If you’ve been itching to get in on the latest technology goldrush of developing software applications for Apple’s iPhone but don’t know where to start, check out Stanford’s University online on iTunes. They offer a 10 week iPhone Application Programming course, and video of each lecture as well as copies of slides are posted online at http://itunes.stanford.edu/. Full course website is available online at http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi-bin/drupal/.
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Learning Application Development for the IPhone online
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010Cotton Candy might actually be GOOD for your Health!
Sunday, August 9th, 2009Experienced a bit of nastalogia this past weekend in eating cotton candy, aka “fairy floss” or “candy floss”. Not only did I get to eat some of it, but I also, for the first time, got to operate the machine that makes it. When you see how this thing works, you really have to ask yourself, what in the heck gave them idea for this?? Granted a lot of inventions come about purely by accident… you know, you really intend to solve one problem, but discover something entirely different instead and thus a new product/solution! So did cotton candy come about this way or did someone really think, hey, let’s heat up a bunch of sugar, spin it around in a centrifugal device with slits in it, and I bet we can make a pretty tasty treat!! … come on! Where in the world did they come up with this idea??? I can’t believe this invention wasn’t an accident of some sort!
So I went out in search of an answer. Haven’t found one yet, by the way. So if anyone can help and point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. I found who invented it and when it was first introduced, etc., but not how they came up with the actual idea for the invention…
But in the process of my research I also stumbled across an NPR news story about how two New York researchers are experimenting with cotton candy as a possible way to create artificial tissue for the human body. yes you read that right! can you believe it? Cotton candy that might actually help save your life someday!
Check out the full story here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100721500&ft=1&f=6851565
Basically this idea is still on the drawing board and not ready for testing yet, but the basic idea is to use cotton candy rather then nanofibers to help create the small tiny network of artificial blood vessels and coat it using a liquid polymer. Eventually the candy disintigrates and you are left with one well developed network of blood vessels. Pretty slick idea, eh?!
So next time you visit your dentist office, bring in some cotton candy with you, sit in the chair and eat it in front of him or her and explain how cotton candy might not be good for your teeth but it might just be the cure for some certain other body parts in the future!
I DON’T want my MTV
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009I am of the original MTV generation. By that I mean that MTV first began operations about the time I was in grade school. If you grew up around the same time period as I then you probably also have the same Dire Straights phrase engrained in your brain, “I want my MTV!”.
Well that was then. Now almost 3 decades later the media scene has drastically changed. MTV rarely plays music videos anymore. Nowadays all the really cool media can be seen and heard first not on the broadcast media outlets but instead on the internet. Today, online media sharing sites like YouTube have replaced MTV as the medium of choice for aspiring bands and breakout artists.
Forget email and online shopping. To me this is the part of the internet that is really exciting. Watching internet technologies and trends evole is like watching the birth of radio and television broadcasting a century ago. The internet truly is it’s own unique medium.
Take YouTube, for example. Today when I want to watch a certain music video, I need not stare in front of my MTV screen all day waiting for it to play (like they actually play videos anymore anyway!). Instead, I type in what I seek on YouTube’s website, and viola! there it is! I can even create my own personal playlist and listen & watch all my favorites to my heart’s content. Not only that, but chances are that you will also find a lot of “amateur artists” posting videos of their own renditions of your favorites. Some you may like, others you may not, but it does make for an interesting outlet to discover new “talent”. Who knows, you may discover your next favorite performer online!
Lately I’ve been hooked on watching and listening to music videos on YouTube. This is the version of MTV I always wanted. Play what you want when you want it, and get recommendations for and discover new favorite songs & artists in the process!
So I say, away with my MTV. Just give me a fast internet connection and I’ll be a happy man.
Why I chose Toktumi as my PBX provider
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009I have to be honest. I’m not as excited about VoIP (Voice Over IP) technology as most others are. Yes, I think there are some really cool advantages to VoIP technology, especially for the traveling business type, but over all, the voice quality and reliability just doesn’t compare to your traditional analog landline (wire connected) phone from AT&T or similar local Bell.
Over the years I’ve tried a few VoIP offerings, including Vonage (hated ‘em!) and more recently ViaTalk (liked them until they sent me a $50 disconnect bill!). What is with all these disconnect charges the phone industry charges, anyway??? But I digress …
Since launching a couple of new side ventures, I needed full fledged PBX capabilities, not just a seperate business phone line. By PBX, I mean I needed the ability to create a press 1 for this, 2 for that type of Auto Attendant. And the ability to forward calls to different numbers accordingly.
