Connecting the Dots

Remembering -- and Preserving -- our Past

One of my passions is taking old family photos, films and video, digitizing them and finding archival quality media and methods to preserve them.

Thought I'd take a moment this New Year's Eve day to go through some old photos. I decided to quickly jam together a videoblog post too (this is still in beta, so the quality of the pristine DV audio & video didn't come through) as it showcases an old 16mm film preserved as well as a few of the thousands of photos I've already done to date.

What are *you* doing to preserve your past? In a Scientific American, January 1995 article entitled, "Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents" (Download PDF here) discussed were the problems of preserving digital media and hoping it can be played back at some point in the future. To illustrate what a problem we're all facing, do you have a 5 1/4" floppy drive? How about access to a Beta video deck? Got a 3.5" floppy drive? How about a SyQuest removable hard disk drive? (..and SyQuest was *really* hot at one point). How about a Zip or Jaz drive to open all those old files?

You can see what we're all up against. While it's been a laborious and time consuming process for me to digitize several hundred family photos and re-touch them, what if they weren't even available to me? With the explosion in digital photography, how many people do you think have thousands of digital pictures sitting on their un-backed up hard drive? Photos that may never make it to the point one of their children or grandchildren take up the family archiving cause and do what I've been doing.

Anyway...enjoy a peek at my little videoblog entry this last day of 2004 (if you bear with my beta videoblog provider and the modest quality of the video and audio):

Podcasting 101

One of my first posts back on December 10th had to do with podcasting. Tonight I was reading about a new tool called ccPublisher (a tool which allows users to easily license their work, and optionally upload it to the Internet Archive for free hosting and cataloging). This tool has been delivered by the Creative Commons (CC) folks and a host of content is available there offered under this new CC method for copyrighting and licensing works.

Some Mac radio guys have uploaded something interesting called "Podcasting 101". It's a nice primer on what podcasting is...but is a teensy bit sophomoric. Still, it gives the basics and has a nice overview of RSS 'wrappers' for an audio file, etc.  Take a peek.

Another step for VoIP acceptance

The Associated Press reports that the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling by a lower court that The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission can't regulate calls made through Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) like it does with traditional phone lines.

The Internet as our Collective Consciousness

Had lunch today with a self described "curmudgeon emeritus" who is a guy that has been an entrepreneurial tech leader, political operative and businessman in the Twin Cities -- and someone who proudly considers himself a geek. It was a very intellectually stimulating discussion.

Our conversation ran the gamut from pre-internet history (and even pre-industrial age stuff like guilds vs. the way things are organized today in to companies) and we did quite a bit of thought exploration about the next big thing and what are likely to be great business models in the next phase of the Web (Web 2.0 if you will).

Here is a brief recap of our conversation...

Wow...what a *different* user experience!

Late today my bride and I purchased a new HP/Compaq tower to replace an aging Sony to run the accounting in her business. This evening we purchased a new G5 iMac 17" to replace an aging 15" iMac whose screen and power had become too limiting for one of her employees.  So I had a personal experience with migrating data from a machine running WinXP-to-WinXP and a Mac OS X-to-Mac OS X machine the same day.

I gotta tell ya, it's night and day.

Apple has made it brain-dead-simple to copy *all* relevant files from an old Mac to a new one by simply hooking up a firewire cable between the Mac's and starting up the old one in firewire disk mode (this is where the old Mac looks to the new Mac like a firewire hard drive). Click a button and wait for everything to copy over (in my case 4GB's took about 24 minutes) and it's done. I was stunned to discover that even the file placement on the desktop had all of them in exactly the same spot as they were on the old Mac!

What was my experience with the PC like? I ended up copying 950MB's of files scattered all over the place (luckily I'd received a new 1GB USB thumb drive for Christmas or I woulda been burning CD's) and copying them to the new machine. With about a half dozen round trips to the Sony and back to the HP/Compaq, I'd finally copied over all the relevant files. NOT a job for Joe Sixpack.

Oh yeah, it took me about 3 hours on the HP/Compaq vs. 45 minutes on the Mac (24 to copy and 21 to tweak a few things).

