New Ricky and Lucy at Play video uploaded to my YouTube Feed:

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Tags: ricky, lucy, pembroke, pet, chihuahua, corgi, video, puppy

So I jumped on the Twitter Bandwagon. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/jedimstr or check out the Jedi's Lair Twitter page on the left Nav Menu.

A great Explanation video about Twitter from Common Craft:


Twitter doesn't just let you track your friends, people you know or want to know; through it's Public timeline (the msg threads are called timelines) Twitter will allow you to know what's happening on the web, and essentially around the world. Big event happening in Europe or in Asia, you may just see Tweets about it real-time. From Breaking News to what your friend just had for Breakfast, Twitter taps into the digital conversation.

I'll be using Twitter through my site (Flash Twitter Page), Twitterific on my Macbook Air, and PocketTweets on my iPhone. UPDATE: Switching to Hahlo for the iPhone. It's seems better than PocketTweets and much more "feature rich."

The first group of people I started following on Twitter reads like a "Who's Who" of the Web 2.0 Revolution (or like a TechTV Reunion). From This Week in Tech, Tiki Bar, DiggNation and GeekBrief.TV regulars, to Henry Rollins, MC Hammer, and Snoop Dogg. I'll add real people I know as soon as I find any on Twitter Read More...

Tags: twitter, web2.0, social, network, tweet, pockettweets, twitterific, hahlo

I've uploaded two new videos of Ricky and Lucy to YouTube. This time I've put a little more time into editing and adding a soundtrack to one of them. Hope you like them:





Check out my last blog post for more videos of our wacky pups. Read More...

Tags: ricky, lucy, pet, pembroke, welsh, corgi, chihuahua, video

Work's been really busy lately so haven't been able to do much outside of CNBC. I have a large stack of Photos that I still have to edit in Aperture 2 and upload to my Photo site. I've also been busy crunching numbers for the Photo Biz in preparation for this year's taxes.

I haven't gotten the Macbook Air (yet) even though it would make an ideal (ok, almost ideal except for HD space) traveling notebook for me. These days I rely on my iPhone for my email and web access on the run so it's not so bad running around without a laptop. There are times though that I could develop in XCode, design some web stuff, or even work on some Photoshop/Aperture stuff on the road. The iPhone just doesn't cut it in those cases. When I do get the Macbook Air, it will be the 1.8Ghz/64GB SSD model. I've even bookmarked a few sites that tell you how to save even more space on the Air by re-installing the OS minus some unnecessary stuff (like iDVD, iMovie, Garageband, some Language Support, etc.). I figure I could mostly get by with Aperture/iPhoto, iWork, XCode with iPhone SDK, Webkit Nightlies, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Flex, RapidWeaver and few utilities.

The reason I haven't picked one up yet is that we're saving up for a House and I need to really clear up my credit/debt ratio. My wife's credit rating is much higher than mine, but I'm starting to catch up. Just a few more months of following my own Personal Finance Tips and we should be well on our way to our next House-Search chapter: looking for a Mortgage. We really want to get Pre-Approval (not just Pre-Qualified) for a good amount so that we can look REAL attractive to Sellers/Realtors. Of course now that the Realty Market is tanking and with the local cap for Jumbo Loans being higher due to the newly passed Stimulus Law, we should be able to find a nice house within our budget.

Still, when our finances are set for our Home Purchasing needs.... I'll be getting that Macbook Air!

I've posted some YouTube Videos of Ricky and Lucy. Check them out after the break. Read More...

Tags: money, apple, mortgage, realestate, saving, finance, credit, debt, reduction, ricky, lucy, youtube

I haven't been updating my blog as much as I'd like to, but the real world has been quite busy these last few months.



We have a new addition to the family, Lucy! She's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and is one of the most acrobatic and frisky puppies we've ever seen. She currently lives with my wife's parents but will be coming to live with us whenever we end up getting a house. For now she gets frequent visits from us and Ricky as often as we can make time. We've noticed a dramatic change in Ricky's behavior since we got Lucy. Ricky's seems much more mature, more subdued, and generally better behaved now that Lucy is the terror of the household. He gets annoyed by her antics often, but most of the time we see them walking everywhere together. He kinda has no choice since she always follows him wherever he goes.

