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Holiday Gift Guide: BackBlaze Backups

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Consider this gift for yourself. In this day and age of digital content, you absolutely need a backup of your hard drive. You never know when your drive will fail and trust me, it will. A local backup drive is a good start (especially if you’re running Time Machine via Mac OS X) but the next step for your backup plan is off-site, online backups.

BackBlaze Signup

I’ve been using BackBlaze, and it’s been going well so far. It literally took months for the initial online backup to complete, but I kinda expected as much moving over 260-GB worth of data. After the initial backup, new files and updates are continuously backed up in no time.

Cost is very reasonable at $95 for a two year plan so that’s like $50 a year for peace of mind that your data is safely stored in times of emergencies.

Give a gift to yourself and sign up for BackBlaze.

Blog Less, Get More Views?

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Blogging around here has been sporadic but surprisingly, page views and visits have been increasing. Is this a delayed response from previous months when I was blogging more, or is this more indicative that blogging less gets more views? Hmmm…

Waimanalo Has a Pumpkin Patch

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Out on the Windward side tucked away near the Ko’olau Range is Waimanalo Country Farms. Starting this year, this family farm started their own pumpkin patch for kids to pick carvable pumpkins.

Not as sprawling as the popular Aloun Farms pumpkin patch, the Waimanalo Pumpkin Patch is a good alternative for the Windward side. Although the farm is smaller, there are lots of pumpkins, a hay ride, a corn maze, and additional activities for the kids.

Here are some pics of what you can expect.

What else is in the Waimanalo area? Check out Dwellable.com to find out.

Memory Cards Are Cheap

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Wow, the cost of memory cards have gotten really cheap. A 16-GB SDHC memory card at Class 10 speeds is only $25! Even if it doesn’t fully achieve Class 10 speeds, should be just as fast as Class 6 cards.

Researching Photovoltaic in Hawaii

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I’m on the solar bandwagon after hearing about its benefits from Wayne’s World. Getting a photovoltaic system for your home is a win-win scenario right now with the available (and generous) tax credits. In turn, you can curb or even “eliminate” your HECO electricity bill with power produced from the sun. Too good to be true? We’ll see!

What is Photovoltaic?

First a little background on photovoltaic systems. While I knew about solar as home water heaters, I hadn’t known about solar and PV systems to generate electricity for your home. Basically, solar panels are installed on your roof, take the sun’s energy, and converts it to electricity for your home. Depending on the quantity and efficiency of the PV solar panels, you can offset your monthly HECO electricity bill or (almost) eliminate the bill altogether (HECO always has a basic charge of $18 per month). The number of solar panels depends on your electricity usage, how aggressively you want to address your bill, and the type of panels themselves and could range from 8-24+ panels for a single family home.

The Sticker Shock of PV Costs

Yes, a PV system is very expensive up front. There’s definitely a sticker shock. But after state and federal tax credits, the net cost of what you actually pay is reasonable. Currently, installing a home PV system makes you eligible for tax credits covering about 60-66% of the overall PV system cost! So a $30,000 PV system could end up costing roughly $10,000 when all’s said and done (I make no promises with tax laws). A PV system could pay for itself in 6-8 years and from that point on, you could be making money with your electricity bill savings.

Finding PV Installers

Trying to find out about photovoltaic systems installers in Hawaii isn’t the easiest thing to do online. A quick Google search lists various vendors and several renewable energy articles but not much about people’s experiences with these companies. I’ll be blogging some of my experiences to fix that. 😉

So how did I find PV companies? Through scientific research, careful analysis, and umm, asking around. WW went with Sunetric and had a great experience. Another coworker recommended Alternate Energy, and lastly I saw a bunch of signs and flags for RevoluSun.

But you gotta stay tuned for more upcoming PV posts…

What to Expect from the Kaneohe Bay Air Show 2010

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Here’s what you can expect from the Kaneohe Bay Air Show 2010… in pictures.

