Travel More

One major goal for 2012 besides just getting off the sofa, is getting out of South Carolina and traveling a lot more.  I have never had a lot of opportunities to travel, I always seem to be working and never taking many vacations.  This year that is all going to change.  I have a laundry list of places that I want to visit and I am going to begin this checking some of those places off my to-do-list.  I will use this blog to chronicle those travels and post photos as I get around the world (You will see that incorporates well into other resolutions).

Where do I want to go?  So that I have a way to measure my success at the end of the year, I want to list a couple places that I want to see in 2012.  Top of my list is and has always been France.  I feel after studying the language for nearly 12 years from kindergarden through college, I should at least go to the country and ask someone what time it is.  That is about the only thing I remember.  While in Europe I would like to make it to at least one other country, hopefully Italy.  My next destination is San Francisco and the northern California wine country.  I have yet to make it out to the West Coast and have that very high on my travel priority list for the upcoming year.  My last city to measure my success by in 2012 is Boston.  I have long wanted to visit this historic city and see some of our countries most notable landmarks.

First resolution of the year, Travel More!!  And now I have created a list that I can judge my success by at the end of 2012.

Write More

Well just sitting here at the computer now putting this on “paper”, I am already well under way on this goal for the year.  I want to set a goal for myself to add a minimum of three blog posts to this site every week.  I have several other projects in the works that will most likely force me to be sitting in front of a computer and knocking out a lot more than that but I am going to put three posts a week right here.  Hopefully my travels this year, my business, my love of technology and photography will provide me with the stories and experiences to share.

I think it will be awesome to look back years from now and reflect on the posts I have written on this page and have a snap shot of my experiences.  I have discovered lately that time seems to be going by quickly and I can barely remember what I did last week, much less months ago.

Read More

I know this one just sounds kind of silly.  This resolution ties very closely into my next one and I considered combining the two but I feel there are subtle differences that require them to be separate.  I love to cook and I seem to have a habit of subscribing to every magazine that has anything to do with that hobby. In the last several months those magazines have just piled up on my desk and been neglected.  Next to that stack of magazines is a stack of books that I always believe I am going to read because I want to learn new things, still gathering dust.

I strongly believe that for my writing to really improve, I need to be reading everyday.  I look at thousands of photos to get inspiration on composition, lighting and subject matter. Why am I not doing the same thing with books and articles.  It is very hard for me to set a concrete goal here, I am definitely not going to be one of these people who resolves to read two or three books a month because I know that is just unrealistic. But I am definitely going to get through my top priority books that have been gathering dust for months if not years now.  Airplanes on my travels and sitting on the back deck at a vineyard in France would be good places to knock a few of these out.

Learn More

Learn More?  That seems like a no-brainer and it is.  But if I have taken one thing out of 2011, I love gaining knowledge of new skills and information.  I wish I always had this desire, it would have been very helpful in school.  In 2011, thanks to some amazing online training tutorials, websites and podcasts, I have drastically improved many skills that have helped me build my business.  I learned to write iPhone and iPad apps thanks to iTunes U, incredibly improved my skills with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign as well as many other programs thanks to sites like Lynda.com and Video2Brain. The amount of information out there has blown me away.  The reason I couldn’t incorporate learning more into reading is due to the vast resources available online for anyone who wants to gain more knowledge and skill.

I would recommend to everyone to challenge themselves and try to learn something totally new.  I have always loved photography, it has been a hobby and I have shot tens of thousands of photos over the years as an enthusiast.  Utilizing the internet I want to continue on all that I have learned in 2011 and take my photography to a new level.  That will probably be a great segue into my next resolution.

