Keeping up with all your tech and gear can feel like drinking from a firehose. If you don’t pay attention to the constant changes, upgrades and advances, you can wake up feeling like a Luddite.
I just reviewed a bit of what I’ve discovered over the past year and then shared on my blog.
And here are ten ways I’ve learned how to skill up. (Each title below is linked to my original blog post.)
Thanks to the magic of ChatGPT and Google Veo 3, I have created this silly video that I’m certain will never be a holiday cartoon classic. Still, my experience shows how easy it is today for anyone to generate usable AI video content. Here’s how I did it.
If I had a brother from another universe, and he somehow found a way to send me a fun holiday selfie video riffing on the famous poem, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, it might resemble an AI video creation exercise I just completed.
And the way I imagine it, my brother might look like this (thanks to Google Whisk).
And of course, he would also be interested in blogging about tech and gadgets.
Here’s how I brought my geeky fantasy to ‘life.’
ChatGPT Wrote the Lines To create a new poem for my brother to read, I put “A Visit from St. Nicholas” through ChatGPT and asked it to write new verses focusing on solving home tech problems. Almost instantly, I had several versions, which admittedly needed more work. So, I moved some lines around and polished it.
Google Whisk Generated the Environments Then, I got to work creating the scene locations for my brother.
Again, I used Google Whisk’s text-to-photo functionality to place him in different environments throughout the poem. As you’ll see, this plays like a cartoon, and I leaned increasingly into the absurd.
Ingredients to Video Once I had all my key-frame photos, I used them to guide the video scene creation process using Google Veo 3 and Adobe Firefly for Video.
The hardest part was maintaining the consistency of my brother’s voice. (Sometimes, the AI wanted to give my brother a deeper voice and a British accent.)
Here’s my finished creation, complete with its AI script, AI video generation, rough AI edges… and human-powered humor.
The Future has Arrived With more time and additional money (yes, AI video creation consumes lots of ‘credits’), I could have created a more ‘perfect’ version by regenerating certain scenes multiple times to get better results.
But that wasn’t my goal here (perhaps for my next AI video project). For the record, I spent about twenty bucks to generate the clips. And then, I did the video editing myself.
AI video creation for the masses is remarkable, but it’s still far from perfect. That said, just the idea that I can ‘easily’ create this silly bit of nonsense from my keyboard forces me to update my entire view on video production and the need the skill up. (Why do you think I gave myself this assignment?)
‘Twas the Night before Fun-day You may have noticed the reimagined poem in my video is shorter than the original. That’s because I didn’t feel the concept would hold together if the piece ran too long. (Remember, less is more.) So, I removed some of the lines.
If you’re interested in reading my entire tomfoolery, here it is. Enjoy!
Holiday Ode to Mr. Tech
‘Twas the night before Fun-day, when all through the house, Not a gadget was syncing – not even the mouse. The cables were laid with questionable care, In hopes that the Wi-Fi would reach everywhere.
The tablets were charging beside every bed, While buffering circles spun round in our heads. And I, bathed in blue light, lay still for the night, Dreading the thought there’d be no Wi-Fi tonight.
When out on the network there was such a clatter, A chime from my phone said that something’s the matter. Away from the bed I flew like a flash, Past blinking red lights and a network crash.
The glow from the router on new-fallen snow, Gave cold bluish shine to the yard down below. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a bright sleigh shape drawing steadily near.
With a happy driver, so steady and in check, I knew in a moment it must be Mr. Tech. More rapid than updates his drones now they came, He tapped and he typed and he called them by name.
“Now, PING! Now, PIXEL!Now, BUFFER and BEACON! On, COOKIE! On, CACHE! Let the signal awaken! Go, REBOOT! Go, RESET! Make connections robust! On, ROUTERand MODEM – Restore all our trust!”
To the top of the roof! To the peak – Hold it steady! No dropped connections, no dead zones – Nowwe are ready! Like data at full bars that zips through the air, They landed atop with precision and care.
Quick as a reboot, I heard a low tone, The soft little thump of each careful drone. As I held my breath there and turned round just so, Down the chimney came Mr. Tech with a glow.
He was dressed all in fleece from his head to his toe, With a tool kit of dongles and cords in a row. A satchel of gadgets hung low on his back, A tech on a call who’d prepared for attack.
