Category: technology

Gadget Survival Kit

GRID-IT - Gadget Kit

This is pretty brilliant! I picked one of these GRID-IT organizers up today thanks to this LifeHacker post.

These are all things that are floating around in my bag anyway (and cluttering things up), so it's nice to finally have a way to organize them!

So, what do we have here?

  • iPhone USB cable
  • iPhone power brick
  • micro USB cable
  • mini USB cable
  • iPad camera connection kit
  • USB flash drive (16GB)
  • Transcend multicard reader

Now I just need a way to easily keep track of one of my various cameras, and I'm all set!

10 years of Apple

This has been floating around for awhile now, but it's crazy.

Hurrah, technology!

10-years-of-apple.jpeg

Original author unknown

[Via and.rw]

The most boring day in history?

April 11, 1954

April 11, 1954 was the most uneventful and boring day of the 20th century. Every day something of significance occurs, but nothing remarkable had happened on the said day in 1954, according to experts who inserted over 300 million important events of the century into a computer search programme to calculate.

This is kind of amazing. I'd love to see this parsed based on specific dates -- for example, what was the most boring day (according to this algorithm) during my life? I'm sure there are a few dates in high school or college that come to mind.

[Via Daily Dish]

Even having 5 bars of 3G means nothing

This was a screenshot taken from my phone after running a speed test in San Francisco's Financial District today. Pathetic.

Missed gdgt live in SF? Watch it on TWiT!

Part 1 - (Fast forward to 1 hour and 39 minutes in the video, that's when the coverage starts in this particular video): http://www.justin.tv/twit/b/273782240

Part 2 - http://www.justin.tv/twit/b/273789393

Part 3- http://www.justin.tv/twit/b/273796620

Everyone hates Ticketmaster

Interesting read in Wired about the rise of Ticketmaster: "Everyone Hates Ticketmaster — But No One Can Take It Down"

In 2008, Ticketmaster had made veteran industry shark Irving Azoff—a man so cutthroat (and so short) he is known as the Poison Dwarf—its CEO. Manager of the Eagles since the mid-’70s, Azoff is famously aggressive. He once sent a gift-wrapped boa constrictor to a manager whose wife he considered snakelike, with a note that read “Now you have two!”

Civ V and OS X - A mark of desperation

I'm currently somewhere over New York state, flying Virgin America back from Boston (where we had our gdgt live event last night). I only brought my iPad with me on this trip. Which is painful, because Civilization V is currently out!

So, I wanted to see if it was even possible to play. Are you ready for this mark of desperation?

Civ V running on Windows 7. In a Parallels for OS X virtual machine. Via a VNC client on my iPhone. What?! So, what happened? Screen shots below!

Yes?

Yes.

YES!

NOOOOO!

Crazy emails from strangers [updated]

Alright, so someone keeps emailing me, thinking they have someone else named Dave Schumaker. This actually happens a lot. After receiving a number of recent forwarded joke emails, I decided to respond. Check out conversation.

It reminds me of this earlier thread I wrote, about receiving strange email.

Update: I just realized that it's the same Donna in that post!

From: Donna M. Date: September 17, 2010 3:10:41 PM PDT To: Dave Schumaker Subject: FW: Poor mushroom

Forwarded message:

Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:26:44 -0400 From: [some random person I don't know] To: [some other random person I don't know] CC: [a bunch of random people I don't know] Subject: Fwd: Poor mushroom

wtf_mushroom.jpg

This is the second or third random forward I've gotten from her. I considered adding a filter to my account, but I thought that maybe, I should inform this person they have the wrong email address.

Subject: Re: Poor mushroom From: Dave Schumaker Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:12:34 -0700 To: Donna M.

I think you have the wrong Dave Schumaker's email address.

Best,

-Dave

There, I think that does the trick! Wait -- I just got a reply from her,

From: Donna M. Subject: RE: Poor mushroom Date: September 17, 2010 3:42:22 PM PDT To: Dave Schumaker

I don't think so :P

Mom

What?!

You are not my Mom! I have NO IDEA who you are!

Update! I just received a follow up email. It looks like things have been cleared up, folks! It looks like I only have one mother again.

From: Donna M. Subject: RE: Poor mushroom Date: September 17, 2010 4:54:53 PM PDT To: Dave Schumaker

So, so sorry I just talked to my son and I did have the wrong e-mail. Again, I'm sorry

Nikon is stepping up their game

d7000-2bdf-640.jpg

Nikon announced their successor to the D90, the Nikon D7000 (what is up with these model numbers?). I've thought about potentially purchasing a new camera at some point in not too distant future. My Nikon D300 is still serving me well though and ultimately, I'd like to upgrade to a full frame camera (hello, D700 successor?).

That said, this still sounds like a great camera that's reasonably priced for the feature set. It'll probably have great lowlight capabilities and make a fantastic backup body.

*High Resolution 16.2 MP DX-format CMOS sensor for large prints and tight cropping

*High Speed 6 frames per second continuous shooting up to 100 shots captures the most fleeting action

*Ground-breaking 2,016-pixel RGB (3D Color Matrix) sensor delivers more accurate control of light metering and optimizes the Scene Recognition System for exposure, white balance, focus tracking and iTTL flash control

*EXPEED 2 image processing and 14-bit A/D Conversion provides smooth tones, rich colors, and fast camera performance

*Large Bright Glass Pentaprism Optical Viewfinder with approx. 100% frame coverage and approx. 0.94x magnification

*Twin SD Card Slots with SD, SDHC, SDXC memory card compatibility gives you options to keep on shooting or separate your NEF (RAW), JPEG and movie files