Oh well, hopefully she'll calm down eventually as they grow up together.
You can see more photos of Lucy at my Photo Site.
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Tags: lucy, ricky, puppy, dog, chihuahua, pembroke, welsh, corgi

Well, we're back from our vacation on Aruba. It was very relaxing and I would definitely like to go back.



While there I was able to test out the international roaming and wifi features of our new iPhones. After a few international calls to AT&T on the first day in Aruba, I was able to clear up some Roaming Activation issues. Call quality was still good over international calls and they were about a dollar cheaper per minute vs. the hotel phone. Wifi was pretty ubiquitous in Aruba with various pay and free hotspots available. The only Wifi snag was thick walls in our hotel room that didn't allow the hotel's open area wifi signal in. The rooms did have built-in ethernet ports, but that hardly did me any good with the iPhone. The only other problem we had was the odd necessity of resetting both our Voicemail systems when we got back to the USA (probably had something to do to the changeover to unlimited SMS Text msging plans while we were in Aruba). SMS Texting worked flawlessly even on the beach under a palapa (thatched umbrellas with small wood tables). I was even able to txt family members while under the caribbean moon lounging on the sand with my wife. She was checking mail on her iPhone at the time. Yes, we're nerds.

I have over 1,800+ images I have to weed through and edit from our trip. I'll hopefully be able to upload them to my photo site by the end of the week.
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Tags: iphone, apple, att, beach, vacation, aruba, cingular

After a day of shopping for our Aruba trip and seeing the iPhone lines at the Apple Store in the mall (oddly enough we didn't see a line at all at the AT&T store in the mall even though there were two security guards waiting there for one), we headed over to the local AT&T store for a few hours of line-sitting. I took a few shots to commemorate the frenzy. Contacts at other lines text-messaged me throughout and told me that it sold out at the locations they were at. Some jumped to multiple locations to find available iPhones. It amazed me that so many locations had short supplies (some under 40 units) while ours seemed fully stocked and ready to meet demand. In fact our location's manager announced that the only limitation was the closing time of 10pm, but that there would be plenty more available of both SKU's (8GB and 4GB) tomorrow morning. Luckily we were in first 40 in line and had about 80 behind us. Unlike some AT&T stores that let in 5 at a time, our store took groups of 20. So now Gene and I are proud owners of two 8GB iPhones. Adding to our luck was the fact that it didn't rain during our time in line.



There are scattered reports of problems activating via iTunes, but both Gene and I were able to transfer our old numbers into a Family Plan fairly quickly. We even activated via 2 macs so that our individual iTunes libraries would sync correctly. All-in-All it was a good experience moving to AT&T's service and activating the iPhone for us. The two things missing that I wish it had: GPS linked to the Google Maps app and iChat/AIM functionality. The first could possibly be added as an accessory later, but could prove bulky. The second could easily be added via a Software Update. Many bemoan the fact that this is a 2.5G phone on the EDGE network rather than the much speedier HSPDA 3G network. I've been surfing on my HTC based WinMobile smartphone over EDGE for a long time and can attest to its slowness at times, but the iPhone is definitely smoother and more tolerable on EDGE than any other EDGE phone I've tried. The seemless WiFi switchover also makes this less of an issue for me as long as there is a nearby hotspot (and there are many around the metro-NY/NJ area).

We still have to set them up to connect to both our car's built-in Bluetooth Handsfree and respective audio connections, but hopefully those will go smoothly as well.




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Tags: iphone, apple, att, itunes, cingular

So in the move from Semi-Pro to Pro Photographer, I've joined the Professional Photographers of America (PPA). They are one of the oldest and largest international (yes, I know it says America in the name, but it is an International Organization) photography industry groups, having been established in 1880. Primary reason to join: membership includes Malpractice Trust (similar to Malpractice Insurance without rising premiums but the addition of advice/legal representation.) and discounted "All Risk" Equipment Insurance and Business Liability Insurance. They are also one of the primary resources used by professional photographers whether they specialize in Fine Art, Commercial, Stock, Portrait, or Wedding, etc.
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Tags: photography, photo, ppa, professional, member

Still haven't had a lot of time for this site, though I should be getting more free time soon now that my recent hectic projects are done.

