The Man Page » Technology & Gadgets

Hi, and I’m a PC

Nick Bostic — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:26:09 +0000

My name is Nick Bostic, I’m one of the Sparkplugging interns and I’m a PC.

The fact that I’m a PC has been further solidified lately and is part of the reason you haven’t seen me here yet. Apple has been killing my PC. Let me back up a moment…

I grew up on PC’s. I assembled my first Intel 8086-based computer when I was five and that was before it was normal for a five year old to even be on a computer, let alone building one. I was a beta tester for Windows 95. I helped my dad in his consulting business switching out advertising agencies from Mac’s to PC’s.

The whole Mac vs. PC thing annoys me and it reached a critical climax in the last few weeks. Consumers complained that OS X was “prettier” and more stable than Windows XP, so Microsoft came out with Vista. I LOVE Vista. But so many people I encounter say, “Vista is too different, I can’t get used to it, so I’m going to Mac.” As Jon Stewart would say, “Whaaaa??” You wanted different, they gave you different, you don’t like different so you’re going MORE different?

I’ve been using Vista for a while now, it works great with the only real issue being that ATI doesn’t know how to write a drive to save their lives. The Mac ads have been grating on me since I hate the idea of lugging my computer to the mall to get help instead of just looking it up online and helping myself. I also like that I had options when buying my computer instead of just one overpriced one. Then my Vista problems started…

When at home, but not out and about, I couldn’t put my computer into sleep mode. It would crash first, then stay on and drain my battery. I also couldn’t uninstall or install any software. But again, just when I was at home. The location-dependence made me realize it had something to do with my network, but at first even that stumped me. Then I came to the revelation that it must be some software accessing my network that was causing the problems, but it couldn’t be my browsers since they all work elsewhere.

That’s when it hit me: iTunes, the software I hate to love. It’s a great media player, yes. But the forced updates that always try to install additional software I don’t want infuriates me. I have it setup to detect my network attached storage where my nearly terabyte of music resides, but that what is creating the issue. Now, it was working, but a recent update changed the story. A quick uninstall of iTunes and my computer is back to working great.

So, my biggest problem to date with Vista has actually been caused by Apple. The stress and frustration this has caused me for the last few weeks has further solidified that I am proudly a PC.

Nick Bostic has been an entrepreneur and internet marketer for the majority of his life. He currently works in corporate America helping independent business people be more successful and has been blogging to some degree for close to 8 years.

Follow Nick on Twitter: @nbostic

Car Enthusiasts :: Raise Your Child Right

Derek Semmler — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:09:20 +0000

Guys (and ladies too), do you consider yourself to be a car enthusiast?

Some might say you are a car enthusiast if you have ever opened up the hood of your car for something other than adding fluids (note, I said adding not changing). My own definition of a car enthusiast is a little more discriminating than that.

You know you’re a car enthusiast when…

you’ve changed out your steering wheel
you can name more than three wheel manufacturers
you’ve added gauges to the interior of your car
you know why you added said gauges

I think you get the idea.

Undoubtedly, many of you are shaking your heads or raising your hand – you’re a car enthusiast.

Well, have I got a cool product to show you. Earlier today, one of my blogging buddies, David Pitlyuk sent me a link to one of the coolest child car seats that I have ever seen.

That’s right – a carbon fiber car seat modeled after the well-known Sparco racing seats that many of you enthusiasts may already have in your car. Take a look at this prototype and tell me it is not one of the sweetest things you have seen.

This seat, designed by Rory Craig, is a prototype but I can see something like this being a huge hit with the car enthusiasts. Even the proposed name is a great fit – Wing Man!

Jump on over to Carbon Fiber Gear to see a few more pictures and learn a little bit more about the creation of this carbon fiber car seat.

Thanks for the heads-up Dave!

Photo courtesy of Carbon Fiber Gear

Manival And Alltop :: Men On The Interweb

Derek Semmler — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:55:48 +0000

Through my use of twitter, I have had the pleasure of finding a growing number of dads invading the Interweb. When this site first launched as Dad Balance, many of the dad blogs that I found appeared to have been abandoned.

However, now I am finding that I just wasn’t looking in all the right places.

Two sites that I have found while tweeting, and have been thoroughly enjoying, are The Art of Manliness and Dads @ Alltop.

