My [...]]]>

I’ve had a couple of tiring and rather stressful weeks at work in a row, so I decided to take Friday afternoon off.  Since it was cold (and getting colder) I couldn’t really go for a ride on my motorbike.  Instead, I decided to practice some retail therapy and “upgrade” my BlackBerry Bold to an iPhone.

My BlackBerry is on Rogers, so off I went to my local Rogers Plus store…

The folks at the Rogers Plus store were initially happy to assist with my upgrade.  They had an iPhone 4 in hand, and were going through the usual 30+ minutes of electronic paperwork when we hit a snag.  Apparently, my phone wasn’t quite eligible for upgrade: I was three months early.  Being a reasonable person, I assumed this could be corrected via payment of some sort of fee.  However, apparently that’s not the case.  The Sales guy said I would have to talk to Rogers customer service and get an exception applied, and so I went home and called them up.

The first support person I talked to seemed quite willing to help.  I made it fairly clear that I was willing to cancel my account and accept the fees ($40 a month for the remainder of my contract to a maximum of $400) in order to make the phone switch.  I should point out that this fee is to the end of my three year contract, not the three months difference to get to my upgrade eligibility.   He said I was “very close” to my upgrade date (May, 2011) , but he would have to hand me off to a customer retention specialist.

The customer retention specialist came on the line and more or less immediately told me he couldn’t do anything to help.  I would have to wait three months, or possibly accept early upgrade to some other phone like an Android.  He indicated that they were backordered on iPhones and so could make no exceptions.  I told him “Fine, cancel my account then, you’ve just lost a customer”.  There was stunned silence on the line, followed by “are you sure, Sir?  You could wait, or we could give you this <phone I don’t want>…”

And so, in order to preserve their stock of iPhones for customers they don’t yet have, Rogers lost a customer they already have.  A customer who had paid them over $2,000 in monthly fees over the past 1 year 9 months.  A customer who was willing to sign up for another three year contract worth another $2,000 in revenue.

And I get the dubious privilege of paying Rogers another $400 as I walk out the door.  No skin off their nose, and I’m sure I’m not even a blip on their customer service radar.  But I am doubtful that I will ever do business with them again.  I’m now back on Telus, the service provider I had when I first came to B.C., and I have a nice, shiny new iPhone 4.

Interestingly, despite being royally screwed by Rogers and wasting $400 to exit their contract early, I felt quite good after this was all over.  I got to stand firm on a point of principle, stupid and pointless as it might seem.  And I got a new phone: goodness all around!

The illness has somewhat impacted my “biker geek” adventures, but hasn’t halted them entirely.  I’ve managed to [...]]]>

I’ve been sick with a sinus infection for the last several weeks, and am now mid-way through my second week of antibiotics.  The infection was the outcome of my earlier flu that made my motorcycle lessons a bit more challenging.

The illness has somewhat impacted my “biker geek” adventures, but hasn’t halted them entirely.  I’ve managed to put a bit over 600 kilometres on my Vulcan, 200 of which was accrued on my ride yesterday with my Nephew Shane and his cousin.

We met in Abbotsford and then went up to Lake Whonnock.  Apparently I went there at least once before with Judy and Shane when I was a teenager: I can’t remember that earlier instance, but this ride was definitely memorable.  I was “in the saddle” riding my bike for about five or so hours in a single day, which is about three times my previous daily maximum.  When I got home I was tired, but it was a good kind of tired: my sinuses and cough were, if anything, less problematic.  I’m not sure if I’d call the ride physically therapeutic, but it definitely was worthwhile mentally.

Bulletproof Butt

This was also my first extended ride with my new Draggin Jean motorcycle pants.  These made-in-Australia pants (I bought the cargo style) are partially Kevlar/Dyneema lined, and are quite a bit more comfortable than my armoured pants.  The thing to note is that, unlike my armoured pants, there is no real impact protection (by default) in Draggin jeans: their main safety feature is to protect against abrasion.  The main advantages over full armoured bike pants are comfort and convenience.  Comfort comes from the flexibility and comparative coolness of the fabric.  The convenience factor is that you can wear them in to a restaurant or at work, avoiding the hassle of changing clothes when you stop.

