I was having a lunch meeting with some friends opening a new business in Racine, WI. We were discussing details about their website I am currently developing when we saw crowds of people gathering along the street. We decided to join them and capture the glimpse of the motorcade. It’s sort of random; I know. But I need to start using the sweet HD video recording capabilities of my iPhone 4! And I really need to start posting more on here!

Fist off- I know I haven’t posted in a long, looong time! I apologize for that and the fact that this one is also going to be quick and dirty (well, at least quick).

I’ve been trying to pre-order my iPhone 4 all day! I’ve checked into almost all methods (AT&T website, Apple Store website, AT&T store) with nearly no luck. After trying the Apple Store website over and over, keeping patience and perserverance, my order finally went through this evening.

Just a note for those who might have pre-ordered and decided to get it shipped to your door on June 24th: the package must be signed for upon delivery. Obviously, this is a security measure to make sure your new iPhone gets in the right hands. You can only get it shipped to the billing address on file with AT&T, so hopefully, you’ll be there on June 24th.

UPDATE: You do not have to be home to sign for the package if you complete the pre-signature form linked in one of Apple’s recent emails and post it on your front door.

UPDATE: I am one of the lucky (or not-so lucky) early adopters that received my iPhone before launch day. I received mine today, June 23rd, while the official launch day isn’t until June 24th. However, I’m not-so lucky because iTunes will not allow me to activate the device making it completely un-usable until activation can be completed. I predict they will begin allowing activation on the new devices tomorrow.

UPDATE: IT’S ACTIVATED! I couldn’t help but search the web for information on activating my new iPhone while I was waiting for midnight to tick on the clock. I came across this blog post that prompted me to restart my macbook pro and try activating with iTunes again. It worked! Just a simple restart. I wonder why…?

10 minutes with the iPad

Since I LOVE technology so much, and I love Apple sooo much…I’m gonna join the other geeks out there and write up a quick post about the iPad! This will be the only one though (I don’t promise).

Just to bring some up-to-date: I am a business educator at Wilmot Union High School. I am so lucky to work with such an awesome business & technology department that centers curriculum around preparing and educating our students for the 21st century and beyond. From SmartBoards to iPads, we do whatever we can to stay on the edge of technology by utilizing products that will help us as educators, help students learn, or both.

How I got it

On Saturday (4/3), I received an email from my department chair saying that our iPads have arrived at the school and somehow ended up in the Fitness Center. So I happily picked them up as soon as I could on a very happy Easter morning!

My first 10 minutes

I was not extremely excited when Steve Jobs first announced the iPad, mainly because it seemed to be a larger version of my iPhone. However, my first 10 minutes with the iPad had me a little surprised.

The form factor and build is amazing. Apple never ceases to amaze me when it comes to the look, build, and feel of their products. The iPad is no different.

The single most awesome thing about it…is it’s speed and response. Compared to my iPhone 3g, it’s way faster! When I flip the orientation, the screen adjusts way faster than the iPhone. The touch response is also way quicker and more accurate than the iPhone. I was using the Maps app to pinch to zoom and drag the satellite view all over the place. If you get a chance to play with one of these, you’ll notice a dramatic difference in speed and response compared to the iPhone.

The selection of apps that come with the iPad is slim! I assumed there would be the alarm clock, calculator, weather, and stocks apps like the iPhone, but no. This was a little disappointing.

For educators

The iPod has been incorporated in schools as a tool to engage students. The iPad will too. Not only does it do all of the same great things the  iPod Touch can do, but it also provides a resource for new textbooks, or iBooks.

I use a free app called Touch Mouse to turn my iPhone into a wireless mouse & keyboard for my computer connected to a SmartBoard. While my laptop sits at the back of the classroom and the SmartBoard at the front, I can be anywhere in the room to type and control the mouse. With this app on the iPad, it can easily be passed around among students to demonstrate and take control of whatever is on the SmartBoard without even leaving their seat!

