Update Oct 01, 2012: I did not end up trying Just Cloud so cannot provide a recommendation of my own but after reading the many comments on this post, would probably recommend that users stay far away from it.

I have recently been searching for cloud storage options, primarily for photos, but also for important file backups. It seems that there are a ton of options available these days and its hard to find which solutions are the best bet.

One that I came across recently was Just Cloud. One thing that really caught my eye about Just Cloud is the unlimited storage. Most programs offer encrypted and secure, multiple computer syncing etc, but it seems that unlimited storage is something that can be rather expensive in many cases – and when it comes to backing up photos, storage demands grow constantly (especially when you have two kids!). The price is comparable to other cloud services at $4.95 a month but offers unlimited storage. Read the rest of this entry »

While I live in the north, the back of my house has a southern exposure. I would love nothing more than to stick some solar panels on my roof and start making some use of this wasted energy. The problem – its far too expensive. Some rough estimates put the cost at around $30,000 for the installation of solar panels suitable for our needs.

If I look at my current electric bill, we are spending around $1,200 a year on hydro – therefore, even if we were able to get 100% of our electric needs from these solar panels, it would still take 25 years till we would break even. More likely, we would only get half of what we need at most (factoring in cloudy days as well as nights, in which case it may take 50 years till we break even. Yes, a benefit for the environment, but certainly no financial gain.

Wait? How long do solar panels last? Would they even last 50 years? I’m not sure – perhaps financial gain is impossible.

A few years ago I saw something about a company that would come and install solar panels on the rooftops of big business (grocery stores, department stores, etc) at their cost, then sell the power back to the retailer at a rate lower than that of the power company. By doing so, the retailer saved money, the solar company makes money, and the environment can breathe a bit easier. Seems like a win-win-win situation. My question is, where did they go?

After a few Google searches I was unable to find this company – I have to admit I didn’t look very hard, but still. It seems like such a fantastic idea that should have taken off, yet it just disappeared into nowhere.

All we need to do in order to get more people and business on Solar and take a bite out of this whole global warming thing is make it cost effective. Only a select few will go solar strictly for the environmental benefits, but if you throw in actual financial savings (and perhaps even a small profit via net metering) it would be a no brainier!

I think its time for the governments to put more funds into R&D for Solar to help improve the technology and drive down the cost. It seems that the answer to the world wide power crisis is just sitting there staring at us, and nobody is doing anything about it. Come on people…

A Toronto woman is suing Rogers for $600,000 after a cell phone bill allegedly destroyed her marriage and her life.

You are probably wondering, how on earth can a cell phone bill ruin a marriage? Well its simple. She cheated on her husband. He saw the bill with the strange calls and put the pieces together, and then left her.

How is this Rogers fault? Hmm… It isn’t!. Is it? I don’t think so…

If you don’t want your husband to find out you are cheating on him, then don’t cheat on him. I am sure this will go out as one of the stupidest lawsuits of all time, and if by some rare chance she wins (which she won’t) Then it won’t matter anyways because its a sure fire sign that the world is about to come to an end!

Here is the original article from the Globe and Mail.

Spring is just around the corner, and most people won’t be thinking about snow for some time. Shoveling your driveway is probably one of the last things on your mind but if the Roboplow ever comes on the market you just might get excited the next time the white stuff starts to fall…

This isnt so much a product review as it is a review of a companies customer service. First my story:

On Christmas Eve I was taking a couple photos with my Canon Xti when suddenly the camera gave the error “There is a problem with the CF Card. Replace the CF Card”.

That’s not good.

I tried turning the camera off, then back on, nothing. I then plugged the Compact Flash card into a card reader and tried to read it with my computer, nothing – Vista gave me an error saying that the card needed to be reformatted, I tried again, and it just read the card has being empty.

