It’s no secret that I have a movie theatre for a television and that we enjoy watching movies at home. But I’m also the parent of a small child and we have a fairly strict policy of what we allow our child to view. Still, we enjoy getting cozy on the couch for a good family movie. So the issue becomes WHAT to watch. The challenge is to find movies that are clean and appropriate for her while at the same time are able to hold my interest.

As I said, we’re careful about what television shows she sees. I’ve even vetoed some Blue’s Clues episodes because of the way they often handle conflict, encourage entitlement, and promote drama and whininess. And don’t even get me started on The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and how they routinely teach ’scientific’ principles that defy the laws of physics.

Everything she watches is played off TiVo, giving us the ability to skip over commercials. Although I must admit that it is mostly so we can avoid her falling for kids advertising and wanting every cheap toy that is pushed in her face. So we simply remove the pushing. We also don’t watch any non-kids shows when she is around, which basically amounts to ‘when she is awake.’ And if the TV is playing live-tv, it’s always on the food channel – which has proven to be a completely kid-safe channel.

For movies, as a general rule I believe in the MPAA rating system. G-rated movies are probably fine for her.  PG, or Parental Guidance, means that it might or might not be appropriate – and we need to pre-view the movie to know if it’s cool before she sees it. And I figure she can probably watch PG-13 movies when she’s 13 – but we’ll see when we get there. With only G movies to choose from, the short list gets stale fast. The problem with the PG rating is that it’s too wide a range – movies can be fine for 6 year olds or barely appropriate for 12 year olds. Overall I think there is a serious shortage of good family movies. And it’s a genre that is not target by indie film makers, which is why I have a passion to try to eventually fill that gap.  But I digress…

Every now and then we take “G” to Best Buy to pick out a new movie, but most of the time we leave empty handed – unable to find anything that fits both criteria of A) being something I want to watch AND B) is also appropriate for her to see. For example one day I noticed ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ was on the cheap isle and considered getting it (even though it was DVD and not BD) but didn’t when I saw that it was PG. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it and I just can’t remember much about the content. I knew it was about some kids get who shrunk down, and there’s a giant ant, but couldn’t remember if they used any choice “PG” language that I don’t want her picking up and repeating at her Christian school. So I didn’t buy it.

Then recently I stumbled on Common Sense Media, which is a web site devoted to helping inform parents so they can make decisions about what is and isn’t appropriate for their kids. I’ve seen other sites that do this, but I really like the way that CommonSenseMedia.org handles it. They attempt to give the movie a specific age rating rather than just the general MPAA rating.

Of course any rating system is subjective and depends on the values and standards of the person doing the rating. But their system gets you into a ballpark and give you explanations for why they gave it the rating they did. It also helps to read their page about their ratings.

Every child is different and every parent is going to have a different way at looking at things as well. For us some language is an issue because of the school thing, and we know that scariness can be an issue for our child as well. Looking at their reviews of a few movies I’ve seen and already have opinions about gave me a good idea of how close their system is to OUR reality. Here’s a couple quick examples:

Bolt – Is rated PG and Common Sense gives it a 5. The only issue for us was the fire scene at the end.  They mention it although they don’t stress enough how perilous it is. It makes me wish that they separated their Violence and Scariness section.

Monsters vs Aliens – Is also rated PG  and Common Sense gives it a 7. They peg violence, scariness and language – and I suppose they are correct.

Ice Age 2 – The Meltdown – Also rated PG, Common Sense gives it a 6. I actually stopped this movie early on and didn’t allow my daughter to watch it. This one I think they’re off. They don’t peg language enough and completely miss mentioning the “DAM!” joke and don’t stress the scariness enough. (those underwater monsters are scary.)

Honey I Shrunk the Kids faired well, and now I know that, at least according to Common Sense, language isn’t an issue. Now if the movie will only come out on Bluray I can buy it and watch it with my daughter.

Of course parents should probably watch movies before letting their kids watch them, but at least Common Sense Media is a start to weeding out certain flicks beforehand. And in a case of “Honey…” it jogged my memory about a movie I had already seen.

High Tech Monorails is a documentary I edited for my friend Rob Kelly.  It’s airing on Travel Channel and Travel HD several times this month starting Sunday at 7pm PST.  Set your TiVo and be sure watch it!

The show covers several of the world’s best monorails including the Schwebebahn in Wuppertal Germany, which was built over 100 years ago.  It also takes you to China aboard the 1.2 billion dollar mag lev that reaches 270 mph, and to Las Vegas where a monorail was built to connect the back side of the strip’s casinos.  And the film talks about how Los Angeles was offered a free monorail in the 60’s but turned it down due to pressure from the oil companies.  And it asks the question “why aren’t we using these technologies more today.”  All egos aside, it’s a delightful way to spend an hour.  I hope everyone gets a chance to check it out.

Hit the link to see a clip from the show…

Ok!  So I’m including this next section to tease Rob a little, plus having edited the show, this is one of the oddest things I’ve seen all week…

I figured there was probably a clip of the show on youtube because there’s a clip of everything on youtube.  I searched youtube for High Tech Monorails and I found this golden little gem of a clip:

I can’t wrap my head around this but it’s a show about japanese people watching High Tech Monorails. Hmmm.

