Youseph Tanha Dot Com

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:

• Small size
• Impressive video quality
• Ease of use

Cons:

• Horrible zoom
• No steady cam, or anti-shake features

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.

Last week my company cell phone died. It was an old BlackBerry 7100g. That BlackBerry and I never got along and I did not keep that fact a secret. So when it finally passed away this last week my boss offered to get me the iPhone 3G as a replacement work cell phone. I thought I might document the process we went through to get the iPhone, as well as my experience with it.

August 21 2008 - After calling our local AT&T dealer we were told we would have to go down to the store and order the iPhone. At the time they did not have any in stock. So we drove down and waited in line for half and hour. In our Juneau store there where only three people helping customers. When we were up to speak with a sales rep, she had us picked out the model we wanted and pay for the iPhone right there. We were told that we had save the receipt to be able to clam the phone when it comes in. (To me that sounds like a bit of BS. I mean, you spend 200 bucks on a cell phone, they can look up that you bought it or not.)  The rep put the iPhone on order. We were told it would take 10 to 21 days to get in and that we would get updates via e-mail.

August 22 2008 - Got an automated e-mail from ATT Order Status.

Your iPhone 3G order has been shipped and is on its way to the AT&T store in which you placed the order… You will be notified via email when it arrives. You will then have seven (7) days to pick up your order or it will be canceled…

August 26 2008 - Got another automated e-mail from the local ATT store

Your iPhone 3G order is ready to be picked up at the AT&T store where you reserved it.  Please bring your reservation receipt and a valid ID when you pick-up your order…

So less then ten days. That makes the whole experience a little more positive.  We went down to the local AT&T dealer and got my iPhone. They took it out of the box to activate it. They moved my old phone number over and that was that. The phone worked from that moment on.

At the end of the day when I got home, I plugged the phone into my computer. iTunes fired up and it started to download and install the new iPhone OS software update. I also downloaded one or two programs to try out. For me the whole process was shockingly easy, fast and painless.

I have been using the iPhone now for less then two day, but so far I am very happy with the experience. The brake out application for me on the iPhone has been “Notes“. Notes lends it’s self very well to anyone who is into the GTD system. In my first two days with the iPhone I have been using this program constantly.

I am a big fan of Things for the Mac. In the next few days I am sure I will pick up the Things program for the iPhone also.

I will do a follow up post in a few days. I would like to talk about things i don’t like about the iPhone (if any come up) as well as how I have been using it.

In 2005 our investment club manager e-mailed us asking for our opinions on how to invest the money the group had been collecting. I wrote what I felt was the best suggestion I could have made at the time. Below is a copy of the e-mail I wrote our investment club along with Chris’s wrong and inaccurate response.

Now, Back in November 2005 when this e-mail was written Apple’s stock price reach a high of $69.34. Today, Apple’s stock price is valued over $180. Now for thoughts keeping score, this means that Apple’s market value of $158 billion is now four times that of rival PC Macker Dell’s $38 billion.

Whats that Chris? I can’t here you. Cat got your tongue?

When I upgraded my operating system to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, I did not think I would like the new backup software, “Time Machine” at all. Truth be told, I was expecting to hate it and continue using my trusty old Silver Keeper application to do my backups. But, like a true geek with new software I just had to test it out.

Let me start off by saying I can not express to you how important it is to back up your data. I myself learned this lesson the very hard way several years ago on my G3 Powerbook. Having the need to reinstall my operating system at the time I rushed and failed to do any backups at all. The end result was years of lost digital photos I can never get back. I might have cried a little bit after that incident (reports waver from person to person) but I learned from it. I went out the very next day and picked up an external hard drive that was bigger then the internal hard drive of my Powerbook and setup a nightly backup system.

So here I am, several years later trying out a new piece of backup software by Apple called “Time Machine”. Now before I can try and launch Time Machine I thought I should plug in my external hard drive that I want to backups to. Moments after I plugged in my External backup hard drive my computer prompted me with a message saying “Do you want it to be your backup drive?”. I said yes and to my amazement that was all I had to do.

