Add to this the fact that the electrician on my house had to be one of the Marx Brothers and I knew I needed to find a power solution that could protect my network storage device.

I began researching battery back-up systems to find one that would provide enough time to allow the device to shut down gradually and gracefully. Looking over the documentation for the ReadyNAS Pro unit it did not appear as though it required anything proprietary.

A simple USB connection between the ReadyNAS Pro and the battery back-up unit should suffice. Since this device is in a home environment I was not interested in a battery back-up system that would keep my network running for hours during a power outage.

My theory was that if my house lost power that probably meant the network equipment in our neighborhood would most likely also lose power so even if I kept my entire network up I still would not have Internet services.

I began researching the various battery back-up systems trying to find a happy medium between stand-by power and aesthetics. After all, I was going to have to store this battery system somewhere and I was pretty sure my wife would object if I brought home a lead brick as large as an end-table.

After several online reviews and some quick Google searches I decided on the APC – 1300 VA Battery Back-up System. It is a tower model that can be hidden behind a desk or under the curtains with dimensions of 4.4 inches wide, 11.9 inches height, and 15 inches deep.

The battery back-up system weight a sturdy 22.8 pounds making it light enough to move around yet heavy enough that you want to think twice before dragging it across the floor.

The device has ten power outlets on the back. Five of these are battery back-up and the other five are pass-through outlets. The device is rated for up to 140 minutes of stand-by power.

After plugging in the NetGear ReadyNAS and my 24 inch Mac monitor the device said it had enough power for 19 minutes of reserve. I could probably have extended the time by not including the monitor but I decided I wanted it to remain active allowing me to shutdown properly.

The APC unit included a USB connector and cable that I connected to the back of the NetGear ReadyNAS. I was pleasantly surprised to find the ReadyNAS immediately recognized the APC unit and set itself up to monitor the power state.

There were not configuration screens that had to be filled out, no software to be installed; it was simply plug-and-play. Considering how complicated my life and my network is, it was refreshing to have something just work right out of the box.

After plugging in all of the devices I was feeling pretty good. I still didn’t know whether the device would actually work but I was hopeful. My answer would come quickly enough.

One of my kids was making toast in the kitchen when a piece of bread became jammed causing the GFI circuit in the kitchen to eliminate power to the plug. Interestingly enough, our electrician connected the GFI outlet with the toaster to an outlet in the living room that was twenty feet away. Like I said, he had to be one of the Marx Brothers.

When the GFI tripped the APC came to life alarming and notifying the user through the front display that the unit was now on battery power. The ReadyNAS was likewise notified and began shutting down.

This was just what I would have expected and it just worked. I cannot say enough about how simple this product was to install and implement. I can now rest a little easier knowing my ReadyNAS is protected from power spikes and outages.

If only everything in my life was this easy. I might actually get some sleep at night instead of laying awake worrying.

The hard reboot was bad enough but the subsequent media check meant the reboot time would stretch into hours before service was restored. Not exactly the kind of customer experience I was hoping for when I bought the device.

Things were getting so bad that I began researching a replacement device that I could purchase to replace the NetGear ReadyNAS. In the ReadyNAS Pro I have six 1.5 TB drives configured as a RAID 5 enclosure. That gives me 7.5TB of online storage.

I have been diligent in updating the firmware on the device and give it regular cleanings with compressed air so as far as I was concerned I was being diligent in managing the device. Despite my best efforts, the device continued to cause me problems.

After yet another hard re-boot my frustration level had reached new heights. I had about reached the end of my troubleshooting patience when for some reason I decided to change the configuration.

Up to this point I had configured the ReadyNAS Pro with two gigabit Ethernet connections directly to a Cisco switch. I seemed to remember that I added the second Ethernet connection just recently. I wondered if perhaps I had a bad cable.

I removed one gigabit connection and waited. After two weeks I did not have a single drop off by the device. I wondered if perhaps I had a bad cable. I swapped Ethernet cables and again left the device to run.