His eyes – how they twinkled! His grin – calm and bright, Like someone who’s fixed this exact thing all night. He glanced at the modem, the router, the node, And nodded once softly – Yes, I know this code.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And restarting each device, no need to smirk. He reset the router, adjusted the mesh, Labeled each cable with meticulous zest.
The tablets and laptops all hummed with new life, And no more spinning wheels, no buffering strife. He checked every signal, each access point near, Then gave me a nod that all problems were clear.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his drones gave a beep, And away they all flew, no glitch left to keep. But I heard him exclaim as he vanished from sight, “Happy Fun-day to all – And to all a strong Wi-Fi night!”
If your furnace fails on you when it’s snowing, you don’t have much time to fix the problem. I just learned the first step should be simply pressing the red reset button. But that may be harder than you’d think. Here’s my story.
My home’s furnace quietly stopped working last week. I didn’t notice the specific moment, but it was shortly after dinner. I thought I felt a bit cold, and I stopped what I was doing. My ‘Spidey Sense’ told me something was wrong.
I turned to glance at a little digital thermostat I keep near my home office desk. The temperature was four degrees cooler than it should have been.
My new Google Nest Learning Thermostat runs a tight ship. So, I knew something was off. (If I were starring a science fiction movie on a spaceship, the next scene would show a pinhole leak in the hull as oxygen vented out.)
My Furnace Wouldn’t Fire Up I listened for the normal background hum of our heating system. Nothing (no comforting purr of my warp engines). I hurried down to our basement to check the circuit breakers. All good there.
I rushed backed up to check out my gleaming Nest Learning Thermostat. It knew that it was too cold but reported that my furnace was actually running, and my house would reach its desired temperature in 45 minutes.
Houston, we have a problem.
My furnace just wasn’t firing up, and it was 38°F out. My family didn’t know the situation yet. But the clock was ticking.
There was only thing I could do. So, I made the call…
The Big Red Button I called for an emergency repair. Yes, I pay for an annual plan to protect against this specific moment.
Ninety minutes later, the technician showed up.
The first thing he asked me was whether I had pressed the red button.
“The red button?”
“Yes, the big red reset button. Do you know where that is?”
I did not.
The technician opened up the side of my furnace and pointed. I had to look closely. It wasn’t exactly a bright red button, but there it was, red enough to see… if you were looking for it.
Red Alert I’m not sure how I didn’t know about the red reset button after all these years. There have been plenty of opportunities during the annual maintenance checks of my heating system. But clearly, I wasn’t paying attention. (Or perhaps no one ever told me.)
The technician reached forward and pressed it. The system started to chug to life. (Really? How embarrassing if this was the simple fix.)
And then my furnace coughed and conked out.
I felt a sigh of relief. At least it wasn’t the red button. (I dodged that reputational bullet.)
The problem clearly ran deeper.
Warp Power Restored The good news is twenty minutes later, my Scotty had my warp engines running again. Something about nozzle misalignment and carbon build up. (I processed his explanation as my “dilithium crystals” were out of alignment in their chamber. My Star Trek brain would understand that.)
He was on his way, and my family had heat again.
I walked back into my home office, sat down at my desk and thought about my experience…
Hello, HAL I felt a bit giddy. I was so happy this little emergency wasn’t somehow my fault. My furnace actually required a repair technician’s attention. Yes, I knew I had been oblivious to the red button fix, but I was worried I had missed another obvious sign, like a circuit breaker. (I hadn’t.)
Plus, as my story demonstrates, pressing the reset button doesn’t always work.
Ultimately, I think this all points to a larger issue. Don’t we all want some mastery over the various technologies that impact our daily lives?
Time to Upskill Of course we do. But it’s becoming easier every day to allow that equation of control to drift further away from us.
And this certainly extends beyond running the electronics and systems in your own home.
It’s about how you interface with technology in just about every part of your life.
On most days, it’s simply a remarkable partnership. And to maximize that potential, we’ve all got to upskill and learn to use the new, revolutionary AI-fueled interfaces.
But sometimes systems break down, and you’d better know where that red reset button is located.
It’s equally important to remember that the red reset button isn’t always the fix.
Remember Your Backup Plan So where does that leave us exactly?
Well, life is complicated. Always has been.
Things don’t always work the way you expect. User error is no excuse. So don’t abdicate your responsibility to understand the basics.
Have a plan. Then, have a back-up plan. The buck always stops with you.
And yes… it never hurts to know where that red button is located.
At Home with Tech 