Ramblings in a State of Insanity
Posts tagged technology
On the iPad
Apr 6th
I wanted to buy an iPad for Eric’s birthday but he had a high water mark: if Papers, essentially iTunes for research paper and article management, came out with an iPad reader application, Eric would want an iPad (very badly). He has the iPod client and while it works, it is difficult to read papers on an iPod Touch. The screen real estate isn’t there.
Papers came out with a rather nice native iPad reader that syncs with the master Papers application running on Eric’s MacBook Pro. He knew I was taking in my precious MacBook Pro for service — the i key, of all things, died on the keyboard and it turned out to be challenging to type without an i — and if I happened to walk out of the Apple store with one he would not be upset. I asked the guy at the counter if they had any in stock and they had 15 left, so I sucked the cost and took one of them.
Having used one now, I have a bunch of thoughts on it in completely random order:
* If you believe the iPad is the “end of innovation” your mental box is very small indeed. The iPad is disruptive technology. It’s something that fits between laptops and smartphones. We don’t know where it will go (yet). But us in the tech world should be used to this sort of thing by now. The Internet was a disruptive technology. Refridgerators! Telephones! Off-set Printing! They happen.* The world moves on.
* Today, the iPad is a big iPod. This is undeniably true. I will never sell anyone different. Most of the available software is iPod software running in large screen mode**. However, the software coming out natively for the iPad show tantalizing glimpses of the future. The iPod can convey information, play music, and do many excellent PDA things but it does not have a the real estate for comfortable comics, movies, or PDFs.*** The native iPad apps are amazing.
* Katie already has an iPod Touch she adores. At first she complained the iPad was too heavy. Once she got her hands on Peggle she was ready to go. As a device for children, it’s magnificent. It’s hard to say how magnificent it is until you put one in your own child’s hands. Add that with the Kindle app downloading full-color children’s books for easy and comfortable reading and you start to see the future.
* Eric’s Papers reader and the Goodreader PDF reader blew me away with how crisp, clear, and readable the PDFs are. I could not read off an iPad for hours and hours like I can a Kindle but I can manage a PDF. We won’t talk about the comic books apps because I’m in danger of bankrupting us all.
* For scientific research, the iPad is a godsend. Being able to get papers, Omnigraffle, quick sketch, quick note-taking, it is the perfect in-hand device for making quick notes and then syncing them back to the MacBook in the office. It fits comfortable in a hand or on a bench without the clunkiness of the clamshell case of a laptop or the space of an actual computer.
* We showed it to my Mom and she was amazed. The first impulse was getting one for my Grandmother. The 3G version will give her what she doesn’t have now: easy email, an easy way to carry thousands of pictures, an easy way to get to streaming movies. She would never need cords, a router, or have to ever put discs in it or worry about maintaining her hardware. All she needs is a $30/month subsidized no-contract 3G wireless and 16G iPad and it’s a computer my Grandmother can use.
* Eric and Katie have already played two-player checkers while using the iPad as a portable board between the two of them. Having a portable card/board game device is awesome. It’s hard to play board games on the iPod — Eric and I played Catan on his iPod and it was difficult to see the board — but imagine being able to turn and place Carcassone tiles with your fingers. The board games are exciting! They are!
* My impulses for the device usage are completely different from Eric’s or Katie’s or my Mom’s. This is what opens my eyes: we all have this one device and see different things. I see a platform where I can load synthesizers on it and make music easily without having to bring up a whole rig — and a few are already available. I cannot get a full portable keyboard with an iPod, but a multi-touch iPad is a much different story. Katie sees movies and games. Eric sees PDF and information management. My parents want the netflix streaming.
To sum up:
I did not expect to be as blown away by the device as I am. I was somewhat iffy on it when it came out and didn’t expect to want one or need one. After all, my iPod is a 3rd Generation iPod with an 80G hard drive and a clickwheel. I hold the iPad in my hands and it is not my netbook and it is not my MacBook Pro. It is a device I can hold comfortably in my hand and read comics, or make music, or play games without ever having to worry about having to be the system administrator. It’s something else completely different. It’s a powerful concept.
And yeah, sure, we’ve been trying to do tablets for 10 years and they’ve always failed, but isn’t it neat when someone actually gets it right?
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a Mac cultist, but I use an Ubuntu phone and an Ubuntu 9.10 netbook. I dislike Windows on the computer but you will take the Xbox360 from my cold dead hands. I like things that work more than loyalty to a company or a brand. Apple makes things that work. So does Google. If Microsoft wants to play, then perhaps they should make things that work because blue screens are no longer an option.
* Puzzle Quest!
** I will talk more about what industries I see growing out of the iPad tomororow. I have some serious thoughts on this topic but I am still digesting.
