DeepDarkSee

Evil Mad Science

Spencer — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:40:48 +0000

Check out what the people at Evil Mad Science are doing these days. “Do it yourself and open source hardware for art, education, and world domination.” Very cool for those that want to tinker with electronics!

Trip to Seoul?

Spencer — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:34:39 +0000

OK, I’m out to win this trip to Seoul, and had some fun writing about “The key features of the phone of the future.” in 200-300 words for the entry! I decided to go ‘first person’ to try to make it accessible. Here is what I submitted:

My new phone connects to everything around me, it’s got a great display for viewing information, and lets me use voice commands or a mini keyboard for privacy. Features I want are immediately available to me from the net, yet within all this, I retain control over my personal information.

Light sensors capture video, pictures, and light levels. They act as eyes for applications that do things like read a barcode, recognize a face, or identify a flower I’m looking at. The sound sensor is great for recording voice notes, but also recognize music and people, and accept voice commands. My phone knows it’s location, which is leveraged in different ways by the many applications at my finger tips.

I use it as a wireless credit card, but my favorite use is the Body Monitor extension. I stick a body monitor patch on my skin and my phone tracks my heart rate, respiration, temperature, blood pressure, glucose level, and oxygen level. Some great cycling software uses my changing location, my vitals, and an intelligent coach app to give me feedback and encouragement as I train. I have a friend with diabetes, and another undergoing chemotherapy. Both use patches on their skin to monitor blood levels, adjust medication, and allow review by medical technicians. Imagination is pretty much the limit for types of extensions that will be available for my phone; think home, office, the mall, and the factory floor.

I make voice and video calls, but what I really have is a personal technology access point. By the way, you should check out my screen. It’s usable as one side of my credit card sized ‘access point’, but a flip of the cover and it folds out to four times that size with a mini keyboard for private texting!

Going to the Cloud

Spencer — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:10:08 +0000

OK, so time to try to walk the talk. Why should my files, emails, calendar and such be tied to a physical device? So here’s what I’m doing.

Files: I’m using Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service along with JungleDisk’s virtual disk software. What does this mean? All my stuff gets stored (encrypted) at a service in the internet, but it looks like a local hard drive to any computer I connect it to (and is available via a browser).

Email, Contacts, and Calendar: I’ve moved my contacts and calendar to GMail, and setup GMail to check all my existing email accounts and consolidate them there. One interface, access to all the stuff, great search and archive capability. Privacy? Well, I pulled some bank account info out of a couple contacts (that shouldn’t have been there anyway). Beyond that, do I really do anything that secret? And with a last name like Nassar, maybe completely open is better! I’ve got it push-syncing to and from my iPhone - good bye Apple Mobile Me.

Basic productivity apps: Hello Google Docs - word processing, spreadsheets, etc.

Misc notes, links, and encrypted stuff (like bank account info and passwords): I’m using a service called Evernote, which is great for clipping and storing things, and allows encryption of any data I desire. Same deal, install the software on any computer I sit down at, and have full access. It also works on my iphone and the web (but web doesn’t show encrypted info).

I can sit down at any computer and do email/contacts/calendar, and with a quick download/install of JungleDisk and Evernote, I’m pretty much in business. Because I’m a techie, depending on what is on a computer I’m using, I might need to download and install a text editor, sftp software, or even a development environment - then SVN in the source.

Time will tell, but I’m hopefully in the process of eliminating my tether to a specific computer. This is pretty cool!

blogging

Spencer — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:52:34 +0000

So I’m realizing that keeping status up on FaceBook, and twittering, has taken the place of blog posts for me for the past few months. Interesting…

This says it all….

Spencer — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:51:35 +0000

Some great gem’s in blog-land tonight

Spencer — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:02:08 +0000

“If you think you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re the fool.”
“Sell to one customer. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”
“Fail fast. Fire, aim, repeat.”
and many more great axioms for Web next.0 - at UnstructuredVentures

and the best article I’ve read in a long time on “what’s next on the web” is a review of answers to that question when posted to ReadWriteWeb users. Well worth a read.

Moblyng

Spencer — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:48:38 +0000

I’m very excited to see the mobile site for Moblyng go up (m.moblyng.com from your phone browser, or iPhone)!

I first got involved with Moblyng to help them convert and deliver video content to cell phones via SMS and a wap site. Now we just launched a mobile web portal. They are great people doing great things. Check it out!

What’s new?

Spencer — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:21:54 +0000

So it’s been a while. Kathryn and I are hitting the gym 3 times a week and share a personal trainer. She’s off for two weeks at a Spanish language immersion school in Peurto Vallarta next week, and Audrey is off to summer camp as a “CIT.” I’m still doing things for Bones in Motion and Rocket Mobile, but have been spending lots of time with Moblyng on their mobile strategy and build-out. We’re doing interesting things with video to mobile phones, and web sites that adapt to different phone browser capabilities. Some secret stuff that should pop out soon too! BiM was a great ride, but it’s really fun to involved with a fresh new start-up.

I’ve also been looking at what I want to do next as a self funded project. Lots of digging around Marine related resources on the web, and pondering iPhone app opportunities. I’m really pleased, as an early iPhone adapter, that I’ve got all the capabilities of the new phone except the faster network and better GPS. Go Apple!

Rockin’ out at Peninsula School

admin — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:06:38 +0000

[These links don't work any more. "Take down request" from the artists!]

Kathryn sings an original song - Fly into the Sun

And K’s band does Cold Cold Heart - their own way!

and Yesterday (ala Beatles)

A housemate in college had every Zappa album… gonna start me a dental floss farm…

Spencer — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:05:24 +0000

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” — Frank Zappa