TechMaven

London needs robots

Seems that I only post when I'm in London.  This time around its because the Metronet has decided to strike, literally crippling an entire city's public transportation.  This is NOTHING like Austin where light rail means an illuminated rail - this is going to keep people from going to work.  Estimated losses in the Evening Standard were 50 million GBP or about $100mm USD daily.  WOW.  And this over what the Mayor has already supposedly capitulated on, the restoration or security of jobs for about 3,000 railworkers from the company that was taken over earlier this year.  Lame if you ask me.

London needs robots.  Then by all means strike away. 

I'm flying home tomorrow and luckily don't need the tube (but could have used it to get to where I'm going).  Sad that a city as great as this is going to be taken hostage in the middle of the work week.

-MRO

I, Robot FOREVER!

I'm in London on business and staying in the St. George's Hotel near Oxford Circus.  A nice place, quite accommodating, and not overly pricey by London standards. 

The TV here is generally not that good.  It isn't like the states where we have a channel for every interest and fetish and the programming is as varied as it is colorful.  Given, there are entire channels here devoted to the big-brother like surveillance of a random house where a group of beautiful young people seemingly chat endlessly in their pajamas (yes this is real) but I'm actually fascinated by one particular channel - the ALL THE TIME ALWAYS ON "I, Robot" channel.  No joke.

There's a channel in this hotel (I'm assuming it isn't nationwide) that has played I, Robot on repeat the entire time I've been here.  IMDB tells me that the movie is 115 minutes long, and I've been here for roughly 108 hours, so that means that I've had the chance to view I, Robot over 56 times.  I haven't been in my room the entire time, and I haven't been awake the entire time, but I have seen it enough to now identify each scene by background noises alone and to recite each line easily.  Talk about skills.

I am not going to change the channel before I leave so that I can achieve the maximum viewing count of over 87 times through the movie.  That will come CLOSE to the number I've watched Aliens or Braveheart. 

P.S. I always laugh when Sonny says "but I must apply the nanites."  I don't even know why.

Loan Sharks Online

I've never heard of something this blatant, but here it is.  Cashcall.com will loan you money, unsecured, at nearly 100% interest.  Look at these rate tables:

The smaller the loan the higher the interest rate.  This is INSANE.  If you're in a place where this is the ONLY way to get money, borrow from a local loan shark.  You're going to have better luck. 

 

I've lost it already

I've lost that lovin' feeling.  Seriously, I haven't posted in almost a month.  That's just not right.  What is right is that I'll be reading some tech blogs and starting to post some new stuff soon.  No one is reading this right now, but its still fun to ask, so who's using Vista?  Who played Crackdown?  Anyone really like Gamefly?  What about the news on newer cheaper Tivo3's? 

Enjoy March Madness.  I'll write more soon.

SUPERBOWL SHUFFLE

So why is the Superbowl Shuffle something that's relevant?  Well it really isn't. But it defined an entire decade's worth of NFL related entertainment and is still to this day remembered as something great.  Well done '85 Bears.  Well done indeed.

Update: Clearly others feel the same way too.  DIGG it ;)

BEARS are in the Superbowl!

ALRIGHT I know this isn't exactly technology related but the Bears are in the Superbowl for the first time in 21 years.  Amazing.  I love it.  GO BEARS!!!

Other life: NFL

I can't wait for the games today.  Both games are set to be exciting and challenging.  I don't think either are lopsided or obvious, regardless of what dreaming NO fans think.  My thoughts for the day:

1. I love today.  Both of these games are exciting and I have emotional desires to see the Colts and the Bears win today.  I hate the pats and clearly need the saints to lose.  Great story or not, screw 'em. 
2. Peyton has a challege ahead of himself.  Stats show that if he throws long his chances of winning are much greater - but he's got to shake that weener confidence issue he had last game.  He looked weak.
3. Brady wins on last drives.  a lot.  If Brady has a shot at it, at the end of the game, it'll be a Marino march to the win.  Colts have to be up big going into the last few minutes.
4. Saints win big on the road, highest scorers in the NFL for road games (and keep opponents to 12 points avg, scary). 
5. Hester is a huge threat, Saints run D isn't all that great anyway.  5 coaches polled this past weekend said the best way to defeat hester is to kick it out of bounds.  Awesome.

Tips for avoiding total chaos when your hard drive fails

Tonight I suffered at the hands of fate - my hard drive failed.  Not just didn't wanna read, or felt like being slow, but "DISK READ ERROR" across the screen, no life whatsoever.  I'm rather technically inclined and this thing was beyond repair.  So I'm hosed, right?  Well - sort of.  Turns out I did have a backup which was current as of about 3 weeks ago.  I have a few key files that I lost progress on but I quickly went to recreate them in Google Docs so I didn't lose it all.  That and a lot of files are in emails somewhere so I've got a record on our Exchange server.  Here are my tips for avoiding immediate death upon a hard disk failure:

1. BACK UP YOUR FILES.  Get a USB enclosure for 2.5" laptop drives, an 80gb or so hard drive, install it in the enclosure and start backing up weekly.  The best part about this drive solution is that it is small so you can carry it everywhere (meaning you'll actually use it) and it is powered off of the USB port, so no additional cords.  Seriously, this is the only way to avoid total disaster.  Do it.  Now.  Go.  Seriously.
2. Store your most important data in copies at different physical locations and devices.  What's MOST important to you?  Probably all of those digital photos of your child or dog or whatever.  Make SURE you have multiple copies of this info stored on different external hard drives, CDs and DVDs, and have a copy at your safe deposit box or office or mom's house.  No matter what, have a way of recovering this data.
3. Use Google Docs.  For important word type documents or excel-like spreadsheets, import them into Google Docs.  While I'm not saying a free service is ever going to GUARANTEE recovery, they're far more likely to have backups and redundancy to ensure your data isn't lost.  That and you can access the info from all over the place - all you need is a browser.  That's convenience.
4. Use email as a backup.  If you're on Exchange or any IMAP service for email your emails are stored on a server somewhere.  If that server is hosted or backed up regularly, all is NOT lost if you lose your local cached copies of emails.  This is more of a recovery tip as an actual strategy around backing up data this way would be cumbersome - but you'll find that most of your important files were emailed at one point so they're in there somewhere. 

Do yourself a favor and get a backup drive now.  Right now.

Bears WIN!

(photo credit nfl.com)

Bears WIN!!  Congrats to the bears in ending a three-game post season losing streak stretching back to 1996.  Next week the bears WILL DEFEAT NEW ORLEANS. 

How to be a Curious Photographer

On the side I'm a pro photographer.  Alright, you can't be a pro photographer on the side but I have a big camera and I love taking pictures.  I have shot for the Texas Rollergirls in the past and I've done some publicized work.  That said, this was a great article:  How to Be a Curious Photographer.  For anyone that's a photographer wannabe or a posessor of a digital camera take a read through.  The best tips listed are:

#1 - screw the rules
#2 - be curious
#7 - play
#10 - slow down (one i'm terrible at)

Read and enjoy.