someone at work asked me what I used, I set her the reviews below, and decided to make a post about it here.

Notetaking programs

Notes Plus - $7.99

This one I keep coming back to and using, it's not as simple or intuitive as some of the others but I like it. One nice feature, it will allow you to email a single page as a pdf, whereas alot of similiar apps email the entire "booklet". Most of the time I write in one booklet so being able to email a single page is useful.

Drawpad Pro - $1.99

Notes Plus above has a smoother vector line, but for the most part, you have to use the little zoom panel to write in. In contrast, Drawpad Pro let's you pinch to zoom and use your entire screen. The lines are raster and not as crisp, but I find the pinch to zoom let's me get alot more notes on one page, I'm using this one about half the time now. This app also has alot of pre-built paper styles to write on like, lined paper, graph paper, parchment etc.

Clibe - Free

Clibe isn't something I've used for work at all, but it's a really pretty app, it would be great for putting together a travel log or something similiar, it's free, so it's worth a look.

Notetaker HD - $4.99

Not much different than Notes Plus, but is a little less polished in my opinion. There are alot of apps that use the the "zoom window" to write in, and this is yet another one.

Penultimate - 99¢

This one has one of the smoothest flowing inks, and is a little more attractive like clibe. It alows you to import pictures and write over top of them too. If it had pinch to zoom or a magnifying window for writing I'd use it more.

Phatpad - $4.99

Phatpad is interesting, smooth text writing but it also allows you to convert your handwriting to text. You lasso the part you want to convert, select convert to text and it tries to recognize your handwriting. I find this to be hit and miss with my handwriting and don't use it much.

Sketchrolls - $4.99

This one is I really like and use if I'm in a meeting where I just want to write notes all over the place. This was my top pick for awhile, it's a very designer way to do notes. It simulates a long scroll of paper. Basically you get a "sheet" of paper about 5 times taller than an iPad screen.

Bamboo Paper - Free

This one is made by Wacom, it's very clean and simple, very similiar to Penultimate. It worked better before iOS 5. As the iPads multitouch gestures interfere with it a bit. But it's free, reputable company and worth playing with a bit.

Capture Notes - $4.99

Capture notes is an insanely over featured note taker, it has multiple books, audio recording, little flags to embed audio at specific parts of your page, picture inport etc. Personally I find the whole app abit overwhelming and haven't used it much.

Protakinote - $2.99

This isn't really a notetaking program per se, this is really set-up to do to make little handwritten checkbox type lists. Cool though.

Not notetaking but related:

Dropbox - Free

Dropbox is a must have, it's the easiest way to upload pdfs and other files from work and be able to access them on your iPad.

Paperport Anywhere - Free

Paperport Anywhere. Will let you take pictures of paper documents, it will convert them to pdfs and store them in a dropbox cloud that you can access from your iPad or your Desktop later. Very useful.

PDF-it - $2.99

Actually an iPhone app, but works great on iPad too. Sometimes taking notes on paper is the easiest thing, but then I take a picture with my ipad camera, import the pictures into PDF-It and can quickly make a single PDF of notes that I can email. I use this fairly regularly.

Goodreader - $4.99

Not a handwriting notes taking app, but GoodReader is fantastic for everything else, it reads and lets you make notes on PDFs, doc, ppt and xls files and more. While I play around with alot of notetaking apps, I really haven't needed any other document reader since I got Goodreader. When I get an email, I just press and hold the attachment and then select Goodreader, once the document opens in Goodreader, you're good to go.

Photopen - Free

Nice free app. Take a picture of a whiteboard or something, and then use a red pen to draw on it, easy, simple, free.

Taskboard - 99¢

Taskboard has really nothing to do with notetaking, but I use it as my todo list. You have columns that you can move little cards around on, it's very visual. It's like a little virtual screen with index cards, you move the tasks around or pull what you are working on to the top. I have collumns for "now", or "on hold" etc and I move projects around as needed.

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Thu 02-16-12 05:55:39 PM #

Came in mail today, alas we have no potatoes at the moment.
Ptw Came in mail today, alas we have no potatoes at the moment.

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Wed 02-15-12 01:45:26 PM #

Work.
Ptw Work.

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Sun 02-12-12 12:55:43 PM #

Madman with a box
Ptw Madman with a box
Found a papercraft template of the Tardis online, I blew it up about 20% larger, printed and assembled it so that my good doctor could have an appropriate backdrop.

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Sat 02-11-12 06:12:07 PM #

Dinner tonight.
Ptw Dinner tonight.

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Sat 02-11-12 01:23:40 PM #

Haircut
Ptw Haircuy

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Fri 2/03/12 6:25pm #

I want to hear your




Wed 2/01/12 9:05am #

Thoughts I’m Having

Novelty on the internet is harder to come by now, and it doesn’t last as long, lots of things have been tried. There was a time when people liked the internet but didn’t quite know what to do with it, so anything novel was entertaining. Now there’s plenty of content, professional and amateur alike, and novelty to fill ones time on the internet is not as prized since its not as necessary.

Attention is going to continue to gain in scarcity though. With so much to do and see, there’s less time available to spend on the messages that others want to put in front of you, since you’re so busy keeping up with the content and messages that you want to keep up with.

Indirect transactions. People don’t want to pay for things, especially if they can get them free. So more and more companies online will continue to need to find ways to take advantage of and get in the middle of transactions. Indirectly if at all possible. Advertising is the most classic way, but people are going to get really good at avoiding messages they aren’t interested in, and the internet is already too good at metrics that show just how much the public ignores their messages. Just informing isn’t going to work as well in the coming years, there will be a rise of various platforms that more novelly facilitate the actual transaction whereby they can get a cut, And likely an indirect cut at that, since people dislike paying for services even less than for things.

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