Another two weeks went by with no issues with the ReadyNAS device. It did not appear that the problem was cable since I had used two different cables. I decided to see if the problem was connecting both Ethernet ports. I plugged both cables into the device and restarted the ReadyNAS.

Within two hours the problem appeared and the device disconnected itself from the network requiring a hard boot. After several hours rebuilding and checking the drives the ReadyNAS was back on line.

This time I am using just a single Ethernet port on the ReadyNAS device. While I might theoretically only be getting half the throughput in this configuration it is a lot more stable and that is better than raw speed any day of the week.

While I have written of my experiences in a previous post, let me recap for those who do not want to read that lengthy account. In an impulse purchase I bought a MacPadd Pro mouse pad through the manufacturer’s (QMS) web site.

Shortly after completing the purchase I ceased receiving any communications from the company. This lasted several months and I had given up hope of ever seeing the mouse pad I had purchased or the money.

In a last ditch effort to get closure on this transaction I initiated a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Almost immediately I received an email from a representative of QMS. Through several discussions the company agreed to send my mouse pad.

The shipment went out in early November. After several weeks I had still not received the MacPadd that had been shipped. I took into account the holidays and patiently waited to no avail, I still did not have my mouse pad.

I continued to exchange emails with the company and finally in January they agreed to re-send another mouse pad. On January 19, 2010 I received a package from MacPadd. From the postmark on the outside of the package I can only assume this was the second one that was shipped since it was dated January 8, 2010.

I have never seen the first package and I am willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt that it was indeed sent but somehow lost in transit. So nearly ten months after I ordered the MacPadd from the QMS web site, the transaction was finally completed.

It has been a long and arduous path for a mouse pad and I can honestly say I never want to go through that again. I am frustrated to find my name continues to be associated with this. I was sent a link to the MacPadd web site where they have posted my email to them on their blog.

I did not authorize them to use this email and I am extremely disappointed and quite angry that they took this liberty without my permission. I do not appreciate them posting my email address in clear text to be picked up by every SPAMbot on the Internet.

While I appreciated the company following up and making sure I received the product I purchased, this has not been a pleasant customer experience. I have been accused of slander, had company representatives send scathing notes to me (which were later rescinded with a formal apology), and had my ethics questioned all over a mouse pad.

And perhaps the worst part of all of this is that after I finally received the MacPadd Pro I found that it did not meet my expectations. It is smaller than I expected, the tracking with my Magic Mouse is not as precise as I would have liked, and it was loud when dragging the mouse across it. So after waiting all that time, the MacPadd now sits in a desk drawer.

I should probably have posted this statement earlier but at approximately the same time as the second MacPadd shipped, my credit card number was stolen. I have been more than preoccupied with Internet Fraud authorities than with posting the outcome of a mouse pad purchase.

I am able to access my files across my Ethernet network using a variety of clients including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Macintosh OS X, and Linux. It is hard to express how great this system has been.

Where I used to burn DVDs and shuttle USB drives from box to box in order to share data between computers now it is as simple as logging onto the ReadyNAS and accessing the information.

Not only is the information always available but it has given me the added benefit of being able to maintain one copy of the information instead of having multiple versions stored on various computers on the network.

The ReadyNAS has been so bulletproof that it has nearly become invisible. That is the greatest compliment a network device can receive. It works so well that people just forget it is even there. It is as reliable as turning on a light switch.

Of course making that statement I immediately jinxed myself to a life of dealing with problems that cannot be resolved. Such has become the case with the ReadyNAS Pro.

Recently the device downloaded a new version of the firmware and waited patiently for a reboot. The rain storm that blanketed Arizona last week offered the perfect opportunity to reboot. A power outage took down the entire network and I spent the better part of an evening recovering all the devices.

The ReadyNAS booted and went through a diagnostic check due to the power outage. On an array of six 1.5TB of data that can take a long time. When the system finally came up things seemed to be working.