ANYWAYS!  For a REAL clip you can go to hightechmonorails.com

OCTOBER, 2009

Imagine you’re on vacation enjoying a day at Disneyland with your family.  You get your iPhone out of your pocket and it’s in your hand.  You set it down on the seat next to you for a second to help your 4 year old, then a few seconds later you suddenly realize that it’s gone.  You think “Wait a minute… where’s my iphone?”  Then you question yourself “where did I set it down and why would I set it down?” and then you re-step your path, ask around if anyone saw it, check all your pockets like 10 times, look in the stroller and all around.  It’s gone!  Now what?

What would you do?  “I have mobile me” you say?  Well, so do I – but there are some harsh realities to that.  If you’re an iPhone owner I suggest that you read on, find out what is and isn’t possible, and think about what you would do, because it could happen to you.

[Author's Note - Please forgive my seemingly random use of Blade Runner quotes.  I put them in to lighten up a rather long article and hoped that readers would just get it.  I've decided to point them out because I realized that without being in the know, they come across as me being overly dramatic.  So watch for them, and enjoy...]

Reaction time is a factor in this so please pay attention…

My first instinct was to assume that it was stolen.  Why?  Because it happened so fast.  I didn’t just misplace it.  I literally had it in my hand one minute and then about 30 seconds later realized it was gone.  In comparison, several times during our visit to the happiest place on earth one of us saw another guest drop something and we immediately picked it up and said “Sir, you forgot your bikini calendar.”  Ok, that particular thing only happened once, but my point is this is what normal honest people do.  Had some honest person witnessed me turn my back on my $700 pocket computer, they would have alerted me to the dreaded mistake.  Instead someone saw an opportunity and lifted it.  And it only took a few seconds.

But a part of me still didn’t want to believe it, and the people enjoying the day with me encouraged me to hope for the best.  Maybe it’s here in the stroller somewhere.  Maybe it was picked up and taken to lost and found.  We looked over and over the same places.  We texted it a message “Please call xxx-xxx-xxxx and return for a reward.”  We called the phone several times.  But within about 30 minutes calls went straight to voicemail.  The phone was turned off.

#1. Acceptance. Is it lost or is it stolen?  This probably effects how you should react.  If it’s truly just lost and an honest person finds it, calling it and texting it about a reward would probably work.  But if it’s stolen, that tactic will likely just alert the thief that you’re looking for it and cause them to turn the phone off.  And while it’s turned off you can’t track it.

What if I go north?  Disappear?  Would you come after me?  Hunt me?

You’ve probably read of success stories where people used Mobile Me to track and recover a stolen computer or iPhone.  Well, Mobile Me failed me.  In case you’re not in the know, Mobile Me (or dot mac) is a paid subscription service ($99/yr) from Apple that, among other things, comes with the back to my mac and the find my iPhone services.  The idea behind find my iphone is that it will track a lost phone.  You log in with a computer and can see on a map where your phone currently is.  You can also remote lock it, send it a message with a sound, or you can remote wipe it.  From experimenting with it and from reading those success stories, it seems like it would be THE way to get your iPhone back.  But there are some significant limitations.

#2. No app for that. I was traveling with several other people who also have iPhones, so I immediately borrowed one and tried to log in to me.com using Mobile Safari.  Remember how the iPhone has the REAL internet in your pocket?  Well that’s not exactly true.  You can not access the REAL Mobile Me service from Mobile Safari.  You can only access it via your mail, contacts, calendar and photo applications.

It was the most frustrating thing in the world to know that someone was getting away with my iPhone, and it’s trackable, but I can’t track it because there’s no app for that.  Here’s a quick petition to Apple: If someone is out and about and their phone goes missing they’re not going to have a laptop and an internet connection with them.  But they might have another iPhone around because people with iPhones are friends with other people with iPhones.  So there needs to be an easy way to track the phone from another phone.  Had I been able to react faster, promptly track it before it was turned off, I could have possibly gotten the local disneyland/anaheim police to help me right away.

Of course I thought of calling a friend who might be at home or near a real computer to have them track the phone.  But guess what?  All my contacts are in my phone.  How many phone numbers do you have memorized?  It was about 2 hours before I finally reached someone who could log in and try to track the phone.  But by then it was turned off.

#3. Find my iPhone only gives the current location and only if it’s turned on. Ok, now this is probably obvious but a turned off phone can’t be tracked while it’s turned off.  So, when my friend logged in to Mobile Me there was no location available.  But it had been turned on all day – why not show where it was right before they turned it off?  Well, here’s the part that you might not think of: it does not constantly poll every iPhone on the planet for it’s location, waiting for people to log in and request it.  It only shows the last known location and only AFTER you log in and ask for it.  In other words, if your phone is stolen and immediately turned off, when you log in to Find my iPhone it won’t have any data collected because it only collects data (or starts to collect data) when you’re logged into the Find my iPhone screen.