I should point out that Draggin jeans are much more expensive than the pants you pick up at Walmart: it is debatable whether the extra protection is worth four or five times the price.  But I kind of like the idea that I have the same material used in a bullet proof vest protecting my butt….  Note: Draggin jeans will *not* render your backside bullet-proof, just skid-resistant.

GPS for motorbikes

The other “new” thing I’ve been using a lot in relation to my bike is a Garmin Zumo GPS.  This is a motorcycle-specific GPS: some might ask “why motorcycle specific?  Why not use a cheaper “normal” GPS like a Garmin Nuvi, which is half the price of a Zumo.

Truthfully, there is nothing stopping you from using a normal Nuvi or any of the even cheaper GPS devices: you just need to mount them securely to the bike.  The problem is that “normal” GPSes are neither shock/vibration nor water resistant.  From what I’ve read on various forums, normal GPSes mounted on motorcycles are pretty hit and miss: many people report them simply dying after a month or two of use, others seem to be able to keep them running much longer.   Note that if your car GPS fails when it is mounted on a motorcycle, you will probably have voided your warranty.   Personally, I don’t like the idea of replacing my GPS every year or so, nor do I like the concept of it my warranty being invalidated as soon as I attach it to my bike.  It is also worth noting that the Garmin Zumo 660, which is the one I bought, includes a complete RAM mounting kit which, if you bought the parts separately, would cost somewhere around $50.

The Zumo 660 mounted easily to my Kawasaki Vulcan 900 with the included mounting kit.  The only “challenge” was hooking the power cable to the Vulcan’s accessory connector.  The accessory connector on the Vulcan is sort of a giant-sized version of a female blade connector, which kind of looks like this:

Unfortunately, neither the Source (aka Radio Shack aka The Shack) nor my Kawasaki dealer had the right part.  I read on the Vulcan forums I occasionally visit that something called a “bullet connector” would fit into the “rounded” portion of the female blade.  I was doubtful, but back to the Source I went and picked up a package of connectors that look like this:

The male connectors from that set fit perfectly into the connector on my bike, and also support the right gauge of wire (22-16) from my GPS kit.  Even better: there is a spare “hole” in the blade for a connector to fit later.  The downside: the accessory connector on the Vulcan (which is under the seat- apparently there is a second one somewhere under the gas tank) is unswitched (i.e.: anything connected to it will draw power all the time, whether the bike is running or not).  Fortunately, I will always be removing and carrying my GPS with me: the Zumo mounting kit has a quick-disconnect switch and a carrying case for the Zumo itself, so that is something of a no-brainer.

One “fun” thing I never really anticipated when I bought the GPS: it keeps a complete “track” of each ride (from Zumo power on to power off) you go on.  You can download that track from the Zumo into software on your computer.  On the Macintosh I’m using Garmin’s BaseCamp, which is available for free to registered Garmin users.  Basecamp can then send the track data to Google Earth, which can then replay your trip with full satellite imagery.   When I say “replay”, I mean it animates your path with a sort of “low altitude” (700 m) viewpoint.  The first time I did this, it felt like I was flying an ultralight along the same route I had ridden earlier that day on my motorbike.   Very cool, indeed.

A couple of weeks ago my [...]]]>

I am not going to post right away about the unhappy news this week about Bilbo. I’m still digesting that. Instead, I’ll talk about something you may have noticed in my recent Twits (twitter posts), or if you follow me on Facebook. I’ve been talking about a re-awakened interest in motorbikes.

A couple of weeks ago my Nephew bought a motorbike from a friend: a Harley Davidson 1200 Sportster, at a very good price. This tweaked my interest and got me thinking. I’ve been lonely lately despite the attentions of my loving wife, and looking for something. Shane is my best friend out here on the coast, and here, suddenly, was something he was excited about. He booked riding lessons, and started talking about road trips with friends. It sounded like a lot of fun.