The following day the ReadyNAS suddenly just stopped working. The blue power light on the front of the box was lit but the system was unresponsive. It required removing the power plug from the wall for a minute before the system would reset.

Upon restoring power it went through another system check taking over an hour to come up. Approximately two days later the same situation occurred with the ReadyNAS having to be powered off by removing the cord.

This has since happened six times in a week. My first inclination was the unsettled weather had caused some problems. In order to eliminate that, I bought an Uninterruptible Power System which I will review at a later date.

After installing the UPS the ReadyNAS seemed to be working and I thought the problem was resolved. Today the ReadyNAS again hung requiring yet another unplug and subsequent data check.

I began researching the problem and found I was not the only one having this problem. According to the support forums there are a number of Net Gear users having similar issues. So far the company has not found a solution.

Some are suggesting it is a configuration issue but that seems implausible given the number of people reporting the problem. Others are suggesting RAM but that too does not seem accurate since many of the people reporting this issue including myself have not upgraded or changed the factory memory.

For now I’ll continue to monitor the issue and in the mean time I will need to find a replacement NAS system that is more stable. I cannot afford to use this as a storage device if it continually fails. I’ll keep you posted as this progresses.

Almost as quickly as the product was unveiled there were already mounds of press both positive and negative discussing the merits and drawbacks of the device. It was interesting to read these accounts especially considering the lack of hands-on experience these writers had with the iPad.

I have to admit I am more than mildly intrigued by this announcement and I can already see several applications for its unique form factor. Even with my tempered enthusiasm I recognize this is not a technology panacea that will be everything to everyone.

So far I have heard laments the device is too large while others complain it is not large enough. There are numerous complaints regarding what the device includes or does not include especially with regards to ports.

There were contingents complaining the iPad did not have a USB port, an SD card reader, a built-in keyboard, a hard drive, an HDMI connection, a camera, stereo speakers, multitasking, or Mac OS X. I even read one report blasting the iPad because it did not run Microsoft Windows Mobile.

Clearly Apple is learning once again, no matter what you introduce there are going to be detractors that will find fault with every design decision made. It is impossible to design or build the perfect device.

The diversity of the complaints of what the device includes or doesn’t include suggest Apple may be defining a new market segment. The iPad does not fit well in any current product category.

People who view the iPad as a computer attempt to compare it to the Apple MacBook or MacBook Air. They begin rattling off all of the features or functions found on a laptop that do not exist on the iPad.

Others look at this as a mobile communication devices ala an iPhone. They complain it lacks a camera, the form factor is too big, and the device includes too many unnecessary components.

Many of these arguments were similarly waged when the iPod came out. No one knew what it was supposed to be and therefore could not grasp the concept. It was not until the market began to evolve and users became familiar with where the iPod could fit within their lives did the device begin making strides in the market.

I predict a similar flow for the iPad. A few early adopters will take up the iPad and begin to establish where its capabilities fit in society’s information model. This coupled with applications that can take advantage of the iPad’s unique technology will hopefully help to define the market parameters and where the iPad makes sense.

I’ve been to enough Apple events to know the company and in particular Steve Jobs has these things down to a science. They maintain secrecy over all details of the event and subtly let out slight details at a rate that ensures the general public is spun up to a frenzy.

This was definitely the case for this event. It was perhaps the worst kept secret in the computer history that Apple would be releasing a tablet device. Despite that knowledge Apple customers and potential customers were glued to their computer screens waiting to learn the details of this new device.

After taking the stage Jobs wasted no time before bringing out the new product for everyone to see. It had been rumored the device would be named the “iPad” and that was accurate. At first glimpse it looks like an iPod Touch with a thyroid problem.

It has the same touch screen technology that the iPod Touch and the iPhone use. From the screen displays it runs a version of the iPhone Operating System with extensions that will utilize the larger screen real estate.

