RickyCadden.com

Camping With Others

// November 8th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Family

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been a huge fan of the outdoors. My family went camping multiple times per year, and while we didn’t exactly ‘rough it’ (we were usually at a State Park), it was still my favorite thing ever. Now that I’m a bit more grown up, I still love to go camping – there’s nothing more relaxing than turning off anything electronic and just enjoying God’s creation. It’s amazing.

However, I’ve always enjoyed camping with ME to worry about. A few years ago, I added a dog to that equation, and it turns out, dogs are fantastic campers. Abilene LOVES going camping, and even has a ‘campin collar’ in sweet camo that she gets to wear when we go. Not long after that, I got engaged (actually, yes, on a camping trip) to my beautiful wife, and she’s a pretty decent camper, as well. Most of you already know, but a few months ago, we added a little girl to our family, and I honestly assumed that my camping days were over. Actually, I assumed they were over until Reese was old enough for me to tell her she didn’t have a choice.

However, I recently came across this article on The Art of Manliness (which is an AWESOME blog, by the way) that highlights a few tips and tricks to successfully camping with a baby. Based on the article, I’m convinced that I can handle camping with Reese, and somewhat excited to give it a go.

What’s the youngest you remember going camping?

Qik Keeps On Improving, Adds Premium Features To Android

// August 25th, 2011 // No Comments » // android, cool, Family, technology

When the whole notion of streaming live video from your phone to the Internet came around, there were basically two companies doing it – Flixwagon and Qik. Both got their start on Nokia’s Symbian-powered smartphones – in fact, I even live-streamed my wedding using Nokia N82s, the Nokia DT-22 tripod, and Flixwagon.

Unfortunately, Flixwagon is pretty much gone at this point, but Qik has continued to skyrocket in functionality and popularity. In the U.S., Qik has become the default video calling solution for most Android-powered smartphones, with even carriers such as T-Mobile and Sprint touting the app as being pre-loaded on the latest and greatest smartphones. The leap from video-streaming to video-calling has also proved to be a great move for Qik.

I use Qik on a daily basis now, especially with a new baby in the house – it’s super easy to video chat with grandparents, or with my wife when I’m away on business. There’s almost no setup required – when my mom asked about it, all I did was spell out ‘Q-I-K’ for her and 15 minutes later, she was video calling me from her Android-powered smartphone! She was able to download and install the app and get an account setup that quickly and easily.

I’m pretty jazzed for Qik, who recently announced that they have over 10 million users across all its supported platforms (iOS, Android, Symbian), and are bringing their Premium services to the Android platform, finally. Qik Premium is $4.99/month and offers unlimited video storage as well as the ability to record and send HD and 3D video (if your phone can handle it, of course). I’ll gladly sign up – more for the ability to show support to the company who keeps me visually connected with my family, but also for the extra features.

If you haven’t used Qik, I would highly recommend it. It’s brilliant, and it’s cross-platform, so Android users can easily call iOS users, and vice versa. Qik has also been purchased by Skype, so hopefully in the future we’ll see integration so that you can easily call your Skype contacts with Qik. I’m also hoping that Skype lets the Qik team build the next version of the Skype mobile application – Qik is MUCH better on a phone in terms of resources and power management.

Congrats, Qik, keep up the great work!

Tablets Struggle To Be Shared

// July 29th, 2011 // No Comments » // android, Family, Mobile, technology

Tablets are finally starting to take hold in the marketplace, mostly due to the fact that we’re finally using an upscaled mobile operating system, as opposed to trying to cram a desktop operating system on them, in my opinion. Either way, one of the biggest issues is that of multiple users.

While most of my friends each have their own laptop, there are still plenty of households in the U.S. and abroad that have a shared machine with at least two different users. The tablet seems like it would be shared even more, due to the more portable experience (you can literally pass it around, as opposed to a laptop, which is a bit more involved to hand-off). Unfortunately, these mobile platforms that today’s tablets are being built on do not usually understand the concept of multiple users.

