Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 11:35 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/12/2014 11:27 AM, KC wrote:
On 1/12/2014 11:11 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 09:57:08 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

In my absence, the gurus at Evasi0n and saurik of Cydia himself came up
with a working untethered jailbreak and ancillary programs for the
iPhone 5S and the latest OS, so, finally, I'm able to customize my
iPhone. The customizations are mainly "tweaks" that expand upon the
features of the phones, such as adding more controls to the Control
Center and deleting the ones Apple puts in there that you might never
use.

Exciting, eh?

I was reading in USA today that Apple and Samsung are scared to death
about a new wave of smart phones coming out of China that run Android
and will retail for $100. They are cheap enough that the cell
carriers can give them away for a pretty short contract.

I still have not seen the need for one for me personally but I don't
even carry a phone.


It was nice yesterday when my wife was heading to the barn with a 6 foot
iron pry bar to displace a frozen feeder from the ground. She saw
lightning in the distance and I was able to pull up live strike
information within seconds. Turns out there was scattered strikes right
in her area, so we waited for an hour till the front and the strikes
were all 30 miles away, and over thirty minutes since any strikes within
20 miles or so and she went out to work the feeder... (note) when she
got there is was not frozen anymore... But I do love having that right
in my pocket...


No offense, but to me that's like standing outside in a nor'easter
getting soaked and checking your iPhone for the weather.

It says, "Rain". :-)



My point is the app I have on my phone says a hell of a lot more than
"rain".. We work in the rain, even in lightning at times, but holding
a 6 foot iron digging bar, not so interested in that.

The app I have shows real time strike info and retains it so you can
watch a storm with lightning come and go.. I like it a lot more than
just guessing out there in the valley where we can't see things coming
or going...

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 12:08 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:35:28 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

No offense, but to me that's like standing outside in a nor'easter
getting soaked and checking your iPhone for the weather.

It says, "Rain". :-)

It may just be a Florida thing but my wife gets local, interactive
radar on her phone. Our weather tends to be very localized and
generally fast moving so the radar is handy, if you were not looking
up.
Once it is on top of you, it is handy to look at the last hour to see
where it came from and where it is going. If you were watching, you
already know most of the time.
Coordinating what you see looking at the clouds and what the radar
says can give you a great insight into how the weather works.


I again will mention the "weatherbug" app we use. It has a awesome live
strike feature that track the strikes with a ringed bullseye over your
location if any strikes are within 15km... Then it tracks strikes and
tells you when you have gone 30 minutes, with no strikes for 15km... and
you are considered green again.... Not a monitoring program, manual
checks, but I still like it to see where strikes are and how far from
where I am going... Like I said, we work in rain, not lightning...

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 12:26 PM, F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 1/12/14, 11:51 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:25:52 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

That's cool...are those M-Audio speakers? They look very much like mine.

I bought my wife a set of Bose speakers that are the size of a Spam
can and sound like a boom box.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41aYSHGKCwL.jpg

A typical Bose sound.
The only problem is you can hear the flaws in low bit rate rips ;-)


I know they are very popular and highly rated, but I've never been fond
of the sound that emanates from the Bose speakers I've heard. I don't
know why that is. My "main" stereo speakers are electrostatics, about
six feet tall, and I like they way they sound. I've got a pair of
M-Audio speakers on my computer desk, and they're adequate for that
purpose.

I have a creative sbs 340 computer speaker system. All my other speakers
are built into TVs, a Bose wave radio and a couple of Boston radios.
They all produce wonderful sound.

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/14, 12:41 PM, KC wrote:
On 1/12/2014 12:08 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:35:28 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

No offense, but to me that's like standing outside in a nor'easter
getting soaked and checking your iPhone for the weather.

It says, "Rain". :-)

It may just be a Florida thing but my wife gets local, interactive
radar on her phone. Our weather tends to be very localized and
generally fast moving so the radar is handy, if you were not looking
up.
Once it is on top of you, it is handy to look at the last hour to see
where it came from and where it is going. If you were watching, you
already know most of the time.
Coordinating what you see looking at the clouds and what the radar
says can give you a great insight into how the weather works.


I again will mention the "weatherbug" app we use. It has a awesome live
strike feature that track the strikes with a ringed bullseye over your
location if any strikes are within 15km... Then it tracks strikes and
tells you when you have gone 30 minutes, with no strikes for 15km... and
you are considered green again.... Not a monitoring program, manual
checks, but I still like it to see where strikes are and how far from
where I am going... Like I said, we work in rain, not lightning...


You're describing the "spark" feature in weatherbug. I like weatherbug
the best of all the weather apps I've tried.

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 11:59 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:27:14 -0500, KC wrote:

On 1/12/2014 11:11 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 09:57:08 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

In my absence, the gurus at Evasi0n and saurik of Cydia himself came up
with a working untethered jailbreak and ancillary programs for the
iPhone 5S and the latest OS, so, finally, I'm able to customize my
iPhone. The customizations are mainly "tweaks" that expand upon the
features of the phones, such as adding more controls to the Control
Center and deleting the ones Apple puts in there that you might never use.

Exciting, eh?

I was reading in USA today that Apple and Samsung are scared to death
about a new wave of smart phones coming out of China that run Android
and will retail for $100. They are cheap enough that the cell
carriers can give them away for a pretty short contract.

I still have not seen the need for one for me personally but I don't
even carry a phone.


