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So Apple has released their long awaited (at least by the tech community) tablet computer, the iPad. If you missed the announcement the iPad is a notepad sized device that is essentially a larger version of the iPhone without the phone. It has a 9.3 inch touch screen, runs similar software to the iPhone operating system, and is available with either 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes of storage. (continue reading…)

In an effort to jumpstart activity on this site (and by that I mean my activity) I am testing out a new design. Let me know what you think.

I am leaving tomorrow for a trip back home to Florida. Hopefully I will be able to find time post while I am there. It should not be a problem seeing as I am taking my Macbook Pro as well as my brand new Nokia N800. That’s right, I decided to go with the N800 as my new mobile device. You would think that between those two devices I would be all set for mobile work, and I am as long as I have a cell signal. The problem is that coverage where I will be is spotty and a broadband connection non-existent. Once way or another I will finish up my promised post on my N800 impressions and get it posted soon.

Sorry for the long absence folks but I am still trying to get everything settled out with my house and new job. Speaking of the house, it is kind of funny but I have to admit that there is serious lack of technology used on it so far. The company I have hired to build it is owned and operated by local Mennonites. Since my house will basically be a finished in barn it is being built in the traditional pole barn style and pretty much by hand. It is a neat reminder of how hard work and ingenuity can equal if not exceed the technology used in modern construction.

On the technology front I am in the market for a new mobile device to augment my Macbook Pro while on the road and roaming around away from my desk (which seems to be an increasing trend). I am leaning toward a Nokia N800 on the recommendation of Matt Miller (aka palmsolo). I will post more info on what I purchase once I make up my mind and of course I will post on how it works out as well.

“The devil is in the details” is how the old saying goes and while most people roll their eyes at old truisms such as that it is still an everyday fact that a lot of a person’s work is judged by their attention to detail. I spent most of my day today trying to get a single new server installed in a server rack. A vendor had recently installed some equipment and let’s just say that their focus was not on running any of the cables neatly. Since space is limited trying to work around the mess the left behind just made my job more difficult. While the vendor left a good impression when they were on site that impression has been tarnished by having to cleanup after them. If the vendor had just taken a little extra time with the details it would have made their first impression a lasting one. The lesson as I see it is to make sure you take the extra time with the details as they can really add up.

You just have to start your first post that way for some reason. Anyway, welcome to Cadiztech.com. It seemed fitting to start our life in a new place with a new website and domain. The result is this site. Please excuse the dust as I move in and get settled.
My plan for this site is to provide a view of the role technology plays in rural life. Besides living in a small town in the backwoods of Kentucky my family also runs a small farm so keep an eye http://www.RivendelFarms.com as I get that site up and running as well.

Stay tuned there’s more to come.

How awesome is this? This is how I see our schools going if they would just accept the future:

A school in Arizona will be the first school in the state to go completely wireless and use laptops in class. On-line texts and white papers will make up their reading material.

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Don’t know much, just switched on the TV, London tube system as apprently been shut down.Two tubes have crashed, A Bomb has blown up a bus, thats about all i know. Link goes to BBC. I don’t know if it was a terrorist attack, but we’ll see.

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Recently I have found myself drawn into what seems to be the latest craze in technology; the ability to retrieve audio and video content straight from the internet. While this sounds like something that we have had for a while now I am referring to two specific aspects of this, Podcasts and IPTV.

Podcast is just a tech term for basically radio shows (though most are just normal people recording shows on their computers, think pirate radio) that can be subscribed to and a program on your PC retrieves them for you as new programs you subscribe to are released. The term itself is a reference to the Apple iPod MP3 player but any mp3 player will work. You can also burn the files to CD and listen in a regular CD player which is the method I am using until I can get some problems with the input into my car radio worked out. Some of the shows I listen to are This Week in Tech (http://twit.tv), a technology discussion show, and Dragonpage (http://www.dragonpage.com), a fantasy literature discussion show. The best way to subscribe to podcasts is to use a program such as ipodder though Apple has just released a new version of their itunes program that may be more user friendly for nontechnical users (http://www.itunes.com). I also want to mention another awesome type of podcast; audio books. These audio books are audio books that you can subscribe to and every week a the next chapter of the book is pulled down to your PC. You can find some of these books at http://podiobooks.com. Hopefully more content will be made available in this format.

IPTV is an even cooler technology in my opinion. Basically you have people recording shows and making them available for download on the internet. Some great examples of this are Systm (http://systm.org), CommandN (http://www.commandn.tv), and From the Shadows (http://fromtheshadows.tv). While all of these shows are technology related I believe that there is a lot of potential in this technology for other types of shows to be made available in the future. This is especially true for shows that major networks seem to be avoiding (I will avoid the inevitable rant on “reality TV”… Anyway, check out both of these technologies, I am sure you will find something that you like.

Wow! Three months with no posts. I will get better I promise. Work has been insanely busy along with everything else I have going on. One day I will be able to actually write some of the technology articles that I think up but do not seem to have the time to actually write.