Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Nokia Lumia Icon

lumiaiconsOur two year contract with Verizon was up at the beginning of December so it was once again time for the big decision of whether or not I stay with Verizon. I’ve been their customer since 2000 so obviously I’m ok with them for the most part, but as far as Windows Phone support goes, they are horrible. For example, if you go into a store right now and try to buy a phone, they sell two ancient (2+ years old) models. The only other option is the newer HTC One. On top of that, they are extremely slow with doing updates for the phones. Our old phones still don’t have the major Windows Phone 8.1 update which was released last summer. It’s to the point where I pretty much don’t expect updates to my phone via Verizon. They hate Windows Phone.

So I thought the only option we really had was the HTC One. Logan has that and likes it, but it was a no go for us because it doesn’t have a dedicated camera button. To launch the camera, you have to unlock the phone, start an app and then take a picture. With a young kid in the house, these devices get used as a camera more than they do as a communication device.

I started looking around at other carriers. AT&T has a much better relationship with Windows Phone. At least they pump out updates on a reasonable basis. The problem there is that they have no coverage in my building at work or at Tim and Chelsea’s house. Fail.

T-Mobile? I’m actually willing to give them a shot because I can bring my own phone and do whatever I want, but I wasn’t crazy about losing the network coverage that Verizon provides.

That’s about when I discovered that Verizon did actually sell one of the flagship Windows Phones earlier in the year. The Lumia Icon was for sale for about six months until they inexplicably pulled it off the market with no explanation. However, many physical stores still have them in stock. It’s a fantastic phone (similar hardware to the HTC One), but it seems very unlikely that it will ever get an update. But even with that major caveat, we went for it.

I have to say that I love the device. It’s a huge speed boost over our HTC 8x’s and the 1080p screen is beautiful. The battery easily makes it through a day. It also, like our 8x’s, has wireless charging and we finally bought some wireless charging pads. I haven’t found a way to make them super reliable yet though. They don’t always hold a connection to keep the charge flowing. Hopefully I’ll have an update on that in the future.

As for the lack of updates? This phone still comes with Windows Phone 8 which means no Cortana. However, you can update it yourself (and probably void your warranty), if you are a developer. I took that plunge and have had pretty good results on my phone. Tyla’s phone is still running as-is from Verizon but I’m close to giving her the update too. I don’t love running my phone on a non-supported firmware, but seriously Verizon, UPDATE OUR PHONES.

They make me so mad but when the time came to actually pull the trigger and leave, I couldn’t do it. They have incredible coverage and in the end, I guess that trumps every other bad thing about them… for now.

benmartens January 12, 2015 Gadgets

Fitbit Experiment Wrap Up

Right at the beginning of last year, I started wearing a Fitbit One. I wore it almost every single day for an entire year. There were maybe 5 days in the year when I forgot to wear it so I have a pretty good data set to work with. Let’s take a look…

  • My average number of steps in a day was 7066. That puts me on the high end of the American average (5900-6900/day), but still somewhere right on the border of “low active” and “somewhat active” on the charts. It’s pretty clear that I could stand to take some more walks since I have a desk job.
  • I took the most steps in June which makes sense because I was spending gobs of time in the yard working on that project. I averaged over 10,000 steps/day during June. While it peaked in the summer, I’ve kept it up better in the fall and winter. I think this is because Elijah is walking now. He and I take a lot of walks around the neighborhood to get some exercise and point at every single plane that flies overhead.
  • My three biggest days were all yardwork days.
    • The day we moved dirt into the back yard: 24,157
    • The day we put sod into the front yard: 23,310
    • The day we demolished the back yard: 21,313
  • Our day at the Indy 500 was #4 on the list with 18,559 steps. That place is HUGE.
  • In one year I walked over 2.5 million steps.

I also used the Fitbit app on my phone to record my weight pretty regularly. Seeing that chart was a big factor in losing 25 pounds in the first half of the year. Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), the chart doesn’t look as good for the second half of the year. I gained a little over half of that back.

weightbyday2014I’m done wearing the Fitbit, at least for daily use. I might still carry it on hikes or days when I know I’ll be really active, but otherwise I’ve gotten a pretty good feeling for what a good day of walking feels like.

