Hello. My name is James. This is my personal blog.
After almost 2 years of silence, I have come back with a redesign and a different purpose. My previous blog was mostly about matters of the heart. This new version will mainly be about topics that I find interesting.
Follow me on Twitter: @jmsclbwmn
As a student, a case that puts my iPad mini on one side and a notepad on the other is a fantastic idea. Naturally, when I found this case from booq, I was incredibly excited. I spent a few days with it, but ended up returning it. What I want to do is tell you what I really liked about it, and discuss the reasons that led to my ultimate decision about it not being right for me.
Every now and then we all have a day which we will look back upon and say, “My life changed forever on that day.” Today was one of those days.
Twins. That’s right – twins. As in two babies sharing one uterus. Becky and I knew she was pregnant, but today we found out that we’re having twins. My heart instantly grew the moment our doctor said there were two fetuses in there. I used to be concerned that I would love our next child because of how much I love Jordyn, and now I will have to share that love with two more kiddos. Share isn’t the best word though, because it’s not like I will love Jordyn any less.
Today was also a day of tough conversations. Two people that were around my life while I was growing up are just now becoming pretty good friends. I talked with each today for over an hour about some pretty intense stuff. I walked away from each conversation feeling somewhat better about my life.
Today was also the first jam session for what might end up being a pretty cool musical project. It’s an interesting mix of talents and personalities, but that uniqueness might be magic. It could be that our differences keep us from writing anything, and there’s also the chance that we’ll write some good stuff, but that it will be self-indulgent crap that nobody else can connect with. Only time will tell.
So, 1:34 AM seems like a good time to wrap this up. I hope I never forget today. I know I’ll remember the shock of twins, but I hope I remember the conversations and the fun had with capos and alternate tunings. I hope I remember why I believe what I believe, and I hope that I learn to be a better husband. I hope that this pregnancy goes without a hitch. I already can’t bear the thought of losing even one of those teeny tiny mini-humans. I hope that we can afford the house and minivan that are soon to be thrust upon us. I hope that I can find a way to do what’s best for my family and still maintain my own sanity. I hope…
Hmmmmm, I’m starting to ramble. I guess that is expected with days like today: life-changing, that is. 🙂
The past year of my life has been tough. Now, I hate it when people complain about how terrible their lives are, especially when they feel the need to explain, in detail, why their life is so much worse than anyone else’s. This post will not be like that. Promise.
Parenthood is such a blessing. I get to spend everyday with my daughter as she grows up. Not many fathers are able to do this, and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. That being said, there is a reason why most dads don’t spend everyday at home – we go crazy! There are times when I feel worthless because I’m not bringing home any money, and there are times when I feel guilty because my wife wants so badly to be able to be a stay-at-home mom. However, she’s been with the same company for over 12 years, and to be straightforward, she makes more money than I would. She’s also hoping to be able to telecommute soon, which would be the best of both worlds for our family.
I’ve always been a late bloomer. I just started getting acne. Yes, I am almost 30. You’re right, most people get it in their teens. Anyway, I’m finally starting to feel a drive to be successful. Until now, I’ve been happy to stay afloat. I wanted new cars, expensive toys, and lots of friends. I still want those things, but I also want more. I want to own multiple homes. I want to have set aside enough money for my children’s education. I want to be able to retire without counting on Social Security. (That’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to talking about politics on here. Haha.) Strangely, I don’t care about where I work as much as most people. Americans place too much importance on our jobs, as if our jobs define who we are as people. To me, job equals money. End of story.
The most frustrating thing for me right now is not knowing what my next step is. I wasted almost 6 years with a company that went nowhere. I have a versatile skill set, but I lack the necessary experience to land the jobs I am capable of. The old answer would be to finish my degree, but statistics are coming out lately proving that our college system is nothing more than a cash machine for the institutions, and having a degree doesn’t mean you’ll find a job.
In spite of all this stuff, though, I am happy. Marriage isn’t perfect. Fatherhood isn’t ideal. Life is nothing like I thought it would be when I was younger, but I am still happy.
Yes, super seriously. You are about to read about hard drives! Yay!
I am an aesthetics person, almost to a fault. The main reason I use Apple products is aesthetics. I love the look and feel of OS X, and what good would a wonderful operating system be on a clunky beige box? Luckly, Apple also designs the sexiest hardware in the industry. No, I did not NEED a 15″ MacBook Pro to browse the web, listen to music, look at photos, and perform every other rudimentary task that we 20-somethings do with our computers, but these actions certainly are more enjoyable on it. (Being a musician, Logic is the real reason why I went with this machine, but I’m still waiting to be able to afford it!)
This shallow materialism extends to everything else in my life: the clothes I buy, the food I eat, and yes, even the hard drives I purchase. It is for this sad, sad reason I have always avoided Seagate drives. You see, their logo is just plain ugly. 
I know that most tech-minded people don’t care about logos and aesthetics; they just want to know the specs. Larger capacity, smaller form factor, faster performance, these are all things most geeks care about. Seagate has been coming out with some amazing stuff lately, though.
