My hiatus from BigBaldGuy, if anyone noticed, has been due to spending a lot of my time working on St. Mary’s website, as well as getting the site up for my new venture. Yes, I’ve been busy with other priorities but now I’m back. I thought the release of WordPress 3.0 would be as good a time as any to renew my commitment to posting regularly about my interests in all things geek, gadgets and social media.

The date of my last post on BigBaldGuy.com was February 17th, heralding the announcement of Google Buzz. At that time I was, and still am, excited about Buzz. It got a bad rap in the tech sector for the way it was rolled out within Gmail, but its features are awesome and getting even more awesome.

As you’ll see, I use Buzz primarily to share items of interest from Google Reader. I use a WordPress plugin called Google Buzz ER to share my latest Buzz in this blog. You’ll see the attractive widget in the sidebar, with its images and clear attribution with a link to the source.

Subscribe to my feed and come along for the ride. Feel free to share things you find interesting in your blog, and let me know when you do so I can be sure to follow you too. I’ll be spiffing up the site header with a nice image and I’ll be doing some design tweak over the next couple of weeks. I’ve learned a few tricks using my new theme of choice, Thesis 1.7. Highly recommended.

I’m very happy to be back!

Google Buzz is a Twitter/Facebook type of sharing service in Gmail. You can communicate and share items of interest with your Gmail contacts and others you meet on Buzz. Conceptually, Buzz works very much like Facebook.

Buzz came out of nowhere on February 9th. No one, I mean NO ONE, saw Buzz coming. Google kept it totally under wraps until the day it was announced. None of the pundits or publications ever spoke of Buzz. This is certainly a tribute to Google’s ability to keep the wraps on their secret projects.

Buzz’s Potential
I believe it’s accurate to say that Buzz has the potential to facilitate communication in a way that’s nothing short of revolutionary. Why? Because it’s so tightly integrated with Gmail. Your Buzz updates go into your sent mail and buzzes you comment on are sent to your inbox. You can easily create filters to keep them out of the inbox, that’s your call. This tight integration provides a new type of email experience that you simply won’t find with other email services. Yes, Buzz is still a little rough around the edges and probably isn’t quite ready for mass adoption. I think it’s safe to say that Buzz is more for geeks like me at this early stage of the game.

Gmail Integration: Asset or Liability?
I also understand that most of you who are still hanging on to your Hotmail or Yahoo accounts are not likely not move to Buzz right away. I know how difficult it is for most people to embrace change like this, especially if the tools you’re using now work well for you. Heck, many of you are just now starting to use Facebook regularly and it’s been around a few years.

While I believe it’s awesome in terms of current and future product features for Buzz to be part of Gmail, I understand that this integration could also be a liability when you consider how many people are using other email services. My guess is that Google will offer Buzz as a standalone application for all you Hotmail and Yahoo mail users. This would be an application similar to Facebook that would not require you to be a Gmail user to post updates with Buzz. Undoubtedly you’ll need a Google account though, much the same as you must now sign-up with Facebook.

Perhaps once you start using Buzz you’ll find some good reasons to migrate to Gmail in order to enjoy the benefits of having full integration with your email service.

More About Buzz
Rather than rehashing what dozens of respected journalists and pundits have been saying about Buzz over the past week, I thought I’d highlight some of what I consider to be among the best writings to date about what Buzz is and what it might mean for you. If you want to learn more, give them a read.

What is Buzz?
Getting started with Buzz
Google Buzz in Gmail from the official Gmail blog
Google Buzz Brings Social Sharing, Aggregation to Gmail by Louis Gray
Most Popular Buzzers

Tips for Using Buzz
Millions of Buzz users, and improvements based on your feedback from the official Gmail blog
12 Undocumented Tricks for Google Buzz from aext.net
Google Buzz Tips from Google Operating System

Buzz News, Discussion, Criticism and Response from Google
Buzz on Mashable
Dèjá Google from Slate
A new Buzz startup experience based on your feedback from the official Gmail blog
Google Message Feature Moves Beyond Twitter from the NY Times

There are many more articles and discussions about Buzz. Watch my Buzz feed where I’ll be posting links to these and other resources to help keep you up to date what’s going on with Buzz.

