Ringtones

Yesterday I woke up to the sound of ducks quacking outside my boat and I wondered which of my kids decided to call my wife. The funny thing is that my wife's phone happened to be 600 miles away at the time. My wife has set up the duck quack ringtone for each of her kids. That way she knows it is one of her own children instead of a friend or stranger. So now I have become accustomed to wondering why one of the kids is calling whenever I hear duck quacks even though it may be an actual duck on the water outside my sailboat.

No Exciting Computers

I had a bit of time to think as I walked the 3 miles to my office this morning. Mostly I thought about how I had already crossed the threshold of distance to where summoning Uber seemed a waste even though it was raining. What driver would pick me up for such a short drive. I did think about other things and one of them surfaced again when I go to the gym at work and prepared to get another 30 minutes of exercise. I briefly glanced at the locker-room TV and noticed that one of the ESPN commentators has the same laptop I do. It seems like the vast majority of people have settled on the same few laptops. There just doesn't seem to be any exciting new computers these days.

Naturally I have spent part of my day thinking about the state of computing hardware and what would make me excited. The size of a laptop is something that used to differentiate various models. Now it seems we have settled on small, medium, or large and each has its merits. We also used to have peripherals such as floppy, CDROM, or DVD disk drives. Now it seems that everyone relies on network connections and doesn't need removable media any more. What about case material? Well you have the brushed aluminum look, solid black carbon fiber, or some colored plastic cover. All of that is boring. About the most exciting difference between laptops is the lit brand logo that appears on the back of the screen. Some love the simple Apple logo while others prefer the 3 intertwined-snakes for the gamer specific Razer laptops.

As I thought about the lack of excitement in the computer market right now, I realized that we can't really blame the hardware manufacturers. It is tough to get excited about new hardware when it all runs the same old software. You have your choice between Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Even then Linux really isn't an option for most people as it is still more of a hobbyist's operating system unless you are working with servers.

So what will it take to get me excited about a new computer or laptop? I don't know. Perhaps this just means there is a new opportunity out there for something extraordinary to come along. I would hate to think that computers have evolved as far as they will go.

Stupid Updates

It seems like every time I look at an electronic device, it has to do some sort of update. I came into work on Tuesday and started one of the Microsoft Office products only to discover it had a number of updates to download. Having 2 mobile phones makes the problem worse as one of them always seem to have some pending application update. Then last night I decided to set up my PS4 on my sailboat. It had been off since I brought it out in November. Not only did I need to update the system software, but every game I had played in the past 6 months had an updated that needed to download. I burned through 9 gigabytes of data in one evening.

This has me evaluating all of my electronic devices that are connected to the Internet. I don't keep a lot of apps on my phones unless I really use them. Periodically I go through and delete programs I haven't used in several months. When I turned on my PlayStation 4, I thought I deleted all of the game files I didn't think I would play. I probably should have deleted more of them. I also am sure not to install software on my computer unless I really need it.

All of this downloading and updating seems like I am keeping up with the latest features and sometimes that is true. Security updates are very important and should be installed as quickly as they appear. Unfortunately some of the updates don't really effect me. Most of the updates for the PS4 dealt with online play features and I don't really do a lot of that currently. Furthermore, Apple has a tendency to remove functionality in the name of simplicity. But what if I am using that feature?

Finally I question the size of all these downloads. Retrieving 9 gigabytes of data in one evening seems a bit excessive. My experience with bug fixes is that you should just have to send an update to a library and those can be very small. Maybe I just have a bunch of games that needed new content and there is no way to make that tiny. I will have to go through and see if I notice any difference. My guess is I won't.

The Excitement of a New Year

I know that calendars are relatively arbitrary in the sense that our new year is not the same as other parts of the world. However there is something refreshing about the changing of the year. It is like a blank canvas ready for a new painting. What adventures will the year have in store for you and me?

People often look at January as a time to make resolutions. Perhaps they will drop a few pounds or learn a new skill. Last year I took up the guitar and have enjoyed it since. This is also the time for the consumer electronics show (CES) in Las Vegas. One of my colleagues who attended remarked about how large it seemed this year as he got to see what new electronic gadgets will be available in the near future. In the United States, we will have a new President. The press and media think that will shake things up a bit.

Yes we have a new year and so it is time to anticipate what the year has in store for us. My hope is that there is some exciting new technologies that actually make our lives better.

