I gave up my old Sony HandyCam a few years ago. All the hustling with tapes (can I use this one?) and batteries (always needed charging) and its shear size kept me from using it. Over the years my "usage profile" had changed. Even playing the tapes created another inconvenience. It worked only through the camcorder! Slowly the tapes collected dust and got older. Bad for magnetic media that has all your home movie memories on it! I fixed that when I converted all my Video8 tapes to DVD using the YesVideo service, one can find in many Ritz photo stores around the country. Read more about that here.
My focus was mainly on digital photography. The little bit of video I shot, was recorded with my Canon digital cameras. HD television changed all that. Widescreen - 16 x 9 aspect ratio was my new target for video and I wanted it easy, simple, no tape - convenient.
I found it in the MinoHD from PureDigital. It is small enough to lose it in your pocket - well - mistake it for your cell phone - which is another key element in its appeal: - you can always have it with you.
The picture above shows the Mino with its USB connector flipped out for charging the internal battery and to upload your video clips to your PC or Mac - with the Mac straight into iPhoto.
One hour of video clips that play back on your TV at 720P resolution - if you have the proper equipment (more on this later.) Otherwise - the MinoHD comes with a composite video cable - used for a quick review of your shots on almost any TV with such an input.
I know - it's a point-and-shoot, but the concept of simplicity is driving its success: - being small, easy to use by everybody, high quality video.
Read a more indepth review of it and find out about how to get the video off the MinoHD and onto a DVD without a computer. More...
Protect
Your Computer - and more?
Bluetooth Bits and Pieces - There are many ways to protect your data and your privacy
on your PC. It all depends on the level of protection you
are looking for. The good, old password protected screen saver
doesn't hold water anymore. Biometric devices are "in
vogue" - if you are willing to deal with another cabled
device hooked up to your desktop system. There are a few laptops
that have the sensor integrated and we will see better and
more implementations in the future.
One thing's to say about
technology and its users - variety and different approaches
are important as they spur competition. New ideas lead to
progress and solutions that increase user convenience - and
only that leads to fast adoptation in the market place. Point
made - here may be an idea that employs this approach: what if your Bluetooth
enabled cell phone acts like a key to your PC...house, car?
Anybody interested in making these devices for the house and car? Email us.
Saving Energy at Home - How?
By knowing what you currently are using - wireless and convenient - Everybody who studied Edward Deming and his Continuous Quality Improvement principles knows that you can only improve your processes if you are able to measure them.
Difficult to do with your energy usage at home, when you get a bill once a month. Wouldn't it be nice to see the watts your new wide-screen LCD TV is using when you turn it on.
We will introduce you to a device that is stylish, efficient, accurate, and gives you what you need to adjust your home electricity usage without the need of a computer. Unfortunately it's only available in Europe right now. It's called the Wattson energy monitor and it measures your current electricity use. Great idea - great implementation. See more at the makers website in the UK. Launch in the U.S. might come in late 2009.
Above you see 2 display units to show different perspectives.
The Wattson system consists of a sensor/transmitter that is placed in your breakerbox and the display unit. The two sensors clamp around the 2-phase hot power cables and the transmitter sends the measured electricity consumption to the display device you can place in your kitchen or living room. It shows you the wattage and calculated dollars you are using and have used respectively. Colors are used to show the amount of watts - green = normal; red = high use.
What's your 2009 Gear Wishlist?
There is a whole Industry
out there to keep us Gadgeteers happy - and not just around
Christmas, Father's, Mother's and Birthdays. Here is a short
list of must-have's and nice-to-have items to save money for:
- Apple's new
iPod 3rd Gen Shuffle,
- the new MiniMac - use it as media center,
- Well - the upcoming iPhone 3.0,
- Sony's new HX1
digital camera,
- a Garmin 760 GPS (until iPhone 3.0),
- you really want Alpine's car radio with DVD, GPS, and
iPod/iPhone link - with a rearview camera.
- a 24" wide-screen LCD / LED-backlit for your PC,
- a really nice and easy way to convert
all your home videos and digital
images to DVD.
(checkout the YesDVD
service at
Ritz Camera stores around the U.S.
- a Mino HD from Pure Digital - always in your pocket,
- and
- again - Ritz stores with a YesDVD kiosk close by (see below).
So I can transfer
my clips from the Mino to DVD. And that service includes a chapterized 16 by 9 movie (great resolution) and all
video clips backed up on a second DVD.
Where 'Bigger is Better' and 'Small is Beautiful' meet. Topic: Green Tech - Wind Energy - Location: Germany
When you thought the Airbus 380 was it - there are other areas the Europeans think big - really big as well. All seemingly driven by high oil prices... While we in the U.S. "enjoyed" prices at around $4.50 per gallon at its peak in 2008, Europeans had to digg deeper into their pockets: $7.50 to $8 per gallon. BTW - the ratio hasn't changed and the difference is all going toward taxes(!) - not the puny 40 cents we contribute.
To the point - solar and wind energy installations are huge in Europe compared to the U.S. One can not buy solar panels from our own Silicon Valley startup NanoSolar for another year. Its production is sold out - to Germany!