Finally, turn Buzz off if it’s not for you.
If after reading about Buzz and playing with it some, you may decide that it’s just not for you. Or you may just decide that you have too much on your plate at this time to mess around with another social networking tool. Heck, some days it seems that just keeping up with your Facebook friends can be overwhelming. I understand. If you’re a Gmail user you can easily turn off Buzz. If you use Hotmail or Yahoo Mail, you can just ignore Buzz.

If you do ignore Buzz, promise me that you’ll take another look at Buzz in about 6 months. You’ll see a lot of changes by then and I believe, just like Facebook, Buzz it will become a resource you won’t want to be without. I have a feeling that you’ll eventually be won over to this versatile and promising technology. Google is going to give you lots of reasons to love it. I predict that eventually you’ll be Buzzing too.

The monthly Knoxville Geek Breakfast is joining forces with other Knoxville community advocates to promote community building and geekdom within the greater Knoxville area. Today’s breakfast had representatives from Knoxville Overground, Entrepreneurs of Knoxville, the new JustUsLeeg.com, and the soon to be legendary CodeStock event. We shot some video of each of these folks briefly describing their organization to the group.

Alex Lavidge – Knoxville Overground

Leonard Knight – Entrepreneurs of Knoxville

Patrick Christian and Brian Ellis – JustUsLeeg.com

Walter Lounsbery of ETNUG & CodeStock

The first Austin Geek Breakfast was held yesterday morning during SXSW. Even though it took place at 8:00 on Sunday morning (what was Dave thinking??) we had around 25 people show up. Several folks from Austin attended, as well as people from around the country and the world. That’s right we had one geek who flew in all the way from London to attend. Well, maybe he was really here for SXSW, but we’d like to think the geek breakfast had something to do with his decision to attend. We even had social media rock star Saul Colt show up.

It was definitely an impressive group of geeks. Kudos to Dave Delaney for doing such a great job getting getting these breakfasts organized around the country and around the world. If you’d like to start a geek breakfast in your area, check out geekbreakfast.org for details.

Here’s a playlist of 4 videos I shot during the event:

I also shot a few photos:

There had been tornado warnings in the area yesterday with forecasted storms and strong wind. Up until mid-afternoon all we experienced was some light rain. Then it happened. The rain started to pour down and the wind was driving it through our valley diagonally. I grabbed the video camera and shot this video (watch to the end):

As I was returning the camera to it’s stand, I heard a loud crash. Turning around I saw one of our big oak trees down across the fence and on top of our little Boogey Lights trailer. I called Christine who was down at the barn throughout all of this. She said rain was actually blowing into the barn from underneath the sides. It was scary. When I told her about the oak tree she couldn’t believe it. We had recently had the tree guy here clearing that part of the property and he told us the tree was healthy. No one expected this to happen!

The Filas barked at the downed tree and then slowly ventured off the front porch to examine this giant intruder. They don’t like it one bit. The tree guy will be back soon to clear this one away and the firewood will go to a neighbor. Another $500 insurance deductible to pay to clear it, repair the fence and the trailer. Ouch!

Sadly we decided to sell Boris yesterday. Happily, he went to an awesome home that already has an active “work program” for 10 other dromedaries. Check out this video of these gentle giants who will be living with Boris at his new home. Click the YouTube logo to watch it on YouTube, where you can view it in high quality. It’s much better viewing that way if you have a high speed Internet connection:

Christine will tell you that Boris was MY camel, not hers, even though she was the one who cared for him and worked with him. I was the one who wanted to buy him when we attended the exotic animal auction in Cookeville, TN. I thought it would be real cool to have a camel, and it was! Boris was a hit at the Rhea County Fair and the Dayton  Christmas parade this past year. It was fun showing him and watching the reaction people had when seeing a camel for the first time. We even bought a tall trailer to transport him. We were determined we’d eventually be riding him and having him pull a wagon.

