What did was the fact that this happened right around the same time time Avatar was released, specifically the Blu-ray (BD) version.

What’s the connection?  Shortly after getting Avatar from Best Buy, I received an email from them stating a firmware upgrade to my Blu-ray player may be necessary to watch the movie.

Sure enough, my Sharp BD-HP21 was one of many players needing an update.  Articles here, here, and here summarize.

Luckily I found a forum thread which included a link to an available firmware upgrade from Sharp Canada, which went smoothly and all was well.

So back to my mom. I realize this seems relatively easy for some of us, but not someone like her.  She wouldn’t search for an update, throw it on a flash drive, and upgrade her player.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the advantage of new features, and I actually appreciate that my Blu Ray player didn’t just become obsolete.  And the picture quality is no doubt, outstanding.

But are these firmware updates too much for regular consumers?  Could this be a reason that the Blu Ray format could fail?  Or will internet-connected devices solve some of these issues?  Or is physical media already dead, regardless?

After doing some research, I found KB articles from Microsoft which talked about the need to have Service Pack 1 (SP1) installed in similar cases.  Sure enough, once SP1 was installed and the system was rebooted, Windows accepted the system key and the system was validated.

I’m also guessing that this probably only applies to restore media that may have been issued prior to SP1.  For example, I know that if you purchase replacement restore media from HP, they include many updates that have been released since the system was first released.

I’m hopeful that Microsoft has corrected this problem in Windows 7 so that a fresh install doesn’t require consumers to hire a computer technican to complete a system restore.

There was some great brainstorming going on, but not nearly enough time to discuss the massive changes and shifts happening on the Internet.  Thus, the reason I was inspired to share some ideas about what I see coming.

And while many organizations and face-to-face meetings are still important, from an online standpoint, I cannot tell you how radically things are currently changing right before our eyes when it comes to marketing and social networking.

Are chamber of commerce groups important-yes. Will there always be a need for television ads and print material such as newspapers-for some.

But at the same time, future generations are not going to want yesterday’s news once a day, and DVRs are already becoming the kiss of death for TV advertising.  What I see is that conversations are becoming the new way that we talk about businesses, products, and services.

Recently, I attended WordCamp San Francisco, and one of the themes I heard from various speakers was community, groups, and relationships.  And based on that, I wrote “conversations” on one of the tablets which asked “what does WordPress mean to you in one word.”

I know this is going to sounds extremely cliché, but social networking tools such as blogging, videos, FaceBook, and Twitter are where we’re heading.

Will some of these be around in the future? Maybe and maybe not.  But it’s not so much the forum, but the tool itself.  Blogs are not going away.  Videos are not going to disappear.  And maybe new social networking sites will replace FaceBook or Twitter, but the concepts will still be the same.

Both online and face-to-face communities, groups, and relationships will be the new evangelists, advertisers, and mavens.

What I would recommend is instead of brushing off these new technologies and trends, embrace them for what they are now, so you can stay ahead of the game in the future and maximize the potential for your business, while others are left to try and figure it out later and try to catch up.

And if you’re interested in the Bakersfield Business Referral Network Meetup group, you can find more information here about signing up.  It’s a great group of people who are trying to stay ahead of the curve, and are sharing ideas on how to survive in the future economy.

What I mean is that while I find myself using iPhone applications such as Tweetie and FaceBook to quickly upload some content, that doesn’t work when taking pictures with my SLR, shooting video with the Vado, or recording audio with my iRiver.

So until I have a device that has both quality and the ability to instantly upload to the cloud in an easy way, I’m going to have to focus of making myself process the content.

And one thing I have realized when it comes to processing content, is the longer I wait to deal with it, the less chance this task has of being completed.

In other words, for me, what I’ve found that works best is to transfer and upload the content as soon as possible afterwards.  If I wait longer than 2-3 weeks I usually won’t deal with it.

For example, WordCamp San Francisco was almost 3 weeks ago as of this writing, so unless I process the audio and video I captured this coming weekend, more than likely it will never get done.

I guess this is not much different from other tasks in life–but it just seems like with so many devices and content becoming part of our daily lives, it makes it seem so overwhelming sometimes.  So how do you deal with content overload?

Recently, some in-house warranty customers have been asking me if the economy has reduced volume.  Right off the bat, I realized that in the majority of these calls this does not currently affect me because in terms of the computers I usually work on, I’m somewhat living in the past.

