Posts Tagged ‘iPad’

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A Year in Reflection


10 Mar

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  • 11:16 PM CST, 2:16 PM JST At this point I had just gotten done cleaning up from painting and tweeted that I was done for the night.
  • 11:46 PM CST, 2:46 PM JST Earthquake struck
  • 11:52 PM CST, 2:52 PM JST Tweeted out to friends and family living in Japan to be safe
Screenshot

To horrible to believe

     So many emotions have gone through our minds and hearts that it is virtually impossible to classify and label them all. The purpose of this post is just a reflection of the moments that happened on my end of the world and how it affected me personally.
     The day started out like any other, trying to sleep in and getting a slow start. The day was overcast and my spring break was coming to an end. I had decided that I was going to work on the nursery during my break and I was just starting to see the end of the project. I began cleaning out the room on Sunday and was nearly done painting the murals and characters from My Neighbor Totoro. I sketched out Totoro on the wall and tweeted my progress as I went about cleaning up for bed.
     Sitting down to the computer, I checked on Facebook to see what everyone was up to before shutting everything down for the night. Not quite ready for bed yet, I grabbed my iPad and fell on the sofa to watch some TV. Firing up Twitter, I see that there’s an earthquake in Japan; nothing new. Then as I continue to read up the stream, I see some concern in the posts, bordering on fear. Apparently this was something different.
     Starting to worry, I start to tweet friends and family as to there whereabouts and safety. Thankfully everyone that I am able to get in touch with is ok, but there are still some unaccounted for. Thankfully by the next day all were found safe. Amazingly at this point there is no news coverage on CNN. Glued to my Twitter feed, I am adding and searching any news outlet and person of authority bringing me coverage and information and retweeting any useful information to friends that are not near any form of media. Oddly enough, here I was on the other side of the world informing people in their own country about what was occurring. The power of social media these days.
     Eventually CNN cut in with live coverage and the images are worse than I ever could have imagined. All I can think at this point is that there is not going to be a country to return to. Our future son (at the time) will never get to discover the country that his parents love so much. A worst case scenario is all that keeps playing through my mind. Family and friends are going to be lost and the ocean is going to reclaim the land that I have come to think of as a second home.
But there is hope. You just have to search it out.
     Somewhere online I came across an article that pointed me in the direction of a news app from NHK that would give me coverage of the disaster from Japan in English no less. Needless to say I was glued to my iPad for several days trying to wrap my mind around what had happened and trying to remind myself that it could have been much much worse. Seriously, it could have been. At the time I wish that I had the money to go there and do something, anything to help out, but all I could do was sit here and be an open ear for friends to talk to me about it and a conduit of news for my family to keep them posted. Perhaps that was what I NEEDED to do; to be an open ear for them to talk to and vent about their fear and frustrations. We all have our purposes I suppose.
     A year later and there are still issues arising from the disaster and still there are roughly 3,000 still unconfirmed missing. For many people this was a daunting time and suicide rates even increased afterwards. My family and I still love the country so much that we would move there if we could. People ask if we are afraid, and I reply that it is just as dangerous to live there than it is here. I for one, plan on visiting again and again as often as I am able so that we can tell our son about the great eastern earthquake of 3/11 and how the country persevered through it and came out stronger.
We love you Japan.

One Device to Rule Them All


16 Aug

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Burned Out Room

Something Lost, Something Gained

On July 6, 2000 my parents house caught on fire. It was during construction of an addition being made to the house and was blamed on faulty wiring. The fire destroyed the bonus room and half of the new construction that had been built on top of it and to its sides. Not only destroying the contents of the bonus room, it began to sweep through the attic before it was brought under control on the hottest day of the year (so far at the time). The event was so prolific, that it even made it to the front page of the local paper that day. Looking back on that moment in my life, I have never been the same; both the good and the bad.

