Let’s face it, racing has fallen behind; no pun intended.  Results are still handed out on printed timeslips, and those smart phones that everyone walks around with in their pockets that put the ’60s space program to shame are still little more than a means to call for a ride if your car won’t start.

That’s all about to change

Enter Raceslip, a company based out of North Texas who plans to change all that.  They work with participating tracks to bring you your timeslips to your phone the instant they are recorded.  Meanwhile, the Raceslip website allows you to connect with friends, share pictures or videos of your mods, and stay up to date with the racing scene in a Farmville-free environment.

Challenge Your Friends

Think you have what it takes?  Why not challenge a friend to a race and show them who’s boss.  With a Heads-up challenge, once your race is complete, the track sends the results to the website and awards points to the winner.  What if you and your friend can’t make the same day to race?  With a Virtual Heads-up, you don’t have to race at the same time, or even at the same track.  When Raceslip receives both timeslips, the winner is determined.

Bring it!

Raceslip.com just launched and is now open to new subscribers.  Head on over and sign up, and if you have any questions, head on over to their Facebook page.  If your favorite track is not yet supported, let them know about Raceslip so yours isn’t the last area to sign up.

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Here, Peter Diamandis makes a case for optimism — that we’ll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us. “I’m not saying we don’t have our set of problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down.”

Thanks to Jack for sharing this with me originally!

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• BP Group Hierarchy: ” group creators to place a new group under an existing group. There is currently no limit to the depth of the group hierarchy.”
• BuddyPress Group Email Subscription:” allows people to receive email notifications of group activity, especially forum posts. Weekly or daily digests available. Each user can choose how they want to subscribe to their groups. “
• BP Group Management:  ”..site admins can manage BP group membership by banning, unbanning, promoting and demoting current members of any group, adding members to any group, and deleting groups.”
• BuddyPress External Group Blogs:  ”Give group creators and administrators on your BuddyPress install the ability to attach external blog RSS feeds to groups. Blog posts will appear within the activity stream for the group. New posts will automatically be pulled every hour, or every 30 minutes if someone specifically visits a group page.”

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I was browsing through imgur and saw the following image that tells a really heart-warming story. It seems that a user named [HarpoonIPA] on the Grimrock.net forums made a post asking if old-school dungeon-crawler style buttons might be included in the game. The responding dev [Petri] made note that they did not have a UI like that currently set up but, made sure to ask his customer why he wanted such an old-school control scheme. [HarpoonIPA] responded noting that he had a disability and stated that he used a mouth stick to control games. The old-school control style made it easier for him to play. So what did [Petri] do? He immediately implemented an entirely new UI option for one, single user.

This is game development done right. This man listened to his one customer that had a modest request and took it upon himself to make that customer happy. I am truly inspired by this. I wish this company nothing but the best of luck and will be purchasing their game purely based on this story alone. I tried to contact the developers of the game, but unfortunately their site is down at the moment. Presumably due to the torrent of attention I am sure it must be getting. If I am able to get in touch with for comments I will update this post.

Read below for the discussion as it took place between the user and the dev.

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What do you think? Do you have a better way of explaining it so that even your grandmother could understand what happened? If so, please share!

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Currently, the most widespread form of communication between people is the Internet. This covers a very broad spectrum of methods from actually speaking to each other via services like Skype and Google Voice to the use of social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus. In order to take part, to really have a voice that can be heard amongst the din in our worldwide conversations, one must have access to the Internet. I would argue that one must have unfettered access. That is, service that’s not throttled, shaped, blocked or filtered. To block a user from access to specific data is to limit their ability to speak and understand. This violates a basic human right free and open speech.

How the UN Defines Human Rights

Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as written by the UN states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

This would seem to state implicitly to me that no one recognized as a person under law should be deprived of their ability to communicate. The statement “… through any media and regardless of frontiers” does, very clearly cover the Internet. So if we are following these as a basic concept of Human Rights, logic dictates that unfettered Internet access must be available to all persons under law.

Government Censorship and Free Speech Restrictions

Currently governments around the world, in my case the US are considering enabling DNS blacklists. Previously in the US there was a bill known as COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act) that would have allowed our government the ability to deem any website (with great ambiguity) as infringing upon the law and would allow that the registrar of said domain be ordered to suspend operation of the domain. This would effectively block the site from most people as they would have no ready method of access.

The site would still exist on the net but would be unreachable by hosts affected. COICA was killed in the Senate after having never received a full Senate vote. Unfortunately it has now been resurrected as the Protect IP Act. All of this is being done in the name of anti-piracy. It is intended to protect corporate entities from “theft”. I can understand the argument for protecting copyrights, but this law would give our government too broad a control over what we can and cannot consume or say on the Internet.

This discussion of Internet censorship is where the new battle for our right to free speech will be waged. I urge anyone who has not at least skimmed the Protect IP Act to give it a read through. It is rather unsettling.

Global Censorship and Corporate Controls

The US is of course not the only country that is considering action like this and there are already quite a few that are in worse violation of this human right. The most obvious of these would be China. At the beginning of this year the Egyptian government virtually shut down Internet access in their country when civil unrest boiled over and revolution broke out. The intent was to stop any undesirable information from entering or leaving the country. I’m not going to step into tin foil hat territory and tell you that the US government is going to shut down our Internet access in the event of unrest, what I am saying is that it is a possibility and something that we should be wary of.