In this era of hosted “software as a service/cloud computing” offerings, PBX systems are no exception. Rather than purchasing all the telephone gear outright (which can cost thousands of dollars, not to mention the supporting phone line capacity to support the call volume you expect to receive as you grow) you can literally sign up with a web based service that hosts the PBX phone system and supporting infrastructure for you, and automatically scales as you grow. Then you simply program it via your web browser. At signficantly lower cost as well.
But most of the Hosted PBX (or Virtual PBX Providers) that I have found charge not only a monthly service fee (in the neighborhood or $30 per month and up) but they also charge a per minute rate for phone calls. If I was making a lot of money from my new side ventures, this would not be a problem to pay, but being a startup, and a side venture startup at that, those unknown costs are rather scary. When all other phone charges are moving toward a flat rate system, why can’t a Virtual PBX provider as well?
Well, guess what? I found one that does exactly that! A flat rate whether you choose a local number or a toll free number for your business. And get this — the rate is a mere $15 per month! Now that’s a number I can afford!
The company is called Toktumi (pronounced “Talk to Me”, clever, ain’t it?!) . Toktumi offers powerful office phone features including call waiting, call transfer, caller ID, call forwarding, and an auto attendant that truly forwards calls without the need to “announce” each call. (This is a key differentiator as well for me. When I tried to transfer a call with most of the other Virtual PBX companies, they do so by first announcing the call and expecting the person answering the call to dial 1 to accept the call. This is more commonly termed “virtual assistant”. But in my case I need to transfer calls to various outsourced call centers, which could be answered by their own auto attendent (and not a live human initially) that asks the caller to “press 1 for this, 2 for that, etc”. So I need the call to be transferered directly and not wait for someone to confirm acceptance of the call. )
You get a softphone as well to make and receive calls. (A softphone is software that runs on your computer, desktop or laptop, that turns it into your virtual office phone!) They even allow you to create instant conference calls for up to 20 people — and with the softphone you can even record your conference calls for future reference.
All this with no hidden fees, no contracts, no equipment required. One low monthly price gets you everything. Toktumi customers get it all for just $14.95 per month. Finally, someone is speaking my language! Thanks Toktumi! Now if only they offered private labelling of their service, it would make for yet another great new side venture …. !
Homemade Sanitizer
Monday, May 4th, 2009With the scare about Swine Flu, even the big chains can’t keep enough hand sanitizer on store shelves to keep pace with demand. So if you are finding yourself vulnerable, try this recipe to make your own hand sanitizer.
HAND SANITIZER
1 cup Aloe Vera Gel (100%) 1 TSP Rubbing Alcohol 2 TSP Vegetable Glycerin 8 Drops Tea Tree OilYou should be able to get all the above ingredients from a local pharamacy, with the exception of the Vegetable Glycerin, which you should be able to find in a crafts store. Put mixture in a bottle or jar, and presto! You’ve got your own hand sanitizer ready to go!
Instructions courtesy of KRON 4.
Mozy internet based data backup service
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009Making regular backups of your all so important computer files is one of the most important preventive maintenance tasks we should all do. But how many of us actually have the discipline to do it on a regular basis? It’s not until your hard drive crashes, or that important presentation or thesis paper you’ve been working on for months suddenly becomes corrupt. That’s when you’ll wish you had made a recent backup.
The truth is most people DON’T perform regular backups of their data. Even most technology professionals like myself don’t do this even though we all know how costly it will be to try to recover that lost data.
So the best backup solution is really one that occurs regularly and automatically without any intervention on the part of the user. And to be be a true disaster recovery type solution, your data should be stored offsite, and not on some external hard drive in the same building. Afterall, all it takes is a fire or similar disaster to wipe out not only your data, but your backup media to boot!
Thankfully with the internet, such a solution does exist. One example of such a service is called Mozy and as a regular customer of theirs for the past few years, let me tell you, it is an awesome internet based backup service! Not only do I now use them personally, but I have referred countless clients and friends to them as well.
Mozy comes in two flavors: a personal/home version and a business version called MozyPro. They both essentially use the same configuration software it’s just a matter of what you are trying to backup up. To backup servers, you’d use the MozyPro version; to backup personal home computers, sign up for either the FREE or PAID MozyHome type account.
What I like most about Mozy is how easy it is to setup and get running. There is a lot of advanced configuration choices for pros like me, but for even the novice, the software makes it easy to select the type of data you want backed up. You don’t need to know where your Outlook Personal File Folder (PST) files are, for example. With Mozy, select Outlook Mail files and the software backs the default location for you! So the novice user should be able to go with al lthe default choices and rest assured that his/her data will be backed up properly. The software can be set to run automatically either on a daily schedule or whenever the computer is idle. Best of all, all backups are stored on Mozy servers encrypted, so you can rest assured you have a good offsite backup of your data in the event of the worst scenerio.
