Recently, we purchased our kids some iPod Nanos. I thought I would share with you all a couple of things that I have learned from this experience. 
 
Have you thought about how you will manage music/apps/games on multiple iPods/iPhones across your entire household? The thought of this terrified me. Would I have to manage multiple iTunes accounts? How about multiple iTunes accounts in multiple user accounts across multiple computers? Now you get the picture. 
 
So the best case scenario would be this. Apple allows you to register multiple devices in a single iTunes account on a computer. In a perfect world, one would have a master iTunes account (one Apple ID) for all of your music, movies, iPod games, iPhone apps, iPods, iPhones and use that account to register and manage all of your devices. Here is why: 
 
If you manage things this way, your family (and their numerous devices) can have access to ANY of your music, and ANY of your iPod games, and ANY of your iPhone/iPod Touch apps. In the case of games and apps, you'll only have to purchase an iPod game one time, but you can install it on any number of iPods. You'll only have to purchase an application for iPhone or iPod Touch one time, but you can install it on ANY number of iPhones or iPod Touches. 
 
What I did was configure iTunes in the oldest daughter's account on their computer. I copied all of the music and movies to that account. I then registered both of my children's iPods to this same account. This way they can access the same music library, movie library, and iPod application library. It works out very well. 
 
Lastly, I just have to share my thoughts on the iPhone/iPod Touch app called Scrabble. BUY IT! Besides computer opponents, it has LAN-based multiplayer. My wife and I sat in some comfy chairs playing against each other across the living room. 2 hours later at the game's conclusion, we were convinced that this was a fantastic implementation of Scrabble. I highly recommend this game. 

Posted by: Chris Hamady

This past weekend, I received a phone call from my 64 year old mother in law (yes...I received permission to publish her age). : )  
 
Long story short, she was trying to figure out why her wireless router was no longer working after a storm blew through Davenport, Iowa.  
 
Over the next hour, we went through some troubleshooting steps, and eventually ascertained that she needed a new router. She then purchased an Apple Airport Express from Best Buy, set it up, enabled WPA encryption on it, and connected all of the computers in her home to it.  
 
She is a shining example that you can effectively continue to learn and grow with regards to technology no matter what your age. 
 
CH 

Posted by: Chris Hamady

I don't normally do movie reviews, but I had to share my thoughts on a movie that we took the kids to see last week. We braved some ice on the roads to go see the movie, "Enchanted." 
 
Without dragging this review out, or giving away any of the plot, I'm simply going to say that you HAVE to see this movie. It was one of the best movies that I have ever seen in my entire life. Now the caveat. Initially, you really do need to suspend your level of disbelief if you want to enjoy it.  
 
Once you get over the premise of cartoon characters leaving their cartoon world and entering our real world (tranforming them into flesh and blood humans), you will be taken on a romantic journey that offers up the highest number of positive, thought provoking ideas that I have ever seen packed into a single movie. Some of these are: 
 
Self worth. 
Positive attitude. 
When facing trials and tribulations, remember the good times from the past. 
Focusing on worldly things can lead to evil. 
Infatuation versus Love. 
How does one show love to others? 
Reconciliation. 
Showing kindness to strangers. 
True love isn't just a fairy tale. 
Strong women. 
 
I highly recommend this movie for children and adults. 
 
CH 

Posted by: Chris Hamady

According to a recent journal article in Science, it has been determined that some Velociraptor fossils contain feather quill knobs!  
 
If true, this is a HUGE discovery imho. 
 
Click the link to the story. 

Posted by: Chris Hamady

If you think that's a weird title for a blog entry, let me tell you...no way. Those of you that don't have the pleasure of knowing my wife will need a little background. She received her undergraduate degree from a small catholic college in Wisconsin called Viterbo. She then went on to get her masters degree in health sciences at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. Yea, yea....she got a 4.0 in grad school and I never did....let's just move on...shall we?  
 
So...back to the point. She's a registered dietician and has been teaching on and off at Bowling Green State University for some years now. About a month ago, BGSU called again and they asked her if she wanted to teach fall semester. They gave her two choices- a traditional face to face class, or a distance education class. I convinced her to try the distance education class and promised to help her.  
 
