Why I Don’t Buy Digital Movies

With the availability of iTunes and other digital video services, I hear a lot of people talk about how they don’t buy DVDs any longer.  I hear things like “I don’t want to take up space with all of those cases” or “my kids destroy DVDs” – which make sense, but at the same time I can’t bring myself to give up my physical media.

For me, though, digital video distribution (DVD?) plays a supporting role rather than the primary role in building my video collection.  I don’t purchase movies digitally – I buy the discs.  Almost always Blu-ray discs, actually, since normally when I watch movies they’re being projected on a 100” screen, and DVD can fall apart at that size.  So do streaming services, to some degree, as well, but this isn’t the reason I choose not to invest in digital.  It’s more basic than that.

The main reason is that I don’t trust that these services are going to be around in ten years.  And I don’t want my investment to be lost.

History already tells us that we can’t rely on these services, no matter who is backing them.  Several big players have already tried and failed, including Wal-Mart and Target.  And when they fail, you lose what you’ve bought.

I know what you’re thinking… that Apple’s iTunes isn’t going to go away.  Maybe not.  At least not now.  But can you actually believe that Apple, if they’re still around in 20 years, is still going to be supporting a service that old?  They don’t support any services more than a few years old now.  There’s just no way that they’ll actually still make your movies available to you that far in the future.  Technology changes too fast.  Twenty years in the technology world is an eternity.  Very few tech companies make it that long. 

Owning the discs ensures that I’ll be able to watch them 10, 15, or more years in the future.  Even if (when) manufacturers stop making Blu-ray players in the future, the players I own today will still play those discs moving forward.  Yes, we’ll see improvements in picture quality with new tech like 4K and HDR moving forward, but Blu-ray is pretty good – it’s virtually the same level of quality currently projected in your local theater – and many movies have actually been shot in HD-like resolution, so in those cases a higher quality version usually doesn’t even exist.  And unless you’re sitting really close to very large screen, newer technologies won’t even provide any additional discernable picture detail. (Though HDR, if it catches on, has the potential to improve things considerably.)

The other big reason I still buy discs is convenience.  I don’t want to be without a way to watch a movie if my Internet goes down, I’m travelling somewhere where I don’t have Internet access, or it isn’t fast enough to stream a movie reliably.  Maybe in 5-10 years our Internet access will be more reliable and high speed will be more ubiquitous, but I just can’t count on it.  And will the streaming service you’ve invested n still be around at that time?  There’s no way to know.

That said, it isn’t like I don’t use digital video services, because I do.  They’re just my backup.  Most movies I buy come with a code to unlock digital versions.  And if they don’t, I’ve really found Vudu’s Disc-to-Digital program to be very handy.  (Tip: If you use the service, do the conversions at home on your own computer, and convert more than 10 discs at a time for a 50% discount.) I can’t convert all of my movies to digital, but I can certainly convert enough of them that I’m generally not left wanting when I want to stream a movie. I’ve got 241 on Vudu right now, so I’ve got plenty to choose from.

In any case, I know that everyone’s situation is different.  But I would encourage you to think about the future when making your video purchases.  Would you care if your selected service shut down in 5 years?  Would it bother you if you lost your investment because they’ve gone belly-up, or choose not to support it any longer?  It’s something to consider.

Best Kept Secret in Technology

Every once a while a technology product comes along which is just an absolute bargain.  And very often those bargains are unknown to the general public.

The one that I want to tell you about today is the Nokia Lumia 520 (or 521) smartphone.  I’m sure you’re thinking, “but I already have a smartphone!”  But I’m suggesting this not as a replacement for your current smartphone, but rather something that is neat to own in addition to your smartphone.  But it would be a great thing to own for anyone who doesn’t already have a smartphone of their own.

Nokia Lumia 520 Nokia Lumia 521

Most of the time when you buy a cell phone you have to buy it with a contract, or pay out the nose for it up front.  Most smartphones, if you buy them outright, will cost $500 or more, and if you don’t pay that out-of-pocket it is figured into your monthly bill one way or another.  The Lumia 520 and 521 are inexpensive (both are easily less than $150) and don’t require you to sign a contract or even activate the phone.  But why would you ever do that?

Well, consider all of the things that people like to do with their phones… browse the web, check for email, listen to music, watch videos, play games, get driving directions.  Imagine being able to do all of that without a monthly payment.  Zero.  None.  No contracts, no monthly payments, ever, unless you want to.  That’s what’s great about these two models of phone.

A few scenarios…

Much of the time when you want to listen to music, it is music you already own – you don’t need an active Internet connection to stream it.  Maybe you have an iPod Touch that you listen to music on.  But those start at $229.  The Lumia 520/521 play all of your music just like the iPod Touch does – and in my opinion does a better job of it.  And they are a lot less.  And with an iPod, if you run out of storage you have to buy an entirely new device.  With the Lumia 520/521, if you run out of storage you can buy a Micro SD Card (up to 64 GB) and pop it in.  The Lumia 520 + a 64GB of storage is less than half the cost of the cheapest iPod Touch.  And it has an FM radio too, which the iPhone does not.

Now say you want directions from A to B.  Yes, I know that smartphones already do that.  But to do that they nearly always require Internet access and a data plan.  Because the Lumia 520/521 runs Windows Phone 8, you can pre-download maps (state-by-state or country-by-country) at home over WiFi before you leave, and store them on the device for use even when you don’t have Internet access.  You get door-to-door directions, like a dedicated GPS unit, for a lot less than a dedicated GPS unit.  And unlike the budget GPS units, it even knows how to pronounce street names so directions are specific – “turn right on Juniper Avenue” instead of “in 300 yards, turn right.”  If you do activate the device as a phone or tether it over WiFi to a smartphone or tablet, you even get up-to-the-minute traffic information, so it can route you around problems.  And I actually believe that Nokia Drive is the best navigation software out there for any smartphone.  It’s fast, accurate, and touch-friendly so it works great in the car, and best of all, it’s totally free.  And since it doesn’t require a data connection, it works in the middle of nowhere when your cell phone won’t.  (Nokia, incidentally, owns Navteq, which easily has the best map data anywhere – easily besting Apple [cough] and Google – and this is where the map data for Windows Phones comes from.)

Watching movies is easy too.  Since you can pop a Micro SD card in, you can store a lot of video for the kiddies to watch in the car.  It isn’t the biggest or best screen, but it’s more than adequate.  And at 800x480 pixels, a lot higher resolution than you’d get from an Android device in the same price range.  Most of those are 320x240 – or maybe VGA if you’re really lucky.

Say you’ve got a kid that is bugging you about wanting an iPod Touch or iPhone to play games on, but you’re not excited about the cost.  These two Nokia phones do an excellent job of playing games.  It’s true that you won’t get the same selection of games you get on an iPod, but you also aren’t shelling out a ton of money for something that is probably going to get lost, broken, or stolen and have to be replaced over and over.  If one of these phones gets lost or broken, it isn’t that big a deal because they’re so inexpensive.


And of course whenever you’re in range of WiFi you get all of the benefits of a smartphone that you’ve come to expect.  It will check your email (best email client on a smartphone I think), it will browse the web (not the best browser, but certainly more than serviceable).  And play games.
So why a Windows Phone?  Well, because in this price range nothing else comes close.  Apple doesn’t make an i-device for less than $200, and anything in that price range running Android is just, well, a downright ugly experience.  The 520/521 might be the slowest Windows Phones out there, but they aren’t slow.  They feel very fast.  They’re certainly a lot faster than anything running Android at three times the price, and faster than any Apple device more than a year old.  And they don’t feel cheap like many similarly priced devices do.  They feel well built so they should hold up to the abuse that you or your kids throw at them.

The only difference between the two is that one is sold by AT&T and the other is sold by T-Mobile.  You don’t have to have an account with either carrier to buy one – just order it from Amazon or pick it up at Wal-Mart.  As of this writing, the Lumia 520 is only $59.99 at Amazon, and the 521 is $119.99.  Again, you don’t sign up with the carrier if you don’t want to.

