At Home with Tech

Unlock the power of all your technology and learn how to master your photography, computers and smartphone.
May 4, 2012

Loving the Loser Light Bulb

Lighting my house with yesterday’s LED tech that doesn’t cut it anymore. I’m okay with that- for the next 22 years.

I was in Home Depot last week, and I couldn’t help but walk through the lighting department to peek at the wonder LED bulb-
The Philips L Prize ‘A bulb’.
And yep, there it was for $49.95.
It was positioned in the back corner in its own display, almost as an after thought. And as I expected, I saw a few tumbleweeds passing by.

$49.95 is, of course, a steep price.

But front and center in the lighting isle was a separate LED bulb display with another Philips LED lamp, that walks and talks just like the L Prize bulb.

This one is called an AmbientLED.
Same 60-watt replacement.
12.5 watts.
Same design.
33% lower efficiency than the cutting edge L Prize bulb.
Lasts for 22.8 years, instead of 27 years.

Big whoop.
A bulb that will last till the year 2035 is efficient enough for me.

And the punch line?
The price after the boldly advertised $10 discount… $14.97.

The future had arrived and was already steeply discounted.

So I picked one up to try out in one of our lamp fixtures at home.
And my assessment?
Brilliant.

So why all the big fuss about the ‘A bulb,’ when Philips already has their AmbientLED out there at a much better price?

The L Prize lamp is more efficient, and its newer tech is supposed to provide a warmer light.
And it’s made in Wisconsin.
(My AmbientLED is from China.)

Look, you just don’t need the Lexus of light bulbs.
I think the runner up model is the place to start.
And in this economy, shopping for price is a reality most Americans still have to grapple with.

It’s simply time to start buying LED replacement bulbs. They’re good for the environment. They’re more expensive, but they save you money over the long run. And very soon, you’ll have to make the switch, because many incandescent bulbs are being phased out.

So the headline here is not a scary one. It’s pretty reasonable.
You get to keep your lights on, but you’ve got to upgrade.

That’s called innovation.
Like it or not, you need to keep up.

Anyone else out there made the switch yet?

Leave a comment
April 29, 2012

Parental Omniscience for only $24.95

This is Doggie, my son’s favorite lovey. Doggie is with my old Canon Elph 960 (yes that’s scotch tape holding it together) and its Eye-Fi card, which wirelessly uploads photos of my son to my iPhone. Recently, my boy’s photo stream stopped flowing. Doggie was sad. He asked Dada for help.

I know what it feels like to be Thor and cast out.
I had everything just the way I liked it, and I was happily ruling my own universe.

By that I mean I’d been using the magic of the Eye-Fi wireless memory card for the past two years to open up a personal portal into my son’s daily adventures.  While I was away at work.

Allow me to explain.

Eye-Fi Magic
The Eye-Fi card is a wireless memory card you put in your camera, just like any other card. The difference is Eye-Fi also has Wi-Fi built into it.
(That makes it twice as expensive.)

But for the price, you get the power of the Cloud. After you take a picture, your camera doesn’t need to be tethered to your computer to upload. Instead, Eye-Fi immediately sends your photos to your computer’s hard drive and the Web wirelessly and effortlessly.

So after a fun photo session of my son sucking down applesauce, my camera’s battery provides the 4 gig Eye-Fi card the power to chat with my MobileMe online photo gallery I created with iPhoto. Apple also has a great app called Gallery, which perfectly displays all of my son’s photos on my iPhone.

I could see all…
It was a beautiful thing.

And the piece de resistance?
My Eye-Fi account would then email or text me whenever new photos had been uploaded.

Say I was away at a boring meeting, wondering what my little boy was up to.
I’d hear the text ping go off, whip out my iPhone, and show my colleagues photos of my son’s latest milestone taken minutes earlier. Pretty cool!

This trick did wear out its public welcome, but it has been invaluable for me.
It seemed like magic two years ago, but with everything going Cloud based these days, it’s just another mortal tool to make your digital life a little easier.