The most practical evidence of my current affliction is the fact that I have signed up for serious lessons. Two weeks, nearly 40 hours, of road and classroom training starting April 21. To prepare for those lessons, I’ve purchased an armoured motorcycling jacket and boots. And I’ve researched half a dozen different motorbikes to find the right combination of features that “spoke” to me.

But aren’t Motorcycles dangerous?

Yes, they are: they aren’t nicknamed “murdercycles” for nothing. The statistics show that you are nearly 20 times as likely to suffer “serious injury or death” in a collision while riding a motorcycle as you are in a similar collision in a car. The problem isn’t that motorcycles themselves are inherently unsafe, but that the roads are full of cars. Cars are, in comparison, like armoured tanks: ten times as heavy, covered in sheet metal and steel, and with various crumple zones/impact barriers intended to turn even high speed impacts into highly survivable events. Motorbikes, on the other hand, place pretty much nothing between the rider and an impact. Add to this the fact that most car drivers are blissfully unaware and unprepared for the existence of a motorbike on “their” roads, and you have a greatly increased risk.

The one advantage a motorbike has over a car in a potential accident situation is maneuverability. Like a skilled martial artist, the biker has to master the art of not being where the accident will happen. This means that someone on a bike has to be far more aware of their surroundings and potential risk situations than a car driver. If you ride a bike like you drive a car, you are in for a world of hurt. Defensive driving is absolutely mandatory for a motorcyclist.

I’m a defensive driver, and I have been for years. I also rode a motorcycle for a couple of years, and rode bicycles for a couple of decades: I’m pretty good at avoiding accidents. With the right training, I can reduce the risks of riding a motorcycle significantly. It won’t be as safe as driving a car: it simply can’t be. But it won’t be nearly as dangerous as, say, rock climbing, parachuting, or other “extreme” sports.

Why do I want a motorbike?

To explain my interest in motorbikes, I probably should go back to my youth. When I was about six years old, my brothers had a broken down motorbike that they rode in the alleys near our house. Later Colin had a Honda CB100, and later still Ron and Colin both had various bikes of increasing size and capability. So I’ve been around bikes since I was little, and everything about them interested me. The noise, the “freedom”, the personal space a bike provides- it is much different than a car.

I substituted bicycles for a motorbike when I was too young for motorized transport. My Mom will probably remember me trying to convince her I needed a mini-bike when I was ten or so: I never got one, and in retrospect I’m glad I didn’t. I had a nearly endless series of different bicycles that took the place of that mini-bike. I spent endless hours trying to make several of those bicycles like a motorbike. Sissy bars, banana seats, speedometers, noisemakers in the spokes: whatever I could do to get that feeling, I did. I recall getting on my bike when I was about ten or so, and riding around and around the sidewalks in our condominium complex. I was, in my mind, riding to Red Deer. I think I made it there- about 70 or 80 miles- by riding dawn until dusk over a weekend. Of course, in reality, I was never more than 200 feet from the front door of our condo, but my imagination was strong. Later I had a motocross bicycle complete with shocks and fake plastic gas tank. Truthfully, it wasn’t as much fun to ride as my “mustang” style bike, but visually it was pretty cool.

I went through a series of mopeds in my early teens. The motors on these things would have been anaemic for the purpose of mowing a lawn, but they pushed or pulled me around at amazing speeds of up to 50 km/h: I finally had a motorbike! Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed by my various schools to park my moped, so the primary purpose of a bike (getting to school) was curtailed. Eventually I went back to riding a bicycle, but by this time I upgraded to the more mature 10 speeds popular at the time.

When I was about 19 I purchased a proper motorbike. It was a Suzuki 250 cc bike, a great bike to learn on. I had my motorcycle learners, which technically restricted me to riding only under the supervision of a licensed adult. I broke that rule a few days after I got the license: try finding a person with a motorcycle license willing to spend hours with someone to teach them how to ride. I’m not sure why I didn’t just take lessons: probably the cost was too high. I rode all over- mostly on suburban roads, but fairly regularly to places like my friend Chris’ house. I eventually took my road test… and failed. I think I rode the bike for a year after that, but never re-took the test, and eventually sold it with about 2300 miles on the clock.