I'm still going to review my MacPro when I have a chance, so keep a lookout for that.

I've also posted some updates to my Photo-site so be sure to check that out. I'll be updating it further, including the much-delayed Asia trip photos over the next week.

If you have been curious about what has been keeping me so busy lately, check out the newly resurrected CNBC.com and the brand-new CNBCPlus.


CNBC.com is pretty self explanatory... it's the home of NBC Universal's financial channel on the web. For the last few years it was relegated to a small obscure area of MSN Money's website. Some of you may (or may not) know that I was involved in the original CNBC.com launch back in the 90's before the MSN deal. This winter, we've brought CNBC.com back from the dead.





CNBCPlus is a premium subscriber service that allows you to peruse CNBC's vast video library of CEO interviews, market updates, and other snippets. The biggest feature for CNBCPlus however are the live-feeds of CNBC, CNBC Europe, and CNBC Asia for direct-to-the-desktop TV (if you're into Financial or Economic news that is).








In other news, my brother got my wife and me a Nintendo Wii for Christmas! I've been playing it nonstop, usually a mix between Legend of Zelda and Wii Sports. My wife's been playing lots of Rayman Raving Rabbids. The Wii is the only game console I've seen that has been embraced by everyone in my extended family and retinue of friends. Even my Dad and Mom play Wii Sports (Bowling specifically). I'll probably put up some mini-reviews of Wii and it's games when I get a chance.





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Tags: cnbc, cnbc.com, cnbcplus, nintendo, wii

Sorry, I've been lax about the site lately. Work has been monopolizing most of my time lately. I should be able to return to regular blogging over the next few weeks.
Some of the things I'll have to update the the site with:

• I did end up getting a Mac Pro and had a few (mis)adventures with it. Expect a full review with the gory and glorious details soon. Here are a few specs to tide you over: Mac Pro 3Ghz Quad, 4GB FBDIMM memory, ATI 1900XT graphics card, 30" Cinema Display, 3x 500GB HD in a 1.4Terabyte Stripped RAID-0 set, external Mercury Elite RAID Aluminum 1Terabyte HD for Maintenance Boot and Backups, and lots of other goodies. My Powerbook is now in my Wife's hands. And Ricky retains the Mini (used for the RickyCam).
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• I've been editing my long overdue photos from my South East Asia trip in the newly updated Aperture 1.5. I'm about 80% done. I'll have an update for my SmugMug galleries and some technical notes on my latest Aperture experiences soon as well.
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• I upgraded my primary camera body to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi (400D). I'll probably have a technical review of this camera body and it's differences with my old Rebel XT (350D) and how it works with my L lenses sometime in late December. One caveat, Aperture/OSX still doesn't support the 400D/XTi version of RAW. It's the same CR2 file wrapper as the 350D but new contents. I'm hoping for an OS update to support this and the rest of the newly released cameras (Nikon D80, Sigma SD14, Sony Alpha 100) RAW formats sometime before the end of the year (crossing fingers). Two of the best reasons to get the XTi/400D instead of "upgrading" to the 30D or 5D include: The new Anti-Dust features (image sensor filter shakes dust off on startup and shutdown...and manually if you want) and all my current accessories including the Battery Grip and the batteries themselves from the old XT/350D will work with the new camera. The 10.1 MPixel upgrade is only slightly noticable from the old 8MP but is still more than the 30D.

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Tags: macpro, mac, apple, xeon, woodcrest, raid, aperture, asia, 400d, rebelxt, xti, canon

So my wife went to pick up her car today at the Newark Tow Yard. As I thought, it was stripped and damaged to the point of being undriveable. The steering wheel was damaged and airbag missing (they are apparently the hottest item on the car for thieves), the side skirts were ripped off, the rims were gone and replaced with spare tires/doughnuts, the front license plate damaged, the ignition ripped out with wiring exposed, shift and emergency brake knobs missing. No telling what damage was done under the hood, since I haven't gone home to check yet. The insurance appraiser should be checking it out today. Oddly enough the cat-back Tanabe exhaust was still there (probably too old and dented for the thieves to do anything with it). BTW- Again, I'm not using a real photo of the car here, just one I found to illustrate the point since I haven't seen the real car yet.