And even after you’ve ‘activated’ the feature, it doesn’t store any historical data.  So you can’t see the path that the phone traveled or see where it was an hour ago, or even see how long it was turned on or off.  It only shows where it was the last time it knew where it was, and if it’s currently on or off.  So if your phone is stolen take lots of screenshots of the Mobile Me page.  It’s the only ‘proof’ you’ll have of where it was.

Eventually my iPhone popped up for a minute – clear across the park near the Small World ride.  Once you know it’s traveling and you know that it’s in the hands of a thief, what do you do now?

#4. Choose one: Protect the data or try to recover the iPhone. Cold hard reality: Apple’s not really providing a CSI-style ‘track my stolen iPhone’ feature.  They are providing a find my lost iPhone feature.  And as much as they might be ’selling’ it as a theft recovery feature, it’s missing some key options to really make it such.  I’ll get to those suggestions later.  In the mean time, Mobile Me does some decent tools to help protect your data in the case of a theft, and a few tricks up Apple’s sleeves.  See the overall options in the image below…

Yes you can Remote Wipe it, but that will permanently delete all media and data on your iPhone, restoring it to factory settings.  Once you do that it can no longer be tracked, locked, or display messages.  In other words, this option basically gives the thief a shiny new clean iPhone, ready to be activated.  Just like they bought it on ebay.  This choice is a complete acceptance that your iPhone is gone and you’ll never get it back.  And realize that the longer you wait to remote wipe it, the less likely it will remain on option.  I did not make this choice.

We’re so happy you found us.

There is some good news.  As popular as the iPhone is, most people really don’t know that much about it.  A common thief who would steal an iPhone probably doesn’t really know what all it can do – or they wouldn’t steal it.  Because who knowingly steals a tracking device?  And this means that they will eventually turn it back on – and if you’re on it, you can see where they are, capture it as a screenshot, and deal with it.  So let’s get to some of the positive realities, because Apple does have some nice features in Mobile Me that make it worth the $99 a year.

#5. Remote Lock is a good thing, do it as soon as you can. Even if the phone is turned off, remote lock it and the moment it’s turned on it will be locked with a 4 digit code.  This probably isn’t as hacker proof as a remote wipe, but it’s good enough for the average dumb theif.  After 6 incorrect codes the phone forces a 1 minute time out before they can try again.  Enter an incorrect code again and it forces a 5 minute time out during which the phone is completely unusable.  The next incorrect code is a 15 minute time out and so on.  This should do a good job of preventing a brute force trial and error hack of the code.

Another good feature is that barring any jailbreaking tools iTunes will not let you into a phone that is locked.  You have to enter the unlock passcode before you can do anything with it in iTunes.  So your data should be fairly secure, unless of course the thief is savvy enough to get around the lock.  I suspect there is a way to completely reset the phone to factory conditions, but doing that would hopefully also result in wiping your data. Not to mention that they’d have to turn it on to do this – and then they’d probably be giving up their location.

#6. You can also send messages to the phone along with a sound – albeit a fairly soothing sound.  I guess I was expecting the iPhones buzzing ‘Alarm’ sound but instead it sounds the submarine ring.  If the phone is in a time out phase, the message will stay up until the phone is unlocked, but the sound can be easily stopped.

Of course the phone has to be turned on for the message to be delivered.  But sending a message does a very cool thing: it queue’s the message and will deliver it as soon as the phone is turned on.  And it will send you an email telling you what time the message was delivered.  This is the way that all of these features work, including remote lock and remote wipe.  They all report back via email when the action has been completed.  So by sending a message to a turned off phone, you will have an e-paper trail of when the phone was turned back on.  And if you’re keeping an eye on your email, this will also alert you to log in and check the location of the phone.

#7. Removing the SIM card does not necessarily disable the Mobile Me features. This is somewhat good news but also a mixed bag.  The phone CAN report back to Mobile Me using Edge, 3G or WiFi.  So if the SIM card is pulled it can still display messages and report back it’s location, as long as it’s connected to the internet via WiFi.  However, unfortunately the iPhone probably won’t automatically connect to the thief’s home wifi network.  Still, it is a cool edge over the thief because it makes it very risky for them to EVER turn the phone on.

Milk and cookies kept you awake, eh Sebastian?

Resuming my story, later that day my phone was turned on in the Disney parking lot and after that I didn’t expect it would ever pop up again.  I had locked the phone and sent messages to it claiming that I could track it.  So I never expected the thief to be stupid enough to turn on the phone at his house… but the next afternoon it was turned on in a residential neighborhood in La Verne.  And Mobile Me located it twice in approximately the same location about 20 minutes apart.  So now what to do?

Nothing is worse than having an itch you can never scratch.

When I found the location of the phone I was only about 20 minutes away from it.  But I’m not quite brave enough to go knocking on the doors of thieves.  So I called the police.  At first they were uninterested, stating that 100’s of items are stolen from the park every day.  But when I told them that I had tracked it to a house, they asked me to fill out an online police report and gave me the number of a detective to call.

