Small World

Over the Easter weekend I made another run to the Bay Area to attend the baptism of my 5th Godchild...Coco!! What a little angel!! My cousin's family made plans to fly from Missouri to spend the holiday weekend with family and baptize their child; my Godchild. Did I mention she's a little angel?

Anyways, prior to their trip, my cousin contacted me to setup a webcam connection between Kansas City and Los Angeles. This was a preliminary test with the intention that we would setup a webcam in the Bay Area to communicate with family back in Guam. For those of you unfamiliar with Guam; it's one of two American territories in the Northern Marianas Islands. In travel time, it's a 7-8 hour flight from Guam to Honolulu; and 5 hours from Honolulu to Los Angeles. Needless to say, a webcam was a great idea to spend some digital time with family overseas.

Oddly enough after working with computers for over 15-years and knowing that webcams have existed for practically the same amount of time, I had never setup one. To my surprise this was a piece of cake and took minutes to setup. Upon his arrival in Northern California, my cousin bought a webcam and we successfully communicated with family in Guam, Southern California and Missouri. WOW...this was cool! Just a few pointers from my experience:

• First of all, you need to find out what time it is where you're trying to connect to. Guam is currently 17-hours ahead of Los Angeles. The saying goes, "It's where America's day begins". Meaning it's the first piece of American soil that the sun shines on in the world on a new day; check out World Time Server.
  

• DSL or above is recommended; but not mandatory.
  

• A few phone calls to Guam were needed to instruct them how to setup their cameras and/or download the necessary software.
  

• We were using three different Instant Messenger programs to connect with various families... Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Instant Messenger and Skype. Once you figure out what everyone is using, then both parties have to download the latest version. Of course, everyone was using different applications, so we had to setup new accounts for each. I'm sure there's an all-in-one package, but haven't found it yet.
  

• Before running the IM program, both parties have to activate their webcams. Once the webcam was activated a window appears showing your live video. We had to close the window and then activated whatever IM program used at the time.
  

BINGO...we were live! It was funny watching 20 people huddled around a tiny camera to talk to send Easter Greetings to 10 other people on the other end of the globe squeezed into their webcam frame...but it worked!! Surprisingly, with DSL there was only a 1-2 second delay communicating with Guam. WOW!! We couldn't figure out how to view more than one webcam image at a time, but I'm sure there's a way. I'll let you know once I figure it out.

Since we were using DSL, the long distance calls/video feeds were free; well technically it's the price of the monthly DSL service. Webcams run between $40 to $300 dollars and are available anyplace that sells computer components; we went for the $80 stuff between 1.3M to 2.0M.

So, now I'm on a mission to setup webcams at every relative's house just to keep the family somewhat closer. The world is that much smaller!

Long Overdue Road Trip

Just went a road trip to visit relatives in the Bay Area and then a spent a couple of days in Lake Tahoe for a mini snowboarding vacation. Thanks to the iPhone's built-in Google Maps, I was able to take a few planned exploring detours and was able to fully test the Triangulation, Directions and Traffic features with great success. Did I mention that the iPhone ROCKS?

Anyways, I stayed at a beautiful two-story, four bedroom, two and a half bath and two car garage for a few days in Truckee, CA. This place easily sleeps up to 10 people comfortably. Depending upon the weather conditions, it's in a prime location approximately 45-60 minutes from Reno and 60-90 minutes from South Lake Tahoe. If you're looking for a place, check them out at www.truckeehouse.com. Thanks Dave and Kim for allowing us to stay in your beautiful home!!

iPhone Review

"Should I buy an iPhone?" That was a question that I debated with for a couple of months before finally buying one.

I'm a PC person myself and was against all the iPhone hype when it was first launched. While shopping for a new cell I ran across the iPhone display and curiosity took over; I had to see what this phone was all about. I immediately used the Safari Browser to see how well the iPhone would display a website, any website.

After surfing for a couple of minutes to a variety of sites, my thoughts became, "Damn! How much does this phone cost?" I was hooked and knew it would be a matter of time before I bought one. I had to do some research because the idea of spending over $400 for a cell phone that I would be drop-kicking all over the place was a tough pill to swallow.

During these two months, I found out that two of my friends bought iPhones. One called me and couldn't stop ranting and raving about it. He described it with one word...Revolutionary! I found out that my second friend owned one when she emailed while vacationing throughout Asia; her signature read "Sent from my iPhone". She provided immediate proof that the phone worked in other countries.

So, I finally bought the 8GB iPhone with a few accessories in November 2007 which cost me approximately $550. Unfortunately, a warranty was NOT available at the time of purchase which sucks, but oh well I still wanted the phone. Everyone kept saying that Apple will be coming out with a larger capacity phone, but I haven't even filled my phone yet. I currently have Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, plus the entire Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City Music Hall DVD loaded. On top of that I have 20 CDs also loaded on it, with at least 150 pics taked with my iPhone. THIS PHONE ROCKS!!

By the way, I didn't want to re-buy all my DVDs from iTunes so I searched for an MP4 converting software. I found and currently use Xilisoft Video Converter 3.1. It is fairly simple to use and only cost $35.00 for the license. Beats paying $10 to $15 to download each movie that I already own.

The iPhone does have a couple of CONS and they are:

• Does not take video
• Limited standard ring tones (I don't use music as ringtones)
• If the WiFi is ON, the battery drains quicker (Battery life with WiFi ON is about 24-hours, WiFi OFF is about 48-hours)
• No GPS (it has a targeting feature that zooms Google Maps to where the iPhone is, but that's it)
• Slippery metal cover (Buy a protective non-slip cover)
• Initially, the ear piece volume was a bit low; however, that was fixed with the recent iPhone update

NOTE: Since November 2007, I've dropped my iPhone three times higher than 4-feet off the ground and it's still ticking. One day I was jumping upwards with the iPhone in my front left pant pocket and knew I was flexing (not bending) the chassis. I checked the phone afterwards and it was not responding well; after rebooting all was back to normal. I guess flexing ANY phone will have the same results.

I am now at the point where if/when I break my iPhone, I will not hesitate to buy another one. This is pretty much it. Since I've bought the phone, I've convinced at least two others to buy it. The one tip I recommend is buy the protective cover sheet to prevent scratching the screen.

I'm still a PC person and don't foresee changing to Macintosh, but as for the iPhone...WOW!!