I understand there are tools you can buy to assist with migrating data from an old PC to a new one, but shouldn't the manufacturer make this a painless process for the customer? Gee...if it's really simple to migrate to a new machine, wouldn't people be more apt to buy new machines? As my son would say, "Doh!"

Continuing broadband adoption

Broadband adoption just keeps on growing. Now an article on CNN Money describes that the FCC states that broadband subscription jumps 38% in the U.S. as of June, 2004.

As I mentioned in my first post entitled, "Video games and the internet bubble. Is it time for dot com...the sequel?" there are many data points about broadband adoption and why this is important for innovation.

My contention always was that the dot com crash was due, in no small part, to people having to "suck a flood of internet content through a straw" since the bulk of people were still on dial-up modems in the early 2000's. It's different now and getting more so.

I had a colleague a couple of years ago that told me she had 10mbps fiber in her loft building in downtown San Francisco. I corrected her, "You mean 1mbps don't you?" "Oh no," she said. "It's really, really fast. In fact, a guy that lives upstairs is running a server farm and his startup company is in his unit." Thinking about risk management issues like heat buildup, server backup and scalability as she was describing his business, I found myself nonetheless really excited thinking about the possibilities of having access to that much bandwidth.

If we want a jet engine driving our economy, *real* broadband like hers is what'll do it.

Duct tape and a gun to my head

Those are the only two things that would've made me feel even more captive in my seat at the AMC theatre in Eden Prairie tonight. Thought we'd catch a movie as a family on this Christmas evening, and we were forced to endure seven commercials and half a dozen movie trailers (over 15 minutes worth) before the movie started!

I was not happy and went out and talked to a manager (she was a young woman just doing her job so I was kind. She'd obviously been beaten up over this in the past) and she told me that it was corporate "...and the NCN subsidiary that controls the ads. We have to put on 5 minutes worth". I then called AMC's hotline when I got home to complain.  Looks like I'm not the only one who is hot about this and there is a lawsuit about movie commercials too.

A couple of years ago, I was equally hot over the fact that studio movies on DVD would "lock out" the ability to fast forward through previews so a viewer was forced to watch several minutes worth of stuff to get to the movie. Now the U.S. House of Representatives is getting lobbyed hard and had a bill pending this session to criminalize methods of fast forwarding but it was voted down...for now.

The content producers are clearly wringing their hands over how to prevent piracy of their intellectual property and I've historically been a huge defender of the rights of content producers to own their copyright and the products that result. But I gotta tell ya, I'm rapidly losing my patience with the "duct tape and a gun to my head" crowd forcing me to sit through their inane crap to get to the content I paid for and want.

If you too are not happy about either movie commercials, not being able to fast forward the DVD's you buy and watch in your own home -- and in any way being metaphorically duct-taped to your seat or have a gun to your head held by content producers -- write to Congress, the President or State Legislators.

Noel

Noel is the anglicanized version of the French word "noël," which translates in English to ... Christmas.

Enjoy.


MP3 File

Merry Christmas

As I think about the world and the myriad of spiritual interpretations of universal truth, one basic thought on this day is my Christian tradition (and a version of the truth as I was taught it) vs. other paths taken by others in the world. (There are A LOT of humans that practice other religions which begs the question: what is the truth?).
      
Humans are so close genetically it's pretty certain that we all spring forth from a common ancestry. Is the world's collective conciousness and all of our respective spiritual interpretations really that far apart? It makes me think that I've got to step-up my understanding of the world's religions since there are more similiarities than differences among us.

'Twas the day before the night before Christmas...

Yeah...that's me giving the fake, melodramatic reaction to the Give-A-Show Projector my older sister received for Christmas in, I think, 1969.

Today I had one of those "Wow!" reactions. I haven't experienced last minute, day-before-the-night-before-Christmas, crowds of power shoppers like I did this afternoon. Over the last couple of days, I've been struck by the huge volume of inventory that exists on retail shelves and racks and took it as a sign that this was NOT going to be a very happy holiday for retailers. Markdowns and sales are already occuring, stores like Marshall Field's have cheerfully announced that "We're Open until 7pm on Christmas Eve!" (an unprecedented move), and anecdotally most of my friends, family and acquaintences are spending less on higher quality items this year (i.e., less total stuff is being jammed under the tree). 