Even more recently AT&T has decided that it is going to stop providing unlimited data to its customers who paid for said service. More specifically it is going to throttle the connection speeds of its users who consume the most data. They will still technically have access but at a considerably slower rate than what their original plan dictated. The myriad of other legal questions this raises aside, this would violate Article 19 of the previously mentioned declaration of human rights. It would limit the rate at which a person can communicate on a service that they pay for.

We’ve seen similar censorship with ISP’s shutting off the connections of users utilizing the BitTorrent protocol. If a person steals something in this country, we don’t take the use of their hands other than to restrain them while in custody of the authorities. ISP’s in this situation are acting as judge and jury. They may own the service but they should have no legal authority to dictate our right to use.

I’d like to end by saying that I think this is one of the most important discussions of our time. Here and now is where we will define our rights to communication for our future. What do you think? Are you worried about access to your favorite sites disappearing? Are you concerned about your own ability to say what you want to say? Or do you even think it’s an issue? Let us know in the comments below!

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Well, for years I’ve been recommending Roboform and even put together a Roboform Tutorial for their great desktop version for Windows and even Mac. Their iPhone app is also in wide circulation, and I think they had a really basic Android app out previously, but for Android users (like me) I’ve got a world exclusive first screenshot of the soon to be released app.

The New Roboform for Android

To quote my super secret source:

In the initial release it will work as a viewer primarily for Logins, Identities, and Safenotes. Automated login functionality will also be available similar to the iPhone app. (A RoboForm Everywhere (Online) account is required.)

We don’t have a lot of detail beyond this, but I suspect that what it means is that if you are using Roboform on your desktop you can sync your data to the cloud, and then in turn sync it to the Android platform for access on the go.

I don’t think you’ll be able to add new data on the app initially, but I’d imagine that’s something they’ll be adding in a later iteration. It does sound to me like this Android app is going to actually store your passwords on the device and simply sync from the cloud periodically to keep everything up to date.

What do you think? Have you used the current version of the app, and if so what are you hoping to see in this completely revamped version?

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Cali has been bringing us tech news for many years, but since she’s only one person, and her show is only so long, she can’t cover it all! But with the launch of her new show GeekBeat.TV, she is expanding her influence and sharing the spotlight with a brand new team of amazing bloggers, who she introduced in today’s episode!

Brodie Beta (Ontario, Canada): Brodie is a technology enthusiast with a passion for gadgets, media and anything related to the Web. She has worked in communications and media for the past nine years. She currently writes a weekly column for the Globe and Mail and contributes to awesome tech sites including GeekBeat.TV.

Follow her on Twitter @iphonegirl

Catherine Faas (Toronto, Canada): Catherine is a web journalist, researcher, and freelance writer. She works for MGImedia in Toronto, Alltop.com, and now GeekBeat.TV. When she’s not deep web diving she’s busy covering geeky events around the globe. Catherine is a Web 2.0 sweetheart with a passion for technology. Oh, and she’ll beat you at a video game of your choice.

Follow her on Twitter @catherinefaas

Chris Cameron (Arizona): Chris is an aspiring technology journalist who writes mainly for ReadWriteWeb, a source for deep analysis of Web/tech news and trends. His beats include gathering resources for startups and small businesses, as well as emerging technologies like augmented reality – a topic on which he authored a premium report in early 2010.

Follow him on Twitter @chameron

Chris Christensen (San Francisco): Chris left his day job in January 2010 to focus on consulting, podcasting and blogging including his popular Amateur Traveler podcast. He was the Executive Vice President of Engineering and Operations for a company in Silicon Valley (LiveWorld) that runs online communities for companies like eBay, Marriott, American Express, Campbells, Kimberly Clark, A&E, and Mini Cooper.

Follow him on Twitter @amateurtraveler

Daynah (Riverside, California): Daynah is a geekette from California who enjoys web development, coding in PHP, digital photography, and tinkering with gadgets. She’s currently is Senior Editor at Beatweek Magazine and a Tech Blogger at GeekBeat.TV.

Follow her on Twitter @daynah

Gord McLeod (Toronto, Canada): Gord is a writer and game designer with a background covering everything from IT work to programming to the graphic arts. He’s intensely interested in everything game, gadget and science related.

Follow him on Twitter @gordmcleod

As for me, I’m helping here and there to steer things behind the scenes a bit over at GeekBeat.TV, but with all this amazing talent (as you’d guess) I don’t really have to do much at all!

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Even if you’re not a geek, Cali has a way of explaining technology so that everyone can understand it! So, bottom line is, either way you should subscribe to GeekBeat.TV! :-)

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Of course, I am going to give one away soon, so you could also just try and win it…

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I’m going to show you how to speed up everything you do online by switching to a better, faster Domain Name Server (DNS) system run by either Google or OpenDNS. Best of all, it will only take you like 5 minutes to make a change that will benefit you every day from now on! But before we get started, let me explain what DNS does for you in non-technical terms.

What is DNS Anyway?