#8. I’ll probably never get it back. It’s back to the harsh realities and this is the main one we just have to accept.  I’ve given the detective all the data I collected.  He’s being quite responsive, called me several times with follow up questions and seems interested in the case.  Because of the $700 cost of the iPhone it is considered grand theft and could carry a serious penalty.  However, as you can see the tracking data returned a fairly large circle which probably encompasses 10 houses.  The detective isn’t going to go door to door searching for the phone.  He might hit the main two houses at the corner of Peyton Rd and 9th steet.  But who’s to say if the culprit even still has the phone.  After getting messages like “we tracked this phone to your house and are calling the police” they might have freaked out and tossed it in a dumpster.

UPDATE – Under the heading “You know the score pal.  If you’re not cop, you’re little people.”  I did hear back from the detective who said that they actually went to city of La Verne looking for my iPhone.  They contacted the residents in the grid of the tracking area but they were not able to locate the phone.  No one admitted to being at Disneyland on the day of the theft.  He suggested that I contact AT&T and report it stolen – which I had already done.  He also entered the serial number into a national database of stolen property.  I greatly appreciate his efforts.  He took it seriously and did more than I expected him to do.  But it does go to show that these Mobile Me features are not enough to actually recover a stolen phone.

Did you get your precious photos?

Let me take this moment to stress just how shitty is it to steal a phone or a camera at an amusement park.  I was from out of state, on vacation with my wife and daughter, taking memorable photos and videos of my family with that phone.  Those are now lost forever.  The video of my daughter talking about her first roller coaster ride – gone.  (Insert your favorite Blade Runner quote here)  Then there’s the fact that I needed that phone to communicate with my family while on vacation.  All my numbers are in it.  How many phone numbers do you have memorized these days?  People couldn’t reach me, and my wife and I couldn’t easily separate at the park.  And finally, how much vacation time and energy got wasted trying to figure out what happened and take care of it?  Not to mention the $700 loss.  It cast a dark cloud on the rest of the trip.  So in the words of Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China, ’son of a bitch must pay.’  But that’s not the movie I’ve been quoting – and the son of a bitch probably won’t pay.

Ooh, that’s no way to treat a friend.

Oh yeah, I still have 2 remaining harsh realities to get to…

#9. AT&T is no help. If you call AT&T and report your iPhone as stolen, they’ll disable your SIM card and your Mobile Me features will be disabled as well.  This is similar to the #4 Choose one above.  Because reporting it stolen might actually prevent you from remote locking it and all that.  The harsh reality here is that AT&T is not concerned with recovering your lost or stolen device.  They only care to prevent an unauthorized user from making or taking calls on your phone, and racking up a big phone bill.  Stick with the Mobile Me features because Remote lock takes care of preventing outbound calls, (but allows inbound calls), but still gives you time to try to track it.

Eventually you will need AT&T to activate another other phone anyway, which will deactivate the SIM card in your missing phone.  I waited as long as I could stand it to do this, and by the time I did Mobile Me had shown Location Not Available for over a day.  And without a charge, my battery would be long dead by now anyway.

I spoke with an AT&T rep and asked if there was any way to put the iPhone’s IMEI on a ’stolen’ list to prevent it from being re-activated by another person.  She basically told me that this can not be done and that my iPhone can be re-activated by anyone using a new SIM card.  She had a few other iPhone facts wrong, so I’d love to hear an official word from AT&T on this.

#10. Replacement cost is a full $699. I pre-ordered my 3GS from Apple and got it the day it was released.  That means that I’m not eligible for a new subsidized phone until Feb 2011.  But there is a trick to getting a new $299 iPhone today.  Since I’m already on a family plan, I can add a new line for $10 a month.  That new line is eligible for a subsidized phone if you sign a 2 year contract.  If you do all of this at an AT&T store they can make a switch-a-roo and activate your new iPhone on your current number and give you a cheap phone (or no phone) on the new number.  You’ll have to pay the $10 a month for 24 months, which is $240.  But $240 + $299 is only $539 – which is $160 less, and you get to pay it off slowly.  Still, I’m going to try to hold out as long as I can and wait to see what’s announced next year.  (we’ll see how long I last).

Can the maker repair what he makes

Even though (so far) Mobile Me has not helped me get my phone back, I do have some improvement suggestions that could aid theft recovery.  The detective who is working on my case kept asking for the most current tracking information, and a narrower circle.  If I could track it to an individual house, and show that it is currently there, he’d probably go knock on their door.  But realize that it took 3 or 4 days to even be able to discuss it with a detective.  And by the time I did I had already re-activated a new phone on my old number.