In a few months I will post a more thorough right up of various data backup options for the home user or small office… everything from using an external hard drive as a backup device, to installing a full blown dedicated backup server solution such as Veritas Backup Exec or CommVault. But for now, if you don’t have any backup solution currently in place for your computers, I highly recommend Mozy. Once installed and configured it should require very little maintenance … just check it occasionally to verify it is working as expected. Mozy is a great solution for anyone without in house computer support staff, and it can also serve as a complimentary secondary backup solution as well. More on that later. For now, if your most precious data is without a safety net, give Mozy a try! If you do, be sure to let me know your experiences and feedback.
Quickstart Tennis
Monday, March 9th, 2009Granted, not exactly a technology topic, so consider this article your “timeout” from the computer. When I’m not staring at my computer screen, I enjoy being outdoors, especially playing sports. And one of my favorite sports is tennis. If you or your family is interested in learning the game of tennis, I encourage you to look into a new program called “QuickStart Tennis”. The basic concept is instead of learning to play tennis on a full size court, you learn to volley on a much smaller court. It was a concept designed for teaching young children the game of tennis. With their short attention spans, kids can often become frustrated and bored with learning a new skill that requires much coordination, especially if they don’t master it quickly. But frankly, I can see a lot of value in this learning method for adults (ie. parents!), who, too, become just as easily frustrated!
I find tennis to be a most enjoyable sport to play, whether you are doing so competitively or just for fun. It’s a shame to give up on learning the game so easily. Tennis, much like other sports, is a skill that can only be developed after much practice and patience.
Here are some links if you’d like to learn more about this new teaching program:
- http://consumers.quickstarttennis.com/
- http://consumers.quickstarttennis.com/index.php?page=get-started—court-setup
How VCRs are affected by DTV
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009There appears to be a lot of confusion by some surrounding the upcoming switch by the United States government from traditional analog television service to the new digital transmission (DTV) standard. This despite a long term and I thought pretty thorough ad campaign about the pending change.
In a nutshell, if you receive your television signal over the air by means of an antenna, whether that antenna is sitting on top of your television (”rabbit-ears”) or on the roof of your house/building, then you will definately be affected by the transition to digital broadcasting. But if you receive your television programming from a satellite or cable company, you should not be affected. At least there is no technical reason why you should be affected. But turns out the answer really depends on who your cable or satellite provider is. If you are a Comcast customer, for example, you may very well be affected.
Appears Comcast has made a business decision to discontinue full analog service for their customers. There is no technical reason they have to make this change, but for whatever reason, they have done so anyway. I suspect this is just a move by them to try to force customers to the higher revenue digital packages and get rid of their legacy analog transmission systems. Even the DTV.gov website shares my opinion of cable companies like Comcast!
Not only does this move require Comcast customers to either purchase a digital converter box for their analog TV sets, they also are left with quite the delima for their analog VCRs (video cassette recorder). Even with a seperate converter box for the VCR would mean manually needing to change the channel on the converter box when you wanted to record a show on the VCR. Which kinda defeats the whole point of being able to record programs when you aren’t home.
Of course this is not an industry wide problem. Most cable and satellite TV providers are continuing their analog service just as before. And there really isn’t any technical reason why they shouldn’t. In reality this transition should be completely painless and transparent for their analog customers. Analog and digital programming can continue to co-exist on cable and satellite systems for years to come, even after analog transmissions cease by traditional over the air broadcasters.
The Secrets of Home Tape Baking
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009I tend to subscribe to more magazines than I have time to read. Yesterday I was going thru some old professional audio recording magazines and came across an interesting article from EQMagazine titled “The Secrets of Home Tape Baking” [March 2008] by Jonathan Stars. I was intrigued by the idea and though I don’t currently have a need to try it myself, I do still have my own collection (gathering dust in the garage right now) of some audio reel-to-reel masters that such a trick might prove useful for down the road. Basically the author talks about a way you can literally “bake” your precious analog tapes at high temperature using a food dehydrator as a way to prevent the iron oxide coating from sticking to the tape heads on playback.
The phenonem is known as “sticky shed syndrome”. Analog tapes are made with an iron oxide coating (this is the part that is magnetized and records your audio information for playback) along with a glue that makes it stick to the backing. It is this glue that absorbs moisture over time and can become undone. Not only does this result in really poor audio playback (like popping noises and losing the high end), but as you can imagine, it can ruin your precious tapes! The author describes the worst symptom was when “bits of the tape got stuck to the heads (and anything else the tape touched along the path between the reels), and literally peeled off — sometimes, in little flakes, and, sometimes, in string-like shavings up to an inch long.” YIKES!