When you launch your Web browser and want to navigate to a new Website, at first your computer doesn’t know where that site is. So what it does is the following:

1. Looks at your own network settings to determine, “Where are MY DNS servers?“
2. Makes a call to your DNS servers and asks, “Where is this Website I want to go to?“
3. Gets the IP address for the Website you are trying to find, and then heads on over to it.

To complicate matters, it doesn’t just do it one time per Website you go to. Web pages have lots of images, videos and other things embedded in them, and you have to check DNS for each one! So this happens hundreds of times a day when you are online, and it represents a huge opportunity for improvement.

Testing and Recommendations

This might be a little too technical to get into for everyone, but suffice it to say that before I chose which DNS I wanted to use, I did a little testing. There were two parts to the testing. The first consisted of running a series of Ping tests to the various DNS server to see which one would respond to me faster. (Kind of like playing Marco-Polo with the DNS server.)

Part 1

In my test results I compared Time Warner (my cable provider) with OpenDNS and Google

• Time Warner: Average Response Time – 29.70ms
• OpenDNS: Average Response Time – 27.99ms
• Google Public DNS: Average Response Time – 62.58ms

In the ping test it seems that OpenDNS provides the fastest response time, even beating my own ISP by about 10%, and outperforming Google’s public DNS by about 100%.

Part 2

The second part involved running a script which compared actual look-up response times. So not only which DNS server pinged me back quickest, but which could look up an actual domain name and send the results back quickest.

These tests are hard to do because there is caching occurring upstream from me somewhere. This means that once a domain is looked up, the DNS servers are holding the results in memory for a while so they don’t have to look it up again. You can see the difference in the two times I ran the test above.

For example, look at MyRecip.es results. Time Warner took 700+ms for the first look-up, but the second look-up was only 39ms because it just served the results from recent memory (cache).

However, it’s clear that Google’s DNS consistency is just plain impressive. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first look-up or subsequent ones, nor does it matter which country the domain is from.

EDIT: By request, if you want the script to run this test yourself, here it is. Save it to your hard drive, change to that directory in Terminal, then at the command prompt type: bash dns.txt

Choices, Choices…

It’s hard to say which is going to be faster in the wild. OpenDNS seems to respond about twice as fast for sites it has in it’s cache, which will certainly be all the big ones. But Google’s consistency is hard to argue with! Personally, I’ve gone ahead and switched to Google for now. Though OpenDNS has been good for a long time.

The main thing that pushed me over to Google by the way is NOT the speed. But the fact that Google DNS is doing something extra for me now. If you just type in a domain and leave off the .com, .net, or .org Google seems to take a guess at what you are looking for and loads it for you. So if I type in “onemansblog” and hit enter in my browser, it brings me to this site. If you type in something that it can’t find, it takes you to a Google search results page!

Now that we’ve covered that, you are going to need to choose which one you want to use. And you are going to need the IP addresses for the one you’ve chosen. Don’t worry, we’ll get to how to set them up in just a minute…

The Google Public DNS IP addresses are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

The OpenDNS IP addresses are as follows:

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.220

How to Configure Your DNS

Now that you’ve made up your mind, the following instructions should help you get your DNS set up to speed up your personal browsing experience.

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows Vista

1. Go the Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, then Manage network connections.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and
     click Properties.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.

   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

4. Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, click Internet
   Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), and then click Properties.
5. Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
6. Click OK.
7. Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
8. Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
9. Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
10. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.5

1. From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
2. If the lock icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window is locked, click the icon to make changes, and when prompted to authenticate, enter your password.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, select Airport, and click Advanced.
4. Select the DNS tab.
5. Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
6. Click Apply and OK.
7. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

If you need additional information about changing settings, see the complete documentation over at Google.

Ok, that’s it! If you do a little testing and make the changes on all your computers you’ll notice that everything speeds up for you. And if you are technically savvy enough, you can even go in and change the setting in your router so that everyone accessing your network automatically gets the DNS servers assigned when they connect.

Let me know if this helps. Especially drop me a comment below if you make the changes and notice an improvement. I know I did!

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So, I ordered a couple of iPads from the Apple store online like 15 minutes after they were announced as being available. I did this so I wouldn’t have to wait in line for one, and in case they sold out. Of course when I ordered them they had a notification that you could only buy two. Fine. They also said that they wouldn’t ship them until April 12. Fine.

Fast forward 5 days. Now the Apple store has, and I quote from a phone call, “A complete contingent…” of iPads in stock. So I’m thinking I’ll just go pick up a couple. So I go online to the Apple Store and try and cancel the order for the two I have there. But guess what! NO! YOU MAY NOT CANCEL!!!

Whoa! What’s going on here?

Ok, so I call customer service and the rather bitchy woman with an, “I’m better than you because I work the phones for Apple” attitude tells me that they won’t cancel the order because my iPads are “prepared for shipment”.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

So, let me get this straight. They are purposely holding my iPads hostage in a warehouse somewhere, just waiting till April 12 to ship them – even while the devices have already been released into the wild and the stores are completely full of them? WTF Apple? Why are you sitting on the shipments to clients who paid for them a week ago?

Oh, but this gets so much better…

If you’re like me you might be thinking, “No problem, I’ll just go to the store and pick them up, and when these come in the mail I’ll return them!” NO! YOU WILL NOT! They’ve already considered your sneaky little plans, and when you go to the Apple store they are going to see that you already bought two and they are going to refuse to sell you any more!