I played around a bit and somehow the card started working again (honestly, not sure what I did). I was able to take the photos off the card successfully. I then formatted the card, and it appeared to work well…

Christmas morning I took a bunch of photos when suddenly I got that same “replace the CF card” error. Only this time there was no recovering the photos. I downloaded a bunch of different recovery programs, and NONE of them would recognize the card. It was bad, and this “crash” had taken with it the 100 or so photos of my 2 year old daughter opening her presents and seeing her new bike for the first time. WHY did I use that same card?! I had an old 1gb card I could have used…

A few days later I called Lexar Support (the card I was using was a 300x 4gb UDMA Compact Flash card). I told them my story, and they emailed me a link to their recovery software, and he told me what to do with it to recover my photos and how to then erase, reformat, and test the card after I got my photos safely off.

My first reaction was, great more software to try. I had very low expectations. BUT, it worked!! The software was easy, and I was able to recover ALL the Christmas pictures I had taken, along with about 800 other photos that had been deleted, but still technically existed on the card.

After erasing/formatting & testing the card, it came up clean as if nothing was ever wrong. I called customer support back today and the rep assured me that he was confident that I will not have any more problems, but if I did, they would swap the card out. They say that a corrupt file is most likely what caused it, and the fact that I was able to get the photos back with their software supports that the card is physically okay.

I hope he’s right – I trust that he probably is – but one thing that is for sure, is the customer service team at Lexar is great, and because of them I got my photos back. I will definitely continue to use Lexar for any future CF cards that I may need!

My wife and I, like many, have a Nintendo Wii. I am no expert, but I like to think I am pretty good at some of the games for the Fit etc.  Certainly this is no hard core console – gamers seeking groundbreaking graphics, action,  and online play go the direction of the Xbox and PS3 (btw, I SUCK at Xbox, just ask my friend Ross! Its kind of embarrassing actually…)

Today I saw something that I have to ask my self “Why”. Sure I like the Wii, but even if I was super rich, like Billionaire status, I have to say I would most likely refrain from purchasing the £300,000 Golden Wii.

What is this world coming too!?!?

My wife and I have had iPod Shuffles for a while now, but the other day we caved and picked up an iPod Touch. We drive a 2008 Mazda 5, and unlike most newer vehicles, it does not have an MP3 compatible stereo. I won’t write a rant about this at the moment, but I will say I think its incredibly stupid. The stereo does however have, an auxiliary input, perfect for plugging in the ol’ iPod.

Changing CD’s is a pain in the next, so we started using our Shuffle’s in the car, and while this works well, the lack of a visual display and inability to create separate playlists etc, make finding the song you want nearly impossible. This is why we decided to go all out and pick up a touch.

The 8 GB version is more than enough for us, considering that we only have about 300 MP3’s in our current library, we can’t even come close to filling this thing up – if we were to put all we had into the player we would still only fill up about 12% of its capacity (assuming I am doing my math right). Considering this, spending the extra $80 to jump up to a 16GB model doesn’t make much sense for us.

When we first started using iTunes a few years back, I have to say I hated it. It made no sense to me, and I simply gave up trying. A few months back I decided to sit down and actually learn how it works. I have to admit, it isn’t rocket science, but when you are used to using WinAmp, and then dragging MP3’s onto an MP3 Player within Windows Explorer, iTunes does represent a bit of a learning curve. It didn’t take long to figure out, and now I find it incredibly easy, but it did make me wonder how intuitive the iPod Touch would be.

Well, I have quickly learnt that the most difficult part about the iPod touch was getting it out of the packaging. I struggled with this for at least 5 minutes. Perhaps I should have given it to my 1 year old, she would have had it open in seconds.

Next I had to wait 15 minutes to upgrade my version of iTunes and then reboot the stupid computer. They can put a man on the moon but they can’t seem to make an operating system that allows for updates without a reboot. Man Vista takes forever to re-boot.

Once I finally had the iPod unpackaged and installed, I dragged my playlist over to it within iTunes and threw on a few photos before playing with the interface etc. I was VERY surprised to discover just how easy it was/is to use. It is incredibly intuitive. Everything I tried to do I could figure out in just a few simple steps, and navigating from one menu to the next is instantaneous.

Once I had a bit of a grasp on things, I decided to take a look at the apps. A quick search for “free” uncovered a number of little games and various tools. Nothing too exciting, but somewhat fun never the less – really the games are only any good if you are waiting at a doctors office or something – I can’t imagine ever sitting on my couch playing away on them, but still cool never the less.

