Home Is Where Wi-Fi Connects -- Automatically

As Wi Fi has grown from a child to an adult we have seen speeds grow, but I am not sure devices can (or do) use those newer speeds.  However, my own iPad 3 seems to do very well in some apps. It takes two wi-fi modems to get the signal into all rooms of my home, a brick fireplace and granite counter tops are not friendly to wi fi.

Today’s WSJ has a story about Starbucks cancelling their contract with AT&T who now provides wi fi (free to customers) in their stores. Google, the big new wi fi upstart, will take their place and promises wi fi signal that is 10 X as fast as the old AT&T.  Which was, they say, a T-1.  Wait, T-1 was the fastest wired line you could buy just a few years ago, how could Google wi fi be 10 X faster?  Over air is hardly as good as a wired connection (IMO).  This will be coming in a few weeks, in all stores in 18 months. I guess we can all test it soon.

Google will also be bring more to the table, youtube ? Starbucks Digital Network ? Google Play?  Google plans to use this to pitch more advertising and Google products at users (hopefully just in-store users). 

As you know, Google is wiring parts of some cities, Kansas City and maybe Austin, in an experiment (wired service) to replace Time Warner (and others).  The feature is super high internet speeds -- 10 X the best AT&T or Time Warner can provide.  This is to help small technology businesses operate in places like, well, Kansas City as opposed to Silicone Valley.  In a few years I will bet we will have have amazing internet speeds to our homes -- so be wary of offers to lock in 2 years of service at today's speeds and prices. 

The Point and Shoot Camera Is Fading

I have been a camera/photography hobbyist for over half a century. I have, in that time, owned many cameras, some compact, some much larger, some SLR, and in the last two decades, mostly point-and-shoot (POS) digital compact cameras.  In the last 7 or so years, some of those have been truly pocket sized. Now the Wall Street Journal ran a story today that the POS camera is in a long slide. Sales are down a great deal due to the higher quality cameras now in smart phones.

Well, my smart phone camera (iPhone 5) is excellent (much of the time).  But I don’t think it competes with a pocket sized Canon POS for important work or fun shots.  I upgrade the POS in my camera inventory every few years, and now is the time.  So, I was surprised to see Best Buy had a 2 day sale last weekend on a Canon A-4000 IS.   This is a $179 street-price camera, (who knows the list?  $200 or more?) often sold on Amazon for $104.  Best Buy price was $79 – with free shipping or buy in store.  Considering its 16 MP, and many other features, 8 X optical zoom (vs. 0 optical zoom on a smart phone),  an excellent flash, and much more it was a real bargain.  Pocket sized and convenient, the A 4000 has excellent results (so said several on-line reviews).  I should have purchased it, but, alas, I didn’t.  Now it is back to $104.  But the point is, watch for big sales on POS cameras as sales are sure to keep faulting.  Then, after the manufacturers quit making them, prices will go up.  That’s my opinion for the day. Good shopping !  Comments welcome.

Construction Helper for iPhone or Android Phone

Thanks to Myron, an architect/builder I heard about an APP for smart phones that might be useful to builders or architects.  It is called Design Dimensions, and is by Arc Mist LLC.  Look for it in the App store.  24 MB,  cost $ .99. 

It appears to have many dimensions for many building products, and also the weights for some.  It can give you these dimensions in feet and inches or metric.  I have not explored it enough to give an opinion, but I trust Myron’s word that it is useful and accurate enough.

While checking it out in the iTunes APP store, I saw another App that might be useful as well.  Called Stair Magic, it sells for $2.99.  By putting in variables it gives you tread, rise, run and so on with numbers of steps.  For remodelers or new home designers, this could be nice double-check or speedy way to figure out potential feasibility and costs where a stair in to be installed or modified.

Please post a comment if you have tried one of these. They don’t appear to have had many reviews.

iTriage APP, New For Smart Phones

Today’s Wall Street Journal had a story on the growth of personal on-line health symptom checking. It described how doctor’s attitudes towards patient’s use of the internet for diagnosis is changing.  They are a little more receptive now to a patient's good work with checking out their problem on-line.  But, specifically they warn that only a doctor can truly find your disease or lack of same, and so it is dangerous to worry about, or otherwise seek treatment for something “you think you have”. In search of a smart phone easy-check system, the App iTriage was created.

 iTriage has wonderful possibilities, but the actual use of it leaves me wishing it was more developed.  The screens work well, and the concept seems solid, but many symptoms and drugs I entered were missing entirely. Searching function needs lots of improvement.  

Here is what it offers – you can enter a symptom and it searches for advice, and includes help such as the nearest hospital that treats that, and so on.  You can enter a medication and find out all the information you normally get with the prescription when you pick it up at the pharmacy (only much less information than a pharmacy like Walgreens provides).  Side effects are listed as well.  iTriage works well in concept,  but the information is scant in my opinion and thus falls short of its potential.

