I did a quick drop in to the store today, to check out a piece of technology that they “used” to be good at. Door/proximity alarm systems…. they used to have oodles of stuff like that. Of course they used to have oodles of things “technical” and geeky…. but not any more and it’s getting worse.

A bit of background, my wife’s office is moving, and they can’t see the front door  ( which is a little odd, but there you have it ) so she asked me to find a mat or some time of system that would ring and alert them as to when someone had entered the premises. To me this is a n0-brainer, there are TONS of things out there that will do that for her. Heck Radio Sha…. errr the Source used to have one in every store and tons of them in the back…. I told her I’d check them out and get back to her.

So I dropped into my local y0u-know-what-by-now, and went to the back where all the cool things used to be…. it’s a LOT and I mean LOT smaller than it used to be… every time I go in there it seems to shrink….

As an aside, every time I do go into that section of  “you-know-what” it seems all the sales clerks instantly go on break! It happened again today, there were 3 uniformed people in the store and as soon as I went into the “technical” area, they all went in the back and I could hear them arguing about how….. no no I’m on break right now…. I mean come on, I’m not in there THAT often for them to recognize me…. In reality though, it’s because NONE of them ( all in their early 20′s or earlier I think ) know nothing about that sort of  “stuff”. All they know is how to sell cell phones and maybe TV’s…. but I digress.

Eventually, one poor soul comes out of the back and walks right past me ( I’m the only one in the store by the way. )  I finally grab his attention after the third try and tell him I’m looking for their proximity or door alarm systems. He looks at me, curls his lip ( I kid you not… ) and says, “Nahhh don’ sell that”…. Suffice to say I voiced my incredulity and told them that they used to sell tons of them, and they were well stocked in that area…

I small glimmer ( but only in one eye ) comes on and he says “Oh… ma’be here…” and points to a discount bin ( 1 ft by 1 ft ) hidden under a larger discount bin, in it held the remains of their once mighty line of products.  Thankfully there was one proximity alarm left hidden amongst the dozen or so spare alarm parts.

I mentioned how unbelievable it was that this was all that was left of what they used to carry, he kinda shrugged his shoulders and said ” They don’ sell” and walked away!! I snapped back that the reason was that they were only interested in selling cell phones any more! Man I was ticked on several levels.

I suspect within a couple years “The Source” will be renamed “The Cell Phone Source” because they will certainly soon not be worth going into for anything else! What a pity …

On the other hand, it looks like “Radio Shack” in the states has learned it’s lesson ( hopefully ) and is asking its’ clientèle and people in general, what products they think they should be carrying to “re-become” the DIY ( Do It Yourself ) store….. one can only hope they will succeed AND once again come back to Canada.

Time will tell I guess…

So as you can no doubt tell by the post title, I’ve fallen down the Rabbit Hole. And while I’ve never been a fanboy of Microsoft, or Apple. I am kinda falling into a trance with what Apple has done, how well they have done and where they are going. To the point that I have their iDisk running on my Ubuntu desktop…. Wow. Just where will this lead to next?!

It all started with my daughters iPhone, it broke on her and she had to send it away for repairs ( at no cost to her I might add. ) Since it was gone for a while she started to reuse her old Blackberry and it quickly reminded her of what she liked about it, and what she didn’t like about her iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, she likes the iPhone, but not the fact that her partner and her kids like it more ( all the apps and games on it. ) To the point that it was either in “their” hands all the time, or being charged! The Blackberry worked very well as a phone, email, text messages and camera…. but no games for the kiddies…. So when she got her iPhone back she decided to stick with Blackberry.

So she sold me the phone… My current phone ( before iPhone so to speak ) was a Windows “smart phone” that didn’t work as well as it should have, if at all, and I was getting frustrated having to pull out the battery to reboot the sucker every time I wanted to use a different “feature”. Frustration doesn’t begin to describe the issues…. So I decided to giver her phone a try…

So after jumping through a whole bunch of hoops, it was mine. There were a few challenges with it. One of the first was getting it updated and synced with iTunes running on my Ubuntu Virtualbox. More at my end than on iTunes….. which eventually turned the phone into a paperweight for me….. But thankfully Apple designed in a feature to resurrect an iPhone with screwed up software and it worked… Matter of fact it worked better than anything I’ve ever played with in a long, long time…

So I got some apps on it ( mainly free ) and found the functionality and interface beyond intuitive…. I had a reason to use a smart phone and have it always with me and always charged. Now I was beginning to understand why people like and have smart phones! Wow! It really wasn’t all hype!