This technique is not a cue for all situations, however. Jonathan does caution to watch out for tapes with splices as they do tend to break or acetate tapes for that matter as heating will actually make the situation worse. And don’t even think about trying this trick out in your kitchen oven, etiher. The thermostats just aren’t accurate enough. Instead, Jonathan recommends using is the Nesco American Food Harvest Snackmaster Pro FD-50 Food DeHydrator [$80 from nesco.com]. Check out Jonathan’s article in the March 2008 issue of EQ Magazine for more dos and don’ts about baking your old tapes.
Tips for longer battery life
Saturday, February 14th, 2009Is your laptop battery just not holding a charge anymore? And it’s only a year old? Sound all too familar? Have you asked yourself is this because of a defective battery or a defective laptop? Honestly more likely the answer is neither. More likely it’s user error.
I find most people, even many technology professionals themselves, don’t truly understand how battery technology works, and as a result, often don’t understand how to properly charge and maintain their own fleet of batteries. If you’re not getting at least 2 to 3 years of use from your rechargeable batteries, this article is for you! A properly maintained rechargable battery should provide at least 2 years but more likely 3 to 5 years of useable, trouble free life. In this article we’ll focus on the more common types of rechargeables used in modern consumer electronics, particularly laptops — the Nickel Cadmium (NiCAD), Nickel Metal-Hydride (Ni-MH), and Lithium Ion (Li-ion) type rechargeable batteries.
The analogy I always like to use to explain how to charge a Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride, or Lithium Ion type battery is to compare how you refill your gas tank for your car. To avoid running out of gas and getting stuck in the middle of nowhere, you would be wise to not wait for your tank to reach empty before refilling it. Instead routinely refilling it at about the halfway level is wise. In actual practice you could refill your gas tank at any time and it wouldn’t harm or degrade your car’s performance in any way.
But how you charge your battery does matter. Following the same practice of recharging a battery that is only partially discharged is actually a bad idea. A very bad idea indeed! Here’s an important point to remember: It is actually harmful to the life of a battery to recharge it when it is only halfway discharged.
Battery power is not derived in the same way as the power for your vehicle. Unlike that gas tank which doesn’t care at what point you refill it, the power created inside a battery is actually a chemical reaction involving the transfer of electrons from one side of each battery cell to the other. The recharging process helps to “reset” those electrons and ready them for the next time you need power delivered to your favorite toy. To prolong the life of your battery, it is actually best to run it down to as close to empty as possible before recharging.
NiCads are notorious for what’s commonly referred to as the “Memory Effect”. Overtime, if you continually recharge your battery when it is only halfway discharged eventually your battery will “remember” that halfway mark and will not be able to discharge beyond it. Which means you will eventually lose all that original headroom. So your battery will effectively lose half it’s charging capacity, and you will no longer be able to recharge it fully — it will only charge 50% of when you bought it.
Same thing holds true for a laptop that is always plugged in to the wall charger and never allowed to discharge. That, too, is not a good practice and in a similar way leads to a “memory effect”.
So best practice when it comes to recharging a battery is to actually allow that battery to fully discharge (not quite to totally dead but just before the “dead” mark), and then recharge it fully (back to 100% capacity). Partially charging a battery is just as harmful as partially discharging, so don’t use a battery, charge it for a while, then use it some more, then recharge for a bit, etc. Your battery needs to be fully discharged and then fully recharged to maintain the full capacity of it’s “fuel tank”.
Also, it’s best charge your batteries regularly. If you let a rechargeable battery sit idle for a long period of time, the chemical process occuring internally will breakdown, and the battery will essentially “die”. It will be unable to hold a charge or be recharged. So even if you don’t use a battery for a long period of time, my advice is to recharge it every 6 months or so even if you aren’t using it.
Finally a word about the difference between the NiCad and newer Ni-MH type batteries. The NiCad is probably still the more common type of battery in use in portable electronics and is most prone to the memory effect described above. But the Nickel Metal-Hydride is quickly gaining in popularity over the Nickel Cadmium. One reason is that the Ni-MH type of battery is not supposed to suffer from the memory effect to the same degree as the NiCad, but my advice to you is to treat a Ni-MH battery the same way you would a NiCAD. By that I mean fully discharge it and then fully recharge it before reusing, just as you would a NiCad. Following this simple practice will extend the life of your rechargeable batteries to between 3 -5 years easily.