I signed up for a cool new service called Smugmug. It's "kind of" like Shutterfly, but it's more like an online album. It allows you to store all your photos online in full high-resolution. Visitors can view the images in whatever resolution they like as well as print directly. Other online services like Ofoto or Shutterfly require do not allow you to print photos directly to a home printer--you need to buy prints directly from them. Smugmug is a bit more expensive to order prints, but the quality is supposed to be superior than Shutterfly. I will need to do some testing to see what the quality is like.
In the meantime, feel free to browse our albums on Smugmug by clicking the album link above or by clicking here.
In preparation for our baby's arrival, we purchased a new camera. Okay, so it's more like I purchased a new electronic toy with Michelle's blessing. Much to my friend and coworker Joe's envy, I purchased a Nikon D70. It's a digital SLR. To non-camera geeks that's one of them cameras with detachable lenses--a pro-sumer camera. This ain't your mom's wind-up disposable. (Yes, my mom uses disposable cameras)
This past weekend we took the camera for a little photo safari (a term from Joe) to the Huntington Library in San Marino (near Pasadena). What I learned from the whole experience is that I need to take a class to learn how to use my camera... I mean OUR camera. I also need to learn how to compose shots and learn all about lighting. I thought it would be so easy with a fancy shmancy camera, but it was so much more difficult. I felt pressured to take good pictures to show everybody why I spent all this money $$$$ on a high-end camera. What ended up happening is that I took a few good pictures, a couple of really nice pics and a lot of crap. I know I shouldn't expect every single picture to be an Ansel Adams museum quality print, but with such a sunny day and beautiful garden, you would think I could take more than a few pictures I'd feel comfortable showing to my friends. COME ON!
This weekend I plan on bringing the camera to the Santa Monica airport for some more picture taking. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime I need to do some research into photo classes. Hmmm... maybe there's a Geek Cruise in my near future. ???
UPDATE: Yah, considering the baby is due July 3rd, the Geek Cruise that I linked to would not be wise. Don't want to deliver the baby while in Russia. Da.
My good friend April sent me an invite to Gmail today. I'm still checking out all the cool features so I'll let everybody know what I think in a future posting. So far it looks like the best webmail system I've seen. I can't wait to use the search feature.
Michelle and I picked up our new cell phones last night. I got a Motorola v400 and Michelle got a Samsung S307. They are both flip phones. Michelle likes her phone because it is small and cute. I like mine because of the large color screen and camera.
I've always had Nokia phones ever since I started using cell phones way back in college. I always liked Nokia's menu interface and the fact that the phones were smaller. My last phone was a Nokia 8290 which lasted me about 3 years. I was originally holding out for the Motorola v600 because I liked the Bluetooth capability. However, since Cingular had just released the v400 and it pretty much had the same features, I decided to buy the phone.
The v400 is definitely a larger phone than the Nokia 8290. However, the one good thing that I'll be glad about soon enough is that the v400 is a flip phone. I've had many instances where I forgot to lock the keys on the Nokia and slipped it into my jeans pocket. My phone would then start calling random people. The worst was in Canada. I had forgotten to lock the keys on the phone and threw the phone into my backpack while snowboarding. When I took it out later, I discovered I had made over 10 calls. One of them was an 2 minute international call to my dad in Japan! Can't wait for that phone bill!
The design of the v400 is really nice. The color screen is great and the exterior display is really handy. The menu interface will take some getting used to as well as the "talk" and "end call" buttons being opposite that of Nokias. Nokia phones have the call button on the left whereas Motorolas have the call button on the right.
The camera on the v400 is really cool. You can take a picture of someone and assign the picture to their phonebook entry.
So far we both think we'll like our phones, but I'll keep you updated with our reviews.
Last week Apple announced the release of iTunes for Windows. At last! I could finally get rid of MusicMatch and work with some software that was originally meant to be run with my iPod. The interface takes some getting used to and it's a bit slow, however, it's a welcome addition to my desktop. I'm sure in the future iTunes for Windows will get better.
Last week while at a conference in Vegas I was talking to a fellow techie about Tivo. He mentioned that he was able to set up Tivo so that you could watch recorded shows from a PC on your home network. WOW! Where have I been? Once I got home, I immediately looked up the instructions.
It was so easy. I simply had to install one application on Tivo to stream the video, and then one application on my PC to display the video. There was only one drawback though. There seems to be a problem with the erratic nature of the wireless connection. The video would suddenly freeze and would not resume playing. I ran a really long cable from the Tivo downstairs and plugged it directly into the router. This worked perfectly. The video played without a hitch.
Now, Michelle can watch a program downstairs while I watch something upstairs. Tivo certainly has changed the way we watch TV.
Sources:
http://tivo-mplayer.sourceforge.net/
Recently I took on the task of upgrading our existing Tivo. My project was two-fold. The first phase involved installing a network card and a wireless network in the condo. The second phase involved installing a larger hard drive and installing utilites to access Tivo from the Internet.
I had been contemplating for a long time whether or not it was feasible (and economical) to upgrade our tiny 30GB drive to a larger drive. We have in the past run out of space. This was especially true earlier this year when we were so busy fixing up the condo that we had little time to watch Tivo.
We also noticed that the side of the room where our TV and Tivo are on has no phone jack for Tivo to make its daily call. We had been stretching a long telephone cord across the center of the living room. This was not the most "attractive" solution.
In order to solve the telephone cord solution, I decided to connect Tivo to our wireless network. The only problem was that we had no wireless network. So I went onto Amazon.com and picked up a Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router along with a Wireless-G Ethernet Bridge for Tivo. While I was at it I went ahead and bought a Wireless-G Notebook Adaptor for the laptop. I then went to 9thTee.com and picked up a network card (TurboNET) for Tivo.
Installing the Wireless-G network was easy. I simply connected the router to my desktop PC, configured it, and I was good to go. The Wireless-G Bridge was also easy to configure. The Tivo TurboNET card was merely a matter of opening up Tivo and sliding in the card. Tivo was immediately able to use the wireless connection to make its daily call.
Last night I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. upgrading our Tivo with a new 120GB drive. I also installed some Tivo utilities and the ability to access Tivo through Telnet.
So far everything looks like it's working great. Overall it was a real easy process thanks to all the information I found on the Internet.
Resources:
Steve Jenkins' Tivo Network Hack How-To Guide
Hinsdale How-to TiVo upgrade