Category Archives: technology

Traveling lite…

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I spent twelve days on the road over the last two weeks and it seems like a good point to make some observations on living with the iPad now that it’s had time to become a regular part of my routine. The short version is that it holds up remarkably well – Perhaps even better than expected. While I was on the road, I shifting seamlessly between the iPhone and iPad. I had even packed my MacBook Pro, but didn’t ever have cause to turn it on. For someone whose sense of wellbeing is almost defined by having a connection, that’s saying something.

On the more nuts and bolts level, battery life continues to exceed expectations and will last all day under all by the heaviest use. High portability meant that more often than not, it was riding shotgun in the truck when I went anywhere and was subject to not-quite-extreme heat when left there for a few hours at a time. I’m not exactly hard on equipment, but it’s held up to everything I’ve asked it to do and probably has oomph to spare.

The only complaint I have after a few months use is, not surprisingly, the fingerprints. Given a little OCD, they could drive a guy just short of ’round the bend. Keeping a screen wipe within reach is strongly advised. Even at that, the prints don’t really detract all that much from the screen… unless you’ve already made up your mind that it’s going to bother you. I still wouldn’t want to rely solely on a tablet for text heavy blogging or major productivity, but for knocking around the interwebs, occasional forum posts, and keeping your library with you everywhere, it’s hard to beat.

Location, Location, Location…

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Usually, I’m first on the boat when it comes to rolling out new and interesting tech. I’m still on the fence, though with Facebook’s new “location” service (and its cousin Foursquare). As much of a technophile as I am, I’m feeling a certain level of unease with the whole idea of mobile tracking. I mean I’m as much of a Facebook whore as anyone, but wow, that’s some serious self revelation.

Aside from the gee wiz factor, I just don’t know that I’m seeing that much utility here. Maybe if I were a 21 year old bar hopper, but as a typical suburbanite slob, I’m missing it. Tracking is pretty new on the mass consumer side of things and I know it’s been a real revolution in industry, so I’m guardedly optimistic that it will prove to be something just as powerful in the hands of the individual. Until then, I’m glad It’s an opt-in kind of thing.

A message to Comcast…

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Dear Comcast,

We’ve had a long history. I’d love to say that we’ve stayed together because of your amazing products or first class customer service, but we both know it’s only because you’re effectively the only game in town in terms of “high speed” interment service.

All I wanted to do today was swap out my older-than-dirt cable modem for a brand spanking new model. Nothing fancy, nothing extreme, just trading one piece of hardware for another. Like everything else in the universe, I assumed that this would just be a plug and play experience… But you know better don’t you? You know how important it is that I call you and wade through your “automated customer support” menu before sitting on hold for 25 minutes waiting for a real person to come on the line so they could tell me that I needed to be transferred to someone in your “internet department.” The best part was then spending another 15 minutes on hold so I could manually provide a serial number to you.

This is the year 2010. Are you seriously going to tell me that somewhere deep in the bowls of the Comcast corporation there isn’t a computer that could have remotely interrogated my shiny new modem, figured out where it was on the planet, and tied it to my account? I mean it’s not like I’m standing up a supercomputer or a server farm over here. All I really want to do is be able to connect my MacBook Pro to washingtonpost.com and Facebook. Just seems like something we could have made happen without going through an hour long process. Of course you know better than I do, as technology is new and frightening.

I’m glad we’ve had this time together, because it’s reminded me just how much I’m looking forward to kicking you all the way to the curb as soon as I have half a chance. Have a great weekend.

Your friend,

Jeff

Techno-fail…

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I’ve been noticing more and more in the last six months that I’m getting alot of lag in downloads and even in regular web surfing. Gaming? Fuggidaboudid. It was one of those things I’ve been meaning to get into, but hadn’t quite found the time to attack. Status: Annoying, but not critical. Until a few days ago when I was downloading two patches and trying to read the Post. That’s when Safari actually stalled out. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Stalled out and stayed that way for the better part of five minutes. In internet time, that’s effectively forever.

Knowing that there was an issue somewhere, I started running through the normal tech support stuff. Ran the diagnostics, cleaned up files, rechecked and cleaned connections, ran speed tests, visually inspected the hardware… and that’s when it hit me. Sitting quietly in the back of the “TV nook” was my cable modem; the same cable modem I bought when I was living in Virginia in 2003. Yeah, 2003. Somehow in my grand plan for tech replacement, I missed the modem completely. Probably because it’s one of those ultra-reliable always-on kind of things that I’ve never needed to think about, at least until it started choking the rest of my tech.

I think I can safely say that when it comes to the widgets connecting your house to the interwebs, seven years and two generations has been a bit too long to wait between upgrades. A trip to BestBuy seems to be in order today.

Reader…

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I’ve liked books since I was a kid. In 5th grade when the other kids wanted to play kickball, I had my nose buried in a biography of Douglas MacArthur. Seems I could never walk by a book store without at least popping in for a look and I would never have dreamt of leaving the house without a least one book stashed somewhere. Unfortunately, stashed is usually where they would end up staying. It would take me months to read a book carving out five or ten minutes at a time to focus on it.