So my iPhone experience, made me think…. “What about the iPad2?” It was just being released and my laptop was rapidly dying. Maybe I could use the iPad as a make-do until I could set aside the funds ( now starting to roll in from all my web support activities ) to get a new one. I figured if all else, I could use it for reading PDF documents that were just too frustrating to try and read on my Kindle 3 ( did I tell you about that one….. maybe later – ). So I ordered one on-line. Because I wanted the “free” engraving…

The iPad finally arrived and what can I say…. The angels almost started to sing once I started using it! It really took the experience and functionality of the iPhone and took it several levels higher! It’s become my morning newspaper, and my research engine and my multimedia centre and so, so much more! It really is hard to describe. The iPad isn’t anything like a computer ( although yes that is what it is! ) It’s an experience…. and until the other tablet makers get that into their head, they really don’t stand a chance!

Well while using the iPad I come across  Apple’s “MobileMe” software ( I was originally trying to find a way to sync my calender on my computer with the calender on my phone. ) Essentially MobileMe gave me 10GB of “Cloud” disk space called iDisk ( storage space on the Internet,) yet another email address, and a sync’d calendar with my iPhone  (more about syncing Ubuntu later – maybe…. )

But again…. it’s about the experience. Everything works seamlessly! The MobileMe email is accessibly as an application ( don’t have to log into anything anywhere else, ) but I can access it from either my iPhone or my iPad and if I delete a message from one, it disappears from the other… I didn’t have to do anything to make this work. It just does! And it does very very well. If I find something during my research on my iPad I just have to click an icon and can instantly send the link to whomever I choose from my contact list and the sent message is saved and available instantly from either of my apple devices…. So then I took a closer look at iDisk ( that Internet disk drive. )

It’s all well and good to have that much storage available on an Apple product, and they do seem to have something out there for Windows, but what about Ubuntu??? What about my platform. Well with a bit of research I found that solution too. It’s not quite as seem-less, but it’s working ( more on that one later too – I hope! ) So now I can instantly copy files/pictures/whatever from my Ubuntu machine, put them on my iDisk and instantly have them available to both my iPhone and my iPad. Freakin’ Brilliant!

This article is getting a bit long, so let me close by saying that TeamViewer ( another article on that one too later I hope. ) Also runs on Ubuntu AND the iPad and even the iPhone ( but my eyes aren’t that good anymore to make use of it ) So here we were in Quebec City, about 400+ km from my base computer and we were showing off pictures of our grandsons on my iPad. My wife asks me to show a recent picture of the youngest one wearing a great fedora  which his aunt gave him for his birthday ( which he looks great in by the way. )

Unfortunately, it wasn’t yet copied over to my iDisk and only resided on my Ubuntu machine at home. So using TeamViewer I logged into my machine back in my office, copied the file to the iDisk there and was able to then load the picture up in my iPad. All done in under two minutes! True story! Did I look good or what!

So…. the “?” in the title. Well Apple has announced a major improvement in their laptop line, using Intels “SandyBridge” technology. Making their laptops one of the fastest, and most powerful laptops out there. If you recall I’ve been saving my pennies for a laptop and I should have enough in another month or two….. My wife says it’s a no brainer as to my choices, and I have had an amazing Apple experience to date. So…. I’m wondering…… Interesting times ahead.

Stay tuned!

As it should happen, I’m in a position right now to spend some money on a new toy.

To be specific, I’ve been torn between a new laptop, a kayak, and an iPad. Of the three my heart was leaning towards the iPad, but it had a major problem (for me) it came with no hard-drive and expandable storage. Now for most people this shouldn’t be an issue. The iPad is really a consumption device more than a  “work tool”, but I was feeling claustrophobic thinking about how limited my options might be in future.

A laptop can always be expanded easily just by popping on a USB drive, a Kayak…. well it’s got every river, lake, stream, sea, ocean in the world if I want it. It was just the iPad…. could I “live” with a measly 16 or 32 GB knowing that there would be no way to expand it easily for storage purposes? It has no SD slot, nor no easy USB ports…

I decided to see what was out there that would work for what I wanted ( unlimited storage space. ) I first decided to look at Cloud storage services. This is essentially other companies who offer storage space on the Internet that can be accessed by one or more machines. The data is secured by passwords and or encryption and backed up by the company itself. One of these I’ve talked about previously dropbox.

My problem was that while dropbox is great for temporarily sharing data I found it beyond cumbersome when it came to easy access and in most cases to use the data you had to transfer it all over to the machine you were working on before you could use it. This can be a real drag to a limited machine ( in my opinion).