Did I mention I hate car thieves?

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Tags: theft, stolen, honda, civic, police, recover

Well it looks like they found my wife's car (they being the Newark City Police Dept). The car is currently in an impound lot in Newark and unfortunately their business hours have forced us to wait until Monday before we can find out how much is left of the car. It could be whole or stripped clean for parts, we just don't know (the photo to the right is from the 'net and not my wife's car... it does look just like that though... or it "did"). I'd also like to know the circumstances surrounding the discovery. Was it in a ditch, just parked abandoned on the side of the road, or in a chop shop they just busted? Hopefully it will all be clear on Monday.

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Tags: theft, stolen, honda, civic, police, recover

My wife's car was stolen yesterday. In her words, "Now I really do live in Jersey." It was a 1997 Red Honda Civic DX coupe 2dr with a nice set of rims, AEM intake and a Tanabe cat-back exhaust. No tint, no stickers (other than old Rutgers parking stickers), and no lowered suspension so it wasn't too ricey. She fondly called it "Mr. Lazer" (my Prius is "Mr. Car"). Just in case anyone in the NY/NJ/PA/Con area sees it, the NJ license plate # was JKC38J. Not holding out much hope though since it was stolen just a stone's throw from Newark, NJ... land of Chop Shops. Newark is just under Jersey City as one of the Car Theft Capitals of the world and the Honda Civic is one of the most stolen cars in the world. It was a good solid car too...very few problems, and my wife fully paid for it long ago.

She says that we shouldn't get another car for her because we can't afford it right now and we're trying to get out of debt/save for a house... we'll see. There are always good deals out there. In the meantime, we already filed a police report (called the Bloomfield "Boys in Blue" to the scene of the crime yesterday), filed a claim with our car insurance company, and cancelled the EZ-pass tag for that car. For now I'll be shuttling my wife to and from the train station for work.

Thieves are the dregs of humanity. Car Thieves don't even deserve to be called human. Sigh.

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Tags: theft, stolen, honda, civic, police, insurance

I've copied some of my old Personal Finance Tips and Tech Reviews from my old site to the new one. I'll be able to continue writing more reviews and tips now! You'll find them on the side navigation bar or at the links above.

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Tags: personal finance, tech review, 401k, gadgets, money, investing

We safely made it back home to the US late Friday Evening. I have tons of photos to go through and edit in Aperture/Photoshop. You'll be able to see them hopefully later this week on my Photo site (link on the left).

During our trip, I was able to stop by the CNBC offices, made a few new contacts, and spent time with some old colleagues. We did quite a bit of window shopping in Singapore, but found little that could beat the prices online back home (surprised the hell outta me, I thought Electronics would be cheaper there). Even the "negotiated" prices for most electronics and Photo gear were more expensive than the usual US online prices.

Most of our time was spent in the Philippines, and I'll definitely relate more about my experiences there over the next few days.

Of course we immediately picked up Ricky Saturday morning and re-activated the RickyCam later that afternoon. Needless to say he was ecstatic to see us. His kennel/Puppy Hotel even gave us a report card of his behavior during his 2 1/2 week stay. He became quick friends with the staff there (after some initial trepidation/sadness from our departure) and only caused them trouble when they tried to trim his nails. This wasn't a surprise because that's his most hated activity back home (far worse than going to the vet for him). Whenever we have to trim his nails, we have to use a muzzle and I have to keep a tight hold on him so he won't scratch my wife or me. They were able to do a few nails, but gave up after struggling with him. We'll finish the job later today. He was able to get 2 playtimes/cuddle times and walks during his stay, as well as a daily snack. His suite even had two rooms with a doggy door between, so that he could "eliminate" on the patio and sleep/play in his more secluded bedroom. He probably had a better time than we did in some of our Hotel Rooms during the trip! The Puppy Hotel actually had various webcams throughout their facility including two in the play areas, but we were never able to catch Ricky when he was in front of the cameras (and we of course constantly checked online while abroad).