These two phones are absolutely the best deal on technology out there today.  You get the functionality of a good smartphone at a tiny portion of what it would cost you to get it otherwise.  Nothing else even comes close right now.

The one thing to note is that these phones are locked to either AT&T or T-Mobile.  Which means you can’t just pop in a SIM card from the other carrier and have it work.  If you want to use one as a phone, only AT&T SIMs will work in the 520, and only T-Mobile SIMS will work in the 521.  So if you want to have one as a backup phone, buy the one that is tied to your carrier.  But, again, you don’t have to be (or become) an AT&T or T-Mobile customer.
They also only come with 8 GB of storage.  So you probably will want to consider getting a MicroSD card for additional storage.
Is this the perfect device?  Certainly not.  But for the price, nothing else even comes remotely close.
Bonus tip: If you do happen to be a T-Mobile customer, go to their web site or one of their stores and sign up for a free tablet account, even if you don’t have or plan to buy a tablet.  You get 200 MB of 4G data every month at no cost (and if you go over that data allotment they just slow you down – there are never any overage charges).  You can then use that SIM card in the Lumia 521 and use it to access the Internet on the phone without paying for a phone line – you won’t have to pay a dime in service charges, ever.  You won’t be able to make phone calls (unless you use an app like Skype over the 4G connection), but you can do everything else you'd be able to do on a smartphone, and it won’t cost you anything to do so.

Windows Phone 7

About 3 months ago I bought an HTC HD7 from T-Mobile to test to see if would meet my needs for a cell phone.  They were offering a deal where I only had to pay $99 and didn’t have to extend my contract, and since I had been curious about Windows Phone 7 I decided to give it a try.  I’ve wanted to share my thoughts, but I didn’t want to write a long drawn-out review, so instead I’ll just summarize some key points.

• It’s fast.  With the exception of a handful of apps (mostly games) that take a while to load, everything else about the phone is very fast.  Navigation from one place to another is just fast and fluid.  Compared to the iPhones and Android-based phones I’ve used, my WP7 is markedly faster.
  
  
• I like the interface.  Windows Phone 7 uses tiles on its main screen for launching its core feature set, like making calls, viewing texts and emails, calendar, etc.  Each tile is ‘active’ so it can display information tied to the feature provided by the tile.  So the email tile shows how many emails have come in since the last time I looked at them on my phone, the People tile shows pictures of those updating their Facebook status. The weather tile shows current temperature, etc.  You can create your own tiles, so the people I talk to most have tiles right on the front screen of my phone, which not only makes it easy to call or text them, but since those tiles are active, they are updated with current pictures, status messages from Facebook, and email information automatically.
  
  
• Along with that, the interface between apps is a lot more consistent than you find on other platforms.  Windows Phone 7’s Metro user interface is actually pretty slick, and an awful lot of developers are using it.  I won’t take time to describe how it works, but it is well thought out, and it makes navigation easier than on other phones.
  
  
• The Facebook integration is cool.  Right in my contact list I see status updates and pictures.  Twitter integration is coming in the fall, so we’ll be able to see Twitter updates right on a contact’s information screen (or their tile, if one has been created).  Since Facebook integration is built-in, it’s really easy to do things like upload photos and videos, because you do it right from the Camera app.
  
  
• There aren’t yet a ton of apps.  Fortunately, many of the most popular apps from other platforms are available.  There are some notables that I’d like to have that are missing, like LogMeIn, but there are very good apps for NetFlix, Amazon, Facebook, IMDB, all of the major news organizations, and YouTube to name a few.  The number of apps isn’t huge, but a lot of the more important ones are there.
  
  
• Having Microsoft Office onboard is cool, but I don’t use it much.  It’s still lacking a great way to connect with documents on the desktop if you aren’t using SharePoint.  Connecting to SkyDrive would be awesome.
  
  
• The email feature on Windows Phone 7 is easily the best that anyone is currently offering, especially if you’re someone who likes to use folders to organize your mail, or need the ability to search messages.  Email triage on WP7 is much better than it is on other phones.  It also handles file attachments much better than any other phone I’ve seen.  There isn’t another phone out there that even comes close when it comes to having great email support.
  
  
• Try-before-you-buy with apps is awesome.  There aren’t separate ‘free’ and ‘paid’ versions of apps.  You download one version to try it out (for as long as you’d like) and if you want to buy it, it’s usually a single button click to upgrade.  And upgrading from the trial to full version doesn’t require re-downloading; it just unlocks the paid features, and does so instantly.
  
  
• Xbox Live integration also has potential, but I’m not a gamer, so I don’t really use that very much.  If I were, it would be nice to play against others, or keep tabs on the status of an Xbox game I’m playing at home.  But having Xbox Live doesn’t really sway me at all.
  
  
• Stability.  This phone has never once crashed or locked up on me.  I’ve seen a couple apps crash here and there, but the phone always recovers gracefully.
  
  
• There are a lot of little things that are cool. 
  
  
  • The lock screen shows me how many emails and texts have come in that I haven’t read, as well as my next appointment, so I don’t even have to unlock my phone to see any of that information.
    
    
  • The phone doesn’t require a password to install app updates.
    
    
  • I love having a ‘back’ button.  No matter where I am, I can hit the Back button and go to whatever screen I just came from.  So if I’m reading an email message and it contains a web page link, I can view the page, then hit Back to go right back to the email and continue reading from there.  It works anywhere.
    
    
  • Having a dedicated search button on the phone is cooler than I thought it would be.  Many apps have their own search features, and the search button makes it easy to find it.
    
    
  • The on-screen keyboard is the smartest one I’ve seen.  Unlike other phones, which only offer correction of one word at a time, Windows Phone 7 looks an entire sentence at a time and will correct not only the word you’re currently typing, but other words in the sentence if a correction makes more sense in context.  Some might think this to be not very useful, but it allows you to absolutely fly through whatever you’re typing without stopping every time you make a mistake, letting the phone handle most correction for you.  It still isn’t perfect, but it is a better system than what is used on other phones.
    
    
  • Having a dedicated camera button is nice.  Even when the phone is off, I can press the camera button and the camera app loads instantly.  A second press of the button then takes a picture.  With most other phones, it’s easier to miss photo opportunities because by the time the camera app has loaded, the moment is gone.  On this phone, since Facebook is integrated too, from camera power off to taking a photo to uploading to Facebook is two button presses and two taps of the screen.
    
    
  • Wireless syncing with the Zune software is also nice.  If I’m in the living room watching a movie, for example, I can initiate a sync manually, or just plug the phone into a power source and syncing starts automatically. 
    
    
  • Background syncing is nice too.  Unlike most other phones, when it is syncing with the desktop it is still usable.  There are no visual indications on the phone that it is syncing with the computer.  There are a few restrictions… I can’t play music or install apps while it’s syncing, but everything else is fully operational.  I can still browse the web, make phone calls, play games, or read my email during a sync operation.
    
    
• There are a few things specific to the HD7 that aren’t available on other Windows Phone handsets that I like too.
  
  
  • It has a kickstand in the back to make it easier to watch video.  (I wish it would work in portrait mode as well as landscape, but having one is much better than not.)
    
    
  • I can set the phone to ring louder when it’s in my pocket vs. sitting on a desk.
    
    
  • I can put it in speakerphone mode just by turning it over face down.
    
    
  • When the phone rings, and I pick it up to see who it is, the ringer volume is automatically turned down (the act of picking up the phone turns the ringer volume down).
    
    
• I love having the Zune software on my phone.  Not just because it offers a much better interface than any iPod, but since I have a Zune Pass subscription, I have access to almost all of the Zune music catalog all of the time.  I don’t actually store any music on my phone at all.  If I want to listen to something, whether that be a particular song, album, or even an entire collection by a single artist, I just search for it in the Zune Marketplace and stream it.
  
