John Michl

I’ve got a lot of techie stuff in my home.  At last count, 3 Macs, 6 PCs, 4 TiVos, 1 DSLR, 3 digital point and shoots, 1 HD Camcorder, 1 Drobo, probably 6 or 7 TB of storage 4 cell phones, 6 iPod.  Do I need to go on?   All that stuff creates data which needs to be handled in some way shape or form.  That’s precisely the reason I think the new site Managing Your Digital Life will be a great help to me.  Initial articles talk about home storage and Drobo use for storage and backup.

That’s great for me since I added this Drobo to my home tech a few months ago and I’m still contemplating the best way to use it.  I bought two 1 TB Western Digitals just two months ago for $139.  Check out the price today!  Dropping fast.  (Be sure to click on the links below to see if there are rebates.  Last time I checked, the Drobo was $50 less that the listed price.

I don’t have an iPhone or iPodTouch yet.  I’m waiting for my killer app before I break my Verizon contract and jump.  The app for me would be the ultimate podcast player.  As I’ve shown in other posts, I jump through a few hoops to manage my podcasts (see here and here).  This helps the workflow associated with download, listening and removing and with a few AppleScripts it isn’t to cumbersome.

My bigger issue is capturing notes and bookmarking specific portions of podcasts and audiobooks so that I can quickly retrieve those notes when I get out of my car.  For instance, I’d like to be listening to a podcast via bluetooth headset, be struck with an insight based on the content, press the button on my bluetooth, speak a quick note or two, then get back to listening.  When I’m out of the car and back to the office or syncing with my Mac, I could pull up a list of “notes” and the app would show me a list of all files that had attached notes, allow me to skip directly to that spot of the podcast or audio book, play back the note and perhaps the section of the podcast…you get the idea.

I thought maybe the iPhone version of Evernote could work but a few conversations with the developer pointed out some limitations with iPhone in that it doesn’t run multiple apps at once. So that indicates that I’d need an all-in-one solution.  Unfortunately, it looks like Apple may not allow that app to be created. A new iPhone app, Podcaster, may not make it to the app store having been rejected by Apple because:

Apple Rep says: Since Podcaster assists in the distribution of podcasts, it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.

This app isn’t exactly what I’m looking for but the developer’s experience would indicate that the journey may be tough.  It’s really a shame that a helpful $4.99 app can’t make it to the store but the $1000 I Am Rich app can.  Come on Apple.  We expect better from you.

David Pogue’s blog on the NY Times site is one of my favorites.  (Pogue is author of several of theMissing Manual books such as my favorite Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual.)

The other day he published his gaget list for 2008.  Several of his choices match mine.  For the entire list go here.  We match (or are close) on D-SLR, Camcorder and DVR.  See the details after the jump.

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I’ve been using Notepad++ Portable — an open source text editor — for off-line blog post prep. This open source program is available as a Portable app at http:\\portableapps.com. Recently, I’ve been receiving a “config.xml failed” error when loading the app. This was followed by a “stylers.xml failed” error. Notepad++ still worked but the skin changed and settings seemed to be lost. I found the file in the folder \PortableApps\Notepad++Portable\App\Notepad++ and since it had a file length of zero, I assumed it was corrputed. I renamed this file to config.old and that did the trick for both errors. Next time I loaded Notepad++ a new config.xlm file appeared, this one with an 8/16/2007 date. My guess is that when the app doesn’t find the config.xlm file in the appropriate folder, it copies the original from a different folder. I’m not sure how this happened by I’d bet a nickel I yanked out my USB drive before shutting down the app and that corrupted the file. Thanks to Bill Weber for an article that pointed me in the correct direction.

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts on my iPod. Though the process works “ok”, I frequently dream of the ultimate player. Here’s my list. What would you add?

• Ability to control the speed of MP3 files (I currently convert to M4B to accomplish this)
• Ability to place index marks in large files while listening to bookmark key points
• Ability to place chapter marks similar to Audible (probably done on the computer)
• Ability to annotate on the fly (I usually listen in the car and often want to capture a key point or make an observation. Currently, I carry a digital recorder to do this. I stop the iPod. Start the recorder and capture the title, the time location of the track and my key thoughts or notes. It works but would be much better if I could do it all on the same device.)
• Better yet, be able to quickly fast forward to my indexed marks.
• Mark tracks with status by using a button on the player. It would be great to push a button to indicate things like: remove from player on next sync, remove from player and computer, in progress, finished listening, save for review, etc.

What would you add to the ultimate player?

I’ve been meaning to tell the world of this product for sometime. The Sharper Image PowerTie Motorized Tie Rack is one excellent product! At first I thought it was pricey but I have so many neckties that the weight of them was slowing down my old tie rack to the point that it was unusable.  This unit can be attached to a standard closet rod or a wire closet system.  It is extremely quick and quiet and apparently efficient since I haven’t changed the batteries once in over six months.  An optional AC adapter is available.  I’m glad I didn’t buy it since it really isn’t necessary.  It is available at Amazon.com and Sharper Image.

Last week I stopped in at Verizon since I’m about due for a new phone. Since I’ve been PDAless for a few years, I felt ready to upgrade from my RAZR to a Treo or Q to get PDA functionality. Long story short — I learned I’d need to buy a monthly data plan in order to use one of those phones. Since I only want to sync with my computer, I don’t want or need a data plan. A few months ago a friend mentioned that he used SyncCell with his RAZR. I downloaded and installed the free trial, connected my RAZR via a USB cable and presto, in five minutes my entire Outlook and Calendar are on my phone. Why didn’t I try this earlier? The program can sync via cable or Bluetooth and they offer both on the web-site. I decided to try the Nikon USB cable I use to download photos from my D80.  It even charges the phone! Works like a charm! Well worth the $25.

Here’s a great gadget to simplify tripping the shutter without touching the camera. I use one with my Nikon D80 but it also works with similar Nikon cameras. The ML-L3 is about the length of my thumb and not much thicker that the disk battery that powers it. I picked one up at a local camera store but later found it for half the price on Amazon.

See my full product review as posted on Amazon.com.

It helps to know about the camera’s shooting modes. Here’s a short cNet video on setting shooting modes for Nikon digital SLRs like my D80.