Why did I fail my motorcycle road test? My road skills were fine, but I had never, not even once, practiced riding around pylons or the other things that are a mandatory part of the skills test. I wasn’t prepared, and was crushed when I realized I wasn’t going to be licensed. Again, I have no idea why I didn’t think to take lessons after that initial failure. Maybe no one suggested it, and I was too caught up in my disappointment to think about it. Or maybe again I just didn’t have the money.

So, to summarize: I’ve wanted a motorbike since I was six years old, and my failure to get a motorcycle license is one of the few “unfinished business” things from my youth. Its time to address both issues. It could be argued that this is a “mid-life crisis” event, but… I’m not sure if that’s true. If it makes it easier to swallow, that’s what I’ll call it.

What kind of motorbike does a geek ride?

Geeks are just as much, probably more, individual than “mundanes”. So the type of motorbike your friendly geek might ride will vary as much as snowflakes. For myself, I’ve been torn between “highly practical” and the type of bike I’ve always dreamed of. I’ve looked at a dozen or so different bikes, and it really came down to two:

The Practical: Suzuki Burgman 650 Executive

Technically, the Burgman isn’t a motorcycle: it is a “scooter”, which is loosely defined as a two wheel motorized vehicle with a step-through frame and automatic transmission. It is a very large scooter, however: 638 cc, and fully highway capable. The basic feature list:

• 638 cc ~45 hp liquid cooled engine
• automatic transmission (computer controlled CVT)
• 60+ litres of storage
• full fairing with gloveboxes and power outlet
• ABS brakes
• power windshield and mirrors (seriously)

The Dream bike: Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic LT

The Vulcan is a mid-size touring bike. It is a “proper” motorcycle: gas tank between the knees, manual transmission, and no power windshield The features:

• 900cc ~55 hp liquid cooled engine
• manual transmission (like 99% of the motorbikes on the road)
• < 40 litres of storage with included saddlebags
• front and rear disk brakes (no ABS)
• windshield, but no fairing, and no glove boxes

I’ve been debating this with myself for a week, and until a day or so ago was torn. After all of my analysis, I have settled on the Vulcan.

Why not the practical bike?

Re-read the last couple of sentences: I said I was torn. But when I was a kid, the type of bike I wanted was a bike that looked like the Vulcan: I never thought about automatic transmissions, ABS brakes, power windshields, or trunk space. Emotionally, the Vulcan is the bike I wanted, right back to when I was 8 years old and was making “vroom vroom” noises while riding my little bicycle around.

An interesting fact about these bikes: the Vulcan is actually a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than the Burgman. Yes, you read that right: the bigger bike, arguably the more serious bike, is cheaper. My decision, however, had little or nothing to do with money, although that did weigh in to my emotional decision. I’ll admit, the choice *is* emotional, and it is important to note that riding a motorcycle at all for me is not a practical necessity. I can get where I need to go perfectly well with my car. It is an emotional choice all around.

Setting aside the emotional aspects, I’m not going crazy here. The Vulcan is a “mature” touring bike: unlike hardcore bikes, it is comparatively small (900cc vs 1700+cc for the big tourers), liquid cooled, and according to the reviews very easy to ride. It has the “relaxed” riding posture I like, and in a strange way reminds me a lot of my little 250cc Suzuki. Yes, it looks “cool”, at least to me, and probably it is too cool for a geek like me to ride. But one thing a geek has is the ability to buck convention, and to do things differently. In other words, I don’t have to ride the bike you expect me to

What happens once you have the bike?

Once I have my license I’ll take delivery of the motorcycle. The licensing here in B.C. is a little different than in Alberta when I was pursuing a license: there are three stages instead of two. The written test gets you your learners, with three restrictions: supervised by a motorcycle-licensed person, no riding after dark, and no passengers. The second test is a skills test in a parking lot: once you complete that, the “supervised” restriction is removed. I might take delivery of the bike then. I’ll probably put a deposit down soon since the prices right at the moment are pretty good (early in the season).