  
  • What is really cool is using Shazam to tag a song playing somewhere near me, then using Zune Pass to download my own copy without buying it.  Since Shazam is linked to Zune, this is really easy.
    
    
• The built-in Bing search is nice (not quite as feature complete as I’d like to see, but that is supposed to be coming in the fall).  From the home screen, pressing the Search button gives quick access to device, web, local (nearby businesses, etc), and news in one fell swoop.  Searching for “hamburger,” for example, gives me search results for the web (Wikipedia, etc.), local (local restaurants that serve hamburgers, complete with driving directions), and news about hamburger.
  
  
• The built-in voice recognition feature is cool.  It’s powered by TellMe, so voice commands not only allow phone calls (“call Mom”), but web and local searches as well.  It’s essentially the Bing search using voice input.
  
  
• Battery life is actually very good, especially considering the physically small battery, compared to many other smartphones.  After a day of typical use, my battery still has about 50% charge remaining.
  
  
• It uses the Zune software on the desktop, which I love.  The Zune software is an example of how to do media management right.  Beats iTunes in every way (except OS X availability, which doesn’t bug me much). 
  
  If you haven’t tried the Zune software, just do it.  It’s totally free, and you don’t have to have a Zune device to use it.  It’s an order of magnitude faster than iTunes, is much easier to use, is just as feature complete, and much prettier.  If your iTunes library is still in its default location, the Zune software will even find and catalog it for you automatically.  Anyone with an open mind that sees it is very impressed.
  
  
• I haven’t dropped a single call with the phone yet.
  
  
• The web browser is okay.  Not great, but not bad either.  Nearly on par with the iPhone, but each device has its advantages.  Speed of scrolling and zooming is better on WP7.  Overall page download and rendering speed is somewhat better on iPhone.  Font rendering is better on WP7.  Page layout is noticeably better on iPhone.  The browser is certainly serviceable, but not a standout feature.  The upcoming Fall 2011 update for WP7 which will provide Internet Explorer 9 should go a long way in not only bring it truly up to par, but actually surpassing other smartphones in terms of browser features, page layout, and performance.

There are a number of things that drive me nuts.  I REALLY miss some of the features of my previous phone.

• I love the dial-by-name feature that my last 5 phones had.  Nobody understands what I mean until I demonstrate.  But if I wanted to dial myself, for example, instead of scrolling through a contact list to find my entry, or even using a search feature to find my contact information, at the dialer I could just type in my name on the number buttons (3684 for DOUG) and the contact would come up pretty fast, usually within 3-4 digits.  Of all of the ways I’ve ever seen to find entries in a phonebook, this is the fastest by far.  This same feature worked for partial phone numbers too, so if I remember that a phone number starts with 555, dialing 555 would show all phone numbers containing 555.  Windows Phone doesn’t have this feature (nor does Android or iPhone, for that matter).
  
  
• Custom ringtones.  I can set ringtones for individual contacts, but I can’t upload ringtones I’ve created.  I’ve used this feature extensively over the years, creating dedicated ringtones for individual callers using songs that have some sort of connection to that person.  I’ve heard this is coming in the Fall 2011 update for WP7, but haven’t seen confirmation on it.  Fingers are crossed.
  
  
• 5 of my last 6 phones had a feature that would automatically set the phone to Vibrate mode whenever an appointment on my calendar was active.  So if I had an appointment in my calendar from 12:00 to 2:00, the phone would go to vibrate mode at 12:00, and go back to the normal ringer at 2:00.  This one little thing made such a difference; I never had to worry about my phone going off during church, a meeting at the office, while doing sound for a concert, or while I’m on set shooting a video or recording audio in my studio.  Windows Phone (and likewise iPhone) doesn’t have this feature.
  
  
• My previous 5 phones all had great multitasking.  If I wanted an app (any app) to continue running in the background, I just didn’t close it; going back to the Home screen would leave the app running in the background.  If I wanted to close an app, I’d click the X in the upper right.  It was a very simple system, and it worked well.  Windows Phone doesn’t currently allow any third party apps to run in the background.  The coming fall update, thankfully, will allow any app developer to write certain portions of their apps to run in the background.  It’s a much better system than we get with the iPhone, which only allows certain features (navigation, audio, data upload, and VOIP) to run in the background.  The limited ‘multitasking’ of iOS bites me all of the time and it just makes me mad.  I’m really looking forward to having real multitasking again.
  
  
• Having the ringer and sound volume tied together bugs me.  On previous phones I could set the two independently… so my ringer could be set to a single volume level all of the time, and still be able to adjust music volume independently, for example.  I’ve missed more than a few phone calls because I had the phone volume turned down from watching a video or playing a game.
  
  
• While providing a lot of cool new functionality, the voice search is still missing features I had on my previous 5 phones and used constantly.  With my prior phones I could ask it “What is my next appointment” or “What time is it” and it knew what I was asking for and would respond vocally.  This was most useful in my truck, where I have a Bluetooth speakerphone kit.
  
  
• I also had my previous 5 phones set to read me incoming text messages and high priority email messages aloud.  This phone doesn’t do that.
  
  
• I really miss the WiFi tethering feature I had on my last two phones (or Bluetooth tethering from my last 5 phones) to provide Internet access to a nearby computer or other device.  Unlike most phones that offer tethering, the models I’ve had until now did it without a fee from the carrier.  The fall update for WP7 is rumored to have tethering, but I still have seen any official confirmation on that.  And I’ll have to pay a monthly fee to access it.
  
  
• As excellent as the on-screen keyboard is, I loved having Swype on my previous phone.  Being able to select different keyboards for different purposes would be nice.
  
  
• I miss having a dedicated Talk button.  Now I have to navigate back to the home screen and press the Phone tile, which takes longer.  On my last 5 phones, not only could I start a phone call at any time, but in certain contexts, pressing the Talk button would call the phone number of the on-screen contact, or the sender of the text or email message I’m currently reading.  Sometimes dedicated hardware buttons are just the right way to do things.

Other wishes

• I don’t find myself using the front facing camera on my iPod Touch or iPad very often, but it would be nice to have one in a phone for those few occasions where I do.  With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype, I’d be surprised if we don’t see front-facing cameras in future models.
  
  
• I wish it had a dock-style connector so I could easily charge it, get audio and video out of it, and control it with a remote in my truck over a single connector. A Zune dock connector in addition to the now industry-standard micro USB would have been nice.
  
  
• Obviously, we still need more apps.  While there are quite a few to choose from, there are still a few key ones that I’d love to have that aren’t available yet.
  
  
• Not specific to Windows Phone, but T-Mobile’s 3G has slowed down in the last year.  It’s still faster than Verizon’s, but not as fast as AT&T’s.  I would have liked to have access to T-Mobile’s 4G network, but there are only a couple phones with 4G capability, and none are Windows Phone-based. 
  
• The camera, while good, is not great.  Definitely not as good as the camera in the iPhone 4, for example.  But pretty typical for a smartphone camera.

Overall I'm mostly more excited about what Windows Phone 7 can be more than what it currently is.  It is certainly a usable, competitive, and useful smartphone in its present state, but it is going to be a much better product after the Mango update that is supposed to be coming this Fall.  

Buyer Recommendations

So would I recommend a Windows Phone to someone?  For some, yes.  For others, no.  It depends on what you want out of a phone.  If you want the best music player you can get, absolutely.  If the idea of having streaming access to a multi-million song catalog of music all the time, yes.  If you primarily want quick and easy access to email, absolutely yes.  If you need Microsoft Office, again, yes.  If you need multitasking, not yet; wait until the end of the year, or go Android if you can’t wait.  If you need an app only available in Apple’s App Store, obviously, no.  If you’re a Facebook junkie, yes.  If you need a good camera, buy a camera and stop trying to use a phone; great optics don’t fit in something the size of a phone.  If you need WiFi tethering, go with an Android.  If you primarily want to browse the web, WP7 is okay, but some Android devices support Flash.