The really concerning thing to me is the weight I’ve regained. Tyla and I ordered a Fitbit Aria scale that connects to our Wi-Fi network. It will automatically record our weight every day. We both did this somewhat manually before so the automation will be nice. I’m also shooting to get back under 210 and stay there.

benmartens January 9, 2015 Gadgets

Flite Test Electrohub Spider Quad Build

A little over a year ago, I started off in the RC hobby with the intent on flying a quadcopter carrying a camera. I quickly learned that this is a difficult place to start so I fired up a flight simulator, built some extremely cheap foam board airplanes and then flew some nicer airplanes (Bixler 2 and UMX F4 Corsair.) I also picked up a Nano QX quadcopter to fly around the house and learn a bit about flying quads. I’m not a pro by any means, but I learned a LOT about RC flight and about the electronics that are part of the hobby.

I decided to take the plunge and get a real quad. There are lots of options out there. The most popular ones you see in the stores and in the news are things like the DJI Phantom, but they are pricey. For example, the Phantoms start around $500 and go over $1000. And you know what happens when you crash? You shell out more money for the custom replacement parts. No thanks.

Instead, I bought a kit from Flite Test for their ElectroHub and also bought the accompanying electronics kit from Ready To Fly Quads. The whole thing, including tax, was under $230 and that includes some spare parts that I know I will break (props, landing gear, etc.) Building it from scratch takes a bit more work, but now I understand every piece of the puzzle and when something breaks, I can fix it with off the shelf parts that are cheap and easily available. FliteTest has a full build video showing all the steps.

electrohub_buildThe FliteTest guys say it takes them a couple hours to put one together. It probably took me 5-6 because I was learning a lot and going very slowly and I also spread that out over a few days. Basically the steps are to assemble the arms, solder the wires for the speed controller to the motors, solder the speed controllers to the power distribution board, wire up the computer board and the receiver, triple check everything and then give it a shot.

electrohub_completeMy first flight attempt was out on the back patio near dusk. I just wanted to lift off the ground and then land it to prove that everything was connected correctly. Unfortunately, it didn’t even get a foot off the ground before it flipped over and crashed. D’oh! Thankfully nothing was damaged but I did lose the spinner that holds the prop on.

That ended up being the key to diagnosing the crash (with the help of some friendly community members on the FliteTest forums.) The best guess is that the prop fell off when I took off because it wasn’t on tight enough and that, of course, caused the computer to freak out and flip over. I pulled a 5mm nut off my workbench, reattached the prop and I was ready to fly again!

By this time it was dark so I pulled the cars out of the garage and tried again. It worked! I hovered for about five minutes and landed safely multiple times in that period. A video of that is included at the end of the post.

Next steps are to wire up some LED lights (to help with orientation and to look cool), get the nerve to load a GoPro onto the camera tray, and also see if the board has any other cool features like auto hover, altitude hold, etc. The board is a modified Arduino and the sketch files are provided so you could theoretically do whatever you want. I’ll leave that to the pros though and just buy the finished product.

This was a huge victory for me though. Now I need to work on my piloting skills and be able to fly this safely. One big advantage of the quad is that I can work on this in the back yard, the cul-de-sac, or even in the garage! I don’t have to drive anywhere to learn more of the basic skills.

By the way, you might have noticed that this isn’t a perfect X configuration. That’s why this is called a “spider” configuration (or a “dead cat.”) The front arms get spread out a bit farther so that you can get a good field of view from your camera on the front.

It’s awesome that you can learn a seemingly complicated hobby like this using only YouTube and forums. Thank you to all the friendly people at FliteTest!

benmartens January 8, 2015 Radio Controlled Flight

Fantasy Wrap Up

andrewluckbeard_2014wrapupHere’s one more post for our fantasy season looking back at the top performers in our league. Look how many time’s Austin’s name shows up on this list! Our championships are usually dominated by power QBs but this year, he had a team full of top wide receivers, running backs, tight ends and defenses.

Once again I had the top scoring player in the league, but this year it wasn’t Drew Brees. Unfortunately, Andrew Luck failed me in our playoffs. I blame the beard.