• The main suggestion is to have a way of tracking your iPhone from another iPhone.  That is a critical requirement to being able to react quickly.  It should be a core part of the maps app to see all of your other iPhones registered in Mobile Me.
• Mobile Me should assume that if you remote lock your phone, it’s maybe been stolen.  Either that or there should be a separate option to put the iPhone in an ‘I’ve been stolen’ state.  In this mode it could stealthy update it’s location every 15 minutes and Mobile Me could store the last 100 positions (a day’s worth of movement).  In fact, if triggered it could go into a low power mode where the phone pretends to be turned off, ignores the on/off button, keeps the screen black (except for the delivery of messages), and continuously reports it’s location to the system.
• Also when in a ‘theft recovery’ mode it should find a connection by any means possible.  I keep ‘ask to join networks’ turned off.  But once triggered, if that SIM card is removed it could look for any open wifi connections and send back it’s location
• Easy one – Instead of only sending you back an email saying “your phone is now locked,” it should send all kinds of data, including the remaining battery power, information about failed pass code attempts, time turned on or off, and most importantly it’s location information.  It’s crazy that currently you have to take screenshots to keep the location history.  But a data rich email would be very solid evidence.
• And it seems like Apple or AT&T could do IMEI tracking on stolen devices.  If the policy (or law) is that stolen devices can’t be reactivated, or that the original owner has the right to track and location their phone even after it’s been reactivated on a new phone number, I think it would seriously cut down on phone theft.

Let me tell you about my mother…

Well, this has been good therapy.  While I’d love to see the perp caught and the phone returned, in a larger world view it’s not that important.  At some point you have to (#1) accept and let it go.  I try to live my life not allowing my stuff to own me.  Those who don’t know me well might not believe it about me, because I do own a fair amount of stuff.  But it’s true that my philosophy is that I own things, things don’t own me.  It’s an important distinction.  Still, I’m supper bummed to have had it snatched away, and I’m not anxious to spend the larger part of a grand to replace it.  It was an avoidable mistake on my part and therefore regrettable.  And I was being very careful on this trip to keep an eye on our stuff.  But in the end I’m just glad that my DSLR wasn’t taken, or that someone wasn’t hurt.

One friend says that any problem that can be solved with money isn’t really a problem.  Someone with a poverty mentality might take that to mean that money isn’t a problem (to get). Or that only someone who has money would believe that because money comes easy.  But to me it means that problems that can be solved with money are petty and not important.  The important parts of life are people, relationships, health, and faith.  I can buy a new iPhone… or … -gasp- go without.

Personally, I’ll be waiting until June or July and holding out for the next model. But I hope Apple has one planned. I’ve had a 2.5G since day one and this is the longest I’ve ever owned a phone.

When I first got my cat, my wife explained scooping the litter box in the best possible light.  She described the task as being like a prospector sifting for gold. Sounds almost fun when you put it like that. But over the years I’ve come to HATE the chore. I’ve also acquired an allergy to the cat box – the dust and the urine. I am very sensitive to smells and certain scents will throw me right into a migraine. For the past few years I’ve been thinking that the modern house should have a bathroom receptacle for pets. Why can’t there be some sort of toilet for cats that flushes away the waste?  And for a while I’ve been fantasizing about designing and building such a device. Hey, these are the things I think about people! I’m a nerd, what can I say…A few weeks ago I saw an infomercial for a device called the CatGenie. Now, normally I would assume that anything being sold on an infomercial is some cheap device that won’t work as expected. But this made me stop in my tracks and watch the commercial, because it claimed to do exactly what I’ve been looking for.

What it does…

The idea behind the CatGenie is that it is a self cleaning toilet for cats. It hooks up to electricity, a water source, and drains into either a nearby toilet or a washing machine drain pipe. As you can see in the photo it has a large circular basin which houses their proprietary washable litter. The device scoops through the litter, grinds up the solids and flushes them down the drain. Then the litter is washed with water and a special cleaning solution, and air dried. This entire process is automatic and, if all works as advertised, provides a completely clean litter box all the time. But does it work?

I’ve had automatic cat boxes in the past. They run a scoop over your litter to collect the solids and the clumps into a special collection box. Then you just throw away the box once a week or so. The problem with these other devices is that sometimes the poo just gets stuck in the scoop and then you have a huge mess to clean up. Plus they don’t resolve any odor issues because the waste is still in your house.  What made me hopeful about the CatGenie is that it uses water and hooks to a drain and the waste is flushed . But I had no idea just how well it would work. The rocket scientist who designed this thing thought of everything.

Installation and a tour of the hardware

The CatGenie comes with the necessary hardware to hook it to either a toilet or a washing machine. We installed it in a laundry room, attached it to an unused faucet and ran the drain hose down the washing machine drain. The actual installation only took about 15 minutes. We did experience a slight water leak at the source, but some teflon tape took care of that.

On the bottom is a basin which rotates. Rather than the scoop moving around the litter, the basin moves the litter under and through the scoop.  Above is the basin without any ‘litter’ in it.  During the wash cycle, water and cleaning solution fills the basin and is drained out of those holes. 

On the top left is the brains of the operation. Two electronic eyes watch for the cat and won’t start a cleaning cycle if a cat is in the box. On the right side is the scoop which moves down into the basin to do it’s thing.

Acclimation

In order for the device to work, your cat has to decide to use it. Anyone who has a cat knows that they are fickle. The acclimation process is critical. This will vary per cat, but my cat made the switch in only one day. I completely removed the old litter box (YAY!) and put this one in it’s place. My cat started using it within that first day, and my house has smelled better ever since.