In other words, when it comes to making a claim on an extended warranty, in most cases, one year has already passed, otherwise the service claim would be made with the manufacturer.  

Secondly, I think you can just add-in the factor that computer faliures are going to be rare during the first few years of a computer if it’s maintained correctly.

So what’s interesting to me is what is going to happen in the next 2-3 years–will volume drop off?  If people are even buying computers as of this writing (I don’t know one way or the other), are they skipping on the extended warranty?  

Or is it the other way around?  Maybe this is the time to invest the additional cost for some assurance that in the future, especially if parts and/or labor costs rise, it will be taken care of.

Or perhaps this is a benefit to non-warranty work, in that in this future timeframe customers will have to make a decision similar to that of a used car.  Spend some money to fix their exising unit, or invest in a new one.

I’m sure warranty companies will know during these trying times what future trends may hold, but I doubt if this will trickle down to field technicians as to what kind of volume to expect.

This year I’m going to do something a little different and not only post some of my goals for 2009, but also offer up some project and business ideas that all I’ve been doing is keeping to myself.

Maybe by putting this content out there, I will find alike people who will stumble upon this and reach out to collaborate, and in some cases, make some money.

With that, here are some miscellaneous thoughts and musings:

(1) Digital Divide in Kern County – I put this one first because I’m not sure if this is even a worthwhile project.  I wrote about it a while back as at the time the digital divide was a hot topic.  But now my thought is–so what?  What if needs and areas could be identified?  Would it greatly help to show where access to the internet in Kern County is lacking?  And with the economy the way it is, how do you address those needs?  Lot’s of questions.

(2) Try FaceBook – This is an easy one and thus the reason why it’s second on the list.  I’m going to take the plunge because I’m curious why I’ve had unrelated friends from unlreated circles getting caught up in the whole FB madness.

(3) Create Printcasting Content – The Bakersfield Californian is part of a project right now related to creating and publishing customized content.  I’m going to see if I have enough discipline to create small, maybe 250 words or less, computer related tips and content.  I haven’t looked into the terms yet, but I’m hoping I can post the content to multiple sources so I can use outside of Printcasting.

(4) pics2go.com – This is the business idea nugget.  The basic business model is offering picture taking for weddings and events that can be printed onsite.  Weddings would no doubt be the long tail, but with some work other events could be booked.  I have the pics2go.com domain; have done research regarding high quality prints; and can put all the pieces together.  What I’m looking for here is probably a college person interested in photography and starting a business that would require non-traditional working hours.  Contact me if you’re interested.

(5) Bakersfield (or Kern County) is Talking – Create a show that highlights Bakersfield stories of past, present, or future.  This could either be location-based (such as businesses, historical places) or interviews with people.  My thought would be to create some pilot episodes and then shop them around to local vendors.  And where is this going to be seen?  I personally think there is already enough available channels to add the content, and more and more are beginning to allow HD.  This project is also an evergreen content concept, in that it never really expires (unless the channels do).

(6) Youth Building/Repairing Computers Projects – I am willing to volunteer time for a project related to teaching youth either building or repairing computers.  Not much more to be said here.  Contact me and let’s collaborate!

(7) Plugin Reviews – I play around with so many WordPress plugins that maybe it would be worthwhile to create reviews.  It’s exciting to see what is happening in the WordPress community right now in regard to all the exciting plugins and themes that are being created.  

Well there they are.  Goals and ideas for 2009.  Comments are welcome.  If you’ve made it this far and have interest in any of the above, contact me and let’s talk.

If you haven’t heard of Street View before and you are from Bakersfield, go to Google Maps and look up a local address. Chances are Google will show a Street View thumbnail which you can click on to enlarge.

However, I say ‘most’ because if you turn Street View on while zooming out of Metro Bakersfield, you can see there are several gaps of areas that were not captured. In fact, my neighborhood is one that it missed. And to make things worse, when the Bakersfield imagery was first loaded and I searched for my address, it showed the view of a street a few blocks away.

I realize accurate data collection is difficult, but I would rather Google maps not return any results versus showing the view of a completely unrelated street, which is evidently what Google ended up doing.

Now when I search for my address it does not offer an incorrect thumbnail. This does, however, makes me think twice about Street View results. What if I try and use the street view feature for an area I’m not familiar with, only to find out the results it came back with are not even a true view of the area? I think the feature can still use some work.

