Ben Beard

First Home Owner Diaries Volume Two: Pressure Mounting

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We got a new toy in our home, a new electric pressure washer

Why a pressure Washer?

What home isn’t complete without a pressure washer?

Today we went to our favorite home improvement store to look at pressure washers. I felt like it was a great time of year to buy one of these and of course, they were having a sale! The idea behind the pressure washer is to forcibly apply pressurized water to a surface in order to clean or renew the material. This is especially effective on patios, walls, and driveways, all of which we have.

What to wash first?

As soon as we got home, like any man does, I immediately rip open the box and attempt to assembly the system without reading the instructions. Several moments later I had a working electric pressure washing machine. Now I need something to wash…. I immediately started spraying the driveway, then on to the garage door, and eventually the front exterior stairs. To my amazement, our front concrete entrance is not dark brownish-green. The pressure washer began to reveal what looked like a bright gray slightly-aged concrete finish. This led me to prod further and clean the entire area. I didn’t have enough foresight to take a before picture, but I took the picture below right before I finished. You can see a stripe below the bottom step which shows what the pressure washer can do. Cleaning this entire area took about 30 minutes, and would be easy enough to do every year. I hope I can see the same type of results from other areas of the house.
stairs

Product Review

I decided to go with an electric model as opposed to a gasoline engine for a couple of reasons. The gas engine can be very loud when operating and while it does provide more pressure, it requires fueling and ventilation for proper operation. The electric model has a 35-foot cord and plugs into a standard outlet allowing me to wash from just about anywhere. The noise level on this particular model is very low and only emits a sound when water is being pumped. A traditional gas model runs all the time. The particular model I purchased was the highest pressure and water flow I could get at my local store. It is the GreenWorks GPW2000 which boasts a 2,000psi motor that pumps out 1.2 gallons of water per minute. So far, I’ve only used this model for about an hour or two, but everything is great. I’ll continue to update as I use it more. The only downsides are hose locations for both the input and outputs. I feel like they could be better located for easy connecting and storage.

What should I wash next?

My next pressure washer project will probably be our back patio and rear of house. I’m sure I’ll find a lot of other things to wash down before winter. What else can I use this thing for besides the obvious?

First Home Owner Diaries Volume One: Intro

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First Home

My wife and I recently purchased our first real home in May of 2017. Previously we were staying in a family home which felt like we were renters most of the time. After being married for almost six years we felt like it was the right step to being successful adults. Being first home owners comes with a lot of new adventures, and we’re looking forward to most of them. As most home owners would agree, remodel, repair, and rejuvenation projects suck any extra money out of adulthood. Because of that I’m starting a blog series about my successes, failures, and discoveries being a first time home owner.

Do-It-Yourselfer?

Being raised by a crafty and handy family, I consider myself to be a Do-it-Yourselfer. This means I’m willing to attempt almost any house project myself before hiring outside workers. Between the internet, HGTV, and the people around me, I think we’ll be able to do a lot of “damage” ourselves.

Future posts

Please follow along on our quest to beautify our home. I’ll be posting progress photos, step-by-step guides, and what not to do. This should be fun for us and I want to share it with the world.

Volume Two

My next volume, coming very soon, will be my time with our new pressure washer. This piece of heavy machinery should play in to a bunch of future projects to come.

What’s next for Apple’s flagship iPhone?

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iPhone 7s, iPhone 8, or iPhone Pro?

For the past seven years, Apple has released a new flagship iPhone in the fall, usually at the tail-end of September. This year will be no different as we prepare for what might be the biggest iPhone change since the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. With so many rumors swirling around the ether, it’s hard to sort through trash to find treasure. Let’s only talk about the facts that can be verified or have a higher degree of likeliness.

iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus

Just like the last 3 years, we’re going to see another pair of similarly featured phones in two sizes. The smaller of the two will retain the 4.7” diagonal screen size with a single rear camera. The Plus variant will continue to have a 5.5” diagonal screen with dual rear cameras. This is not any big change over last year’s duo. The only two big changes I can see happening on this front are the addition of wireless charging and increased water/dust resistance.

