Geek Cowboy

Backing Up Your Data

mbparks — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 01:07:00 +0000

Here are some tools I highly recommend to keep yourself immune from data disaster.

External Hard Drive: Mirror your internal drive to an external. Many external hard drives include software to make this a snap.
Carbonite: An online data backup and remote access tool. Available for $59/year for unlimited backup of a single computer (internal drive only).
SpinRite: If you haven’t backed up and the hard drive, give SpinRite a chance to get the data back. $89 one-time.
Ultimate Boot CD: Downloand and burn ISO image to a CD. Access to Windows recovery tool.

Simple Reply Now Available for Android

mbparks — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:17:00 +0000

As I continue learning how to program for Android, I decide to take on SMS text messaging for my next project. Simply Reply tries to make replying to SMS text messages simply and safe. Let the app run and when an SMS message is received the number and message will be read aloud. Click the “Speak” button to speak your reply. Don’t worry, you will have a chance to make any minor corrections before you send. When you’re ready click the “Send” button and your message is off to the last person that sent you an SMS text message. It’s very easy and costs only $0.99.

Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun Is A Winner!

mbparks — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:29:00 +0000

“Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun” (GTWF) is the second book from Ken Demead who is of Wired’s Geek Dad fame. GTWF shares a ton of fun, geeky, and educational activities parents can do with their kids. As with the first book, “Geek Dad’s Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share”, the new book keeps the same spirit of offering activities that vary in both complexity and cost, that help kids get hands-on learning experiences. What I most enjoy about the GTWF format is that it gives you enough of the project details that you can get it to work but still is open enough that you and your kids are free to use your imagination to customize each project to satisfy your own particular geek tastes. The new book, in my opinion, has definitely upped the geek factor without sacrificing simplicity and clarity. My personal favorite in this new book layouts the framework for a high tech scavenger hunt that involves installing Apache servers, mobile computers like an iPad or iPod Touch, and HTML/Javascript! Now that is some good geeky fun! I will highlight this particular project because it reinforced for me the importance of projects like the Geek Dad books offer up. Though I did a lot of the legwork to get the initial Apache server up and running and the initial HTML, my daughter took over and customized the plain vanilla scavenger hunt to one that focused on her current fascination with My Little Pony. The learning experience was masked just enough to make it fun; so that learning a few basics of HTML and Javascript was not a burden but rather a chance to express her creativity. When learning is fun and accessible it’s never a chore, and the “Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun” definitely gives us geek parents enough great ideas to ensure learning is a great experience for both child and parent alike.

NOTE: This is my initial review. I intend to do a more in-depth review based on the projects I complete with my daughter. I intend to highlight how you can take the great ideas that Ken has collected and shared, and customize them to satisfy the desires of you and your geek-in-training.

And The Geek Dad Giveaway Winner Is…

mbparks — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:59:00 +0000

After a long week, the votes have been counted and the winner of the new “Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun” is … @johnkaufeld whose winning entry was:

“My kids grew up playing designer board games like Acquire, Blokus, Carcassonne, and Puerto Rico with me. My daughter especially got into them, particularly Puerto Rico, a very intricate strategy game. One of my favorite “geek Dad” memories is from playing with her in the Puerto Rico tournament at the Origins Game Fair a few years ago. She beat me in round 2, and then won her semi-final match. The finals had three guys in their 30s and 40s plus one 15 year-old girl wearing fuzzy cat ears and a gold cape. It was priceless!”

Congratulations John! The book will be on it’s way soon. I’d like to give a shout out to our other finalists…you can find them on Twitter at @revjaydub, @bryangrenn, @renaissance, and @kilinkis.

Thanks to author Ken Demead and his publisher for the opportunity to do this giveaway here at Geek Cowboy. You can follow Ken on Twitter too, @fitzwillie. Or read more from Ken and the Geek Dad crew over at wired.com/geekdad. Of course,you can order the book from Amazon, just click here. You can also pickup the first book “Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share”, also available from Amazon here. My review of the original book is here.