So what's going on?

Birthday Blues and Gen Y

Today is another milestone on my path in life (my birthday) and I always grow contemplative and melancholy on this day each year. When I was a kid it was all about having my birthday being 'lost' due to the impending Christmas holiday ("hey Steve, you'll get your 'combo' bday/xmas present on Christmas!") and I was more sad than anything else. As I moved in to adulthood, this day was all about thinking through the meaning of the year of my life just passed, what I accomplished, and whether or not I made a difference in the world.

Has mine been a wonderful life?  I often wonder. Today, more than any other, is the time these thoughts swirl around in my head faster than any other day throughout the year. Though some think it's sappy and is an overused metaphor for contemplating one's impact on the world, I still watch It's A Wonderful Life almost every year...and it has the same heart-tugging, introspective effect on me every time.

Most people have reflective thoughts like these on New Year's Eve. Me?  That evening feels like I'm on the precipice about to leap in to the future -- and I always find myself enthusiastic, optimistic and eager for the new year to begin. I consider a new year to be all about renewal, possibilities and being my opportunity to re-engineer myself and focus on making a difference and being a "bright light" once again.

On the next page is content from an email I received from a buddy of mine last night. It is of the type that I almost *always* immediately delete -- but I didn't this time and it sparked thoughts about my "generational place" in the world and the continuing process of renewal.

VoIP hits the mainstream

Two years ago I signed up for a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service from a small company called Vonage when I was working out of a home office. At the time, it shaved more than $125 per month off of my long distance telephony bill.

I was so delighted with it that I started personally evangelizing it to people in my company. Several of my colleagues were from India and they'd order two instances of Vonage service and ship one box (with the Cisco ATA -- telephone/internet router interface box) to their relative in India. They could then call a local U.S. number in the same area code in which they lived and it would ring the Cisco box over in India -- saving them a fortune on international telephone charges.

Today I read a CNet article about Vonage offering their service at retail in CompUSA stores which now surpasses 8,000 retail outlets for them in North America. I was, quite frankly, stunned that there is so much distribution and the business has become so mainstream in the two years since I signed up.

What about growth? Who has the momentum?

Gmail: My sole email hub

There's been a lot written about Gmail (Google Gets the Message, Launches Gmail) since its launch and it was amusing to be aware of the mad scramble to obtain a Gmail account when it was first announced in spring of 2004 (ebay auctions; people begging). Luckily I knew an alpha male with a lot of Silicon Valley contacts and he had a few leftover Gmail invites and sent me one.

After playing with it for awhile, I made a fundamental leap: I decided to consolidate my other four email accounts (one I've had since 1997) and use Gmail as my one-and-only email account -- even though it is still in public beta.

Get ready for a revolution in air travel

Sitting next to a guy last week as I flew back from California, I struck up a conversation with him and ended up talking about jet travel, small seats (and the increasing size of our aging posteriors) and I mentioned microjets. He perked up and we talked about something I've been aware of for some time: we're less than two years away from the beginnings of a revolution in jet air travel.

Over the next few years, a number of companies (list at bottom of page) will be shipping relatively inexpensive (~$1M-$2.5M) small 4-6 seat jets that can utilize approximately 3,400 small airports (out of over 5,000) that exist in the U.S.!

Imagine being able to sign up on the internet, tell the system where you want to go, and have a small jet pick you up at one of these small airports and drop you at another one close to your destination. No more long lines, parking hassles, or groping by some giddy TSA employee.

The promise is there but there's more work to do.

Who or what can you trust?

There was a fair amount of laughter at my sister's 50th birthday party when I'd Photoshop'ed a picture of her reading to me as a toddler and placed it on a photo-board with other images of her from her first 50 years. The actual book she was reading to me was about a bunny...so I thought it would be humorous to find an old Playboy magazine cover on the 'net from about the same era (1956-ish) and place it over the cover of the book. Even I was amazed at how realistic it looked and how simple it was to do. It allowed me to lend credence to my claims that my big sister started to corrupt me from a very early age.  ;-)

But if it's so easy for *me* to blur the truth, what about the experts who are focused on persuading us to buy, and what new techniques are they using?

