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Jon Udell has been using those to great effect. 

http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2005/02/21.html#a1182

Gotta find the time.

I've been researching the best solution for video memories. Kahaan is almost a year old and gauging by how much we record him, I need a solution that's cheap and scalable.

There are 2 choices to make -- how to capture video and how to store it.

The final form is, obviously, a hard-drive -- you can view it on 32" screen over home-WiFi, share it over the Internet, random access it, back it up, search it, ... 400GB costs $350. Add a backup and a foldershare license and the price/performance is hard to beat -- $2 a Gig and dropping.

So, the best way to think about the camcorder decision is as a mobile capture cache. There are basically 3 types depending on how things are stored. First, MiniDV is the most common and popular format. Tapes are cheap at Costco and you can upload to a PC via 1394. This is how Scoble records Channel 9, btw. Second is built-in recordable DVDs. And the third is memory cards.

The guy at Camera West (one of the few places with clueful staff) said that memory card storage is increasing fast enough that they will surpass DVDs, even with blue-laser in the next 18-24 months. Already there are 4GB micro-drives out there. And with volume, prices on 4GB cards will drop. Recordable DVD is at best an interim technology. So, stay away from those.

The choice between miniDV and memory cards is hard. MiniDV is on the extinction path whereas memory cards are on their path to ubiquity. In 2005 dollars, however, 1 hour of video costs $450 for memory card (4GB/hour) vs $3 for miniDV tape. That's not so hard, after all :)

I picked up the Sony camcorder model DCR-HC32 at Costco for $480 (includes an extra longlife battery as well). For comparison,the micro-drive based JVC Everio sells for $940. I picked the Sony because it has a cradle/docking-station for charging and connecting to TV and PC. None of the other miniDV camcorders had this feature.

Next project is creating the home media server with Terabyte storage. One point in favor of laptops as the home media server -- battery backup in case of power outages. Our neighborhood has had 4-5 power outages in the last year. More later...

Went to the INS, er, Department of Homeland Security this morning to get finger-printed (part of getting naturalized).  I was bracing for it to be a repeat of the inefficient, harrassing, "you're an alien and so don't count as human" experience that is the norm for INS. 

Happy to report that it was actually an OK experience.

They've moved from their former-prison building in downtown to a corporate campus-like building in Tukwila.  Parking was well-managed.  And the staff wasn't trying to make you feel like an inmate and the lines were long but not overly so.

Well done, INS.

Try it out: http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Joel captures how I feel about their usage of DHTML and XMLHTTP really well: http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2004/12/10.html

How it works: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=132312&cid=11053245

Regardless of how many times I ask Passport to log me in automatically, it refuses to do it. 

I hate apps that lie to you.  Arrgghhh! 

Went to Best Buy yesterday eager to spend some money.  But didn't purchase anything.  This is the first part in a 5 part series of why.

Part 1. TiVo.

With a kid in the house, it's hard to coordinate time with the TV.  And ads are a huge waste of time.  $200 for a 80-hour Tivo Series 2 sounds like a good deal. (40-hour TiVo is only $99).

Two reasons why I can't bring myself to purchasing it.  The core scenario for me is recording SouthPark, WestWing, ER (for my wife), Nova and Frontline.  And Teletubbies.  For the kid, you know :) 

First, there's the strange $13 monthly fee or the $300 life-time fee.  This just feels wrong.  I have BroadBand that costs $50 a month.  Why the TV channels don't offer a web-service or a RSS feed with show-schedules is beyond me.  Making it easy for people to watch their channel would surely be in their best interest.

Second, a $99 lifetime fee for providing the TV-guide, I can stomach.  The $300 price-point is for the rich. 

PS. Tip for Media Center guys: For TV, hours of record time is more intuitive than gigs of storage.

Question: How many blogs does a person really need?