Cohost of the TransMissions Podcast. Writer, Blogger, Musician.
This quote was found on the first post of this Zenoss forum. It was written by user ‘bithajcsar’.
Open source in general, is only for those, who do not have any serious responsibility.
Now, I do feel that I should express that I love the idea of Open Source, and I think very highly of enthusiastic open source programers. But, their is a reason why open source is not as widely used.
Let’s just add this to my already huge pile of reasons why I want a PlayStation 3. The thing is built tough.
Last month I received a Flip Ultra digital camera as a birthday present from Hannah. There are two different models of the Flip video camera made by Pure Digital Technologies. The Flip Ultra and the Flip Mino. I have seen the Flip run for as high as $180.00, and as low as $120.00. Just depends one where you do your shopping.
Hannah got me the Flip Ultra because it takes 2 AA batteries and she knows I’m currently on a kick of any electronics that take batteries you can easily find in a store. The Ultra comes with a built in 2GB of flash memory that allows for an hour of recording of video in 640×480 resolution at 30 frames per second, using the MPEG-4 ASP video compression. In other words, it dose a damn good job for what it is.
The first thing I really love about this little digital video recorder is the size. It is so small and easy to take with you anywhere you go. I pretty much have it with me all the time now. It’s push button easy of use. Record, play, zoom in an out. That’s pretty much it.
The unit comes with a built-in USB plug that connects easily to any computer. It’s built in software that runs from the camera allows for basic video editing and uploading to youtube (weather you use Macintosh or Windows). However, I had no trouble copying the video of the Flip Ultra onto my computer and editing it with iMovie on my Apple Macintosh.
Since I have received the Flip, I have edited two movies with it. One that ended up on youtube and you can see that here. The other, I made and burned to DVD. They both look great. I can tell you from my experience that the quality of the video looks a lot better then what ends up on youtube. I am also impressed with the lack of shakiness I got from the camera. True, it dose not come close to handling hand shakes like my Cannon DV camera, but I was still impress nonetheless.
Pros:
Cons:
Buying Advice: I really think these little flash video cameras are going to be come more and more populer as time goes on. For a first time owner of a video camera this would be a great starting point. For someone who has video camera experince I think they will enjoy the flip because of it’s convinunt size, and simplicity from shoot to edit. Because of this, I feel like not only myself, but others will be makeing more personal videos then with a normal handy came or mini camcorder.
Is owning an Apple product a status symbol to people, like owning a thousand dollar suit? This idea was recently presented to me because of the iPhone. The company I work for has been working with iPhones more and more setting them up for our clients. This has basically been the result of AT&T finally coming to Juneau Alaska and making the iPhone available to all the local’s here.
Some of our clients are not hesitating when it comes to getting an iPhone. However others remain skeptical. One case in particular, the owner of one of the companies we service is most reluctant in letting her staff use an iPhone because she feels they are only want one for the “status symbol” is provides.
This caught me off guard a bit. “Status symbol?” I asked myself. I really never looked at it that way. I have used Apple products most of my life because, quite simply, they just work. I never got an Apple computer or device because I wanted be the cool kid on the block. No, I got Apple products because they worked and where easy to use.
For the last several years I have worked in some form of I.T. or another. A vast majority of my time has been addressing issues with Microsoft Windows. I am reminded on a daily bases why I don’t own a Windows based computer. Microsoft pays my bills, plain and simple. When I come home, it’s to a Macintosh based Apple computer that just works. The last thing I want to do at the end of a day (or my weekend for that matter) is spend one moment troubleshooting computers.
But the quesiton here is; are people in Juneau getting iPhones because of the status symble they feel it provides? Maybe, I guess. I can say this, Every iPhone I have setup for a client since AT&T came to Juneau has worked. I have not had one follow up call asking for any kind of assistance at all. To me, that is a mark of a great product. I wish I could say the same about the BlackBerry phones everyone around here used to use.
