My Memory

Day 116 - For most items, purchase prices seem to rise over time. However, this doesn't hold true for flash memory. I know I've made this same type of entry at least a few times in the past here. Yet, I picked up a bit of memory today when I was walking through the hypermarket where we buy most of our food. I think retail prices for some items may be cheaper than in Canada and the tax is included in Malaysia.

I got the 64GB for my camera although I probably never have had even 8GB on its SD card. Every evening, I copy everything to Dropbox. This allows me to edit via any device. Most recently, I've been using Snapseed on my phone. I picked up the other duel USB card for its practicality, forgetting my new phone is USB-C. I'll figure out some use, even if to carry around movie copies.

Pretty in Pink

Day 89 - The following photo was snapped as Jay and I went out to look for a place where we could print a few travel documents. Earlier this week I picked up one Sandisk 128GB USB memory stick. They were selling in a pile at the night market so I had my doubts about them. But hey, for the equivalent of $CA 3, I could not help but give one a shot. You know that expression about being too good to be true? Well, it, itself, is true! We easily found a lady in a shop who would print but she couldn't read the files on the el-cheapo storage. Still, I think I got a deal. I probably got the only defective one ...

As we were passing by a bank, the Chinese dragon group was readying for a performance.



This made me wonder about other ways to classify the burgeoning number of images on Flickr. How about by colour?


Free, downtown GoKL bus


Ganish at a Kuala Lumpur Hindu Temple


Overly decorated rickshaw in Malacca


Coiled Incense at a KL temple for Chinese New Year

Precious Memory and Memories

When I grew up, computer memory was a precious resource. I bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 during the summer between high school and college. It came with 4KB of DRAM.

So now, each time I buy memory storage, I'm a bit amazed by the increasing amount and continually falling price.



I'm serious about backing up many of my key, Flickr albums locally. It is taking a while to have the service create ZIP files. Then I have to download, rename, and copy them. However, doing so will give peace of mind which seems worth the effort.

Gimme a Little Space

One can never have too much storage space, whether in a barn or on a computer. I picked up several extra USB flash drives today when we were uptown. They are handy when one wants to let someone borrow a movie or some-such.

This is my first month of Internet service with a 300 GB cap. I don't ordinarily use quite that much in daily Internet activities. I want to maximize my use for my new allowance, so I have been searching around for mp4 replacements. I have dozens and dozens of DVD discs in my possession that need replacing. I already have hundreds of files on a 2 TB mobile Seagate drive which is attached to my Android box. I noticed online that new ones holding 4 TB can be had for less than $CA 180 nowadays. Perhaps I should spring for a new drive and dedicate it for storing feature films.

Spending More to Get Free Shipping

An order arrived from amazon.ca this morning. It seems as though I've received more merchandise through them since getting back last month than ... well ... ever! It just seems easier to click. The free delivery on orders of $25 or more always works to their advantage as I make additional purchases.

Today, for example, I received an inductive charging pad for my tablet and cell phone. That cost just $10.99 so I thought I'd might as well buy a pack of rechargable AA batteries for several remotes. Those items totaled just $21.98 so I needed to find something else. I decided to order a 32GB SD card for the camcorder seeing how one was just CDN $13.99. Voila, I just spent $37.99 when taxed but had managed to snag shipping for free. Sigh.

An interesting thing was it was delivered via Amazon's own shipping. Previously, in New Westminster, BC, I'd always gotten my Prime packages via UPS or Canada Post. A white, unmarked van was driven by a cheerful delivery lady. She said that if I'd not been home they would have tried again with a known window of specified hours.

Now, I want a USB wall charger that outputs 5 volts at 2.1 amps. (Plus another $20 of gadgets, wires or something so it'll ship gratis!)

Memory for Nothing!

I took the over-sized jackknife off my key chain. I had carried it around for years and years. I found it very convenient on lots of occasions, but it was simply too heavy. In fact, I think I've worn out the ignition switch on my truck from having the heavy metal swinging to and fro. Or, it might be wear and tear as the truck is over nineteen years old! ... whatever... I am in search of a smaller knife to carry around in its place.

I had an ideal one but I think I had to leave it at airport security once. Really? If broken, the jagged edges of an on-board beer bottle would have posed more of a threat. I miss that knife a lot as my father gave it to me. I don't really remember buying the one I just removed today.