*** As a proud owner of a Droid — which I love — I know there are apps that run tiny and great and apps that need room to breathe. Human Interface design is important, folks!
The Internet in 1969
Apr 2nd
I don’t have much to amuse you all today so for your entertainment I present you a fine video: the Internet as imagined in 1969. It’s not as far off as you would think…
Google vs. China
Mar 23rd
Is anyone else following this story?
Google has redirected google.cn to point at their Hong Kong servers which far less restrictions on search results. I am not clear on the law differences between Hong Kong and Mainland China but apparently this was a major slap in the face to China. The Chinese are pissed. The Chinese retooled the Great Firewall of China to post-filter the results coming from google.com.hk.
This has major business implications for American businesses in China. I have to admire Google’s stance. But I have no idea where this is going to go. The Chinese aren’t going to appreciate the big, fat middle finger and Google is going to lose buckets of money. It looks like a lose-lose proposition to me.
We’ll see.
How To Destroy Physical Evidence
Mar 10th
How to destroy physical evidence: Eat the drive.
In a bold and bizarre attempt to destroy evidence seized during a federal raid, a New York City man grabbed a flash drive and swallowed the data storage device while in the custody of Secret Service agents, records show. Florin Necula ingested the Kingston flash drive shortly after his January 21 arrest outside a bank in Queens, according to U.S. District Court filings.
Maybe there’s a rule for getting away with the evidence by ingesting it in the new Leverage RPG. Although the hospital trip and having it manually removed from one’s GI tract is a little harsh — unless the data is that awesome.
Stuff on My Droid
Mar 4th
I have owned the Droid for a few weeks now and it is conforming to my lifestyle. A few apps have stayed on, a few apps have bit the dust, and a few I like very much. Here’s today’s Quick Roundup of Droid Toys ™ that do not include “phone,” “calendar,” or “email”:
1. Remember the Milk. I finally signed up, and paid the $25/year fee to, Remember the Milk. So should you: easy to use task lists, multiple lists, and shared lists. The free mobile Droid app integration complete with running task list widget on the main page is fantastic. Double click, click the box next to complete, and it automatically syncs with the website. It’s especially powerful with shared lists.
2. Google Listen. I am fairly meh on podcast software because I use iTunes and my iPod and the original version of Google Listen was a horrible piece of dreck. But the new, upgraded version is very nice and very powerful. It has good search features, list management, subscription management, download only on wifi, automatic stream, and manage Listen subscriptions through Google Reader.
3. Seesmic. I haven’t tried any other Twitter clients on the Droid but Seesmic has features I want: twitpic integration, maintains my “last read” point so I can easily find my place and scroll through an hour or two of tweets, easy reply, easy retweet, and easy private messages.
4. Google Maps and Google Navigator. Google Map support is, unsurprisingly, spectacular on the Droid. Google Navigator is a bit strange to use in car mode but it is a better GPS than my tom tom in a pinch.
5. Weight Journal. For $0.99, it will chart your weight! It sounds stupid but knowledge is power and the ability to watch one’s weight allows one to moderate one’s daily intake of calories accordingly. And as soon as I started using it I saw a very small but steady decline in my weight…
6. Pandora radio. Pandora just got an update that improved it considerably because before it was dropping the connection constantly. I am still not certain why it insists on playing all Beatles songs on my Radiohead station but it has found some interesting music for me.
7. Netcounter. It tells me how much bandwidth I am consuming. That’s it. It’s a handy metric to have.
8. ConnectBot. Yes! An SSH shell on my Droid! Sure I have to use the pull out keyboard for it but it is an honest to freaking god full color term on the Droid in itty bitty teeny weeny type. AWESOME.
9. ShopSavvy. Open it up, scan in an item, get prices and reviews. I have used it on games that looked dubious and came back with nothing but poor reviews. It has already saved me money.
10. WeatherBug. Don’t leave home without it. It gives me a constant update on the temperature outside.
Stuff I have that I like and will keep but don’t use so much:
- ElJay, an LJ client.
- Yelp!
- Flickster
- Evernote
- Facebook client
- Google Goggles
All good, recommended apps. I’m just not hitting them as hard as my above top-10.
Fear Inc.
Mar 3rd
A very nice essay about US Fear culture from TomDispatch called Fear Inc. It is a nice analysis of the 9/11 that never ends, the US fear culture, and who profits.
Newsweek is running a similar sentiment. Maybe the news media has gotten their teeth on a newer, and more interesting, story: how we have all been spent into bankruptcy by make-believe fear mongering.
Droid In Practice
Feb 16th
The droid has gone on the road and so far it is overwhelmingly successful:
- Google Maps showed me that traffic was special and stupid in downtown Silver Spring because no one has ever heard of plows or salt. It’s too close to DC for sanity.