Top QBs:
1. Andrew Luck, 431.74 for Ben
2. Aaron Rodgers, 430.14 for Tim
3. Peyton Manning, 390.68 for Andy

Top WRs:
1. Antonio Brown, 333.51 for Tim
2. Demaryius Thomas, 285.40 for Austin
3. Jordy Nelson, 278.90 for Austin

Top RBs:
1. Le’Veon Bell, 329.00 for Austin
2. DeMarco Murray, 322.60 for Luke
3. Matt Forte, 295.60 for Jim

Top TEs:
1. Rob Gronkowski, 225.40 for Austin
2. Antonio Gates, 188.60 for Luke
3. Jimmy Graham, 187.40 for Logan

Top Kickers:
1. Stephan Gostkowski, 170.00 for Logan
2. Cody Parkey, 162.00 for Dad
3. Adam Vinatieri, 153.00 for Jim

Top Defenses:
1. Philadelphia, 229.14 for Ben
2. Buffalo, 207.11 for Austin
3. St. Louis, 198.17 for Ben

Highest scoring free agent: Eli Manning (329.50)

benmartens January 7, 2015 Fantasy Sports

Kindle Family Library

kindlefamilyTyla and I get most of our Kindle books from our libraries awesome digital section, but every once in a while, there are some specific books that we end up buying. We each have our own Kindles tied to our own accounts, so sometimes that has meant buying a book twice and that’s annoying.

To address this exact situation, Amazon has launched the Kindle Family Library. You can now specify one other adult as your partner and you can see all of each other’s books!

It can be a tad bit tricky to set up and manage if you have older devices but the newer ones handle it beautifully. Amazon has a help page that describes what each version of the Kindle is capable of in regards to this feature.

We don’t use this often, but when we do, I love it!

benmartens January 6, 2015 Books, Gadgets

Navigating the New Site

old-world-mapThis new website is hopefully pretty easy to get around, but there are a few things that I’d like to point out:

  • Reading on a mobile device? The website is now much more mobile friendly! Just go to studio711.com and you should be able to read everything.
  • If you’re already subscribed via RSS, it SHOULD still work.
  • For the handful of people using the Pocket Ben app on Windows Phone, that may or may not continue to work. I’m not supporting it anymore.
  • You can find my various social media accounts by clicking the little icons in the very top right.
  • Search now works fantastically well! Check it out in the sidebar on the right.
  • Comments will get posted much quicker. Once I approve a comment from you once, future comments should be automatically approved.
  • For some of the photos in the posts, specifically the bigger ones that span the whole width of the post, you’ll be able to click on them and get a bigger view.

Any other questions? Let me know!

benmartens January 5, 2015 Site News

Retiring

bentrusteechurch.jpgNo, I’m not retiring from my job, at least not from the one I get paid for. For the past six years, I’ve been the “property deacon” at church. Basically it’s like a property manager. I’m responsible for the physical property (grounds, buildings, etc.) I’ve enjoyed the volunteer position, at least most of the time. The last six years have seen some major projects including a huge renovation of the parsonage, a new fire alarm system, a new church sign, an irrigation system and many other projects. More recently, I’ve felt like I’m unable to devote the amount of attention to the job that it deserves so I’ve decided to step down and not sign up for another term. Due to some reshuffling of the bylaws, there will be a few people taking over the property work. I think that’s going to work out better. TimS is one of the guys doing the job so I have no doubt that he’ll rely on me as much as I relied on him (which was a lot!) I’ll still be involved, but honestly, I’m looking forward to not being the guy in charge.

benmartens January 2, 2015 Commentary

Christmas Ornament for 2014

Every year we get one new ornament that commemorates some part of the year. I forgot to write about it this year, but that’s kind of fitting because we forgot to BUY it too! We had meant to pick one up on our family trip down to Portland but ended up buying it from Etsy later in the year.

2014christmasornament.jpg

You can view our previous ornaments here, here, here, and here. It’s fun to have a tree that tells the story of our family!

benmartens January 1, 2015 Family

2014 Year In Review

Big things in my life have happened on a four year cadence

  • 1990: Moved to the “upper grade room” (5-8 grade.) It was a big deal in our two room school.
  • 1994: Graduated 8th grade and started high school
  • 1998: Graduated high school, started college at Purdue
  • 2002: Graduated Purdue, moved to Jersey
  • 2006: Finished grad school at Drexel, moved to Washington
  • 2010: Got married

So 2014 should have been another major, life-changing event… but it wasn’t. And for that, I’m thankful! This year was, predictably, all about raising our little man. I watched him grow from a bump on the carpet to a jabbering ball of energy that runs around the house. That’s not to say that we didn’t do anything though.