Way back in 2000, there were no such things as iPods and iPhones. All I had was a Palm Pilot V and a ‘brick’ Motorola cell phone. On that hot July day, I was no longer living at home, but away at college a mere 40 minutes away. At that point in time I was speaking with my parents nearly on a daily basis. To make a long story short, the phone had been busy at their house for hours and I was starting to get worried. After getting in touch with my grandmother, I learned of the terrible incident. My father who is legally blind (but by no means disabled) was the only one home at the time it started seeing as all the construction workers had left for lunch. Somehow he managed to get out safely and get the cats to safety as well as have enough foresight to go outside and film the disaster. (Proud of him for that.) Once I made it back to my parents I was just at a loss for words. My mother was working and hadn’t found out about it yet when she arrived back at the house, so I was going to be the brave one to tell her what had happened, but only managed to break down into tears as I told her.

A part of me burned up with that room in July. What was it? Have I managed to regain it? I don’t quite know. My wife has always said I was never the ‘same’ after it happened, so I’m not quite sure what burned up in there. Innocence? Childhood? However, I did gain something from this disaster; the sense for a need to backup my life.

In previous posts on this blog, here and here, I have discussed about living in one suitcase. The idea is that you can fit your life into one piece of luggage. After one loses something, they tend to have a greater appreciation for that which they have. We all have ‘stuff’, and lots of it. Things that we ‘need’ that wind up being thrown in a closet or room only to gather dust. That’s part of what this room was not only for myself but my parents as well. Trying to go through the debris and remember every little item that was in there is nearly impossible. What made matters worse was that the construction workers started shoveling stuff into the dumpsters before we even had a chance to go through it. Which brings us back to the point of this post. What good came from this disaster? I started making inventory lists of all my belongings, more importantly, I started converting my life over to a digital lifestyle. Remember, we’re talking about 2000, not 2011. I had account numbers, Quicken files, inventory lists, etc. all accessible on my Palm Pilot. I took pictures of my apartment and all its belongings so that if the unthinkable or something else were to happen…again, I would be ready, or at least better prepared. Pictures were scanned and saved to Zip disks. (Remember those?) It was a small feeling as if I was in control. Fast forward to 2011.

To be quite honest, I don’t know how I survived without my iPhone all this time. I’m sure that sounds pathetic, but it’s the way that I am and a lot of others are these days. My entire life in my pocket. No matter where I am, I can access crucial information on my device. As I mentioned, the fire brought the need to backup everything in my life and that’s just what I’ve done….maybe to an extreme. Let’s break this up into aspects of my life; how I’ve backed them up and how I can access them with an iDevice. (more…)

Project Daddy


21 Jul

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Sleepy Pete's

Things may have not gone as planned, but everything worked out in the end. That’s what’s important after all. Holding out till induction, the little man had me prepared early with a hospital bag of my own. I had my Nikon D90 and my iPad synced up with some Kindle books that I had been reading. The day of, I decided that I needed to bring along my keyboard, because I just ‘knew’ that I was going to do some writing while I was around. Yeah, right. So what ended up happening? Not exactly what I planned on.

We ended up sitting in the waiting room because of an ‘error’ in scheduling. During that time I read some books on my iPhone, and looked at Facebook. After several hours, we made our way back into our delivery room and I busted out the iPad. Suffice to say, the best laid plans… With the wife’s mother and aunt hanging out, I didn’t really do what I set out to do. I tried to read but there was too much going on in the room for me to concentrate on reading. Sadly, I did what most of America does at times like these; played Angry Birds.

As we came closer to the golden hour, I pretty much stopped paying attention to the tech <gasp> and started paying attention to life. I did have enough mindset to set up my iPad to record all the audio of the events to come and had it plugged up so it wouldn’t die on me. I also had my iPhone set up to record video of the event…a very long event. Looking back on it, it was actually pretty short, but at the time it was quite long. Right before the big moment, the wifey’s aunt (camera person) freaked out that the screen went off on the phone. At that moment I figured that the battery had died. After all, it had been recording video for an hour. I had her power it back on and start the camera up just in time to catch the magic moment. As the moment passed, 26 seconds worth, the phone quit and told me it had run out of room. Crisis averted.

