Photo of the Week #26 – Main Street, Annapolis, Maryland

 

This week’s Photo of the Week is from one of my favorite small cities, Annapolis, Maryland. Perhaps it’s one of my favorite small cities because I spent ten years of my younger adult life living in or near Annapolis. The photo is of a very busy Main Street. The photo was taken from Church Circle at the top of Main Street looking down to the City Dock and the old market place, which was where slaves were auctioned until sometime in the 1800’s. That’s not one of Annapolis’ (founded 1649) most endearing historical footnotes, but it is still part of the history of this city that also served as the capital of the, still, new United States (1783-1784). More specifically, the photo was taken from the point where Main Street and Duke of Gloucester Street meet across the street from St. Anne’s Church on Church Circle. On that corner is the historic (since the 1700’s) 44 room Maryland Inn and the Treaty of Paris Restaurant. You can see the restaurant’s banner in the photo. This was a regular venue for famed jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd until his death.

I had the great privilege of living in or near Annapolis from 1974 until 1984 and it’s the birthplace of my son. The city is the home of the U.S Naval Academy, which brought a lot of activity during the various college sports seasons. It also hosted two large boating shows a week apart, one for the sailing enthusiasts (affectionately called “raghaulers”) and the other for the motor driven vessels (called the “stinkpotters”). Annapolis considered itself the “Sailing Capital.”

The city hadn’t realized the great growth and development surge that began about the time we moved from Annapolis. Parking was easy almost anytime in downtown. There were great pubs, restaurants and touristy boutiques along with craft artisans who made and sold their wares in the 200 to 300 year old buildings and shops. Fresh seafood was (and still is) a major menu item, especially oysters and blue crabs, in season.

One of my favorite eateries is a small delicatessen, Chick & Ruth’s Deli, on Main Street.

It’s been there since 1965 and features (very large) sandwiches bearing the names of politicians from Maryland (since Annapolis is the state capital), Annapolis and national repute. Even Golda Meir is remembered with a bagel & lox sandwich. Their old-fashioned, handmade milkshakes are to die for. And another quaint little custom is their recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance each morning, which the public is invited to participate in. There is also a charming bed and breakfast above the deli.

Annapolis has evolved over the past 27 years and has become much more populous, congested and pricey. But, I have very fond memories of my ten Annapolis years. They will always remain very special to me.

Travelers’ Tech Tips (for Nomads, Gypsies, RVers & other Travelers) Tip #5 – Portable/Mobile Data Storage

The “Information Age” is the term used to describe this period in the history of humans development. The amount of information we generate is virtually beyond the comprehension of most people, other then, perhaps, some very advanced mathematicians. Think of it this way, according to an article in Wikipedia, itself, a virtual encyclopedia that couldn’t have existed even a couple decades ago, the entire world’s capacity to store information grew from 2.6 exabytes in 1973 to 295 exabytes in 2007. It also noted that that those figures are based on optimally compressed data. The put this more visually, a CD-ROM disk has a capacity of 730 megabytes. If the 295 exabytes were on CD-ROMs it would create a stack of disks that would reach from the Earth to the moon plus an additional 25% of that distance past the moon.

Most of us have finally been able to get our heads wrapped around the term gigabyte. A gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes. I’ve been working at getting my head wrapped around the idea of a terabyte, which is 1,000 gigabytes and petabyte, which is 1,000 terabytes. So, what is an exabyte? It is 1,000 petabytes, of course. So, just to get your head wrapped around that number one exabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of information. So, 295 exabytes is, 295,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of information. Now, remember, that was the estimate as of 2007, four years ago. It’s estimated that at current rates, this data storage has been doubling every three years, thus, there is currently in excess of 590 exabytes of information storage.

So, how does all of this impact us as nomads, gypsies, RVers and other travelers? It’s really very simple. We are all about information today. Oh, sure, we’re still flesh, blood and bone with an organic computer made of gray matter inside our heads. But, virtually every aspect of our lives involves massive amounts of information in one form or another. To offer just a few examples we have our finances and banking history, our medical records, our insurance records, our emails, our text messages, our educational records, our employment records, for those who served, our military records, our tax records and the list goes on and on.