As it stands now, the reason to buy the different smartphone platforms are:

Windows Phone 7: High performance, very easy to use, very quick access to email, Microsoft Office, Xbox Live, Facebook integration, and access to Zune Pass.  If you want a smartphone primarily for email, WP7 is easily your best option.  Provides the best media playback experience.

Android: Real multitasking, tons of free apps, huge variety of phones.

iPhone: Tons of very good apps in the App Store, only device capable of playing paid video content from iTunes.  iTunes syncing for those who actually like iTunes.

Reasons to not buy…

Windows Phone 7: Number of apps is still low compared to the other platforms.  No multitasking of third party apps whatsoever.  Sync software on Mac has limited capabilities.

Android: Despite all of Google’s efforts, the user interface is still clunky and inconsistent, especially between apps.  Phone upgrades are sparse after newer models come out.

iPhone: Limited “multitasking.”  Still drops calls more than other phones.  iTunes is still an absolute abomination on Windows, not much better on Mac.  And Steve Jobs is still an evil man.

Tech Tip: Extra Life From Your Old Computer

One of the things I did this week was try to upgrade my netbook computer with an SSD (Solid State Disk) drive to make it faster and more bearable to use (more on what that is in a minute… bear with me). It’s always been kind of slow, and I figured if I could put $100 into it instead of buying a whole new one, that would be a good thing, right?  Well, that didn’t work out so well… performance with the SSD was actually far worse than it was with the hard drive that was in it, and the “fix” to make it work right just ended up not being worth it… so I had an SSD without a home.  After playing around with a couple other ideas, I decided to put it into an old Toshiba laptop I’ve had for a little over 3 years because it has always felt a little slow.  And boy, what a difference it made.

An SSD is a storage device that acts like a hard disk drive, but uses memory chips instead of a spinning platter to store data.  Since there are no moving parts, they are very fast.  They’ve been prohibitively expensive until fairly recently (and it’s still expensive to get something with a lot of storage capacity) but they’re finally in the realm of being affordable for the masses as long as your storage needs aren’t extreme.  The SSD I bought was an OCZ Vertex 2 60GB model which I picked up on sale for just over $100.  Since I don’t store music or movies on that laptop, this was plenty large enough.  Windows 7, Microsoft Office, and Photoshop take up around 20 GB total, which gives me plenty of room to spare for anything else I might need to put on it.  The difference in performance was enormous!

If you can work a screwdriver you can install an SSD drive in your computer.  The physical installation is very easy.  The only part that might get a bit tricky is getting Windows installed onto it.  If your computer came with a Restore DVD, or you have an original Windows installation DVD, setting it up is a piece of cake.  If it didn’t, you may want to invest in a data transfer kit (this one is my favorite).

Prior to installing the SSD, my Toshiba laptop would take about 60-75 seconds to boot.  With the SSD it takes about 13 seconds.  That’s logo screen to usable desktop, folks.  While it previously took about 5-10 seconds to load Microsoft Word on the hard drive, it now loads in less than 1 second on the SSD.  Photoshop loads in 6 seconds instead of 40, and web browsers come up instantly.  Launching most programs occurs almost instantaneously.  As I was installing Windows updates (I started with a fresh copy of Windows), I was amazed to see the majority of them install about one per second instead of watching the minutes tick by.  From start to finish (empty drive to installing Windows to installing all available updates) it only took about 30 minutes to do everything.  And this computer is SO fast now… even though it’s over 3 years old and wasn’t that much to shout about when it was new.

Swapping out a hard drive for an SSD isn’t the only easy and relatively inexpensive thing you can do to speed up an aging computer.  Upgrading the memory is also very easy and doesn’t cost that much (the Crucial web site has a scanner that can tell you what type of memory your computer needs).  I upgraded my Toshiba laptop to 4GB of RAM for $35 a couple months ago, and recently upgraded a different laptop to 8GB of RAM for $85.  The desktop computer I built last month got 8GB of RAM for about $80 as well.  If you’re running a computer with just 1 or 2GB of RAM, it’s time to upgrade.  The performance difference can be pretty dramatic.  Not quite as drastic as replacing a hard drive with an SSD, but still quite noticeable.

So how do you know if your computer can be upgraded with an SSD? If it’s less than about 4 years old, the chances are very high.  The computer requires an SATA interface for the hard disk drive, which most computers made in the last 4 years are likely to have.  If you’re working with a desktop computer, you can probably buy a relatively small SSD for your operating system and programs, and use your existing hard drive as a secondary drive for storing your personal data.  That’s the route I’ve gone with the last two computers I’ve built, and I’ve been thrilled with the results.  As far as which model to get, the drives based on the SandForce controller chips currently yield the best performance (the OCZ Vertex 2 series give the best bang-for-the-buck and is available in 60GB, 120GB, and 240GB sizes.  For better performance at a higher cost, step up to the OCZ Vertex 3 series.)

So, long story short, if you’ve got an old computer that is just slower than you’d like and you don’t want to shell out a pile of money to buy a newer model, chances are you can swap out your hard drive with an SSD, and upgrade the RAM, not have it cost you that much, and you’ll end up with a computer that feels better than it did when you first pulled it out of the box.  It will actually feel much faster than a new computer unless the newer one happens to come with an SSD.

Installation of either the SSD or memory is pretty easy, but if you’ve got a hungry computer-savvy buddy, bake him or her a pie or plate of cookies to install yours for you.  You’ll be SO glad you upgraded.

Tip: SSDs perform best under Windows 7 (or the most recent versions of Linux).  Windows Vista, XP, and Mac OS X will run on SSDs, but they do not fully take advantage of the extra performance that SSDs offer.  These operating systems also suffer from a problem which causes writes to the disk to become incredibly slow after a period of time because they do not support a feature called TRIM.  This happens once the total amount of data written to the drive exceeds the total capacity of the drive.  This doesn’t mean you’ll see performance decrease when the drive is full, but after that much data has been written to the drive in total, whether you’re overwriting or deleting files or not.  Since the operating system itself writes to the disk a lot just as part of its normal operation (especially if you don’t have enough memory), you’ll probably hit this limitation a lot faster than you’d think you might.  Windows 7 knows how to properly communicate with the drive to let it know what parts of the drive are no longer being used, so it does not suffer from this problem.  If you’re running Vista or XP, you should also upgrade to Windows 7 if you’re going to run an SSD for the best results.  Mac users, you’re kind of out of luck... you’ll see amazing performance on your SSD for a while, then it will slow down drastically.  And there isn’t anything that can be done about it; it looks like not even the forthcoming OS X Lion upgrade is going to support TRIM unless you buy the computer with an SSD pre-installed by Apple.

Technology

One of the great things about the advancement of technology is that things that were once hard to find become common.

One of the bad things about the advancement of technology is that things that were once common become hard to find.

Being Scammed

I don’t get upset very often, but every once in a while something pushes me over the edge.  I have blogged about this before, but it has really gotten under my skin again.

Imagine the following completely hypothetical conversation…

Government Official: “It has come to our attention that you are driving a 2008 Honda Civic.”

Me: “Yeah, that’s right.”

GO: “Well, it’s my duty to inform you that in four months it is going to be illegal to drive your car.  You will have to dispose of it before that time.”

Me: "What?  Is this some kind of a joke?”

GO: “No joke.  This is absolutely real.  If you continue driving your car after June 12, you will be breaking the law, and will be arrested and fined.”

Me: “I don’t get it.  My car is still new. It only has 1000 miles on it.  It’s working perfectly. And it is totally safe.  What gives?”

GO: “Well, the rules of the roads have changed.  Your car is now illegal… to drive on the road you have to get a new car.”

Me: “Why? What kind of car can be driven on the roads?  How is it different than what I have now?”

GO: “You’ll have to talk to the car manufacturers about that.  There are 6 models that comply with the new laws.”

Me: “And what am I supposed to do with my old one?  Nobody will buy it if it isn’t legal to drive it!”

GO: “Whoa, there!  You can’t sell it.  Selling your car is against the law because it doesn’t comply with new laws.  If you try to sell it you’re violating the law and you could be fined or arrested.”