Yep. You would have to use a different name, address and credit card!

But wait! There’s more!

You know how the only iPads that have been released at this point are the WiFi only models? And the ones that will use the AT&T 3G network are coming later? Well, I ordered two of the 3G ones also. It was a separate order a couple of days after the original order. And again, it said “Limit 2″ – which I adhered to.

Yeah, well when I was logging in to try and cancel the other iPads so I could go pick them up locally I noticed that Apple canceled my order for the 3G models – without even notifying me! WOW! They get to cancel orders at will, but I can’t cancel one to go pick them up locally?

Of course I asked my special customer service lady about this and she said you can ONLY HAVE TWO of any combination of iPads, released or not! To which I responded, you need to make that more clear! And how about just not letting the order go through? It’s all of… oh, ONE database lookup!

Bottom line: Apple gets no points in my book for the iPad launch:

• If you’re going to launch in two batches and treat devices as if they are different because one has 3G and the other doesn’t, then don’t act like they are the same when it’s time to let customers order them.
• If you’ve already launched a product, don’t stack up customer orders in a warehouse for a week before releasing them. That is just stupid!
• If you’re going to hold products you let customers pre-order, then you have to allow them to cancel for Christ’s sake!

So, tell you what Apple. You can keep your stupid iPad. I mean, you didn’t even give it the iPhone 3G’s non-smudge screen, it’s got no SD card slot (unforgivable), you can’t pair a bluetooth mouse with it, and it’s actually difficult to hold.

Oh, and while I’m at it… what the hell is the deal with not allowing customers to bring a camera or camcorder into the Apple store, but then having employees taking photos and videos of us when we are in there!?! But that’s a whole other story…

UPDATE: 5 hours after publishing this article I got email notification that my iPads had just shipped from Apple’s warehouse! Now is that some sort of major coincidence? Or did someone over there take notice? Let me know if you pre-ordered an iPad and got notice of them shipping prior to the 12th as well.

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1. Head on over to StuckInCustoms.com’s iPad Wallpapers page and pay the man $5 for this set of 15 beautiful wallpapers.
2. Install them and be the envy of everyone you know, even those WITH an iPad. (Especially them!)
3. Revel in your own glory.

Have fun!

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But tonight I’d had enough. After a marathon session of pain, I finally got off my lazy butt and did something about it. So, here is a video of me taking a file to my MacBook Pro and doing what Apple should have done long, long ago!

If you want to do it yourself its actually quite easy. Just get a couple of clamps and gently attach your MacBook to a strong, stable surface. Then take a fine file to the edge and slowly begin removing material. After 10-20 strokes you’ll feel a world of difference in the edge of the device. Just make sure you don’t get the aluminum shavings in your finger. You do not want aluminum splinters!

Have fun, and feel free to ask questions.

EDIT: For those with comments and questions about this process.
For all those who are worried about removing the anodized finish, don’t. I did this a month ago, and there is no “black stuff”or any other sort of residual. (AKA – My sleeves aren’t dirty.)

You should know that I’m also a trained welder, blacksmith and bladesmith. I’ve got hunks of aluminum in my garage that I machine on my milling machine, cut on my CNC plasma cutting machine, and weld on my big ass Lincoln TIG welder. In other words, I’m experienced at working with Aluminum.

This tiny amount of filed area is not going to get exposed to a harsh environment because your laptop can’t take it! Plus, the oil from your skin rubbing in this are will actually keep that small area further protected.

Note that I used a file and did this by hand. That is because the file removes metal as shavings – not dust. I would highly NOT recommend doing this with sandpaper or another abrasive. As you can see from the video the shavings are too big to become airborne and can be swept right up. Also, there is no chance of any of them getting inside the computer.

Finally, turn your machine off. I ONLY left mine on so people would not think this was a hoax. YES, I really did this to my MBP. And yes, I can afford it if I broke it. So guess what, I took the risk so you don’t have to wonder if it can be done. Not the first time I’ve done something like this, nor will it be the last.

So, you’ve got two choices if your bothered by the sharp edge on your MacBook.

1. Listen to the guy who did it and had zero negative consequences.
2. Listen to people who did NOT do it, but who have a desperate need to sound like a metallurgist or some sort of authority despite their lack of hands on experience.

The only thing I’ll advise is that when you are filing be careful about brushing the shavings off with bare hands or you might end up with aluminum splinters. They are no fun. ;-)

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Well, I’ve got two digital camera recommendations – depending on what you are looking for – and more importantly I’ve broken down exactly why these are the two cameras that you should get. (Jump right to the pocket sized Canon G11 or the SLR sized Canon T1i)

Of course, there are a LOT of cameras on the market, and I even own a few others, but for the vast majority of users I think these are the two best all-around cameras you can get. And I intend to make some video tutorials about how to take some really great photos with these cameras in the near future. So if you get one of these specific recommendations then you’ll be able to follow along when I put out the videos.

Selection Criteria

This may be the most important part of this post, so listen up. When we evaluate a digital camera it is about far more than just the listing of features included with the camera. Look at it this way: a Ford Focus might have power locks, windows and air conditioning – but it’s never going to be a Mercedes. So if you go into a store and just start reading the feature list to compare them, you’re already losing.

