Technologist, gadget freak and novelist
By coscooper
A movie, —really!
Air-conditioning, wherefore art thou? Ours is a big grey lump sitting stoically on the side of the house, silently waiting to spread it’s goodness throughout our interior. However, the truth is, having the house cooled down is NOT the real reason it should be on. Colorado summers aren’t that bad, A/C is for wimps. Noise abatement is my one argument for turning the beast on.
Sleeping with the windows open is a challenge, even for small town living. Longmont is only about 80,000 folks, give or take. For such a family oriented, small metropolis, you’d think with all those kids and retired folks, everyone would be settled in for the evening early, but nooooo, they sure don’t follow the rules of the campground. Settle down after 9pm. Instead, it “seeeeems” the general population likes to crank up to a roar by testing their varied street vehicles, motorcycles, thumping boom boxes or sports car. If they are home, sitting on decks yammering until the wee hours of the morning must be the other memo I didn’t get. Our towns “cruising” laws don’t seem to really work and miss manors book on common courtesy must not have made it’s way around our neighborhood.
Lying with warm skin on top of cool sheets really isn’t that bad. Colorado nights cool off quickly making it bearable, usually down right chilly the next morning. So the real issue is the noise. Unfortunately, we know every dog in our neighborhood by name, though we’ve never seen them personally. Our little slice of town seems to be made up of home bodies who like to sit on their deck until late talking in low murmurs like Charlie Browns teacher or those Sims from the popular game just loud enough for sleepus, interuptus.
Some emergency provider didn’t discover his GPS last night, or it must have been on the fritz as sirens wailed endlessly tapering off into the distance, then seemingly headed back into our audible circle, turned into yet another direction bouncing around town trying to find their mark. After multiple attempts, they must have stumbled upon the emergency.
Town officials at some council meeting way back in the stone age voted a law into action that requires train engineers to announce their embedding approach even if blinking lights flash or long red and white arms are spread across the road. Engineers who wonder into Longmont seem to take the timing literally, blasting their warning horns for hours on end as they meander through town. Five crossings later, they’ve made their point.
Cost be damn, I’m lobbying for the A/C to be ramped up, not because it’s hot, but because our town doesn’t follow the campground rules. Settle down after 9pm.
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By coscooper
iPad and iPhone (and a MBP) are part of my everyday technical life, so you would think I’m some “fan-boy” or something, sorry, “fan(person)”, a term I hate BTW, but I’m not. I just like good solid technology to get things done, not worry about either being “hacked” or things falling apart in my hands, (okay, my iPad is just WiFi on purpose and I did have to put a new glass face on my iPhone). I’m also not enamored by the inflated number of applications “available” on those “other” smart-phones who “they” claim a huge number of programs, which according to my limited research, are mostly half baked, low quality and riddled with security issues, hacks and other such reminiscent “windoze ilk”. Android aside, I digress. While the latest iPhone isn’t in my possession, I do have one that is about a year old. With the new release of iOS4, I anticipated taking advantage of a few new features, knowing full well that most wouldn’t be supported, but some would. My anticipation was met with disappointment.
After several hours of waiting for the upgrade to process, I also didn’t see that one coming, I finally got to dinking around with the new system after dinner last night. Armed with the feature list, I poked through the various settings looking for the new features. It all acted, behaved and frankly looked no different than the previous version. I found nothing compelling that made me think, “Boy am I glad I upgraded!” Instead, I yawned pushed a couple of apps together into folders, about the only thing worth the upgrade and moved onto the next few features. Photo zooming, didn’t happen; home background, still black; tap to focus video, I have a 3G only phone, so that was a bust. Finally, I fired up the iPod application to make a new Playlist, underwhelmed and continued down the list. Gift apps, whoopity doo; spell check, —yawn; Bluetooth keyboard, don’t have one, man, this upgrade was a waste of time all around.
Basically, I did my “dinking” for about thirty minutes, placed it on it’s charger and haven’t picked it up since. Instead, as usual, I opted for my morning reading with the iPad, not thinking twice about what I can do with my old, reliable, beater iPhone. I’ll make a call later, I guess, as long as AT&T doesn’t drop me. Then again, I rarely use the calling feature on my iPhone, so I suppose I’ll stick the earbuds in and take the dog for a walk, I am “underemployed” after all.
