Two weeks ago I came across this post on The Verge that talked about using CardDAV and CalDAV to sync Google information to iOS devices which, along with the new GMail app promised better synchronization and better battery life and a break from the current ActiveSync/Exchange method I had been using. I’ve been using multiple Google Calendars for personal and family items but my personal contacts were all in my Outlook account at work. I decided it was probably a good idea to clean all of that out and move it elsewhere.
Microsoft Surface RT tablet
Last month I picked up a 32gb Microsoft Surface RT tablet as a combined birthday/Christmas present for my daughter. In a bit of pre-planning I upgraded her laptop to Windows 8 so she had time to get familiar with the new OS before she finally got the tablet last week. So far, it’s been a hit, despite some of the setbacks of WinRT, but I’ll get into those later.
Disney Cruise: back home (and recap)
No sleeping in today! We woke up early (6:30am) to find the ship already docked back in Port Canaveral. Since we were using the Express Walk-Off service we decided to skip breakfast on the ship and just debark and get through customs. In hindsight, we should have not been in such a rush to leave, but being one of the first families to debark meant no lines at all. In fact, by 7:15am we were through customs and 15 minutes later we were in the car and on the road home.
Disney Cruise: Day 3
After turning in late (early) last night I ended up sleeping in a bit this morning. When I woke up around 8:00am my daughter had just woken up herself and my wife had gone to exercise in the fitness center. At some point overnight (or earlier that morning) the Dream had docked at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas.
Disney Cruise: Day 2
This morning we awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas.
Hard to have a bad day starting off with a view like that …
Disney Cruise: Day 1
Well, a ship, actually. For the next three days we’re on the Disney Dream, cruising to the Bahamas on a short family vacation for Thanksgiving.
GoalZero Rock Out portable speaker
The GoalZero Rock Out portable rechargeable speaker, which I received as a recent birthday present, is the latest addition to my solar-chargeable gadget collection.
The Rock Out unzips around its edges (like a suitcase) to reveal the on/off switch, mini-USB port for charging, audio input jack, and audio output cable. The other half contains a mesh pocket just the right size to hold your smartphone. Fire up your favorite music app, plug in the cable, turn on the speakers, zip up the package, and you’re ready for music on the go. A set of elastic straps along the back make it relatively easy to attach the Rock Out to the handlebars of your bike or just about anywhere. The sound quality is excellent and the speakers are loud, although there are no external volume controls: you have to use the volume on your phone which is a bit of a pain since it involves having to unzip the pouch to access the device (not an easy feat while riding a bike!).
While the Rock Out isn’t a formal part of our hurricane evacuation kit, the fact that it can be charged via the solar panels I already have means it will definitely come with us should that time ever come. For now, though, the Rock Out (plus iHeartRadio on my iPhone) is serving its primary purpose as an entertainment device on our family bike rides.
Switching from Jungle Disk to SpiderOak
Back in October 2007 I started using Jungle Disk and Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) for my online backups. At the time, it was one of the cheapest and more reliable ways of backing up my important documents across multiple platforms (Windows and Linux) to the cloud. Even after Rackspace acquired Jungle Disk in 2008, I continued to use (and be very satisfied with) the service as I was grandfathered into the one-time $20 payment for lifetime use of the client along with the $1/month Plus service for web access and uploading changes only (instead of the entire file, to save time). In 2010, Jungle Disk released an iOS app that let me access my stored files on my iPhone. But after all of that, support seemed to drop off and the last software update (v3.16) was back in May 2011. Still, everything was working fine and I wasn’t really considering switching, until I heard Steve Gibson echo a similar sentiment about the fall of Jungle Disk on episode #373 of his Security Now! podcast.
I decided to start looking into possible replacements for Jungle Disk, so I went back through episode #349 of Security Now! when Leo and Steve discussed some other available cloud storage solutions and really liked SpiderOak due to its “no knowledge” security policy, which fit with Steve’s mantra of “trust no one” (TNO).
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Quest for the Quantal Quetzal
My server upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) to the newly released 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) tonight was one of the smoothest for me in recent memory. The only problem I had this time around was an issue with ZoneMinder due to some “non-standard” symlinks I was using. Once I corrected those, the package upgraded without incident. The only other minor problem was due to the use of smbfs for my NAS mounts. I just had to switch the type to cifs in /etc/fstab and re-mount the shares. Now I’m set until Raring Ringtail next year.
Windows 8 RTM … accepting the inevitable
A few weeks ago we got the Windows 8 RTM at work and started installing and upgrading the operating system on our IT machines to get a jump on learning our way around Microsoft’s latest OS before rolling it out to the rest of the office.
I’ve been using the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 on my main machine at work since it was released back in March and while the final RTM version is faster and slightly more polished, not much has changed since the CP, including the fact that I’m still not enamored with Microsoft’s latest desktop offering.
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