Here are some other great iPad apps for the classroom that I found in my first 10 minutes: Constitution for the iPad, Elements, World Atlas HD,

For photographers

This cool device will be great for photographers too. I can see this being used to show photos and slideshows to clients. The clients can easily hold this in their hands and navigate through the photos on its beautiful screen while sitting at a table or on a comfy chair or sofa. It will also be a nice way for photographers to take their work on the go. Just take the iPad along and you’re ready to display your best albums anywhere you go.

Cool app for photogs: CameraBag for iPad

Will I buy one?

Here’s the thing… I live by my iPhone, and I am really looking forward to the next version. I will be saving my dollars to buy that next. Additionally, if you follow the rumors about the iPad or have experienced the brief history of the iPhone, we know there will be another version of the iPad out soon. When the iPad version 2 is released…I will probably have to get one!

Go into the display area in System Preferences and click the Arrangement tab. Not only can you arrange or rearrange your displays, but you can also drag the menu bar from one screen to the other! Bingo…all set!

If you want a menu bar on both displays, check out SecondBar. It’s a really cool app that allows you to have a menu bar on both.

Drobo

Imagine for a moment, that the hard disk drive(s) that is inside your computer you are using right now, fails. All of your data vanished. Your photos of countless memories, documents, spreadsheets, presentations…all gone. What feelings would you have if this was true? It’s time to get serious about backing up!

A couple years ago, I purchased a Western Digital MyBook 1Tb external hard drive from a CompUSA store that was closing. I created 2 partitions on the drive; 1 HFS+ and the other NTFS. I used the HFS+ partition for Time Machine to backup my macbook pro. The NTFS partition was primarily just for storage.

Here’s my bad move: I stored my raw photo files on the NTFS partition, and nowhere else. That’s right, I am admitting that I was not backing up my digital raw files! I didn’t want to put them on my local hard drive because I knew the space would get eaten up very quickly from the large raw files.

So I learned this lesson the hard way when the MyBook decided to die. All of the raw photos I’ve ever taken with my Canon 50D -gone. I tried several ways to retrieve them, and no luck.

Since this incident, I’ve beefed up my backup and data protection. I now use a Drobo by Data Robotics, Inc. I first heard about this sweet device on “This Week in Photography” podcast. I bought the model that holds up to 4 drives. It’s very awesome because you can easily add space, mix & match drives, and have peace-of-mind knowing it can manage a drive failure.

Adding space is easy. All you need to do is pop in any SATA I/II hard drive. That’s it! I purchased 2 – 1Tb WD drives from NewEgg that were on sale.

Drive brands, sizes, and speeds don’t matter. You can use any drive as long as it’s SATA. I am going to use a couple older drives I have laying around, along with the ones I ordered from Newegg.

One of the best parts about the Drobo is that it can manage a drive failure. The light will flash red, indicating a failed drive, and all you need to do is replace it with another. Drobo uses it’s own beyondRAID technology to store the data redundantly, allowing it to handle a crashed drive.

Data Robotics is offering a $50 mail-in rebate for Drobo purchases during March.

Be safe. Backup your data. Have it in more than one place.

Links:

• Drobo
• Drobo $50 mail-in rebate
• Drobo – TigerDirect.com ($329.99)
• 1Tb HDDs – Newegg.com ($99.99)

Conduit used to stop the auger

So I live in Wisconsin, and us folks (along with others who live in cold areas) have to deal with this thing called snow accumulation. My dad owns two snow pushers; both are single-stage machines. One of them is a Craftsman something-or-other (pictured left), and it needed a new auger. So my dad ordered a new auger (which is not too cheap by-the-way) and we began to replace it.

I’m posting this because we had a heck of a time getting the old one off, and I thought I’d share our method…

My dad and I had the hardest time getting the auger off of the snow pusher. So the auger has a reverse thread (or one that is the opposite of “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey”). The blade will keep spinning when you attempt to loosen it from the end. In other words, we needed to stop the  blade from spinning in order to loosen it off. We found 2 pieces of conduit, about 3 feet in length, from the garage to put through an opening in the auger. The conduit pieces were just enough to keep it from spinning.

Next, you just have to loosen the auger. It took the two of us to break it free. One to crank on the wrench, and the other to hold the machine applying force in the opposite direction. Tip: eat some wheaties before attempting to remove the auger.

