Was reading David Pogue’s post on “Why We Make Home Videos“, and it brings up thoughts of my own, some of which I have shared in earlier blog posts – which ironically, I have no idea if they are archived.
Growing up, we had film cameras, we’d have to take the film canisters to the little Fotomat booth and come back when the film was developed and get our prints and negatives back. Those little envelopes fit neatly into shoeboxes, which filled up and stacked in the closets of America. If you ever wanted to relive some moments, you’d pull down the shoebox and rifle through the prints. This means of archiving memories had worked for nearly 100 years, and new generations didn’t have a learning curve to view the images. If someone died, their relatives would inherit the shoe boxes for their own closets. If a fire or flood hit your home, it was a great tragedy that those memories might be forever lost.
Here we are in 2010. I know no one who owns a film camera any more. Digital cameras are cheap and ubiquitous. In a pinch, your mobile phone likely has a decent quality still and/or video camera built right in. The hard drive has taken the place of the shoebox. When the hard drives fill, we’re offloading media (no longer “pictures”, but “media” or “content”) on to compact discs or DVD’s. Now, with broadband becoming faster and more reliable, physical recordable media is becoming unnecessary.
Which leads me to a problem. I have physical photographs, negatives, slides, 8MM video, MiniDV video, digital photos, digital video (in a variety of formats/codecs), stacks and stacks of CD-based media and terabytes of hard drive storage. I see a huge market need for easy, reliable, disaster and future-proof archiving, search and delivery. This is going to require an unprecedented focus on simplicity and harmony between hardware, software, mini and macro network services.
This is why I think Apple is uniquely positioned to own this market. I see a need for a home media “appliance” that literally sits in the garage or water heater closet. This device is easy to upgrade from a hardware and software standpoint. It has copious local storage, supplies secure home networking services, and is constantly backed up using cloud computing services. Every device in your life that connects to the internet syncs with this home server. Your PC, TV tuner, music library, car, mobile phone, digital camera, iPod – and those of your immediate family – are managed through a central device. You can access that server from anywhere. Watch your favorite TV shows on an international flight. Share family photos without having to fill up local storage on your phone. If your house burns down, the offsite, automated backups give you peace of mind to ensure uninterrupted access to your stuff. Oft overlooked but equally important is the need for this media to be available to devices that haven’t been invented yet. And for future devices to plug and play on this home server.
The really fun thing is the additional information about our lives that is being saved for future generations. This is why I’m going to just laugh when my daughter digs up my old Twitter feed. “What’s Twitter?”
In the meantime, until all this gee-whiz technology comes out, I’m doing all this manually. I have a couple terabytes in a RAID array holding my music, videos and photos. I’m looking into a service like Mozy for offsite backups, but because I have so many devices, I want it to all be in one place, not several. Finally, one day I’m going to have to teach my daughter how to digitize all the physical media. Even household chores have changed in the digital age.
What’s your digital archiving strategy? What are your grandkids going to root through when they come to visit?
Seeing as the iPhone mows down battery power like a kid powers through French fries, you have to wonder what would happen in the event of an emergency like the folks in Haiti are experiencing. This article depicts one entrepreneur making a power strip out of a board and a few wall outlets nailed together. Then, he rents a connection by the hour for people to recharge their phones. I am assuming he’s got it plugged into a generator, as much of their electrical grid is kaput.
Makes you think about the electronics gear you can’t do without, or consider essential to a survival situation. I have an Eton emergency radio with crank power and cell-phone recharger. Might also be worth investing in a solar cell recharger as well.
Set up a new website and twitter account for a project I’ve been contemplating for a while now. The Gentleman’s Kitchen is a collection of stories, tips, product recommendations, recipes and information for bachelors wanting to step up their game in the kitchen. Based on personal experience, experiments gone wrong (and right), and a necessity to cook for one and sometimes two – I am hoping the site finds an audience of people with similar interests.
Go check it out. I’ll be posting and tweeting new stuff a few times a week. Follow @GentsKitchen for updates.
Well, maybe. For those that remember the PJK Podcast, I started it in (geez) December 2004, and it ran for a few years before I finally faded out. The topic was applying technology and digital media to everyday life. If I read my stats right, at its height, I had around 150 subscribers, which is amazing considering I only put up a show when I felt like it.
I think the original concept is still good, and there’s plenty of things to cover. However, I think the execution needs to be cleaned up a bit.
The name needs to change. Needs to be simple and describe what the show is.
Weekly, monthly, daily, random? What should my publishing schedule look like?