Shoot More

For most of my friends this has a very different meaning, for me it means hearing that shutter fire.  If the only way to get better at something is to practice, then there is no reason at all I am not grabbing my camera and shooting several times a week.  This doesn’t necessarily mean I need to carry my 5D Mark ii around everyday, but at the very least I can pull out the amazing camera on the iPhone 4S and capture the world around me.  The second part of this is getting these photos off the camera, out of Lightroom and out in to the world so the community can critique and help me improve my skill.  I have thousands of photos sitting on my computer that no one has ever seen.  I have no idea whether there are any great shots in there, don’t know how they could be improved but it is time to publish them online and get some feedback.

I am going to commit to a very difficult measurable goal for this resolution.  This may be one of the hardest ones to keep because it will require daily diligence.  It may take a few days for me to get this set up and tied in to my blog.  But I am going to post a new photo everyday to my SmugMug account and share on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as well as my blog.  This doesn’t mean it will be a photo that I have taken that day, I will just post a new photo to share and open it up for feedback and critique.

Move Ideas to Execution

I love ideas!  It seems that I come up with new ideas all time time but rarely move them from that conceptualization stage to execution. People close to me know that I am always coming up with some random dream and as time continues to pass it just sits there as thoughts on paper and never sees the light of day.  This year I want to narrow my focus, stop wasting time on stupid things and turn these ideas into reality.

Measuring the success of this resolution should be fairly easy.  You will see awesome things happen if I succeed, if I fail then nothing!

Fix Knee & Play More

This resolution is far less “big picture” and more this needs to get done.  In 2005 I tore my ACL playing intramural flag football.  Finally in April 2007 had surgery to have it repaired.  It was amazing to be back on the tennis court, kicking a soccer ball and running.  It seems that over the next few years following my surgery the original surgery has failed and I no longer have an ACL and as a result am very limited in the activities I can participate in.  In 2012 I am going to have that repaired and I am going to hit a tennis ball, knock the dust off my snowboard and get back out there and enjoy the outdoors and life the way I used to.  Hopefully that will give me a lot more to write about, learn about, and shoot.  Making all my other resolutions easier to keep.

Wrap-Up

I have never really made resolutions before and definitely never written them down and published them for the world to see.  I am hoping that doing this will help to hold me accountable and give me a tool by which to measure my success at the end of the year.  There are some lofty goals in this list but if I am able to pull them off then I will be hopefully way ahead of the game as I head into 2013.

Here is to a crazy 2012!

I was very hopeful that during the release of iOS 5 and iCloud that Apple would address the podcast syncing issues and allow me to have a “whisper-sync” option between all my devices on what is downloaded, played, and current location.  That hasn’t happened yet.  Despite every creative option I tried to derive I just couldn’t solve my Podcast conundrum – until I discovered Downcast.

Downcast is a great app that does everything I have wanted Apple to implement in addition to being a great podcast player.  Downcast works across iPhones and iPads seamlessly with a great user interface.  You can very quickly add your favorite podcast subscriptions through their very good directory or add a podcast manually with a URL.  Once you subscribe to your favorite podcasts you are ready to sit back and enjoy this awesome program, on all your devices!

You first see the magic of this app once you setup Downcast on your iPhone and then download it for iPad.  You go into the “iCloud Sync” settings on your iPad turn everything on and you are done. Once I told the iPad version that I wanted to sync across devices using iCloud it went to work downloading everything I had already setup.  You don’t have to create an account, you don’t have to login, it knows your iCloud account and just starts downloading and syncing your locations between devices.

The player on the device is excellent as well.  There is an insane number of playback speed options (1/2x, 1x, 1 1/4x, 1.5x, 1 3/4x, 2x, 2.5x, 2 3/4x, 3x) to choose from.  It gives you all the details about the episode with links to show notes and other information about each episode right in the player.   My favorite feature and the one I use every night is the integrated timer.  As I am going to sleep, I tap the timer button set for 15 minutes and then I am out like a light.  Before you had to close out of iTunes, go into the clock, click on timer, set the timer, then set to turn of iPod, then you could go back into your podcast.  And don’t forget that the iPad doesn’t have a clock app at all.  The player also has a continuous play feature if you want to keep going through your playlist and great buttons that you can skip forward or backwards at editable intervals.  Airplay is built right into the player so you can quickly and easily stream podcasts to you AppleTV, Airport Express or other Airplay enabled device.  And if you want to stream from your iPhone and iPad through your computer use AirServer, a great program that turns your Mac into an Airplay compatible device.