I was able to make room for this cute USB flash memory. I guess it's about time I carry around 32GB of space everywhere I go. It'll be convenient for shuffling movies to friends. Who knows when it might be convenient to have a little extra file space? I saw this cute metal one for sale for CA$12 on my computer store's website. It feels rugged enough to live for an extended period of time rubbing up against my keys and the change in my pocket.

Alas, memory is very cheap and continues to get ever so. Four years ago I was pretty happy to pay this much for 8GB SD cards. Yet back in 2008, I was more excited to note $68 for half as much flash memory as I bought today. Oh my!

Thank God for SD Cards

A friend is contemplating the purchase of a still camera or camcorder with a zoom. He asked about the camcorder we use now. Rather than writing out much of an answer, I simply snapped a photo of it with my phone in the return message.

I sent him a link to YouTube in order to view some output from the Canon. Additionally, I wanted to show him some of the area where we will go in several months to stay for the upcoming winter. I hope he watches on a device capable of full 1080P.

Walking Season Has Begun!

I walked uptown today. It takes me about twenty minutes each way if I go up through the park that's next to City Hall and continue up along 4th. It takes about that long if I walk at a good, quick pace.

After I reach uptown, I usually pop into the London Drugs and take my blood pressure on their machine. While in the store today, I picked up a 16G USB flash drive for ten bucks as well. Although things can all live in the cloud, it's still sometimes convenient to carry computer files around in one's pocket.

I came back down on Sixth and snapped this photo right to the west of the New Westminster City Hall.



I now look forward to getting back into my routine of walking uptown daily. I enjoy seeing all the well-manicured streets in the areas between Queen's Park and 6th and 6th. Walking is an excellent way to stay healthy and will help me get rid of those few extra pounds I put on this winter in Asia.

Let's Stay Physical

I was just thinking how cloud storage had completely replaced my need for USB flash drives. Then, this upcoming trip reminded me there is still a place for physical storage. Jay's nieces use SD cards and flash drives for school work, saving pictures, and keeping music and video files.

I looked on my computer store's web site and was pleasantly surprised by the continued progress with such devices. This 64GB drive is selling for less than $30. Imagine that! The computer I sent here when leaving Dubai had a hard disc of 18GB only. Okay, that was forever and a half ago. Still, this red cutie has a lot of bang for the buck. If I buy one, we can copy a bunch of video on it and for viewing on TV in Sri Lanka.

Cheap Chips

When coming to Canada, I think the computer I shipped here had a 12GB hard drive. Now, an inexpensive, standard Secure Digital card can hold more than that. As well, the ones in the picture are substantially larger than the micro-SD size found in my phone. I still find some technological improvements a little amazing.



I went to my computer store to pick up a 16GB SD card for my tablet. I'm finding it a little annoying that Android Honeycomb doesn't allow one to move programs to the external memory like on my phone which is running 2.3.6. Anyway, extra SD cards are never waste of money as they can be used in a variety of devices for years. In fact, I also picked up two 8GB cards at $11 each. I always buy Class 10 cards for the HD video camcorder. I like that size as I can copy onto a duel-layer DVD in Blu-ray format.

In a Flash

I've subscribed for the weekly sales newsletter from my computer shop. I follow the falling prices this way even when I'm not looking to purchase anything.

I am following SD prices because of this month's purchase of a high-definition Panasonic camcorder. It's a model that only uses flash memory, so I picked up two 8GB SDHC cards to use with it. In the highest resolution about one hour of AVCHD video can be stored on one.

I did note quite a reasonable deal on the item to the right. The price is about $68 for 16GB. One of these would hold a full, two hours. Not having to swap off to a laptop computer would be useful on a long vacation. I'm in no rush though so I'll wait for the price to fall further or hold off until 32 GB chips are available.

Just to keep things in perspective, when I came back from working in the Middle East, in 1996, I shipped back a computer with a whopping 16GB hard drive. At the time the hard drives in many computers were still measured in megabytes. Today, the majority of mp3 players can hold more data than that PC!

Working with Video

I've been playing with the Panasonic HDC-SD9 a bit. The new camcorder is better than the old Sony. I should say the last old Sony. I am trying to remember if this device is my fourth.