More Online Purchase Problems

Last year I wrote about problems that can occur when making online purchases when I tried to purchase some active-3D glasses for a computer monitor. I also wrote about a problem in March of 2013 when the picture of the product I wanted didn't have anything to help me reference the size. Today my son's online purchase from Amazon arrived and it turns out they shipped the wrong item. When I needed to get a new ski rack for my wife's Jeep, I made sure to go to a local ski shop and buy locally. That way if I didn't like something, I could take it back and save myself shipping costs. My son should have read my post but instead ordered a ski box for his car using the aforementioned online retailer. The box they sent won't fit his skis as it is too short.

Fortunately Amazon does a good job of making things right when a problem occurs. In my son's case, they are paying to ship the item back but cannot ship him a new box quickly enough. He has to drive to California after the new year and will be leaving with a car full of skis before the new box can arrive. So what will he do? He found the box he actually wanted at a local retailer and picked it up this afternoon.

My son's comment to me today is that Amazon is great for sending out small things, such as something that can be carried by a drone. When it comes to large-sized purchases, it is too much of a hassle to deal with the various shipping companies when something goes wrong and so he will be purchasing locally. I think that makes sense.

Lost Mobile Phone

In the 20-plus years I have carried a mobile phone, I have never lost one until now. I did drop mine on a bike trail 7 years ago but a nice person called my son and I arranged to get it back. Then I lost my phone on Christmas eve and I won't be able to get it back until June as it is now buried on top of a mountain under a lot of new snow.

How did I lose my phone? I fell skiing. Last year I skied 80 days and only fell about 2 or 3 times. My fall on Saturday happened because I went skiing in a huge snowstorm and couldn't really see much. I didn't mind the blindness as all of the fresh snow made for a great ski day. One of my skis hit a large wind-blown mound of snow and threw me off balance. I spun around and landed on my back. I hit the ground hard and gave myself a slight headache even though I wore a helmet. That caused my phone to fall out of an inside pocket but stayed in my jacket. When I stood up, the phone fell out of the bottom of my jacket.

About an hour later I discovered that I no longer had my phone. I knew I lost it because of the fall and so I headed back to the scene of the accident. Unfortunately the ski patrol closed that part of the mountain because of extreme avalanche danger. Had I been able to get near my phone, I could have used my second phone to call it and I would have been able to locate it.

They finally opened that part of the mountain again today and I went looking for my phone. Between when I lost my phone and when I could finally look for it, 2 feet of fresh snow fell. I scouted around a bit but no hope existed for finding my phone. So this afternoon I went out and got a replacement one.

Fortunately I have a fairly recent backup of the data on my phone and am just missing a few notes, a handful of pictures (none really that important) and a list of blocked telephone numbers from telemarketers. I did learn a few things from this experience:

1. Backup the data on your phone regularly. My recent backup saved me from having to recreate my contacts list and kept me from losing some really precious photos.
2. Make sure you have a Find-My-Phone app installed on your phone. This will sound an audible alarm even if your phone is silenced. This didn't help me because the unsafe conditions prohibited from me getting to my phone in a timely manner, however it might help you.
3. If you are accident prone and have a tendency to break or lose your phone on a regular basis, spring for the replacement insurance. A new phone can be expensive. My mistake cost me over $400.
4. If you ski with your phone, make sure it is in a pocket with a zipper so it doesn't fall out. Both of my sons and my son-in-law reminded me of this even though I came to that conclusion 3 milliseconds after I discovered I had lost my phone.

Hopefully this friendly reminder will help someone who is about to lose his or her phone in the near future.

A Robot Duster

Last Christmas I got my wife a robot vacuum and felt pretty proud of myself for such an awesome gift. I have to say that after a year of having one, it has dramatically cut down on the amount of vacuuming I have been required to do. I still take care of the weekly laundry and dishes, but I fit those in during spare moments of my weekends. The robot vacuum got me thinking about other household chores that could be automated. With all of the quadcopter devices out there, how about engineering one into a robot to do your dusting?

I told that idea to my wife and she wants me to run out and patent the idea before someone else does. Unfortunately I don't think it is a very practical invention. I don't do a lot of dusting but when I do, I often have to take things off of tables and then replace them. That might be a bit much for a quadcopter duster. About all it would be good for is flying over a table and moving the dust from the surface into the surrounding air.

I am also worried about the liability of a quadcopter duster. My wife has a number of glass figures sprinkled throughout the house and I can imagine coming home to find them all in pieces on the ground. That could be easily rectified by hiding the glass figures behind glass doors but I don't think that is an appropriate solution.

Industrial robots have revolutionized the manufacturing industry and now there are a number of companies looking to figure out how robots can help us in our daily lives. The trick is to make them useful and not just expensive gadgets to show off to your friends. The robot vacuum is a good start, so now the question is: What's next?