The Manival

The Art of Manliness is hosting the first edition of The Manival – a blog carnival that highlights some of the best posts written by men, for men. After learning about The Manival, I submitted one of the posts from The Man Page and was fortunate enough to have it included in this inaugural edition.

Blog carnivals are a great way to get your content out in front of a larger audience, but more importantly they provide a way for you to find more great content for your own reading pleasure.

Here are my favorite posts from The Manival:

7 Ways To Avoid Adding Housework :: GetGeekStrong.com shared a post that includes 7 ways to avoid adding housework for your spouse. Has your wife ever grumbled that she feels like she has an extra child around the house? Well, check out this list to ensure that you are not making more work for your spouse – or share this with your spouse if you do most of the housework.

Three Little Words :: Could the secret of a successful marriage be boiled down to three little words? While there is a lot of hard work involved in a good marriage, The Night Writer has found that his marriage of 18 years is doing so well because he and his wife say those three little words to one another – and they probably aren’t the words you’re thinking about.

Dos and Dont’s – Advice for Moms :: Discovering Dad discusses the idea that while more dads are taking ownership of their role as a parent, wives can provide even more inspiration for their husbands by following the dos and dont’s of motivating dad to get more involved.

Dads @ Alltop

In addition to being a participant in The Manival, I wanted to send out a note to let everyone know that The Man Page can now be found as part of Dads @ Alltop.

If you’re not familiar with Alltop, think of it as the uber-aggregation of articles from the top sites on the Interweb for 60+ different topics. This is a great way to stay in tune with your favorite sites on a particular topic as well as expose you to many new sites that you had yet to discover.

The Dads topic at Alltop includes so many quality blogs that are discussing the issues that men encounter on a daily basis. It is truly an honor to be included among this group of dad bloggers and I encourage you to browse through the list of dad bloggers, as well as all of the other topics.

Liveboard :: Stay Connected To Your Favorite Team

Derek Semmler — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:30:58 +0000

We don’t all enjoy the flexibility of working from home where we can easily tune in to our favorite baseball game on the flat screen while getting our work done – although I am enjoying that flexibility right now.

Depending on the guidelines of your Interweb usage at work, you might not even be able to check the scores on the web throughout the day.

Or maybe you want to catch the game tonight but your wife and kids want to watch the latest Disney extravaganza. When you flip the channel to “check the score” you will be greeted with moans and groans, and chances are it will be a commercial and you won’t even see the score.

Enter the Liveboard – your very own personal live baseball scoreboard.

The Liveboard has a nice retro look to it, although unfortunately it reminds me of the classic scoreboard in place at Wrigley Field. Made from American ash wood, just like many of the bats your favorite team is using, the Liveboard will keep you in tune with how your team is doing.

There are three modes of operation depending on how closely you want to monitor scores across the league.

The basic mode allows you to set your “home team” and the Liveboard will automatically display the score as soon as the game begins.
The full mode will display an alternate game while your team is not playing, checking for divisional games first.
The cycle mode will run through all of the scores across the major leagues much like the ticker that we all see on ESPN.

At a price of $199, this likely will not be for the casual fan but for the die-hard fans, or the guys that love cool gadgets, that have a hard time keeping tabs on their team this might be just the thing.

If I Didn’t Have Pictures, You Would Think I Was Lying

Derek Semmler — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:26:06 +0000

Over at Derek Semmler dot com, I’ve recently been discussing my desire to purchase a laptop to be used for traveling and remote blogging.

After purchasing an Apple MacBook at the Apple Store yesterday, I decided to return it today as I found that it was cheaper to buy through Amazon. As I mentioned here, purchasing through Amazon was going to save me roughly $200.

The reason that there is emphasis on the “was” is because in the process of returning the laptop to the Apple Store, I incurred an expense of $627.32 – I couldn’t make up a story like this if I tried but for any doubters, I have the pictures to prove it.

While en route to the mall, driving along in the left lane of the highway the car in front of me ran over a piece of metal debris in the road that flew up into the air. As if there was a magnet attached to the front bumper of my car, my attempt to swerve out of the way was not effective.

Unfortunately, I have a $500 deductible on my auto insurance and according to the Scion dealer and their recommended body shop, replacing the bumper is going to run me just over $600.