If you are a heavy or even moderate podcast user and listen on more that one device, travel, or don’t want to sync your iOS device with a computer every time you want to check for new content then this is the app for you.  For $1.99 on the App Store this program is well worth it.

Today everything in our house seems to want internet access.  It isn’t just our computer, tablets, and phones any more. Today your TV, XBox, Playstation 3, and your Blu-Ray player need to get online.  One of the biggest challenges is getting internet access across your house or maybe you even need to hard wire your device to a router.

The other day I went over to a friend’s house to help them hook up a Blu-ray player in their game room on one side of the house to a wireless router on the other side of the house.  He had tried on his own with his old router and the signal didn’t reach so he went to the store and purchased a new router thinking it would reach.  I went over hooked up the next router went up stairs, fired up the Blu-ray player and NOTHING!

What we needed was a repeater in between the new router and the Blu-ray player.  Let the hacking commence.  He had a fairly new WRT54(something) router that we just replaced.  I think Linksys makes a pretty good router out of the box.  It does what most people want, take a connection from your modem and shoot it through the air.  But what if you want to take the wireless connection from one router and boost it through your house or even allow your device to plug into router #2 and get internet from router #1.

I am going to walk you through a very simple process to supercharge your old router and turn it into a very powerful device.  Your router is actually a computer with a basic operating system running a web server.  When you go to your browser and type in 192.168.1.1 you are taken to a web interface that allows you to configure all the settings of your router.  What we want to do is change out your OEM firmware with a Linux based program call DD_WRT.  This is a free open-source program that opens up all the functions of your router and allows you full control to customize your settings anyway you want.

The following steps are going to look complicated and confusing, but if you follow these easy steps you can easily perform this hack on your own router.

You will not have internet access through most of this process.  Make sure you download all the files you will need before you disconnect your router from your modem and begin the firmware flash.

Step 1: Go to the DD_WRT website and verify that your router is compatible with the software.  If you have a Linksys router there is a very good chance it is.

Step 2:  You will then need to download the software components you will need to flash your old router with the new firmware.  I am upgrading a WRT54GS so I downloaded the files “vxworkskillerGSv7-v3.bin” and “dd-wrt.v24_micro_generic.bin” You will also need to get a copy of TFTP for Windows to get the firmware uploaded to the router.

You can skip this part but I want to explain a little bit about the relationship between your computer and router so you will understand what we are doing here.  Your router has an IP address.  An IP address is basically that devices direct dial number, when you put it in you will get that device.  By default Linksys and Netgear use 192.168.1.1 and DLink uses 192.168.0.1.  You can go into your routers firmware settings and change this number to whatever you want and if you have more than one router on your network (which we will when we are done with this) you will want to change one of them to 192.168.1.2 so you can access it again.  If not you will have two routers with the 192.168.1.1 IP address and your network won’t know how to resolve your request.  

Built into your router traditional is service called DHCP.  DHCP is used to assign an IP address to all the computers or devices that join your network.  Again if you have two routers on your network you want to make sure only one of them has DHCP enabled.  Having two can cause a real mess.  Your computer can get an IP address two different ways.  The most common method is an assignment from a DHCP router.  The DHCP server has a pool (ex. 192.168.1.100 – 192.168.1.125) from which to assign addresses.  The second method always done by servers (and routers) is manually assigning an IP address.  I give all my servers addresses under 100 to keep them out of the pool.  

Step 3: At this point you will be disconnecting your internet from your router.  You will keep your router plugged into the power cord and you will connect one ethernet cable from your computers network card to one of the ports on the router (NOT THE INTERNET or WAN PORT).

