While searching around destabee's place for Kikinator this evening to scoop her up to bring her out to the trailer for bed, we heard some yipping noises coming from Kele's basement.

Cherie and I descended the stairs and turned on the light and found our little girl chasing a cute little mouse around the large dark room.

Upon seeing us, Kiki scooped up the mouse, dropped it at our feet, and then proceeded to chase the limping mouse anew. Her parent's were wild barn cats after all, so we shouldn't be surprised that mousing is in her blood.

As our eyes followed her darting around the dark basement, we started to realize that she wasn't just playing with a single mouse. The entire floor of the basement was littered with little carcasses. It was a veritable killing field, with at least eight bodies lying about discarded.

Our sweet little kitten is a mass murderer.

The horror!

We have several excellent cameras that need good homes, and we'd much rather sell to friends.

All prices below include payment via PayPal and US Priority shipping.

Canon PowerShot G9 (with 8GB SD card) - $425
Canon Powershot SX110IS - $100 (won't turn on, has minor water damage)
Pentax Optio S12 - $130
FujiFilm FinePix F50sd - $90
Casio Exilim EXZ750 - $30

For full details of each camera, click through to our detailed post at www.technomadia.com.

Also posted at www.technomadia.com:

=========

For those who haven't known me for a while, you may not know that before going nomadic I used to be the Director of Competitive Analysis for Palm (the maker of the Pilot, Tungsten, and Treo) and PalmSource (the Palm OS operating system spinoff).

It used to be my job to literally dissect every worthwhile mobile gadget in existence, and I typically carried multiple smartphones in my pockets with cell phone plans from every major carriers.


Imagine the looks I used to get going through airport X-Rays... (vintage 2004 tech)

I sometimes miss getting paid to play with so many cool toys, but I don't miss the endless juggling and constant shifting from one device to the next.

Now I get to pick just one.

For the past two years, my choice has been the original iPhone.

The great leap forward in user interface that the iPhone represented left every other mobile device looking like a dinosaur, even my beloved Treo. Once the iPhone was opened up to third party developers, there was no looking back.

The iPhone 3G last year wasn't enough to lure me into upgrading, though Cherie did happily leave behind Windows Mobile (another dinosaur platform) for one. Most of the new features in the iPhone 3G were added to the original iPhone via a free software upgrade, and the 3G speeds would have only been a compelling enough reason to upgrade if Apple and AT&T had allowed tethering.

Ever since the iPhone launched, everyone else in the mobile industry has been playing catch up - typically with extremely disappointing results. RIM continues to do one thing extremely well (mobile email), but Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola have all been left struggling desperately for a hit.

The only non-Apple phone that is in the same next-generation league as the iPhone is the newly released Palm Pre - a stunning achievement by the Palm team.

The Pre has real multitasking (sorely lacking from the iPhone), "Synergy" data syncing with multiple online services such as FaceBook and Google, and a fabulous UI that in some ways raises the bar even on the iPhone. With a bit more refinement and some third party developer momentum, the Pre will soon be even more compelling.

But not (yet) compelling enough.

Though I was sorely tempted by the Pre's amazing multitasking abilities and super sweet Synergy, the brand new iPhone 3G S has won me over. We stopped at the downtown Chicago Apple store yesterday to get one:


I was surprised that there were still lines out into the street three days after the iPhone 3G S started shipping. Fortunately we only had to wait 30 minutes before I got mine.

So why did I choose the iPhone 3G S?

• Applications - There are over 50k iPhone applications out now, while the Pre is just getting started and the SDK isn't even widely available yet. I am an application junky, and I have many daily-use iPhone apps that I can't imagine being without.


• Compass + Accelerometer + GPS = Augmented Reality - Over the course of the coming year, I expect to see some amazing innovation in this area.


• Tethering - Though AT&T won't say when they will support it, it is built into OS 3.0, and at least AT&T promises that it is coming. As technomads, the ability to use our phones to get our laptops online is crucial.