So while I have only played with this iPod for a couple days, So far I have nothing but good things to say about it. Way to go Apple – while I still have no desire to purchase one of your computers, you have managed to change my opinion of your MP3 Players, at least for now.

It isn’t often that I post reviews in my Blog, but it is something I think I will start doing more of, as I am finding people seem to like reading reviews.

In the past I have reviewed our 2008 Mazda 5, the new Monopoly City Streets game, and today I am writing to review Memory America, an online Computer Memory shop. (Stay Tuned, I will also be reviewing my new DeWalt 18V Hammer Drill – but I haven’t had time to play with it just yet).

About a year ago I replaced my old boat anchor 17” Dell laptop with a more manageable 15” Toshiba Satellite. (It literally weighs about 8lbs less). This new replacement also brought with it my first experiences with Windows Vista. Equipped with 2 Gigs of ram I quickly realized this was just not enough for Vista.

Today I took the plunge and ordered 2 new chips, 2GB each, from Memory America to bring the computer up to 4 Gigs. My hope and assumption is that this will significantly speed up the machine. I hesitated ordering online, but their prices make it more affordable then what I can find locally, so I decided to go for it. Typically I have never had any problems with online orders, but because the ram is something I am not 100% knowledgeable of I was a bit hesitant.

I am a bit of a novice when it comes to computer upgrades etc – sure I know more ram is good and I know how to swap it out but had no idea what type etc to order – following the easy navigation on this site made it a breeze to find what I was looking for. If they didn’t make it so easy to find the right ram, I would have probably spent a few more dollars and bought locally.

I found their shopping cart system a breeze and ordering was easy – now I just have to wait for the memory to arrive! Ram should be here next week some time.

I’ll also add I must have been having an off day because only after I ordered the ram did I think to pop the cover off the bottom of the laptop to see exactly what memory was in there – thankfully I had ordered the right stuff.

Many many years ago, long before I was born, the telephone was invented. Several years later, it started to appear in homes, and eventually was located in nearly every household.

Today the telephone has come full circle and many people no longer have “land lines”. Instead they have made the switch to exclusively use their cell phone.

Computers, and the Internet more specifically, are doing something similar. Not too long ago the idea of a personal computer in every home was a thing of science fiction. Today, most homes have them, and many have several. It wasn’t long ago when the internet first started to gain in popularity, and now, that too has found its way into just about every home that has a computer.

Just like the telephone, the internet is going mobile too. It is now easy to find cell phones that are fully internet compatible, laptops are impossible to find without a wireless network card, and many have cellular modems built in, and now netbooks are also online anywhere you go. The internet is everywhere, and it is leaving the home and expanding into the world.

It won’t be long before your internet access account is simply a WiFi subscription, following you everywhere you go. If you want to work from the beach, just grab your laptop and go, no worry about huge cell phone data charges as it will all be included in your plan.

Some day, globally free wireless broadband may be available as well, paid for by advertising – but I personally would prefer to pay a few bucks and remain somewhat ad-free.

I have no doubt that in my lifetime (probably within the next dozen or so years) wireless internet will be available everywhere – after all it practically is today. Perhaps it will work along the same lines as Satellite radio – the technology is all there, it just needs to be refined.

The one thing I am not certain about is the future of cloud computing (essentially using web based software for all your needs – word processing, graphics, gaming, etc). It is in use today by many, the most common being the various Google Aps, but I am skeptical that the masses will start to trust all their file storage on machines not in their control, requiring internet access to retrieve their documents.

There is a certain convenience in the whole cloud, but I personally like having all my files available on my personal machine, sitting there in front of me, where I have full control and easy access. Even if internet connections are sped up considerably, opening a photo stored on your local machine will always be faster than grabbing it from your online storage.

I suppose though, if the future goes in the direction of the cloud, I will have no choice to go there with it. I am however, all in favor for wireless internet available everywhere. (as long as they block it in resort towns – don’t want work following me on vacation)