- The dock works great and now my droid has a continuous source of power to slurp. It is not intrusive or obnoxious and only took a moment to get used to.
- Pandora radio streams fine without skips or jumps over the 3G in normal/low bit setting with no noticable loss of quality but I am a little nervous about usage stats even though I have an all you can eat/unlimited package. I have a perfectly functional iPod so I will move back so I can listen to Radiohead albums* but having it as an option is nice. Also, the Radiohead Pandora station keeps thinking I want to listen to Beatles songs which is slightly odd.
- Twitter works fine in the dock. I have managed to finagle a twitter display on my droid when it is sitting in the dock.
Overall, the droid continues to perform As Advertised ™. I have not have a crash or a hang. I haven’t had any issues with it at all which surprises me because all Technological Toys ought to suck. I’m not sure what to do with one that doesn’t.
Now, I have had apps hang but I have Advanced TasKiller which just kill -9′s an app and allows me to restart it without any major issues.
* Really, do I listen to anything else?**
** Yes, but my play rates on Radiohead are disgustingly high.
Paranoid Android
Feb 15th
For the last year I have been limping along with a Blackberry Storm. At the time, it was the best that Verizon had to offer in smartphones. But even with several OS updates it had serious problems:
* After the last OS update the phone was covered in Java errors.
* Only a small number of apps could be launched at a time and they stayed resident in memory until the phone crashed, about once every 18 hours.
* The camera did not work. Period.
* Gmail was POP3, not IMAP, so my mail account and phone did not stay in sync.
* It only downloaded apps to resident memory meaning only a very small number of apps could be downloaded and updating/patching an app meant more memory and a whole phone reboot.
* A very small number of apps actually worked and simple apps like Weatherbug crashed the phone.
* It was exceptionally difficult to use a dialpad during calls so doing simple things like navigating a phone tree was nearly impossible.
But it made calls, ran Google Maps, got twitter, and got my email, so in general it was okay although I had taken to call it “my fucking Blackberry.” Complete with very plasticky phone casing that did not survive bumps or drops well, it was not holding up. It was an exceptionally beta product.
Eric decided for Valentine’s Day to get me a new phone. It came down to Motorola Droid or the Palm Pre because on the East Coast it is either Verizon or Pain*. I ended up rejecting the Palm Pre for several reasons:
* I am not convinced Palm, as a company, will be around tomorrow, let alone in 2 years when it is time to get a new phone.
* The Palm Pre has even less app support than the Blackberry Storm.
* I have a Palm Tungsten and it drives me crazy to the point where I have abandoned it except for Quicken.
* My mom has a Droid.
The last one was a surprisingly important reason to get a Droid. We went over to the Verizon store which has turned into DROIDTOPIA and the sales guy wanted to ensure that it was “the right phone for me.” He was confused when I told him I wanted a phone that could get my email, get sports scores (March Madness yo) and make calls and how hard it is to get all three but I had read on the Internets that the Droid did this. The Palm Pre and the Blackberry Storm2 were relegated to sad little back corners of the store covered in cobwebs and forgotten, unloved. Thus I got a Droid.
Funny thing is, I love this stupid little device. I have a great and expansive love for Motorola hardware because it feels big and heavy and powerful and it never, ever breaks. Our Motorola-made phones live long after their expected lifetime — Eric has my RAZR3 and it’s still perfectly fine. But that’s not really it. The droid:
* Gets my mail via IMAP so my account stays in sync;
* Gets sports scores;
* Makes phone calls.
It’s the holy grail device! It does the three things I ask of it! It does a bunch of other things to, like ssh out to a shell and give me a full color xterm in itty bitty but very usable type. Get on WiFi at home. Present an awesome version of Google Maps with automatic traffic overlays**. Sure I had it launch some of the bling apps like Flickster because why not. I’m using:
- Seesmic
- Gmail
- Google Maps
- Google Star Maps***
- Connectbot
- Weatherbug
- Yelp
- Evernote
- Facebook
Of course, for me, the big win was when I hooked it via USB cable to my Ubuntu 9.10 HP Mini netbook, dragged a movie over to it and it played flawlessly. From Ubuntu! Once it has dropbox it will be awesome.
Sure I’m sad that I cannot have an iPhone but this seems like the next best thing. Maybe now I will be a little less annoyed at my array of gadgets.
I feel sort of bad. I spent my entire life criticizing Microsoft-heads for their unquestioning Microsoft-worship of All Things Microsoft and here I am pumping money into Google. Maybe I am still futily wanting a monorail out of it.
* Of course if the iPhone was on Verizon it’s no choice at all.
