Author: steve_mtl

  • My backup ate my password (or did it?)

    My backup ate my password (or did it?)

    Imagine the situation, I’m hurtling down the highway and I’m walking through the Carbonite iPhone app with my wife, looking for data we know is sitting on a password encrypted file back at home. Carbonite offers the options to log into your filesystem via a computer browser, or to access your files directly via the…

  • Sporks Hall of Fame

    Sporks Hall of Fame

    Yesterday the Internet Society inaugurated the Internet Hall of Fame, to recognize those visionaries who advanced the Internet and made possible everything we take for granted today. But who invented the spork? There’s no entry at the Culinary Hall of Fame. And what about all those other kitchen utensils that make great meals possible? The…

  • TomTom iPhone app vs Garmin nüvi (rental car edition)

    It feels like yesterday that I wrote the TomTom Go 720 vs Garmin nüvi 255 article (http://www.2fatdads.com/2009/06/tomtom-go-720-vs-garmin-nuvi-255/). Our editor JohnnyCanuck has been hounding me to come up with a follow up article. I’ve left a few on the shelf, waiting for a more current spin. As life would have it, I’ve been traveling a lot…

  • New AppleTV – Glass half full

    Ok so our new AppleTV arrived on Friday. First impression: the box is tiny!

  • Drobo Unboxing – Health Benefits of Vaping that You Need to Know

    Ever since the vape has hit the market, there has been a lot of debate around it. You might hear your friends and family giving their various opinions about it. Unfortunately, most of these opinions are just rumors and don’t have any evidence supported by proper research. It is your choice what you want to…

  • Thoughts on PodCamp Montreal: Wrapup

    I spent my Saturday at PodCamp Montreal. As conferences go this was my first unconference. No whitepapers were presented, but there were people that are in the trenches delivering talks they firmly believe in. Some of the most interesting discussions happened in the hallways, which make unconferences special. What did I take a way? Well…

  • Upgrading Hard Drives – It’s Really This Easy

    Let’s get the 320 GB hard drive upgrade, it should be enough space for awhile… …or not. When we ordered the MacBook Pro in February ’09 our entry option for the hard drive was 250 GB, so upgrading to 320 GB wasn’t a huge upgrade, but it was roughly a 40% improvement in head room.…

  • Storage is Cheap

    I’ve been wrestling with our home backup strategy for over a year now. A little background: We made the switch from PC to Mac in February 2008. Since then I have shed away my previous strategy of using SyncToy with an external USB hard drive, combined with a slew of 16GB thumb drives held at…

  • No Assembly Required, Battery Included

    Where did I see that the other day? Oh right, nowhere. Although…. When we bought our MacBook Pro last February the Apple experience was brand new to us (minus some iPod exposure). The battery lasted close to four hours on a charge and the majority of my time was spent in configuring the machine for…

  • Steve’s Christmas Reading List

    Every Christmas I have a reading list made up of books piled up on my night stand, books I rush out to buy for the holidays and those I receive. Inevitably there are some that get benched for that mythical beach vacation we always talk about. If I had to pick a few here’s what…