I got the first when when I working in Bahrain in about 1991. It was enormous compared to the newest one. It was analog and recorded to 8-mm tape. The Panasonic, on the other hand, writes 1920x1080 high-definition video and 5.1 audio onto an SD card.

We bought it right before getting on the airplane on last week's trip, so we had packed video no. 3 as well. Without so much as a glance at the guide Jay took the whole vacation video on the new one. There are still some things to get used to. Yet, the outside clips' colour and resolution looks great on our 42-inch LCD.

The thing that's nice is how I can pop the SD memory into the computer and write the contents to a standard DVD. The disc will work in any player that is AVCHD compatible. I can even insert the memory directly into the SD slot on my PlayStation 3 and watch instantly.

It doesn't matter how simple a camcorder is to use, if one doesn't actually use it. I am promising myself to get more clips onto You Tube. For example, although it's been sitting there for a long time, I was surprised to see that over 1,100 people had seen the following clip from 1993. This was recorded in Nepal. It is 2:24 minutes at the Pashupatinath Hindu Temple. I did add a still picture of that time in the blog back on January 17, 2004.

I Work for Toys

I'm going to think of it as a very expensive remote. I am not a game player, but my Sony PS3 just seemed to cry out for some company. I use the PlayStation 3 to play Blu-ray discs and increasingly as a media server. Its name on my home network is The Black Box.

I read something about how a PlayStation Portable (PSP) can be used to access its larger stationery cousin. I had sort of fallen in love with Sony's XrossMediaBar. The XMB is just a simple graphical interface on these devices. I wanted to see it on a smaller screen too.



So I ran to the Superstore and bought a PSP. Imagine, I'm not even that keen on games! I did, however, have to pick up a $20 copy of Daxter just so I could see a real example of the neat little proprietary-format optical disc. Sony tried hard to sell movies in that format but it never took wings. I will never buy a film on one as I can rip a DVD into mpeg4 file. I sure wish I hadn't needed to also pick up another of Sony's other proprietary inventions, the Memory Stick. I already have enough SD memory around the house.

I love the device as it's wifi capable. I went down to an unsecured network connection on the first floor of our building and turned on my PS3 from there. I was able to listen to an MP3 file on my computer's external hard drive. I can have my whole 40GB music collection whereever there's a wifi connection. It wasn't too long ago that I rambled on in one of my so called Furturecasts about my ideas of networking in the future. It has already happened.

Solid State

I receive a weekly newsletter from NCIX.com. It always contains great deals on computer equipment. Even though I'm flush with extra, end-of-year cash, there was nothing much from the recent Boxing-Week sale that interested me. My quad-core processor PC and related equipment is new enough to not require upgrading. It seems odd not to drool over some new device or other.

The only item I could remotely consider as needing was some additional flash-memory for my new camera. My first digital camera had a 128 MB card although it was 4 mega-pixel. The average photo size was about 700 K. My new Kodak is 12 mega-pixel so each picture averages between 1.5 MB and 4 MB. Still, I was ahead with the 2 GB card I bought with the Z1275.

The sale at my computer store, however, included an 8 GB SDHC card for $49. I couldn't afford not to buy one. I think the computer I shipped from Dubai when arriving here in 1996 had a mere 1.6 GB hard drive. Now, this little card holds 8. I doubt I'll ever have the need to carry around over 2200 photographic images. The little camera does create HD 720p video clips though.

Streaming vs. Podcasts

If you'd asked me a couple of months ago about audio on the Internet, I would've only been able to talk about streaming. That's been going on for more than a dozen years. I can remember trying to get adequate RealPLayer connections from my desktop at Dubai Men's College when the Internet first arrived in the UAE. Now, streaming is pretty old hat although I seldom spent much time listening. I've even offered the following .ra files from my website for at least a decade. [Editor's Note: These have now been converted to mp3 but suffer from poor quality of the original and coversion processes.]

MP3 AUDIO

---

1994 Radio Archive: Dubai FM, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Educationally Yours. The HCT BBS
Mike Friganiotis, Mohammed Al-Shamsi, and Dennis Hurd. (30:06 minutes)

---

1995 Radio Archive: Dubai FM, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Educationally Yours. The Internet
Mike Friganiotis, Tonia Huculak, and Dennis Hurd (25:39 minutes)



Things have changed though. I've only gotten interested in the concept of podcasting since buying my little 4GB Creative Zen Plus. (Incidentally, my RMA'd original unit really was dead and Creative is in the midst of shipping back a replacement by UPS. Meanwhile, I'm listening to a 2GB Zen Stone Plus.)