How about some good news?

Several of my friends and business acquaintances have been telling me anecdotal stories about executive hiring going on, product innovation plans with commensurate investments, and expectations for top-line revenue growth.

I'm seeing and experiencing it too. Is 2005 the year of significant growth?

Audioblogging...this is cool

The controls below allow you to playback my first audioblog.  This one was recorded using my iSight camera connected to my Powermac, but I've also done audioblogs in a test environment (a "sandbox" blog for playing around) where I've called audioblog.com on my cellphone to a special phone number with a PIN number. This is *really* cool and quite easy. Audioblog.com also has a beta videoblogging service too which I've played with and am considering using for videoblogs (but want videoblogs I post to be useful vs. just something I'm goofin' around with).

Google to give you knowledge at your fingertips

There are a lot of initiatives that are pointing the way toward an acceleration of the world's knowledge repositories coming online. The first that hit my radar was MIT OpenCourseWare initiative that placed 500 courses in to open source. In theory this will facilitate  development of courseware that other institutions can use and holds the promise of placing education intellectual property in to the public domain.

I love PDF...Jakob Nielsen doesn't

Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) has made a big difference in the publishing business of my bride's company, Marketing Directions, Inc.. Her firm keeps companies a step ahead with a full line of print products, color forecasts and consulting services targeted specifically to the home furnishings industry and PDF has proved to be a material part of her published output.

Rescuing videotapes for the future

With 50 videotapes of our wedding, the kids, family events and more (thank God they're already digital on miniDV), I've become increasingly concerned that -- since videotape has a finite shelf life before color fades and dropouts increase dramatically -- it was time to get the video off to a digital format and ensure longevity.

Digital Photography Review

Before heading to Alaska this summer, I decided to study-up on cameras and buy one that *might* make me proud of the pictures I would be taking in this majestic state. Figuring that Alaska might contain some photogenic scenery and wildlife, I headed to a phenomenal web site called Digital Photography Review to do research before buying one.

The proprietor of this web site is a guy named Phil Askey. He comes across as SIGNIFICANTLY more analytical than just about anyone I've ever met. His methodology for analyzing cameras and testing them exhaustively ensures that the reader of his reviews gets a solid and objective analysis.

If you're in the market for a digital camera, stop by DPReview. Spend some time on the forums and get a sense what people think of the particular camera(s) you're considering. I did...and after 40 or so hours poking around, I ended up with a Nikon D70 digital SLR, kit lens plus a zoom lens, external flash and I'm incredibly pleased.

My pictures? I guess the old saying that, "It's not the tools but the carpenter" holds true in my case. Great camera...pictures that are just OK. I'll keep working on it though.

Podcasting

With a 40 minute drive each way to work and little to listen to on the radio (with the exception of Minnesota Public Radio), I began downloading mp3's on an amazing array of information technology topics from Doug Kaye's ITConversations web site. I'd dump them on my iPod and listen to them on the way to work by connecting my iPod to a tape player adapter and running it through my car stereo.

Then I discovered what I was doing was dubbed 'podcasting'. The best part was that a guy named Adam Curry created software for podcasting called iPodder and made it available for Mac, Windows, Linux and more. Check it out.

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ARTICLE: Boston Globe on podcasting
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Video games and the internet bubble. Is it time for dot com...the sequel?

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UPDATE 12/19/04:
Slashdot | Game Industry Bigger Than Hollywood
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My 10 year old son (an accomplished gamer) and I finally watched a program I'd TiVo'ed on PBS back in September called "The Video Game Revolution".

About halfway through, I was dumbstruck over how clearly I saw the parallels between the irrational exuberance of the first video game 'bubble' and the same kind of giddy exuberance during the internet bubble. What most people don't stop to consider is that we're living in "Video Games: The Sequel" and the business has been growing steadily and globally for the last two decades.

Have you also stopped to consider that the same thing is happening right now to the internet?