For a brief moment, I tried to take some photos with the D90, but my heart wasn’t really in it. My MIL was taking photos the whole time, so I just left it to her capable hands. As I tended to the wifey, things were going on that I honestly can’t remember all that well. I started to tweet and text everyone that the little bundle of joy had arrived. After another hour or so, we finally got settled in to our postpartum room and I got to sit down for the first time in a few hours. Learning that there was indeed WiFi, (hidden so other people don’t mooch off it) I proceeded to send out some pictures to friends and family.

Sleep….or so I thought. Within an hour of finally getting to sleep, the little urchin was back with us to feed, and then we could finally sleep. Wrong again. Another hour and back in the room. I think we got about 3 hours of sleep that first night and don’t get me started about the sleeping arrangements.

**UPDATE**

I wrote those first few paragraphs over the first week that we were back home. Looking back on things that I didn’t think I had time to do, I really don’t have time to do now….this blog for example. Currently, the little man is asleep behind me in a swingy seat and the wifey is sleeping. I try to let her sleep since she is the one who tends to get up at night. This is the first time (that I can think of) that I have time AND enough of a mindset to write so I am going to try and take advantage of it.

Project Daddy is underway!

Time to Think


21 Jun

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Time to Think

Another peaceful morning on the deck

**Disclosure- This post is a little off the wall. I pretty much started writing whatever came to mind, so it isn’t necessarily going to flow very well. You’ve been warned.

It’s amazing what time can do for a person. Having graduated over a month ago and still on the hunt for a job, I’ve had a lot of ‘free time’ to do some other things. The majority of that free time has been spent getting ready for the baby, but I try to make time for some other plans as well.

Every week or so, I’ve made it a routine to go to Bongo Java and do my #Trust30 writing on one of my off days. Sadly, I have been falling a bit behind on them and have been writing multiple posts a day. Other than that though, I find it to be a fresh and invigorating change of venue. Sitting back enjoying the music while I feast on a Salmon Plate (best thing on the menu) and an iced Mochahontas, I also find the time to do my writing, whether it be on paper or laptop. People watching is also an enjoyable past time while I spend my hour or two there, imagining some new idea that more than likely will remain that; an idea.

The past few days, I’ve been looking at out finances, trying to figure out how to pay down debt and where to trim costs. I’ve scaled back Netflix, cancelled my Evernote Premium membership, looked at getting only the e-version of the paper (if at all) and am now looking at cutting cable altogether. For what we pay, we don’t really watch all that much TV to begin with. If I cut us down to the bare minimum or go to OTA HDTV, am I really missing out? Maybe ESPN, but other than that, all the things we watch are either on Netflix or AppleTV. If Boxee can get there game together and make a deal with Hulu, then I will definitely be purchasing one and cutting the cord.

Not being in school anymore has afforded me the opportunity to begin reading what I enjoy again. This week alone I have finished off 3 books that I began reading last semester. Without the requirement of ‘pointless’ reading, I now have all the time in the world. It’s a good feeling to be reading for enjoyment or self improvement again. At least I can take those instructional books in stride now. Gotta work on the skills in the off season.

In this world that we live in, we are constantly connected. Whether that is a good or bad thing is a mixed bag, but as of late, I’ve been less connected. Ever since I had my Palm Treo 650, I was in love with the fact that I could get email out in the wild and not have to be tied to a desktop computer. Every time you got a message, you’d get a notification, and an interruption in routine would ensue. Fast forward 5 or 6 years and we now have the iPhone. Texts, tweets, email, notifications, calls, voicemails; it’s a wonder our phones don’t go dead more often. I always had Push notifications turned on because I ‘needed’ to know what was happening, when it happened, immediately if not yesterday. So how in his uber-connected world have I disconnected? I turned off the ‘Push’. So simple. I get emails now only when ‘I’ check for them. Surprisingly, it seems to have affected my social networking as well. I’m not checkin Twitter or Facebook nearly as much as I used to. Having my iPad packed up to leave for the hospital, I have been consuming less media in general from it and moving to other outlets and devices. My Kindle, which I have barely used in a few months, is what I have been doing all that aforementioned reading on. I have been listening to TED talks during my commute and have been catching up on all the latest podcasts that I used to subscribe to. It’s not that I’m consuming less media, I’m just consuming it in another manner. Funny how that seems to have worked.