• 32 Gigabytes - I used to have a 60GB iPod, and I have felt hampered the past two years trying to cram my media collection into the 8GB capacity of my original iPhone. I am thrilled to once again be able to carry around a decent quantity of music and videos in my pocket. The Pre on the other hand can only hold 8GB.


• Pocket Video Capture - The iPhone 3G S has a very usable 3 megapixel camera, and it at last supports video! I am very much looking forward to having a reasonably decent still / video capture device that I can trust to be always with me.


Canon G9 (left) vs iPhone 3G S (right). Though the Canon is a much more powerful camera, for typical web snapshots the iPhone is at last reasonably good enough to allow leaving larger cameras behind...

• 3D Graphics - Before Palm, I used to work in the 3D graphics industry, and I have a fine appreciation for accelerated 3D graphics. Early benchmarks show that the iPhone 3G S is 4x faster than the iPhone 3G when it comes to 3D rendering. Assuming the next iPod Touch (due in Sept) has the same 3D hardware, it will be a killer gaming device indeed. Sony and Nintendo better watch out!


• Future Upgradability - Apple has provided the iPhone 3.0 OS as a free upgrade to iPhone 3G and even original iPhone owners, bringing even the oldest iPhones many of the new non-hardware-dependent features. I expect Apple will continue this trend, and even two years from now the iPhone 3G S will be getting major functionality upgrades. No other phone manufacturer has ever done such a good job continuing to support old hardware. Kudos to Apple!

In all of these areas, the iPhone 3G S is way ahead of the Pre, and light years ahead of anything else out there.

So far, I am loving the 3G S. It is a beautifully refined and polished product, with all sorts of little details and delights that show the intense attention to quality and detail that Apple is known for.

I have found my new ultimate mobile phone.

What is yours?

One of the online communities of Digital Location Independent Lifestyle Designing NuNomads that we are affiliated with online is taking a brief survey of the nomadic and wanna-be nomadic:

Do you ever wonder how many people out there are really location independent? Do you have questions about what they do for a living, how much they work or where they live?

Here is your chance to get answers to those questions.

Free Pursuits and Location Independent are hosting a survey about location independence and digital nomads. We hope you will help the community by completing the survey.

You don’t have to already be location independent to participate. If you’re an aspiring digital nomad or location independent, we also have questions for you.

If you identify with nomadic living or location independent work, you can take the survey here.

We'll be posting our take on the results on technomadia.com in a few weeks.

Thanks in advance for participating!

In case you missed our post over on technomadia.com about this...

The Digital Vagabond is sponsoring a "Roads Scholarship" this summer that will offer the winner a $1,200/month stipend towards a three-month cross country roadtrip adventure, culminating at Burning Man.

If you want to apply, applications are due TOMORROW!

Apply here, and come join us out on the road! *grin*

My personal three years nomadic anniversary was a month ago, on April 1st. But today is another important milestone - the two year nomadiversary of Cherie and I setting off together.

We set out cross country in May 2007 intending the trip to be an extended trial run, certain only that we would stay together until Burning Man in August.

The trial obviously worked. I can hardly believe that two years have already blown past!

We've just put up a post on www.technomadia.com with a fuller reflection on the last two years.

Check it out:
www.technomadia.com/2009/05/two-year-nomadiversary/

One of the things that I have always loved about blogging on LiveJournal is that it lets you know via email when someone has replied to any comments or blog posts that you make. This email notification encourages blog postings to turn into actual two-way (or three-way, or more-way) conversations in a way that other blogging platforms have never equalled.

In an attempt to bring some of this sort of interactivity to Tales from Technomadia, I have just installed and configured the Subscribe to Comments WordPress plugin.

Now - you will notice a little check box whenever you leave a reply to a post there. If you opt in, you will be notified via email about any future replies to that blog post.

I hope this will help make our travel blog feel a little bit more like LiveJournal.

Let me know what you think - feel free to test it out by replying to this post!

