Traveling light but efficient … Nikon P7000

March 10, 2011 Leave a comment

SxSW is upon us this week and the digerati masses are converging upon Austin TX for the ultimate tweet-up of the year. The scurry of flights, 4sq check-ins, Facebook updates, letting the social and not-so-social cronies and the rest of world know – that we’re all converging.

There’s so much to consume, panels, networking events, screenings, announcements & launches, cocktail hours & parties – a perfect melting pot of content generation potential not only in the written form but also digital assets like video and still-imagery.

So I struggle this year, owning a number of Nikon DSLR bodies, along with pro-lenses, I am well-equipped to capture and syndicate high quality images in support of content for SxSW. Problem? I have absolutely no urge to lug around my D700 + battery grip + reporter flash bracket + SB800 flash, matted to a 24-70 or 70-200 f/2.8 lens, not for 4-days straight. I conceded and brought the 24-70 rig to CES this year, and while it captured great images, form factor was tiring and with an army of others trying to do the same – maneuverability was just not there.

So I decided to pick up this, Nikon P7000:

Nikon P7000

Nikon P7000, image courtesy of Ken Rockwell

It’s a large form-factor point & shoot camera, with all the versatility and control without the worry and bulk of one of my full-sized DSLR’s.  Controls are intuitive, similar to my other Nikon’s, there’s a hot-shoe for my SB600 (lighter than my SB800), shoots HD video, and produces some great pictures. It also records onto SDHC, easy access to images via the SD card slot on my Macbook Pro, no need for an additional CF card reader.

I opted to go this route, than a micro-4/3 Samsung NX100 or Sony NEX-5; why?  Because I realized, if I went with the micro-4/3 I would get a lens adapter and put one of my Nikon lenses on there.  At that point, I might as use my large form-factor camera, so it didn’t make any sense.

Hoping this will enable me to still capture great content, without the bulk and weight of a full-sized camera – we’ll see how it goes this week!

Filed under digital, photography, technology

LunaTik finally arrives!!!!

February 8, 2011 2 Comments

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a watch guy.  I love watches.  And when I heard about the LunaTik for Nano6G, I immediately pledged to Kickstarter as well as went out and bought a new Nano6G. That was in December and I’ve been anxiously waiting for it to arrive. Well, the wait is OVER!

Came home from a trip, and there in the mail, was the long awaited LunaTik from Scott Wilson/MNML.  Here’s a few snap shots of the package and assembly, and yes, it’s absolutely awesome for the Nano6G.

Out of the box, great packaging – really it’s nicely secured and documentation is very straight-forward

Compared to the iWatchz wrist strap I’ve been wearing while awaiting the LunaTik:

Attaching the tiny screws, a little fumbling to insert them and hold two allen wrenches …

And the final product attached with Nano6G and on wrist:

Very comfortable on the wrist, I like the look if it much better than the iWatchz because of the added protection to the Nano6G.  Thumbs up Scott Wilson and MNML!!!

Filed under awesome, reviews, technology Tagged with , , , , , ,

Invest in force-fields?

January 27, 2011 Leave a comment

Almost a segue from my previous post recapping 2010 travel, I’ve had my fair share of travel delays, storms, turbulence, and general weather related travel nonsensories.  Sure there are delays due to mechanical failures, ridiculous passengers and general airline incompetence, but the bulk of the delays I’ve encountered have been weather related.

I’m actually currently sitting at Chicago O’Hare, on a cold tile floor hoarding a power outlet, watching as my original 6:15AM flight get postpone to 8:00AM, then to 10:30AM, and then finally canceled due to a snowstorm on the eastern seaboard.

So here’s a whacky concept, taken directly from the pages of Roddenbury’s Star Trek, force-fields – aka the deflectors/shields that protect the Starship Enterprise.

NASA, NSA, FBI, CIA, AA, DELTA, UNITED, JETBLUE, Twitter, Facebook, Mcdonald’s even – should invest in force-fields.

Pros:

  • No travel disruptions due to weather, planes can fly through turbulent airspace without any issue, ever
  • No mid-air travel crashes/collisions – and if there were, it would be like two balls bouncing off one another – and keep on going
  • Clean aircraft – or at least you have to wash them less
  • Companies can develop enhancements to force-fields, I am sure some airline will want be-dazzled ones
  • Opportunity to develop personal ones … imagine no more car accidents, clumsy-folk accident rates in emergency rooms will dramatically decrease
  • Bubble-boy augments his high-profile-ness

Cons:

  • Have to build stronger, more potent weapons to get through the force-fields
  • People who we dont want to have them will end up … having them
  • More Twitter traffic, bashing force-fields
  • Bubble-boy loses his high-profile-ness

I hope someone from NSA & NASA are reading, especially the ones who are frequent fliers.  Get on it!

