Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 10 July 2012 13:47

Almost everyone knows about military drones. What is really gaining steam now are the personal versions that are cropping up all over. The military ones cost between many, many thousands of dollars. The other variety—Unmanned Aerial Vehicles—can be made from off-the-shelf parts for less than $1,000.

A story about the cheaper versions appears in the July issue of Wired magazine. The uses for UAVs are many—from farmers surveying their crops, to police reconnaissance, to aerial filming, to oil companies doing site inspections in Alaska.

So far, UAVs are limited to less than 400 feet in the air and must avoid air space near airports. Some restrictions will be lifted next year.

The aerial filming work is done for Hollywood and high-end real estate companies filming luxury estates from a better perspective.

When smart-phone technology is introduced, you can have a little drone that can go just about anywhere with a camera and send images back in real time.

To read the story, go to wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/ff_drones. To learn about making your own drone, go to diydrones.com.

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I created a little invention last week and thought I and a few others would be the only ones who knew about it.

Then Patty, here at the Free Press, told me of a website where you can upload an idea. The folks who run the website will review your idea and let you know if they are interested in pursuing it. The general public can also weigh in with comments, etc.

So far 33 people have looked at my idea. Four have said they like it and three have commented. Well, two have commented, because I was the third one, by accident.

It costs $10 to post your idea. Some people are already receiving royalties from their inventions. I haven’t planned any cruises yet for the money I will be getting for mine.

Quirky.com is the website if you are interested.

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I didn’t know until recently that when you search for travel, hotels, etc., on Orbitz, you will find higher-priced offerings if you use a Mac computer versus a PC. They have determined that Mac users are willing to pay more for things, I am told.

You can avoid this by doing a search, then sorting the listings by price from lowest to highest.

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The cost of freight has become noticeable lately. Often, the cost of freight is more than the item being shipped.

When you get free freight, the shipper either adds it to the price or takes it from their margin. For many sellers, it is a marketing advantage to discount it entirely or make it a combination of a bit higher price and a bit less margin to make shipping more palatable.

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Our off-site backup system paid off this week. A file I needed was accidentally deleted from our server this past week and I was able to go to our backup and retrieve it.

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The Fourth of July was a Red, White and Blue day for me at Little Pleasures Coffeehouse: R,W&B salad, R,W&B cake and diet Pepsi (R,W&B can). And I wore a purple shirt, which is R,W&B colors all mixed together.

If you wish to share your comments or ideas, my e-mail address is joel@hillsborofreepress.com.