Here are my daily drivers:
- iPhone 3G
- iBook G4
- Seagate FreeAgent 500GB
- iPod nano 3G 8GB
- Canon SD750
- Eee PC 701
- Western Digital Passport 250GB

iPhone 3G: I absolutely love my 16GB white iPhone 3G.  My iPhone is my lifeline, my entertainment, and my productivity wrapped up into a sleek, small package.  It’s my most recent tech purchase and is already one of my absolute favorite pieces of gear.  I use my iPhone for email, light web surfing, reading my RSS feeds, jotting a quick idea into Evernote, keeping up with my busy calendar, communicating on Twitter, reading eBooks, listening to music, and of course making phone calls.  The 2.1 firmware upgrade has given me a great boost in battery life and I have never had a problem with 3G coverage and call clarity.  It’s the best phone I’ve ever owned.  I’ll talk about my favorite apps and iPhone features in another upcoming post.

iBook G4: I am still rocking my trusty and beloved iBook G4, which I purchased in March of 2006.  I’ve maxed out the RAM and it runs Leopard quite happily.  Right now, the iBook has a hinge issue which makes opening and closing the laptop very precarious, so it’s being utilized as a desktop rather than a laptop.  I have a 19″ HP LCD monitor and a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse hooked up to it, while it is stowed out of sight on the small set of drawers that slide under my desk.  I also have my all-in-one HP Printer, external DVD burner, and external hard drive hooked up to the iBook via a USB hub.  I am looking to eventually replace it on the desktop with an iMac, and I plan on getting a MacBook Pro hopefully sometime this winter, but the iBook is still a solid machine for my needs at home.  I use it for work (Microsoft Office and email), converting videos to watch on my iPhone, web surfing, writing, and some web design.

Seagate FreeAgent 500GB: This is a recent purchase that replaced a 250GB external drive that went out on me.  Because the iBook only has a 40GB hard drive, having an external drive is essential for me.  My husband and I have a large music collection that lives solely on the external drive, as does our iPhoto library.  I have the Seagate partitioned in half–one partition for Time Machine backups, and one partition for music, photos, movies and other things.  I am setting everything to back up to my Amazon S3 account so that if the external ever goes out again, it will not be an emergency!  One of the things I like about the Seagate is its power-saving function–when the laptop goes to sleep, so does the external drive.  That will really help lower wear and tear and increase the longevity of the drive.  It has excellent read/write speeds and looks kind of like a menacing orange Cylon.  Who doesn’t love having a Cylon on their desk?

iPod nano 3G 8GB: My “nano fatty” is one of my all-time favorite iPods.  After seeing the leaked specs, I was prepared not to like it when it was introduced last fall, but after seeing it in person, I fell in love.  It’s so small and sleek that sometimes I lose it in my bigger bags!  It has an incredibly long battery life, and the solid-state hard drive makes it perfect for working out with.  I’ve been using my iPhone a lot lately, but my iPod will not be tossed into some dusty drawer and not used any longer.  I keep it in my purse loaded up with music and audiobooks for my workout and my commute.  I like to keep different music on my iPhone and my nano so that I’m getting more leverage out of both devices.  It’s working great so far, I just need to build my music collection back up after a major hard drive crash!

Canon SD750: I really enjoy using this camera–it has a large, crisp LCD screen, uses SD cards, has a rechargable battery, and takes great photos!  My old camera, the Canon A510, was bulkier and difficult to fit in a smaller purse or a pocket.  The SD750 fits easily in my pocket or purse, which makes it handy for capturing moments on the go.  I’m still playing with the custom CHDK firmware that I loaded on it a while back, so watch the blog for an SD750 update!

