Review

On March 7th I had surgery to fix my right achilles tendon.

For those of you who’re curious this, or this, are both reasonable descriptions of what was done, as per my surgeon. For those of you who aren’t THAT curious, if you know someone who tore their achilles, well, my recovery after surgery is identical to what they went through.

What this means for me? Two and a half weeks of completely no weight bearing on that foot at all, and weeks of only partially weight bearing, and then weeks of PT.

Now I’ve done the crutches thing before. They’re annoying, and tie up your hands, but not the end of the world when all you need to do is reduce the pressure on a sprained ankle.

For completely non-weight bearing? They suck. I mean, they do the job, but what a pain in the ass!

Turns out there are alternatives however. First option is a rolling knee scooter thing. The second option is the iWalk. And lucky me, I get to play with both! My insurance covered (in full!) a knee scooter from the same DME that supplies my cpap stuff. And I made the decision to order an iWalk as I had doubts about using the rolling scooter in the house with the dogs around.

My knee scooter isn’t identical to the one linked above, but it’s close. VERY easy to use on any reasonably flat surface. Works ok on short pile carpet. The dogs are convinced it is THE DEVIL, and we won’t discuss the cat’s response to it. Bumps aren’t quite so nice, even fairly small bumps, and I’m glad I don’t have to rely on it to get into the house cause steps are a complete no-go, and it would require a not short ramp to get up to the height of my front door. Also, it requires at least one hand on the steering handlebars to steer and brake. And it doesn’t fit very well into tight spaces, like, my bathrooms. I did however take it for a proper spin yesterday, we needed to buy some things at my work, and so I went with my husband and took the scooter. On those flat concrete floors it’s pretty awesome and I was having to resist seeing how fast it’d go. There’s almost no learning curve to it though, you put your knee on the pad and push off. If you’re not used to a lot of walking etc you might find yourself with sore thighs afterwards, but really it’s about as easy to use as you can ask for. It’s easier to manage than crutches and requires less coordination to use than the crutches too.

The iWalk peg leg took a bit more getting used to. I do have a decent sense of balance to start with, which helps. I’m also in decent shape and used to walking/lifting/etc despite being overweight, all of which helps when using the iWalk. It did require assembly, and the assembly instructions are entirely on video, which I H.A.T.E, but the assembly is straightforward and easy enough. Its adjustable to fit a variety of heights, and I bought the slippery weather treads to put on mine since this is upstate NY and winter isn’t over regardless of what mother nature keeps trying to pull, having said that, I’m not sure I needed them, the tread it comes with are decent. My first few days using it I used one crutch (on the same side as the peg leg) to assist with balance, and kept my sessions using it fairly short (5-10 minutes). Once I got used to it however its great. While it has a hand-hold on the thigh to help with maneuvering in weird spots or getting over bumps its otherwise completely hands free use. I can go up and down stairs wearing it, though that also takes some getting used to, and you DO need to hold onto the handrail for that. The dogs and cat are FAR less bothered by it than they are by the scooter. The biggest downside is that you have to strap it on, which takes a minute, and then unstrap it to get it out of it, its not just grab and go like crutches or the scooter. Its also easier to forget my foot is sticking out behind me when I’m using it than it is with the scooter. It works better in tight spaces than the scooter, though I still have to be careful in the tight bathrooms here as I tend to bang my foot around.

Thoughts on both: it’s not an either-or thing, they’re both pretty awesome, both have things that make them less than ideal. But I hope if someone else out there is trying to decide which to purchase this’ll help!

Disclaimer: my insurance paid for the knee scooter no questions asked, and we paid for the iWalk ourselves. I was not in any way asked to do a review much less paid for a review, but I have had a couple friends ask me about the differences, and since I was typing it out for them I decided to do a full write up.

I’ve griped before about trying to find shoes that fit me, that are comfortable, that have ankle support, and that can hold up to not only the pounding of retail, but specifically the pounding of working retail at Home Depot.

Home Depot is hell on shoes.  Those ugly commercial tiles that most stores have down do actually make a difference in how long my shoes last.  Shoes that last for months and months at most places barely last 3 months at HD.  That straight up concrete is hell on shoes, feet, and joints.

Doing some research and talking with long term HD employees a couple things stood out.  1: I needed at least two pairs of shoes to swap between, as in every  other day swap.  And 2: it might be worth checking out quality hiking shoes, several folks recommended them.

So off I went to a couple different local sporting goods stores.  The next problem was that I wanted high tops without actually getting BOOTS, and I have wide feet (for my foot length) due to having spent my life on my feet.