When we bought Boris we simply had no idea of the extent of commitment that would be required to raise a dromedary gentleman. Christine soon took over the day-to-day responsibility of caring for Boris along with her goats, mini donkeys, llama, etc, etc. Bless her heart, she’s such an awesome wife!

While we had a great time showing Boris off at community events and gaining local reputation as “the folks with the camel,” it soon become apparent that he was getting bigger and bolder. Boris would need consistent daily training if he was going to be safe to be around. Dromdaries are just too big to mess with if you don’t have them under full control. Grown camels are HUGE animals and they must be trained and respected.

Christine worked with Boris the best she could with the lack of reliable information on raising and training camels. It seemed as though the few self-proclaimed camel trainers you find online offer totally different opinions about camel behavior and training. I think Christine signed off her camel discussion board once and for all the other day by chastising many of the participants for acting like children in their attacks on other forum members who don’t agree with their techniques.

We needed camel training intervention, so we called a friendly camel man we had met at the auction when we purchased Boris. Scott Allen sat next to us at the auction and provided excellent bidding advice. We won the bidding for Boris at a price he assured us was a good deal. Scott told us that we’d be needing help with Boris and made sure we knew he could provide it when the time came. Well, the time had come and we gave Scott a call.

We arranged to bring Boris down for a 30 day boot camp at Scott’s farm in Cartersville, GA, Pettit Creek Farms, to work and train with his 10 other camels. Yesterday was the day and we headed south to Georgia with Boris in tow.

On our way down to deliver Boris for his month of training, we discussed whether or not we wanted to sell him to Scott. We’d already planted the seed with Scott about possibly buying him and he was definitely interested at the right price. Of course we knew we’d take a loss on Boris to make Scott an offer he couldn’t refuse, but we also knew that continuing to keep Boris would be expensive and time consuming. It would be sad to see him go, but we knew that it was probably going to be best for him to have a home at Pettit Creek than with us. We’d play it by ear and see if we wanted to invest further in Boris for our own use, or sell him at a loss to Scott.

When we arrived we unloaded Boris and Scott tied him inside a big stall. He told us that Boris needs to learn to be tied and be happy about it. We then went to the back of the property to retrieve 5 males, 2 of whom would be harnessed and pulling a wagon after lunch. They followed right along for a long walk from the back of the property to the front. Scott tied them to his camel hitchin’ post, where they’d stay until after lunch.

Until we visited Scott and his family at Pettit Creek Farms in Cartersville, GA, I was skeptical that anyone in this country really knew how to train a camel to behave, let alone to work. Now I’ve met someone who truly does know how to do this and do it very well. Scott loves his 10 camels, but not in a mushy, gushy way. He doesn’t kiss them (as we did Boris) or dote over them. No, Scott’s their boss. As with everyone living at Pettit Creek – kids, grandkids, employees – the camels pull their weight. Scott’s “no pet” policy provides no room for slackers. Everyone has a job, including the dogs.

We then went to lunch at a memorable diner in Cartersville, where we ate at the former “colored” counter that seats 3 off the kitchen. We had a burger swimming in beans and cole slaw. Yummy, but definitely something you eat with a fork, not with your hands. This was a memorable lunch experience in a true hometown joint with history and tradition.

After spending time with Scott and meeting his family we knew that the best thing for Boris was to live at Pettit Creek. He’d be under the care of a family that knows and loves camels and is doing some very interesting work with them. He’d have lots of buddies and he’d never be bored. This is the kind of place I’d want any camel to be. I got an email from Scott this morning telling me he woke up at 2AM thinking about getting started with Boris today. He just loves working with camels and couldn’t sleep with a new student on board. Now that’s passion.