At the start of the year, I took my first remote controlled airplane flight. It was a new hobby for me and one that I kept up pretty well throughout the year, building a few planes myself and then getting my first “real” plane for my birthday. The other hobby that really took off (how’s that for a segue?) this year was woodworking. It started with building some baby gates. I also built him a toy with lots of latches and family photos. Then later in the year I built a helping tower for Elijah (and five more for Tyla’s friends), and I’ve just finished up a table and chairs for Elijah too. The woodworking is a great hobby because I can do it in little chunks of free time and I don’t have to go anywhere to do it. The third hobby that I nursed along was shooting. We only went trap shooting a few times, but the last time there I shot 24 in a row before choking on the last shot that would have given me the elusive perfect round. I hope to get back there more in 2015.

In April we took a family vacation down to Portland. It was a short/close trip, but it was educational for us as parents. We were surprised by how much time we spent in the hotel watching Elijah sleep, but it was still fun and worth the trip. I also got to reconnect with Pastor Johnson. The last time I saw him was in 2004 in Minneapolis.

For Memorial Day, we flew back to Indiana to visit family and to attend the Indy 500. While it would have been a lot easier to go when I actually lived in Indiana, it was a blast. Dad, Luke and I went to a NASCAR race a few years back so it was fun to attend an Indy Car race with the same crew. Maybe next is Formula One?

Most of my summer was spent in the yard with Tim. I won’t bore you with yet another recap (read the back yard and front yard details), but this was a huge undertaking. Tyla made it all possible by watching Elijah way more than normal and many of you pitched in to help with the yard work. Thank you to everyone who pulled together to make this happen! I’m still amazed at what we accomplished. Mom and Dad were here for the demolition part of the front yard project and it was fun to work side by side with Dad again.

While Mom and Dad were here, we also spent a couple nights at a rented house on Lopez Island. That was a relaxing trip (it helps having extra people to watch Elijah!) and a fun opportunity to explore the island.

One thing we didn’t do much of was hiking. We took short hikes on Cougar and Squawk mountains. We’ve already said that we’re not undertaking ANY big projects next summer. So hopefully the combination of more free time and Elijah being a little older will mean we can get out and do some more hikes. I regularly think about how different Elijah’s youth will be from mine since he’s growing up in a subdivision. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’m putting a focus on making sure he spends lots of time out in nature. I would love it if he grew up to be a good hiking partner!

I feel like I’ve always done a reasonable job of managing my time, but that skillset gets even more pressure when you’re raising a kid. There are two ways to survive: be more efficient with your time or do less work. This year I was about as efficient as I think I can be. Next year, I want to take on less work and enjoy this special family time. Elijah is growing so quickly and I know I’ll look back on these days and wish I could relive them. It’s good encouragement to live in the moment.

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

benmartens December 31, 2014 Commentary

New PCs

dudegettingadellOur church is using some ancient computers. It was about 5 years past the time when they should have been update so I volunteered for the project. While the details of the project probably aren’t interesting, if you’re in the market for a new computer, you might be interested in what I picked out.

The main office computer is the most heavily used. It runs our financial software and is the hub for just about anyone who needs a computer at church. It’s also going to act as the network file server. For this computer, I chose a Dell XPS 8700 for $699.99 plus tax. The key specs are a Core i7-4790 processor and 8GB of memory. Dell doesn’t ship them with an SSD (that seems insane to me) so I picked up a Samsung 840 256GB SSD for $216. There are cheaper ones out there but these Samsungs are great. The end result is a nice machine for right around $1000 after tax. This would be good if you’re planning some slightly heavier than normal use of a computer and/or you want it to last an extra year or two before it feels old.

The second computer goes in the school and 99% of the time, it’s just acting as a sign in computer. The teachers will also use it for some basic web browsing every once in a while. For this computer I got a Dell Inspiron 3647 for for 399.99 plus tax. This one came with a Core I3-4150 processor and 4 GB of memory. I left the old fashioned 1TB 7200rpm hard drive in there. It will be good enough. And that’s the key for this machine: it is more than capable of doing basic web browsing, Office documents, etc. If that’s all you need, this is an excellent deal. Note that neither price includes a monitor. I’m just reusing what is already there.

They are two very different machines for very different purposes. If you’re in the market and want some advice, I’m always happy to help. The biggest thing I’ll say is that an SSD is the most important piece of equipment you can get in your new computer. I won’t ever buy another computer without one. Unfortunately they aren’t always included when you buy from a place like Dell. I’m sure that will change soon with rapidly plummeting SSD prices, but never fear, you can generally add your own in later. Just make sure you factor that into the price.

I said I wouldn’t go into the details of the new setup, but there’s one key piece you probably already guessed: all of the computers on the property will be running CrashPlan for offsite backup!

benmartens December 30, 2014 Geek