Dark Clouds
But one day, a storm approached.
And I was cast out. I looked up, and I saw iCloud everywhere.
I would need to learn the ways of mere mortals.

We know MobileMe’s days are numbered.
But I think Apple has already begun pulling the plug.
A couple of months back, my Gallery app started crashing.
And then it never opened again.

Coincidence? I think not.
I needed to find a replacement and fast!

Join the Party
I have to admit; I’m a little phobic about putting unfiltered photos up on giant social websites like Facebook. (even if they are posted as private)
I’ve enjoyed the cozy feeling of presumed privacy with my obscure MobileMe photo albums. Being a part of the huge digital social universe feels a wee visible for my boy’s little photo stream.

This is not to be confused with Apple’s Photo Stream service. I’ll soon press the button to join with iCloud, but I’m not sure Apple’s Photo Stream will be a total replacement for the distribution of my son’s pics either. Remember I’ve got a very targeted way I want these particular photos organized and remotely served up to me and my wife.

You know, I don’t think I’ve really got a choice.
Either I play in the pond with the millions of other online photo sharers.
Or I will just see my son the old fashion way… in person.

So I decided it was time to join the party and hope that only my wife and I would show up.

I did some research and of course there are a crushing number of online photo sharing options. After some fact crunching, I came up with two leading contenders: SmugMug and Flickr.

SmugMug?
I know SmugMug has a loyal fan base, and this service been around for a while.
(I’m always happy to let someone else kick the tires.)
The annual membership is $40.
And there’s the Smugview iPhone app for $2.99. All good.
I was 30 seconds away from pulling the trigger, but then I remembered I already had my toe in the digital water with Flickr.

D’uh! Flickr!!
You might feel this is the obvious choice. And I guess it is. I just needed to go through the exercise. I already have my Flickr account replacing my former MobileMe photo-sharing activity with family and friends. And I’ve upgraded to the annual $24.95 Flickr Pro subscription to better handle photos above the 200-picture limit in their basic (free) account.

Flickr also has its free iPhone app. And I know I can create private Flickr albums.
Let’s do it!
So I got to work.

  • On my iMac, I directed Eye-Fi to upload to Flickr with my normal user login info.
  • Downloaded the Flickr iPhone app. Signed in the exact same way.
  • Tweaked the settings to uber private.
  • Took a test picture of my wife reading Goodnight Moon to our son.
  • Opened up the Flickr app on my iPhone a minute later.

BAM! There it was!
And the email announcing the upload showed up a few minutes after that.

Q.E.D.
(Quite easily done)

The uploaded photos are organized into new Flickr albums (sets) each day.
Eye-Fi also simultaneously sends the pics to iPhoto for archiving.
(The only complaint I have is Eye-Fi doesn’t connect directly to Aperture, my preferred photo management/editing program.)

Back in Business
So there you have it. I’m omniscient again, knowing the business of my lad’s daily adventures while I’m off storming the castle during the week.

Flickr has done the job. Yahoo!

That said, if any of you have other solutions you’d like to share, I’m all ears.
I’m only $25 in. I could be convinced to try the next best thing…

1 Comment
April 26, 2012

The Art of Inaction, Part 2

To Lion or not to Lion? I’ve already pressed the button. Here we go!

Previously on At Home with Tech…
Barrett blogs about finally upgrading to Apple’s Lion operating system so he can use iCloud as a replacement to MobileMe to share his pictures and movies.

He admits his jealousy towards new tech adopters.

He explains his fear about his iMac losing its ability to edit on its old Final Cut Pro platform with Lion.

And he reveals his unrequited love towards Apple.

Barrett sits down to press the Lion “Install” button. The sweat drips off his forehead. He hesitates for another moment.

Close up shot of Barrett’s finger clicking the white wireless Magic Mouse. Shot cuts immediately to black, and we hear the piercing click. The final word of his blog is cut off without explanation.