Long story short, she's currently in the other room with her MacBook using GarageBand to record her second podcast for the course. She received an email the other day from one of her students. "I've never had a distance learning class before where the teacher recorded spoken word lectures. This was really cool. Thank you!" 
 
Here is someone teaching in the college of family and consumer sciences that is not only teaching distance education classes, but she is using her laptop to record and publish podcasts that enhance the presentation slides she has uploaded to the school's course management system. Who says you have to be a tech geek to use technology to enhance your curriculum? Bah! 
 
I'm really proud of my wife.  
 
I shouldn't be surprised though. She DID get a 4.0 in grad school. : ) 
 
CH 

Posted by: Chris Hamady

This year the girls asked us to go visit the Black Hills of South Dakota. Our first excursion into the hills took us hiking in the Black Hills national forest. We were extremely impressed with the beauty of the landscape around us.  
 
Our next trip took us to Custer State park. It was here that we saw numerous examples of wildlife. The kids loved the two types of deer that lived in the park. There were prong horn deer eating on the prairie, as well as white tailed deer moving through the forest areas. Of course the most exciting animal that we saw was the bison, most commonly referred to as the American Buffalo. The immense size of this animal elicited looks of wonder from the girls as the bison walked around our car.  
 
One of the favorite trips that we took was a journey deep underground into Beautiful Rushmore Cave. With a constant temperature of 58 degrees, we marveled at the gorgeous displays of calcium carbonate stalactites and stalagmites, ribbon structures, and full columns. The girls were extremely excited and grateful for this experience.  
 
Next we journeyed to the Mount Rushmore memorial were the stone sculptures of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln are carved into the mountain. During a lighting ceremony of the sculptures, war veterans came down onto the stage as a boy scout troop took down the flag in a very moving ceremony.  
 
The most emotional location for all of us was the Kevin Costner tatonka memorial. This center was created to educate visitors to the truth behind the incomprehensible treatment of the native americans. A sculpture of a buffalo drop is located on the grounds of this center. This sculpture depicts native americans herding buffalo over the edge of a cliff in order to more easily harvest them for food, clothing, and shelter.  
 
On our way home from the black hills, we stopped off in the Badlands. The stratified rocks with their incredible colors were very beautiful to view and walk among.  
 
Click on the podcast link for pictures and links to more information about the places that we visited. 

Posted by: Chris Hamady
Podcast: vacation.m4a

Yes, it's true. Saturday at midnight I pitched a tent in WalMart's parking lot with 20 other people in the hopes of buying Nintendo's latest game system, the Wii. 35 degrees and rain pouring down on the tent didn't make for a very enjoyable evening, but it was worth it in the end. At 6:30 AM, WalMart asked all of the campers (21 of us) to come into their foyer. I was number 10 in line and was able to purchase a Wii. WalMart sold all 20 Wii's that they were alloted in less than 5 minutes. 
 
Why was it worth it? In my opinion the Nintendo Wii is the biggest breakthrough in game design in the past 10 years. The single biggest complaint that I had about gaming is that you used to sit on your backside and use only your fingers and thumbs. Not any more. 
 
The Wii uses wireless remote controls that work inside of a 3D space. For instance: 
 
Let's say that you are going to play the boxing game. You hold the Wiimote (isn't that cute!) in your right hand, and the Nunchuk controller in your left hand while assuming the fighting position. If you raise both of your hands up, your Mii (a representation of you as the boxer) raises up its hands as well. If you lower your hands, your Mii lowers its hands also. If you punch with the Wiimote, you throw a punch on the screen. The faster you punch with the Wiimote and Nunchuk, the more punches you throw. Let's get physical! 
 
To summarize, my kindergartener knocked out an opponent in two rounds while dad went all three rounds and never could knock out the opponent. At the end of my match, I was completely exhausted. NOW THIS IS GAMING! 
 
I'm glad to see that Nintendo is revolutionizing gaming once again. Wireless controllers moving in a 3D virtual space are enough of an innovation to get me to buy, but knowing that my children will be exercising as well as playing a game, was the easiest sell for this dad ever. 
 
