One of my favorite hobbies is working on my family’s genealogy; because it was also my uncle’s and grandmother’s hobby before me, I have access to a treasure trove of photographs, historical documents, family charts and other paraphernalia that they and others had collected. What’s not in my personal files is kept at the Angelo State University library in their West Texas Collection, where it is easily shared with me and any other interested familial historians.

I guess because I have always had such a relatively easy time collecting and accessing some of (what I consider to be) the most amazing old photographs and documents, and because there are still family members alive who remember the colorful anecdotes which accompany many of the photographs, I was a bit surprised when my boyfriend mentioned that he didn’t have very many pictures of his mother’s father, the grandfather who had died before he was born. Kevin also doesn’t know very many stories about this grandfather, because his mother has also passed. One of the few pictures that he does have of his grandfather is a formal photograph taken perhaps at age five or six; the photo measures 5″ tall x 3.25″ wide, and it has a little bit of damage and fading.

When I was offered the opportunity to review the Photofiddle process, and once I understood what they were capable of doing, I knew immediately which picture I would ask them to use…

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I’ve been accused of keeping food a little too long in the refrigerator. So much so that I’ve noticed my daughter now removes all my leftovers and writes the date on anything dad saves to make sure that it isn’t spoiled when I finally get around to serving it as a meal. Here’s a great idea that’s guaranteed not to go bad no matter how long you keep it - an emergency food kit that has enough food to feed a small family for weeks AND lasts 20 years!

Included are 275 separate servings of:

# 30 Servings - Potato Bakon
# 25 Servings - Corn Chowder
# 25 Servings - Ala King
# 25 Servings - Cacciatore
# 25 Servings - Western Stew
# 25 Servings - Country Noodle
# 25 Servings - Rice Lentil
# 45 Servings - Whey Milk
# 25 Servings - Blueberry Pancakes
# 25 Servings - Barley Vegetable
# Total Weight: 23 lbs.

Costco - $74.99 via FW

I’ve been using voice recognition software for a number of years. Back in my Windows days I used Dragon NaturallySpeaking Speaking. I started with Version 8 and the accuracy improved through my use of Version 9.5. (Version 10 has just been released and it promises to be even better!) When I made the move to Mac a little bit over a year ago I went searching for voice recognition software. I found and purchased iListen from MacSpeech. It worked well enough but was a far cry from the power and accuracy of Dragon. A few months ago MacSpeech updated iListen, (or more actually reinvented the software) and introduced MacSpeech Dictate. This was a giant leap forward, particularly because the new software employs the same voice recognition engine as Dragon. It works quite well.

There are two main components that impact the accuracy of creating text to voice.
The first is the quality of your speech. If you speak in a smooth, consistent manner, using, as the software suggests “a newscaster’s voice” you will have much better results than if you speak the way you would to a friend.

The second, and perhaps more important, is the quality of the microphone. A better microphone will cancel background noise and significantly improve your results.The best option I found was my Fujitsu Stylistic Tablet PC. It had array mics built in which filtered out noise quite well. As a result I was able to sit with the tablet on my lap and simply speak in order to write with tremendous accuracy. When I was using a desktop or laptop, however, the lack of a dual array mic meant that I needed to use a headset. My headset of choice was a noise canceling Andrea USB headset. For about $90 it worked incredibly well. It was, however, cumbersome, slightly uncomfortable, more than slightly inconvenient, and it made me look like a phone operator. But it worked.

A few months ago I noticed that a new wireless microphone had been released by Revolabs. The ex-tag microphone, while rather pricey at $250, promised excellent accuracy while cutting the cord. Mine came today and it is a small wonder. Continue Reading

Question: What do phone manufacturers do when they’ve run out of innovations to add to their phone and want to goose a little extra sales mileage of out of a tired product line? Answer: Introduce new colors! If pictures that recently surfaced online are authentic, then Sprint appears ready to introduce pea soup green (lime?) and rose colors to their Palm Centro smartphone lineup. Rumors say these colors could be introduced in October.

SprintUsers

This week’s Wednesday Walkaround is a double feature: We get first drives of the 2009 Hummer H3T pickup and the 2009 Hyundai Genesisi luxury sport sedan. Enjoy!

Love for Star Wars is tremendous, and this Youtube video I stumbled across proves it. Until I saw this video, I did not know that there exists something called Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida. They have a show called, Dance Off with the Star Wars Stars.  It is AWESOME and a must watch!

Video courtesy of MookieMovies

A few people who’ve applied the recent Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade to their BlackJack II are noticing the network settings on the phone are disabled after the upgrade. While you used to be able to change these items (especially important to those with unlocked devices), the carriers apparently convinced Microsoft to lock them so less experienced users would stop messing up their phone with erroneous settings. Mike Temporale at Mobile Jaw has an excellent post on the steps you’ll need to take to remove the padlock and gain access to your network settings. Perform these at your own risk - they’re for experienced WM users only. Now go forth and unlock.

Mobile Jaw

Except for the $13 per month fee, I’m all over this new lock series from Schlage. First introduced back in May 2008, they’ve just re-introduced LiNK which is a set of deadbolts that can be opened via any web browser - including your cellular phone web browser!

Via the Schlage LiNK online portal, homeowners also have the control to set up user codes for specific days and times, receive text or e-mail notifications when certain codes are used and track codes that have been used over the past 90 days.

These features deliver peace of mind to the parents of active families so they know exactly when their children, family members, friends and even service providers are entering their home. It also does away with the need to regularly replace locks for rental properties and second homes.

What’s cool about this is you can receive a text message alert to notify you when someone has entered your house and there’s an optional interface allows adding video monitoring as well. There’s a starter kit that includes one deadbolt or lock, wireless Z-Wave Bridge and a wireless lighting module for an SLP of $299. Watch for this via Frys and other retail outlets beginning in October 2008.

Schlage via Electronic House

If you’re a Sprint subscriber using a compatible phone (primarily their Motorola, Sanyo, Samsung or LG handsets are supported) you’re eligible for free Sprint NFL Live. This service provides live audio, live video, NFL Network reports, Red Zone alerts to let you know when your favorite team has the ball in play. Grab your own copy by texting NFL to 7777. As of now (despite the image on the Sprint Web Site) there are no smartphones supported but let’s hope that changes before the season ends.

Sprint NFL Live

Don’t worry - I’m sure there’s going to be more - and hopefully better - videos in the Jerry Seinfeld advertisement campaign. In mid-August Microsoft announced they had hired Jerry Seinfeld for a rumored $10 million fee to star in what will be a $300 million advertising campaign to convince us that Microsoft still has some life in them. Looks like Jerry’s laughing all the way to the bank in this first one. Anyone know what this is supposed to do except raise awareness of, well, Jerry?