** The Storm gave me this, too, but it would often crash the Storm.
*** If you do backyard astronomy this app seriously rules.
Why I Broke Up With Firefox
Feb 12th
I had a long love-affair with Firefox.
I never liked Internet Explorer at all. It was too dowdy. Not flashy enough. Dull. Feature-free. Lacking in essentials like tabs (which it eventually received.) Tired and corporate. Firefox, which sprang from Netscape like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, was hot and sexy and fast. It rendered pages at speed. It introduced blessed, glorious plugins like AdBlock and No-Script and Firebug. It was the first with tabs — how did we live before tabs?
But Firefox had a hidden addiction, an actual disease. It was addicted to memory. At first it was a fun high and then slowly it would consume all the resources on a machine. Soon the high wasn’t for fun, it was just to maintain — I had to use Firefox because it was better than the alternatives but it kept crashing my machine. Eventually I could have three tabs max open if I wanted to do anything else. And woe be if I needed a browser and a memory or CPU-intensive application open simultaneously!
Firefox was stripped of all but essential plugins but yet it still brought my machine to its knees. And I was full of woe, because I like to use my machine for things other than the browser. We will not speak of the unspeakable slowness of Firefox upon the Netbook, for it was embarrassing.
Then came along Chrome with a whole new set of web browsing guts.
Sure she was a little unsteady at first. Crashed. Didn’t render things right. But then she got flying straight and I could open 20 tabs without it breaking a sweat. Chrome didn’t have plugins and, on the Mac, didn’t have a bookmark manager, but it still rendered pages at lightning speed without crashing my machine. “My,” I thought, “maybe this Chrome thing has something to it.”
And then the updates came out. A bookmark manager. Plugins. Adblock. Stability. It can open a whole raft of things at once. A dozen tabs takes as much memory as 1 tab open in Firefox. If one tab went haywire with javascript closing it did not bring down the whole browser or the whole box. And it is fast. So very fast.
I sucked up my pride and, after many years, I broke up with Firefox and switched to my primary browser to be Chrome. It runs on the Mac! It runs on the Ubuntu Netbook! Acceptably fast! Amazing!
I feel a little dirty. But it is time to move on.
As for Internet Explorer, she’s been looking okay with her new incarnation but she still lacks plugins, she’s slow, and she’s a closed universe. She’s still very corporate and likes to wear a suit but she’s rapidly becoming the ultimate also-ran.
More Snowmageddon and Facebook
Feb 10th
It is 10am just south of Baltimore, MD and the snow is coming down horizontal. Snow typically does not fall horizontally. I cannot see the neighbor’s house out the window. The news says we are going to get about 6-8 more hours of this. The trees around my house seem okay but I can see a few trees down across the street. The winds have picked up — I have heard reports of 40mph to 60mph in the region. I don’t know how many more inches we’ve received but the huge snow piles look all eerie and soft.
This storm is worse than the last storm. The last storm the snow came down in huge mounds. This storm comes with ice and sleet and winds. The snow has swallowed up the world.
Since I am a winter storm shut in I have spent some quality time with Facebook. I got the new UI update and, as far as I can tell, it breaks the service. What I want from a social networking feed is:
- People’s status and pithy comments
- Links
- Pictures
I also want it in the order it was posted with no cares for “most popular” or “most linked.” Very simple. This seems impossible for the Facebook UI team to deliver unless one is willing to go through convoluted steps to configure the thing and even then the configurations don’t take. I spent time combing through the help files last night but I could not find a satisfying way to set up what I want and thus it is a complete UI FAIL. Facebook Lite seems to deliver that up “sort of.” It is better than the main screen. I don’t understand the algorithms and the interface with the three columns is ridiculously cluttered. It just is not very good for what I want, need or desire.
I basically want a LiveJournal friends page. I want to see:
- People’s posts
- In the order they were posted
- With the ability to filter into groups
That’s all! Anything else is noise. There’s a reason why things like RSS feeds and Twitter work: filtered, updated, in the order they were posted. Simple!
I’m objecting to the Facebook Dictatorship. I do not like my information presented to me in the way Facebook decrees regardless of my desires. I prefer my information in a more democratic style where I can pick and choose and order the way I wish and see what I would like without the need for overwhelming reams of javascript. I prefer my Internet a genteel anarchy full of LOL Cats, not walled off communities with a psychotic HOA who keeps moving the trees around and telling me we can only park in most popular first order.
Maybe I’m too old for Facebook. Or maybe I am fleeing the Orwellian universe of Facebook for a simpler world. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
(You can Facebook me if you’re desperate but I do not link back to people I don’t know. You’re better off with my twitter, a service I rather do like. Yes, well, shameless plugs.)
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