CH 
 
UPDATE: 
 
This blog was originally written on 11/21/06. For the past 3 days, my inlaws have been visiting us for Thanksgiving. I have NEVER seen my mother-in-law play a video game in the past 14 years. Not only is she playing tennis and bowling on the Wii regularly, but EVERYONE has been playing games on the Wii non-stop. This is a game system that the ENTIRE family will use, love, and enjoy. 
 
TECHNICAL TIPS AND TRICKS: 
 
When updating your Wii's firmware via the internet (using the Wii's built-in Wi-fi), make sure that your home wireless router is set to broadcast on either channel 1 or 11. I kept getting errors until I did that. You may also want to temporarily put your Wii in the router's DMZ. 
 
Currently Nintendo only recommends one brand of SD card for the Wii. This "licensed" card costs nearly 60 dollars for 1 GB of storage. My wife picked me up a generic 1 GB SD card from a "Black Friday" sale at a discount store for $14.95. I plugged it in today and used it to back up my "Legend of Zelda" saved games. It works flawlessly. 

Posted by: Chris Hamady

So...Rob Garber and I are out fishing on the upper Delta resevoir. Waves were slapping the boat as we took it to the northwest side of the lake running into a southwesterly wind. The sky was mostly cloudy, but there was a glowing hint in the western sky that the sun might peek out at any moment from behind the clouds. There was a slight damp chill in the air that I surmised could trigger one of my infamous asthma attacks. This was a day made for fishing! 
 
After a solid hour of myself not catching any fish (although Rob was catching some small rock bass), I turned to him and said, "There aren't any fish in here." I was getting frustrated. In a last ditch effort, I thought to myself, "What would my father-in-law do?" Now my father-in-law could easily be a contender on the Bass Pro tour if he wanted to, so it was natural for me to ask that question. 
 
I decided that since we were fishing in a resevoir that has portions of it that are as deep as 60 feet, he would probably try a "deep diving crank bait." I put the lure on the swivel and launched it toward the darkening southern sky. After nearly a half dozen casts I was beginning to lose my patience once again. Suddenly, something happened that changed the quality of my fish stories forever.  
 
On the sixth cast, I was reeling in the line when all of a sudden my pole acted like a divining rod pointing toward a hidden water source. FISH ON! I set the hook and was very suprised to hear my drag sing out, "ZZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIING!." This fish was yanking yard after yard of line out of my reel. I tried to tighten up the drag a bit, but I realized that I wasn't dealing with any bass or crappie. This wasn't a fish, this was a MONSTER! 
 
For 25 minutes our small boat was pulled around the upper resevoir by something that wouldn't allow himself to be seen. There were a number of times that the beast pulled out so much line that I had to engage the trolling motor and chase the fish in an attempt to get line back onto my reel. 
 
At one point, it felt as if I was hung up on a bunch of rocks at the bottom of the lake. Nothing I did could coax any more line onto the spool. At long last the fish went on the move again, and headed up under the pressure from my aching arms gently, yet firmly pulling up on the rod tip.  
 
We saw it at last! A brief glimpse of huge golden scales and a rather large dorsal fin finally confirmed that I hadn't hooked a walleye, bass, pike or crappie. I had hooked into a gigantic grass carp that ended up measuring an easy 3 feet, and probably over 25 pounds!  
 
I refused to put my hands anywhere near that thing. Rob laughed and tried to get it into the boat. He was barely able to lift it out of the water. Finally he got the fish up onto the side of the boat, and after quite a bit of difficulty (imagine trying to control a 3 foot fish on the side of a 9 foot boat), removed the lure from its mouth. I have NEVER heard of anyone catching a carp with a lure, but that is exactly what happened. 
 
I was confronted with the decision that every fisherman (fisherperson?) dreams of, yet this fisherman dreads: Do I keep this thing and get it mounted, or let it go. I asked Rob to let it go. The monster carp slipped quietly from his hands into the cold, clear water and swam away. 
 
What would you have done? Would you have kept the fish and put it on your wall like a trophy, or be satisfied with experiencing the fish fight of a lifetime? 
 
Hands down, this was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. 
 
CH 

Posted by: Chris Hamady