Why the knife? Because it’s a multitasking tool that you can use a kajillion different ways.
Why a camera? For exactly the same reason.
We’ve rounded up so many alternate uses for your camera that you’ll start bringing it everywhere. Use it as a flashlight, a memory aid, or a mirror, and you’ll never let it leave your side again.
Your camera may be a toy, but there’s no reason it can’t also be a tool.
Before you head out on a long trip, don’t bother rooting around for a pen to write down your parking space number. Take a photo of your parking spot so you can find it again when you come back.
2. Use It Instead of a Printer
If you need to take directions with you, but don’t have a printer, take a picture of the computer screen instead. You can zoom in quite a lot, and will be able to read the directions on the camera’s monitor.
Also works for confirmation numbers, email addresses and incriminating online photos of friends and acquaintances.
3. Remember Fiddly Details
You know the drill: you run out of something, you go to the store to replace it, and you realize you can’t remember which size or model number you need. Snap a photo before you throw the old one away and you’ll have it on you when you need it.
4. Mark Your Property
Take a photo of your name and address, and lock it on your memory card. That way, if you ever lose your camera, the person who finds it will know who it belongs to.
5. Shopping Lists
Before heading out to buy ingredients for a project or recipe, take a picture of the ingredient list. Zoom in on the camera’s screen to be able to see each item on the list.
6. Retrace Your Steps
Take pictures of each step when you take something apart, so you’ll know how to put it back together later on. That way you won’t end up with those four screws and one unidentified twiddly bit that always seem to be left over after “fixing” something.
7. Collect Evidence
Heaven forfend you get in a fender bender, but if you do, you’ll be glad you had a camera. Taking photos of the accident scene will help you remember details of what really happened, and it’ll make the insurance claim rigmarole a lot easier.
8. Use It As a Mirror
Check your teeth for spinach when you don’t have a mirror. Or see how you look in really really dark sunglasses.
9. Make a Wishlist
When you see a book at a friend’s place that you want to read, an album you want to get, or a gift you want to pick up for somebody, take a photo of it. That way you’ll have all the information you need when you finally get around to going shopping.
10. Use It As a Flashlight
If you get caught without a flashlight, use the flash or focusing light on your camera to help you see better.
Or, if you drop your keys behind the sofa, use the monitor on your camera to help you see into places you can’t quite reach.
11. Remember Places You Want to Go
If you’re like us, you have a list of places you want to go, or restaurants you want to try, but when you find yourself with a free evening you draw a blank on where to go.
Taking pictures of places when you see them will remind you that there are loads of new places to try, so you won’t end up at the same restaurant every Friday night.
12. Record Phone Numbers
Chances are it’s easier to find your camera in a bag full of stuff than it is to find a blank piece of paper and a pen that actually works.
Save yourself some time and snap a picture of that crucial phone number when you’re out apartment hunting, or when you see a flyer you don’t want to forget.
Well then, our little entry on Google building its own router made quite a splash, didn’t it? I’ve contacted both companies, today, and as yet, neither wants to say peep either for or against the story. But I’ve been reading the comments all over the blogosphere, and felt a few clarifications on this rumor are in order.
First of all, Juniper isn’t a one trick pony. The company has lots of other big customers, and it’s even backing into the switch market, now, with some really cool lower stack hardware. However, Google is undoubtedly a major chunk of the “buys the biggest, newest thing” sector of the Juniper economy. In a market where that means paying upwards of a million dollars per router, that can really be bad for the bottom line. Plus, in an entirely unsubstantiated rumor I’ve also heard recently, Verizon is slowly moving towards boutique router makers, so there are more reasons to be bearish on Juniper than just the Google aspect. In this economy, every customer matters. With Google being the closest and biggest customer for Junipers big boxes, this could really damage the company. I stand by the predicition that Juniper is in major trouble here.
Another area people are confused on is what these boxes Google is working on are. They are not switches. We all knew about those already. These are routers.
The thing many people seem to be missing in this story is why Google would be doing this. If you’re paying $10 million for a box that routes your traffic, and another couple thousand a month for service and support, it’s easy for an MBA to see where the budget can be tightened. Especially if your company has great engineers and some people poached from Cisco on its staff.
Not to mention the fact that Google is increasingly pushing the limits on every aspect of its services. Think about this for a moment: backbone transports are essential to making the Internet work. But when you get right down to it, most telecoms have these in big lines where they can follow problems in their network and track down issues on their own turf. Google must be set up, internally, in a similar way. But then, the company has to colo around the world. It has to offer its services at high speeds in China, Africa, Europe, the US, and can you imagine how much traffic Orkut alone generates in Brazil? Everything about Google is growing. And the services and products it offers are growing constantly as well. Unlike telecom, where most of the cables and centers are well established, and filled with government mandated transfer points, Google’s worldwide network must be a hodge podge of rented land, self-built facilities, and all manner of local phone pipes. Google’s needs must by wildly unique.