It takes experience to pick a good camera, because no matter what the specs say, you never know what you’re getting until you actually take photos with that camera. I recommend these two below because I have a lot of experience with them. Plain and simple. So I know you can take very nice photos (and video) with either of them. Enough said.

Light Sensitivity

Light is the essence of any image. A camera is NOTHING without it. And there is a huge range of quality when it comes to how much light cameras can capture. There are two primary factors that affect how sensitive your camera is to light:

1. The quality of the lens. The easiest way to tell how good your lens is, is to check the Aperture range. When you examine the camera it will have a number like 1:3.5-5.6. The lower the numbers, the better the lens. f2.0-2.8 is a very good quality lens. Anything over 2.8 requires a lot more light and becomes not so useful indoors. If you see the image to the right here, you’ll see the marking “1:1.8″. That is a high quality fixed zoom lens with a single aperture.
2. The size of the sensor. Yes ladies, bigger is better! But we aren’t talking about Megapixels here! I mean the physical size of the actual sensor. The larger the image sensor in the camera, the less noise the image will have and the more sensitive to light it will be. See here for more info.
   

Video Capability

Yep. Video. It’s important that your camera be able to capture at least short video segments, because if a picture speaks 1,000 words, then what do 1,000 pictures moving in series say! A LOT.

Most of the new pocket cameras now do full motion video, some with claims of up to 720p or even 1080p HD. However, don’t get sucked in by the claims. Remember that the quality of the video is also affected by the light sensitivity. So you’d be much better off having a 640×480 quality video which is really clear, than a 720p video that is crappy.

Manual Controls

But wait! Some of you are going to tell me that you don’t know how to manually control the shutter speed and aperture. Well, that’s Ok! Remember two things:

1. Cameras that come with full manual controls usually have higher overall quality. So even if you keep it in fully automatic mode it’s going to take better pictures than a cheaper “fully auto” camera. Counter-intuitive? Not really. Full manual controls are a sign of a pro. So only better cameras will include them.
2. Using manual controls is really not that hard! And if you can master them, you are going to be taking MUCH better photos. So, I’m going to do a series of short videos to show you how to do it. But if you don’t get the right camera, you won’t be able to do things like HDR photography, nice portrait photos, etc. So why even bother?

So make sure that whatever camera you by, it allows you to control the Aperture and the Shutter Speed at the very least. And being able to control the focus is also nice.

Canon Powershot G11

First, lets start with the more portable of the two. The Canon PowerShot G11. This is my favorite pocket sized camera ever made, and if you could only have one camera, this should be it. You can take it everywhere you go – and you should! So you can capture those interesting things you see in life and share them with the rest of us.

Product Features

• New 10-megapixel High Sensitivity System; DIGIC 4 Image Processor
• Bright 2.8-inch Vari-Angle PureColor System LCD plus optical viewfinder
• Wide-angle 5x optical zoom (equivalent to 28-140mm); Canon’s Optical Image Stabilizer
• Improved Smart AUTO intelligently selects from 22 predefined shooting situations
• RAW + JPEG shooting and recording modes; capture images to SD/SDHC memory cards (not included)

Technical Details

• Optical Sensor Resolution: 10 MP
• Optical zoom: 5 x
• Maximum Aperture Range: F/2.8-4.5
• Optical Sensor Size: 1/1.7″
• Included Flash Type: Built-in flash
• Display Size: 2.8 inches
• Light Sensitivity: ISO 100 to ISO 3200
• Image types: JPEG, RAW
• Width: 4.4 inches
• Depth: 1.9 inches
• Height: 3 inches
• Weight: 12.5 Ounces

John P.’s Take

Notice a few things:

• This camera will shoot RAW formatted images in addition to JPEG. While JPEG is good for keeping the file size down, RAW is MUCH, MUCH better for quality, and image editing applications like iPhoto or Picasa will handle the RAW photos with ease. Better image editing software like Photoshop elements will let you manipulate RAW images in ways you can not with JPEG.
• This camera has a 1/1.7″ sensor. Look at the chart I posted above and you’ll see that this is much bigger than some of the other crappier small body cameras. It’s among the largest you can get in a compact camera – meaning excellent low light or high speed performance. (Great indoors, or for fast action sports.)
• The camera has optical image stabilization. This means the lens has little gyroscopes in it that adjust the position of the lens as you shoot in case your hand is shaking. It will keep your images much sharper than a camera with only digital image stabilization.
• It has both a built-in flash AND the ability to accept external Canon flashes. This camera could be used to even take wedding photos with a large external flash!
• The 2.8 aperture setting on the lens is very nice for capturing images with a shallow depth of field. This makes portraits and closeups really look nice, and cheaper cameras simply can’t match this depth of field.

Now, at about $450 this isn’t a cheap camera. But here is the thing…

If you are going to take photos, you want them to be good enough that you’ll actually want to come back and look at them later. Or show them to friends. So a cheap $100-200 camera is literally just not going to be able to get 1/2 the shots you can get with the G11. And the half it can get just won’t look as good. So in my opinion you just shouldn’t buy a cheaper camera. Because if you aren’t going to try and shoot things in a somewhat artistic / perfectionistic way, then why bother?