While my attempt to save myself $200 may have been prudent, in the end it has cost me an additional $400 in car repairs. After exhausting the list of “If only…” scenarios as to how I could have avoided this situation, all I can do is laugh and chalk it up on the board of life’s experience.

Have you ever tried to save money only to cost yourself more?

The Ultimate Twit List :: Dads & Husbands On Twitter

Derek Semmler — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:00:57 +0000

When I first began to read about everyone signing up with twitter, I’ll admit that I had thoughts similar to Tyler over at Building Camelot as I just didn’t see the appeal to being a “twit” – even though I understood the social networking aspect of it.

However, after reading a post from Gary Jones over at John Chow’s blog covering twitter 101, I was compelled to sign up and am now proud to be a twit.

The purpose of this post is not to explain why you need to sign up for twitter if you haven’t already – trust me, you do – or how much fun it can be – trust me, it is – but rather to try and assemble an ultimate list of dads and husbands that are twits.

Here is a list of outstanding dads/husbands that you can find and follow on twitter.

Ultimate List of Twitter Dads & Husbands

This will be a living list as I continue to search through twitter looking for the men that I know are dads, but if you’re a dad/husband not on the list above please leave a comment below or send me a tweet “@dereksemmler add me to the club” and you will be added to the list.

One of the goals for this blog is to promote the role of fathers and the importance of finding a balance between the demands of your career and the needs of your family.

As more and more dads invade the Interweb, I’d love to see this list of dads and husbands on twitter become a resource to help you connect with like-minded people and become a better man, husband, and/or dad.

Official “Turn Off The Interweb” Day

Derek Semmler — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:12:52 +0000

Where is the off switch for the Interweb?

I’ve looked high and low for the power switch today as just about every blog and website was running some sort of April Fool’s Day joke. Unfortunately I never found it and endured far too many nonsense postings.

Next year I would like to see April 1st become the official “Turn Off The Interweb” Day.

While there were a few good April Fool’s stories posted, many of them were rather poor attempts and contributed to the idle chatter of the Interweb today.

Some blogs seemed to jump the gun a little as well, posting their “jokes” yesterday – why I am not entirely sure.

Maybe I am in the minority but I will be looking forward to April 2nd just to see the rather weak attempts at humor come to an end and be able to find information that is worth the time to sit down and read. Until the clock strikes midnight, I will enjoy some time away from the Interweb and spend a night with the family.

If you know where the off switch is located, give me a shout.

Dads Invading The Interweb

Derek Semmler — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:23:52 +0000

Earlier today I was reading one of my favorite blogs – A Good Husband – and came across a post from Cory where he shared the news that he had made the Daddy Blog List.

When I visited the Definitive Daddy Blog List to take a look at Cory’s inclusion, I realized that Dad Balance had also been included in the list!

In addition to sharing the link to the Daddy Blog List, Cory shared a few other links that are of interest to dads and I thought that I would share a few of those here as well to help spread the word to other dads that might be looking for sites with their interests at heart.

Dad Blog Lists

When I started this blog, I have to admit that I searched for blogs being run by dads and many that I found appeared to have been abandoned. Unfortunately my cruise around the Interweb missed these sites and that is why I want to share these outstanding lists of blogs that are run by men – most of them are fathers – and have a focus on topics of interest to dads:

Definitive Daddy Blog List :: After a recent update, this list now stands at 184 blogs being authored by dads. While there are a few familiar names on this list, I’ve discovered quite a few more that are well worth the read. Keep an eye on this list as it continues to grow and leave a comment if you have a dad blog that is not currently listed.

101 Awesome Sites For Men, Husbands And Fathers :: This is another great list of sites that will appeal to the men in the crowd. The nice thing about this list is that it contains a few different categories, including: blogs by fathers, how to and resource links, men’s general interest and more.

51 Dad Blogs :: 51 Dad Blogs is, well…a list of 51 blogs authored by dads. While this list is not a living list – meaning there are no new additions, you will notice a few of the blogs highlighted here are on the list. If you have a dad blog that is not listed, send an email to Jared to let him know about your blog and be sure to check his out as well as there is some great information.

Social Networking for Dads

While browsing through all of this information today, I also had the opportunity to check out Dad Daily. This is a social network exclusively for dads and now has 216 members, including yours truly.

There are discussion forums, groups, photos, videos, and gadgets to browse and share with other dads. As with any social network, Dad Daily will be as valuable as the members make it and I am hoping that this can be a great resource. It does appear that some forums are more active than others but hopefully more dads will continue to sign up and build the network.