Me: “So what the heck am I supposed to do with it?”

GO: “There are many recycling programs available.”

Me: “Okay… let me get this straight… I’m supposed to recycle a car which works perfectly, only has 1000 miles, which I can’t sell, and buy a new car just because the rules of the roads have changed?”

GO: “Yes, sir.  I believe you’re starting to get it.”

Sound unbelievable?  Well, yeah, it does.  And it should.  But this is exactly what is happening with wireless microphones in a few months. 

Starting June 12, 2010 it will be illegal to use any wireless microphone that operates in the 700 MHz radio band.  Unfortunately, this includes nearly every wireless microphone manufactured before about two years ago.  And still a pretty large number of mics sold in the last two years as well.  And very much unfortunately for me, every wireless microphone I own.

I have just over a dozen wireless mics that I have spent literally years acquiring.  Some I purchased brand new, others I found on eBay.  Some are for live audio events, others to use when shooting video, etc.  It took a really long time to find a few models that are reliable and have good sound, and even after I found the right ones, it took about 6 years to get my hands on enough for my needs.  Sure there have been plenty of cheap models available, but they have all sorts of problems.  And lots of extremely expensive ones that actually do work well.  But VERY few models in between that work well and are affordable.  I managed to find a few models in that “in between” range and bought up every one I could find.

And now they’re all being made illegal, even though they work perfectly, and in many cases only have a few hours of use on them.

Worse yet, it’s illegal for me to try to sell them.  A handful of manufacturers are offering rebate programs, but not for the models that will work for my use.  At least not ones that I could possibly ever afford.  Since I can’t sell them the only legal thing to do is to recycle them.

Wireless mics are kind of a funny thing.  If you walk into a musical equipment store there will be a bunch available for sale.  But not a single one you see in a retail store is actually worth owning.  Between dropouts, noise, poor sound quality, and other problems, there isn’t a wireless mic worth owning for less than about $450.  The “good” ones start at about $2,000 each… and go way up from there.  Those mics you see on American Idol and other TV shows, they easily cost over $4,000 apiece.  Maybe big television networks or bands on tour can afford stuff like that.  I can’t.  And neither can a lot of other people that need them.

I sat down and made myself a spreadsheet to figure out replacement costs.  To replace the wireless equipment I use regularly, it’s going to cost just under $10,000 for “barely adequate.”  I don’t think that “barely adequate” wireless microphones are worth owning.  To get something that operates at least as well as what I already own, that figure jumps just north of $20,000.  I’m sorry, but I don’t have $20,000 to blow on microphones.  Especially when I already own a bunch that work perfectly.  And these numbers are just for the stuff I use consistently, not to replace everything I already have.

Some of the ones I have haven’t been used much at all.  In a few cases, purchase price divided by hours used would approach $75-100 per hour.  And in nearly all cases I used them for charity or public events, or other events where I was providing my audio services at no cost.  (The number of events I do where I ask to be paid is very small.)  Some thanks I get, huh.

At the time I bought the ones that I have now I had the advantage that they had been out for a couple of years, so used ones would come up for sale on eBay from time to time at a significant discount.  But because this transition to new models is so recent (many manufacturers have just started offering compliant models within the last year, and in some cases, just the last few months) no used gear is available.  So not only is the newer equipment not going to function as well, it has to be purchased at a full price (which is higher than it was before).  No deals here.  Not for a long while.  And many of the compliant models are out of stock and can’t even be purchased.

I know the number of people that are affected by this is relatively few.  But it does extend farther than you might think.  It isn’t just audio guys like me that are being forced to replace our gear.  This includes theaters, schools, churches, etc.  And most of these operate on shoestring budgets (or no budget whatsoever).  If any of these groups bought their wireless mics more than two years ago, they almost definitely are going to have to buy new ones.  Less than two years ago and the chance goes down, but that chance doesn’t go away entirely unless a mic has been purchased in the last 27 days.  Yep, infringing equipment was still available for sale (and quite common) less than a month ago.

If you go to the FCC web site and read up on the issue they really emphasize the need to stay out of the new radio bands being reserved for public safety agencies.  Fine.  I have no problem with that.  My mics don’t operate in those frequencies anyway.  If that was the only reason this was happening, I wouldn’t be affected.  (Well, one of my mics is in that band, but I can replace one without too much complaint). 

The less emphasized part of the transition is the spectrum that was purchased by Verizon Wireless.  So we’re being forced to buy new wireless mics to make way for laptop data cards.  (Which, incidentally, are supposed to detect interference and work around it.  I’m just sayin’.)  If all in this world was fair, Verizon would be forced to pay at least a portion of the costs of replacing equipment it was invalidating because they’re invading what was our turf.  But, this world isn’t exactly fair, now, is it. 

The radio band that we are being moved into has to coexist with television broadcasts.  Yes, the same frequencies that all TV stations were forced into a year ago.  A part of the radio spectrum that is becoming very busy.  Yes, mics were in TV frequencies before, but there were a whole lot more of them available, and fewer stations to compete against.  Things are going to get really messy.

Get this… the most expensive piece of wireless audio gear I own is my in-ear-monitor system.  (You’ve seen them… the earpieces musicians wear when performing so they can hear themselves.)  Mine is a “barely adequate” model (I couldn’t afford a “good” one) that cost me $1300.  It is included in the devices that have to be retired, as it is also in the 700 MHz band. 

The manufacturer offers a “trade-in” program.  I can trade in for the exact same model with a few tweaks inside to make it legal.  And the cost?  Full price.  No discount.  Nope!  If I want to keep using it I have to buy a brand new one at full price.  And according to their web site it is “illegal” to retrofit the old ones, so I shouldn’t bother asking. 

Everything about this whole situation stinks.  And it’s all pretty crazy when you think about it.  If this affected a larger group of people the American public would be up in arms about it.  But because our group is relatively small nobody else knows a thing.

New iPhone

With all of the “I love the iPhone” articles out there (so much for objective journalism) I want very badly to write my own on where Apple dropped the ball with the new iPhone, but I’m going to bite my tongue.

That is all.

The lack of multitasking is a definite deal breaker for serious smartphone users. Battery life, though it is supposed to be better, is still going to be atrocious.  Battery use with the phone is going to remain unchanged.  How about a BIGGER BATTERY? Exchange support is still very much half-baked.  Why won’t they synchronize folders other than the Inbox?  And where is Search? AT&T is the worst decision that Apple ever made.  Thankfully I think they’re regretting it now, and maybe they’ll do something else.  Video editing?  On a phone?  Seriously?  Fix the other stuff first! Tethering is a nice addition, but it looks like AT&T is probably going to charge up the yin-yang for the privilege.  (It is, always has been, and will remain free on my phone.)

Cool Product: Universal Remote Control

With so many electronic devices, I struggled for years to find a universal remote control that actually works with all (or at least most) of my devices that is still easy to use.  I couldn’t tell you how many I have bought, only to despise them a few days later.

A year ago I was visiting my parents, looking for a universal remote that would work for their entertainment system, and decided to try the Logitech Harmony Xbox remote.  (The only things ‘Xbox’ about it are the white color and four buttons that match the A, B, X, and Y buttons on the Xbox controller; it doesn’t require an Xbox to work.)  It turns out, I loved it!  So when I returned home I bought one for myself.  And it worked great for my system as well... it controlled every one of the 14 components in my home theater setup perfectly, from DVD player to projector.  Just a month ago a higher end model went on sale at a fraction of its original price, so I bought two of them: one for home theater, and one for my bedroom. 