Eee PC 701: “Netbooks” are becoming increasingly popular, with new ones popping up on the horizon every day or two.  I am happily rocking the one that started the craze, the Asus Eee PC 701.  I’ve got the 4GB version in Blush Pink, which makes it not only the smallest laptop I’ve ever owned, but also the cutest.  I have upgraded the RAM to 2GB, supplemented the 4GB SSD drive with an 8GB SD card, and added a Kensington USB Micro Bluetooth Adapter.  I am able to carry it almost anywhere in almost any bag I own because it’s so light and small.  I bought it with the intention of using it as a lightweight writing and blogging tool, but it’s so much more than that.  I have gone for days without using the iBook because I just don’t need to–I can do almost any computer task that I need to do on my little pink powerhouse.  I’m running Ubuntu Hardy Heron and it works fantastically well on the Eee PC.  I’ve become a big Linux fan because of this little laptop.

Western Digital Passport 250GB: Since the Eee PC only has 4GB (12GB if you count the SD card!) of storage on board, I thought it’d be nice to get a small external drive for bigger files and backup storage.  So, I picked up a 250GB Western Digital Passport drive (also in pink) that is not much bigger than a deck of cards.  It runs completely off USB power, eliminating the need for a separate power source, and it’s so quiet you can hardly hear it run.  My entire mobile computing setup weighs less than 3 pounds and fits in my purse–how cool is that?

A lot of people have a tech bag or two that they use to cart all their stuff around in, but I stick mainly to purses.  Just because I like electronics doesn’t mean I can’t carry them fashionably!  I favor Coach leather bags for my every day and professional use, but I do have a great Manhattan Portage bag that I use for travel, the gym, or places I just don’t want to carry a nice, expensive leather bag.  I have the Mini Map Bag in pink, which is essentially a vertical messenger.  It’s great for weekend jaunts to the lake or a trip to the coffee shop to write–it easily fits my Eee PC and accessories, plus my wallet, iPhone and other essentials.  It is also big enough to stash my current knitting project, a book, and my DS Lite.

What are your daily drivers and how do you carry them?  If you’re interested in being featured in My Daily Tech, send me an email at jessicafritsche at gmail dot com.

• Shooting in RAW, with RAW Average, RAW Sum, and RAW Develop features
• Live histogram (RGB, blended, luminance and for each RGB channel)
• Zebra mode (live-view under/over-exposure subject-area alerts)
• DOF-calculator, Hyperfocal-calculator with instant Hyperfocal and Infinity focus-set, and more
• Battery indicator
• RAW and Video space-remaining gauges with custom low-limit alerts
• Scripts execution (exposure/focus/bracketing, intervalometer and more)
• USB-cable remote shutter-release
• Motion-Detection triggered photography (fast enough to capture lightning strikes)
• Customizable high-speed continuous (burst) Tv, Av, ISO, and Focus bracketing (unlimited shots)
• 99 constant bit-rate and 10 constant-quality video compression levels
• 1 Gig video-size limit removed in earlier cameras
• Zoom during video for cameras without
• Shutter, Aperture, and ISO Overrides (shutter speeds of 64″ to 1/10,000″ and higher)
• High-speed Flash Sync at all speeds up to 1/64,000 second (even faster in some cameras)
• Custom framing, cropping, and alignment viewfinder Grids (user editable)
• File browser
• Text reader
• Calendar
• Some fun tools and games

Keep in mind that the installation methods for Mac and Windows are very different.  I completed my CHDK installation with the help of my G4 iBook and an SD card reader.

Before I could even download the beta CHDK, the first thing I needed to do was determine the firmware installed on my camera.  This will help you determine which CHDK to download.  Thankfully there are very detailed instructions.  Read on for my experience with the CHDK installation.

To determine the firmware on your camera, you have to create an empty text file called ver.req and put it in the root directory of your camera’s SD card.  I used TextEdit to create my text file.  I opened a new file, went to the Format menu and selected Make Plain Text (it opened in Rich Text Format), and then selected Save from the File menu.  It is important when you save the empty file that you make sure that you change the plain text encoding from UTF-8 to UTF-16 and that you uncheck the If not extension is provided, use .txt checkbox.  Your Save window should look something like this.  Don’t forget to put it in the root directory of your memory card!