Podcasting is so cool. I like being able to walk out of the house with hours of radio which I've chosen to take along. I never use the FM tuner in the Zen. People may not know how easy it can be with aggregator software. Most of my friends probably know nothing about RSS feeds. It's simply a universal method to automate new Internet content so that it can be easily shared.

The image above is software that I use to collect my audio postcast episodes. Rather than getting involved in Apple's iTunes, I simply enter the rss feed into the ZENcast Organizer. It automatically updates all programs I've selected for download. Some programs might be daily while others weekly or monthly. It doesn't matter because as soon as a new show is released, it is waiting for me on my computer. I can listen on the PC or simply press a button to have the files copied to my Creative Zen.

It might take some looking around on the net to FIND the feeds but as soon as they're subscribed to, it becomes effortless. There are things from literally all over the globe. I favour technology over the news, and podcasting allows me to chose exactly what goes into my ears.

Re-awakening Digital Me

It's going to take a while to get digital me back up to speed after being offline for about five weeks.

I felt no withdrawal symptoms at all while unconnected. Perhaps having my notebook along during vacation time helped me avoid problems involving the discontinuation. After all, I was able to hear Windows start. I copied photos off my camera's xD card daily. I saved the blog entries that I entered yesterday. Yet without the Internet a computer isn't useful anymore.

While gone, Google did well keeping spam out of my inbox. Yet, my BCIT email address contained hundreds of advertisements. I went wild while deleting. I surely hope nothing important ended up in the digital dump.

Soul-less Suburbia

I don't know what makes a picture popular on Flickr.

For example, this one gained lots of views over just a few days. It's not what I'd consider special. In fact, I found it in my camera's built-in memory. I generally pop out a 1-gigabyte xD card and insert into a reader. Once, I forgot to put my card back into the camera so a few photos were kept on the internal memory. I hitched up the camera's USB cable and accessed this photo taken up my doctor's office.

My World Doesn't Quite Fit

I am not sure why I have a large box with wires, cords, and adapters. I never seem to need the female-to-female RCA adapters that are there. In fact, I can never use any of the contents in the box! Do you need a spare 9-to-21 pin, serial port adapter?

Yet I always require some wire, cord, or adapter which I don't have. With each new purchase, my collection continues to grow. Places like Radio Shack charge an arm and a leg for a penny-ante part. Of course, I'm glad they actually have the rare bit which I need.

My most recent example occurred with the purchase of my new camera. Rather than taking fairly standard camera memory, it uses xD cards. They are ultra small and cute but my laptop doesn't accept them. I hate the lengthy cord that came with my Olympus SP-350, so I went in search of, yet another, adapter.

I ended up buying a little, key chain USB device. It's not quite as easy as a slide-in adapter, but I could use the device to carry around a half-gig of work files. All computers seem to have a spare USB port; unfortunately, not all sport easy access from the front panel. So, I did manage to shift all my USB devices and ended up with a spare 4-port USB connector that will go directly into my box ...

A Half Dozen Cheap Shots

I was at the mall so I picked up a SmartMedia reader, thinking that maybe my camera's USB cable had gone wonky. I unplugged the card from my camera, inserted it, and the photos were all available. I've put a total of a half dozen on two seperate pages. If I want to include pictures on this page, they have to be made very tiny. Even compressing to 640x480 never does a digital picture much justice, but feel free to take a look:


North Cascade Mountain Pass

Coulee Dam, Western Washington

Deer Migration

Near Soap Lake, Washington

The Thomas' Porch

Lake Kachess, Washington

SmartMedia is Not So Smart

Hum, I have 46 super-high quality photos sitting in my camera but when I plug it in, WinXP isn't recognizing the device. Eventually, I'm sure that I'll get it sorted out so as to add some visual representation of our recent circle trip to Washington state. The differences in geography were stunning. We saw temperate rainforest, a moutain pass where there's snow in July, dry desert grasslands, and prductive farms and meadows. The trip was was only 700 miles (1100 km).


It was a nice time. Oh and thank you, Thomas family, for a nice evening, good dinner and a great hike up your front-yard mountain!