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By coscooper
Job hunting is almost a full time job, but the tasks are tedious and frankly boring. I mean, if you were asked by your current employer to search through a myriad of job sites, poke through every company web site you’d like to work with looking for that perfect job description hoping that they magically posted a new option, writing compelling, relevant cover letters and going through every variation of a job application, you’d tell your boss you were nuts, right? Well, that pretty much sums up my mornings, among other things.
When people ask how it’s going or what’s your status, I tell them I’m still “underemployed”, meaning, I work, but not enough to pay the bills. Besides reaching out to my network, following up on leads and the dreaded seek and apply work, I also do other things to stay busy. While it’s not a stigma anymore to be “underemployed” for a period of time, it does look good that you’re busy filling in your time with related work rather than catching up on the latest soap-opera or catching all those “new career” commercials. (Okay, I watch a little daytime TV, but not much.)
Besides the job hunt, I find myself writing a lot more than before. I bang out more blog posts, like this, and I pump out a number of articles for various online venues like Examiner, eHow and several others. Elance also has some freelance optional work, but it’s hard to land projects with all the “off-shore” contractors. Along side the article freelancing, I’ve been really catching up on those two novel projects I’ve worked on and off the past few years. In fact, I’m finished with one, High Lies, it’s now on the back burner, I’m letting it settle out of my brain. I’ll pick it up in a few weeks to review my handy work and decide if it’s worth selling to an agent or not. Jodi says that being a novelist is my retirement plan, we’ll see.
In my spare time, I also come up with every business idea I can think, Pro-Services company, news website, IT Project Management company, several software ideas for the iPad, to name a few. I hearken back to the early days of Jeff Bezos and J.K. Rowling thinking that if something pops into my mind for a good business plan or a great book, maybe that will work out. Pipe dreams to be sure, but I’m busy, underemployed really.
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By coscooper
I just started the IOS 4 upgrade on my one-year-old 3G phone. I am not in the market to upgrade to the latest & greatest iPhone at the moment, but I figured I’d at least go through with the upgrade and see what new features I am able to take advantage.
Installation & Upgrade: easy to get started, simply plugged it in for a sync, was presented with the obligatory, “You’re not running the latest version, blah, blah, blah…” and I didn’t go for it at first. I was doing some house cleaning and trying to get some new music uploaded first. Then, I decided to go for it after about thirty minutes of futzing with the apps, syncing some music and an iCal appointment. I also realized that if the install screwed it up, all this would be in vain and I’d have to re-sync anyway. But, alas, that didn’t happen. What did happen… time ticked by, that’s what happened.
After selecting yes on the first screen, I was presented with a “this could take a while, do not interrupt it or everything will be wiped into obliteration” screen. Okay, it didn’t say that literally, but alluded to that being a possibility. As a side note, the wording stated that it could take up to an hour, or perhaps longer. Seriously, it stated this without an estimate or any more specifics, just a nebulous, an hour or more. So, deciding to just press on, I hit the button of no return at exactly 2:55pm this afternoon.
So far, iTunes presented a dialog window that said it was “backing up” my iPhone, the blue bar was about an 1/8th of the distance across the window, then it stopped. To not get frustrated or blow my iPhone into oblivion, I turned to my, (groan) DELL Inspiron with the 23” screen and started working there glancing back at the MBP every few minutes to see if the bar had moved. It had not.
Finally, after loosing track and getting absorbed into my “research” on the XP box (using Safari), I stole a peek and saw that the window had changed to “installing”. The iPhone flipped to some activation screen and iTunes started activating. That sat seemingly froze the progress for at least another hour.
Now, it’s exactly 5:18pm and it’s been “Restoring” on iTunes and/or “Sync in Progress” on my iPhone for some time now, I’m loosing track of exactly what happened when, still hours have creeped by. Two hours and twenty two minutes later, the entire progress is still going. iTunes has moved onto restoring my music, but it’s still going. Dialogs are moving, but very slowly.
So, I’m going to post this blog entry anyway and will follow up later with the exact length it took to do a full upgrade. Needless to say, set aside a lot of time if you’re upgrading. My intent was to include initial “Newness” experience, but I’ll save that for another day.