Filed under rants, technology, travel Tagged with , , , , , ,

Geeking it out with Apple some more …

December 4, 2010 Leave a comment

About two or three months ago, when Apple launched the new Nano 6G with the touchscreen, I am sure everyone got excited.  Geeks and nerds, well at least some of us, got a little more excited because not only do you have a micro-sized LCD screen, iPod functionality, FM tuner, but also – it can be worn as a watch!

DSC_9551

When it launched, a few vendors started selling very simple watch bands like this offering from Country Comm; Incipio - makers of really awesome iPod, iPhone and iAnything cases is releasing their own version of a slick encasing for the Nano 6G. After discovering the ultimate geek watch application, I got very excited – given that I’m a watch loving n.e.r.d. also.

Last week, appearing on Kickstarter was a new project to develop a more industrial mainstream Nano 6G watch band – and thus my discovery of the LunaTik and the TikTok watch bands being made by MINIMAL.  Pledge complete, now just anxiously awaiting the delivery sometime after Christmas of the LunaTik watch band.

In the meantime, I went ahead an ordered myself a Nano 6G; complete with 6-colored silly rubber encasings and simple strap. And yes, it does have arms and horns.

DSC_9552

Addendum: forgot to mention, Griffin also released its new SLAP bracelet for the Nano 6G.

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Follow up post to my lack of faith in Apple …

July 5, 2010 Leave a comment

This is a follow up post to the previous post regarding Apple products, I can’t say I’m entirely thrilled – because I’m far from it.

1> iPhone-nonsensory.  I’m back to square-one.  I thought I had a backup of my phone, but somehow iTunes backup management didn’t have it, as in my last backup – was the backup that was run right after the iOS4 update.  I tried a factory reset, but then I would lose all of my data, something I wasn’t willing to deal with.  So I did a factory reset + restore from backup.  My phone is still running iOS4, it’s still crap.  I’m not a happy camper.  At all.  It’s still slow and apps do not run smoothly or as quickly.  Did I mention, I am not happy at all.

2> Again … Apple you’ve failed me miserably.  For once, a Windows product had no issues over an Apple product, how could that be?  It could be.  Bootcamp installation of Windows7 failed, as far as I’m concerned.  the OS installed, but there were no drivers on the Apple Macbook Pro CD that came with it … which meant no proper drivers for the trackpad, sound, network, and all that nonsense.  Solution?  DELETE the bootcamp partition, install Oracle VirtualBox, and then install Windows7 on that (identical to my iMac setup).  It’s working fine for now … for now.

Dammit Apple, get with the technology program.  [Patrick against anti-blinging-Apple]

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Apple, i’m losing faith …

June 29, 2010 3 Comments

Going to need to follow up on this blog post, but this week, I’ve lost a wee bit of faith in Apple, yes you Mr. Steve Jobs.

1> When you announced iOS4 was available via iTunes and current non-iPhone4 users could grab the latest update (i.e. 3G and 3GS owners) I was ecstatic!  The new iPhone4 had 100 new features – HFS – 100 new features?  Ok, realistically, the new sleek design, hardware etc etc were probably part of that 100, but I figured I’d benefit a little, so maybe 25 or so of those new features?  Well yeah Apple, you kinda suck this week.

  • It took forever to load (not download) from iTunes
  • It’s slow as molasses on the 3G phones
  • I am NOT liking the email/accounts listing … why did this need to be complicated?  KISS.  Yeah, I said it.  You are known to make interfaces awesome, this was anti-awesome, aka LAMESAUCE.
  • Did I mention, it’s slow as molasses on a 3G phone, the sweeps are jagged, apps take longer to load, refresh, generally operate, swiped between screens is slow … and I fear updating the current 18 apps that need updates
  • I might revert back to the old OS3

2> Bootcamp, 10.6.4, Windows7.  It started out so well, I wish I could have said it ended so well … actually I wish I could say it’s ended. It hasn’t.  What happened to “Insert a blank CD to create a Windows7 drivers CD?”  Now it’s … “Insert your OSX CD for Windows Drivers” … yeah I did that, it doesnt work Steve.

Rant over … I just need to keep plugging.  At least the iPad still is lightning fast.  I’m not going to plug it into anything though.