I understand this was an unusual post, but what the heck!? The Internet is an endless network of knowledge, and I might as well contribute something! I hope this post finds people in need of this specific solution.

Happy Winter!

My sister Gia got engaged to James in late 2008 and decided to plan for a destination wedding in January 2010. I was privileged and honored to be able to design & create their save-the-date. Last September, the three of us spent a really enjoyable hour or so shooting pictures at my parents’ residence on Lake Elizabeth in Wisconsin. Having a Key West-destination theme, I wanted to include the lake as much as possible.

The color of the bride’s maid’s dresses are the bright pink color that I chose for the background of the front and back of the piece. I chose a single fold 5″x5″ because it’s not a standard size…it’s different. I wanted it to stand out from the normal pieces of mail. I really like the size, however, it is a little more costly to mail. I also really like the tall portrait shape of the inside and how well it worked with the photo of the couple walking on the pier in the background.

In addition to the save-the-date, I was also very honored to be a part of their wedding in Key West by standing as a groomsman. The wedding was beautiful and every minute was a blast! I’m looking forward to doing their invitation for the reception which is to be held in June.

I thought I’d share a few of my favorite photos from the shoot. Let me know what you think! You can also view my MobileMe album.

[For the photogs: Canon 50D, 24-105mm f4L, Aperture, macbookpro]

Enough of the busy excuses and onto the beef of this post! First off, I could not have made this new site without the help of some great people! I started learning how to web design by teaching myself HTML and using Frontpage back in circa 1999. Some time in the early 2000s, my friend Nick Galich helped me learn to use Dreamweaver (at that time it was Macromedia Dreamweaver). he taught me CSS basics and I was still using tables to form my layouts.

Throughout college I continued to make websites using Dreamweaver, basic CSS, and HTML. I was always struggling with the strategy of using tables as the ground work for the whole layout. I wasn’t able to really get elements on the page where I wanted them. Then comes along this idea of using Photoshop to create a mockup!

And in comes Josh Betz. Josh was a senior at Wilmot when I first got hired as the new technology teacher and webmaster. I was very interested in this new way of designing for the web (new to me at least). He created a new design for the school’s website, and I learned a lot from him as the site transitioned to the new look. I used www.travalingtunes.com, and Josh’s help, to experiment with creating a site using this Photoshop mockup way of designing.

Then I started working on this project. I started with a design I called Argyle (you’ll see why if you look here). To make a long story short, I stopped because I thought the design was too busy and started to look hideous! I wanted a very basic, clean, and easy-to-read appearance. I think I have achieved that. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

I also added another challenge. Not only was I still learning the basics of using CSS to convert a Photoshop mockup, but I also wanted to learn how to make it a WordPress theme. Again, I owe much thanks to Josh for helping me learn how to do this. In addition to the great teaching of Josh, I spent many hours watching, reading, and re-watching screencasts and posts by web designer, and now author, Chris Coyier, of CSS-Tricks. His screencasts were very helpful and his website has a lot to offer for beginners and intermediates. He makes it all look too easy in the videos, but that’s where the benefit of rewinding came in!

I really love the idea of taking a Photoshop design and converting it into HTML using CSS because it really allows the designer to put the design in the front spotlight. The layout and look of the site is the what a designer is really trying to achieve and I think creating that design in Photoshop first is the way to go. Then- just about anything can be achieved using CSS, HTML, and JQuery to get the mockup to come alive. I definitely don’t know everything about web design and never will, but it sure helps to have great resources! And that’s also the beauty of it- there’s always more to learn and challenges to take on.

I wrote this post to explain how I got this website from an idea to published. I especially want to express my gratitude and acknowledge those that were of incredible help. Thank you again to Josh Betz and Chris Coyier for sharing their invaluable knowledge. I should probably also mention Pat Hartl for his help too, or he might do something bad to my mac lab! Pat helped me get the Twitter statuses on my site, but mostly, he helped me get the site done by uplifing my motivation to make time to get it done!

Applications I used & love:

• Coda
• Firbug (Firefox Plugin)
• Firefox
• Photoshop CS4
• Transmit