Here is a link to Flickr images taken by a Canon G11. And here is a sample video shot using this camera hand-held. It would be even nicer if it was on a tripod.

And here is a video review that covers all the basic features of the camera:

My final comments on the G11 are that it’s got a metal case for excellent durability, it can help you make beautiful HDR images, and it will last you for years. I think every photographer should have this camera – at least for a backup, even if they have an SLR like the one below.

Canon Digital Rebel T1i

Now, you say you’ve got a little more budget to work with? And you don’t mind a full sized camera body? Well in that case you need to run, not walk, and get the Canon EOS Rebel T1i.

The T1i is the latest in Canon’s line of Digital Rebel SLR camera bodies. I wrote about my old first generation Rebel years ago, and Canon has made many improvements in the years since, culminating in this very, very impressive piece of hardware.

I’m not going to sit here and go on and on about the quality of the images, because they speak for themselves. Head over and browse the Canon 500D user group and you’ll quickly see why.

However, it is important that I point out the very impressive High Definition video that this camera will take! Here is a sample clip from Daniel Slaughter taken at a concert in very low light and with strobes going off constantly. This is an incredibly difficult environment for a camcorder, but just look at that video!

And for God’s sake, here is the camera taking video of the moon with a 2000mm lens attached!

Features

• New 15.1-megapixel CMOS sensor with DIGIC 4 Image Processor
• Includes Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens
• Full HD video capture at 1920 x 1080 resolution; HDMI output
• 3.0-inch Clear View LCD; Live View Function for stills (Quick, Live and Face Detection AF modes) and video
• Capture images and video to SD/SDHC memory cards (not included)
• HDMI output for HD viewing of stills and video.
• Wide range ISO setting 100-3200
• Compatible with over 60 Canon EF/EF-S lenses
• Self Cleaning Sensor Unit
• Metering Modes: 35-zone TTL full-aperture metering
• Self-timer: 10-sec. or 2-sec. delay or 10-sec. delay plus continuous shooting
• Flash Exposure Compensation: ±2 stops in 1/3- or 1/2-stop increments
• Continuous Shooting Speed: Max. 3.4 shots/sec. (with One-Shot AF or AI Servo AF)

John P.’s Take

Now lets compare the full sized T1i to the much more portable G11 and see what we get out of the box for roughly twice the price.

• The G11s lens is rated at f2.8-4.5, while the T1i’s stock lens comes with f3.5-5.6. Right off the bat we know that the G11 has better glass in it. Which means that all other things being equal, it would take much better low light photos. But things aren’t equal. The T1i’s sensor is much larger! Compare the APS-C sensor in our chart above to the 1:1/7 sensor and you’ll see it’s about 6 times larger! So even though the stock lens is not quite as good, the sensor will more than over compensate for this.
• Speaking of lenses, with the G11 you do have the option of getting an aqward wide angle or telephoto lens, but the T1i can accomodate all <Canon EF-S Lenses (specially made for the APS-C sensor) and just about Canon EF Lenses“>any EF lens as well (made for full size sensors or 35mm film cameras). I’d highly recommend the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens for $99. It takes amazing shots!
• The HD video capability of the T1i simply can not be matched by the G11. Its literally good enough to shoot an independent film on. So you could make the next Blair Witch movie and get rich off it! Well, with one exception… the camera only records mono sound and has no external mic input. But you can fix that! While shooting video with this camera, just use an external pocket stereo recorder. And after you get the both going clap so you have a sound you can sync the audio to when you are editing the video.
• The T1i also has a much faster shooting speed. With three and a half frames per second, it will rattle off shots like a machine gun. This will allow you to get shots that the G11 will simply miss. So you need to be really, really good with the G11 as compared to the T1i which will just make you look like a better photographer through sheer force of will.
• Faster everything. Power on, cycle time between images, shutter speeds, adjustments, and more. Basically, this is a camera that you can actually use as a professional photographer. You could do weddings, portraits or even sports. Sure, you could do better with a $3,000 camera – but this one will get the job done.

Finally, here’s a complete 14 minute review of the camera. Delicious!

Frankly, in the hands of a pro, this camera can work wonders. And in the hands of an amateur, this camera can help you grow into a pro while lasting you for 3-4 years before you outgrow it.

So, that’s it for today! Possibly the longest post ever on OneMansBlog? I hope you all learned something from it, and if you were looking for a camera I’m also hopeful I talked you into one of these. I’m certain you won’t regret it!

Credits:

The G11 image at the top of the post is courtesy of Anthony Goto. And the image of the lake is courtesy of Jason.

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System Tools

• GeekTool – A very powerful panel for your system preferences which adds all sorts of command line like functionality. This is for power users only.
• Growl – This is a little add in that improves just about every other application by adding instant notifications to your Mac. Works with Adium, Firefox, Skype and many more. Get it!
• Skype – The absolute standard for making calls through the Internet. I use it for communicating with my partners in Lebanon as well as for doing Podcasts and interviews with others around the country.
• Carbon Copy Cloner – Useful for making copies of your hard drive to upgrade to a new computer, or even for automated backups to protect your data.
• atMonitor – This is a critical application, as far as I’m concerned, to manage your computer’s overall health. I primarily use it to keep an eye on my CPU usage and ensure that I don’t have an application running away with all my processing power. That heats up your machine and wastes your battery. Another option is MenuMeters if for some reason you prefer it.
• The Unarchiver – Software for uncompressing Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, RAR, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other formatted files, common when downloading from newsgroups or other online sources.
• CrossLoop – Allows you to take over a computer remotely with permission from the other person to help with troubleshooting and things like that. Good for helping the family out… (My previous review.)