"Geek Dad Guide To Weekend Fun" Giveaway Finalist

mbparks — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:07:00 +0000

Congratulations to the following lucky finalists in our “Geek Dad Guide to Weekend Fun” Giveway Extravaganza. Our finalists were asked to share their favorite geeky hobby they share with their kids, or remember from their own childhood. The top 5 were picked and are presented here for your consideration. Without further aideu (please note entries have not been edited in any shape or form):

@renaissance: I remember my dad teaching me electronics out in the garage at his workbench. He had so many cool pieces of equipment that were very expensive yet he still let me try them out. It was such a great learning experience.

@revjaydub: I love going to Crescent Beach in Maine during the off-season with my 5-year-old twins. The gate’s locked so we have to walk in along the road where a truck spilled a long skinny line of paint, and try and figure out which direction it was going. We cut off the road onto a trail through the woods. We explore pine cones and branches and fungi and lichen, and turn over logs to find slender salamanders. (We always turn them back the way we found them.) We see which trees have been drilled by woodpeckers, and how wood feels when it decays. We stop at a tiny bridge over the Red River, which is red because of tannins in the water, and look for water striders and garter snakes. We learn first-hand how garter snakes poop as a defense, and let them go where we found them. Out of the woods we go through the field where milkweed grows, and see how seeds travel in the wind. At the Beach of a Million Rocks we collect rocks based on how they sound when struck, and create paleoxylophones on the beach that we can play songs on. We bring Big Magnets to push through the sand at the Beach of the Blood Red Sand, and pull out iron particles that we can put in little plastic boxes and explore with Little Magnets. We take a few sprinklings of red sand home to put under the microscope and see the translucent garnet crystals. We wonder why the lichen at the shore is bright yellow but the lichen in the woods is blue-gray, and try and figure out how the rocks got all the rainbow colors. Down at the water we feel all the different seaweeds, and figure out which rocks skip the best, and whether the tide’s coming in or going out, and where to hide from the wind.
There’s a lot going on, on these trips to Crescent Beach.

@johnkaufeld: My kids grew up playing designer board games like Acquire, Blokus, Carcassonne, and Puerto Rico with me. My daughter especially got into them, particularly Puerto Rico, a very intricate strategy game. One of my favorite “geek Dad” memories is from playing with her in the Puerto Rico tournament at the Origins Game Fair a few years ago. She beat me in round 2, and then won her semi-final match. The finals had three guys in their 30s and 40s plus one 15 year-old girl wearing fuzzy cat ears and a gold cape. It was priceless!

@bryangrenn: Geocaching with my son using my new droid.

@kilinkis: playing LEGO with my dad was awesome. we used to build spaceships, with sound emitting key chains inside, so we put key on top, and there we had a spaceship which could make space sounds!

Now for the rules. The top 5 finalist vote will be available until 11:59PM Eastern on Friday, April 29, 2011. ~~CLICK HERE TO VOTE~~. [ UPDATE: The vote has expired. Check back later for the winner!] The entry with the most votes will win! The winner will be announced here and on my Twitter feed no later than Noon Eastern on Saturday, April 30 , 2011. Thanks everyone who submitted their best geek dad memories. I wish I could have shared them all, they were terrific. Congratulations to the finalists and good luck!

UPDATES: As questions come in I will post them Q&A here in order to be transparent and give everyone access to the same information.

Q1: Quick question: Is it one vote per email address or can people vote multiple times (once every 24 hours, for example)?

A1: Great question. It is one vote per email address. Though you could enter more than one vote per address, my software will only count the first vote received from any particular email address.I realize people can setup a ton of email addresses to spam the vote. But I am pretty confident that won’t happen. Everyone that submitted entries seem pretty genuine.