Step 4:  You now need to manually set your computer’s IP Address to ensure you will always be in communication with the router throughout the configuration process.  You will need to enter the ‘Network and Sharing Center’ on your Windows machine.  This can be found by going into the Control Panel or usually by right-clicking on the network icon in the system tray near the clock and clicking ‘Open Network and Sharing Center’.

At this point you will want to click on the link that says ‘Local Area Connection’  You will then open the LAC Status box.  You will need to click on properties, then select ‘Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and select properties.  You will want to select the radio button that says ‘Use the following IP Address’ and you enter: IP Address: 192.168.1.12 (doesn’t really matter the last number as long as it isn’t 1 and below 255).  You will then enter the Subnet Mask: 255.255.225.0. Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1, this is the address for your router. Click OK, then Close, then Close and you are ready to move on.

Step 5:  Open your favorite internet browser and go to http://192.168.1.1 enter your username: (Linksys blank by default) and password: (admin by default).  If you have never been in here and seen this before this is the stock firmware that comes with your router.  Here is where you enter all your WiFi, security, and other information to configure your router.  You will click on the Administration Tag and then Firmware Upgrade, then select Choose File and select the “vxworkskillerGSv7-v3.bin” file and click start upgrade.  Once the upgrade has completed unplug the router for 30 seconds and then plug it back in.

Step 6: Locate the TFTP file you downloaded at the beginning of the instructions.  Open the program, in the Server field type in the Router’s IP address “192.168.1.1”, in the password use your default password (for Linksys “admin”) and then select the DD_WRT file to flash the firmware (in my case “dd-wrt.v24_micro_generic.bin”).  Hit Upgrade and you are done!

You can now open your browser window and point to http://192.168.1.1 again and you will be greeted by an entirely different screen than before.  It will usually ask you to supply a new username and password when you first login to secure your new router.  Once you do that then begin exploring your new super-powerful router.

At the beginning of the post I described a common problem of a wireless signal that is not strong enough to reach across the house.  We took the router we just hacked put it into ‘Repeater Bridge’ mode and put it in between the new router and our destination.  To see how to turn your router into Repeater mode click here.

Once you start exploring your router if you have any questions about the features, you can find most of the answers at the dd-wrt wiki page.

Sony’s new camera sports a 24.3MP sensor and a one of a kind OLED viewfinder.  The base price for this camera is $1,399 or your can get the kit with the 16-50mm f/2.8 for $1,999.  That is an impressive kit lens to come up with a camera. I am excited to see that this camera while very light with its magnesium alloy body, still has the bulk and size you want with a top of the line DSLR.  I have shot with Sony’s recently released A33 and A55 and the cameras just didn’t have the size that you want in a good DSLR.

The translucent mirror technology Sony is adding to these cameras is nothing but impressive.  The A77 is capable of 12 frames per second shooting at full resolution.  I can’t think of any other camera capable of that and I know there isn’t one anywhere near this price range. Because of the translucent mirror technology the camera is constantly refocusing during the shooting burst.  The same is true when it comes to the A77′s video mode. The A77 is capable of true 1080/60p HD video captured in AVCHD.  The translucent mirror makes the autofocusing in video mode very fast and will drastically improve the video experience.

I found a Youtube video with a member of the Sony camera team talking about all the features of the new camera that is very worth watching to learn more:

I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these cameras and start shooting.  I still think I am going to hold out to see what Canon releases in early 2012.  But with my current collection of Sony lenses this camera is itching to jump into my bag.

I finished up the project that I was working on and walked outside on the balcony to see if there was any unusual reactions from people on the street.  I watched people just walking down the sidewalk and going about their normal business.  Finally a lady steps off her patio and makes a comment to a meter maid about the tremble and I had my first verification that something happened.

