chris | word

Today is the day women often make men feel bad because they’ve forgotten it’s Valentine’s Day. However, don’t worry because I don’t know any women like that so you don’t have to be concerned for me. My significant other doesn’t have those kinds of issues.

In fact, for me and mine today is just another Tuesday. However, that doesn’t mean that you guys out there with women who love these types of holidays shouldn’t get them something nice and make a big deal about them. It’s the right thing to do, especially if they care a lot about it.

In fact, if you’re with someone you love today and they love you, go with it. Relationships are hard and if you can find someone who will put up with your shit for days, weeks, months and years, that person deserves your respect and, let’s face it, your gratitude.

Besides, a few bucks for some flowers and maybe a box of candy isn’t all that much, is it? Come on, you can do it.

On another note, I’m still waiting for my Moccamaster to arrive from Portland and my new friends at Clive Coffee. According to the tracking info it should arrive tomorrow (that’s Wednesday). Needless to say, I’m quite excited. Still, I found it necessary to say it, didn’t I?

Anyway, I look forward to long sessions getting to know my Moccamaster and all of its workings. I’m also looking forward to some great coffee.

I may even make one for my significant other. She would probably like that. Sadly, I can’t do it today.

I’ll keep you posted.

It’s probably not a secret to anyone reading this that I love gadgets, tech and toys. As I’ve grown older, that love hasn’t lessened. Although, the quantity of gadgets, tech and toys may have decreased slightly, the quality (and the associated cost) has increased, so there’s that.

That’s just the “circle of life” or something. Anyway, that leads me to recent developments. One of these developments has to do with my search for the perfect way to make coffee at home.

Some of you may be shocked and wonder how I could betray my beloved Starbucks, Coffee Bean or various other establishments I frequent. It’s simple, really, I just want to do it at home so I get used to working at home again. I would also like to save some time where I can too.

On a busy morning, if I have to take the time to stop at Starbucks or wherever on the way somewhere else, it can often take quite a bit of time. So, in the interest of efficiency (and to save a buy or two, let’s face it) I’m going to make coffee at home.

During a previous attempt at this I had purchased one of the Tasimo devices that makes coffee from a capsule. The results were less than stellar. In fact, the coffee kinda sucked.

This time around I’ve done much more research and committed to a much better solution. At least I think it is.

I’ve decided that the only way to make it work at home is to get the best coffee maker you can get. That one, if you ask pretty much anyone who knows anything about it, is The Moccamaster.

That’s a picture of it right there. Nice, huh.

I expect this little beauty to arrive early next week and I will report back on how awesome it is. Yes, I expect it to be awesome.

In other news, I am also trying something else again that I had tried several years ago: going all-laptop and having no desktop Mac.

At this moment, I have two computers. One is a 27″ iMac and the other is my 13″ MacBook Air. I’m am giving the iMac to a worthy person (selling, actually) and will be using the MacBook Air exclusively from this point forward.

However, this choice does present a few problems. The first of which is my iTunes library is way too big to fit on the Air. So, for the moment, it will have to reside on an external drive. Not ideal.

Second, my iMac also served as the media and print server for the house. With it gone, certain people are going to have to go upstairs and connect to the printer via usb if they want to print. Also, not ideal.

So, that means I will most likely have to get some sort of computer to use as a file, media, print server and iTunes repository. That will most likely mean a Mac Mini.

Before you ask, I’m not considering a Windows or other solution at the moment. We’re too invested in Apple tech at home to try to make that work right now. Maybe if I get some more free time I can put together a nice Windows server instead.

For now, it will probably be a Mac Mini running Apple’s Lion Server that will take on those duties at home. Plus I would like to work with Lion Server a bit more so the new Mini serves that purpose as well.

Of course, if I’m going to be using the MacBook Air as my only machine from this time forward, I kinda think it should be the latest model, don’t you? Just go with me here, okay? The one I have know is a 13″ 2.13 Ghz Core 2 Duo with 256 GB SSD.

I feel a newer 13″ MacBook Air i7 would be better for the tasks to come. Plus, I would like to give my previous generation Air to someone I think will like it. Yeah, that’s good reason.

So, lots of changes coming in my tech world. Fortunately, I don’t mind change all that much — especially when it brings newer, shinier toys.

If you’re a person who uses a computer and, more to the point, an input device known as a keyboard on a daily basis for hours at a time, having a good one is highly necessary. In fact, not having one can often lead to bad results for hands, wrists, back and more.

So, over the years as I’ve written and done other work requiring long hours using a keyboard (I currently use an Apple Wireless Keyboard or the one on the MacBook Air), I’ve always been in search of a good one. Notice I didn’t say a “great” one.

I hesitate to use the word “great” because I’ve yet to find one I even consider good. Sure, many of the ones I’ve tried over the years have been decent. Some could even be considered close to good. None were even close to great though.

This brings me to the problem at, well, hand. Or, hands as the case may be. I need to find a great keyboard. I say a great keyboard because I think at this point only a great keyboard can help me.

It’s the hands, you see, they are hurting. Yes, over the years I’ve developed some pain in my fingers from all the oh so important typing. So now, I need to do something about it or pretty soon I won’t be able to type at all. The horror!

I really don’t care at this point how much it costs, just that it helps and helps me keep working. Although, as someone who’s paid both very little and quite a bit for keyboards over the years, I’m not entirely sure price is the total arbiter of “great.” If it was, I would probably have found that “great” keyboard long ago.

Given the above, I’m now in search of the perfect keyboard. If you have any thoughts on the subject, feel free to let me know. I will also be doing my research and buying several to try out over the next few weeks.

I will, of course, report on what I find out, if anything. I know there’s a lot of choices out there but based on past experience, I’m not all that optimistic.