It should be noted that it is a lot easier to save files to your memory card and get CHDK to work when you use a card reader versus plugging your camera in to your computer.  This is recommended by the CHDK wiki because sometimes the camera can be very finicky if you’re using it to transfer the CHDK files and get them working.

Once I got the ver.req file transferred over, I started the camera up in playback mode by pressing the playback button on the back of the camera.  Then, I held down the FUNC SET button while pressing the DISP button.  However, instead of seeing the firmware version as I had expected, I saw a blank screen with a stylized clock on it.  Never fear–this can happen with certain cameras and the ver.req file.  This just means that the particular camera needs a file called vers.req instead!  I popped my SD card back into the card reader, renamed the file, and returned it to the camera.  I held down FUNC SET and DISP again, and the camera informed me I was running firmware version 1.02A.

After checking the wiki page for the SD750, I downloaded the correct version of the CHDK beta for my camera.  For some reason, the ZIP file for my firmware was called filename.zip.zip.  When I saved it as-is, I could not unarchive it even when I renamed it to be filename.zip.  So, I deleted it and tried again, this time saving it as filename.zip during my download, which worked perfectly.  I unarchived the zip using Stuffit Expander–one important thing of note in the wiki is that the Archive Utility in Leopard 10.5 locks down files downloaded from the Internet to not run unless you do some complicated things in the Terminal.  If you use a utility such as The UnArchiver or Stuffit Expander, you don’t have the problem.  Stuffit unarchived two files: DISKBOOT.BIN and PS.FIR.  I copied both files to the root of my SD card, ejected it from my Mac and then installed the card back into my camera.

To get the CHDK running on my camera, I again started the camera up in playback mode and then pressed the MENU button.  I scrolled all the way down to the bottom and selected the Firm Update… entry from the menu.  The camera rebooted itself, and voila! CHDK is now running on my camera.  The great thing about CHDK is that it doesn’t actually overwrite your camera’s firmware.  Unless you set it up to load automatically upon startup (more on this process later), you just load it into the camera memory every time you turn your camera on by following the steps I described above.  Now, if I can just figure out these fancy new features on my camera…

If you’re interested in installing CHDK on your Canon camera, you can check for a CHDK version for your model here on the CHDK Wiki and click on the link for your model for more information.

Next up–using the CHDK!

I’ve been exploring the different options I have for recording a video podcast, as I discussed with Cali Lewis last night on Cali Live. I jumped the gun a little bit and not only registered my vlog domain, Tech Girl TV dot com, but also linked it on the blog…and then haven’t done anything with it since! Talking about it with Cali really spurred me to get back to work on developing it, so I picked my camera research back up.

I’d love to get a new camera with all the bells and whistles, but that is really not an option at the moment. First on the list of priority tech purchases is the iPhone (only 38 days left!) and then a new MacBook to replace my aging but still kicking iBook G4. I could probably get a dedicated video camera in about 6-8 months, which should be enough time for me to decide if I really need one!

I’ve considered the Flip line–specifically the Flip Mino, since it seems to be at the head of the Flip pack feature-wise–but the more research I do, the more I’m edging away from a Flip. It really fits its niche market perfectly, but as with all other things tech, I think I might end up being more of a power user.

One thing I’ve been intrigued with ever since I saw it on Lifehacker is the CHDK, or Canon Hacker’s Development Kit. It is custom firmware enhancements that run on a range of Canon cameras. They are still in development on the version for the SD750 but a beta version has just come out. The Canon seems to have pretty good video capability as it is, so I’d love to see what the video enhancements could do to make it a really viable camera for my use until I can invest in a nicer one.

My plan is to load up the CHDK on my camera in the next few days and do some testing, then share my experiences with you! Look for more blogs to come on the CHDK and my SD750 very soon.