If you are so inclined, download it (it is free and has 365 user comments with 5-star rating) and experiment.  Note that it has a sliding bar to indicate your age and sex and sex so it can better filter the findings when you search. That idea certainly has good potential.  Given 2 years of improvements and additions, this app might be useful.  One of the claims in the WSJ story is that it might someday be your gateway to the emergency room. By pre-loading your personal information (when you first install it) and clicking on your new symptoms, it will make an appointment for you on your way to the emergency room – possibly allowing you to see the correct doctor there faster.

Comment on your findings and opinion to this Blog Post (below). 

An Orderly Life – or Chaos ?

An article in PC Magazine (which, by the way,  is no longer going to print a magazine, just offer on-line magazine in future – which I don’t like at all, I prefer print) has a good story in the last issue on page 23. 

Titled  “How to get Your Online Assets in Order Before You Die”.   It is something I had not thought about, but the consequences of having no plan would mean that your heirs would have to show death certificates and other proof in order to close down your Facebook account, your email account, possibly on-line banking, EBay and Amazon accounts, and much more.

The solution is simple, keep all your passwords in a safe place – and more importantly, up to date --- and make sure a responsible person knows where this information is kept.  Not so easy if you put it in a bank security box.  But if it is just “somewhere in the house” it might not be easy to find or secure.  The answer could lie in one of the new on-line security services – which will not disclose these passwords until your passing.  One proof will do for them to disclose   all your passwords, provided the right person (you name) presents the proof.   

www.assetsinorder.com  is one of them, free or pay more for more storage.  www.legacylocker.com  is another, nearly identical.  Check the free and more expansive versions before you decide on this course of action. 

One nice thing, these sites will allow you to store a digital copy of your will and other important documents.  So it is much like a bank box – only it’s all PDF or electronic. This feature could give you an opportunity to share information with all your children in its complete and original state, rather than just one personal representative.  Last requests and distributions for example could be posted in a way that all heirs could access that portion of the information privately on their computers.

Whatever you decide, post a comment here to share what you did, that might help the rest of us who have not yet done anything.  Maybe we could all benefit from less expensive, or easier, processes or ideas.

Great New APP called "Capture" For Mobile Phone Movie Making

How did I miss this APP ?  My son in law told me about it yesterday.  Capture YouTube, in the iTune’s App store (and also Android I think) is free, and gives my iPhone a great new capability.  The problem with the standard iPhone offering (which is a movie option inside its built in camera app) is sharing it.  You can email an iPhone standard app movie to anyone directly, but there are two problems with that.  First it has to process the video to (I think) reduce the size to something that can be emailed (reduced file size). And then the person receiving it may, or may not, be able to open the video file.  And if they do, and don’t then delete the email, it soaks up memory on their device until deleted. 

Enter Capture App.  It has its own video camera with image enhanced color option, image stabilization option and even allows you to use the on-board flash as a steady filming “light” for low-light situations.  After you take the video, you can send it “up” to YouTube (helps if you have a YouTube account) as one of your “managed videos”.  You can restrict viewing to just those you email the link to (called unlisted), or open it to the world, or restrict it just to yourself (called private).  Or share it with Facebook or something like that.

The upload to YouTube is reasonably fast (better if you are on wi-fi) and after that the recipient gets a clean link to YouTube and can view the video (in 720 HD) without worries about compatibility to their computing device, or wasting their personal memory space. Note that, your recipient can probably send the link on to their friends.  But it won’t be open to the public if you code it as “unlisted”.

A tip --  you can allow (or not allow) this APP look at all your old “my photos” stills and or “videos” that reside on your iPhone ---  and possibly upload them.  I declined that, I didn’t want to share my entire photo files with YouTube.  But you can turn it off and on as you need it.  For the time being I will only shoot and upload new videos. 

Time Management

It has been said you can’t manage time – and everyone has the same amount of it, rich or poor. You can only manage yourself “relative to time”.  That is, make yourself a better user of time.  Make your minutes count for more or better.

That was brought home to me today.  I bought a personal use item, something I use every day, and I estimated the new product saved me about 3 minutes a day.  Since I use it every day, that’s 365 x 3 minutes a year.  That works out to saving me 18.5 hours a year. If you work 8 hours a day, that’s more than 2 work-days of time saved.  Could my calculations be wrong?  Check my math.

Assuming I am right, who wouldn’t want to save 18.5 hours a year?  Trimming one's wasted time by just 3 minutes a day is a huge saving.  Be that your commute to work or whatever.  I always lived only 2 stop signs, or one stop light from my work.  That allowed me to go home for lunch most days.  I knew that benefit, but now I think I saved more like 15 minutes a day from normal commutes by others.  That’s 60 hours a year, an entire work-week of time saved.  And that assumes only 240 days of going to work.

Your thoughts?