Apple is positioning the iPad to be missing link between the iPhone and the MacBook. It will run over 140,000 applications from the App Store with no modification giving the device an instant library of software on day one.

iPhone apps can run in two different modes. The first will set the application up in a window sized the same as an iPhone or iPod Touch. With a click you can expand the size of the window to four-times nearly filling the iPad’s screen.

The iPad is 9.56 inches high and 7.47 inches wide with a depth of 0.5 inches. It weighs approximately 1.5 pounds making it extremely light weight and portable for taking with you wherever you go. The 9.7 inch (diagonal) LED screen has a resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels at
132 pixels per inch.

The form factor was slightly different than I expected. I thought it would have a screen ratio of 16:9 rather than 4:3. While the additional width might be good for some applications, it results in black bars on two of the sides when watching video.

The iPad comes in several configurations to allow the customer to decide which one will meet their needs without overbuying the technology. There are two standard types. One is strictly Wi-Fi enabled allowing network connectivity to any Wi-Fi Hotspot in 802.11a/b/g/n flavors.

The other includes 3G networking in addition to Wi-Fi allowing the user to connect the device to a cellular network if Wi-Fi is unavailable. Apple announced that the 3G model comes unlocked meaning it can be used on any 3G network that utilize specific frequencies. AT&T immediately announced the iPad could be used on their network.

Besides the networking type, customers can also choose the device’s capacity. The iPad will be available in 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of memory. Like the iPhone the iPad includes an accelerometer to sense when the device is rotated or tilted.

The iPad uses a graphical keyboard like the iPhone and can also utilize Bluetooth keyboards such as the Apple Wireless Keyboard. The iPad includes full support for Bluetooth 2.1 which should mean you could use wireless earphones.

The processor in the device is an Apple designed chip called the A4 which is running at 1GHz. The chip was designed to provide good performance while maintaining lower power consumption.

Power conservation was an important design criterion for the iPad allowing it to have up to 10 hours of use or 30 days of stand-by power, impressive considering the device’s minimal footprint.

The iPad is capable of playing music similar to an iPod Touch. It is also able to display High Definition video reproduction in 720p at 30 frames per second.

The device is initially being targeted to the traveler who wants to use multimedia while on the road. Its screen size would be perfect for watching a movie on an airplane or in a hotel room.

Besides audio and video, the device is also great as an electronic book reader. It was immediately clear that Apple was positioning this to compete head-to-head with Amazon and its Kindle product.

Besides the iPad, Apple also announced it would add books to iTunes allowing customers to purchase electronic books and have them downloaded directly to the iPad. Besides text and pictures, the electronic books can also include video and other media.

The demos of the electronic book media reminded me a lot of the newspapers in the Harry Potter movies where pictures move around the page. With networking capabilities there is no reason content could not be updated in real time as news unfolds.

Besides the iPad, Apple also introduced a version of their word processor Pages, presentation software Keynote, and spreadsheet Numbers for the iPad. This brings productivity apps to the mobile space. Perhaps the best news was that each of these applications will be priced at $9.99.

The whole pricing structure for the iPad was very aggressive. A 16GB iPad with Wi-Fi will sell for $499 putting it squarely in the Kindle’s market. Prices for the 32GB and 64GB models were set at $599 and $699 respectively. If you want 3G, it is $130 more. This means the most feature laden iPad will sell for $829; $170 less than the rumored price point.

The Wi-Fi versions of the iPad will begin shipping in late March 2010 while the 3G versions will ship in late April. Overall the iPad looks like an intriguing device that has a lot of potential allowing Apple to position themselves in another mobile market.

While I would love to continue waiting for delivery of the mouse pad I bought, I have to move on especially now that I have a glass top desk. As everyone knows, the laser mice that are popular on the market now just don’t work on a glass surface or if they do the performance is lackluster to say the least.

