A Computer-less Vacation

My wife and I recently decided to go on our first parents only vacation to Puerto Rico. Now like any true geek dad, near the top of the required list for any vacation is the camera and the laptop (anything else can easily be replaced). Over the years each of these items has improved to bring us to the killer pair of a Canon Rebel T1i and a late 2006 MacBook, today.  Since we were trying to pack extra light I thought it would be the perfect time to try to go laptop free for a vacation. Note I said laptop free, but not tablet or smartphone free.  The iPad 2 and iPhone 4 rarely leave my sight and this trip would be no exception.  The iPhone would help us navigate the island and also let me tweet all about our vacation.  The iPad 2 would be my all purpose media source (books, movies and games) and more importantly using FaceTime we could video chat with the boys back at home.

So the first problem of video chatting was solved, by the iPad 2.  However, I still had two other problems to overcome before I would truly be able to enjoy my vacation.

Problem 1: No WiFi
It may be hard to believe, but after calling the hotel we found out that each room had free wired internet access, but WiFi was only available in common areas.  As much as I would love to do all my video chatting from the lobby of the hotel and all my web browsing on my phone over 3G; I had to get WiFi in the room.  I quickly ruled out lugging my Airport Extreme on vacation, so I quickly searched for travel modems and found the Zoom 4506 3G Travel WiFi Router.

It is a small WiFi router with an internal battery and also relatively native support for 3G data modems.  Most of the reviews were good plus it was only like $75 so I took a chance.  Once I got it home I set it up and began testing.  It was pretty easy to set up and after all my testing I was ready to go.

Problem 2: Downloading Photos from the Camera
The one thing I like to do on vacation is to upload photos while we are on vacation, to show friends and family what we are up to and also to take care of the work of doing while I have spare time.  Again the iPad 2 doesn't have native support for uploading photos from a camera.  Of course there is the Apple Photo Connector from Apple for $40, but I make it a point to avoid buying Apple brand adapters if possible (too expensive).  Lucky for me the Eye-Fi company had just announced a new version of their iOS application that would allow "Direct Mode" transfers from certain Eye-Fi cards.  Basically what this means is if you were out in the middle of the woods the Eye-Fi card can set itself up as a WiFi base station and the iOS device can connect to the network for transferring photos.  The previous version of the app supported transfer of photos, but it would only work if both devices were on the same wireless network. Since I also needed more storage space for my camera this seemed to be the best route.  For only a little more than a standard 8GB SD card I picked up the Eye-Fi Pro

Once the Eye-Fi card arrived I also did some dry runs with it at home.  The setup on this was a little more complex and took me quite a bit longer than the wireless router.  The one thing I found most frustrating was the apparent limitation of linking the card up to only one iOS device in direct mode at a time.  I was able to get both the iPhone and iPad configured to connect in Direct Mode with the card, but once I shut down the wireless network only one of the iOS devices would receive photos.  I don't exactly know why it works this way, but I have to assume there was some good reason for it.  In the end I had it working as I wanted prior to leaving.

In The Field
I packed all my essentials, made it through the stressful process of security at the airport and made it to our hotel in Puerto Rico. In practice the Eye-Fi worked flawlessly, the iPad quickly found it and the photos whizzed over the 802.11n connection.  When we were in the airport I actually turned on the camera, fired up the app and let the iPad download the photos while it was in my bag.  I think it took about an hour and a half to download 300 photos in RAW format (~15-20MB each).  I was very impressed with it and found it to be a great investment.

I didn't have the same luck with the Zoom modem. Initially when I plugged it into the ethernet port in our room it was connected, the iPad could get on the network, but couldn't reach the network.  I played around with the IP settings and eventually got it to work.  However, the next morning it didn't work again.  Let me disclaimer here that I think the problem was not with the router but instead with the network settings in the hotel.  In the end we were able to pick up WiFi in our room from the lobby so it worked out okay.

In the end I did drop the ball by not uploading any photos (sorry friends and family), but that was mostly because I was too busy relaxing.  I never really laid out a plan for how I would have done it, but I think Alex(@alexredsox) would say something about people having figured out how to do that and it would probably involve Picasa and email.

Oh yeah and we did have a great vacation, although sitting here two weeks later and it seems like we never went.

On to the Next One

I have decided to only post photos to Facebook going forward, since nobody was really aware of this blog anyway. Friend me if you wish to continue following me.

iPad 2 Announcement!!

On March 2nd Apple announced the new iPad 2 and based on most of the rumors leading up to the event proved true.  Smaller form factor, dual core chip, cameras, same price.  I am hoping to unload my old iPad and pick one of these up because well it's new, but also the smaller size and front facing camera are worth it for me.  Unfortunately Apple is selling the first generation for a discounted price, so I won't get as much return now as I would have a couple weeks ago.  Still I will end up paying only about $150 for a new one with half of that coming from change I have accumulated at work.