If you’re not familiar with mobile device wireless charging that’s been around for quite some time in Android phones, it’s close proximity power transfer. Your device sits on a conductive pad that transfers power to your device through the back of the case. It’s not truly wireless because this conductive pad needs to be plugged in with a wire, and your device still needs to contact the pad to receive power.

Other features in these models that could make an appearance are new color finishes, better image signal processing, and higher storage tiers.

iPhone Pro

The rumor of an Apple iPhone Pro surfaced last summer when there was traces of a better, more expensive iPhone 7 Plus. This has since transformed into an all new form factor that will debut this year. The new form factor will sport a 5.8” diagonal screen, but the case of the iPhone will be much smaller aligning the physical size of the device directly between the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The new screen will be powered by OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) which will give us deeper blacks and use less energy. The reduced footprint of the phone presents some challenges for making an edge-to-edge screen. The front facing camera and sensors will not be set in the screen, so there will be a small notch on the upper part of the screen. This notch will house the all-new front facing cameras, infrared sensors, and speaker.

This new form factor will also be the first iPhone ever without a home button. It is said the the home button function will be built into the screen, which will allow Apple to use the area where the home button previously sat. After the debut of 3D Touch and last year’s virtual home button, this seems like the culmination of research and evolution finally coming to fruition. Not much else is known at this point on the new yet-to-be named iPhone Pro. Speculation prices this iPhone above the current offering somewhere between $999 and $1499. Pricing that depends on what storage is offered and who they market this device to.

iPhone 8

Naming an iPhone is always kept under wraps until presentation day, so we never know for sure what these things are going to be called. Ever since the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone releases have followed a X/Xs naming scheme. Canonically, the non-s years brought redesigns whereas the s years brought speed and internal improvements. This pattern was pretty much broken the last two years when we got almost all new iPhones with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and not-quite-redesigned iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. My gut feeling tells me that Apple won’t break their trend of naming devices in order, regardless of what the new features are. I anticipate us seeing the iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus. The outlier is the Pro model… They should just call it iPhone Pro or attach it to this generation by going with iPhone 7s Pro. I’ve seen some grumblings of Apple following the iPad trend and using generic names like iPhone, iPhone Plus, and iPhone Pro.

What Apple debuts is sure to be a hit and will sell millions of units. It’s going to be great to be able to have a premium model in addition to two already great form factors.

The Apple Watch : A Retrospective

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On April 25, 2015, I received my first generation Apple Watch Sport and Apple Watch. You can read my original review here, where I talk about moving away from traditional watches and a Fitbit. Now, a year later I still have my same Apple Watch, and a whole new love for it.

Over the last 12 months, I have worn my Apple Watch 99% of the time I was awake. There may have been a day or two I forgot to put it on or did not charge it. After so long, it now becomes habit to want to check my wrist for messages, activity, and weather. At it’s core, which is receiving iPhone notifications, telling the time and showing me on-demand information on the watch face, the Apple Watch is a necessary device for my lifestyle.

Between my wife and I, we accumulated a good collection of sport bands in various colors to keep the look fresh. One of the joys of the Apple Watch is changing the band every morning to better match my clothing choice for the day.

I’ll admit that I don’t use the Apple Watch to it’s full technological extent. Third-party apps, different faces, and glances have all become secondary features. The watch is now more of an appliance in my life and a fashion accessory. That’s more than I can say for my iPhone which is somewhat an appliance, but more an entertainment device.

After a year, what I use my Apple Watch for is very simple:

  • Telling time (like a traditional watch)
  • Keeping track of time (alarms, timers, etc.)
  • Checking the weather (watch face complication)
  • Tracking activity (workouts, steps, standing, etc.)
  • Getting alerts from my iPhone (iMessages, emails, etc.)

That’s about it. Can’t imagine what my day would be like without it.

As Apple said, this is a very personal device indeed.

 

How an iPad Can Replace your Laptop or Desktop Computer

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Home computing is not the way it once was. 15 years ago every home had a big white/off-white box in one room of the house where people would spend hours typing and clicking away. Today, you do that same time wasting twice as fast and from your couch in front of the TV. We are getting much better at consuming multiple sources at once, but the content is being more dumbed down because it’s usually distracted by another source. Whatever the case may be, we may need to better think how the home computer is classified.