I started by assessing what my requirements were for a mouse pad. I know, it is kind of sad that I would take the time to list requirements for something as simple as a mouse pad. But given the amount of time I work on the computer, the last thing I wanted was to introduce a point of frustration into my workflow.

As a graphic and web designer it is imperative that the mouse track well. Accurate mouse movement is imperative especially when I am retouching photographs or designing graphics.

Another important criterion is mouse pad real estate. There is nothing worse than running to the edge of a too small mouse pad in the middle of a critical edit.

Finally I am looking for durability. I have gone through more than my share of neoprene mouse pads where the cover peels away from the pad itself making the mouse surface uneven.

Once I had the requirements list I began searching for mouse pad options. After looking at several sites and visiting several local stores I finally came home with what I think will work well for my needs.

I settled on the Rocketfish Gaming Mouse Pad. Gaming is about the lowest thing on my priority list and to be honest I haven’t played a game on my computer since Zork was popular.

Despite its name, the Rocketfish Gaming Mouse Pad is not just for people intent on piling up the body count in a video game. It is designed for high performance as well as precise mouse movement making it perfect for artists and designers.

The mouse pad itself is fairly large giving you ample space to move your mouse even when you have a 24 inch monitor. The pad itself measures approximately 10 inches by 13 inches.

The Rocketfish mouse pad is actually two pads. On one side the surface is designed for quick response and fast mouse movements. This is perfect if you want to quickly move around the screen.

Flipping the pad over gives it another surface that is designed for accuracy, perfect for when you are working with precise image file edits. While you may sacrifice a bit of speed, you more than make up for it with a surface that precisely tracks mouse movements.

In the few days I have used this mouse pad I have quickly become a big fan. Its expansive surface is perfect for the large desktop areas afforded by today’s monitors. Having a dual surface comes into play a lot more than I anticipated.

I find myself flipping the pad over depending on the type of work I am predominately doing. That’s not to say I have to flip it over, to be honest either side works well for most tasks. The control surface just gives me a little more peace of mind making me wonder if there really is that much of a difference or if it is more of a mental edge.

If you find yourself looking for a new mouse pad I would definitely recommend the Rocketfish Gaming Mouse Pad. Now if I could just get them to offer different edge colors it would be perfect.

I am not unfamiliar with the migration from one format to another. Each time I bought into the argument that the new format was better than the last and I would finally hear the music the way the artist and producer had expected.

I loved the clarity and durability of the CD format but I struggled with the idea of taking all of my music with me or even a good chuck of it necessitated having binders of discs with the accompanying cover art and liner notes.

It is not just the music that is important but also the things that go with it. Whether it is the album art that attempts to graphically connect the listener to the music or the notes booklet that contains the lyrics and words of the artists. All of these things together make up the listening experience for me.

When the iPod came along it changed music listening. At first it was just the songs. There was no way to even maintain the album art. The music became impersonal and was deduced down to a series of zeroes and ones. Before long, Apple recognized the need to have the other aspects of the music experience.

Album art was the first ancillary artifact to find its way into the equation. Sites sprung up that would allow you to search for album art and attach the graphics to the sound files through tags. Soon other tag data would follow with users having the ability to add additional information about their music.

Lyrics are a big part of the music listening experience. So many times with today’s music it is hard to decipher what the exact words are within a song. During my album and CD days I would reach for the liner notes that included the lyrics to the songs.

With digital downloads and CDs ripped into an electronic file, the liner notes have seemed to become less important; less important to everyone except the consumer. I still find myself wondering what the words are that are being sung.

The problem is, the music industry for whatever reason has decided that the lyrics are top secret and should be guarded like national secrets. They have made it nearly impossible to easily add lyrics to the music files.

Each time a new program or service attempts to make it easier for the consumer to add lyrics the music industry swoops in and shuts them down threatening legal action against the developer. I find it extremely frustrating and confusing as to why they would treat the music customer so haphazardly.

It is not like we are stealing the lyrics and reusing them in some way to cheat the artists out of their just rewards. We are simply trying to quickly and easily add lyrics to those music files that we rightfully have purchased.