I ended up with a pair of Ahnu Montara boots, and a high topped set of Keen shoes (I forget which style).  The Keen’s came in wide (so I bought them in size 7), the Ahnu’s didn’t, but I only had to go up 1/2 size to get a decent fit (size 7.5).  I figured that the width on the Keens would be the key factor, but I was wrong.  The Keen’s weren’t bad shoes.  But the Ahnu’s not only broke in faster (with zero hot spots or blisters despite a longer footbed), but remained more comfortable for far longer than the Keens did.  And when the Keens finally died they died all at once and were hell to wear.  The Ahnu’s I could have gotten away with for a bit longer if I’d had to.  I got a solid year’s worth of comfortable wear out of the Ahnu’s, and a year of wear out of the Keens, though I’m hesitant to call it a solid year’s worth of comfortable.

The local Gander Mountain was closing back end of spring/beginning of summer, so I swung through there to see what they had left.  A set of Ahnu Montara’s in a different color caught my eye, but they only had them in size 8.  I tried them on and walked in circles for several minutes in them before deciding to buy them anyway.  A set of Red Wing Irish Setter boots caught my eye, and they had them in 7.5, and they fit and weren’t uncomfortable at first try, so I grabbed them too.

That was May, if I recall right.  Once again the Ahnu’s required essentially no break in period, the extra half size length of the foodbed has caused me no problems.  The Red Wings did, and have remained far less comfortable than the Ahnu’s all the way across the board.  The addition of cheap gel soles under my prescription insoles helped some, but not enough.

For various reasons I’ve basically not worn either pair for the last month except for a few hours here and there.  Black Friday I wore the Ahnu’s for an 8hr shift.  Saturday I wore the Red Wings for an 8hr shift.  Friday, my feet hurt a bit, but thats normal enough after that sort of day.  Saturday I came home with serious hotspots and not quite blisters, and seriously sore feet and ankles and knees.

Today I’m shopping for Ahnu Montara boots.  As I’d hoped several places (including the official website)  have them on very nice sale.  I intend to buy at least two pairs.  And hope and pray that the folks who own the brand never ever change them!  The Red Wings are being relegated to wear around the house work boots.

The Ahnu Montara’s are very lightweight in comparison to every other hiking shoe and boot I tried.  The soles held up very well to the abuse that is HD, though some hiking reviews say they don’t always for things like rock climbing.  I can’t speak for the original insoles as I replace them with my prescription ones.  The soles are soft, but not thin.  They do allow you to feel everything you step on, which is a bit weird till you get used to it.  On the other hand I have yet to slip on wet concrete in them, even in the year old ones!

I was not in any way paid for this review, all the shoes mentioned were bought with my own money.

So, I got this phone almost a year ago, so this is the not quite year in review.

I still really like it.

The biggest issue so far has been the port covers.  In order to make it properly water and crud proof it has these little hard plastic covers that cover all of the ports (charging/USB port, headphone jack), and these covers are attached to the phone by little plastic hinges.  I’ve managed to tear the USB port cover off its hinge.  And my Husband has come close to tearing off the headphone jack cover on his.  Now, this doesn’t mean that the cover doesn’t go back on, cause it does, infact it snaps back into place no problem.  But it does mean that every time I have to charge (or sync) my phone I have to remove this little tiny piece of plastic, that’s smaller than the fingernail on my thumb, and NOT LOSE IT.  I have so far managed, but I can see that being an issue in the future.

And I have to add that Android Lollipop and this phone….well, they work together, but not well.  Mind, I’m positive the problem is Lollipop and not the phone, as I know several other Android users, with different phones, who had issues with Lollipop, but still.

Having said all of the above, this phone is awesome.  I’ve dropped it onto solid concrete, from several feet in height, on multiple occasions, and the phone is still just fine.  No scratches, or dings.  Heck, the screen didn’t even flicker!  Not sure I’d want to try letting a car run it over, but it has held up to every bit of abuse so far with not even a blink.

In addition, the gripes I keep seeing in reviews about the camera…..

That is one of the first pictures I ever took with this phone.  Those are ice crystals on the front porch railing.  No photoshop.  I didn’t even have to fiddle with the camera settings.  This is not a bad camera.  Not even a little!

I will say, the phone’s ability to tell when it needs to turn on the flash to take a picture is more iffy than I’d like, but that’s not exactly the end of the world either.

Overall I’d highly recommend this phone!

So, it turns out that the camera only records if a computer has the IE browser window open to the camera’s IP address…..

This makes no sense.  All that is part of the firmware, the access is JUST to modify the settings, nothing is loaded onto the computer, but if that window isn’t open the camera doesn’t record.  How annoying is that??