Once upon a time, the largest computers in the world didn’t have the amount of power and storage capacity as a netbook computer or even some of the smart phones we use today. The computers that sent men to the moon and back weren’t as powerful as the average desktop or laptop computer. When I entered the computer world in 1980, it was with a Radio Shack (modified) TRS-80 computer and a Commodore VIC-20 computer. I had studied some basics of computing in college in 1964, but serious computing devices were still outside the realm of the average person. The TRS-80 computer I had did not have a hard drive, only had about 48K of RAM and the dual 5 ½” floppy drives only stored about 360 kilobytes per disk (my TRS-80 had been modified with double-sided, double-density drives, which were brand new at that time and costlier then the standard single-sided, double-density drives). Hard drives existed, but were extremely expensive. An external 5 megabyte hard drive for a TRS-80 cost in the range of $1,500.00 in 1980 dollars. Today you can expect to pay less then $.10 per gigabyte of hard drive storage capacity in a high-grade 1 terabyte external hard drive and less for an internal hard drive.

It’s really interesting that the cost of food, fuel and quality clothing, among other things, has continued to increase in cost, while the cost for computing power has dropped exponentially. My first IBM based PC computer with an Intel 386 processor, 1 MB of RAM and a 40 MB hard drive (that I thought I’d never fill up) with a 13” CRT monitor cost me about $2,100 in 1992. Today you can purchase a brand new notebook computer with thousands of times more power and storage capacity, plus features we hadn’t dreamed of in 1992, for less then $400.00. 

So, after this little retrospective of our Information Age advances, I return to the topic of this post, Portable/Mobile Data Storage. There was no way I could have easily, conveniently and as lightly traveled with my computers through the 80’s and into the 90’s. It wasn’t until the end of the 90’s that I acquired my first Windows based laptop computer. That was the beginning of my mobile computing transition. I still maintained a number of desktop (tower) computers until the end of 2008 for business purposes. However, once I moved to that laptop computer, I never went back to a fixed, desktop computer for my personal (business or personal) use. The great thing about laptop and netbook computers is that they were designed to interface with full-sized desktop CRT and LCD monitors, keyboards, pointing devices (the mouse or trackball), connection wired or wirelessly to networks including the Internet and included, initially, 3 ½” floppy drive and a CD drive. So, when I’m in a fixed location, I simply use my laptop or netbook as a desktop computer with full-size monitor, trackball and other peripherals like a printer. When I’m on the road, I’m self-contained.

Now, it’s true that laptop and netbook computers have hard drives built into them. And, with the advances in storage capacity over the years, it’s neither expensive nor difficult to acquire a mobile computer with a very large storage capacity. But, and this is a big BUT, while the quality and durability of hard drives has improved considerably over the years, because they are in a mobile device, they are very vulnerable to shock like dropping a notebook or netbook, accidentally bumping into something while traveling or mishandling in airports or hotels, etc. These kinds of shocks can damage or destroy a hard drive in a notebook or netbook computer. This is where having portable or mobile storage capability is particularly important for those of us who are nomads and travel extensively.

Here again, technology has turned out to be our friend. Today there are actually five options open for us.

Option #1 is either 3.5” or 2.5” portable traditional hard drives with disks spinning at high-speeds, readily available anywhere computer equipment is sold from Wal-Mart to Costco to Staples to Best Buy to computer stores to online stores like Buy.com, Amazon and many others. This is a very inexpensive investment.

Option #2 is the new solid state drives that fit into a notebook or netbook computer where the traditional hard drive is located. I believe the largest solid-state hard drive I’ve seen has a 320 GB capacity. They are faster, have no moving parts, typically run cooler and require less power then traditional hard drives. However, this is very new technology for the consumer market and is still a pretty costly option compared to the traditional hard drive.

Option #3 is a Flash USB drive. These are often referred to as “flash,” “jump” or “thumb” drives. They are, like Option #2, solid-state storage devices with no moving parts. They are extremely portable and typically weigh less then one ounce. Some people attach them to their key rings so they always have their thumb drive with them. They are available in storage capacities ranging from about 256 MB on up to the current maximum of 256 GB with increases projected to reach 2 TB in the future. Many people have two or more thumb drives and store different data on them. Again, like their Option #2 counterparts, they are more costly then the traditional spinning disk hard drives of Option #1. However, when size, weight and convenience are priorities these are an excellent choice.

