Bryan Ruby

Just in time for Spring. A review of the Blossom 8 Smart Watering Controller.

Over two and half years ago, I wrote that wearables would be the next "disruptive innovation" but acknowledged we're not there yet. Once the right company with the right design comes along, this new market will take off just as fast as when Apple introduced their first iPad. Despite Apple introducing their smartwatch, I still sit on the sidelines waiting for the right wearable to convince me the time to buy one is now.

Spring brought to South Dakota plenty of rain. The lawns are green, the flowers are in full bloom, and it seems we can't go beyond a couple days without a rain shower or thunderstorm. While water is usually plenty for my city, we do things smart around here and restrict water usage for our lawns year round. It's not uncommon in my part of the country to see the weather pattern quickly change from wet to dry. What once was green can turn brown in a hurry.

I was recently asked by the Argus Leader, a local newspaper in Sioux Falls, to give my two cents on the controversial South Dakota #DontJerkandDrive campaign. Since then the article has been syndicated out to USA Today and other publications. It seems that I caught the attention of a reporter when I labeled the campaign as "brilliant" on Twitter.

For the first time in 15 years, my family doesn't have a website to call their own. In January 2000, I registered the domain Bryansplace.com. This was the first website I ever built outside of work and it became a sandbox for me to express my interests as well as a way to seek personal growth. From handwritten HTML pages, a detour with Frontpage, and eventually to a number of CMSs, the software and content at Bryansplace evolved as my life evolved.

A few months ago, I had a problem. After eight years of non-stop writing, I found myself exhausted of all enthusiasm to blog. Let me tell you, it's a sad day in Web City when an advocate for content management systems has no real desire to author new content. I was also questioning in this age of "always on" social media whether the traditional blog had lost value not only to me but my readers. If content is no longer king, why should I spend so much effort creating new content? So as summer approached, I decided to take a break from blogging.

What do we ask for? Consistency. What do we get from Consumer Cellular? More than a dozen ways to configure our Google Nexus 5 to their network. Unfortunately, many of those recommended settings don't work. Luckily, time is on our side. In the past 6 months Consumer Cellular and Nexus 5 owners have settled on APN settings that actually work properly on the Consumer Cellular network.

When Google announced in 2012 that they were bringing Google Fiber to Kansas City, my father called me and said he was interested. As an information technologist, I was excited. I told the “old man” that Google Fiber was going to change everything. Last month, Google Fiber finally came to my parents' neighborhood, and I made the six-hour drive to visit the house I grew up in.

A couple years ago, my wife and I took advantage of the post-housing bubble low interest rates and upgraded to a larger home. We came across a pre-owned house built in 2006 that came with the price, size, and style that just screamed to us "buy me".  As a family, we carefully reviewed our finances and listed our pros and cons before making the purchase. My wife and I were excited to finally have a bathroom connected to the master bedroom. Our then young son was excited that he finally had a family room that offered him fun and adventure. Secretly though, what sold me on the house had nothing to do with these things. What impressed me most was that this house had a network distribution panel.

While Twitter remain my social network of choice, I've struggled over the years with Facebook. For me personally, there is something about Facebook that has rubbed me the wrong way. Facebook's user interface has always felt "cluttered" to me and the addition of "social advertisement" this past year hasn't helped win me over either. More importantly, the seemingly never ending changes to both Facebook's privacy policy and privacy tools has left me very uncomfortable. These days, I'm only on Facebook because my closest friends are on Facebook. In short, with Facebook I feel like I'm a hostage as it may be the only way I keep close ties with friends unwilling to try Twitter or Google+.