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how young is too young to be social online?

June 11, 2010 Leave a comment

Last week, I returned home and went to see Carter, my 7yo – who of course has a propensity for all things techie as well as all things game-like. We sat down and started talking about what he was learning in school as well as the ferocious pace at which he was reading a series of books, fantastic I thought to myself. He then went off on this tangent about this new penguin game he started playing online, the short of it was he’s a penguin and goes into training and battle with other penguins to earn belts, very similar to the karate belt system. I thought to myself, great another game, perhaps it’s similar to his adoration of Pokemon or Bakugan characters – another outlet of challenging personalities and figurines that he can mentally catalog and pin against each other – harmless enough. That’s when I was wrong. Turns out this penguin game is part of Penguin Club, a website run by Disney – a social network for kids to explore, play, battle online assuming the
identity of cute little penguins. There’s a lobby, and other penguins walking around ready to engage however they see fit.

Troublesome. Troublesome indeed. Luckily he picked an innocuous handle, but still in my social paranoid parenting hat I quickly put on, I was not one bit amused, not surprised just caught off guard because the question had already been posed “should I be on Facebook dad?” a matter of weeks prior by the same 7yo.

Sure there’s parental oversight to ensure his privacy and Internet safety is abound but the entire concept bothers me as a parent and digitally savvy professional. It shouldn’t bother me as I am well aware there is just about any social network out there for any flavor of the week but the realization that 7yo’s are frolicking online poses the question when is too soon for the social web?

Of course this post assumes we are all vigilant parents and monitor our children’s internet habits, teach them right and wrong, as well as not to talk to strangers (even in igloo lobbies) or divulge any personal information.

Filed under digital, random thoughts, social media, technology Tagged with , , ,

wordpress for the iphone …

June 10, 2010 Leave a comment

So I’ve had my iPhone for well over a year now (Blackberry prior to that) and my blog for a longer while. When I got my iPhone, like everyone else, I spent 1400 hours the first two days – yes that’s possible – on the Apple iTunes store downloading every single app that looked remotely interesting or even not interesting. Some downright stupid – how many times have you ever really used the light-saber app, I mean really? One of those apps I installed back in the day was WordPress for the iPhone. Never ever used it, didn’t even configure and sign into my blog from my mobile device, because quite honestly, I couldn’t fathom conceiving to write a blog post from my phone.

(Tangent rewind – couldn’t use mobile WP because I was on blogger)

Well low and behold a few weeks ago, I looked at my phone, realized I needed to clean up all the nonsensical apps, and stumbled back upon WordPress mobile. Clicked on it to configure my blog, and it’s actually quite useful. All the posting features are built I , it’s great for quick/short posts (i.e. when i got more than a tweet) has all the tagging mechanisms one could want on the go, and now I have no real excuse not to post. Typing relatively short blog posts are a breeze, no need to completely whip out the laptop. And you can still write drafts without an internet connection.

Of course, this post was written on an iPad, but that’s another post – though the review is the same, except bigger keyboard possibilities.

ps – I’ve had to give up on the all lowercase type, these mobile devices auto-correct too much and it’s not a battle I want to tackle anymore with going back and correcting i’s. Thanks Apple for being such punctuation-nazi’s! ;)

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could foursquare be my new frequent loyalty card?

March 15, 2010 Leave a comment

… to answer my own question, i sure hope so!!!

i’m a creature of habit, i’m also very brand loyal.  these are great things, especially when viewing it from the perspective of my clients.  i most certainly like to gallivant about boston trying new places to eat, shop, wander, peruse, criticize, but when it comes down to it, i like to eat and shop at the same few places. in my wallet are frequent loyalty programs for: airlines, more airlines, subway, back bay restaurant group, rental cars, dry cleaning, coffee, not to mention my opentable account and i’m sure there’s more that’s sitting in my junk bin … it’s a lot to keep track of.

when you look at the numbers (and with foursquare analytics recently announced) it’s a great opportunity and convenience if i could use my foursquare account as my loyalty program mechanism.  i already check-in wherever i go (maybe a bit too much addiction as of late), but why not extend this further … i hope this happens, and happens soon – not saying i’d like a retro-active credit for all my check-ins … though it would be nice, but there’s no need for all these different cards i have to carry, just the simplicity of my iphone, single point of management for my loyalty rewards, and a plethora of data businesses can use to gauge my spending behavior and ultimately push incentives for repeat usage/visitation.

Filed under digital, social media, technology

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