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Connected

mbparks — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:26:00 +0000

A few years back only two things connected to my wireless router. My laptop and my wife’s laptop. Now, that has grown exponentially, today I have the following begging for bandwidth

5 laptops (wife, HP laptop to drive X10 home automation tech, Macbook, daughters Asus eeePC, electronics experimental Toshiba)
2 Desktop (HP and Media PC in basement)
1 Printer
1 iPad
1 iPod Touch
1 Roku box
2 Droid smartphones
1 Xbox 360
1 Nintendo Wii
2 Tivos
1 Google TV (Logitech Revue)
1 Nintendo DS

That is a total of 19 digital devices that clamor for bandwidth! And in the future all my appliances will be clamoring for bandwidth too! Televisions, energy monitors, dishwashers, refrigerators, ovens, microwaves, toasters, roomba vacuum cleaners, security cameras all will require an Internet connection over the next 10-15 years. And you wonder why ISPs are putting bandwidth caps in place now! They know the barrage of bits that is coming and they are taking pre-emptive measures in place. This will STALL ALL INNOVATION for things like the smart electric grid, home theater entertainment, etc. We need to fight back now for the future!

"The GEEK DAD’S Guide To Weekend Fun" GIVEAWAY EXTRAVAGANZA!

mbparks — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:55:00 +0000

This is a must for all those who worship Wired’s Geek Dad column. Thanks to the fine folks over at Gotham and Avery Books, I am giving away a FREE COPY of Ken Demead’s new book ”The Geek Dad’s Guide To Weekend Fun” to one of my very lucky Twitter followers . This is a follow-up to his best seller ”Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share”. The rules for the competition are pretty straightforward. The four steps are:

Follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/geekcowboy).
Tell us about your favorite geek hobby that you do with your kids. Or if you don’t have any kids of your own, tell us about your fondest geek memory with your dad (or other adult role model in your life). ~~Simply click here to tell us.~~ These entries are due by 11:59PM Eastern on Sunday, April 24, 2011. UPDATE: This phase of the competition is now over. Come back Tuesday, April 26 at noon eastern to vote for one of the five selected finalist.
I will choose the 5 best entries and post them for everyone to vote for their favorite. The top 5 finalist vote will be available from Noon Eastern on Tuesday April 26, 2011 until 11:59PM Eastern on Friday, April 29, 2011. Check back here to get the link to vote on Tuesday, April 26! Will also get added to a new blog post and tweet.
WINNING! The entry with the most votes will win! Winner will be announced here and on my Twitter feed no later than Noon Eastern on Saturday, April 30 , 2011.

You can follow Ken on Twitter too, twitter.com/fitzwillie. Or read more from Ken and the Geek Dad crew over at wired.com/geekdad. Of course, if you don’t win you can always order the book from Amazon, just click here. You can also pickup the first book “Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share”, also available from Amazon here. My review of the original book is here.

I will be offering a review of the new book here at Geek Cowboy, so be sure to check back often.

Some Favorite Geek Sites

mbparks — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:31:00 +0000

Software Code Sharing
GitHub
Google Code
Sourceforge
Codeplex
Bitbucket

Bug Tracking and Project Management
Launchpad
Trac

Web-based IDE
Cloud9 IDE
Android App Inventor

Learn How to Repair Your Stuff
iFixIt
FixYa

Buy Parts, Learn Skills, and Interact With The DIY Community
Esty
Adafruit
Sparkfun
Make and MakerShed

Learn How To Make Things and How Things Work
Instructables
Thingiverse
eHow
Learnable

Engineer Community
element14

Hack Community
Hack A Day

Coming Soon: Simple Reply

mbparks — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:59:00 +0000

The next great “Simple” Android App from the Geek Cowboy is coming soon! Simple Reply will make sending and receiving text messages a snap. Perfect for when you are jogging, driving, or just need to make a quick reply. Check back for details.

Also, check out the Android Market for Simple Sound Recorder, available now, it’s free!

2 Keys To Success

mbparks — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:34:00 +0000

I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately on what it takes to be a success either in leadership or entrepreneurship. Two key skills I have found that are pretty consistent include:

Focus on what makes you successful, not on what could go wrong.
Get ideas out of your brain and onto paper as soon as you can.

That’s a start, I will write down more as I think about them.