I’ve been hesitant, even hostile, to the idea of using an e-reader. In fact, I blasted the concept pretty roundly right here not so very long ago. The historian in me couldn’t quite come to terms with the idea that books could be anything other than words printed on paper and bound. It seems that, at least in this case, I may have been misinformed.

I’ve bene regularly using the Kindle app on my iPad for the last few months and my book consumption has been way up. As much as I hate to admit it, it just makes reading more convenient. Since the Kindle app crosses devices, I can start a page on my iPad and then finish the same page on my iPhone without missing a word. The app records where I stopped and picks up there regardless of what device I happen have in my hand. Add in over-the-air downloads from Amazon and it’s pure convenience… and we all know how I feel about that.

The e-reader has basically replaced the printed book for me. I don’t anticipate that the books filling shelves in the office will ever go anywhere, but I definitely won’t be adding to their number nearly as often. Of course some titles aren’t electronic and some may never be, so I suspect that there will always be room in my heart for both print and electronic books, but for sheer ease of use, I’m officially leaning way into the electronic camp. If you’re a reader and haven’t given it a chance yet, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Catharsis…

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Sometimes it’s important to revisit the lessons of the past. I learned a long time ago that killing zombies was a truly cathartic exercise. “Zombies” is mostly a catch all phrase for anything that falls into my field of fire in World of Warcraft. For the better part of a year, I played at least an hour every weekday – some days a little longer, some days a little less. Through it all, shooting fire from my digital fingertips at my undead enemies, gave me a venue to get it out of my system. I got away from it mostly because it became more of a time commitment than I was willing to keep up with. In the interests of not losing my mind completely, it’s probably something I should get back to. Then again, I’ve been kicking around the idea of picking up an xbox and expanding my gaming horizons a bit. With everything else around here that needs kept up with, I’m not sure either of those is actually a good idea. Having a slight compulsion towards neat and tidy makes sitting around playing games feel like something I shouldn’t have time for, but the benefit of not stapling people to their cubicle walls may make it the lesser of all possible evils.

Lord of the Slides…

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There are few things as terrible as showing you have more than a passing competence and even the most marginally technological task. Once you have crossed that boarder between the digital world and the one that exists only on paper, you have doomed yourself to endless days of PowerPoint. Create, review, edit, review, edit, review, edit, review, publish. It will drive the tempo of your day and haunt your dreams in the darkness. It is the very beating heart of what is wrong with us.

No matter how good you are, no matter how skilled you are at filling the white spaces, by the time you distill a complex idea into three or five bullets (it’s always an odd number, by the way. An even number of bullets looks awkward on the page), you’ve eliminated its identity as a complex idea. Now it’s just two syllable words on a screen dumbed down to the point where even the slowest guy in the room can draw some conclusions. It’s perhaps the most depressing bit of technological innovation ever.

Just the thought of the three slide sets sitting on my desk right now waiting to get punched up almost makes me physically ill. The lesson here is to shoot for mediocrity. Do too much and no one ever leaves you alone. Do too little and you’ll be the first of the dead wood to fall. Find that sweet spot in the middle and you can ride out a career with as few problems as possible. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, never under any circumstances let anyone know you can build an awesome deck of PowerPoint slides.

500 Million…

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Facebook has 500 million active users. That’s half a billion unique users per month. For someone whose site rakes in 40-50 unique users on in its busiest month, that’s a staggering number. That’s something like 1/13 of all the people on the planet or a little less than twice the population of the United States. It’s a ridiculously big number. Get it?

Of course it also means that Facebook has become, essentially, a utility… like the phone company. And in tech, there’s nothing sexy about being a utility. That’s what leads to my next question… What’s after Facebook? Growth can’t drive on forever simply given the relatively finite number of people on the planet. Is there a next big thing out there somewhere that early adopters are streaming towards? If there is, I haven’t found it yet. Then again, early adopters can be annoyingly difficult to pin down.

Perhaps a more important question altogether: at what point does government make the determination that a company life Facebook is “too big to fail” or rather “too big to be unregulated.” Like most users, I like my interwebs government free, thanks. But I can easily see a not too distant future when Uncle becomes so concerned about corporate protection of personal data that they start passing helpful laws that “look out” for the people and their privacy. Given the choice between a government that wants to protect my privacy and a company I can opt out of giving information to in the first place, I’ll throw my lot in with the corporate fat cats every time. Sure, a corporation can do some nasty things with your data, but ultimately, if I’m not satisfied with how I’m being treated, I and the other 500 million users can vote with our feet.

I tend to think that people forget that business stays open only through the good graces of the people who purchase their products or services. When enough of those customers are displeased, the business model adapts to the new reality or it is starved either in the consumer marketplace or by displeased shareholders denying it capital. That’s an overly simplistic explanation, of course, but you get the point.

There’s so much of the power of the internet and interconnectivity that remain untested, but I think it’s safe to say that organizing in the cloud is the next logical step in the internet evolution. This milestone for Facebook is a good indication that the world is finally becoming comfortable with tech… if not the bleeding edge, at least the basic consumer type. This is progress. Let’s hope we manage not to derail it by applying 19th century governance to 21st century issues.