The Harmony remotes are different than other universal remotes.  Instead of just being a bunch of remotes in one box, they work on a different idea altogether: using intelligence to control devices based on the activity you are trying to perform.  With traditional universal remotes, you might have to go through a sequence of buttons to watch a DVD:

1. Select TV mode on remote
2. Press Power to turn TV on
3. Press Input button multiple times to select the appropriate input on your TV for your DVD player
4. Select DVD mode on remote
5. Press Power to turn DVD on
6. Press Play to start the DVD

With the Logitech Harmony series, this is reduced to:

1. Press the Activities button.
2. Press the Watch a DVD button.

That’s it!  The remote turns your TV on, sets it to the right input, turns on the DVD player, and starts playing the disc.  It’s much, much easier than using separate remotes or even a single traditional “universal” remote.

Programming the remote is actually pretty easy.  It connects to a computer via a USB cable and you use Logitech’s software to set it all up.  So there is no punching in weird 5-digit codes into the remote to get it working.  Everything is done in an easy step-by-step wizard on your computer.

The remotes do tend to be kind of expensive, but they are totally worth it, and there are cheaper ways to get them.  Refurbished remotes are available online, and you can always pick them up from eBay.  I actually like last year’s line better than the current lineup, so getting a refurbished, old stock, or used model might actually be better (the 720 model I recently got seems to have the best combination of features).

So there you go.  If you have more than a handful of components in your entertainment system, I highly recommend getting a Logitech Harmony remote to control it all.  You won’t have to remember how you’ve got everything hooked up, and don’t have to remember complicated sequences of button presses to control your devices.  The remote does all of your thinking for you.

New MP3 Players

Within the last week I’ve gotten two new MP3 players.

1st: iPod Touch, 2nd Gen

First I’ll start with my new iPod.  My brother was looking at maybe getting an iPod Touch, and since I’ve been considering upgrading mine to one of the 2nd generation models, I sold him my first gen and used that money toward an upgrade to the newer version of the 16GB player.

The newer version is definitely an improvement on the first gen model.  I’ve been somewhat critical of the iPod Touch (blog posts here and here) because I don’t believe (and still don’t believe) that touch screen interfaces work well for control of music playback.  But one of those complaints has been addressed with the newer version: it has dedicated volume control buttons on the side.  This is a huge plus!  Now we can adjust the volume without waking it up, looking at it, and finding the virtual on-screen controls.  If only Apple would add a play/pause button, and buttons for selecting tracks they’ll have a nearly unbeatable device.  But we already know that Steve Jobs hates buttons, so that isn’t going to happen.  Too bad… they’re close to having something great, but their pride is getting in the way of usability utopia.

Other changes over the first gen are the addition of an internal speaker so you can hear the sounds made by games, listen to music, or watch videos without plugging in headphones (this is a very cool feature that should be included on ALL MP3 players), a curved back like the iPhone 3G (thinner at the edges but thicker in the middle than the 1st gen Touch), and support for an external microphone or headset.  That last feature will allow me to use Skype, or to use it as a simple audio recorder.  Nice touches, all, and definitely steps in the right direction. 

I do have one major complaint with it, and that is its battery life.  If I’m watching a video or playing games on it, the battery is dead in a hair over an hour.  I’ve gone through the charge –> use for an hour cycle about 6 or 7 times now and it’s pretty consistent.  If the screen is on and it’s making noises, the battery is only good for about an hour.  At 45 minutes it pops up a warning that only 20% of the battery charge is left, and 15-20 minutes later it dies. I haven’t tested it for battery life for music playback (again, it’s not that great of a music playback device and I don’t intend to use it that way), but for video and games an hour is not good.  Especially considering how Apple advertises it as a great gaming device by calling it the “funnest iPod ever” [sic].  Fun for an hour, then you’re back to playing tic-tac-toe on a pad of paper, making flipbook drawings, and singing to yourself.  In contrast, my 5-year-old PDA will play games or video on a larger, higher resolution display for 3+ hours on a charge, even with all of the wear I’ve put on the battery over that time.

It still has a shiny metallic back, so it scratches VERY easily.  A protective case is a must.  I can’t figure out why Apple won’t switch to a textured back, or coat the metal with some sort of enamel or varnish layer to protect it?  I guess they like having their devices look bad after they’ve been used a while.  Or maybe it’s enough justification for people to buy new ones and they sell more that way.

Other than that, it’s pretty much the same as the 1st gen model.  The web browser is top notch.  The App Store makes it easy to find fun flashlight and fart noise applications.  The ability to read email is also nice.  Audio quality is fairly good, but still lags a little behind virtually every other line of players on the market.  (Apple hasn’t had any serious competition for the iPod line, so they seem to be okay with their audio quality suffering a bit compared to everyone else.)  The screen is bright and sharp, though this version renders the image with a warmer tint than we have seen before, not that this is bad; just different.  As usual, the included ear bud headphones are terrible, and Apple clearly deserves any amount of criticism heaped upon them for continuing to insult our ears; these are literally the worst headphones I have ever heard in my life; nearly anything else is a significant improvement. 

I’m excited to see what Apple has up its sleeve for the 3.0 firmware coming out this summer.  We do know that Bluetooth support is being added to the 2nd gen Touch, so that will be cool, along with a slew of other features that have been missing since day one.  And there should be more welcome goodies in the works with the forthcoming update.

2nd: Another Zune

I have had my 80GB Zune now for almost 18 months.  And I still really like it.  For music playback it is my device of choice.

But, like any hard-drive based player, it’s a little big and heavy compared to the flash memory models.  And I kind of get tired of lugging it back and forth between my desk and my truck just to synchronize it, so I have played around with the idea of getting a smaller capacity Zune to keep in my truck permanently.  I usually listen to podcasts and just a few of my favorite artists, so a small capacity player would work well for around-town driving.

Brent and I were in Best Buy last week and saw that they were clearing out the 4GB Zunes for $80.  I was going to get one but they didn’t have any left in stock, so I came home and tried to find a similar deal on the Internet.  I was able to find a brand-new 8GB model instead for $99 on eBay, with free shipping.  Awesome deal!  So I bought it, and it arrived today.

The one I got was apparently really old stock because the battery was COMPLETELY dead – it hadn’t been turned on or charged at all since it was manufactured in the fall of 2007.  Which means that it didn’t do anything when I plugged it in; it almost seemed like it was broken.  After plugging it into AC power and letting it charge for a couple hours it finally woke up from its coma and I was able to synchronize it with my computer.  First step was to install new software onto it (thank you, Microsoft, for continually adding new features for free!), and then I began selecting the content to copy onto the device.

I discovered something cool about the Zune software while setting this one up.  It lets you connect and synchronize multiple devices simultaneously.  So while I was setting up my new Zune today, my older one was still connected, and the two didn’t conflict with one another.  The software recognized both by adding a second icon for the second device.  That way I could choose what to synchronize with each one separately without disconnecting either by dragging to the right icon.  I didn’t think anybody would even attempt this, because synchronization is tricky enough without trying to do it with two devices at the same time.  Color me shocked and impressed.

My audio podcasts only take up about 800 MB.  I would have consider synchronizing my video podcasts as well, but it probably isn’t a good idea to watch them while I’m driving, so I elected not to include those in the sync.  I then setup two synchronization rules in the Zune software: one to synchronize any of the music I have marked as a favorite, and another rule to synchronize any music I have added to my collection in the last 90 days.  And since its 8GB of storage space is limited compared to the size of my music collection, I also set it to down-convert any high bit-rate audio files down to 192kbps on sync.  Since a lot of my music falls into that category, much of it had to be converted while it was synchronizing, so it took about 30 minutes to copy everything over.  In the end there was about 6.5GB of content copied over, leaving about 1GB of free space.  Nice fit.

One advantage the Zune has over other players is its ability to sync with a computer wirelessly.  This is why I will be leaving this player in my truck… I don’t have to bring it inside to sync it.  Just pop into the menu, select Settings, Wireless, Sync, and it connects to my wireless network and synchronizes my latest podcasts, any changes in my favorite music, and adds anything I’ve added to my collection since the last sync.  At the same time if I had purchased any music on the Zune (another great feature, BTW) it would sync it back up into my music collection.  Very cool.  And if I were to plug the player into a constant power source (or let it sit for a few minutes after finishing a playlist) it would synchronize automatically without any intervention on my part at all.  But I don’t want to drain my truck’s battery when I’m not driving it so I will be starting the sync manually.