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By coscooper
Pumping Gas
When I was back in college and beyond, my monthly gas budget for my car was always up in the air. At college, I spent most of my time between classes, walking. So, my old clunker sat near my dorm parking lot, for the most part.
Ah, the old red Ford, I fondly remember it well. It was a “hand-me-down” to be sure, but it ran great. In fact, it was so reliable, I took it on a long road trip from Texas to Florida one fall (Big Sandy to Pensacola, to be exact). With over 150-thousands miles on the engine, it made the trip with little excitement, except for the Porsche 911 we followed to make good time, but other than that, it was rock-solid. Graeme, my good friend, and I pushed it to the limit a few times, but by and large, it was a strong running car.
So, way-back-when, I was on that tight gas budget, I would only put about five-bucks worth of gas in the car at any given time. Today, as I look for a new job and/or work from home I rarely drive my cars (yeah, surprise, surprise considering my recent past with cars). Stopping at the local Connoco or Shamrock, depending on which side of Target I find myself, I’ve dug up memories from those, oh-so-frugal college days of putting gas in the car I hardly drive.
Even though it’s been, (clearing throat), over twenty years since I attended college, keeping gas in the older SUV today requires a slight adjustment in gas price thinking. With regular income, my MO was to just keep the tank topped off all the time. Now, not so much.
Today, I only throw in about $15 bucks worth of gas in the old tank, so I call it, “15 is the new 5″.
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By coscooper
No more Dish
No, not talking about the stupid reality TV Show with Paris Hilton or Nichole Richie, I’m talking about going back to simpler way of watching TV without all the costs.
We’ve killed our TV! That’s right, we no longer have a TV entertainment system like we did last week. No, I didn’t smash, destroy or burn, them (We have four in the house). Instead, we turned off the Dish Network service, the Satellite Dish is gone, literally. I took it off the roof and it’s being stored in the garage, just in case.
We made the switch to Over The Air (OTA) service, good old fashion free television. Of course, the first order of business was to buy a digital antenna, which was about as expensive as one month of Satellite service. Here’s the kicker, the HD signal we get directly from the local stations kicks satellite and cable to the curb. I mean, sure, we only have 26 channels, (most of them in spanish) but the main 5 channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, CW) are crystal clear and “real” HD. The draw back, we’re seeing some skin blemishes we really don’t need to see, but hey, it’s like the newscasters are right there in our living room.
So, what prompted this? Two things. Um, well, no income (err job) and we’re tying to par down all expenses for the foreseeable future (No, I don’t think the end is here or an apocalypse is eminent, can you say COLLEGE TUITION), even if a steady stream of income starts back up, it’s just ridiculous the amount of money we have spent on things in the past, including TV entertainment.
We’re two days in, so far, so good. We’re having DVR withdrawals, but on the bright side, we’re watching commercials we didn’t know existed. Some funny, some not so funny and pausing TV is non-existant. Next order of business will be to build a DVR with our old PC, but there’s costs involved, so that’ll be a while.
In the mean time, we watch “LIVE” TV, (what a concept) and if there’s nothing on, then we have NetFlix online (Ok, we kept one thing), there’s the Xbox360 with loads of games and of course, (clearing throat) there’s always books to read, bikes to ride and outdoor activities to do.
Now, I have the old “Green Acres” theme song running in my head. Dunt-dunt, dunt-dunt-dunt, DUNT-DUNT… Greeeeen Acres is the place for me! (Wait, that should be Dylan with his summer job. – For those that are lost, Green Acres was a sixties sit-com and Dylan is working at a local organic farm (9-News piece coming soon, will update when schedule of Dylan on News is released.)
So, that’s it, we’ve gone back to free TV, no DVR, using NetFlix, the Internet, games, books and outdoor activities for our entertainment. What next? Cooking over an open fire, oh, wait, we do that with the grill nearly every night.
Stay Tuned!!! (Pun intended)
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By coscooper
I made a strategic decision this past week. I’m going to attempt to work “in the cloud” for a few weeks and months to see how it goes. And… so… I purchased an iPad for the trip. I settled on the 32gb Wi-Fi version as I have an iPhone and do not need another monthly bill.