When you have a few minutes, check it out and be sure to stop by my page (see below for a link) and say hello!

View my page on Dad Daily

Help Spread the Word

This post is one means to help spread the word about dad blogs and hopefully give more publicity to some of the great blogs being authored by dads. There are many more ways to help spread the word, one of which is in place at a friend’s blog – Postcards from the Funny Farm.

Head on over to Damien’s blog and take a look at the header. You’ll notice that Damien is now running an advertisement for Dad Balance, thanks buddy!

If you would like to help spread the word about dad blogs, please jump in and share a list of your favorite dad blogs or join in on the fun over at Dad Daily and become an active participant. You can also help spread the word about Dad Balance by displaying the same banner as you see on Damien’s blog.

The FBI Destroyed Our Cell Phone

Derek Semmler — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:49:52 +0000

Have you ever misplaced your cell phone and simply cannot find it no matter where you look? Before you tear apart the house looking for your phone, consider the possibility that the FBI destroyed your cell phone.

This happened to us last week.

Maybe it was because of my discussion on how to record a cell phone conversation – nobody really knows for sure.

In our search for answers, we were fortunate enough to have the ability to interrogate the FBI agent in question. That’s right – the FBI agent that destroyed our cell phone was our youngest son!

Last week our son was pretending to be an FBI agent and was on a top secret mission. With his homemade badge tucked in his pocket, the only thing that was missing was a phone to call for backup. Little did we realize at the time but he grabbed my wife’s cell phone off of the counter as his phone of choice.

Apparently an afternoon of secret missions, arrests, and shootouts was enough to cause our son to forget the fact that he left the cell phone in his pocket.

Unfortunately the phone was not discovered before his clothes were tossed into the washing machine and it received a thorough washing. Just in case you weren’t aware – most electronic devices don’t mix well with being submerged in water for an extended period of time.

There is still hope for the phone though – it is currently spread out on the counter in an attempt to let it dry out before we see if there is any life left.

One thing is certain and that is we will do a better job of searching all of the clothing the next time the FBI invades our house.

Photo credit: kompressor

Netflix vs. Apple iTunes Movie Rental

Derek Semmler — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:00:22 +0000

There has been a long running divide in the world of computing as people typically align themselves with either Microsoft or Apple and it is is somewhat rare to see someone advocating both sides.

Now that divide might be moving into the entertainment industry.

Steve Jobs is kicking off the Macworld Expo with a variety of announcements, including the launch of a new movie rental service that will serve as a complement to the sales of movies and television programs currently available on iTunes.

The new movie rental service with iTunes will feature titles from all major studios, with new movies being made available 30 days after their DVD release. Users will have the option to view movies on their computer as well as their iPod or iPhone.

Once a movie is purchased, users will have 30 days to begin watching the movie and 24 hours after that to complete the movie. The price points for the iTunes service will be $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for older titles.

What does this mean for Netflix.com?

Clearly the rumors of the iTunes movie rental service were not lost on the executives at Netflix.com, as they recently made a preemptive announcement regarding their online service.

Netflix.com just recently altered their “Watch Instantly” service to remove the hourly limit placed on how long customers could watch in a month.

The Netflix.com service will likely receive an additional boost in popularity later this year when LG releases the Netflix-ready set-top-box that allows members to stream movies to their TV as opposed to the PC.

So which service is best?

The answer to which service is best will likely lie with your viewing habits.

If you absolutely must have your movies available on-the-go for the commute to work or an upcoming flight, you will likely want to explore the iTunes movie rental service. The largest drawback to the Netflix.com service is the requirement that you stream the movie to your computer without any option to download the movie, burn it to a DVD, or copy it to your iPod/iPhone.

For the crowd that prefers value and flexibility over mobile movie viewing, you will likely want to give Netflix.com a try as the pricing is much more reasonable. With Netflix.com you can get two movies per month and two hours of online streaming for only one dollar more than a single online rental at iTunes.

As someone that finds myself on the Windows PC side of the computing divide, Netflix.com is the clear cut winner – although it is more because we don’t watch movies on-the-go and prefer to watch on the television as opposed to the computer. Netflix.com provides us with that flexibility and is more economical.

Which service do you think is more attractive?