Exactly three years ago, on April 1st 2006, my nomadic wanderings began.

I set off without a clear plan, other than that I wanted to explore making nomadism a fulfilling life, and not a "trip" with some particular destination or end-point in mind.

I did have some intentions when I set off. I expected that within the first year I would have been to both Alaska and Baja, and that I would be soon heading off for some extended international travel and wilderness backpacking.

Amusingly - none of that has happened. Yet.

As I mentioned in my year one recap two years ago:

I've found that I strongly prefer a slower and more intentional pace of exploration. I like not needing to race to get somewhere, and instead focusing on enjoying where I am at and the people I am with. Alaska isn't going anywhere - it can wait till the time is right.

The one thing I did not expect when I set off was to find a life partner along the way. But as is often the case, if you do what you love and pursue your passions, the universe often conspires to help you. And by the end of my first year on the road, it was clear that I would have a partner sharing in my second.

Cherie proved to be just as willing to shed the anchors of stuff and place as I was, and after an extended trial run to determine that our paths really are so fully aligned, we committed to each other at Burning Man 2007.

The story of 2008 was building our "dream house" together. It even comes equipped with rainbows that follow us everywhere:



Right now, on my three-year-nomadic anniversary, we are camped on a beach just a bit north of Malibu. As I write this, I'm watching the oean waves crash through our back window over my love Cherie's shoulder. Yesterday we saw dolphins. I have a purring and playful kitten crawling around in my lap. My laptop is being powered by the light of the sun, and I've been using wireless internet to get work for a client done right here from the beach. We have a fabulous tech-filled yet comfortable home on wheels that is a joy to live in. We have a social calendar full of fabulous friends (old and new) ahead of us this week, and an intentionally vague and open ended route ahead sketched out for the next few months on the road. Life is good.

A fulfilling life indeed. And still no end in sight. *grin*

Cherie and I have been spending a lot of time working on www.technomadia.com - and there is a lot of great stuff to explore over there now.

One of the thing in particular that we've been most wanting to incorporate into our blog posting has been maps.

After a lot of late night experimentation with a lot of WordPress plugins of (ahem) varying quality, I think I am at last happy with the results I am getting from the Wordpress Geo Mashup plugin.

Click over to the main Technomadia blog page and check out how the maps now incorporate directly into some of the posts.

Even better, I have created a new page on the Technomadia site that tracks all of our geocoded posts, whether they have a map displayed within the post or not. This will allow folks to browse posts to "Tales from Technomadia" by geography as well as by timeline or category.

I think it is pretty cool. What do you think? Any thoughts or suggestions?

Let me know what you think - feel free to leave comments here or there. :-)

Attention world - we've just relaunched www.technomadia.com, and the new site looks gorgeous.

We worked with our friend Geoffeg on customizing the look and feel of Technomadia so that it wouldn't look like "just another Wordpress blog". I think he did a fabulous job, and we will be adding on all sorts of cool content and features in the coming weeks.

Going forward I will probably be doing more travel-related blogging over at Technomadia rather than here, but I will be cross-posting to LiveJournal for the time being.

Speaking of the weeks ahead, serolynne just posted our tentative travel plans for the next few weeks as we depart the SF bay area and start working our way south and east. You can read about our plans here.

It has been a great few months in the SF area, but I am looking forward to the view out the window starting the change a bit more frequently again. *grin*

This past week has been a blur.

Back in September and October while we were in the midst of working on the Obama campaign, serolynne and I were encouraged to apply to speak on Technomadism at the O'Reilly ETech Emerging Technology Conference.

The awesome folks at O'Reilly accepted our proposal, and were excited about us being on the agenda. They even featured us in an interview for the O'Reilly Radar as part of the build up towards ETech.

We would be sharing the stage at ETech with big name CTO's and CEO's and a whole host of well know visionaries and leaders. Would people really want to see our travel photos and hear about our experiments in lifestyle hacking?

Apparently, yes.