Sponsored Ad:


 

The un-litter

The CatGenie does not use regular litter, but rather a patented, “dust free, non-toxic combination of natural and synthetic biodegradable materials” that they call Washable Granules. This is a critical component of the CatGenie. It does not clump like clay litter. It also doesn’t get scooped out. Instead it is washed each day. So it lasts much longer than regular litter. A few granules do go down the drain each cycle, but they decompose within 9 months.

You can read about the environment impact of normal cat litter on their website. I had never thought about how much cat litter is mined and how much we use each year.  8 Billion pounds of litter end up in landfills every year – and it’s not biodegradable. If you’re ‘green’ the CatGenie is a better solution for the planet.

The cleaning cycle

I decided against filming the whole cycle because it is a lengthy process. Also, who wants to look at poo being ground up. Well..? Anyway… The cleaning cycle has 3 phases which total about 30 minutes. I would describe it as being similar to a washing machine cycle or a dish washer cycle – and is about as noisy. The simple explanation is that the machine does it’s thing and 30 minutes later you have a fresh, dry, clean smelling cat box.  The detailed explanation follows…

In the first phase, the bowl rotates and the scoop drops down, raking through the litter, picking up the poo and dropping it into a hopper. It does this a couple of times. One of the amazing things about this is the way the machine thumps the scoop to separate poo from litter, and to make sure nothing sticks to the scoop.

In the second phase the bowl rotates back and forth while water and cleaning solution fills the basin. The scoop drops down and the granules are forced through the gaps in the scoop, which rubs them against each other cleaning them. While this is happening, the hopper (where the poo was placed) fills with water and spins like a garbage disposal, grinding up the solids (and hairballs) and flushing them out the drain.

After a couple of washings, the third phase dries the granules using warm air from a blow drier. The drying phase takes about 15 minutes.

The cost

You can get started in a CatGenie for around $300. They often run specials, so keep a look out for that. They also have a referral program, so if you’re in the mood to get one use the referral code “TLAND” (all upper case) and get $30 off. Disclaimer: it also gives me $30 towards supplies.

Depending on usage, operating costs are about the same as purchasing litter – about $120 a year. The washable granules have to be replenished every 4 to 6 months. Each canister of cleaning solution lasts 60 cycles – which is about a month if you clean the box twice a day. A 3-pack of solution costs $40. You can do the math on that. Operating costs are probably about the same as what you’re spending now, so it really comes down to is the device worth $300?  Does it do what it says it does and how well?

The good, the bad, and the smelly…

First off, I have to say that this thing is absolutely amazing. I’m sometimes a bit hard on devices in my reviews, but I can’t say enough good things about this gadget. If the tivo was the best invention of the last decade, I think the CatGenie might be high on my list for the current one. My house and my cat smell better, I think my allergies are clearing up, and best of all – no more scooping litter and ‘handling’ poop. I hate to sound like an infomercial, but it’s true. It really works. If you have a cat you should absolutely buy one.

I’ve had the CatGenie for two weeks. After the first day I knew my cat was using it so I set it to automatically clean twice a day. Since then I’ve not really had to think much about it. I go in to check on it every couple of days. It’s actually a bit fun to watch it do it’s thing.

So what’s the bad and what’s the smelly? Well it’s not much and is extremely outweighed by the awesomeness: The dry cycle uses warm air to dry the granules. In my house this causes a wave of smell to pass over the whole house.  If the genie does it’s job correctly, the smell is mostly that of the cleaning solution. However, if any poo parts are smaller than the gaps in the scoop they will slip through, stay in the basin and not get lifted into the hopper. During my two weeks there’s only been one lingering dingle-berry small enough to fit though. Un-checked this nugget will end up going through the wash cycle and then through the dry cycle. So every now and then you might get an unpleasant smell going through the house. But honestly, this occasional downside isn’t as bad as the old way of having the smell of your cat’s urine present 24-7.

To remedy the problem all you have to do it manually scoop the doo-doo into the hopper, where it will get taken care of during the next cleaning.

My only other complaint was that I wish they had an unscented version of the cleaning solution. Well I just re-checked their website and they do now have unscented cartidges. So I’ll be ordering a years worth of those.  As I mentioned, I’m very sensitive to scents, particularly flowery or perfumy scents. While their scented solution only has a subtile smell, it’s a little too much for my super sniffer.

The only other caveat is that the CatGenie only works with their branded Washable Granules and SaniSolution Cartridges. If you’re not proactive enough to keep a stock of supplies on hand, you’re CatGenie will eventually stop working and you’ll be back to scooping. Personally I don’t have a problem with paying them for supplies as opposed to the grocery store. It just means that you have to plan ahead and order refills early.

Conclusion

I believe that the house of the future should have a room dedicated to be a pet bathroom – and such a room needs a Cat Genie and something like it for dogs. Historically, changes and advancements in technology are reflected in the architecture of the day. For example, houses in the 70’s had living rooms that focused on sitting around a fireplace. In the late 90’s there was a trend in new houses to have built in cubbies for TV’s, where architects now have to consider flat panel TV’s and larger TV sizes. I urge architects everywhere to start designing houses with pet bathrooms.  It doesn’t have to be a large room, but it needs water, power, drain, storage, a fan to suck the smell out, and a special door or entrance for the pet.