In my battle to de-clutter my life, I had been selling DVD’s and books to Amazon. After upgrading to the iPhone4, my wife and I had 2 useless phones for the most part. I, being the ultimate repurposer, wanted to keep them thinking that they wouldn’t have much value. After mulling it over for awhile, I decided to list them on eBay…..and my 1G iPod Touch, my old 3G iPod Nano, 4G iPod Photo, and the list goes on. Needless to say, everything sold but 1 item, which I’m going to relist, and that has basically added up to almost a months salary for me. Yeah commerce! It really goes to show that one man’s junk is another’s treasure. But why stop there! Next I’m going to try and sell my old camera, Griffin Powermate, etc, etc, etc.

So perhaps this down time has been good for me. I haven’t done any editing, but I have taken care of something else that’s more important; myself.

WWDC Thoughts


07 Jun

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The Holy Trinity

My Holy Trinity, minus the Bastard Child

WWDC had just gotten underway yesterday and I felt that I should point out a few things that I am looking forward to in these software revamps. *Disclaimer- I am an Apple fanatic, but just shy of fanboy.

I guess the main thing I am excited for is the iCloud. You’re probably thinking that I am excited for the music streaming ability of the service, which is a plus, but you’d be mistaken. It’s the fact that all of my devices will be in sync. My main devices, or the Holy Trinity, are an iPad, and iPhone 4 and a MacBook Pro. I do also have a Mac Pro (the workhorse) and an iPod Touch that I use mainly for games and randomness. Being able to make sure all of my data is synced AND correct with all of them is what I have been needing for quite awhile. I have been a MobileMe user for several years now and it has been less than stellar. The main reason I started to use it was the ability to use iWeb and to keep contacts and email synced across all of my devices. As of late, I had been using it as backup for archived documents, but it’s been giving me trouble…lots of trouble.

As we delve deeper into the iOS update, we see that Apple has taken notice of a lot of complaints and workarounds that App developers have been using these past few years. The updating of the camera app along with notifications are two big improvements that will surely run well with users. Having an actual ‘shutter’ button makes me extremely happy as well as the option to edit and tweet from within the app. Another plus is that the camera app is available even from the lock screen making for quicker shots. That is an issue I always had with my old iPhone 3G; you couldn’t take a picture if it was spur of the moment. You had to wait at least 30-60 seconds to take a photo and another 30-60 for it to save. FAIL. Notifications that don’t interrupt me and at a glance is something that Android users have enjoyed, but I believe it will be taken to the next step with this update. Being able to see your notifications at a glance should be a pleasant change to the monotonous windows popping up constantly.

So with all these new enhancements and apps built in, where do my previously purchased apps fit in? Apps such as Camera+, Things and SplashShopper; are they now doomed to obscurity? Part of me could swing either direction on this. I love the customization of Splash Shopper and Things along with the desktop integration of both. If the interface is as accommodating as they claim it to be, then I might be ditching those apps…..but I highly doubt it.

As far as Lion goes, I don’t feel as excited about it as everything else. Perhaps since I haven’t seen the entire keynote yet I’m not getting the gist of it. About the greatest thing I can say of it is that it only costs $30, but is that per device or like other apps that you can download for each of your machines? Time will tell I suppose.

A lot of great enhancements that are moving in the right direction for our digital lifestyles. Not to brag, but I predicted this at least 4 years ago. Just saying.

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