Boris will soon learn to use his strength and other camel skills to actually be productive, rather than standing around all day munching hay and tipping over water buckets. He’ll pull wagons and manure spreaders, he’ll even be saddled up and ridden caravan style with 5 other male dromedary workers. Scott’s son is now working on a harness for 6 camels to pull a hayride wagon and other farm implements.

Boris will never again be bored and we’re so thankful that we were able to know him for the 6 months or so that we owned him. I’m really looking forward to visiting Pettit Creek Farms this summer to witness his progress. I want to ride that wagon that Boris and 5 other dromedaries are dutifully pulling to the commands of the driver. That will be a wonderful day.

We’re both sad to see Boris go, but we now know that camels need a job to be happy and Boris just got hired by the best.

I’ve written previously about a problem I’ve encountered recording video with the iSight camera on my MacBook Pro. I know that many people have experienced this problem, as I regularly get people doing a Google search for the solution landing on this post.

Last week I downloaded the latest version of QuickTime Player (ver 7.6 (472)) for my Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5.6. I was hoping it would resolve the problem of audio/video synchronization when recording in PhotoBooth or iMovie. Well, my unscientific tests reveal that the problem has not been resolved in PhotoBooth, but seems to be fine in iMovie. Take a look for yourself. First, the PhotoBooth video – FAIL!:

What did work well was File/Import from Camera in iMovie. This gives you the choice of capturing video and audio in either 16:9 mode (1024 x 576) or 4:3 mode (640 x 480) using the iSight cam and internal mic on your Macbook Pro. I captured the following video in iMovie in 640×480 mode, then Share/Export using QuickTime and selected the Movie to MPEG-4 format, setting the Options to H.264 and 320×240 resolution. This creates a good quality .MP4 file that is quite small in size, but still great quality for a webcam recording. The following short video was only 3MB in size, making for a quick upload to YouTube, even at my measly 3mb DSL speed that often runs very slow. The quality is there, the upload is fast, and the audio and video are definitely in sync. Hurray!

I also made a quick video using YouTube’s QuickCapture service. This avoids converting and uploading altogether. Check out the video quality compared to the above to see if the extra steps of recording with iMovie are really worth it. Again, this was captured using my relatively slow DSL connection. I think the quality is definitely acceptable once you get the volume control set properly.

So what do you think? Does the latest version of QuickTime underlying iMovie 8.0 fix the problem with audio and video sync so many MacBook users have experienced? I think it might. PhotoBooth still seems to be a problem, but iMovie does quite well. And I don’t think you should rule out Youtube’s QuickCapture service for recording webcam quality video.

Today I begin my preparations for tomorrow’s colonoscopy. It’s not a fun prep, but it’s absolutely necessary for the surgeon to get a good look at my inner plumbing. Nothing to eat today, other than clear liquids. The worst part is the solution I start to drink at noon that will keep me very close to the toilet for the rest of the day. It’s all part of the cleansing process for this important screening procedure that seeks to find any evidence of colon cancer or its humble beginnings in the form of polyps growing in your colon.

The Odds Are Awesome and In Your Favor
Statistics totally support this early detection method as the best way to identify colon cancer before it becomes fully developed and spreads throughout one’s body. In fact, according to About.com, “when diagnosed early, 90% of colorectal cancers are completely curable.” The really cool thing is that if they find no polyps during the procedure, you don’t need to do it again for another 10 years. That’s right, you’ll have peace of mind for the next 10 years that this form of cancer is not within you.

We Humans are Excellent Rationalizers
I’m sure there are many people who know they should get a colonscopy, but they rationalize reasons for not doing it. Why would smart people not embrace this medical procedure that’s widely available, relatively painless (they put you to sleep for the procedure) and every bit as important for both men and women as a mammogram is for the early detection of breast cancer?