If you have a cat order a Cat Genie. Life’s too short to spend your time cleaning up animal excrement. That’s a job for a robot!

Actually, they give you a little grace. You have 60 seconds to inspect the item – after that your room is automatically charged for it. This applies to the refrigerator too, which is fully stocked to the brim so that you can’t fit your own drinks in there. The instructions make it clear that adding or removing items from their fridge will charge your account. However, they subtly offer to bring in another refrigerator for personal items, you just have to know to ask for it.

I’m not sure about the technology behind the snack-removal-system or exactly how it works. Googling did not uncover exactly how the system works but only that others speculate that it’s based on weight. Inspecting the tray you’ll find a sensor bar underneath each row of items. There appears to be a separate sensor for each item.

While I suspect the snack tray might work on a technology like RFID, I didn’t opt to purchase any items, and wasn’t able to see if there is an RFID tag in the bottom of the item. 30 seconds was all I risked to take a picture of the sensor.  The fridge, however, might work on weight as the instructions imply that adding items could cause a room charge.

Check out these prices…

The Future?

Makes me wonder… We already check ourselves out of grocery stores, home depot, and other trusting establishments. They currently mostly use the weight of the item to make sure we don’t put extra unchecked items in our bags. Of course they also have that watchful eye – a human who looks after several self checkout stands. But could they someday use RFID tags to know what items we’ve taken out of the store? It’s possible that someday we could swipe our credit card when we ENTER the store, take the items we want, and be automatically charged when we leave. Bagging could be completely optional and you could even stuff items in your pockets if you wanted. As you exited the RFID tags on the items would trigger your purchases.

It would make the shopping experience different. Faster. Sort of what WaMu did for banking. You wouldn’t need traditional checkout lanes or the people than man them. It frees up that area of the store for more merch. Although you would need some place to box up your purchases, it could be free form. You could bag items as you go. It would also cut down on shoplifting. Stores wouldn’t need to allow anyone in unless they’ve pre-swipe their payment options.  What do you think? Should I get a patent on my view of the future?

The spray can makes people think “how can it be organic.” Despite the environmentally unfriendly delivery mechanism, the ingredients are what make it organic: Filtered water, Organic wheat flour (unbleached), Organic cane sugar, Organic whole egg solids, Organic soybean powder, Sodium lactate (lactic acid from beet sugar), DiCalcium phosphate (leavening agent), Sea salt, Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), Organic rice bran extract, and a Propellant.  Hmm, not sure about that last one.  I think they must be required to list the propellant on the can even though you don’t ingest any propellant.

The important thing is how well it work and how it tastes, right?  We gave it a try on Saturday morning and had a delightful breakfast.  Here’s the skinny:

Make sure to shake the can up really good first. I shook it but apparently not enough. My first pancake was too wet and cooked too thin. Also, Apparently I don’t know anything about cooking pancakes because I shook the pan like you would when cooking an egg and… it just didn’t come out right:

However, by the 3rd one I was doing alright. The flavor was good, especially with some real maple syrup. Batter Blaster is available at Whole Foods.

As of January 1^st, 2009, Slysoft will change its update policy from free lifetime updates to an annual subscription fee. All license purchases made before January 1^st, 2009 will not be affected by this change; as promised, all licenses purchased before 2009 will still be honoured under Slysoft’s free lifetime update policy.

SlySoft announces this step in advance in order to provide its customers with the choice between the old and new licensing model. Buyers who act quickly can get an additional discount with the current ongoing special promotion.

Until Wednesday, December 31 2008 Slysoft offers a 20% discount on all software products–except upgrades. If you are entertaining the thought of purchasing one of Slysoft’s products, now is the right time to act!

Legal Discussion

Slysoft is located on the island of Antigua in the West Indies where they enjoy the freedom from the laws of the United States and other countries that are tough on the circumvention of technological copyright measures, in particular the DMCA in the United States. In case you’re unaware, DMCA criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. (sources: Wikipedia, U.S. Copyright Office) 

The issue comes in “breaking the lock.” The DMCA makes it illegal to BREAK the lock, whether or not the copywritten work was actually infringed upon.  This separates the act into two legal issues, one is of breaking the lock, and the other of copyright infringement.

It’s unclear to me as to if purchasing and owning the AnyDVD software in the USA is illegal. My understanding is that it’s not criminal to purchase or own it, but it is criminal to sell or distribute the software. And of course it is a criminal act to use the software to circumvent an access control. So you’re basically screwed there. There is a slim possibility that it’s illegal for me to link to the software site, although unlikely since you would be required to purchase the software once you get there.  I’m not linking directly to the software download but just to a page describing the software.