Option #4 is flash drive cards. These cards come in various sizes, shapes and capacities. They were developed for use in digital cameras, mp3 players, PDA’s, smart phones, digital camcorders and many industrial uses, to mention a few. There are Compact Flash, Memory Sticks, SD, SDHC and other versions. The de-facto standard seems to be the very small SD and SDHC cards. The SD version of the card has a capacity of up to 4 GB while the SDHC has a capacity of up to (currently) 128 GB (only one manufacturer has a 128 GB card available as of this writing) with the possible expansion up to 2 TB in the future. Many, if not most of the laptop and netbook computers have a slot built into the side of the computer that will accept an SD or SDHC card that it can read from or write to. There are variations of the SD/SDHC cards of smaller dimensions – the mini and the micro cards. These smaller cards have a carrier that is the size of a full-size SD/SDHC card so that data can be transferred from and to various devices utilizing the different size cards. The advantage of the standard size SD/SDHC card is that they weigh next to nothing and are slightly larger then a postage stamp. A disadvantage of the SD/SDHC cards is that they weigh next to nothing and are slightly larger then a postage stamp making them easy to misplace or lose – along with all your precious data. Since the capacity of the SDHC card is currently limited to 128 GB (more typically 64GB), one probably would have at least a few SDHC cards (as I do) for different data and a special carrying case for these cards so they are easier to keep track of. The cost is still more then a traditional hard drive, but generally in the range of a little more then $1.00 per gigabyte.

Option #5 is moving up fast and is probably the most mobile of all the storage options. That’s probably because you don’t have any physical device, card or anything to store and retrieve your data. It’s called the “Cloud.” This is a topic all unto itself; however, it requires a mention when discussing portable/mobile storage. The “Cloud” is actually storage that you access by uploading your data to storage farms located somewhere in the world owned and operated by companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Asus and many others. You access them via the Internet. You rent storage in these storage farms at very nominal rates and they will continue to come down as competition continues to grow. You can access your data from just about any computer anywhere in the world that is connected to the Internet. You don’t need your own computer (of course, the computer you use has to have your specific application programs installed to use your data). However, you can also use programs provided by many of the Cloud storage providers that are compatible with most current business applications. Ultimately, with the direction computing appears to be heading, especially with the tablet/iPad devices, the Cloud may eventually be the predominant storage option for most people and businesses.

These five options cover a broad spectrum of uses and protection for your portable/mobile computing requirements. I currently have several portable hard drives and a hard drive docking station that allows me to utilize either 2.5” or 3.5” internal hard drives that are not installed in any computers. I use a 2.5” AV hard drive that I mounted in a portable case for my working audio and video files. I have another 2.5” hard drive I mounted in a portable case that has all my business and correspondence back-up files on it. It takes just seconds to plug them into any of my computers and access the files or write back up files to them. I also use SDHC cards for all of my audio recording and my video recording and a micro SDHC card in my Motorola Atrix 4G smart phone to expand its storage to 48GB. I transfer files back and forth with my two laptops from my digital audio recorders and my digital camcorder by simply taking the SDHC cards out of the device and plugging it directly into my SD slot on the computer. The computer recognizes the card as another hard drive and I have instant access to work on my files. I maintain all my email files (I use Gmail) in Google’s Cloud storage, so I have access anywhere with or without my computer or Atrix phone.

I’m contemplating whether I want to move more or all of my storage to the Cloud in the future. That decision will depend on how reliable my Internet connectivity will be with the various methods I’ll have to maintain a constant connection (a topic for another post). I may begin eliminating my traditional spinning disk hard drives and replacing them with various capacity solid-state thumb drives or SDHC cards. And, as another possibility, I may use both the Cloud and either thumb drives or SDHC cards, thus, giving me a back up in two locations removed from one another. The most exciting part is that all of this takes virtually no room, weighs virtually nothing and is costing less and less each month. 

Photo of the Week #25 – Chicago – Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan

I just spent nine days in the Windy City, October 11-19, 2011. These two photos are from the same vantage point. I was in Chicago to do some itinerant audio (in this case – audio and visual) work for two different clients. The first project was at the McCormick Place Convention Center, a huge, several building complex on both sides of Lake Shore Drive along the shoreline of Lake Michigan. My client’s Summit Meeting was in the Lakeside Building – the oldest and, I believe, the original convention center building.

These two photos were taken from my room on the 23rd floor of the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place Hotel that is attached to the convention center by an enclosed hallway. The nice thing about projects like these is that I get to stay in some really nice hotels, but at no expense to me. The night photo (a long, slow exposure) shows a somewhat wide angle view extending from southeast over part of Lake Michigan, south over the convention center to southwest Chicago. Like most large cities at night, you can see lights nearly forever. The daylight photo was shot in the early morning (you can see the flare from the easterly sun on the left of the photo) with a nearly identical perspective.