Our "Tales from Technomadia" session on Thursday morning went over extremely well. We had a great crowd, and several people told us that we were one of their highlights for the whole week.

Wow.

We are just two geeks and a kitten living in a moderately teched-out trailer. Are we really that interesting? It is humbling to have people telling us how much we inspire them.

But we do encourage people to think about different ways of living, and that indeed strikes a chord. ETech has been all about finding new ways to look at the world, new approaches to problems, new visions.

In addition to giving our talk, some of the other highlights from my week at ETech include:

• Refactor your Wetware - An in depth look at how the brain works, and how to use your own better.


• Learn to Make Cool Things With Microcontrollers - I feel inspired to go build some cool stuff now!


• Ignite ETech - Featuring an exploration of the pneumatic tube "internet" of the late 1800's. Wow!!!


• Design for Urban Green Space - Eye opening talk about the potential for urban gardening.


• Priorities for a Greener World - Where to focus future efforts for the best possible return.


• Robots: The Next Ten Years - Prediction made: robot teams will be competitive playing soccer against human teams at the World Cup level by 2050, and perhaps by 2025. Wow.


• Jackhammers, Polymers, and Diamonds: New Applications in Explosives - She didn't blow anything up, but Christa Hockensmith was amazing. She will be hosting an Explosives Camp this summer for high school students - perfect for any kids hooked on MythBusters-style explosive science.


• Using a 17th Century Instrument to Create the Music of the 21st Century - Zoe Keating's performance was AMAZING, particularly when combined with the incredible LaserVision visualizations. I love it when art and technology collide in such a beautiful way.


• Robot Cars Solve Everything. Well, Almost. - Not only do robot driven cars have the potential to save millions of lives, they also have the potential to save vast amounts of energy too. Amazing stuff happening here, and coming sooner than you might think...


• Viral Forecasting - Amazing big-thinking science is aiming to head off the next pandemic before it even starts. Wow.

And there was more... Late night Werewolf games, fascinating hallway conversations, and all sorts of incredibly interesting and inspiring people about.

My summary of ETech 2009: It was a great experience of both inspiring others and being inspired. I loved it!

The experiment has gone on for a few weeks, and mostly I have been pleased with the results of incorporating Twitter content into my LiveJournal.  I particularly like it when I interleave photos into the posts.

But to avoid a flood of E-Tech related tweets, for this week I am suspending the cross-posting. 

I am considering resuming the practice on a more permanent basis in a week, but before I do resume I would love to hear your thoughts on my experiment.  Please let me know...

Poll #1362751 To Twit or Not to Twit... That is the Question.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Have you enjoyed reading my twitterings in LiveJournal?

Would you like me to continue cross-posting from Twitter to LJ?

If I created an LJ filter group for my Twitter cross posts, would you want to be on it?

I am in an experimental phase, trying to figure out how / if to integrate Twitter into LJ. Please let me know your thoughts on this experiment. You can also follow me on Twitter directly: twitter.com/radven

11:00 Enjoying some last moments of fast WiFi and stellar views at our cabin on Donner Lake. This was an amazing place to spend the weekend.

15:12 The nice thing about a snowball fight with @serolynne is that everyone wins. Now headed down from Donner Pass... twitpic.com/1xz1t

20:56 After a long day of driving, we are home at last. @kikinator was kind enough to share her tuna sandwich with me. twitpic.com/1y7wy

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11:25 One of the highlights last night - learning how to play Texas No-Limit Hold'Em. I at last understand the lingo of the game....

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17:50 Just wrapped up a great day skiing Sugar Bowl. The cat-ears hat that Lindsay loaned me got a lot of compliments! twitpic.com/1w4xf

17:52 Now we are settling into our AWESOME cabin for the weekend - right on Donner Lake! Great group of people here. twitpic.com/1w50j

17:58 This cabin has everything - WiFi, fireplace, stocked closet full of games, and a lake-side hot tub!!! twitpic.com/1w56b

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15:32 Fantastic meeting this morning with @matthewcashmore at Lonely Planet. Lots of fabulous conversation.