Here’s a shocker… I actually like two of the songs included on the device.  It comes with a handful of songs and videos on it from the factory, and I actually like two of them.  Usually anything included like this is, well, not very good, and most of it wasn’t that good, but two songs and two videos actually were.  Huh.

The sound quality of the flash memory Zunes is very good.  With good headphones this Zune sounds excellent; very clear and totally noise free as far as I could discern.  The headphones included with these models aren’t very good, but they are without question better than the ones included with any iPod.  The Premium versions included with my 80GB Zune were a world better than either of those though.  But even the Premium model pales in comparison to either the Shure E3 earphones or Sony MDR-7506 headphones that I use to listen to music.  If you are at all serious about your music, consider investing in a real set of earphones/headphones.  Music will take on a new life when heard the way it was meant to be heard.

The disappointing thing about this player is that it doesn’t have video output capability.  So I can’t hook it to a TV and watch videos that way.  I have really gotten used to and liked that feature on my 80GB Zune (and I wish I could do it on my iPod Touch without dropping a fortune on a special cable), so it will be missed on my 8GB version.

For Music, Get a Zune; For Apps, Get an iPod Touch

Even after the updates to the iPod Touch line, I still feel like the Zunes are better for music playback.  Between having a more functional and easier to use interface, dedicated buttons for controlling playback, and more attention to the importance of sound quality, the Zune line is better for listening to music than any iPod sold today.  Apple has been putting all of its eggs in the iPod Touch / iPhone basket lately, so the rest of the line has been allowed to wither on the vine.  The iPod Classic still has its classic dated and limited-in-functionality interface.  The Nano is okay, but still is limited in its capabilities.  And don’t get me started on the new Shuffle, which is a joke.  The iPod Touch may be more suited to video playback than the Zunes are because of the huge screen, aside from the need to buy an extremely expensive cable to get video out to your TV and what appears to be battery life that is too short for video playback.  For playing games or doing non-multimedia tasks, though, the iPod Touch is in a league of its own for now despite its need to be kept near a charger. 

Being that these are, first and foremost, music players, my current Zune has gotten a lot more use than my iPod ever has, and I’m sure that trend will continue with my newly acquired models.  Which is fine, considering the Zunes seem to be better suited to that task anyway.

Eye-Fi Wireless Storage Card

Note: This post has been edited since it was originally posted to correct what turned out to be erroneous information.   Additions are noted in [brackets] and are italicized, with incorrect information lightened in gray text and shown with a strike-through tag.

This week I purchased an Eye-Fi memory card for my digital camera.  I'm pretty sure nobody reading this blog knows what that is, but many may be interested, so allow me to explain...  It's an SD memory card for digital cameras that also has an integrated WiFi radio which automatically uploads your pictures to your computer wirelessly.  So you don't have to connect the camera to your computer or remove the card to transfer using a card reader.  It all happens on its own, in the background, automagically whenever the card is in range of your wireless network.  Or at least that's the theory.  In practice things are a little different.

I actually received two cards this week.  The first one arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and it worked for about 2 minutes before it just died.  Fortunately Amazon has a great replacement program, so they shipped one out Next Day Air for free.  Because I didn't report the first one as dead until after their Wednesday shipping cutoff it didn't go out until Thursday, so the replacement arrived Friday afternoon.

Since it's SD and my Canon 40D uses Compact Flash, I decided to try the Eye-Fi card out on my old Nikon Coolpix 5200 camera, which does have an SD memory slot.  So after configuring the card, I popped it in, took a few shots... and nothing... they didn't upload to my computer like they were supposed to.  I transferred the card into a SD-to-CF adapter and then into my Canon 40D [the officially recommended adapter has been ordered and is on its way], and it gave an error message indicating the card wasn't usable.  This is looking all too familiar from my experience on Wednesday.  But before trying to do anything else I called their tech support line and the nice woman on the other end was very helpful.  Together we were able to ascertain that my CoolPix camera doesn't supply power to the card when it isn't actively saving a photo, so no photos can be transferred wirelessly at all with that camera.  No big deal; I almost never use it anyway.

She offered me a few tips on how to get the card to work with my 40D, and we ended the call.  I put the card back into my 40D, no error this time.  So I take some pictures.  And they don't show up on my computer.  So I wait.  And wait some more.  Nope, still not showing up. 

I played with the settings on the card for what seemed like forever, and finally I see the popup on my computer screen showing the picture coming in.  But it only transfers 11% of the first picture before it just quits.  Odd.  So I play with it a while longer, and can't get it to transfer anything.  Format the card, take more pictures, wait for a transfer, nothing happens.  Do the same thing again.  And again.  Still nothing.  Re-configure the card one more time, take some pictures, and the first one starts to transfer.  Hurray!  It's working again.  Until this one gets stuck at 8%.  I give up.  So the card goes back into the computer to be reconfigured yet again, and... boom! all of the pictures transfer.  I guess it's sort of working now?

Anyway, long story short, it's got some significant quirks, and some limitations.  Its two most annoying limitations are (1) that it only transfers JPG picture files, yet I usually shoot my pictures in RAW format, and (2) the wireless network it connects to has to be connected to the Internet, even though the pictures aren't sent over the Internet.  While that may not seem like a huge limitation, my plan was to take my camera, a laptop, and the Eye-Fi card with me when I take pictures for photo directories to have those pictures transfer to the computer automatically while I'm still in the midst of taking them.  But 95% of the time when I'm doing that no Internet connection is going to be available.   Not going to work, not even with my wireless travel router.  So that's out.  [UPDATE: As mentioned in the reply to my post below (which looks like it was made by a company official, BTW), the card does indeed transfer pictures without an Internet connection.  I used it today (Sunday 7/27) to transfer pictures for a photo directory project I'm working on.  The only official restriction is that there must be an Internet connection available to configure the card for each wireless network it is to be used on.  With that said, it would be nice to have support for Ad-hoc wireless networks, and for a way to configure the card if no Internet connection is available.  (2) I still found it somewhat unpredictable as to when it would transfer pictures, waiting for between 1-5 minutes before it would start, and found myself having to remove the card for a few seconds periodically to kick start its transfer function.]

The overall idea has merit; being able to transfer pictures wirelessly from a camera to a computer would be very cool.  But the way that the Eye-Fi card is designed makes it nearly impossible to pull off anywhere but home.  And I don't know about you, but 99.7% of the pictures I take aren't taken at home.  They could have made the card work with any laptop with any wireless connection, irregardless of whether the Internet is accessible on that connection, but they didn't.  And they seemed to have botched the implementation at least to some degree even when the Internet connection requirement is met; getting it to transfer was unpredictable at best.  So I'm pretty [somewhat] disappointed in the product; they had a good idea, but screwed it up in its implementation the implementation could have been a little better.  I guess I'll keep transferring [I will still have to transfer] photos the old fashioned way [because it doesn't support RAW files] and wait for something else similar that actually does it right.  This card might be right for some, but it certainly wasn't designed for someone like me [due to the lack of support for RAW formats].

Fun with a GPS

At least fun for me... for others, maybe not so much. But anyway, back to the techie posts...

Last month I got a Dash Express GPS for navigation in my truck and whenever I'm traveling. One of its cool features is its always-on Internet connection, providing up-to-the-minute traffic information, gas prices, and movie listings, but also making searches for just about anything possible since it can pull information from online; it isn't limited to just the database it has internally like other GPS devices.

Another of its cool features is the ability to add custom written applications to the device. This week I found several cool applications, including a White Pages search, so I can just type in someone's name and it will find their address and route me to them, and several local information apps, like population, community, and cultural information. I even found and installed a Twitter app.

Being a programmer myself, and always wanting my toys to do more stuff, I looked into what it takes to create my own apps for it, and it turns out that it's pretty easy. So I wrote three of my own on Friday.

