Technology
Digital Life, Simplified
Oct 13th
I’m a geek. I admit it. I LOVE technology, gadgets and all that kind of stuff. Spending hours just playing with toys, tinkering away a weekend, that’s how I love to spend my time. At least that’s what I like to do when I’m not hanging out with my family. I’m not sure what it is exactly that keeps me so enamored with it all but I guess you can’t always explain someone’s passion. As much as I love all things digital I am beginning to wonder if maybe I need to simplify things a bit. Do a bit of pruning if you will. I think I may have crossed a threshold that I am spending more time taking care of my gadgets and they are consuming more of my time than maybe they should.
I have been scaling back some for the past number of weeks. I try to only work on one computer most of the time instead of making certain duties designated to certain machines. One computer should be plenty for day-to-day "work" and I really think I’m getting to that point. I figure with the appropriate backup solutions in place and working more "in the cloud" I should be able to get everything accomplished with fewer systems.
My main setup now is a Mac Book Pro 13" and my iPhone 3G. I decided to use a Mac more than my PC because, to be quite honest, I was tired of maintaining it. I simply spent way more time updating, scanning and tinkering than actually using it. Now I have a streamlined system with only a laptop and my phone. So far this is proving to be a much better situation. Most of the time. I have encountered a few issues with software not being a the Mac flavor or not existing at all and I’ve had to modify my workflow a bit but even that has been very minimal. When I do need a Windows only application I simply fire up Virtual Box where I have an Windows XP virtual machine and I can do anything I need. Having a VM on my laptop also helps me by not having to worry about syncing files. The originals are stored in folders that both Mac and PC can use.
Before, I had a home PC, work PC (at my regular job) and a laptop. Most of the time this worked perfectly fine but I always had to make sure things were syncing properly and at all times. All three systems needed to have updated software in some fashion, three times the work if a major upgrade came out for anything. All of these systems just got to be more than what I wanted to deal with so here I am.
I will say that my current digital life if MUCH more calm and usable. I don’t have to look for files on different computers, I get to use my iPhone with a Mac (which seems to work a LOT better) and I have everything I need with me at all times because I always have my phone and my laptop goes with me to work. The giddy geek inside is very happy.
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Blogging Anonymously
May 28th
Happy Fatherhood Friday!I have been blogging for a relatively short time now. Ok, I’ve had the site for over two years but I haven’t really gotten into a rhythm of consistent posting until earlier this year. One thing that I have always had, even from the very beginning, is as much anonymity as possible for myself, my family and anyone associated with us. I have just always felt that not disclosing the identities of everyone involved is a much safer situation for all. But is this really the best policy?
My New Partner In Crime AND Kids Using PC’s
May 1st
Happy Fatherhood Friday!I have a very exciting announcement to make. I have asked that my brother partner up with me to work on this site. He is a few years younger than me and is expecting his first child this June. I have always wanted the site to be a collaborative effort among dads of different backgrounds so that we can give advice and learn from each other. My experience as a parent centers mostly centers around 2 kids, a girl and a boy both of which are ages 2 and above. Now, c, can bring his new dad experiences to the table. (With that “new dad smell” too!) Hopefully this will expand our coverage and topics and can better serve you. Without further ado, please welcome and enjoy c’s first (of many I’m sure) post here at Smartfathers, “Thoughts On Kids Using PC’s”.
Connecting Families Via Webconferencing
Apr 22nd
This is a quick post meant mostly for those out there who may need a little push to help them decide if webconferencing is something they would like to use. My wife and I both come from divorced parents so we have family members all over the country. I don’t have to tell you that trying to physically visit everyone just doesn’t work. It’s far too expensive and we just don’t have the time. We have incorporated Skype to help us keep connected with those we love and it works perfectly. A great example is when Grammie sends the kids a little something for Easter or just out of the kindness of her heart, we can open the package with her and she can then see the kids’ joy in real time. Considering she lives almost 2000 miles away, this is pretty amazing. We have also started using a protected Twitter account that both of us update constantly to let everyone know what we are doing on more of a micro level. It also works as a kind of diary. It’s a great help to keep our family close.
For those who don’t even know where to begin I have found a great link to give you everything you may need. It will give you a nice overview of the hardware and software that you will need. Have fun!
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Fathering and Grandfathering from a Distance: Webconferencing – via About.com
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Help Me Choose A Wordpress Theme
Apr 21st
I’d like to talk a bit about the blog again if I may. I’ve already ranted about my issues with Wordpress and now that they seem to be fixed (mostly) I can’t help but think that maybe a theme change might help even more. While all indications seem to point to a WP issue I can’t help but think that a more efficient theme would take care of things once and for all because quite frankly, I’m not a fan of being back on WP 2.6.5.
Presently the site is running Atahualpa 3.3.2 from Bytes For All. Overall I absolutely love it. It looks good, it’s clean, it’s very easy to customize with tons of options and you never really have to touch code if you don’t want to. Having a “control panel” for the theme itself is a tremendous help. I’ve used themes in the past and if I ever wanted to do any sort of customization you had to go in and edit the code via WP Admin. Not with this theme though, I have yet to touch code. Also, whenever a new version is released all I have to do in drop it in, all the settings stay.
So what I’d like to find is something that has the same “control panel” for changes and customization but maybe a bit lighter and is a bit more efficient. I have thought a lot about Thesis but I’m not too sure that I am ready to shell out cash for a theme yet. I guess I would if I really saw the value and it made sense. Also, I’d like it to be similar format/style, 3 columns etc.
If you have any ideas or suggestions please let me know. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
b
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Wordpress Frustrations
Apr 13th
The past number of days have been extremely frustrating for me with regards to this site. The loading speed of the overall public site as well as the admin page has come to an excruciating crawl. While it has gotten better (slightly), I’m still not even close to getting it to where I want it and where it needs to be. I thought that I’d share what I’ve been dealing with both for your benefit, (if you have a Wordpress blog) and to hopefully get some helpful tips from some of my terrific readers.
Feedburner Change
Apr 13th
Sorry folks, I had to make a slight change to the Feedburner address. If your subscription doesn’t update itself please re-subscribe using the new address. I hate to do that to you but it needed fixing. Thanks!
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/smartfathers
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GPS Tracking Your Kids
Mar 27th
Let’s get this out of the way now, my wife and I are a little nuts when it comes to certain things. We admit this and accept this. We’ve never tried to hide our craziness. One of the big ones for us is knowing where our kids are at all times. One of us made the joke that we’d just like to chip them in the same way that dogs and other pets can be chipped. We figured that there had to be some sort of GPS device that could enable parents to know where their kids are and if they were safe. After doing a bit of looking around we found something that MAY be a decent solution to give us some sort of confidence.