I believe people avoid the procedure because they’re afraid of learning they have cancer or they just hate medical procedures. As a result, they prefer to believe that because they have no pain or other symptoms, they must be fine. Whatever the motivation, many people rationalize their avoidance behavior and put their proverbial head in the sand when it comes to a relatively simple screening procedure. In fact, some good friends told us last night at dinner that they’d been avoiding the procedure for years, and these are smart people. In spite of our urging them to do it, they basically said they would not.

Staying in Shape is Hard, This is Easy
Many of us, myself included, know that we should be getting more daily exercise, eating better and doing the other things that contribute to a healthier lifestyle. However, we often struggle with our fitness because it requires discipline and commitment. It’s hard to do!

Like diet and exercise, a colonoscopy is also something that many of us know we should do. The difference is that it’s EASY to do! Unlike keeping a healthy diet and regular exercise program, this is simple. Even if you struggle with your weight and exercise habits like I do, you can easily eliminate one major health risk through this simple procedure. Most of us will get peace of mind that you don’t have colon cancer, whereas others will catch it early enough to treat it.

Git ‘er Done!
If you’re 50 or over and haven’t had one, do yourself a big favor and schedule a colonoscopy. It’s one of the easiest things you can do to stay healthy and prevent the onset of one of the most dreaded diseases of our time. A half day on the toilet and another half day in the hospital is really a very small price to pay for the knowledge that you’re in good health. And if something is discovered, your odds of beating it are excellent. So pull your head out of the sand and get to it!

Dear Paul,

All I want is a free account when you implement this idea and make millions from it.

I recently discussed the need for a trusted source to develop a service that would maintain your blog, photo, video and other digital media accounts into perpetuity. I said there was a business opportunity – and a BIG one at that – for a company to offer a service that maintained an individual’s media accounts after that person was deceased.

I’ve since concluded that I was wrong about this opportunity. It’s not about maintaining existing media accounts into perpetuity. It’s about sucking all the content from an individual’s various accounts while they’re still alive into a repository that will facilitate viewing that media into the distant future. What if all the photos, blog posts, videos, tweets, likes, comments and most everything else FriendFeed aggregates could be preserved for future generations to easily consume? I’m talking about generations that will live hundreds of years from now. Would this be cool, or what?

Having used FriendFeed (Paul’s company) for awhile now, I believe this feed aggregator and publishing platform is ideally positioned to take advantage of this next big thing. Think about how FriendFeed currently gathers all of your feeds with links to all of your digital media accounts. The next step is to not only link to your content, or display a thumbnail of it, but to actually retrieve and store it for consumption by future generations. No one is doing this today and I hear very little talk of it. Yet, consider all the digital media that’s being produced today.

When today’s content creators are dead and gone, who’s going to look after their stuff? Chances are it won’t be the Library of Congress. How can we prevent a lifetime of our digital media from simply being deleted when our account subscription fees come due and are unpaid? Bottom line, no one offers a good solution to this largely undiscovered opportunity. There’s a huge business waiting for the company that figures out how to do this and do it well. Someone’s going to do it. If not FriendFeed, then maybe it will be Google or Amazon. Maybe even Microsoft.

A “virtual immortality” service such as the “FriendFeed Lifestream Archive” could benefit almost immediately from the huge Baby Boomer population now facing their own mortality. While most Boomers aren’t producing nearly as much content as younger generations, their sheer numbers would almost guarantee that such an archive service would be an instant success. Not to mention all of the Gen X and Y folks that will jump on this ultimate backup solution. With a little education and the right offering at the right price, I think almost everyone who produces and shares digital media today would want an account. Especially if it could function as both a comprehensive personal media backup service in the short term and a sophisticated vault and media viewer for the long run. I believe done right, this service could easily be the next big thing. There’s a HUGE market, it’s just that most people creating digital content today are too young to have thought much about needing it.

I hope someone does this soon, as the clock never stops ticking. Before you know it Robert Scoble will be trading his monopod for a cane as he tells stories about the early days of the Internet to his grandkids. With a “lifestream archive” he’ll still be telling these stories 200 years from now.