There are now rumors running ramped around the Internet that the music industry is working on a model where they will charge the general public to access the lyrics. These lyrics files, which were included in the price of an album or CD suddenly, have become a hot commodity and a value add.

The customer is left frustrated having to go to numerous locations trying to find these simple lyrics files. It is decisions such as these that makes the consumer want to see the music industry fail. It is based on antiquated business models and no one seems willing or able to find a model that will work.

I have to believe that this is how the dinosaurs must have died. Their inability or unwillingness to adapt to the changing environment will ultimately kill them and the artists that they represent. On that day I will gladly dance upon their graves singing the lyrics that I had to search an hour to find and enter by hand.

It first started out as a simple file but recently I have noticed that the PDF files are getting much more advanced and complex. Rather than just flipping through page by page the files I am now receiving have table of contents, password protection, and other features.

The progression of these files is fairly natural but unfortunately most of today’s browsers have a limited amount of functionality built into them for viewing these files. It was therefore just a matter of time before someone invented a better PDF browser plug-in to support the advanced features.

The developers at Schubert IT have come up with a solution for Safari on Macintosh OS X. It is aptly named PDF Browser Plugin.

The PDF Browser Plugin gives you a more robust experience when viewing PDF Files. Not only will it show each individual page, it will also give you access to advanced features such as table of contents with hot linking, filling out forms within a PDF document, and several display modes to assist the reader with content presentation.

The PDF Browser Plugin currently only works with 32-bit mode Safari and at the time of writing this post no announcement had been made as to when a 64-bit version would be available.

For non-commercial use the plugin is free making it very cost effective for Mac users. If you wish to purchase a site license for PDF Browser Plugin for commercial purposes they are available for $69.

Overall the plugin works flawlessly allowing me to continue to use the browser when viewing PDF files without losing functionality. It is also much faster and appears to take up less memory that the Adobe client.

For the price it is hard to beat and fills a need very well. If you need something beyond the core functionality that is built into Safari take a look at PDF Browser Plugin and see if it works for you. You can’t beat the price.

My wife of course would argue that point and could probably come up with a list of the idiotic things I have done that would stretch for miles. Despite all of her irrefutable evidence, I still claim that I am not quite as dumb as I look. After today though I might need to rethink that theory.

I was working on my Mac today cleaning the 1,148 photos that I shot during my son’s soccer tournament this weekend. Somewhere in the midst of all the editing I was doing, my fingers got lazy and I hit a series of keystrokes.

At the time I was not aware of the exact keystrokes I hit and it went somewhat unnoticed for a while. Soon though I started noticing strange and unusual behavior from the Macintosh. Now given my life and my personality, strange and unusual is normal. This time though it was weird even for me.

My keyboard has been rock solid and working flawlessly ever since I bought it. Somehow today it developed a mind of its own. The numeric keypad, which had been working, was now not doing anything.

I quickly went into troubleshooting mode and began assessing the problem. I knew it had to be a hardware problem and I changed ports for the keyboard, which made no difference. I suspected maybe I had a corrupt file somewhere and began going through each file trying to figure out what could be wrong.

I rebooted the system thinking that would resolve the problem but the numeric keypad still failed to work properly. I sat in front of the screen muttering under my breath at the disruption I had and scratching my head as I tried to troubleshoot the problem.

After what seemed like an eternity of getting nowhere I somehow happened upon the Control Panel module for accessibility. There staring at me was the answer. Through a set of keystrokes I had inadvertently enabled Mouse Keys, which will turn your numeric keypad into a control pad for the mouse.

Pressing the Option Key five times enables Mouse Keys. I honestly have no recollection of doing that but somehow I did. So after a couple hours of troubleshooting and a large piece of humble pie my keyboard was back working the way it should and I learned a valuable lesson. Never assume you know the answer to a computer problem and always look for the simple solutions first.