Net Apps

• Woopra – Well, I guess it’s obvious that I use Woopra to monitor all of my Websites in real time to see what kind of traffic I’m getting and to interact with my site visitors.
• Firefox – The eminent Web browser. You should use it on any system, if for no reason other than the plugins.
• Filezilla – The best FTP app for Mac. Period.
• Adium – The best Instant Messaging client you can get for Mac. If you are using the crappy built in iChat please do yourself a favor and switch immediately!
• Dropbox – This is software that works with the Dropbox.com service which constantly syncs the files you put in it between all of your computers. It works for Windows, Mac and even iPhone! So I can put important files in my dropbox and they become instantly available anywhere. Also good for disaster recovery. And it’s free for up to 2GB of storage!
• Opera – A great Web browser, though not as popular as Firefox. Important to use for testing if you are doing any web development.
• TweetDeck – The 900 pound gorilla as far as Twitter clients. This app will allow you to post updates to Twitter and Facebook at the same time and also supports multiple accounts.
• Chrome – The Google browser is very fast, and also very buggy. But also necessary for testing if you are doing Web application development.

Photos and Multimedia

• HandBrake – Used for ripping DVDs to other forms so you can make copies of them or just load em on your iPhone to take with you!
• VLC – A replacement video player for your Mac which will play just about any format on the Web. Also necessary for ripping DVDs with Handbrake.
• Miro – An open-source media player like VLC, but with a nicer interface and the ability to find new content directly through the application. I highly recommend this one as a replacement for Quicktime.
• Transmission – A fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client.
• Perian – Adds all sorts of media file support to your Mac. Allows you to play movies in Quicktime that it would not otherwise play.
• Picasa – This image organizer and editor is a free service from Google. I prefer it to iPhoto and wrote a comparison previously. The comparison is somewhat out of date from the latest versions, but might help a bit anyway.
• Flickr Uploader – Allows you to batch upload images to Flickr. FAR superior to trying to use the upload tool on the website, this tool has a permanent space in my dock.
• Jing – The best screen capture software you can get. Even allows you to automatically upload your screen captures and get a URL pasted in your clipboard.

Other Apps

• Text Wrangler – A much better text editor than the built in notepad. I also use it for hand coding HTML and CSS.
• Open Office – Though I normally use MS Office or the iWork suite, it never hurts to have a fully featured free office app on the machine just in case you need it…
• Google Earth – Allows you to visit anywhere in the world on a 3d model of our planet. Even integrates with Woopra to show you where your Website visitors are coming from!
• Weather Snitch – Need to keep an eye on the weather? I do. And this little baby will run in the menu bar at the top of the screen and always keep me updated.

Have you got other “must have” freeware for the Mac that I need to add to the list? Well by all means please share it in the comments below so I can give it a try!

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Now, it will start using some funky technical terms like TCP and IP, but they introduce it in such a way that I think almost anyone can understand it. Give it a listen.

And don’t forget to check out The World Wide Web Circa 1994 and the “Ancient” Internet TV News Special from 1993 if you didn’t see those before. I find the olden days fascinating. :-)

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Well, it turns out that Seagate is making a 640GB drive which will actually fit in a standard laptop. While there are a couple of other 2.5″ drives that are larger, they are also thicker and won’t work in most notebooks. So, the Seagate was what I wanted! Only problem – they aren’t selling it yet!

Doah! Well, no matter. Because I found out that I could buy a Seagate FreeAgent Go 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive from Amazon.com, and being the warranty voiding freak that I am, I had no problem with trying to rip the drive out of this case to stick in my laptop (the video of me doing just that is below). Here’s the Seagate PDF on the FreeAgent Go for more info.

Well, guess what. It worked! And now I’m posting this article from the world’s first laptop computer with a 640GB hard drive! Of course, that happens to be my 17″ MacBook Pro. Oh, and if you read along I’ll show you how you can do it too!

Performance Differences

After reading the review of the hard drive over on The Penguin Trail, here is the summary they gave:

Performance cannot match a 7200RPM notebook drive in many tasks, but the Seagate 640GB is no slouch. It can perform as fast or faster than lower density 7200RPM drives in streaming and other sequential tasks. Keep this drive defragmented and you can expect good all around performance. Of course, on top of that is huge storage capacity.

This left me wondering if getting the new bigger hard drive might actually perform as well as my smaller, faster turning 500GB drive. So, before I pulled out my old drive, I ran a series of tests on it with the help of AJA System Test. The following are screen captures from the tests along with a summary at the end if you’d like to skip ahead.

Original 500GB 7,200RPM Seagate Drive Performance

This is the drive that was in my machine, and it was only about a month old.

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Sweep file Sizes

NOTE! Do you see how the performance of the 7,200 RPM drive drops off dramatically when dealing with large file sizes? This surprised me so much I ran the test three times! As you’ll see from the testing below, for some reason on large files this drive is actually slower than the 5,400 RPM drive that replaced it. And the Firewire G-Drive is just as fast even though it’s external! Amazing, unexpected, and really unforgivable.