Speaking of online, during this trip I was able to stay connected via either a Hotel broadband/wireless connection or by way of my GSM Cell Phone (usually a GPRS connection, though I could occasionally get EDGE) as a bluetooth modem for my PowerBook. Even deep in the rainforests of Eastern Samar along the Pacific Coast, I got a fairly good GSM connection going.

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Tags: rickycam, vacation, philippines, singapore, cnbc, travel, exotic, holiday, resort

My wife and I are traveling with her parents to the Philippines and Singapore for a few weeks. Ricky had to stay, so he's going to be making new friends at a Puppy Hotel/Resort. Needless to say he wasn't exactly a happy camper yesterday (and neither were we), but we'll all be home again in no time.

I'll definitely be taking lots of photos while I'm there, so look for them on the Photo site. I'll also be checking out the Electronic Gadget's scene in Singapore. I wonder what goodies I can find that I can't find in the US. I'm also going to be stopping by the CNBC offices in Asia to visit some old coworkers and check the studios out.

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Tags: seti, rickycam, vacation, philippines, singapore, cnbc, travel, exotic, holiday, resort

/* Rant Begin */

Uncle Sam really has it in for us this year... I feel like my bank account got sucked into a blackhole called I-R-S.

Why couldn't we list puppies as a dependent or a deduction?

/* End of Rant */

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Tags: tax, irs, 1040, puppy, Uncle Sam, deduction, finance

I've been missing the boat on a lot of recent stories for this blog... the price I pay for having a day job.

Notable Notables and associated Thoughts:

• South Park vs. Scientology: Recent blow-ups between Isaac Hayes aka Chef, Matt and Trey Stone (creators of South Park), Comedy Central, The Church of Scientology and the denizens of Tom Cruiseland, have made lots of news. Follow the link for more info on all of the above. Definitely the best quote in all this hubub comes from the South Park boys themselves: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"
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• XP on MacIntels contest won but other options out there: Also making it's way through the blogosphere... Two guys from Cali have made a custom EFI bootloader and associated process for making a MacIntel dual-boot capable on a single hard drive. Many drivers including Video drivers still need to be worked out, but there are many people working on those and we're only a few days away from fully functional MacIntel XP systems. Photoshop on XP/MacIntel has already been shown to beat any current Core Duo system out there that's made for XP based on scripted benchmarks [Gearlog link]. This is pretty cool stuff, but I would hate to reboot everytime I wanted to use the few Windows apps/games I would need. Personally I'd much prefer the Virtualization/Emulation approach using Q (freeware open source "Virtualization/Emulation" software akin to Virtual PC). The Q on MacIntel people are currently working on a Kernel Xtention (kext) that would access the Core Duo's virtualization capability rather than using a processor emulation scheme similar to Virtual PC or Rosetta (what Q currently uses). The result of that would be Windows XP (or Vista or any x86 virtualized OS) running on top of OSX at near native speeds. Imagine running XP games/apps in a window next to OSX windows without slowdown on your brand new MacBook Pro. Now THAT would be my cross-platform solution of choice. The current implementation of Q unfortunately is still stuck in Emulation land and suffers accordingly.
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  Tags: scientology, chef, southpark, Matt stone, Trey Parker, XP, windows, mac, macintel, coreduo, onmac, kext, macbookpro, virtualpc

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Welcome to the new NEW Jedi's Lair. I've decided to change things a bit with some new blogging software (RapidWeaver in this case) and some new things for the site. I actually tried out various site building software apps for the Mac including iWeb and Sandvox, but I finally settled on RapidWeaver because it had a ton of third-party supported plugins/themes and it pretty much meets all my needs.



I'll keep blogging about random subjects like Photography, Gadgets, Celeb news, Movies & TV stuff and of course Ricky (our crazy Chihuahua), but hopefully the new site structure and tools will help simplify my site. Expect to see a lot of experimentation with the site and updates to my Photo site for the next few weeks.

You can still access my old site here.

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Tags: blog, rapidweaver, sandvox, iweb