This is obviously, South Chicago, a more working class and industrialized area. The other side of the hotel had views of the lake and northward toward the Navy Pier and downtown Chicago where the Magnificent Mile (N. Michigan Ave.), the John Hancock Building and the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) are well-known landmarks. I’ll feature more photos of Chicago in future Photo of the Week posts.

Photo of the Week #24 – Reno at night

I traveled through Reno, NV in June 2006 on my way to Lake Tahoe. I can’t say that I was overly impressed with Reno. Perhaps my impression of Reno was influenced by the challenge of getting there. It was possibly one of the worst if not the worst flight scheduling experience in about 40 years of flying on a major U.S. airline. It also ended up being the most expensive domestic flight I’ve ever had in the U.S. and I booked the flight at least a month or more before the departure date.

Setting that aside, the photo was taken from my room in the Circus-Circus hotel. I paid in excess of $125.00 for a room that was no better then a $35.00 room at the average Motel 6. Adding to my displeasure, it took over two hours to check in because they had some kind of youth convention at the hotel at that time (which is also why the rates were elevated). I had to stand in line in a crowded, hot, extremely noisy lobby full of excited young people after getting off the flights from hell from the east coast. One would have thought that since there were numerous guests who were not with this youth convention group and who had advance reservations that they could have had one line for checking in non-convention guests.

Maybe I’m being unfair with being unimpressed by Reno. But, when I returned three days later to fly home, I experienced similar circumstances at a budget motel near the airport. I hope my two experiences were isolated instances and it was just a bad trip (at least the Reno part). Unfortunately, I’m not motivated to return to Reno based on this experience.

Photo of the Week #23 – A Hazy Desert Day in Western Arizona

A large percentage of the U.S. is considered desert. Desert land begins after you cross the Mississippi River (for the most part). Of course, first you go through the plains and the plains lead into the desert country. As I’ve traveled the U.S. on the ground, I’ve learned a lot more about geography, geology and topography. These subjects were just so much “ho-hum” when I was a kid back in school and was learning about them from textbooks (boring) and the occasional filmstrip (today we have PowerPoint presentations). It is so much different actually experiencing the geography, geology and topography first hand.

I don’t want to sound naïve about my new opportunities to learn and experience the U.S. I’ve traversed this country many, many times. However, when I was traveling past the Mississippi River (from the east), I was typically looking down at the U.S. from 6 miles above in a long silver tube hurtling through the sky. I had experienced bits and pieces of desert territory in California, Arizona and Texas during numerous visits to these states. But, actually driving through the states and seeing and experiencing what is meant by the high plains and the high desert is a completely different experience. The topography is so different from place to place. The vegetation varies. The rock formations and the kinds of rock and sand and soil all differ. Each place I’ve gone has been different in several ways from other places I’ve been.

I took this photo near Parker, Arizona in April of 2011. Parker is a border town on the Colorado River separating Arizona from California. It was a hazy day in the desert, as you can see. The five Saguaro cacti in the photo (one almost completely hidden behind the bush in the center) gave me a feeling of the isolation and loneliness of such a vast area of less then hospitable country.  

Photo of the Week #22 – Ice Skating at Rockefeller Center, New York City

Autumn is officially upon us and the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center will be opening for the 2011/2012 season in mid October through early April. The rink is an iconic part of New York City’s holiday season with the GE Building (formerly the RCA Building) serving as a backdrop. And, of course, there is the huge, majestically decorated and lit Christmas Tree that is erected during the Christmas holidays.

There is just something New York about a visit to Rockefeller Center and especially to the ice rink, whether you take to the ice or not. The rink has been a fixture of the New York scene since 1936 when it was set up as a temporary attraction to the new Rockefeller Center district. It never went away, its temporary status became permanent and each year throngs of locals and tourists are drawn there. The rink is small at only 122 feet long and 59 feet wide. It accommodates a mere 150 skaters at any given time. But, to New York City, it’s as American as apple pie and mother.

This photo was taken on my first digital camera, a very simple, unsophisticated and not very high-resolution device I bought to get my feet wet in digital photography. But, it makes the image. Whenever I’m in NYC during the winter, this is always one of my must go places. Even though the air may be cold, it warms me up to revisit it time and again