Part 1
Enter the Hybrid Hard Drive. Hybrid drives first made their appearance in 2007, but they were not widely adopted at that time. Solid state drives (SSD’s) were also popping up around then. Most people, even my wife, knows the difference between solid state memory and a traditional hard drive. Okay, so my wife probably doesn’t remember, but I have told her all about it, so she has the knowledge regardless of her memory.
For those who don’t know, traditional hard drives using spinning magnetic platters to store your data. These drives are little machines with motors to drive the platters, so the faster they spin the faster they can transfer you data, but they also use more power. Translation: you sacrifice battery life in your notebook to have better performance. SSD’s use no moving parts, so the platters are replaced with NAND flash memory, the same type of memory used in iPods and smart phones. SSD’s are exceptionally fast for moving the small amounts of data associated with normal usage, i.e. opening a web browser, playing music in iTunes, opening MS Office applications to do work, etc. SSD’s are also exceptionally expensive, and there are still concerns with the volatility of the memory (how many reads and writes before the memory “breaks” for lack of a better word.)
Hybrid drives combine traditional hard drive platters with a small amount of flash memory. The theory is that your large data collections (music, photos, video, etc) are stored on the platters, and the flash memory is used for transferring the data used to open applications. Here is a video comparing a hybrid drive, SSD, traditional laptop drive, and a high-performance desktop drive. Spoiler alert! The SSD wins, but the hybrid drive is a close second, and the hybrid is 1/4 the cost of the SSD.
So with that said, anybody want to guess what my first upgrade will be? If you said Seagate hybrid hard drive, then you win 10 gold stars!
Part 2
As you all know, I am an avid iPad user. I love tablets, and really think they are the future of personal computing. Steve Jobs coined the term Post-PC Era when he introduced the first iPad, and I think he was right. Today’s smartphones are more capable than yesterdays desktops. Tablets give you smartphone technology in a slightly larger device, basically bridging the gap between smartphone and laptop. I know that I personally use the iPad more than anything else, although I don’t think traditional PC’s are going anywhere anytime soon. It’s just that for same basic tasks outlined earlier (web, music, photos, etc) which can be grouped as absorbing content, tablets are much more intuitive. For those who spend their time creating content, traditional computers are much more effective.
A downside of tablets is limited storage space, and because tablets use flash memory, you pay a hefty premium for the storage built in to your tablet. Seagate apparently saw this as a problem, too, so they decided to grace us with this, the GoFlex Satellite. The GoFlex Satellite is a battery-powered external hard drive with built-in WiFi. What this means is you can stream content from the GoFlex to your iPad (actually up to 3 iPads). Why is this a value? Let’s do some math.
iPad 16GB – $499, iPad 32GB – $599, iPad 64GB – $699. Want 3G and GPS? Add $130.
Anyway, as you can see, you start with 16 GB, and then have the option of paying an extra $100 to double your capacity, up do a maximum of 64 GB. The GoFlex Satellite is a 500GB drive and has an MSRP of $200, the same dollar amount as the 48GB difference from smallest iPad to largest iPad. The GoFlex weighs in at 2.5 gigabytes per dollar, while Apple’s bump in capacity is a measily 0.24 gigabytes per dollar. That’s more than a ten-fold difference! If you want to use the other statistic, the GoFlex costs $0.40 per GB and Apple wants to charge you $4.17 per GB! That is not an insignificant difference, although there is more to the equation.
The iPad, regardless of storage space will around 10 hours on a single charge. All of the data stored on your iPad is instantly available to you that entire time. The GoFlex only promises “up to 5 hours” of battery life, and that probably translates to approx. 4 hours of real-world battery life. While that is nothing to scoff at, it’s certainly not the same 10 hours. For most people this won’t be a concern, but it’s still something to keep in mind.
There’s also the issue of getting your data on the GoFlex. Seagate has a proprietary connector on the drive and supplies you with a USB 3.0 dongle. They also offer eSATA and Firewire 800 dongles , and will presumably add Thunderbolt in the future, all for a small fee. Very Apple-like, if you ask me.
So my final verdict is this in an awesome device, and I want one. There are some awesome reviews of this device that go into much more detail than I did. Oh, I almost forgot – the obligatory video!
Conclusion
There’s more to life than how pretty something is. Chew on that one for a while. Bam!
Android: for those who need to be on the bleeding edge of mobile technology, regardless of how well the product actually works. One operating system is expected to run on myriad hardware offerings from multiple manufacturers. Perhaps this reminds you of Microsoft Windows.
iOS: for those who are willing to sacrifice features for the sake of a polished user experience. Since Apple makes their own software and hardware, their mobile operating system is only expected to run on a handful of devices, and for the most part does this smoothly and without hiccup. You are limited to Apple’s hardware offerings, though, and since they typically refresh their mobile products once per year, there will be times when your iDevice seems lacking when compared to all the competition.
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