Musings of Eric Sharp

Well, maybe not completely, but Apple products have drawn my attention and money considerably over the last year. This is saying a lot for me considering I come from heavy PC background, and have had a strong dislike for the apple operating system.

It all started with iTunes, than the iPod Shuffle, and now I’m an Apple display man. I’ve owned and been utilizing a 20″ cinema display for a few months now, and I just absolutely love staring at it – even if it’s for over 10 hours daily.

I admit that I was very skeptical at first, because converting to this cinema display would bring about a WHOLE lotta change. No longer would I be staring at my 21″ Sony Trinitron CRT. I would be shifting to a DVI transmitted signal, that is displayed on a widescreen crystal display. The upgrade seemed like a no-brainer, but the fundamental technical differences between CRT and LCD’s monitors was always a show stopper. Color contrast, refresh rate, washed out colors – these are all strong concerns of any designer out there today.

But, after reading various documentation, sifting through countless reviews – I made the jump and haven’t looked back. Now, I’m faced with a new problem – I want dual monitor setup to consist of 2 cinema displays! My 21″ CRT is on the brink of being retired to my home. It’s still a great monitor – but it just doesn’t compare to these Apple Cinema Displays. Aside from the visual differences, its size remains obtrusive and it generates enough heat to keep a small house warm during the Winter!

Here’s to upgrades, and research that pays off…

I finally broke down and bought ANOTHER mp3 player. Last March I dumped a nice chunk of change into a Rio Karma, which decided to crash shortly after its 6 month warranty. Well, I’ve really stepped up my workouts over the last few weeks and am struggling without personal tunes. The custom mix/top 40 playlist that echoes throughout my gym makes me angry, very angry. I’ve tried to tune it out, but it’s quite impossible.

So, I welcomed the brand new iPod Shuffle to my home of electronics. On the day of release I clicked over to Apple’s site and ordered up the 1GB, WITH the shnazy armband. It’s very slick looking, and fills that void in the gym that I’ve been strongly searching for. Now I must wait 4-6 weeks before it ships (sigh).

I was on Apple’s site earlier re-acquainting myself with this little electronic stick of musical happiness, and grabbed these photos.

My computer is still down, awaiting a cross-shipment from Asus on a new motherboard sometime today. Hopefully I’ll be up and running tonight, and can finally send out client invoices for November. I have some late nights ahead of me, as I’ll begin the process of catching up with current design projects running through the studio.

During my downtime, I’ve been able to get my KVM switch setup orchestrated. It was a mess, and took aprx. two hours to test, plug in, and arrange the cabling. Also, I’ve categorized this whole situation as a lessons learned. I’ve planned for hardrive failures, but never accounted for complete system failures in the past. Now, I’m able to still work somewhat efficiently with my old development computer, but the problem is that all my updated client data resides on that Raided drive. I can’t simply pop out that hardrive and put it in my old machine because of how Raid technology works. So I must patiently wait until my system is up and running again to access these files.

Just yesterday I purchased a Western Digital 160 GB external hardrive that runs via USB 2.0. From now on, every day @ 3am my projects will be automatically backed up on this external drive. If I have a system failure in the future, no sweat. I simply unplug the external drive from my main computer, plug it into my backup computer, hit #2 on the KVM switch, and wahlah – no downtime! I’m also going to burn backups on my DVD burner, but I’m still awaiting Dual layer DVD-RW’s to hit the shelves so I don’t have to cycle through a new DVD-RW every month. My client data exceeds normal DVD-R media capacity, reason being for purchasing the dual layer DVD burner from Sony a few months ago.

Ahh, isn’t technology fun?

Dont ya just hate that expression? Well, my relationship with a couple of my electronic devices over the last few months have created a torrential downpour as of late.

It all started with my paper shredder a few months ago. Casually shredding a few documents, well maybe one too many, the motor decides its had enough and burns up. It actually still kicks out documents in reverse, but you can forget about shredding anything. Not a HUGE deal, but I’m outside of my 30 day warranty @ Best Buy so I’ll need to purchase another one sometime soon.

Next came my $300 mp3 player that secretly attached a 90 day warranty to it upon purchase. 90 days?? Are you kidding me? Well, yea, the 20 gig Rio Karma is on the verge of having a consumer report on its back – but that doesn’t help me at the moment. The hardrive inside the player decided to crap out, so now I can either return it and have it fixed for half the purchase price, or cut my losses. I’ve already written a nasty report (that was published btw) on cnet.com forewarning any consumer thinking about buying this garbage. Remember the name – Rio Karma. Bad Karma!! I’m dying at the gym with no tunes. At times, I’m forced to listen to the gym’s pre-selected music that plays throughout the facility. Now, this may just be me, but listening to Ashlee Simpson blasting in the background as I throw around the iron has a reverse affect on my motivation.

Wait, it gets worse. On Friday I was planning on heading into the weekend with not only my newly purchased Canon 20D Digital Camera, but a functioning computer. Well, as I was installing my drivers for the camera to review some shots I had taken earlier, XP locks up and I was forced to restart. Now, from that point on I have yet to see my computer assembled and running. I’m without all of my files to the projects I’m currently working on, and Asus’ (manufacturer of my motherboard) tech support loves to put me on hold. Looks as if I’ll be down for a few days, which completely utterly sucks because I’m really behind on some client work.

Maybe I have a magnetic plate in my head? Sigh. Well, at least the Bears and Irish pulled out victories against the Giants and Volunteers this weekend.

For a solid year now, I’ve been aspiring to purchase a low end professional digital camera. As the personal desire has always been there, my studio usage has not. So, dropping $1500+ on a digital SLR camera used strictly for hobby intended purposes seemed a little unjustified for the last year. So, with the foreshadowing out of the way, I’m happy to inform that I’ve come to a point where making the purchase can directly impact my studio’s projects. Take for example the architecture firm I’m currently working with. I emphatically took on the responsibility (knowing I would purchase the camera) to help with the shooting of some of their buildings so that it could be used within the website I’m creating. It seemed like a no-brainer right?

For the last week, I’ve spent aprx. an hour or two every day researching multiple lines of Digital SLR cameras. The process was not only educational, but very exciting as I read up on the hardware, lenses, features, comparison reviews, owner reviews, and other misc. info that would affect my decision. Well, just yesterday the process has narrowed itself down to two cameras. The Canon’s 20D, and Nikon’s D100.

My interest in photography has escalated to a desperation level as I’ve drawn closer and closer to making this purchase. Now, I use the word desperation in a good way here – if that’s possible. The excitement reminds me of that HP commercial where you’re flying in and out of a cityscape as the camera takes quick snapshots of random people & objects every few seconds. On a daily basis, I see various compositions that catch my eye urging me to stop, setup a tripod if necessary, and start shooting. I say desperation because I feel as though I’ve finally justified this large purchase and now it’s game time to stop visualizing those “could be” photos, and start capturing them before I miss out on too many.