While the iPad2 seems like the biggest announcement from the other day I think there were to other things specifically in the little iOS 4.3 software update of more importance.  

First, is AirPlay video support availability in 3rd party apps.  This will let people view live video from the MLB At Bat app on the big screen (assuming MLB allows it).  My guess is that initially video apps like Hulu Plus, Xfinity Tv and the ABC player won't support it because they want people to get TV content from the cable providers.  However, with the new HDMI cable available for the iPad2 you can mirror your screen to the TV and see the content anyway (well played Apple).

The other big change in iOS 4.3, which seems like a small feature and doesn't seem very practical for everyday use is iTunes Home Sharing support. It basically allows you to play any content in your iTunes library on your iOS device.  All you have to do is enter credentials and be on the same network and you can watch a movie that is on your computer.  I could see maybe watching a movie on your iPad that you don't want to actually put on your iPad or maybe using your iPhone in an iPod dock to play music you don't typically keep on your iPhone.  

Okay so great I will use that feature once to try it out and then maybe a handful of times besides that if I even remember, but mostly it will go unused like Compass, Weather, Stocks and the Contacts apps on my iPhone.  Where this starts to get interesting is with Apple's rumored "cloud based" iTunes.  There are tons of rumors swirling about Apple doing something with the "cloud" and iTunes or MobileMe.  The most recent and ideal rumor is the ability to access any song you have purchased from iTunes via the "cloud". Your iPhone would no longer have music on it and instead would just let you stream any of your music over the internet.  You would also be able to get a new computer, login to iTunes and magically all of your music would download to the new computer (this is currently the case with App Store apps).  The rumors also expand on this to not only include music, but other types of media too, like photos, movies, etc...  I am looking forward to this because I wouldn't have to worry about running out of disk space anymore it would all get uploaded to the "cloud".  Anyway back to iTunes Home Sharing.  The biggest hurdle in making this dream a reality are the record companies.  It is in their best interest to make you buy new music for each device and also re-purchase music if you inadvertently deleted it.  What if iTunes Home Sharing wasn't limited to just being on the same local network, but was instead expanded to be the internet.  Now I would start using iTunes Home Sharing all of the time.  No more loading my iPhone with music instead I could just stream it.  No more picking and choosing which movies to put on my iPad, I would have access to all of them.  It wouldn't be as great as if it was stored at Apple, but it would go a long way to making my life easier.

So two small things that could dramatically change how we access media in the coming years, all released as part of a minor software update.  Steve Jobs should have saved them for his "One More Thing". Nice!!!

Lots O' Photos incl. K's Birthday

Samoas

Backyard Sledding

Kalebs Birthday

Backyard Hill

I <3 Snow

You know it is a snowy winter when I inadvertently create two picasa albums called More Snow. Needless to say we got more snow and I took a few photos. The snow has gotten somewhat out of hand as you can see from the photos. At this point Boston has 70 inches officially at the airport, so I imagine we have to have somewhere above that maybe 80 inches if I had to guess. We have been lucky enough to not have the storms change over to a mix or rain. In non-weather related news, Camden is finally feeling better after his respiratory virus, he was really good about using the nebulizer. Somehow magically after he was feeling better he was able to crawl and even pull himself up. So now he is Mr. Mobile and doesn't just nicely sit in one place. I am currently happy about this and think it is a dramatic improvement over the uselessness of just sitting in place even if it means we need to be a little more aware of him. Kaleb is finally sleeping through the night again and actually slept past 6AM today. We were also able to bribe him into being potty trained again by purchasing a toy helicopter and only letting him have it after 7 successful days of not having an "accident". I wanted to move it back a day every time he did have an accident, but we decided that might be too harsh. Okay so here are the photos.

More Snow

More Snow

We got more snow last Friday bringing our total on the group up above 30 inches and at this point I am running out of places to put the snow in the yard. I have been diligent about keeping the roof clean and even did my daring shoveling of the top roof.

Now that the snow has stopped the crazy cold air moved in and we were blasted with the coldest air since 2005. I think that is the same cold day when I took a bunch of photos of Boston Harbor. This morning it was -4 when I got in the car at 6AM. Luckily it is going to warm up and we are going to get 10-15 more inches of snow. Great!!


Here are photos of Kaleb and I snowshoeing in the back yard.

More Snow

2011 Photos

We have mostly stayed in for 2011, with the exception of a trip to IKEA and snowshoeing. Enjoy the photos, sorry I didn't get any from the big snowstorm.

New Year

Snowshoeing at Maudsley