4 Steps to keep your family calendar in sync

Like everyone, we have busy schedules.  That’s why we need synchronized calendars.  The problem is that I (and most people in the work force) use the calendar in Microsoft Outlook.  Outlook does not play well with other calendars.  Here’s how we got around that.  (Now that I think about it – this would make a great post for “Works For Me Wednesday”, a great blog carnival hosted by We Are That Family where every Wednesday people post tips about what works for them.

 

Step 1.  You and your spouse each sign up for Google Calendar:

Step 2.  Share your calendars with each other. 

Login to calendar and click settings in the upper right.  Then click the shared settings:

Under “share with specific people” enter your spouses email address and select the option to “Make Changes to Events”.  This means your spouse can see your calendar and add events to your calendar (important).

 

Step 3.  Add events to each others calendars

Now that you have access to each others calendars, you can start filling them out.

 

If you need your spouse to know about a certain event, you can add it to their calendar as well.  There are two ways to do this, you can either “invite them to the event” or you can create an event, click “edit details” then change the calendar to your spouses calendar.  This will make it automatically show up on their calendar.

Step 4.  Synchronize with Outlook

Now you can see each others calendars, but it doesn’t do any good if your spouse uses Outlook, because he/she will never see your new calendar.  The trick here is to have your spouse install Google Calendar sync.  This will sync up his/her Outlook calendar and the new Google Calendar you created.

Works for me!  What do you do to stay in sync?

Why Megapixels don't matter and other consumer myths debunked

I got some great feedback on my post last week about the shady business model of inkjet printers (they give-away the printer then markup the ink), so I thought I could post this week about some other consumer "myths".    

As consumers, we're always looking for "figures of merit" to make it easy to tell if one product is better than the other product.  Sometimes these figures of merit are easy to understand and thus make clear sense like the size of a TV (wow you got a 72" plasma, mine is only 52").

Many times with technology products the figures of merit are harder to understand and thus can be misleading about what is really better.  Here are three areas where people commonly get duped by the figure of merit.

1. Computers.  It used to be that you could pretty much judge how fast a computer was by it's processor speed.  A 750 MHz processor was better than a 500 MHz processor.  This is simply not true anymore.  The true "speed" of a computer is determined by complicated things like the "processor architecture, size and speed of RAM, and graphics hardware.   Manufacturers are mostly to blame - instead of labeling processors according to their true power, they complex pseudo names like "core 2 duo" or "core i5".    

Bottom line: When buying a computer "Gigahertz" doesn't matter, look at other things like processor type, RAM, and graphics support (dedicated is better than integrated).

2.  Internet Speed.  A 20 Mbps DSL line is going to be "faster" than 7 Mbps Cable, right?  Mbps stands for "Mega-bits-per second" and is a measure of how fast information flows, but it is not the dominant factor in determining how fast an internet experience you are going to have.  When you are surfing the internet, the web sites you visit usually can't send information faster than 3 Mbps.  So even if you could theoretically download at 20 Mbps, websites are never going to send information faster than 3 Mbps.  The last thing to consider is "latency".  This is how fast the internet responds before it starts sending information.  Many times this latency can have a much bigger impact on internet speed than the download speed.  In other words, a 100 Mbps connection with a high latency could be slower than a 5 Mbps connection.

Bottom line: Anything faster than 5 Mbps is probably overkill - ask your provider about latency.

3.  Compact Digital Cameras  
This one is my favorite because I used to design imaging systems for satellites.  Cameras are complicated, so the figure pushed by manufacturers is the "Megapixels".  A 10 Megapixel camera takes better pictures than a 3 Megapixel camera.  Not true.

A pixel is a tiny dot that can represent a color.  Your computer monitor is made up of pixels.  My laptop has a resolution of 1280 X 800 which means it has 1280 pixels in each row and 800 rows for a total of about 1 Million pixels or 1 Megapixel.  It works the same way with cameras and you can start to see the problem.  If I take a 10 Megapixel picture, how do I even look at it on a 1 Megapixel screen?

Furthermore, point-and-shoot digital cameras are limited by something called Modulation Transfer Function or MTF.  This means that the lenses in point-and-shoots are so small and cheap, that they blur the scene across multiple pixels anyway.  So a 10 Megapixel point and shoot camera takes just as good of pictures as a 3 Megapixel.  So why do they make 10 Megapixel point-and-shoots?  Because you will buy them over the 3 Megapixel camera.  If fact, you can't even buy a 3 Megapixel camera anymore.  Notice that this is untrue for SLR's (the big cameras) because they have big lenses with a much better MTF, so they can actually use all the pixels.

Bottom line: Anything over 3 Megapixels in a compact camera is a waste

That's it!  I hope you enjoyed this weeks consumer myths debunked!      

How to print for cheap without refilling your own cartridges

Did you know that inkjet printer ink costs $8000 per gallon making it one of the most expensive substances on earth?

we had this printer for 4 years, and payed $1.50 for ink

Printer manufacturers typically sell their printers at a loss, then make-up the difference by marking up the ink.  This is a business model I despise - giving away a product then hitting the customer with "hidden costs" just to  keep using the product.   You can typically save 30% by buying generic ink, but I'm going to show you how to save 90%, without the messy business of refilling your own cartridges.  Now your kids can enjoy "guilt-free" printing - even in color!