Before I get started I do want to say I am an Apple fan boy. I think Apple makes the best computers on the planet, I think they make the best portable MP3 players on the planet, and now I think they make the best cell phones on the planet. With that said, here are my findings with owning the best cell phone.
The iPhone is easy to use. Which is really a good thing because it doesn’t come with a manual. No RTFM here. I think that says something about a product when you don’t need a manual to operate it. Using this phone and all the software it comes with has been very intuitive. Typing on this thing is very impressive. Mistakes are few and far between and the built in spell checker really dose a great job when I do make a typing mistake.
Battery life is not bad at all. My test for this was this last Labor Day weekend. I charged the iPhone Friday morning before I went to work and I did not charge it again till late Monday Night. So 3 days(ish). Again, I had 3G disabled, and I had WiFi disabled accepted when I actually needed access to the internet.
The phone is slippery. It really is. I don’t mean this so much when it is in your hand. The unit is very smooth. The lady at the AT&T store that I got the iPhone from really stressed to me that I should get a case for the iPhone because of this fact. She explained that I should get one to keep the phone from slipping out of the inside pocket of my jacket. She stressed this to an almost annoying degree and she was very shocked that I left the store with out purchasing any kind of a case at all. My logic at the time was that I have been caring an iPod Touch for almost a year now and I have not broken it yet.
I added some velcro in my inside jacket. Well, actually Hannah did at my request. This was a result of the paranoia that I started feeling after talking with the lady at the AT&T store. But it’s also one of those ideas I wish I had a long time ago. It really is smart and keeps stuff from falling out of my inside jacket pocket now.
Still no pause button. Apple still has not solved the ‘no pause’ button on the iPhone 3g when your listening to music. I honestly don’t know if they think it is a problem, but it is annoying to have to activate the the screen and then press the pause button to stop music.
I don’t use 3g because I live in Juneau. The city of Juneau Alaska as of yet, dose not have 3G cell access. So I have that feature on my iPhone turned off. As I have read that also help a lot of battery life on the phone. It’s easy enough to enable 3G if I was in a location that had it. Same with WiFi access.
GPS is pretty neat. I can open up google maps and in a few seconds it will figure out where I am standing. I can then easily get directions from where I am standing, to where I want to go. I have found that there are places in Juneau I can be that the GPS system can’t triangulate where I am but, I have seen dedicated GPS units struggle with that from time to time.
Setting Up Voice Mail did not go very soothly. As it was explained to me at the AT&T store, click on the voice mail icon and the phone would guide me through setting up my voice mail. Well that did not work. Clicking on the voice mail icon did nothing at all for me. After researching this on the Apple support page Ilearned that when this happens with new phones you have to call your own cell phone number and then you would be instructed on how to setup voice mail over the phone. Which I did do and it has worked just fine ever since. Having visual voice mail is a wonderful thing.
Holding the phone to my face feels weird. At least at first it did. The unit is so thin, but very sturdy. It’s just thinner then any phone I have ever had before that It took a couple of days to get used to it.
Setting up custom ringtones has been fun. Each person in your address book can be setup with their own custom ringtone. I even found a great Life Hacker link that can walk users through creating their own custom ringtones from existing MP3s or any audio for that matter.
Pictures in address book help you quickly identify who is calling better then just a name flashing on the screen. This is really a great feature. It’s a small thing but it’s the detail to the small things that Apple really excels at. A person can recognize who is calling faster from a picture then from having to read a name. When someone calls in it fills up most of the screen.
No stand came with the iPhone. I got one with my iTouch, why not one with the iPhone?
Scratches and scuffs. None. This thing is pretty scratch resistent. I am impressed. Remember, I don’t have a case for my iPhone.
Screen Glare. It’s not been an issue for me. For the iPhone or the iTouch. I use the iTouch at the gym all the time with all their lights.
Things. This is an app I paid for and installed on my iPhone for my GTD needs. It works really well and syncs with my desktop client perfectly. I can’t say enough good things about this program.