It was nice yesterday when my wife was heading to the barn with a 6 foot
iron pry bar to displace a frozen feeder from the ground. She saw
lightning in the distance and I was able to pull up live strike
information within seconds. Turns out there was scattered strikes right
in her area, so we waited for an hour till the front and the strikes
were all 30 miles away, and over thirty minutes since any strikes within
20 miles or so and she went out to work the feeder... (note) when she
got there is was not frozen anymore... But I do love having that right
in my pocket...

When you live in the tropics you learn to recognize the clouds that
generate lightning before the first strike.

When we are out in the boat, my wife has her phone, no need for 2 and
around the house, I have this machine with the weather on a desk top
icon.


Yes, I can see it for you out in the open like that... Most times here
in the NE, driving you can't see over tree lines or hills, more than a
mile or two, maybe 10 if you are the top of a hill.... This thing has
several times saved our asses. Another really neat thing I like is the
google traffic where I hit a button and I get road conditions and
traffic live and interactive so I can scroll my trip from start to
finish and decide on the best route or change routes while driving like
I had to do last month during a blizzard... was watching bad wrecks and
delays, avoiding those areas real time...

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 12:13 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:38:11 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:


Oh, I forgot to mention...have you checked out Pixelmator? It's a very
nice "substitute" for Photoshop, which I have *never* liked because of
all its levels of complexity. Photoshop does a lot more than Pixelmator,
but Photoshop does about a zillion things I don't need to do.

I have been using Paint Shop 3, 4 and 7 for years. Each version has
features I like for different things.


Yeah, we upgraded to 9 I think it was but went back because it sucked
after they got too deep in with Corel I think it was...

Technology Updates
 

On Sunday, January 12, 2014 10:11:11 AM UTC-6, wrote:

I still have not seen the need for one for me personally but I don't

even carry a phone.

I carry a phone because my wife says I have to in case she wants to get ahold of me. Of course, when I try to call her, I get a reply that she has a 'voice box' that's not set up yet and can't accept messages... "good bye"

oh well.

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 1:12 PM, Tim wrote:
On Sunday, January 12, 2014 10:11:11 AM UTC-6, wrote:

I still have not seen the need for one for me personally but I don't

even carry a phone.

I carry a phone because my wife says I have to in case she wants to get ahold of me. Of course, when I try to call her, I get a reply that she has a 'voice box' that's not set up yet and can't accept messages... "good bye"

oh well.


Everybody knows "I do not answer my phone" but I hear it ring and will
check it as soon as my hands are free... Folks that don't leave
messages, don't get called back unless I recognize their number. If I
get two calls in a row, I will stop and check to see who called...

Technology Updates
 

On 1/12/2014 12:34 PM, KC wrote:
On 1/12/2014 11:35 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/12/2014 11:27 AM, KC wrote:
On 1/12/2014 11:11 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 09:57:08 -0500, "F.O.A.D." wrote:

In my absence, the gurus at Evasi0n and saurik of Cydia himself
came up
with a working untethered jailbreak and ancillary programs for the
iPhone 5S and the latest OS, so, finally, I'm able to customize my
iPhone. The customizations are mainly "tweaks" that expand upon the
features of the phones, such as adding more controls to the Control
Center and deleting the ones Apple puts in there that you might never
use.

Exciting, eh?

I was reading in USA today that Apple and Samsung are scared to death
about a new wave of smart phones coming out of China that run Android
and will retail for $100. They are cheap enough that the cell
carriers can give them away for a pretty short contract.

I still have not seen the need for one for me personally but I don't
even carry a phone.


It was nice yesterday when my wife was heading to the barn with a 6 foot
iron pry bar to displace a frozen feeder from the ground. She saw
lightning in the distance and I was able to pull up live strike
information within seconds. Turns out there was scattered strikes right
in her area, so we waited for an hour till the front and the strikes
were all 30 miles away, and over thirty minutes since any strikes within
20 miles or so and she went out to work the feeder... (note) when she
got there is was not frozen anymore... But I do love having that right
in my pocket...


No offense, but to me that's like standing outside in a nor'easter
getting soaked and checking your iPhone for the weather.

It says, "Rain". :-)



I don't know.. She was in the car heading for work, I was home with the
phone looking at weatherbug strike app from 40 miles away and focusing
on the farm she was heading to. Neither of us were "out in the rain" and
we were glad when she got there that she knew to wait a half hour or so
before getting started.... Find fault if you will, to me it's useful for
folks like myself who move around a lot...


Not finding fault. I just got a kick out of your post. I forgot your
barn is not near you.

For boating purposes, I can understand the advantage of instant weather
updates from whatever the source. For those equipped with radar,
setting it to it's longest range is helpful also. You can often "see"
thunderstorm cells.

Technology Updates
 

On Sun, 12 Jan 2014 09:25:15 -0800 (PST), wrote:

Being on an inland lake, in the south, in the summer, makes you respect the weather and how quickly things can change. I always have my iPhone with me on the boat and keep an eye on the radar. The tree line limits the sight distance.

It was very handy the last time we did the river trip down to Charleston. We had thunderstorms crossing our path about halfway down. Backtracked a couple of miles and waited for them to clear, then hit an opening to make it down to the harbor. Without the weather app it would have been messy and dangerous.

===

How far up river from Charleston can you go with a boat that draws 5
1/2 ft and has an air draft of about 20 ft?