Still, miracles do happen and I’m the kind of person who tries to keep an open mind. So, let the search commence and may the best keyboard win.

I think in the spirit of trying to make things work, and also challenging myself a bit, I’m going to try to use the iPad 2 as a writing/blogging tool as often as I can. Let this post serve as the first-ish example of that.  
 
I say -ish because I’ve already done at least one or two with the iPad 2, but that was before. Now, I’m going to take it more seriously and consider it more of an experiment, or test , then I did before.  
 
One of the first questions to ask when embarking on a journey such as this is do I use the built-in keyboard on the iPad 2 or do I use an external one? It’s an important question because, to be honest, my fingers do get kinda sore when using just the iPad 2′s touchscreen keyboard.  
 
However, that may be more a function of the fact that by the time I start using the iPad I’ve already been typing for a few hours. Maybe my fingers would hurt no matter what? I suspect they would.  
 
So, with that in mind I think I will try to use the touchscreen keyboard for now and see how it goes. I’ve got an extra Bluetooth keyboard I could use but that sorta defeats the purpose of using the iPad if you have the also lug around a keyboard.  
 
At any rate, I’ll know soon enough if my fingers can’t take it and then I will consider other options. Fortunately, as I discussed in an earlier post, the rest of the writing/blogging experience shouldbe pretty good on the iPad 2.  
 
I guess I’ll find out.  
 
In case you’re the sort of person who likes to know the more technical, nuts and bolts kinds of things, I’m going to list the tools I will be using during this experiment. Here they are:  
 
Apple iPad 2 (of course) – Apple’s device excels at so many things and has a battery that lasts a long time. It has become an indispensable part of my daily work (and fun).  
 
Blogsy – This is the primary blogging app I’m using. It allows for complete control over posts and offers the ability to insert photos and video. Pretty much everything you need and pretty easy to figure out and use.  
 
IResize – This is a great app that allows you to resize images to fit in a blog post or other writing. You can load any picture from your Photos on the iPad and change the size, resolution, etc. and then save the changed version for use in other apps like Blogsy.  
 
IAWriter – This app let’s you get back to basics and just write. It removes distractions and lets you focus on the words. Plus, it syncs with Apple’s iCloud and its own OS X desktop version to allow you to work on whatever you want and have it available on the iPad or your Mac with whatever changes you’ve made already there and synced.  
 
Other tools:  
 
Pages – Appple’s own writing App is pretty good and I used it quite a bit before IA Writer and Blogsy came into the picture. Now I use it less frequently, especially as oit doesn’t support sync across the mobile and desktop versions using iCloud as IA Writer does. At least not yet.  
 
FDX Reader – Sadly, my favorite screenwriting app Final Draft doesn’t have and iPad version yet. I’ve been assured one is on the way, but until then, I still need to use the MacBook Air when I want to write in Final Draft.  
 
However, I can at least read scripts in Final Draft format (instead of PDF) on the iPad by using the terrific FDX Reader app. This app allows you to load scripts written in Final Draft and saved as .fdx files and view them in their native format. Very useful and saves you the time and effort of saving scripts as .pdf files plus if your a writer on the go or collaborating with another writer it also makes it easier to quickly review the current draft.  
 
So, this is my challenge and those are the tools of choice. Of course, figuring out what you want to do and choosing the tools to accomplish a task is often the easy part. 

The hard part is doing the actual writing. I’m goin’ in, wish me luck.  
 
 
 

For more on my quest for the new iPhone 3G on Friday (aka iPhone day), check out this post over at TUAW where I detail the day for you.

Also, as time goes on, look for more about my experiences with the new iPhone 3G. Meantime, here’s a nice pic of the new device side by side with the old one. FYI, the new one is the one the left. You can tell because its slightly wider and also has that cool “3G” logo in the upper left corner.

Its been a long process, but I’ve finally managed to set up every bit of my home entertainment center. The biggest pain was running all the cables and trying to find enough power and the best way to have all the devices that need the internet be able to connect. But finally, it is done.

Here’s a pic of the final setup. For a bigger one, complete with notes, check out the photo on flickr.

I don’t need it but, of course, I really want it. I wonder if they’re taking orders. Check it out.

I like to take pictures. It’s really fun and sometimes even results in a great photo or two that I can be proud of. So, owning several digital cameras (and a few film ones still as well) was not a hard decision for me. That’s my new digital SLR in the photo there. The Nikon D300. A great camera.

So, if you’re still wondering what to get that special someone on your list why not be like thousands of others these days and get him/her a digital camera too? They’re fun and mostly easy to use and let you have a camera ready when you really need one. But now that you’ve decided to get some sort of digital camera, which one do you get? Its a tough decision and one with a lot of variables.

Fortunately, some people have taken most of the guesswork out of it and put together a few ideas on how to select the right digital camera. Interested? Well then, head on over here for the help you need on digital camera selection. Or, if you’re like me and want more from your cameras and don’t mind spending extra to get it, check out this guide to picking the right digital SLR camera.

Happy Shooting!

Yes, I managed to snag one on Friday (the 8gb model, btw). Yes, its very, very cool. Yes, I will have more to say about it. Yes, I can’t say it here (blame AOL, not me). So please, look elsewhere for all things iPhone from me and other far more intelligent people. In fact, why not go here.

No, I’m still sticking with WordPress but I’m moving to a new host that will give me better control over the site. WordPress is a great program and I will continue to use it over at the new host.

For the next day or two we may experience some issues as the URL of this here site changes hands to new hosts. I appreciate your patience and promise that this will be the last time I move this site around. Well, probably the last time anyway.

In the meantime, check out my article at LAist concerning the new AppleTV. Should you get one? Read and see.