The bottom line

So… it is debatable as to whether or not it is legal or illegal in the US to make copies of DVDs or BDs for the honest purpose of retaining a backup. Of course the disclaimer is that I’m no attorney and you should never take legal advice off a blog site. By the letter of the law it appears to be a criminal act. There is an exemptions clause that makes it lawful to make copies under certain provisions, such as a computer repair person trying salvage someone’s hard drive. That would be similar to hiring a locksmith to break into your house when you lock the keys in. Those exemptions are the areas to explore and the hope is that new young attorneys will petition for additional exemptions for personal backups.  Currently there are no obvious exemptions that allow you to copy a Blu-ray disc to backup and protect your investment. However the trend has been that exemptions get made when the lock is preventing a normal use of the material. The current exception #6 was created because of a flaw in a Sony copy protection scheme on some CDs.

For me, having a DVD collection worth 10’s of thousands of dollars AND having a 3-year old in the same house, I’m certainly in the market to do some ‘legal’ backups to protect my investment. Of course, I do not endorse copying and distributing pirated materials, but I do feel that it’s reasonable to backup for personal use and to protect the media from being destroyed by sticky fingers. But unfortunately my personal opinion (or yours) doesn’t make it legal.

Backing up is a subject that I would love to cover in more detail, but am a little gunshy about it.  At one point I had the idea of making a video to show HOW to do it, but then a smart friend of mine reminded me that to do that would be to show myself on video breaking the law – which wouldn’t be very smart. It could also be categorized as the “dissemination of technology” which would directly break the DMCA. So it’s better to do what everyone else does and discuss it in a ‘theoretical’ sense – and leave the shameless law breaking to the offshore companies.

So let’s get right to the good and bad of this service, and I’ll toss out some advice for future Disney visitors:

Photo Quality – All Disney photographers aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re not going to get every shot perfect. Don’t rely on them 100%. My photos of my daughter with Mickey are just as good as theirs were, higher resolution, and virtually free.  If you’ve got a good DSLR you probably pride yourself on taking better pictures anyway. However, if you’ve got a point and shoot, the PhotoPass is a very convenient backup plan.

Shooting down – Kids and Disney Characters are all relatively short. The Disney photographers tend to stand and shoot down on the scene. A better shot is at the eye level of the subject, which means kneeling down to get the perfect shot. This is one area where your own photo will probably be better.

Eyelines –  Of the 10 photos I had on PhotoPass, only two of them had proper eyelines – where everyone in the photo was looking at the camera. This is partly because I had a friend taking photos with MY camera while the Disney photographer was taking photos also.  In the heat of the moment at least one person was looking at the wrong camera.  Of course this also messed up the shots taken on my camera because, again, someone was looking at the Disney camera. The two PhotoPass shots that didn’t have this problem were the ones where theirs was only the camera to look at.

The lesson here is to take that extra moment and always ask for one more photo. Speak up and tell everyone which camera to look at. Also, remember that every time you’re taking a photo with a Disney Character there will probably be a Disney photographer there too to confuse the subjects. Figure out what your plan is going to be – let them take their photo and then yell for everyone to look at you, or visa-versa.

Convenience vs Card Loss - The PhotoPasses are easy to carry around, but for some they might also be easy to lose. The only important piece of information on the card is the ID number printed on the back. One site suggested taking a picture of the ID number. I think that’s a little crazy.  How about this, just don’t lose the card. A lost card will mean a lost photo.

Another option that you can use the same PhotoPass over and over.  Just hand it to a Disney photographer and they’ll just add their photos to your pass. It’s less cards to carry around. The only caveat there is to make sure a busy photographer doesn’t give your card back to the wrong person. If you don’t mind carrying them you can collect cards all day long – that part is free.

Early expiration – PhotoPass Photos don’t last forever very long. The advertised expiration is 30 days past the date the photo was taken, then another 30 days once you claim them to do something with them.  Our photos expired about 60 days after the vacation, so they’re not kidding.  Luckily I was able to order what I wanted before they expired, but right under the wire.

The lesson here is DON’T MESS AROUND AND LOSE YOUR PHOTOS due to being LAZY. Log in and get them as soon as your vacation is over.

Price – Like everything else at Disney, this isn’t cheap. Digital downloads were the only product I was interested in buying. Those are $14.95 per photo! I read somewhere that you can buy a CD of your whole trip for $99, which would be better than the 30 bucks I spent on 2 photos. But I didn’t notice this offer anywhere.

We did get suckered into buying a photo pack at Goofy’s Kitchen, partially because of a misunderstanding. I asked if we could also get the digital copy of the photo, since we paid for the actual printed photo.  They gave me the photo card and said that I could get it online.  But like I said, an additional 30 dollars later…

Once you turn a set of photos into a digital download “product” they can be downloaded 10 times and are only available for download for a couple of weeks. Again, there’s another point of weakness in the plan. I think for the money Disney should host the photos FOREVER.

Digital Image Quality – On the positive side the photos have a very decent digital image quality at 3000 x 2000 pixels and a reasonable 1.7 MB per photo.  But you be the judge.  Here is an actual photo so you can see for yourself. What the heck am I doing with my hand? Is like I’m a Muppet doing jazz hands.