And then silence.

His readers are left without resolution.

They immediately move on with their day without giving it another thought. There are a trillion more pressing problems to occupy their brain space.

But the smallest morsel of concern is left behind.
Buried deep, the struggle for technology survival at home lurks in all of us.
Finally, their tech curiosity emerges, forcing his readers to return.

Inception achieved.

And now…

Episode 2, Scene 1
We see total black for another three seconds.

Finally, the black slowly dissolves to a fuzzy white. The white starts to come into focus as the shot zooms out slowly to reveal the screen of a 27” iMac.
And we see the little logo.

Joy.

Barrett’s computer is rebooting. It takes its sweet time. An eternity.
Finally the Milky Way Galaxy appears as the desktop background.
Lion has arrived.

Roll opening credits and theme song!

After the Commercial Break
My precious iMac still has a heartbeat. I begin breathing again.

I immediately begin checking the functionality of all my software.

Word- Check.
Entourage- All there. (I know I now need to upgrade to Outlook)
QuickTime- Good.
Safari- No problem.
Aperture- All photos present and accounted for.

Final Cut Pro 7-
I look at the FCP icon. This is the moment of truth.
I wait as it loads.
And wait.

Then…
IT’S THERE!
My family history timeline. Still intact.

To celebrate, I think I might listen to a little music. Click it.
…and then… NOTHING.
Instead, an error message pops up.
“iTunes cannot open, because it was created by a newer version”

Newer version? What does that mean?!
Usually the problem is having an older version of software… not newer!
I start to panic.
My music! My videos!! OMG!

What should I do?! The room starts spinning.
Life is so fragile.

And then I remember to check Software Update to see if my new Lion needs any updates to the other programs in its kingdom.

I check Software Update and see there is indeed an update to iTunes standing by -10.6.1.(7). Plus a couple of other ‘improvements’ like a firmware update.

I immediately perform the downloads, and my iMac automatically reboots.
All good so far.
I click iTunes again and cross all my toes.

THERE IT IS!
As if nothing had ever gone wrong.
I think I hear my iMac say, “What’s the problem?”

Never mind.

I continue the functionality check and notice the batteries on my wireless Magic Trackpad are a little low. So I reach for my Magic Mouse to take over cursor control. My mouse often lies dormant, because I love my trackpad so much, and…

…NOTHING.

Here we go again.

The good news is I don’t panic again.
This is more of an inconvenience than potential disaster.
I’ve found Apple’s Bluetooth devices to sometimes act a little glitchy. It’s one of the reasons I originally bought both the mouse and trackpad. And yes, I even have an older wired mouse that serves as a triple back up. (I don’t mess around!)

I jump online and see a whole bunch of people with Lion and Magic Mouse problems. And there are multiple home remedies offered.

So I get to work.

I try re-pairing the mouse to the iMac. Nope.
I re-verify disk permissions in Disk Utility. No go.
I delete the mouse in Bluetooth and re-introduce it to my iMac. Nada.

Then I reboot my iMac and go back to Bluetooth. The mouse is still listed. Strange.
I thought I had successfully deleted it.
Should I just reconnect it? Maybe third time’s the charm?
BINGO!

Don’t ask questions. I tell myself to just move on.

While the going is good, I run Time Machine to capture all the goodness.
It is curiously a huge back up, since I ran it right before the upgrade. But I’m not sweating the small stuff.

Happy Ending
So that’s pretty much my Lion tale.
With the exception of a couple skips of my heartbeat, I’m still here.
Not so horrible.

But my adventure is just beginning…
Remember, the end game is get to iCloud. And the clock is counting down on that one. Plus, I’m planning on upgrading Office for Mac 2008 to the 2011 version, which includes Outlook. Stay tuned…

Oh yeah… and how does it feel to be running with the pride of cool current operating system users?

Apple’s newest operating system, Mountain Lion is due out this summer.
Here we go again!

1 Comment