More CES Day one

Cool things I followed via Tech Crunch Live cast, Twitter, Huffington Post, cNet and daily CES briefings I receive as a CEA Alumni...

• Intel touting (And giving away from their booth) the newest Lenovo Windows super slim Ultrabook notebook. It's called the IdeaPad Yoga. Designed to compete with my 4 year old MacBook Air, they look great and are ready for the Windows 8 tablet/PC OS to be released later in 2012. Yoga's most special feature that will impress is its ability to rotate the screen and become a Windows 8 tablet, almost independent of its keyboard. Looks to sell in the $1200 range. Great for sales presentations, ShopSIGNARAMA designing at a client's workplace, designing a shirt online... get it?
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• Netgear releases a WiFi dual band extender, this handy $90 box brings more range to 2.4 GHz and 5GHz band wireless networks. If you have a big area or complex construction materials that prohibit good wireless signals in your building... hint, hint, this will help.
  
• Fuji introduces their first interchangeable lens compact digital camera the X-Pro 1. It does 16 megapixel photos, 10 frames per second video, but most importantly, allows for lens swaps. Wide angle, portrait and zoom lenses will be available at release. Price expected at $1300-1500. Gulp!
• Microsoft says they'll have a Windows version of their popular XBOX accessory Kinect at the beginning of Feb. Yes, this is initially slated for gaming, but Microsoft has a winner with this unique technology, if they harness it as a new user interdface for other things in Windows 8 on the PC... cool possibilities.
• Seagate, maker of portable storage products, announces a Thunderboly adapter for their drives. This means that their products can interface with the superfast Thunderbolt ports on newer Mac computers. No, it doesn't magically turn your older Seagate drive into a Thunderbolt device, but at least you don't have to buy a new storage device to work with the new Thunderbolt ports. May all new technologies come with the considerations of those that existed beforehand and make accomodations like this for loyal users!
   
• Last CES, I was very excited about Logitech's implementation of Google TV. That eventually flopped, no reason why, it worked nicely when I saw it. Now Vizio, the economy priced TV you see in COSTCO, will be teaming up with Google TV to release a system this summer. Maybe an appeal to the masses with less expensive entry point to combat the impending release of an Apple TV is Google and Visio's idea? It's not less expensive than the Logitech/Google TV offering, but it will be all ready to go as a part of their TVs. Worth a look this summer, they'll be easy to buy, Vizio has good coverage in stores.

More CES goodies coming!

CES Day One.

It's on! After last night's keynote speech with Steve Ballmer, CES 2012 opens later this morning in Las Vegas. I'm tweeting and retweeting goodies the next few days @DaveAtUFG. Follow along, it's going to be good!

CES Day Zero.

CES is back to exhibiting on a work week schedule, Last year was structured as a long weekend, I think they lost attendees vs. the traditional 5 day work week arrangement at LVCC. Today will be many airport arrivals, hotel check-ins, and lines forming to get into the keynotes. Steve Ballmer will tee it up tonight, in a huge wide open ballroom at Venetian Hotel. This is supposively the final time Microsoft will exhibit at CES, so it could be really impactful, or it could prove years from now, to have been a mistake.  I remember attending the final year for Bill Gates as a CES keynote speaker, he was very entertaining. I did not queue up the day before for the tickets for position in line, I went 45 min before the speech, tagged along with foreign journalists and shuffled my way right up front! In a crowd of maybe 4000 people, I was in the front 300. Guitar Hero was a new release, so Bill Gates was part of an on stage "contest" that included a Microsoft product specialist for XBOX as well as some guest gamers...

It will be exciting for the attendees tonight to see and hear the very newest advances as shown by Microsft and others. Parties kickoff, VIPs are everywhere, it's a good day to be in Vegas!

CES sans me.

First time in many years I won't be in Las Vegas for CES techno-geek-mania. But I will be following as many streams and updates as I can this next week to keep the info coming as to what's hot, what's a flop and how the industry sees things evolving for 2012. I have a few contacts there I'll be leaning on for personal updates, so expect some good stories, too. I love this time of year. Minus the bags full of brochures, USB memory sticks and my Nikon D90 full of pictures, I'll do as best as I can to keep the news interesting and fresh! Stay with me on this...

Use the Excuse

This is it, almost a week into 2012, most New Year's resolutions are showing cracks or signs of failure. Sad, but efforts to control the diet, stop smoking, do more of this, less of that are tough to adhere to. So what happens? Many fall back into the habits they wished they could shake. Excuses abound. All this in week #1 in January. Aw, shucks.

It doesn't have to be this way. You can change, improve, do more, do less, whatever, all you need is a good excuse. How about, "This is when everyone else tries to make a resolution, so I'll burrow in with that crowd and do one, too?" Really? It seems most of these annual efforts fail, why would you want to be a part of that scene? This is EXACTLY why your plan will work. You will devise something you really want, write it down, and chase it while others flop. It's an odd way to look at it, but who among us considers themselves to be average or just middle of the road? Not too many takers on those labels. So it should be easier for an "above average" person to grab onto an idea, commit to it, and win. And you can.

The cornerstone of any goal program is the written record. If you want it, is it so tough to write the goal down, give it some time constraints, and then begin the chase? Nope. I found a great formula, discovered by an author friend and distributed on her Facebook wall between Christmas and New Years. I'd like to share this easy to follow goals formula. It's simple to do, based on an easy to fill out chart. See it by clicking the link below, along with a good explanation from it's author.

KAIHAN KRIPPENDORFF's goals sheet method

I'm doing this for several categories... Home, family, work things, fitness, spiritual. It's a fresh approach of envisioning what you want as a result, then backing into it by quarter year. Have a look. Do a resolution now, when seemingly so many others are sitting alongside the road with flat tires and blown engines. Come at it with a fresh attitude (It's still only 6 days into 2012!) and let's see if it works. You're competing against all those that couldn't, it should be an easy win. Because really, you don't have an excuse not too!