This technology has also rasied some privacy issues for this type of imagery collection. In a recent area where the notorious Google van made its rounds, the captured imagery upset some home owners whose house displayed a little more detail than they were comfortable with.

Google eventually removed the imagery, but it shows how powerful this content can be. All one has to do is see some of the sample views on streetviewr or googlevan and you can see why this might be a problem. Regardless, it is exciting to see Bakersfield, California being included in such cutting edge technology.

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Bakersfield Sign at Buck Owens Blvd

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Father Garces Statue at Garces Circle

The site interface is simple, and one of the first things I did as a new visitor was search for proposals from schools in my area.  By typing Bakersfield in the search box, I found several local schools who had active proposals.

In addition to the site, Social Actions Labs created a WordPress plugin called Possible Related Classroom Projects which displays donorschoose.org campaigns at the bottom of posts based on content.  Clay Burell did a nice job of summarizing donorschoose.org and the WordPress plugin here.

And while I like the idea of the plugin, I have a couple of recommendations as to enhancements.  First, why not offer an option to embed the project campaign links into the sidebar?  I understand sidebar real estate is limited, but it would allow for an educational-focused website (such as a PTA or school parent club) to display the information in a more prominent position.

Secondly, instead of showing proposals related to content, why not allow keywords to be included–similar to donorschoose.org website search results?  For example, only showing Bakersfield-related projects.  I realize this limits the results, but again, if I’m supporting a Bakersfield educational-related website, I probably don’t want proposals from other areas to be displayed.  Not to mention the kinds of results that may be displayed based on my content.  I noticed there is a way to not display related proposals in a post using a variable, but this does not seem ideal.

Again, I think the donorschoose.org concept is great!  What a neat way to support educational projects–both at the national and local level.  And no doubt the WordPress plugin can enhance the ability to support those projects, but I think the plugin could be enhanced to offer multiple placement options, and the ability to focus on local search results.

UPDATE:After being contacted by someone at donorschoose.org regarding the enhancements I mentioned, I was informed that the website allows the ability to create custom RSS feeds and widgets. By using the SpringWidgets creator, you can get code for multiple scenarios.

After doing a search for Bakersfield, I used the options from SpringWidgets to export the widget into html, which I then embeded into a WordPress sidebar widget and bingo. You could also embed into a single post, which might be a useful solution if the post is specific for education campaigns and not the entire focus of the website.

Meanwhile, I recorded some audio from the event, including Matt Mullenweg’s The State of the Word session, and this weekend I finally got around to processing it. 

Although John’s video from The State of the Word is the real deal, if you are interested, you can download the audio portion of the talk here, or you can play it below.

As for the specs, I recorded it using an iRiver iFP-890 (internal mic), sent it through Levelator, and exported it using Audacity. 

If you didn’t have a chance to check out the app when it was still available, iNASCAR provided users with a plethora of information about upcoming NASCAR races in a well laid out form.

It included information such as the date, time, and TV network of upcoming races; pictures of tracks; and an upcoming race schedule. It even included facts about the racetrack, and you could also click on your favorite driver to get a bio.

So why I am I criticizing NASCAR? Because instead of embracing the iPhone app and trying to work something out, they sent Michael Stambaugh a cease and desist notice and made him pull the application.

Why? I’m guessing they either felt like they were losing visitors to their own website to get the same information, or they were extremely jealous of how well his app was created.

Okay sure, the app may have used some photos from their website, but what is it with organizations and companies when it comes to using information and data in a unique way? Why not throw some money to developers and “buy out” these apps, or find ways to incorporate them into their own advertising instead of being the bully on the information highway.

Let me tell you what this does for me as a NASCAR fan. It gives me a less-favorable view of the NASCAR organization as a whole, and it certainly does not make me want to visit their over-cluttered and unusable website to get the same information.

Instead, it has caused me to forget when upcoming races will be on TV and the network they are on, which in turn does not help NASCAR or its advertisers.

I understand the need to protect intellectual property, but do a google web or image search on NASCAR tracks or NASCAR-related information and you will find there are a whole lot more sinister sites out there than what the iNASCAR app was providing.

And just to make sure NASCAR does not think they can come and bully criticism, NASCAR is a registered trademark of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and the views expressed in this website are not affiliated, associated, or approved by NASCAR in any way.