And once I have my full license, in early May, what then? Well, I’ll ride to work when the weather is nice. But that’s not the main thing. The big purpose of the bike will be to go on small road trips with my Nephew and his friends. I don’t know exactly where we’ll go- mostly anywhere we can travel to and from in a day, I’d guess. Later, after I’ve got a few thousand miles under my belt, I might take a longer trip- perhaps down Highway 101, or how about back to Edmonton to visit? Probably not until next year, but that’s on my list.

That was a decade ago. Somewhere along the line, the combined increases in total storage I had to back up plus the slowness/cost/general hassle [...]]]>

Years ago, shortly before the turn of the century, I had a pretty good backup solution. I had a 20 Gigabyte tape drive that I used to back up all of my storage.

That was a decade ago. Somewhere along the line, the combined increases in total storage I had to back up plus the slowness/cost/general hassle of maintaining tapes mean that my backup strategy broke down. I tried various things in the interim, including network attached storage in 2006, and the Time Capsule for backing up my Macintoshes. The Time Capsule works great, but even with a terabyte of disk storage I am rapidly running out of room- and it does nothing to back up my Windows or Linux machines.

I needed something expandable, multi-platform, fast, and inexpensive. Well, three out of four isn’t bad, I guess…

What I’ve ended up with is a pair of NetGear ReadyNAS devices: a ReadyNAS NVX, and a ReadyNAS NV+. Between them, they currently provide six terabytes of RAID storage (eight terabytes of physical disk). I have configured the NVX as the destination for my computer backups: currently three Windows systems, one Linux machine, and one Macintosh. The NV+ backs up the NVX: once every 24 hours it duplicates any content changes on that device. I will eventually be moving the NV+ to a different room on a separate floor in the house: not exactly “off site backup”, but it will reduce the likelihood of both devices suffering in the event of a catastrophe.

This configuration is actually a lot more “sophisticated” than I originally planned. I bought the ReadyNAS NV+ with three drives initially, and had it all up and working for a week or so. The NV+ performs reasonably well, but it isn’t exactly a speed demon: on a gigabit ethernet wired network, I was observing experiencing data transfer rates to the NV+ on the order of 10 megabytes per second. I did more research, and found that the NVX is the “next generation” of ReadyNAS, using a higher performance processor to achieve transfer speeds of four to ten times as fast as the NV+.

I experienced buyers remorse, and sticker shock when I looked at how much more expensive the NVX is than the NV+: $1,800 versus $500, more or less. Part of this is the fact that the NVX is not available in a “diskless” version- the $1800 NVX includes a pair of one terabyte drives worth about $100 each, whereas the NV+ is an empty chassis. But then I found an NVX for the low, low price of $1,100. I believe it was a pricing error at my favourite supplier, as they had the exact same model of NVX listed at $1,800 and $1,100 under slightly different names. I jumped on the opportunity- my belief that the $1,100 price was an error was somewhat confirmed by the nearly immediate disappearance of the cheaper listing the day after I ordered it. But NCIX honoured the price, and now I had two ReadyNAS devices.

Of course, I had to buy more drives… and a new network switch that supports 802.3ad/LACP, which is a cool feature the NVX supports to combine two 1 Gbps links into a “virtual” 2 Gbps link. My total bill for assembling all of this is probably over $2,500. I have also spent an inordinate amount of time reformatting / re-initializing RAID arrays, installing/configuring backup software, and testing what I’ve built: probably at least forty hours in total. This is far from “plug and play”, but my home network is arguably quite a bit more complicated than what most people have, and I am far more fussy about how things work

The Details

The NVX and NV+ are essentially identical in both appearance and basic function. They consist of a small chassis, much like a small mini-tower PC, with four hot-swappable hard drive bays:

The two ReadyNAS devices side by side

The NV+ with its front open and a drive tray removed (essentially identical to the NVX):

Both devices support Windows (CIFS/SMB), Linux/Unix (NFS), and Macintosh (AFP as well as Time Capsule) file system types, as well as rsync, FTP, and HTTP for accessing the content. Streaming via iTunes server emulation and ReadyDLNA (Windows/Xbox/etc) support is also included for both ReadyNAS models. They also have almost identical user interfaces for management. Both permit “hot” swapping of physical drives, and various methods to grow the storage capacity without disrupting the active storage.