Next step was pick up my phone and turn to Twitter to see if there was any indication on the social media site as to an earthquake in DC. News of the quake was filling my Twitter stream.  Within just a few minutes I knew the epicenter and magnitude of the quake.  Also knew that it was felt not only in the Washington DC area but up and down the East coast from New York down to South Carolina.

I think the earthquake in DC today, while not causing any major damage, highlights a serious problem with the transportation in the city during an emergency.  The streets became gridlock as most of the people working in buildings downtown were evacuated and given the rest of the day off.  The Metro system became a complete calamity. I needed to get from downtown to a meeting at Alexandria, VA.  I walked into the Metro station at Farragut West and was greeted by an insanely packed platform.  There were people that couldn’t even come down the escalator onto the platform because there was no more room.  Every single train that pulled up was completely packed as it pulled to the station from people who had gotten on up the track.  We were finally able to squeeze on to the 8th train that came through our station.  As we pulled up to the next station on the route we were greeted by another extremely packed platform and couldn’t accomodate any of the travelers on our train.

It was an extremely interesting day in Washington, and I easily survived my first earthquake.  I really hope that an event like this can bring attention to a much larger transportation issue in the city.  If there were a serious disaster inside the city people would be trapped for a long period of time.

Well when this impulsive day finally came several years ago, I found my self standing in a Best Buy in Augusta, GA look at the newly release Sony Alpha A100.  This was an open box item at the store and looked to be pretty good so I walked out the door with it ready to learn.  As anyone who has a DSLR camera knows your camera is nothing with lenses, so I began to collect my stockpile of glass to accompany my Sony camera.

A few years later that particular camera was stolen and my insurance gave me the money to replace it so I went to the next option in the Sony family the A350.  This has been a fantastic camera for me and I have had a wonderful time shooting with it.  I have spent a lot of time wondering in parks and around town snapping photos and trying to find interesting things to capture.

Lately, I have been learning a lot more about photography and want to step up my game  to the next level.  Here enters my dilemma!  I really want to move up to a full-frame camera and I want to have the option to shoot quality video where ever and when ever I feel like it.

I have already made a fairly substantial investment into Sony lenses that currently fit my A350 and it would be very easy to stay in the Sony family and upgrade to a better body.  Sony has an impressive camera coming out later this Fall in the A77.  While not a full-frame sensor this camera utilizes Sony’s mirror-less technology and will be capable of shootign up to 12 fps and pack a 24.3 MP Exmor HS CMOS sensor.  Sony recently leaked a video for this upcoming camera that highlights it’s “dust and moisture barrier”.

My other option is the follow-up to one of the most popular cameras on the market.  The Canon 5D Mark iii should be hitting the market hopefully in early 2012.  This camera is going to be awesome because its predecessor the 5d Mark ii is awesome.  This camera would satisfy my desire for a full-frame sensor and 1080p video recording.  The negative side of this camera is I will have to start from square one with lenses and begin all over again.

If I wanted to change songs or videos without starting iTunes or changing the volume on the laptop I would have to cover the Infrared (IR) sensor.  I have found myself actually putting a cover over the IR sensor before to make sure my remote doesn’t interfere with the laptop.

I went searching through my Mac OS X Lion (10.7) settings to find discover how to turn the IR port off and it wasn’t that hard once you know where to look.

-> Open up the System Preference Folder -> and select Security and Privacy.

**To make any changes in this box you might need to click the padlock in the bottom left corner and enter your admin password to enable changes to be made.

Once you have enabled changes to be made, simply but a check in the “Disable remote control infrared receiver” box and you will be good to go.

I have done this once before in May 2010 when waiting for the launch of the 3G iPad.  For those who don’t remember or didn’t care at the time, when Apple originally launched the iPad, they first launched the Wi-Fi only version then a month later launched the 3G version.

For the iPad 2 it was everyone on the same day, and this made the lines considerably longer.  I also think that a number of non early-adopters probably waited for the second generation to hop on the iPad bandwagon.