What I wanted was something that looked and acted like a disk drive to the computer and data could be accessed when wanted, but not necessarily stored permanently within the computer itself… and I found such a beast. It’s called ZumoDrive and it works really well with Windows, Mac’s, iPhones, iPads AND Ubuntu! It sounded like a match in heaven…. Watch the video to find out more…

After installing it on 2 windows machines and 2 Ubuntu machines I am able to access any data within the ZumoDrive on any machine and it really does act and work like a normal disk drive! Problem solved!

So now I’ve decided an iPad2…. unfortunately I have to wait until the end of the month to order one (I’m not in the US. ) I just have to try and not buy any other toys until then…. By the way if you like what you see you can sign up for up to 2GB of free storage to check it out, and if you use this link here, and I’ll give you a little a bit more -> Click Here

Well that’s not quite the end of it…. by complete serendipity, I was given another solution by a friend of mine, which will work quite well for sharing media ( like songs, pictures, movies, etc). It’s called AirStash. This is another cool device that goes on my “want” list… The neat thing about this device is that it actually acts like a networked drive using your WiFi connection and SD Cards but you aren’t dependent on the Internet. Some examples on the website show using it in the car while traveling. This video will give you more info on it – the only thing that doesn’t seem clear is whether it can be accessed by other operating systems….. still it’s on my want list for my iPad ….

No deals available that I could find but I’ll let you know if I find one!

So check both of these solutions out! I think you’ll be impressed

Not that I’m complaining, I love my Beamz and would have a hard time parting with it! The really neat thing is that the Beamz is starting to catch on, and as a result more effort is going into supporting it and expanding it’s capabilities. Which of course has lead me to other people who are heavily involved in it’s growth. They are an amazing group and extremely dedicated! If you are looking for any of these people, as well as community support for the Beamz then I recommend that you check out The Beamz Community – www.beamzcommunity.com. Here, after you join, you can post questions, and interact with what I think are some of the most amazing people supporting the Beamz!

But I digress….

My wife is a member of our local Kiwanis Group, whose main goal is helping and supporting kids in our community. Last night she arranged for me to demo the Beamz to the group ( which of course I did. ) They are a pretty creative bunch, and the demo went over like gang-busters! With more ideas flying around than I have space to type – seriously!

What was really neat, was that one couple at the meeting had brought their children along, and they ( the kids ) also got really, really excited with the Beamz. I just stood back and let them have fun. It was really neat to see them experiment and try different things with it. Learning how to operate it as they went, one little girl ( the youngest ) would have taken it home with her if she could.

What a neat experience!

Here’s some more videos that I’ve recently come across that talk about the Beamz n Kids. Wow….

www.viddler.com/explore/beamz/videos/14/

These last two videos are professionals in their field, talking about how the Beamz is used and helping them with their kids.
www.viddler.com/explore/beamz/videos/15/

www.viddler.com/explore/beamz/videos/16/

As there seems to be a lot of interest, and I’m getting a lot of hits, because of the Beamz, I’ve now made a category called My Beamz. Where you can find any and all articles that I’ve written about this great little device.

Even my 5 & 7 year old grandsons enjoy playing it. They really like to use it as an air guitar – one hand playing the Beamz ( picture their hand where the neck of the guitar should be, only playing with the lasers in the Beamz ), the other strumming the air guitar. I gotta tell you it’s great fun to watch them having fun with it!

I’ve also upgraded my system now so that it includes the Beamz Studio and making your own unique music ( that can then be played in 100′s of different ways ) is pretty easy and amazing! I hope to have a separate article about that some time later.

What I’m excited about right now is that  I’ve been talking with the company, and they have arranged for me to have a coupon that can save you shipping costs ( if you are shipping outside the US you will probably still have duty and taxes to pay depending upon where you live ) AND also give you 10 free extra songs when you register your Beamz with them!Just go to their website www.thebeamz.com, click on shop ( at the very top ), add the system that you want and then go to the checkout where you will see the spot where you can enter the coupon/promotion code. It’s really that simple.

The Coupon code is BEETH and I’ve included below an image of the coupon if you wish to print it off.  If you are considering getting the Beamz why not save a few dollars when you do – I wish I had had this opportunity but I’ve made sure that others will.

Enjoy!

As there seems to be a lot of interest, and I’m getting a lot of hits, because of the Beamz, I’ve now made a category called My Beamz. Where you can find any and all articles that I’ve written about this great little device.