Show format. It’s kind of lonely just doing my rants. Should I fold in Skype calls? Do the show live on Ustream? Take questions via Twitter? Get a co-host? Have a different guest each show? Audio-only? Video? Enhanced AAC?
How would you want to get the show? Off this site? A dedicated site? RSS subscription? Would you listen on your mobile or portable music player? At home, work, the car, on the toilet?
Or, did you hate the show anyway, and think I should just STFU?
I would appreciate any and all comments you have. Feel free to leave them here, or hit me up on Twitter @pjk, or Facebook. Thanks for your support!
Never mind that my laundry pile is higher than the light switch in the closet, or my little 110V stack washer/dryer unit can only do one of those things at a time, or that its capacity is about six shirts. Never mind that I’ve been slowly chipping away at Mt. Laundry for the past month with no visible dent. Never mind that I’ve been battling digestive issues and now am in the throes of a full-on fever and flu. Never mind that my clean sock and underwear supply is completely depleted and I’m forced to wear the “gift” ones with hearts and Homer Simpsons on them.
My housekeepers, in addition to their expected bi-weekly chores of changing out bedsheets, vacuuming, etc. felt it upon themselves to descend deep into the depths of Mt. Laundry, mine out every single one of my socks and underwear, and run them all through the wash. In my moment of despair and sickness, I open the dryer and discover a mother lode of exactly what I need. Chicken soup and Zicam are ok for a flu, but nothing serves a core basic human need like a warm fresh pair of drawers.
Oh, did I mention they cleaned my BBQ grill as well? When’s the last time someone did you a solid as awesome as that?
I really think you should lay off the self-congratulatory marketing campaigns until you can do what a cellular phone network should be able to do on day one: make calls. Seriously. Feature number one should be making and maintaining a voice connection long enough to (call me crazy) have a conversation. I live in Los Angeles, California. Go look at a map – you’ll notice it is one of the major cities in California. Arguably the world. How is it that your investment in building a “3G network” could overlook simple voice connectivity in a major market like this? It is quite pathetic that I can’t have a one minute conversation with my daughter across town without having to redial her three times.
I have a thing that I do now, whenever a call is dropped mid-sentence. I call the person back and before continuing the conversation, I say the following:
The preceding awkward moment of silence has been brought to you by AT&T, the network with the fewest dropped calls.
You may remember that line from one of your previous marketing campaigns. That was the one you ran when I first bought my iPhone. I love my iPhone. I think it’s an amazing device, and millions of others do, too. Have you noticed that literally EVERY negative point made about the device has to do with the network it runs on? I have. AT&T is the single largest detriment to the iPhone ownership experience. I know Apple is getting paid billions of dollars for a window of iPhone exclusivity, but that window is going to close sometime. At which time, the only barrier to switch – once the US carrier networks get to compete on service, features and coverage, not exclusivity – will be your cancellation fee. Money well spent. Enjoy the forthcoming spike in churn. You earned it.
Oh, this is cooler than I thought it would be! I have a great new print by one of my favorite artists, Josh Agile, AKA Shag. This is called “Day of the Tiki”. It’s huge, and has a lot of cool “stories” to tell. I walk you through it in the video. Enjoy! What a perfect companion to watching the Series 3 premiere of “Mad Men”.
While I use my grill year-round, there’s just something special about grilling in the summer. Maybe it’s because I have to bring my “A-game” since everyone else is grilling too. Some of my most creative work comes out in the summer.
I have a few New York steaks I’m going to grill tonight. Here’s the marinade I made up on the spot and whipped up in the Vita-Mix. From the smell alone, this is going to be fresh, savory and just a little smoky. And it looks kind of electric green. Like those Jell-O shots that got you into so much trouble in college.
2 cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 orange bell pepper, seeded
1 yellow bell pepper, seeded
8 cloves garlic
1 fistful fresh cilantro
1 green onion
1 three-inch jalepeno, seeded
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2-3 shakes of liquid smoke
Throw all the above into a blender, preferably a good one. Blend until a smooth puree. Should be an electric green color and smell awesome. Place steaks in a baking dish and pour mixture over the top. Refrigerate for a few hours.
Then grill those suckers.
I also made a BBQ sauce that I may decide to serve on the side. This works great on burgers as a substitute for ketchup.
1 can tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
Several shakes liquid smoke
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp sea salt
All ingredients into the blender. Blend into a puree. Refrigerate what you don’t use.
So what’s on YOUR grill this summer? Hit me up in the comments below.
