More and more, I find myself doing business online. From simple groceries to books to small nick-nacks I can save a few dollars on, waisting the time, money, and energy driving to the store is beginning to sound less appealing each passing day. As many upsides as there are to the whole e-commerce scene, there is one major and unavoidable downside: shipping. With a good half dozen major carriers and more delivery options then you can shake a stick at, figuring out when and how multiple package are going to get delivered is near impossible. Sometimes I’m just impatient, other times the item is of some importance (perishable, valuable, signature required, etc), but more often then not, I like to just track my package along every step for my own satisfaction.

I first noticed the Deliveries app for the iPhone some months ago. I had heard some great things about it, and given the number of good reviews, I wanted in. Due to its high price and availability of alternatives (namely multiple carrier issued apps) though, I held off. A short sale a few days ago afforded me to the chance to justify the purchase, and I jumped while I had the chance, scoring the app for $2.99 (instead of the regular $4.99).
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August was a pretty good month for automotive adventures. Earlier in the month, I paid a visit to New England Dragway (NED) in Epping, NH. For about $20, you can bring your own car car and make as many runs as you’d like down a controlled and measured professional drag strip, complete with timing light, waterbox, and all. Mostly American muscle and bikes, but a good time none the less. Out of a few runs, I managed a 12.3 sec 1/4 mile run with 0.1 reaction time. Not as well as I would have liked or have run in the past (higher temps and tires held me back a bit) but good enough.

A few weeks later I spent the day with the Connecticut Valley Region (CVR) Porsche Club of America (PCA) for some autocross. For those of you who haven’t done it before, autocross (or auto-x for short) is a low risk alternative to track racing. “Competitions” will often times be held in a large parking lot or abandoned airfield, with cones outlining the course. The object is to complete the course in as short a time, hitting as few cones as possible. Speeds are usually kept bellow 60-70MPH, and there is essentially nothing to hit besides a couple of soft rubber traffic cones. It’s a ton of fun, and you learn a huge amount about the cars handling and performance in the process. I wasn’t in the running for any prizes this time, but I held my own fairly well. Some video for those interested (available in HD on my YouTube channel):
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Some of you may (or may not) have noticed the lengthy load times over the past couple days. I have for a while now, hosted my personal sites on a shared GoDaddy plan. Shared hosting is essentially one computer split up and used by a whole bunch of people. It’s great if you don’t use a lot of processor time and you’re trying to save a few dollars here and there. In any case, I called them up some weeks ago to complain about some lag problems I was having. They reported no issues and blamed it on some recent heavy server load due to some other users on the server.

Attempting to take matters into my own hands, I installed the WP Super Cache plugin. This nifty little bit of code automatically rendered static HTML pages from my dynamic PHP files. This greatly reduced the load time for most viewers, as they simply had to download a small file instead of waiting for the servers to process the original code. Improvement aside, this didn’t eliminate the problem completely, nor even help on the backend administrator panel. Read more

One of the most common questions asked by those starting out in photography is “which camera do I buy?” As much as some people will try to convince you that there are right and wrong choices when selecting a camera, there aren’t. There is no magic formula, no precise science, just your own personal experiences. Here, I will attempt to give a little background into the various features and specification of a modern day digital SLR to help you make an informed decision.

Features – The biggest difference between a “professional” and “consumer” camera are the features that come with each. It is important to determine which features are important to you and go from there. Pro cameras, such as the 1D series from Canon and the D3 series from Nikon, usually have more robust and faster shutters, better battery life, an integrated vertical grip, weather resistance, better autofocus and exposure systems, and more robust data pipelines. All of this comes at a price tho – namely size and cost. Read more

Few of my favorite apps for the iPhone 4 that I’ve collected over time. All are currently available for purchase from the Apple Store, and it’s highly recommended that you do.

Name: Amazon Mobile
Price: Free
Description: The Amazon app is one that I think a lot of people overlook. Whether you shop at Amazon or not, there’s no denying that they have arguably the largest selection of items for sale of any retailer (no, eBay isn’t a retailer). Use it to look up prices for comparison, find items with their “Remembers” feature (take a picture of the item, and they find it, be it book, compressed air, etc), or simply to make purchases on the go. You can manage wishlists and shopping carts, as well as log into your account to track shipments and orders.

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