Wind power is another field where we see shining advancements in Europe. Not that we do not have any experience in the U.S. Everybody who lives in or visited the bay area has probably seen our wind farms in the Altamont hills or around Palm Desert. Compared however to the latest installations in Germany - well - one can see what 17% VAT and $2 taxes per gallon of gas can buy. This is where BIG comes into the game.
Check out these pictures showing the world's largest Wind Turbine generating 7+ Giga Watts.
Some other turbines have a diameter of 400 feet and can be as high as 600 feet as one installation in Denmark shows that went on-the-grid in 2007. Really windy days bring a nice benefit to the Danes - elecricity is free and excess power is sold to Germany and Norway!
The technolgy advancements are incredible and materials technology plays a big role. Twenty of these gigawatt generators installed in North Dakota and we would really see some changes in the U.S. It would definitely bring the carbon footprint of the other 49 States a bit closer to California numbers. Can GE step up to the challenge or do we have to buy these things in Europe?
Back to our original head line. Where does the Small is Beautiful comes in? Coming soon. It has to do with residential solar, plug-in hybrids and full-electric cars.
iPhone 3.0 - Will Apple repeat the Magic ?
Or is there reason to be a bit worried? Don't get me wrong, I have one and know that I won't be able to use a "normal" cell anymore. Yes - there are now other contenders out there that compete with the iPhone - with a touchscreen interface that works one layer deep (!) and more are coming out every month, but for me the iPhone is a lot more. It's a system for my music, photos, videos, email, maps, games, contacts, calendar, web browsing - and calls too! I can't switch back. I am hooked and spoiled for good !...
What I am a bit afraid of is that the iPhone 3.0 hardware coming out in June might not have the punch other [hardware] contenders have. Things like:
- a 5 megapixel camera that lets me shoot widescreen stills, has autofocus, and a LED flash...
- and takes video in widescreen (720p)
- maybe has a 2nd camera for chats
- Bluetooth profile to support a stereo
headset and a keyboard,
- voice dialing ?
Are we going to see a real "upgrade" or will we envy everybody else for their hardware, such as the Samsung I7500.
Apple has no real choice. Don't they have to give us at least that much? Steve Jobs, in his keynote intro in 2007 said, "Apple is 2 years ahead of its competition." It's now 2 years later and the success of the iPhone has a significant influence on the company's revenue and stock value. Failure to "wow" us is not an option! Go guys - raise the standard and set the bar higher again.
What would you like to see in the new iPhone. Send us an email.
How
to protect your Digital Life?
It becomes more and more important - we talked about it years
ago when the "digital photo revolution" and .mp3 files
became the ever increasing part on our hard drives. Backup,
backup, backup.
Because
it's not IF your hard disk will crash but when - and it's always at the most inconvenient time.
We
discovered a new site that focusses most of it's attention to
just that - "your digital life" - with a name of "MyDL.me".
Check
it out. There is a group of people that made it their mission with
this site to help us - the folks that haven't experienced a hard drive crash and lost their data
yet - to make sure that when the day comes, your files, photos
and videos are all safe.
Enter the Drobo If you haven't heard about the "Drobo" - read on and get all the details.
It's the best, one-and-only data storage solution that will never run out of
disk space and - at the same time - protects you against losing your data caused by a disk failure. This is a device that doubles as an active external storage drive and as your backup drive, making the need for a dedicated backup hard drive unnecessary. Its capacity grows with you as your need for more storage grows. How? Just replace the smallest drive - which may also be the oldest one you installed in the Drobo a few years ago - with a new hard drive that probably has double capacity...
Sounds unbelievable ? It's not.
The Drobo's original concept
is based on the fact that all [conventional] hard drives - a) will eventually run of space and - b) will fail. You can load the Drobo with your own hard drives and it uses its embedded 'BeyondRaid' firmware to protect your data. The key that all thosedrives into the box and instead of having those drives do not show up as individual volumes on your desktop. The Drobo aggregates the individual drive capacities into a single volume. This is similar to how disk capacity is managed and protected in large enterprise servers and Drobo makes this feature available for the home and small business user without human intervention.
How do we know? We learned of a small company that developed this original storage concept in 2004. Stay tuned - for more.
PC Security Focus
How to protect your Data? Are
you taking a casual approach to protecting your data on your
PC or is it a critical item - but still on your to-do list?
What is out there that would help "the rest of us"
to keep "prying eyes" of our systems and the data
on our laptops secure?
At the "low-end" we have the "built-in"
security of the Window screen saver. On the high-end we find
expensive solutions that we might use for a while and then slack-off,
because they are too awkward to use.
Good systems security on your PC, whether desktop of laptop,
needs to be always-on AND easy too use. What this means is that
it should be invisible to us and visible to everybody
else. Implemented and working security can only be effective
when it is used and applied in all situations - otherwise...don't waste your money. It's all about
convenience, convenience, convenience.
Convenience?
It doesn't get any easier with a Drobo. Need some more convincing?
Check with: "MyDL.me".