With Android, dang near everything on the device is tied to a unique username and password. Apps are downloaded, email, contacts, calendar synced, the list goes on. Apple’s iPad is the same way – purchases from the App Store are tied to a specific account, as is Facetime and other Apple services/apps.

Fortunately, that’s starting to change on both platforms, though it’s interesting to note the origins of the change.

As expected, on the iPad, multiple-user support is now available, provided you’ve gone down the back alley and jailbroken your iPad. The implementation is quite nice, as you can see in this video:

With Android, however, Google has been adding support for multiple accounts in various apps (Gmail, etc) one by one. The latest addition is in the newly-revamped Android Market. Users will find that they can easily swap between accounts with a handy popup menu, allowing you to have apps from more than one account installed at the same time.

Image via: Android Central

Of course, the Android solution isn’t full-on user switching, but it would be quite easy to have an option to confirm the user from the lockscreen, so that when you pick up the tablet and turn on the screen, you’re presented with a list from which you simply pick your name. A few seconds of loading and you would be presented with your customized experience, including homescreens and shortcuts and all.

Do you share a laptop/tablet in your home? How do you accomplish this right now?

Reese Elizabeth Cadden Is Here

// July 3rd, 2011 // 8 Comments » // Family

Last Thursday, my sweet daughter entered the scene at 11:29p. This was our first kiddo, so we weren’t sure what to expect from the day (her water broke at 1a). I can tell you that pretty much everything you think you know about pregnancy and birthing from movies and TV is 100% false. Her water broke at 1a, we didn’t leave for the hospital until 3a, and she walked ~90 feet from the car to the ER, and then stood in there waiting for a little while. There was no speeding to the hospital, she can’t walk, etc.

Also, labor takes for freaking ever. From 3a to about noon, we just kinda hung out in the room. Very little contractions, obviously no baby. I watched two movies on the iPad, took a nap, and was bored to tears. The real action didn’t really start until about 6p, to be honest.

Eventually, though, the action started and now I have an amazing daughter. To be honest, the weirdest part is feeling like you’re on a whole different space-time continuum. I went to the grocery store the day we brought Reese home and was immediately aware that everyone else’s life was just going on – same old, same old, while mine had significantly changed. It was kind of eerie.

I’ve been home all this week with my girls and it’s been quite amazing. There’s literally nothing to compare taking a nap bare-chested with your baby sleeping on your chest, or hearing her little whimpers while she sleeps.

Because I’m me, I briefly considered setting up a ‘daddy blog’ – I tend to want to start a blog about anything new or exciting in my life. However, I eventually decided to just insert that content here, instead. If you’re one of my 10 readers, hopefully you’ll enjoy reading about my experiences and discoveries around fatherhood. Of course, I’ll still be keeping an eye out for examples of technology enriching and enabling real life, so don’t worry about that.

Setting Up A Family Website

// June 29th, 2011 // 3 Comments » // Family

Now that we’ve got a kiddo, my brain is racing with all sorts of things that I may need. While I do own RickyCadden.com (obviously), I wanted to have something more family-generic, so I bought a new domain just for my family. There are a few things that I’d like to setup on there, but I’m not exactly sure how, so I figured I would list them out. If you’re a web developer or are more experienced with setting up websites (other than blogs), please leave me a comment with your suggestions.

Obviously, I’ll likely setup a family blog with WordPress. That’s a no-brainer.

Image Hosting: I already setup a private PicasaWeb album to share photos of my daughter with family, but I’d like to have this all reside on a server that I own (or at least own access to). GoDaddy’s hosting connection has a few photo gallery apps available, and I suppose I could always use WordPress. A big factor here is going to be the ease with which I can upload photos, especially from my phone (Android).

File Sharing: I imagine I’ll need to host files here and there, and it would be great if there were an easy solution for this (other than FTP). Ideally, something like Dropbox, but again, something I control, versus someone else’s control. Also, mobile access to this is also key.

That’s all I can really think of for now. Do you have a ‘family’ domain, and if so, what uses have you found for it?