...it's beginning with a single step, on a rocky path...or something metaphorical like that.
I’m finally launching my photo of the day blog. Well, maybe not everyday, but a few times a month. I hope.
For everybody out there who has been following the saga of Josh’s recovery, it’s been an amazing ride. Only two months ago Josh was unable to talk, walk, feed himself, or even have the most basic body functions under control. Only a few weeks previous to that doctors had indicated that Josh might not ever awake from his coma.
Josh has progressed quickly in his recovery. He’s working hard every day to get back to his old self. He’s still got quite a ways to go, but the progress he has been making has been amazing.
Yesterday, he went to a hockey game under his own power. We were a a little worried at first because he seemed very withdrawn. It was like he was waiting for someone to notice he was “different”. After the first period he relaxed and began to enjoy the game. He even wanted to check out the karate studio booth. The students had put on a board breaking demonstration during the first intermission. The instructor said you could go to the booth and break a board if you wanted. Well Josh wanted to and he did! Talk about progress!
From here:
Here's Josh three months ago.
To here in three months!
Here's Josh now!
His memory, strength and coordination get a little better every day. The down side is he is so far from away from where he was September 12th that he gets emotionally overwrought. The deep sadness he feels cannot always be verbalized and then frustration sets in. Since his emotional age is very young, we often see a short burst of anger from him. It doesn’t last long but it is truly heartbreaking.
On a more positive note: Josh loves the web site www.lumosity.com You can sign up for a free week, no strings attached, and play the games Josh plays to build his brain. Josh challenged my sister to Josh had me play one of the memory match games. It sounded easy. Just touch the MATCH or NO MATCH buttons after you see a shape. Well Jamie was soooo super fabulous, I scored 960. Then Josh showed her his score and it was 5,000, He said she needed to go to rehab with a score like that. Pretty funny.
Through the generosity of so many we have raised almost $2000 towards the $75,000+ in hospital and medical bills Josh’s hospital and rehabilitation has cost our family. Thank goodness that the insurance is covering the other $300,000 in bills!
I just wanted to say thank you so much to everybody who has donated. Our family has been humbled by the outpouring of support we have received. We cannot express our gratitude strongly enough!
The Right Ons at SXSW 2009
My photo of The Right Ons from SXSW is being featured on Twangville.com, check it out. The photo was shot with a Canon 5D using the Canon 24-105mm EF L F4 IS lens.
Macrumors.com got a hold of a big one, although the conclusions drawn don’t surprise anybody.
Rumors of the next generation iPhone point to the support of Multi-Core CPUs and possibly Multi-Core GPUs from Imagination Technologies. Apple has been building a team of chip engineers over the past year to participate in their own ARM processor designs that will presumably be used in future iPhones. Schiller previously outlined Apple’s natural product timelines and acknowledged that June is the usual timeframe for major iPhone revisions, although storage increases could happen at any time.
Read the whole article here.
Here’s a tutorial which explains a way to design labels in Photoshop using free blank PDF label templates as a layer that you can then quickly modify for related products including CDs, DVDs, address labels. and more. Photoshop’s Smart Objects helps you align-and-distribute options, and layer groups make it easy to repeat your label design to fit the label stock.
The detailed tutorial shows how to open a label template to use as a guide for sizing and positioning the label artwork critical for making labels.
From Lifehacker comes good news for us mobile junkies.
iPhone/iPod touch only: Cisco’s popular meeting and collaboration tool WebEx has found a new home on the iPhone, and, frankly, it looks very impressive.
The free application lets you attend any WebEx meeting over 3G or Wi-Fi, including simultaneous conference calls, chat, and document sharing (you’ll probably want to bust out your headset to use it all). We don’t actually use WebEx here at Lifehacker HQ, so I wasn’t able to put it through a full test, but if the video demonstration is any indication, it’s a pretty impressive offering for the mobile worker. WebEx is a free download, iPhone and iPod touch only (though clearly two-way voice isn’t really an option for the iPod touch).
As if the risk of brain cancer weren’t bad enough justing using a cellphone, AT&T is contacting some of its customers asking if they’d like to test an in-home extension to its cellular networks powered by a subscriber’s own broadband—a femtocell. Femtocells use frequencies licensed by the carrier for data and voice, while handling backhaul through a customer-provided service.
AT&T’s new product is a small, security-enabled cellular base station that easily connects to your home DSL or Cable Internet, providing a reliable wireless signal for any 3G phone in every room of your house. The device allows you to have unlimited, nationwide Anytime Minutes for incoming or outgoing calls.
Sprint Nextel has been offering femtocells since last year; the advantage to the carrier is providing fill-in service in the home without deploying more base stations in an area. AT&T has apparently been testing femtocells with its own employees since last year as well.
Femtocells differ from T-Mobile’s UMA (unlicensed mobile access) approach, which also puts a specialized device in the home. With UMA, specialized handsets must have both cell and WiFi radios, and the firmware to handle seamless handoffs between the two network types. With a femtocells, the radio side is effectively identical with only the backhaul varying. T-Mobile also offers WiFi routers that feature two increasingly common VoIP-oriented protocols (one for power conservation, the other for packet prioritization).
Carriers pay enormously less to transit and account for voice and data over a customer’s own broadband, and thus can offer so-called unlimited voice plans (which have some very high monthly limits). T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home service costs $10 (1 or more lines) per month adding to a minimum $40-per-month voice plan; Sprint charges $15 to $25 per month for the same thing.
Femtocells have few disadvantages for home users because the dedicated frequencies means that any WiFi network they may already have in place isn’t degraded by cellular use, and vice versa.
Okay, there are super heroes like Spiderman that only fight crime on screen or in print. But then there are the real world super heroes like Fox Fire and Black Arrow who are out to fight crimes in their own cities. Think I’m joking. I’m not.
Check out the World Superhero Registry to see who’s fighting crime in your area.
You can learn more about these secretive crime fighters through MySpace and their own personal websites, which are conveniently located on their profile pages.
My guess is that my wife and I could take them all in a fight. At the same time. But your mileage may vary.
I thought about becoming a superhero myself, but their online shop of “Real Life Superhero Items” was “coming soon” and listed no items. Foiled again!!!!!
Now I have to find out where Batman really does get all those incredible toys. Obviously not at the World Superhero Registry.
I can’ t recommend it enough, kill your Cable/Satellite system and switch to Over-The-Air HD (OTA). but getting a good reception isn’t always easy. Luckily there is help. The AntennaWeb site can help find the receiver that will net the most channels at your address.
From LifeHacker:
The free-to-use site only requires your street address or ZIP code and asks whether you’ve got any tall buildings or trees nearby. Based on your location (which it sometimes details down to the street level), it lays out how far each local broadcaster is from your house, what channel and signal type they’re offering, and what kind of antenna will net you the best reception for the most digital channels. You can even get a map showing which direction each station will come to your house from, for those who need to point a directional unit (or plan to stick with a strategically-placed indoor antenna).
AntennaWeb leaves the purchasing of your outdoor model to your own preference and Google abilities, but the site does explain the whys and hows of antennas pretty decently for those who haven’t worked at a RadioShack. Confused in a more general sense about the Feb. 17 transition and what it means? Try the official DTV 2009 site.
I use a TivoHD with my OTA digital reception, and between the Netflix streaming service and the hundreds of hours of HD programming, I rarely feel the need for cable. It makes a lot of sense in the new economy!