Time Machine proceeded to make a full back up of my computers hard drive to the external backup drive in the background. I could not help but think there had to me more to Time Machine that just this. Every piece of backup software I have never used always needed to be configured and setup. So I went searching through the system preferences for Time Machine settings. Upon viewing the Time Machine settings I found a very simple preferences window with a comically large On/Off Switch much like you would see on an iPhone. The only other options on the screen allow you change the backups destination (So if you go out and buy a bigger hard drive and you want your backups to use the newer hard drive you can.) and pick files or folders you don’t want to have backed up at all.

This was so brain dead simple I found myself wishing I had more options to choose from. But honestly, I have never needed more then this. I would Imagen for the majority of computer users out their this is all they really need.

After several hours my initial back up of my hard drive was completed. So what happens next? Well, Apple’s website states:

Every hour, every day, an incremental backup of your Mac is made automatically as long as your backup drive is attached to your Mac. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.

So what happens when you remove your external backup hard drive? To find out what happens I disconnected my laptop from my external backup hard drive and did some work. I worked on files for my website and I worked on some random Photoshop work I have laying around. After about two hours I plugged back in my External backup hard drive. Right away I can see that the external hard drive is being written to. I opened up the Time Machine preferences to see it was doing a backup. A few other tests confirm that as soon as you plug in your backup external hard drive to you computer the first thing that takes place in the background is a backup of any changes made since it was last plugged in. That is just awesome!

It also looks like restoring from a crash or a reformat is also easy.

To make setting up a new Mac even simpler, Time Machine shares its data with other Mac utilities. Use Migration Assistant to copy portions of any Time Machine backup to a new Mac, or select “Restore System from Time Machine” in the Leopard DVD Utilities menu. Choose any date recorded in Time Machine to set up your new Mac exactly as your previous Mac was on that date.

So their you have it. You should always back up your computer. Any backup system is better then none but in my opinion Time Machine is pretty damn good.

Hannah and I left Juneau Alaska last Saturday to start off our well over due vacation together. We have had this trip planned for so long that Hannah had started counting down to the second from when it was time for use to leave.

So we left Juneau bright and early. Our flight made two stops on our way to Chicago. The first was in Sitka Alaska. It was a very short stop. They unloaded the people who wanted to get off at Sitka and loaded all the people who wanted to go to Seattle very quickly. The second stop was in Seattle Washington. Our layover in Seattle was only 2 hours long. But the time flew by because in Seattle we met up with my mom who flew with us from Seattle to Chicago.

So for the first leg of our vacation Hannah and I are currently in Illinois and having a blast with our family. Both my brothers, sister, nephew, and mom are here. We are all staying at my bother Reza’s new house in Aurora. (Party on Wayne! Party on Garth!)

The first day here we took it pretty easy. The house got some Christmas decorations put up and we played a little Ping Pong in the basement.

Today (well now Yesterday, but I have not been to bed yet so it feels like today) Abe, Tracy, Hannah and myself got up and took the commuter train from Aurora to the heart of Chicago to see the sights. With Abe as our tour guide we did some shopping and checked out the official Chicago Apple store. We also had dinner at the Hard Rock Café which was a lot of fun. They where playing great music videos the whole time we were there. Here is a picture of our Waiter.

We took the commuter train back to Aurora and drove from the train station back to my brothers house. We all shared our stories back at the house. Most everyone is in bed now. I should go too.

Two weeks ago I was sitting down at my PowerBook to do some work. Right away I noticed that my mouse and keyboard were not working. “This isn’t good” I thought to myself. My computer rarely gives me any trouble at all. Upon closer inspection I heard a noise that could sounded close to “the click of death” that pledged old . It’s the type of noise that would make a zit faced Geek Squad rep from Best Buy say “That not a good sound”. From That point i powered down my Powerbook was not able to get it to boot back up again. I would just keep getting that hard drive clicking noise.

It was upsetting at first that my hard drive might be dead but I was very great full that I do nightly backups on my system. (Thank you Silverkeeper)

I spent a good chunk of that first weekend trying to save my drive. With the help of some disk utility software I was able to get my computer to boot back up again. But it was not the same. The whole system was slow and eventlly a few days later the hard drive died.

