August means Illinois State Fair time in Springfield. Since moving here in 2002, I've been to the state fair almost every year. While wading through the deep-fried foods, barnyard animals and people of all shapes and sizes, I occasionally see something that peaks my interest for the strange, unusual, silly or outright ridiculous. Like last year, this year was no exception. This year was even better. I found an amateur photographer's dream. More...

Having recently purchased a laptop of my very own, I began to wonder what would happen if my Precious was lost or stolen. What would I do? There are commercial applications available, such as LoJack and others, that provide services to locate and recover your missing hardware. Some of these services even come with a money-back guarantee. Even with all these assurances, I still believe that any half-computer-savvy thief could easily get around a barrier like this. Regardless, looking into this type of application has been on my to-do list anyway, just to see what is out there.

A few days ago, I was catching up on episodes of Hak5 when they showcased the Prey Project. Prey is an open-source, free laptop recovery system. I'd tell you all about it, but just check out the Hak5 episode below.

I installed Prey on my MacBook Pro in just a few minutes. Installation was easy. I chose the control panel mode and created a new account from within the installer. After Prey was "running" (you get no visual indicators, icons, etc. which is what you want) I went to the control panel site and enabled the Alert feature under Action Modules. The message displayed as promised twenty minutes later.

Portable computer recovery software such as Prey, and others, is limited, however, and can only assist you if conditions are ideal. Those conditions include the computer being powered on and able to connect to the Internet. Prey will search for available wireless connections, but you'd better hope an open WiFi access point is nearby if your computer is locked via a password. If you don't have a password (and you really should) the thief will probably take care of establishing a network connection for you. If the thief is experienced with computers, however, chances of software such as Prey being successful is even more limited. An experienced person would probably keep your computer powered off and remove the hard drive after the deed is done. It's a good thing there are a lot of dumb criminals out there.

I plan to stick with Prey and hope that I never need to use it for its intended purpose. If you have a portable computer, give Prey a try. It's better than nothing at all, right?! If you choose the Control Panel tracking method you get to register up to three computers.

Let me know if you've used Prey or any similar services. Did you lose a laptop and activate the service? Did you get it back?

Oh, Nexus One, you had such promise! What happened? On Friday, Google put the final nail (ok, maybe next-to-final) in the coffin of their grand experiment in the direct-to-consumer mobile phone design and sales business, namely the Google Nexus One.

As those of you who follow the mobile device industry know, the Nexus One debuted earlier this year as Google's self-designed epitome of what an Android phone should be. The phone introduced then was sleek, fast, open and out to give Android's competitors a run for their money. The phone was well receivedby the tech industry pundits and is still loved by their die-hard fanboys.

Sales of the Nexus One to the masses, however, didn't quite take off. Not even six months after the launch of the Nexus One, Google announced it would be pulling the plug on the Web store. Now, the Nexus One will only be available to the masses until Google runs out. Luckily for Android developers, they will still be able to purchase handsets in order to have a solid development platform. Without mass production, though, who knows how long they will be available, what carriers they will work on or how expensive they will be.

Now, if you've read this far, you may be assuming this is going to be an anti-Android/Google post, because I have been accused of being an Apple fanboy many times in the past. More...

Now that July is more than half-way over, I thought it would be a great opportunity to share fireworks photos from our recent Seattle vacation with you. Why is now the perfect time, you ask? Well, I planned it that way! You see, everyone else shares their fireworks photos on the fifth, maybe the sixth, and so on. Those of you who are truly hardcore do so on the Fourth, and for that, I commend you. I do none of these. Why? Because on those days following the Fourth, you've seen so many fireworks photos you really don't care any longer. Now that time has passed, your dis-interest in fireworks photography has officially reset for the year, making this the perfect time to present you with fireworks photographs that look just like the ones you've seen recently. This time, however, you'll eagerly look and be amazed. I love it when a plan comes together!

About the Photos

These were shot on July 4 at the southern harbor area at Lake Union, Seattle, while we were on vacation. My fiancee and I set up our cameras in a grassy area here. We brought along our own tripod and rented another from Glazer's Camera. Both of us had cable releases ready to go, too. We must have really looked like we knew what we were doing, because several people passing by asked us if this would be a good spot to view the action. We admitted we were out-of-towners and thusly had no idea, but it turned out our instincts were right. Personally, I thought the fireworks lighting up the boats in the harbor was pretty cool. Because of Seattle's cold nature, this was also our first Fourth of July we spent wearing jackets!

On June 6, thousands of hot rod owners invaded downtown Springfield for the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour 2010. The Power Tour is a one-week, multi-state car show trek involving many cities. This year's tour spanned seven cities from Iowa to Alabama from June 5-12. Springfield was the tour's second stop.

Downtown Springfield has hosted car shows before, but this is the first time I've heard of this particular tour coming through. One refreshing thing about this tour was that it was not car genre-specific, such as classic only. While there, I saw many classic hot rods along with modern and completely custom rides. There were many modernized classics as well. I personally tend to favor the stock/restored flavor of old automobiles, but these certainly were neat to see.

I spent several hours photographing the autos, which were spread all over downtown. The city of Springfield had a pretty large area blocked off for the tour. Honestly, the area blocked off was too large. There were many clusters of cars here and there with empty areas separating them. The wide separation of cars made the event seem larger than the multi-day Route 66 Mother Road Festival Springfield holds each year. The parking and layout weren't as well organized as the Route 66 Festival, but the come-and-go nature of this car tour probably makes the parking situation difficult to plan for.

Below is a link to my favorite car shots at my SmugMug gallery. Read more on the tour's impact on Springfield in the SJ-R's article. You can also check out the tour's website and FAQ for more information.

The Springfield Park District has once again launched its summer "Music in the Park" series of concerts in the city's parks. The photos below are from the first performance of the year on May 23 in Washington Park, which featured The Sensational Debbie Ross Band. Additional concerts will be held each month through September in the various parks around the city. You can view the schedule at the Springfield Park District's website. Definitely bring a lawn chair and bug spray!