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Technology brings us together

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During this holiday season, when you visit with your families and friends, some of that time may be blocked by bright screens in front of their faces. For the last couple of years, we may have thought this was a bad thing. In the soon-to-be year 2016, I think that has become something more.

This year instead of everyone sinking into their chairs with the soft glow of LED screens on faces, I’ve seen families and friends come together over technology. From talking about iCloud backups to Uber driving, it now seems our time together also includes some tech talk.

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Beard Blog Burrito Battle

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Now normally I blog about technology, for those who actually read, but today I’m going to talk about something almost as near and dear to my heart… Food! Everyone eats food and like most Americans, I love food. This idea is something I’ve been working on for a few years after falling in love with the fast-casual Mexican food restaurants. These restaurants have been around for a while, but now they are really mainstream. Nowadays Chipotle is to food as Starbucks is to coffee. First, I’m going to list all the restaurants I’ve eaten at, in alphabetical order for simplicity, then rank them as best as I can. Read on for more!

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Beard Blog Review: Philips Hue

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On my previous post I talked about smart home items and how they are the next big thing. Because I don’t like being left behind, I went ahead an purchased a set of Philips Hue lights. These are internet-connected LED light bulbs that contain 3 different color LEDs inside so that they can produce thousands of different colors. As I’ll explain after the break, using the bulbs together to create a scene is a lot better than using the bulbs alone.

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My home is smarter than yours.

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“Smart Home” electronics are the current flavor of the month. Manufacturers are trying to get everything in your house to be connected to the internet. This may sound like a benefit for the consumer, but do companies of ulterior motives? Are they using the cool factor to collect usage, demographic, and personal information? I don’t really care, things products are just damn cool!

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The 2015 Beard Blog Holiday Tech Gift Guide

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Back in my day, toys were the rage of the holiday season. Everyone wanted the coolest, most popular toy, and stores had trouble keeping up supplies. From ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ to ‘Zhu Zhu Pets’ we’ve see our fair share of off-the-wall gifts of the year. Nowadays, the climate has shifted to technology. Kids and adults alike want the latest craze in technology whether it be wearables, tablets, or video games, nothing is out of bounds.

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iPad Pro mini review

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It’s huge, bigger than you expect. Just like when I switched to the iPhone 6 Plus, the size becomes normal after a few hours of use. I have yet to get the Keyboard or Pencil yet due to supply constraints. Other than that, it’s fast and the benchmarks tell me it’s faster than my two year old MacBook Pro. I have yet to see this but time will tell. The future for the iPad Pro looks bright, I’m just waiting to see the light. 

The Beard Blog Apple TV (2015) Review

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For the last 3+ years, there as only been one Apple streaming device. The Apple TV (3rd Generation) has been around since 2012. It was a small upgrade over the 2nd generation device which debuted the previous year. Since 2012, there has been a plethora of new devices to compete against the widely-popular Apple TV. Amazon, Roku, Google, and almost every TV manufacturer have introduced a way to consume content over the internet. Most of them have been hit or miss, but by 2015 Amazon and Roku have cornered the market. This left a hole for consumers of the Apple ecosystem since the 3rd generation Apple TV was limited to Apple provided apps only. 

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The Apple TV is good… but here are six ways it could be even better

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The Apple TV is good… but here are six ways it could be even better 

Serenity Caldwell from iMore lists 6 great improvements for the new Apple TV.

Hopefully Apple reads these and hears our cry for more…

Yeah, app developers can’t link to their tvOS apps right now. Nor can you share a link from tvOS to your device. Or share much of anything, really.

…rumor has it that Apple Music support is coming early next year; fingers crossed that Home Sharing support arrives along with it.

iMore

How to properly use your iPhone

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One of this biggest annoyances I have are when people spread false “tech tips” and unsuspecting users actually follow them, religiously. Somewhere, someone thought it would be a good idea to tell everyone to quit all the running apps on their iPhone and/or iPad. This comes in many varieties like quitting all apps once in a while and the most ridiculous, quitting an app immediately after using it. I’m going to tell you why it’s not only a bad idea to quit your running apps, but you could actually be damaging your device.

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