So, I ordered a new hard drive from newegg.com and four days later (it’s because I live in Juneau) I had it installed. Replacing the old hard drive was not as easy with the G4 Powerbook as it was with my G3Powerbook. With the G3 it was just a matter of lifting up the keyboard. With my G4 it required a lot more steps. Just look at this to see what I went through.

For as long as I can remember I have struggled with trying to remember things. Be it work related or personal, it’s always been a struggle for me to remember different things I need to do through out the course of a day. It’s an exosting and stressful task. It does not seem like it but just trying to remember something waists time and stresses you out. Imagine if you didn’t ever have to remember anything. You mind would be free to think freely and wonder around.

I have recently been able to accomplish this great stress free and mantel freedom. For several months now I have been keeping a notepad with me at all times. I keep it in my back pocket along with a pen in my front pocket. I do this for several resins. One being that I have a really bad memory. I have learned that when I need to remember something for a later time I can just write it down and address it when I can. This practice has already become a habit for me.

Sine doing this you quickly release that you don’t remember things. Even more so when you have a method like this that remembers things for you. Trying to remember things stress you out and you don’t enjoy what is going on around you as much. It’s all part of the whole Getting Things Done methodology. So to help with that I now carry a notepad and pen with me everywhere I go.

“If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.” - Edgar Allan Poe

On this notepad I keep two basic lists. an “ACTION” list for things I need to do and a “SHOPPING LIST” for things I need to get at the store. The shopping list came to be because I would always forget my shopping list on the fridge. So to solve that little problem I now carry it with me at all times. The action list if for anything I need to do or be reminded of. Whenever I have a few free moments I will try and accomplish as much as I can on my actions list. Things I can’t accomplished in the time I have available for them I end up transferring to another Action list I have located on Google Notebook to be completed at a later time.

I know this sounds like a simple solution to a big problem. I mean who doesn’t experience the pain of trying to remember something all day long, only to forget it when they really need to remember it. For me caring a notepad is the great solution I have been able to find. I love the idea of having a PDA to do this. I am a geek after all. It will be very tempting if the roomers of the return of the Apple Newton turn out to be true. But unlike a notepad, PDA’s run out of batteries or you lose the stylist pen and it’s always when you need them the most. This is why I am not a PDA user. (Currently)

So to finish my thought, at least once a day I go though my action items. If anything on the list takes 2 minutes or less I just do them. If it takes longer and I don’t have time to address it right then and there I then copy over the action item to Google Notebook.

Just form my experience I can tell you that I’m able to just come home from work and not worry about anything. It’s all written down and in a place I can execute it when I have time. Nothing to remember, and nothing to worry about forgetting.

Another thing I want to bring up are pens. I never could find the right pen. I think I struggled with this more then anything. I enjoy writing. Even if it’s just a quick note. Because of a friends suggestion I discovered the “Uni-ball Vision ELITE” pen. I find it writes very well and I have not been swayed by any other pen for months now. I keep this pen in my front pocket at all times. So I always have something to write on and something to write with.

Yesterday when I got home from work Hannah and I went to work on the spare bedroom turning it into a home office. Well more like a home office / spare bedroom / storage place. It actually turned out really well and I like how Hannah has hung up some of her posters. I think the room will grow a little bit with us. Will see I am sure. But, for now I am happy with how it turned out. I am glad to finally have a place to work and read that is away from the T.V.

I was able to setup up my computer and have it do back ups and install the newest Mac OS X update (10.4.7) while we finished putting things in order. Later that night Chris came over to show me his idea of a wiki that he set up for work called iFolder. The application is kind of cool but it’s way over kill for what we need at work which is just a documentation tool. A strait up wiki. Sometimes I don’t understand how he thinks. But I guess I should focus on the bright side which is, now we have a central place to put our documentation.

I am still working to restore my blog back to it’s glory. I again switched the blogging engine I am using and I am very please with how this one has been working out. You will notice every few days that I adding older posts. I have quite a few to add but I will get them up in time. Between this website, The H Corner website, and Voted Down website, it’s just a matter of time till it gets done.

Hannah has been job hunting and getting things in order at the collage. We are going to try to see Superman Returns on Saturday. I hope that the weather is good this weekend so we can walk around town and check out some of the parks.