New 640GB 5,400RPM Seagate Drive Performance

These are the results of the new drive after it was installed in my machine. How exactly did I do that you may ask? Well, I simply used the freeware app SuperDuper! to clone my existing hard drive onto the external USB drive. Then I disassembled the USB case and took the hard drive out to install in my machine.

Here is a little video of the disassembly of the USB drive that I did:

And you can do a search on Google to learn how to physically upgrade the hard drive in your MacBook Pro. If you’ve got a unibody it is very, very easy. If you’ve got the old style, you’re going to need a chainsaw. (I hope they fired the guy who designed the old ones!)

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Sweep file Sizes

500GB G-Drive Mini Firewire 800 Drive Performance

Just for comparison’s sake, I also ran the tests on a G-Drive which is my portable that I put video files on. Turns out it’s smokin fast!

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Sweep file Sizes

FreeAgent Go 640GB USB Drive Performance

And this is how the new drive performed when it was still in it’s original USB container. It seems that the limitations of the USB interface ensured that this drive doesn’t even reach half it’s potential. But I can’t wait to see what happens when they begin offering it with a Firewire 800 port. I would hope that it performs like the G-Drive, which will make for huge, fast, and compact mass storage on the go.

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Results

Well, I must say that I didn’t know exactly what to expect when comparing the new 5,400 RPM drive to the 7,200 RPM drive, but I was pretty sure that the faster drive was going to run circles around the slower one. But apparently that is not always the case!

As you can see, the new drive performed the fastest in the Sweep File Sizes test, and even more shockingly, the G-Drive external hard drive even out performed the 7200 RPM drive mounted internally in the machine! By the way, I ran those tests multiple times to make sure it wasn’t an anomaly, and the computer was doing nothing else at the time.

Summary

Just to wrap up a couple other items:

• Although it was speculated that a 5,400 RPM drive should run cooler than the 7,200 RPM versions, I’m not sure if this is the case yet in my machine. I do use the free iStat Menus (which you should have if you’re on a Mac!) to monitor my system stats, but I didn’t think to check the hard drive temps before and after. However, my overall computer temperature is basically unchanged from normal.
• This new drive is supposed to be very energy efficient, but my old drive was so new that it was also pretty efficient too I think. So I’m not sure if this will cause any difference in my battery life.

Anyway, I guess the final report is that this definitely works. So you just have to make a decision… do you need the most hard drive space that money can currently buy? Or are you good with what you’ve got?

Cheers!

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Problem is, there is no NetStumbler for Mac. However! After a lot of searching I came up with a couple of cool alternatives:

• iStumbler – Allows you to find AirPort networks, Bluetooth devices and Bonjour services with your Mac. There is also a desktop widget.
• KisMAC – This is a complete wardriving app. Meaning it is GPS enabled and will map open WiFi hotspots and everything. Here is the latest Mac OS version.

Oh, and if you are still using Windows, Netstumber is too old and stale. Now there is inSSIDer. Go and get it.

Oh, and if anyone knows of others for either Mac or Win, please do share!

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Wait! What’s Going On Here?

My other dear readers may be asking themselves, who is this Bob Donovan, and what exactly has he done to John P.? Well, I’ve got no idea who Bob Donovan is, but what he did to me was send me an annoying Twitter spam with a link to nothing other than an affiliate site (belonging to 10 Best Hosting 2009).

Oh, and that link does nothing other than direct traffic to the Web site link http://www.10besthosting2009.com/#1492937361/. You see that number at the end? I’m sure that is an affiliate tracking link, and 10 Best Hosting is paying this spammer to fish people in to their Web site. That is assuming they are not directly behind it!

By the way, you can’t trust anything that site says about hosting, because all they are doing is listing hosting providers who pay them the most money for referrals. You want independent “reviews”? Ask someone who is NOT getting paid by the people they are “reviewing”.

Back To The Filthy Spammer

But I digress. Back to Bob Donovan. This is nothing more than an automated “bot” which is using the Twitter API to look for the name of hosting providers and respond to the people mentioned in those tweets with a recommendation to follow their affiliate link. It’s merely disguised to look like a person, but it’s just as bad or worse than e-mail and blog spam. And of course I hate all spammers and want them to die!

Notice the Tell-Tell signs of an automated spammer:

• Several posts within seconds of one another.
• All using the Twitter API for posting.
• All with identical wording.

What’s a Boy To Do?

So what did I do about it? Well, if you are using TweetDeck, you can choose the User menu by hovering over the user’s Avatar and then select Block & Report Spam. Which is what I did. But who knows if Twitter will actually do a damn thing about it!

Finally: The Offer

So, the next thing I’ll do is offer Bob Donovan (or whoever is behind it) $5,000 to go three 5 minute rounds with me – full contact, MMA style! So come on Bob! You wanna make some money? Put your body where your bot is.

Oh, and just because I don’t want anyone to confuse the funny, joking, “ha ha” John P. with this offer, let me be clear. I will honestly pay, and this is a bonafied offer for one $5,000 ass whipping to any spammer who will take me up on it.

But make sure your insurance is paid up, because you’re gonna need it!

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