The differences between the two boil down to two things: processor architecture and network attachment. And these two things combine into one main advantage for the NVX: performance.

The NV+ uses an older (SPARC) processor technology and provides a single Gigabit ethernet network connection. The NVX is based around a multi-core Intel processor and includes two Gigabit ethernet connections which can be configured for redundancy or load balancing/teaming. The NVX also can be configured to provide iSCSI virtual hard drive support, meaning if you have a computer that supports iSCSI you can natively format and boot off of a partition on the ReadyNAS NVX as if it were a physically attached hard drive. But the main thing the NVX provides over the NV+ is performance: in some reviews it is rated as the fastest consumer network attached storage device available, with maximum speeds pushing up close to 100 MBps (i.e.: full Gigabit ethernet speeds).

In my limited and anecdotal testing, I have been able to consistently achieve 40-50 MBps using my ReadyNAS from a Windows 7 computer. This is between four and ten times as fast as the NV+ and compares favourably to the speed of a hard drive physically installed in my computer. Copying a 500 MB file to the ReadyNas NVX takes something like 12 seconds: blindingly fast for a network attached device. All of this extra speed has meant that I don’t hesitate to copy files to the ReadyNAS like I may have in the past. I even migrated my entire iTunes music library, about 800 songs totalling something like seven gigabytes, to it.

Other miscellaneous factors/observations to consider

• Both ReadyNAS devices are fairly noisy. Despite the claims of being “whisper-quiet”, they are louder than my microATX cube
• ReadyNAS devices run Linux. You can even install a patch (which may void your software support agreement) that allows you to “log in” and access the Linux command prompt; if you know what you are doing, you can make all sorts of interesting changes to the configuration
• • Note, however, that these are *not* high performance computers. I would be very cautious about any thoughts you might have regarding, for example, using the ReadyNAS as your web server
• Expanding capacity once you have filled all four bays requires some planning. Example:
• • If you have four 1 terabyte drives, your total capacity is 3 terabytes (3 + 1 for redundancy).
  • With the NV+, you can replace individual drives with larger capacity drives, but until all four are replaced the total storage will be limited by the smallest drive in the array
  • With the NVX (XRaid2), your total capacity will increase after upgrading just two of the four drives
• The NVX is black, and the NV+ is silver. I prefer black

As a side note: if you format drives in an NV+, they are not transferrable directly to an NVX- you have to reformat/reinitialize them first. I also experienced a problem when I “hot removed” a drive from the NV+ and tried to re-insert it. The NV+ registered it as “dead”, and the only way I was able to get it to work again was to perform a factory reformat of the NV+ (losing all of the data/configuration stored). This is not exactly “normal” behaviour- usually, pulling a drive from the NVX/NV+ while it is running and re-inserting it later will result in that drive automatically being reformatted and resynchronized. It isn’t clear exactly why this didn’t work in my test: you can read my forum posting and consider my experience as a “your mileage may vary” warning.

Conclusion

The NetGear ReadyNAS family is a good choice for a home office or small to medium sized business: more or less any situation where you have several (neither a single computer or hundreds) that you want to provide network available storage for. Although the ReadyNAS is comparatively easy to configure and is well supported both by the company and via their public forums, it is a complex product with a vast array of options and features. I would not suggest it for someone who has a hard time hooking up a network switch or installing a new version of Windows. And I would steer a new purchaser towards the ReadyNAS NVX: it is a more expensive alternative, but the performance difference is, in my opinion, definitely worth it.

One key thing to remember: storing your data on something like the ReadyNAS, despite the data protection inherent in the standard RAID configuration used, isn’t “back up”. An effective back up strategy requires multiple copies, with consideration given to disaster recovery (e.g.: off-site backups).