While I have a powerful new MacBook pro with all the goodies, it’s a bit overkill for my current situation. Limited employment. It’s going to be for sales soon, hint-hint, but in the mean time, I’ve switched everything to my old Macbook —which I’ve had issues in the past, like crashing consistently over-heating, but generally reliable— like our Infiniti, it’s paid for, has seen better days and is “functional”.
What’s up with the “cloud” thing? Unless you’ve been living in a cave, technically speaking, cloud computing is a term that seems to be getting traction at all levels of discussion. Rather than store everything down on a local laptop, work exclusively on a local computing device, doing and working “in the cloud” is the future. It’s currently riddled with lots of speed bumps, curves and dead ends, cloud computing is am emerging technological direction that’s unavoidable.
If you happen to be reading this post and sniggering, think about this; everything you post on Facebook is “in the cloud”. All of your Google email, is “in the cloud”. If you work for a company that uses “SalesForce”, you’re working “in the cloud”, and so it goes.
Therefore, I’m moving as much as I can to this ethereal “cloud” and going to attempt to live and work online from the iPad for the most part. There are still obstacles, road-blocks and curvy roads ahead to be sure, but I believe I’ll be able to accomplish what I currently need without a full fledged “laptop” or heavy duty computer.
What I do today:
- I read the news, online of course.
- I check my email, respond and look at links in emails.
- I write, a lot actually. Like I’m working on a book, have several blogs that keep me busy, write articles and other freelance work.
- I’m networking, ie… looking for full time employment.
- I go to seminars, meet ups and sit in on webinars (take notes)
- I research all kinds of things
- I check Facebook and LinkedIn every once in a while.
- Sort through my contacts and build a spreadsheet or two.
- Fulfill my duties as president of our HOA. (IE… write letters, go check on maintenance work and send e-mails.)
- Generate great documents, export them to PDF for others.
- Keep my Resume updated.
- Apply for jobs online.
- Read PDFs
… so, for the most part, these activities do not take a powerful computer. Just access to email, gmail, writing tools & spreadsheet tools (ala Pages, spreadsheets, ala Numbers) and a web browser.
And, that’s about it.
Things I don’t do:
- Write code. (Although, I’ve thought about it and have a few iPad & iPhone ideas kicking around in my head.)
- Tinker with the OS any more, like the old days, well, of course if I used XP or Win7, then I’d be tinkering all the time, frustrated, throwing things etc…, but I don’t, so that’s over.
- I don’t play games. Well, I do mess with a few freebies, but it’s not a core care or concern.
- Build web sites, or ones that take a lot of effort.
Things I think I’ll miss.
- Photo management – I’ll work something out, but it’s not highest priority, just a nicety. I love iPhoto, but with only 32gb of storage, not going to keep my collection on the iPad. Old Mac will work, i think.
- Graphical design application, Fireworks – I love this application, but use it only when I need. Not a show stopper. I’ll push myself to explore this more once I “need” to. Probably look at a few editors on the iPad.
- Scrivener – I use a great little application for my creative writing. This is the single biggest stumbling block I’m having, but it’s more mental than actual, because everything can be done with Pages files. (Good iPad application is floating around in my head on this one.)
(BTW… this entire post was written on the iPad using the free WordPress tool and the docking keyboard, I also purchased with the iPad.)
… stay tuned.
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By coscooper
I am working on two projects right now that are consuming my creative writing time. High Lies is an early work in progress, so the synopsis may change as I weave the story along. White Rain is a project I’ve been working for over a year. I’m interested in any feedback. Good, bad, ugly, indifferent or what ever thoughts come to mind.
High Lies
By – Shane Cooper
Synopsis: Security company owner, Jon Sydney, is thrown headlong into an investigation centered around legal marijuana dispensary owners being brutally murdered by a religious zealot. As the FBI ramp up their investigation focusing on his companies security service, Jon’s business teeters on the brink of disaster. With time on his hands, he throws himself into the investigation uncovering more than he bargains. Jon finds those he trusted aren’t who he thought, loved ones doing things he’d never dreamed and murder more horrible than he’d imagined, shattering any illusions of the ideal ordinary life in Boulder Colorado.