Lots and lots of seating but expected to be filled.
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Emergency services and plentiful police (watching Fat Albert).
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Aircraft, lots and lots of aircraft, both civilian and military.
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Music from the Pacific Fleet Band.
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Vendors.
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The Mobile Gamer Guys.
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It’ll be hot so visit the Farmers Hawaii booth for some breezy relief.
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Amazed spectators.
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Skydivers.
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Fun for the kids.
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Crazy stunt pilots.
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Scenic views.
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Of course, the high flying (and sometimes, very low flying) Blue Angels.
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And there’s much, much more! Thanks to Pacific Command, Pacific Fleet, and the KBay Air Show!

See more pictures on Flickr.

Time for a Tivo Flight Check

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Gotta do a flight check on my Tivo with a bunch of shows taking off this week.

Let’s see, the conclusion of Season 1 of The Gates should have recorded on Sunday. It ain’t a bad show, kinda a poor man’s Underworld but in a modern context where you’re the unusual one if you’re not a mythical creature.

For Monday, Hawaii Five-O premieres (in HD!!) along with Season 11 of Dancing with the Stars (also in HD!!).

Hawaii Five-O Cast

Tuesday showcases Glee and even more DWTS.

On Wednesday, the behind-the-scenes Top Chef episode is followed by Top Chef: Just Desserts.

Hawaii’s Andy South and Ivy Higa continue their Project Runway journey on Thursday, and Mililani’s Maggie Q takes on the Division on Nikita. Grey’s Anatomy kicks off after a monstrous season finale.

Then it’s Friday and the weekend when I can watch all these hours of great television. Tivo, don’t fail me now!

Looking for an iPod Touch 2G Armband

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Since I seriously think my customized iPod Nano is really, really zapped, I’m looking at using an iPod Touch, 2nd generation, during my runs. The Touch is much bigger than the Nano, and it does support the Nike+ running sensor and the new Nike+ GPS app (sans the GPS part for a Touch).

Now I need to find an armband for running. This Belkin DualFit armband looks okay and has good reviews.

Hmmm, I got my Nano in September 2007 and before that, a Shuffle in August 2005. Now in September 2010, my Nano is flailing. What’s with the months of August and September and faltering iPods?

“Until They Are Home”

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This is the simple but poignant reminder of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command:

Until they are home.

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The mission of JPAC is to “achieve the fullest possible accounting of all Americans missing as a result of our nation’s past conflicts” and to date, this 400-personnel organization at Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam is working tirelessly to give closure to over 90,000 families who’ve lost loved ones in conflicts since WWII. JPAC has an amazing and noble goal, one that baffles my mind after taking a tour of their facilities and learning about their operation (as an overview, watch their command brief).

Recently, JPAC joined the social media movement of the DoD and hosted its inaugural tweetup. JPAC commander, Major General Stephen Tom, talked to our social media group about the determination of the JPAC organization to fulfill our Nation’s promise of bringing fallen comrades home.

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JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) is the largest skeletal identification lab in the world where approximately 30 forensic anthropologists and dentists work on solving mysteries decades old. In teams of 10-14 specialists, the JPAC staff researches historical sites, launches a investigative team, then as warranted, deploys a full recovery team to collect remains and artifacts.

As part of the tweetup, I witnessed a repatriation ceremony where remains collected from Vietnam, Laos, and Vanuatu were honored then taken to the CIL lab for identification.

I can’t begin to explain the complex challenges JPAC faces in their mission. Their combat scene investigations cover the spans of time, geography, culture, science, and so much more. If you can, visit JPAC on one of their public tours and learn about its honorable mission.

Thanks to JPAC and Pacific Command for this amazing opportunity.

For more pictures from the JPAC tour and arrival ceremony, check out my Flickr set.

JPAC online at:

More #ArrivalCeremony coverage:

I Zapped my Nano

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You know you’re not supposed to disconnect an iPod or iPhone without ejecting it first right? You can get away with it many times, but sometimes, doing this misdeed can bite you like it did me. My trusty fat Nano was charging up, and I thought I had ejected it so I disconnected the dock cable.

Then I saw the Mac OS X warning message about improperly removing a disk. Whoops. No problem I though, I’ll just reconnect, and things will be fine. Not so much this time. The Nano still works but wasn’t recognized by iTunes. iTunes wanted me to restore the Nano to factory defaults. So I did.

I had to repick my music playlists, movies, etc., but now, the Nano keeps restarting itself when trying to apply the settings. 🙁

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