15:46 Matthew convinced us to stick around SF to attend the Lonely Planet Travel Blogger Awards on March 26th. Very worthy delaying a few days!

16:21 Now visiting Robynne for another fitting on our custom outfits. My vest with tails is looking awesome! twitpic.com/1vg8g

16:22 Cherie's corset is shaping up (literally!) nicely too. Yum! twitpic.com/1vg9t

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10:53 It is easier and quicker to look up directions and driving times on my iPhone than on my laptop. Less buttons to press & knows where I am.

10:55 I really wish my laptop (and through it web apps like Google Maps) were location aware. Every gadget should know "where am I"...

10:58 On the other hand, the iPhone lacks cut&paste or data detectors - making looking up an address in an email or calendar entry a royal pain.

16:30 Went to Kragen to try and get snow chains for our ski weekend, and they were sold out of our size. *ugh* Better luck in Sacramento??

17:07 My iPhone has been auto-deleting old voice mail messages lately. Is this a new "feature", or a sudden enforcement of AT&T policy? *grrr*

17:23 @ifixitlive Take a look at the Mac Mini power supply brick too please. Is it identical to the old Mini brick? Compatible? More efficient?

20:32 Wow - repo men with a flatbed truck going door-to-door looking for an Expidition. Never seen that before other than on TV. Sign of times?

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14:44 Egads - just a week until #ETech! @serolynne and I are looking forward to all the cool speakers and sessions on the agenda next week.

14:48 Our #ETech presentation on technomadic living is "Tales from Technomadia" - Thursday morning at 9:40am. bit.ly/GE9p

15:36 Driving rain intermixed with bouts of sun. Today's weather is ferocious!

15:39 I love the specs on the new Mac Mini. Particularly exciting to a solar driven nomad is the "world's most energy efficient" claim.

15:40 I doubt most (any?) review sites will do actual power consumption benchmarks comparing the new and old Mac Mini. Is it worth the upgrade?

22:21 @macminicolo Does the new Mac Mini use the same power supply as the old one? What are the differences in power consumption?

00:02 @SnappyTouch I'm curious what an ideal iPhone application publisher would look like to you. What would you most want from a publisher?

01:08 U2's new "No Line On The Horizon" is just $3.99 for MP3 download at Amazon. This price makes me happy to BUY music! bit.ly/14aTOh

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10:56 @adamjackson If you are going to focus on tweet quantity over quality for the next three weeks, I think I will be unfollowing you for now.

13:41 Apple on the Gates banned list. Melinda Gates: "Every now and then I look at my friends and say, 'Ooh, I wouldn't mind having that iPhone'"

13:43 I'd hate be forced to live with Windows Mobile too. Poor Melinda. Her kids aren't allowed to have iPods either. Grounds for divorcing Bill?

15:55 @hot_turkey WTF?!?! $1200 to repair a laptop keyboard?!? You need a second opinion. Was there motherboard damage too?

16:09 Just took @kikinator in to have her sutures removed, and her final immunization shot. She is such a good kitten! twitpic.com/1t5di

16:48 @karenbynight But did Juniper forbid their employees children from using Cisco / Linksys products? Forcing kids to carry a Zune is cruel!

23:31 @harrymccracken I think I was at the same Circuit City this evening. It is sad to watch these retail giants die. twitpic.com/1td13

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03:28 @tkrphoto I was planning to just take the HAM Technician test this time around, but I may consider jumping straight to General.

11:19 Lying in bed, listening to the rain, wondering what's next...

14:45 One thing really lacking on the iPhone is a standardized global search mechanism. I really hope the Palm Pre gets this right.

14:47 With the focus on searching the cloud, on device search has been ignored. I have yet to see anyone improve on PalmOS from 10 years ago!

14:51 As much as I love the iPhone, it is sad how many common tasks are still quicker and easier on an ancient Palm Pro with Grafitti 1. *sigh*

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