Ipod saves Soldier’s Life

Originally uploaded by tikigod.

It makes me a bit nervous to blog about a story that starts off as “My wife’s uncle works” but this it too good to pass up. I hope that no one would hoax this story so here goes…

A nice photo of a damaged iPod, it’s great because this iPod saved his life. According to the story posted with the photo an insurgent armed with an AK-47 shot him and the iPod took the bullet and helped to save his life.

It’s funny to because alot of Apple Fanyboys like myself would have gotten rid of this “old” iPod years ago but this just goes to show that even an old iPod still serves very well. This is an older HP branded 20gb Apple iPod.

Pretty Cool, nice to see it at least had a happy ending, seems as if he may even get a replacement iPod from Apple. Now that would be some good PR for Apple.

You can check out a few other pics here: Flickr

Just a question.

If you had a large cd collection (about 600 cd’s) and wanted to rip them all to iTunes, what would you rip them at and to what file format.

In the past I have ripped mine all to AAC format at 128 and personally have always felt that this was ok for me. I listen to my music on my iPod both through headphones and also in my car with an AUX cable, I also listen to it on my Mac mini with desktop computer style speakers and I also stream the files over my home network to listen to on another Mac mini that is connected to my home stereo.

I always figured that 128 AAC was good, at least for me. With the recent realese from Apple and EMI it made me think. Not so much about the DRM but the upgaded quality to 256. Should I have imported my music at a higher level or another format?

What do you guys/girls think? Should I make a project and re-rip them all a bit higher. I do want to maintain a good level and file for the future, but I also do not want to use to much hard drive space. So Loseless format although great, would just not be ideal.

So I guess my question really is if the difference between 128, 256 or even 384 and AAC or mp3 really matter all that much? I guess I should already know the answer, it has never bothered me before, and I certainly will not rip all these in a short time, it would be a few cd’s here and there.

Well, for the reader’s who have been here for a while you may know that I have in the past used a Sidekick 3, and actually really liked it, the SK3 was the phone that broke me from my all time favorite Treo’s. I do miss the Treo (both the 650 & 700w) and was excited by this new 755p, that I saw over on The Boy Genius Report, but I am now a proud Crackberry Addict, I mean Blackberry User. I love my Pearl. Simply put I love phone’s, smartphones to be more exact and usually get excited when newer models come out. However the Sidekick ID is just horrible.

Some of the features that they left off are Bluetooth, which is a big no-no, crippled Bluetooth is bad enough but if I cannot even use my headset then that is a no-go for me. They also left of the microSD slot which I guess in this case is not an issue because they also left off the digital camera and mp3 player. Granted the SK3 did not take the best photo’s but I still love having a camera on my phone, just for fun.

They say that first impressions are the most important and when I first saw this thing I thought UGLY. It made me think of Skid Mark, and we all know that Skid Marks are not a good thing. Hopefully this phone will turn out to be better than initially reported. The Sidekick line is at least in my opinion a good phone. Of course this phone is most likely marketed to a much younger audience then me, so that should make it more appealing.

Via: Gadgetell

So lately I have been wanting to blog, but I have not had the energy or desire to actually do so. I want to be a blogger and I want to grow my blog and get some more “friends” to visit. I need to be more serious if I want that to happen.

I have had full intentions of getting some stuff written and have my bookmark folder on my browser for items to blog.

That folder even has several items in it. There is no shortage of news and not even a shortage of stuff that I like and want to write about.

What gives? It’s not like I am being lazy, I have actually gotten quite a bit of productive stuff done lately, both in my personal and business life. I just cannot seem to get past the “I want” to blog and actually do it.

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and what I learned.

Let me first say that for me Shutdown Day was not about anything more than a planned day off for me, a day where I would have an excuse to really shutdown and take a day off. No laptop, internet, not even a Blackberry.

What it turned into was a lesson. The internet whether good or bad is part of my life. The was a small time where we were on the couch Saturday night that I wanted to grab my laptop and check me rss feeds while watching tv, but for the most part I was ok with not getting online.

I did realize that the internet is here and for me I need it, no so much to play around but just for life. Starting in the morning I wanted to get some tickets to the upcoming TOOL concert and what do I know, I cannot use Ticketmaster.com. I thought to myself they still have a number to call…right? Well they do, but Ticketmaster.com would have been much easier.

Then we had a birthday party to go to and even though I was pretty sure I knew where it was I wanted to get directions, just so I would not get lost and be late, oops, I cannot use Google Maps. What now, they do not have a telephone number for that. I had to call a family member who was also going.

See that is how my day went, not so much me sitting around shaking with lack of connection, but just lack of normal conveniences. I normally clean my snake cages on Saturday morning and while doing that I listen to music, from the Mac Mini via iTunes. No go this day. Heck at this point I could not even buy a new “cd” that my wife asked me for because it’s all iTunes for us. Better grab (download) that now.

Again I did not miss the internet, just the daily convenience that it provides. So I can easily live without it for fun and time wasting, but day to day it’s here and it will need to stay. No more Shutdown Days for me.

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If you are reading this post it may very well already be Shutdown Day and if I have not been surfing over on Gizmodo I may have forgotten all about it. Like I mentioned in my earlier post about this I am going to participate. Fully participate, no laptops, computers, gadgets, iPods you name it. No fancy computer or tech related items. They will all be turned off as of midnight. I am going to finish this post, check my RSS feeds in NetNewsWire and then play some WoW till midnight. Then go to bed and have a fun day tomorrow.

The funny part is my family is very digital, photo’s, music, dvd’s its all digital. We use very little old media. Our Mac Mini in the living room serves as our entertainment center to include digital copies of cd’s & dvd’s. So we cannot even watch or listen to those. This will truly be a day of fun, hopefully some outdoor sunshine and playing around. Maybe a nice bike ride or some kicking the ball around with my daughter. I cannot wait.

If you happen to catch this before midnight I encourage you to join in on the fun. If you are seeing this on Shutdown Day, at least try to take the rest of the day and get some shutdown. I love my tech goodies and feel lost without a constant internet connection but am looking forward to the day!

Thanks to Cali Lewis and the latest episode of GeekBrief.tv (#147) for giving some info on the latest social network, it’s called VIRB. Hopefully its going to be a MySpace killer. I hate to use the “killer” term for any new site or gadget, but with my long time hate for MySpace I feel better using that term and hope it comes true.

For me MySpace has been a site I have used because others I know have been on it and its been an easy way to stay in contact them. With VIRB I already feel different, this is a site that I want to use. I have spent some time today customizing and playing around to see what this can do. I still have a lot that I would like to change and make it more my own, but that will come with time.

For a while I had my personal name domain (robertnelson.com) and have never done anything with it except use it for the occasional file host and email account. Up till today I just had a standard html page (all black) with the name listed on it, just more or less a place holder. Well today I switched it to forward to my VIRB page. I am going to use this as sort of a one-stop shop so to speak. A place where you can find out what I am up to in regards to websites and other interests and current going on type stuff, not a blog just a homepage.

VIRB in my opinion, is a social network site that is very similar to MySpace, except for a few changes. The first and most important is that it’s very clean and nice looking. It’s also easy to update your layout and design and make your VIRB Page look even nicer, and I don’t mean adding some crappy background like you can on MySpace.

So if you want to check out what is going on you can check me out on VIRB at:
www.virb.com/areyouageek
My site URL is above, but my display id name is “robertnelson”, the “robertnelson” URL was already taken. Oh well.

It is open invitation, but they are only giving so many away per day, so if you want to sign up and have trouble send me an email or get me on GoogleTalk, I have plenty of invites to give away.

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