Zach's Blog

I heard about the pogoplug a few years ago and thought it was an interesting device.  Recently, I thought it would be handy to have some easily shared drives to use on my computers at home (and away for that matter).  So, I invested in a Pogoplug.  I found it on sale for $20, so if it wasn’t exactly what I wanted it wasn’t too much of an investment.  When I first took it out of the box and connected it, I thought the performance was rather pathetic.  I later realized it was connected through a surge protected which limited the connection speed down from gigabit ethernet.  I connected it directly and it seemed to improve a bit, but was still disappointing.  I hooked it up again today and it seemed to be much better.  It is not as fast as a directly connected USB drive, or computer to computer transfers over gigabit ethernet, but it was acceptable.  I think this will work the way I wanted it to, so I am satisfied.

So, this winter has been extremely unusual.  We have not had as much snow as we usually do, and it has been warmer than usual almost the whole winter.  Some people like it, I think we should have cold and snow.  After all, we live in Wisconsin.  Anyway, I noticed today that it looks like the trees are starting to bud.  I guess the trees think it is spring, so should we just give up on winter and think it is spring too?  I think the ducks have.  There had to be at least 200 of them in Riverside park today!

This past week I went out and took some photographs for the first time in a long time.  It was great to get back to it and I have decided that I need to take some time each week to do this.  I have not even looked at the pictures yet, but just walking around and looking at the world and framing pictures is such an enjoyable process.

I also picked up with the task of scanning all of the photos from my childhood.  It sure is a task, but it is fun looking at all of the pictures again.  And, when I am finished it will be easy to just click on a folder and look at the pictures.  Plus, I will be able to have a backup copy of them off site, so if something should ever happen to the originals I still have the images.

I heard about the Obi VoIP adapter a couple of months ago and wondered how it would work.  So, last week I saw that it was a lightning deal on Amazon and thought I would give it a try.  So far I have been completely satisfied with it.  It took a couple of minutes to set up with my Google Voice account and has worked perfectly so far.  Once I have a chance to make and receive more calls with it I will post an update with the results.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LO098O/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

Update:  So far I have used this to receive a few calls and to make a couple of calls.  The first time I used it, it seemed like there was a rather large delay.  Since then it has seemed almost like a POTS phone.  It seems to be working great!  Best of all, it is free!  Google extended free calling through 2012, hopefully they will continue to extend it.

For the first time in a long time I have actually started and remained interested in reading a book!  I received Steve Jobs’ biography for Christmas.  Since, then I have been reading a little bit here and there, but now I am to the point that I am reading some each day.  I have always enjoyed reading biographies, but have not had the desire to read much beyond what was required for my classes.

With that, I find Jobs’ life very interesting, at least what I have read already.  I always knew he was a unique person, but getting more detail makes you understand more of what was going through his mind when he made certain decisions.  The founding of Apple was really an amazing adventure and there were many opportunities where it could have failed and not developed into the success it is today.

I also read an article about Apple moving much of the manufacturing for Apple products to China.  It really is interesting how the manufacturing process has changed over the years.  According to the article it is not just the cost of employees, but having all of the manufacturing processes so close together and not having to ship pieces longs distances.  Also, I find it very interesting that many of the employees they are looking for have more than a high school education, but less than a 4 year college degree.  It seems that there is so much emphasis on a 4 year degree (and beyond) here in the U.S., but that over qualifies people for many jobs.

If you are reading this now you will be affected by these two bills.  Both are very similar and are presented as a way to protect against piracy and to protect intellectual property.  The way they are written, they go much further than that.  Content producers already have appropriate legal means of protecting their intellectual property.  SOPA and PIPA give them too much power and would essentially create a system like the national firewall in China where certain websites would be blocked nationwide.  Please educate yourself on these bills and take appropriate action if you feel SOPA and PIPA threaten the Internet.

What to do to stop SOPA:

• https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173

Learn more about SOPA:

• http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/
• http://gizmodo.com/5877000/what-is-sopa
• http://minglewing.com/w/sopa-pipa/4f15f882e2c68903d2000004/uncensored-a-personal-experience-with-dmca-umg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act (except on Wed Jan 18 due to protest of SOPA and PIPA)

We finally have a significant amount of snow on the ground!  I’m not sure what the reason for no snow until this past week, but I sure have missed it.  It doesn’t seem like it should be January when we have gone a large portion of the winter without more than a dusting of snow.  Sure, there are a lot of inconveniences with snow, but everything looks so nice with a good layer of snow!

In the tech world this week was significant because CES took place.  In the past I have always looked forward to this week because there was a lot of news and information about new products.  But, for some reason this year I didn’t get into it like past years.  I watched some coverage, but there wasn’t anything that blew me away.  More TVs, more headphones, more of the same.

Oh, and the Packers lost

- Zach

I spent the first week of the new year helping take down everything put up for Rotary Lights.  Spending the week focused on one thing and not having the constant distraction of the Internet was a nice change of pace.  I love technology and the Internet, but I often feel like it is taking over our lives.  I used to have a notifier set up that would pop up a message every time that I received a new email.  I turned that off several months ago and boy is email a different experience.  Sometimes I feel the need to constantly check, but more and more I leave it alone for several hours without checking and without thinking about whether I have new emails or not.  I see everyone around with smart phones, and now more than ever I resist the urge to get one.  I don’t want that constant notification of people trying to contact me.  This is the thing I don’t like about phones in general and it would be even worse if it notified me about my email, facebook and Google+.

I started watching a show from PBS on Netflix about this very issue and I find some of the issues that they bring up interesting.  I do wonder how technology is changing our society and whether these changes will be beneficial in the years to come or disastrous.  I really think it is a good idea to at least have some time in our lives where we can completely escape the constant updates from the world around us.  But, those opportunities are getting fewer and fewer.

Well, I have accomplished my New Year’s resolution for one week.  Let’s see how long this will last

- Zach

I am going to try to post to this blog more often.  I have had it sitting here for too long without any real purpose or any regular updates.  I am going to start by trying to post something at least once a week.  Along with that I am also going to try posting a photo a week.

On a side note, since the last time I have used WordPress there have been a number of improvements!  I just installed the latest version and WOW the updates are impressive.  It looks like it has gone from your usual Open Source project to a polished product.  It is still the WordPress we all love, but the interface is cleaned up a lot.

- Zach

A couple of days ago I used the Facebook Developer method to get early access to the new Facebook timeline view of my profile page.  My immediate response was that I kind of like it.

After a couple of days thinking about it, it really changes the way that I view Facebook.  Up to this point it has simply been a way to communicate with friends and to share some things about yourself on your profile.  Timeline transforms Facebook into a history of a person.  It moves the focus from that basic information that you choose to put on your profile to the content that you share on Facebook.  I think this changes Facebook from how you want people to perceive you and puts more focus on the relationships and social aspects of the site.  Sure, we have always had the wall, but that only showed part of what Facebook was about.

Timeline really takes all of the aspects that we have come to know and love on Facebook and provides a summary of a person.  Looking at a few of my friend’s timelines, it makes you realize how much or how little you use Facebook.  It also makes you realize how much of your personal lives and information is shared on Facebook.  As I was looking at the timelines, I was thinking…  this is kind of like what a photo album used to be.  It presents the highlights of your life in a form that you can share with others.  Now, the question is, will this hold the test of time like photo albums do?

- Zach