Even so, I plan on buying one when [...]]]>

Apple ended months (for some people years) of speculation today by finally announcing the upcoming release of a tablet computer, the iPad. Like pretty much everything Apple releases, there is an overwhelming amount of hype surrounding the device, and many “true believers” are disappointed by what the device offers.

Even so, I plan on buying one when it becomes available. I thought it would be appropriate to explain my rational on the theory that my friends and family may doubt my sanity more than usual as a result.

What is the iPad?

The iPad could be described as a really big iPod Touch with optional 3G (mobile internet) connectivity. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t help much if you have no idea what an iPod Touch is. The other description that you will see applied is to call it a “tablet” computer: however, it is quite different from traditional Windows-based tablets, beginning with the fact that it doesn’t run a full desktop OS. Similarly, it is kind of the same size as a netbook, but with a touch sensitive display in place of the keyboard.

None of these things really stack up very well in terms of describing it. So perhaps explaining what it does would help. It can browse the internet with a more or less full size (9.7″ 1024×768) display, built in home wireless (802.11n WiFi) connectivity. You can read and create email messages and, with optional software, work on spreadsheets, documents, or presentations. Photos can be downloaded, viewed, and edited. You can hook a keyboard up to it wirelessly via Bluetooth. It comes with 16, 32, 04 64 GB of storage. You can watch movies, listen to music, read books, and subscribe to various magazines and other periodicals. It has a full colour display and ten hours of battery life, meaning you can use it to watch movies on reasonably lengthy flights.

The iPad is “fully” compatible with the 100,000 + applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch- it runs a special version of the same operating system, so this makes sense. It doesn’t currently multi-task like Windows does but, if you are familiar with the iPhone / iPad Touch, that often doesn’t matter much as many things can still happen “at the same time” (kinda multi-tasking, but not quite). The price will range between $500 and $1000 depending on the storage and options you select.

Why would I want one?

The obvious answer is because I love gadgets, and am a geek. For years I have chased the “ultimate” personal portable device. I own an original Apple Newton, a couple of Palm devices, an iPaq (Windows CE) device, an Irex Iliad, a Sony eBook reader, and a BlackBerry. I also own two laptop computers. Each of these devices has taught me something, and some have become treasured parts of my day to day life. Yet still they aren’t quite “right”, and so I continue seeking: purchasing the iPad is an obvious extension of this lengthy quest.

I can imagine a number of ways I would use it. There are a lot of times when the BlackBerry isn’t adequate for what I want to do on the web, but the MacBook is overkill. When I’m wanting to check something on the web quickly while watching TV, or need to reference photos I took of a clock mechanism while I’m working on it later, when I’m on vacation, or read my Internet feeds while on the… chair: all of these are circumstances would be a good fit for the iPad.

Before the announcement, I set out several features I wanted to see before I would buy. First, I wanted a price not much more than $1000. Secondly, I wanted the ability to use a wireless keyboard. Thirdly, it needed more than four hours of battery life. Finally, I wanted it to be high enough resolution with a large enough display that I could comfortably read web pages. The iPad hit all of these requirements and surprised me in the price arena: it only costs $1,000 in a fully maxed out configuration. If I don’t need so much storage and forgo 3G networking, I can get a decent configuration for a couple hundred less than that: by Apple standards, that’s downright cheap. And the ten hours of battery life is a very positive feature.

Things that bug me

The foremost flaw with the iPad for my purposes is the way they have packaged the 3G wireless Internet option. You can’t buy an iPad and add 3G later: you have to buy the feature from the start. This has two impacts: first, I have to decide to buy a feature I may not use, but might want at a later date. Second, because of how international licensing and approvals work, even if I decide I want to commit the extra money I won’t be able to buy the 3G version in Canada until likely six or more months from now. If they made 3G available as a plug-in feature, both of these problems would be eliminated.

The other issue with the iPad is the same one I have with pretty much all Apple portable products: the lack of a user-replaceable battery. I really wish someone could convince Steve Jobs that lacking this feature isn’t a “plus”, and in fact constrains the utility of every portable device they sell. Not having a replaceable battery means that you can’t ‘refresh’ the device with a new battery when the battery life expires: at least not without either sending it away for several weeks for “factory replacement”, or risking opening the device and doing it yourself. It also means that you can’t carry a couple of spare charged batteries in your bag for “on the fly” replacement. The lack of a replaceable battery isn’t a show stopper, but it surely is irritating.