So, if I have to leave a computer running something for the camera then I’m going to look at the some of the 3rd party software’s that are supposed to work (and add extra options) to the camera.  I’ve downloaded 4 different trial versions to try, and I’ll update with my final choice once I make that decision.

Edit: I never did update this.  We settled on the Blue Iris software.  Though the most expensive of the ones I tried it was also by far the most versatile of the bunch.  Not the easiest to use, it took some fiddling, but once I figured it out I’ve been quite happy with it since!

Original post here..

As stated in my update of my original post I called Foscam and received instructions on how to send it in for repair or replacement.  I received the new replacement camera on Monday 12/23/13, and set it up immedietly.

This one definetly fuctions better.  Its not rebooting or anything of the like.  And with fairly minor tweaking of the settings we managed to capture a video of exactly what we wanted to capture:

you don’t see her till towards the end.  Based on the the tracks in the driveway she came in very close to the right hand fence, and must of triggered the camera as she did so, but since it takes a good second or two to “wake up” it missed her entrance, only showing her when she came back across.  I’ll take it.  Now if I can tweak the settings so that we’re not ALSO getting video triggered by the majority of the cars going by……

(For those of you saying “wtf?  Its a dog??”, yes it is, and she belongs to the folks who’s house is just visible across the street.  They swear she’s trained to stay in their yard…..)

I will however say, I never did get a response to the email I sent them via the tech support contact page on their website.  And I ALSO, since sending them that email, have received a sales email from them EVERY SINGLE DAY except for Christmas.  So although I’m reasonably happy with their product, and their support via PHONE was great, their basic customer service sucks.

So, my mom sent me an Amazon gift card for my birthday.  Love those things, and she knows it.  So, I’ve been wanting a wireless “webcam” for a while.  Partially to watch the bird feeders when I couldn’t be there, and partially to catch the neighbor’s dog(s) in the act (on my property) so I can hand more proof to Animal Control.  I’d poked around and settled on the Foscam FI8910W camera as an inexpensive model that would likely do what I wanted.

It arrived Wednesday, and I spent several hours setting it up.  It shouldn’t have taken that long.  The biggest issue is that although the packaging says it’ll connect via Wireless B/G/N and my router supports all of those AND (supposedly) features a “mixed” setting so as to support all of those at once, the camera refused to connect.  None of my other wireless devices had that problem, but the camera did.  I had to set it to one of the options in order to get the camera to connect.  But it took me a while to figure out why the router could see the camera but the camera said it wasn’t connecting.

It also kept rebooting itself, which was annoying as heck.  But updating the firmware seemed to fix that.  

I set it up at first without any recording, just to see how it would work to view from.  Quickly decided that with the bird feeders placed where they were it wasn’t going to work to watch the birds, but it would work fine to keep an eye out for the neighbor’s dog.  I debated moving the bird feeders.

Thursday it started rebooting itself constantly again.  A factory reset fixed that problem this time.  I was starting to get a bit peeved.

Sunday morning, it had worked fine Friday and Saturday after the reset, so I decided to go ahead and set up the motion detection and recording options.  Discovered that it only detected motion in the center of its viewing window.  Thats a bit annoying, but its hardly an expensive camera, so I guess I get what I pay for.  Adjusted the viewing angle to cover the driveway better so as to catch what we wanted to catch.  Debated moving the bird feeders.

Sunday afternoon it started rebooting itself constantly.

I unplugged it and sent an email off to Foscam’s tech support.  As of now (Tuesday morning) they’ve not responded, but I’m willing to give them a little time at least to catch up from the holiday weekend.  If I haven’t heard from them by tomorrow though I’ll just call them (since I’ll have time tomorrow during business hours).  

Current review: less than impressed.  At least some of the problem IS that I was looking for an in-expensive camera, if I was willing to drop more cash on the problem I’m sure some of the issues wouldn’t be issues.  On the other hand the whole thing has turned into an exercise in frustration.  We’ll see what tech support says……

(disclaimer, I bought the above mentioned camera with my own money/gift certificate, I was not asked to do a review and am receiving nothing for doing so.  The above link to Amazon IS via my Amazon Associates link, and if you buy something via that link I’ll earn a few cents.)

UPDATE 12/5/13 I called tech support yesterday, and after explaining the problem, and what I’d done to fix it, was informed it definetly has a mechanical issue and they will replace it.  I received the RMA info along with return instructions in my email today.  So hopefully we’re good to go!  I will however say that it is QUITE frustrating to give a company my email as part of a tech support request, and to then get a sales email for every single day since, and still not get a response to the tech support email.

Additional update HERE.