White Rain
By – Shane Cooper
Synopsis: During a blizzard, Nate Sheridan, discovers a young woman, shot, but alive along the narrow mountain road near his cabin. Nate, threatened by her assailant, has to make a fight or flight decision. Caught between being accused of attempted murder by a vengeful sheriff and the truth, Nate gets entangled with the kidnapers, a missing girls sister and his own past demons. Taking matters into his own hands, Nate chases the Russians between Colorado ski resorts only to discover there’s a connection linking the towns. He and the twins sister, Sam, embark on finding her missing sibling only to uncover an ugly side of the rich and famous.
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By coscooper
My morning pretty much starts with a set of common rituals I’ve done for years. During the week, I like to catch up on news, read about new technology and get ready for the day. Right now, that ritual includes my iPhone, but… the screen is too small.
In the old days —well about two years ago — after pouring my morning coffee, I’d plod out to the driveway, rain, snow, shine or cold and retrieve the paper. After grabbing the paper, I’d make some breakfast, update my coffee, sit at the table and read through my favorite sections. Of course, to be honest, I started with the comics, THEN went to the real news, or what ever the local paper had decided to pick up from AP and local happenings. After finishing the paper and breakfast, I’d track down my laptop and fire up my email, check through the evenings spam, then move to the important stuff.
That was then, this is now. First, I bought an iPhone last year. Second, we canceled the paper. I had to go looking for other ways to get my morning news. That was one thing about the paper, it didn’t cover all the things I like. Today, I read a lot more about subjects I’m interested, feeling that I’m more informed than before.
Today, I start my day with that cup of coffee, that wont ever change, then I pick up my iPhone, first thing. Starting with the AP application, I sift through their top reports reading what looks interesting. I also like USA Today. Same thing, I sift through their top reports, sports and then tech sections to hit the highlights. All the while, I’m making breakfast, but I’m not as compelled to sit at the table anymore. Now I sit at the bar or in the family room. Kind of anywhere I plop. My last stop on my iPhone is All Things Digital, which is extremely focused on the tech industry with such articles about who’s buying who, new gadgets, what Apple employee left a new iPhone at a bar, new startup interviews, plus they have videos at current conferences and more. I then pop open an aggregate news tool called Fluent News. It pulls in feeds from CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX and others, which I use to fill in any gaps missed by my favorites.
More… so, once the world news and technical news is up-to-date, I’ll check the weather, even though I can see what it looks like outside, it’s still good to know what’s going to happen. Next, I switch to email, usually quickly review due to the screen size. Final stop is Facebook and LinkedIn to see if anything interesting is going on there. Finally, I end my morning with OmniFocus. Since I try to adhere to the GTD strategies, OmniFocus is for planning my daily todo and projects.
That’s pretty much my morning most days. I rarely fire up my laptop until I’m ready to get going with projects and other activities. So, why did I title this blog “I want an iPad!” — well, I do a lot on the iPhone and since I use it more of a mini-computer than a cell phone, an iPad would do all of this better, I think. In fact, since I hardly fire up my laptop until later in the morning, I could probably do just about everything on the iPad. I primarily use Pages, Numbers and Keynote, so since those are available on the iPad, I’m nearly there. I also use OmniGraffle, OmniFocus, a web browser, a writing tool (Scrivener) and dictionary most days. So, looking at what I primarily do, an iPad would just about do it all for me.
My problem is: I just purchased a new laptop last fall, like most, I just can’t justify an iPad no matter how much I’d like to have and use one. While I’m not advocating ditching a laptop or desktop (yet), I’m advocating that 80% of what I do on a daily (morning) basis could be done on an iPad. I still use Fireworks, Photoshop on occasion and many other activities that crank on this laptop, but my morning would be easier if I had an iPad. I WANT AN IPAD!!
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By coscooper
Does anyone keep all of their old installer CD’s and DVD’s like me? I’ve been combing through stacks and stacks of CD’s with software I used back more than 5 years ago. I’m compelled to throw it out, but as soon as I do, something will come up that will require what I threw in the trash. Of course this is the original case as I’m looking for something I need that I can’t locate.
I have nearly every version of OSX operating system CD’s, EXCEPT the one I really, really need, Tiger. Somehow, I must have either skipped that purchase or just lost the disks. Problem is, I don’t know which is the case.
I guess that makes me a hoarder of software CD’s and old software.
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