First a disclaimer: I try to do everything at home and work without printing.  I hate the waste and inefficiency of paper.    
   
Step 1.  Buy an inkjet printer with a "fixed print head"
Another way manufactures justify charging more for the ink is that they include something called the "print head' in the cartridge.  This is the metal thing you can see at the bottom of the cartridge.  A print head will usually last the life of the printer, but manufacturers insist on including a new one in each cartridge so they can charge more.

Luckily, some manufacturers use a "fixed print head" meaning the print head is always part of the printer, it is not included in the print cartridge so the ink is cheaper.  Buying a printer that includes a "fixed print head" will save you 50% on ink from the start.

How do you know if the printer has a "fixed print head"?  To find out, see what type of ink the printer takes, then look up the ink on Amazon.com or Newegg.com.  If the ink is $30 - $40 than it is not a fixed print head.  If the ink is $10-$20 it is likely a fixed print head printer.  This type of printer may cost slightly more (you can find one for around $100), but it will pay for itself in the first month.  HP, Dell, and Lexmark printers NEVER have a fixed print head (bad), and Canon, Epson, and Kodak usually do (good).

this is what print cartridges for "fixed head printers" usually looks like.  Go with a Canon, Epson, or Kodak Printer to get a "fixed print head" and save on ink

Step 2.  Buy super cheap generic ink online
Now that you have a fixed print head printer, you can get generic ink for super cheap.  Just go to Megatoners.com or any similar site and select your printer, or type in the name of the ink it takes.  Generic ink for "fixed print head" printers will cost you anywhere from $1.50 to $4.00 per cartridge, compared to $16 for  a fixed printer head cartridge and $40 for a regular cartridge.

Specific Printer + Ink Combinations
The hard part is doing the research to find a good printer with cheap innk.  For our last printer we struck gold mine by finding a Canon Pixma ip3000 on ebay for $20 (I had to fix it a little).  The ink for this printer at Megatoners is $1.50.  Unfortunately this printer is discontinued, and when you do find it, the price is very expensive.  We could spend $25 on ink (to get free shipping) then literally print all the color we wanted for a year before needing to order more ink.  We had the printer 4 years, and ordered ink 3 times.  Then the printer finally died and we couldn't find a replacement.

Below is a list of Canon printers that take this cheap $1.50 ink, although most have been discontinued.  You can search for these printers on Amazon.com or Newegg.com and you can buy the cheap ink here:
Pixma IP3000, Pixma IP4000, Pixma IP4000R, Pixma IP5000, Pixma MP750, Pixma MP760, Pixma MP780, BJC 3000, BJC 6000, i 550, i 560, i 850, i 860, Multipass C755, Multipass F30,Multipass F50, Multipass F60, Multipass F80, Multipass MP700, Multipass MP730, S 400, S 450, S 500, S 520, S 530D, S 600, S 630, S 630N, S 750       

For our new printer we settled for a Canon Pixma MX700 all-in-one (includes scanner, copy, and fax) that has ink for $1.99.  You can buy the ink here, and below is a list of Canon printers compatible with this ink:
Pixma IP3300, Pixma IP3500, Pixma IP4200, Pixma IP4300, Pixma IP4500, Pixma IP5200,Pixma IP5200R, Pixma MP500, Pixma MP510, Pixma MP520, Pixma MP530, Pixma MP600, Pixma MP610,Pixma MP800, Pixma MP800R, Pixma MP810, Pixma MP830, Pixma MP960, Pixma MX700, Pixma MX850,Pixma MP970

That's it!  If you find a great combination or have questions, please post them in the comments below.

Your 2nd child - 9 lbs of pure enjoyment

one of my favorite pictures of Josh - I love having a boy

This post is a follow-up to a post I wrote a few months ago about called. Your first child - 8 pounds of pure terror.

A few months ago I asked Halle what I should post about?  Of course she said "post about me"!  Well I must have some self-absorbed kids because today I asked Joshua what I should post about and he said "Joshee".

If you read the previous post about Halle - you can see why there was some serious apprehension about having another baby (Halle was an extremely difficult baby... to put it mildly).  I remember my wife being pregnant and just counting down the days until the "hardest 3 months of our life" would begin.

In the ultrasound room my heart started pounding because I wanted a boy - however I thought I might be one of those guys who has all girls - payback for growing up with all boys.  When the ultrasound tech said boy a huge wave of relief and excitement washed over me!  Then the excitement was replaced with terror as I thought "Wait a second... girls are pure and innocent, but boys... oh no! I know about boys!  I know what goes on in their heads... what are we going to do?"

The day came and we were prepared for the worst.  We started sleeping 12 hours to store up for the long nights we were expecting.  However Joshua stole our hearts from the beginning by being the best baby you could ask for.  No screaming, no 2 AM cry-fests, no pooping or puking on me, he was just a good baby!  Because of this I was completely enamored by everything he did!  I would just watch him in awe - and couldn't believe that he was just such a good baby.  I was in heaven!  

To this day he is still such a good kid and constantly surprising us.  Yesterday one of our friends came up to us and said "Josh is so smart - he can spell his name!"  Other parents may have replied "I know - we've been working on it for quite some time".  Our reply was "Really?  I've got to see this!"  We asked him when we got home and sure enough he did.

Thanks Josh for sparing us the three months of terror - we sure love ya for it!