Neither of these irritants will stop me from buying an iPad, but they will reduce my satisfaction in the process. And both irritants have no practical reason for existing other than a slavish adherence to certain design rules that fail to impress me after several years of observation.

In conclusion

The iPad isn’t earth changing, revolutionary, or astounding. Like most of the things Apple has produced, on the surface and in view of “bullet point” features, it has been done before. There have been tablets, e-readers, netbooks, and personal media devices of various sizes for years now. But what Apple has proven is that they have a gift for packaging functionality and wrapping it in a user interface that goes far beyond the feature list. From what I’ve seen, the iPad continues this history, and it appeals to me on several levels.

If you are curious what I mean by Apple being able to go far beyond mere bullet points via their user interface skills, check this quick video demoing the multi-touch UI and its responsiveness

The actual details of the travel are not that interesting to me at the [...]]]>

I’m organizing my electronics, clothing, and sundries for our trip to Nova Scotia. The plane leaves at around 7:30 PM tomorrow, and we arrive in Halifax at about 6:30 am or some similar ungodly hour- I’m only vaguely aware of the actual itinerary.

The actual details of the travel are not that interesting to me at the moment. The important stuff, of course, is what to take and what to do when we get there.

What have I got on my inventory list? It starts with my cameras. Yes, two cameras: the 35 mm Canon Rebel for when I feel like lugging it out, and my pocket-size Sony Cybershot DSC-T300 digital for the rest of the time. These are accompanied, of course, by various chargers and cables, plus the extra lens for the Canon. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten into video, so the camera collection ends there.

My Macbook Pro is coming along, so I can download photos from the cameras and, should internet access be available, upload them to share as well as keep up with my email. Also in the gear category is my Sony PRS 700 eBook reader, pre-loaded with two books I haven’t read yet. And I have the eLibrary software installed on my Mac so I can download another book or two if I run out of stuff to read. The final gadget in the collection is a new Garmin Nuvi 855 GPS.

I also bought a camera/computer backpack to load all this stuff in, and my BlackBerry Bold to keep me connected. There is no question in my mind that I am taking more stuff these days than I ever would have imagined a decade or two ago.

Where is all that “digital convergence” crap people keep telling me about? Yes, I could cover all of the basic functionality here in one device: my BlackBerry or a similar smartphone. But a smartphone is “barely adequate” at a lot of things- an iPhone or BlackBerry takes crappy pictures, does a hardly passable job as a GPS, and makes a crummy eBook. These convergence devices are okay in a pinch, but they are full of unacceptable compromises for anyone who is even moderately picky. The displays are too small, the keyboards cramped or non-existant, the lenses and image sensors pathetically blurry and poorly engineered, the GPS maps and antennas iffy.

And I hate compromise when it comes to technology. So, here I am packing a backpack that would probably cause a hardened soldier to grunt with effort when heaving it to their shoulder. As for what we are doing when we get there… we have an itinerary, it involves lots of driving around, a sailing tour on the Bluenose II, and I am hoping plenty of “down time”. Who wants to bet I will only get a handful of pictures and won’t log in more than a couple of times with my MacBook… oh well, at least I’ll be prepared.

The progress of robotics over the last few decades has seemed fairly slow to me. Robots today at their best seem to shuffle or stumble along like zombies, their movements more scripted and controlled than dynamic or lively. I watched a video today, however, that makes me feel like some real progress is actually being made.

Here [...]]]>

The progress of robotics over the last few decades has seemed fairly slow to me. Robots today at their best seem to shuffle or stumble along like zombies, their movements more scripted and controlled than dynamic or lively. I watched a video today, however, that makes me feel like some real progress is actually being made.

Here is what I watched… and be aware that this is a robotic appendage reacting in real time to visual and tactile data, *not* a strictly scripted series of movements.