It stands to reason that the demands of Google are very different from the demands of Verizon, AT&T, or even Akamai. YouTube alone is a massive bandwidth suck, and Google has to push those videos into all manner of foreign telecom networks at ludicrous rates. Telecoms know how to deal with those foreign worlds. I’d estimate that Google is either hiring its way into those worlds, or discovering how they work on a daily basis.
On another front, the best form of security, these days, is obscurity. Google leaves one Juniper router open accidentally, and there’s a JUNOS nerd in there screwing things up. Google leaves its own proprietary box open accidentally, and maybe a disgruntled employee can mess it up. Much smaller pool of danger, really.
Finally, Google probably needs new routers on a daily basis. Buying those takes time, effort, and sales contracts. Who wouldn’t want to weasel out of yet another sales obligation with a company that’s talented, but pricey. From the right angle, Juniper is basically the designer Cisco. The Apple to Cisco’s Microsoft.
The fundamental message of this rumor — and keep in mind this is all just a rumor at the moment — is that Google is working on routers for its own use. They might have something to do with its dark fiber. They might be targeted at internal usage or VPN distribution around the world. We just don’t know. I can tell you one thing, though: Google won’t be selling these things. Probably won’t open source them either. This is their solution to an internal problem, and it’s probably heavily influenced by the bottom line.
I’d wager that Google is pretty upset about this rumor being out there now. I bet Juniper rakes them over the coals on the next sales contract negotiation. Precisely why I can’t name my sources, though. Heads would roll.
Anyway, this is a blog. It’s a blog about a rumor. I have very high confidence in this rumor, as I heard it from multiple sources in unrelated places over a period of three months. Lord knows I’ve been wrong in the past, so don’t shoot the messenger here. I’m just keeping all you wonderful people in the loop. Would you prefer we reported on love affairs, like Valleywag? We thought not.
For a long time now, Juniper has had one big ol’ customer floating its bottom line: Google. It makes sense, as Juniper specializes in gigantically powerful boxes for routing traffic, and Google exists as one giant pool of information in a constant state of flux. Both incoming and outgoing, it’s hard to imagine a world where Google isn’t the absolute largest generator of traffic on the Internet, no matter what all the monitoring agencies say.
But all of that is going to change soon. According to multiple sources, including one inside Cisco, Google is working on its own router.
Yep, you read that right. It would seem that Google is fed up with JUNOS and all the various difficulties it can present in an environment where, frankly, no one has figured out the best practices. In a world where traffic is likely doubling every six months, it’s hard to think of any type of hardware architecture that could possibly sustain itself. It would seem that Juniper hasn’t figured this out either, and Google has taken it upon itself to chase down a solution of its own.
So, if any of you out there own Juniper stock, now would be the time to rethink your ownership, before the rest of the world wakes up and realizes that the company’s biggest cash cow is about to be sacrificed at the altar of doing it one’s self.
Before you head out on a long trip, don’t bother rooting around for a pen to write down your parking space number. Take a photo of your parking spot so you can find it again when you come back.
If you need to take directions with you, but don’t have a printer, take a picture of the computer screen instead. You can zoom in quite a lot, and will be able to read the directions on the camera’s monitor.
You know the drill: you run out of something, you go to the store to replace it, and you realize you can’t remember which size or model number you need. Snap a photo before you throw the old one away and you’ll have it on you when you need it.
Take a photo of your name and address, and lock it on your memory card. That way, if you ever lose your camera, the person who finds it will know who it belongs to.
Before heading out to buy ingredients for a project or recipe, take a picture of the ingredient list. Zoom in on the camera’s screen to be able to see each item on the list.
Take pictures of each step when you take something apart, so you’ll know how to put it back together later on. That way you won’t end up with those four screws and one unidentified twiddly bit that always seem to be left over after “fixing” something.
Check your teeth for spinach when you don’t have a mirror. Or see how you look in really really dark sunglasses.
When you see a book at a friend’s place that you want to read, an album you want to get, or a gift you want to pick up for somebody, take a photo of it. That way you’ll have all the information you need when you finally get around to going shopping.
If you’re like us, you have a list of places you want to go, or restaurants you want to try, but when you find yourself with a free evening you draw a blank on where to go.
Chances are it’s easier to find your camera in a bag full of stuff than it is to find a blank piece of paper and a pen that actually works.