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Hands on…

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The first thing I thought when iPhone 4 came out of the box was how elegant the design was compared to the previous three iPhones. In keeping with most of Apple’s other products, excluding iPad, the new iPhone fits right into the same industrial design family. I mean it. This thing looks so good that even I don’t want to run out and put a case on it… and I’ve got serious paranoia about unnecessary phone nudity. Design features aside, it feels like a remarkably sturdy build in your hand, if a touch heavier than you think it would be. No complaints at all about design or build quality. Overall, iPhone 4 feels and looks like a very solid product.

iPhone users have gotten use to the fact that we sacrifice battery life to get alot of functionality. While it isn’t an epic improvement, I’ve been rather impressed with battery life so far. After five hours of heavy use – and I mean non-stop switching apps, moving things into folders, setting up several email accounts, and basically poking every button I could find – the phone is at 53%. That’s pretty respectable considering even with iPad doing some of the heavy lifting this morning, my was under 35 % after five hours of moderate use. Not ground breaking, but a definite incremental improvement.

I should have probably led off with this, but the screen is probably something that needs to be seen to be believed. It is smooth as silk and renders graphics beautifully. Colors are deep and rich and it seems you can zoom in basically forever on text and not lose fidelity. Truly the display might be the big “wow” for this phone. likewise, the new processor and increased memory make iPhone 4 very responsive to inputs. So far today I haven’t seen any hang ups or lag at all. Add that with the upgraded camera and it’s a real win. I’ve taken pictures with the phone today that are getting dangerously close to the quality taken by my actual camera.

Finally, there’s the upgraded OS that deserves alot of the credit for making iPhone 4 what it is. iOS4 delivers alot of the features that users have been waiting for – folders, basic multitasking, unified inbox (I’m still waiting on personalized notification sounds, Apple), and a laundry list of other small improvements. I should probably spend alot more time talking about the OS, but, and I hate to say this, “it just works” so I haven’t really spent all that much time thinking about it.

Ironically, I have spent no actual time using my new iPhone 4 as an actual phone (unless you count texting as a phone function). Honestly, I don’t use the phone that much, though I understand there have been some marginal improvements in call quality. Likewise, I haven’t used the front facing camera yet other than to switch it on long enough to determine that there was, indeed, a front facing camera. There are a host of other features I either haven’t found, don’t feel like commenting on, or are basically just “settings” type changes. You can be sure there will be plenty more comments as I spend the next few days living with the phone and getting a better feel for its personality.

For me, the bottom line: My name is Jeff and I endorse this product. If my personal seal of approval isn’t good enough for you and you’re still on the fence about iPhone 4, take a trip to AT&T (God help you) or your local Apple store in a few weeks and see one in person before you rule it out. I think you’ll be pleased. I know I am.

Finding a place in line…

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I’ll be doing a live blog this morning from the Apple Store in Memphis. Sure, I could have ordered for home delivery, but I actually enjoy the festivities at the store on release days. With a reservation, standing in line isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s become part of my summer routine. It’s a good day to nurture your inner geek. More to come after I’ve stopped for coffee and checked out how things are playing out at the store.

5:20: arrived at Apple Store. Wow. Not like other launch days where I got here an hour early and was 20th in line. I’m probably 200th in the “reserved” line. The walk-up line snakes out of sight in the other direction. Does that make me one of the lucky ones. Looking like the potential for a long morning here.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a shot if the parking lot… And at 5:40, there are definitely no other stores even thinking about opening yet.

6:30 – About to do the window reveal at the store. Can hear the cheers inside the building. Curtain drops… And predictably the crowd goes wild.

6:32 – seems like I’ve lost the content posted around 6:00 – the short version is: the ambulance showed up for a geek who was overcome, Memphis news is reporting live about a bunch of Anglos standing in line in the suburbs, and there is no parking anywhere in the mall lot. Good stuff.

6:59 – about to be open for business. The end of both lines now goes around behind both wings of the building. For the record. It’s a big building

7:03 – and we’re open for business.

7:30 – and we’re moving right along. I’ve probably moved half the distance to the store now, which isn’t awful considering volume. It’s awfully slow going for the other line, but I admire their optimism. Word from someone who just came out of the store is that activations are “going pretty slow,” a phrase that makes me more than a little nervous.

7:50 – Maybe I spoke too soon. The line hasn’t moved in 20 minutes. Not good.

8:18 – Looks like 45-50 people still ahead of me in line, but the number behind me keeps getting longer. Easily 200+ in the reserved line now, but it appears that the tail end of the walk-in line has wise up and people have started drifting off. Reliable ETA on being out the door is still too tough to calculate.

8:51 – 25 people +/- ahead of me now. Finally made it to the front of the store and back into the shade. Don’t fool yourself, the morning sun in Memphis will peel the hide off ya.

9:30 – front of the line. The look on the faces of those who didn’t preorder is priceless. See below:

9:33 – heading inside. That’s it from the launch in Memphis. I have a few stops to make on the way to the house, but there’ll be more updates once I’m all synced up.