The first is a reverse phone number search. So I can just type in someone's home phone number, and it will retrieve the name and address associated with that number, and map and route to them. Since it was my first app it took me a couple hours to get working. I'm still undecided as to whether I'm going to make it totally public; but for right now I've got about 25 other people that have signed up to use it.

The second one I created is a calculator. (With my two hours of experience with the first app, this one took me all of 10 minutes to put together.) Sometimes I want to calculate my gas mileage and I'm too lazy to pull my phone out of my pocket, so now I can do mathematical calculations on the GPS. It even knows trigonometry, not that I would expect anyone would use it. I made this one fully public so anyone can add it. About 20 people have installed it so far.

The third one, and one that I most definitely will not be making public, is one that will look up the names, addresses, and phone numbers of anyone who lives near my current location. I can either enter a house number (it already knows what street I'm on) or request the information for everybody on that block. I don't see myself using it much, but I will definitely not be sharing it with anyone because of the 'creepiness' factor; would you like someone following you home, pressing a couple buttons on their GPS, and find out your name and phone number? I wouldn't. So that one stays safely under wraps. It was mostly a test to see just how much information I could get for free off of the Internet knowing only a lat/lon coordinate. And it's almost scary how easy it was.

Ultimately I hope to be including some of the functionality of this device into the point-of-sale system, specifically for routing drivers to their delivery destinations, and allowing store managers to keep track of drivers while they are out. I'm working with the guys who created the Dash to see if they can add some additional functionality to make those things easier to accomplish, and so far it looks promising.

It's been fun. How often do you get to buy a consumer electronics device (besides a computer) and create new functionality for it? Not too often I don't think.

iPod Touch 2.0

After a long wait yesterday I was finally able to download the version 2.0 software update for my iPod Touch about 1:00 this morning. I've been at least a little anxious for a few of its new features, mainly Microsoft Exchange support, but the upgrade wasn't available on the morning of July 11th as promised. So I had a long day of repeatedly clicking the 'update' button in iTunes. Finally, 1:00am on the 12th, it showed up.

It took forever to download -- two hours or so. I guess Apple's servers are a bit slammed at the moment. (Side note: what's with the TV shows that came with the download? I didn't ask for those.) But it eventually finished. The frustrating part was actually installing it. iTunes starts by making a backup of everything on the Touch before completely wiping it clean of everything on it, including its firmware and software. The backup went fine, but things went downhill from there pretty fast.

Twenty minutes after it started the process of "Preparing iPod software for installation" it came up with an error indicating that the upgrade had failed. Not good. So I unplug it, hold down the power button for like 4 and a half hours to get it to power down, then turn it back on to find a screen showing just the iTunes icon and a picture of the USB connector. Yep, it's bricked. It's got no software on it, so it can't boot. It's a black & silver $400 paperweight.

I plug it back into the computer and after a couple minutes iTunes sees it and tells me I have to do a full restore. Fine. So I click through to get that started. 30 minutes later the process obviously isn't going anywhere; no indication of any activity on the iPod and iTunes has locked up. Repeat the process from the previous paragraph with the same result.

So I think, maybe it doesn't like something about the USB port I'm plugging into, so I try another. Another twenty minutes, another failure, though the error is different this time. This really isn't looking good. Try again using the same connection, same error. Fail x 5.

Finally I figure the only way it is going to work is to do the upgrade from my Mac. We already know that Apple doesn't write very good Windows software (I think this is why Apple fanboys hate Windows so much; they try to run Apple software on it.), so I copy the upgrade files over to my Mac, launch iTunes, plug in the iPod. iTunes detects it and installs the software (though it takes about an hour). Done! It worked! Whew!

I take it back to my main computer again, plug it in, and iTunes copies all of the content it backed up at the beginning of the process. It's projected to take a couple hours, but it appears to be working. Head to bed to resume the process in the morning.

So now it's finally time to take it for a spin. Since Exchange synchronization is the first thing I'm interested in, it's the first thing I set up. It's a pretty painless process; I just tell it my email address, username, password, and the name of the Exchange server, and boom!!! it's setup. I can read my email, my contacts and calendar are synchronized with Exchange / Outlook / my cell phone, supposedly in real-time. They omitted support for Notes and Tasks, but I don't use those much so not a big deal to me. Also missing is server search so I could pull up any message based on its contents. That I will miss.

So I test it out to see if it really is real-time. I launch Mail, send myself a message, and wait. About two seconds later my cell phone tells me I've got new mail and reads it aloud. At the same time the email pops up in Outlook just like it's supposed to. But it isn't to be found on the iPod. So I wait longer; maybe it just takes a while. Nope. Never shows up on its own. I have to manually refresh for it to show up.

I tried a few other things... delete an email from the iPod, mark it as read/unread, move it, etc., to see if those changes are synchronized back to my Exchange server automatically. Nope. Not a single one of them. Exchange is obviously working right because my cell phone is synchronizing in real-time. It's just the iPod that isn't.

I check a few things, and the iPod is definitely configured the way it is supposed to be for push (real-time) synchronization to work. But it isn't working. Not only that, but I have to manually click on each of my email folders (of which there are many) to see if there are any new messages. It doesn't synchronize anything besides my Inbox automatically. That's way too time consuming and tedious. Honestly, the email feature was working better using IMAP before the software upgrade. This so-called Exchange synchronization isn't working at all the way that it is supposed to. Big disappointment.

UPDATE: I did my initial Exchange testing at about 11:00 am this morning. At 3:45pm I received the first real-time synchronization alert, and mail showed up in my iPod's Inbox as it should for the first time. I'll keep an eye on it to see if it continues to work.

EDIT: I also just noticed that HTML messages aren't supported with Exchange. I thought we had moved on from 1995?

So then I open my Contacts to see if they are synchronized with Exchange. Yep. They sure are. A minimum of two copies of each one. For some of them there are as many as 6-8 copies of each. But I don't dare delete them, because that will probably delete the original off of my Exchange server. So not cool. In addition, some are showing up first name first, others are showing up last name first. It makes them difficult to find, because there is seemingly no pattern to which way they are listed. Calendar synchronization actually seems to be working right.

EDIT: Calendar synchronization was working properly. Now I have multiple copies of all of my appointments too.

So I move on to the App Store and try out a few things there. The facebook application works pretty well, but it isn't any where nearly as functional as their dedicated iPhone web interface (which also seems a tad faster too). It has also crashed on me three times, one of which rebooted and locked up the iPod completely. Hopefully they'll remedy that with an upgrade. The eBay app is actually pretty cool and snappy. I also paid for and downloaded MooCow's Band and Super Monkey Ball. Band is fun to play with, but it gets tiring because it only has a few instrument sounds; every song you create with it is going to sound the same. It also lags quite a bit from the time you press a note until the time you hear it play.

Super Monkey Ball has pretty fast animation, but the graphics really aren't very good (computer games in the mid 1990s had better graphics, and virtually everything on my cell phone looks better) and it is nearly impossible to control with the accelerometer-based tilt interface. The first few levels were passable, but I got to a level where there are no guardrails on the side of the platforms, so if you tilt even a little bit too far you roll right off. It's also difficult to know where "center" for the control is, because it certainly isn't when the iPod is parallel with the ground, so it's hard to find. And there is noticable lag between the time you move the device and when the monkey starts moving in the corresponding direction. With time I bet someone could get it, but it's really difficult to master. The part that makes it hardest is that the game keeps rotating the display, and you have to instantly react by changing the angle of tilt control to match, or you're instantly rolling the poor monkey in the wrong direction. With the delay that's hard, and since "flat" isn't the center position for the control it's quite difficult to coordinate the movement properly.

I tried a couple other apps and quickly determined that they were pretty much garbage; obviously things written either in a very short time or by inexperienced developers. So for right now, there aren't a whole lot of compelling titles in the App Store, though I'm sure that is soon to change.

The other app I tried is the iTunes remote control, which works as advertised. Since I actually don't use iTunes to listen to my music (since it won't play 85% of it) it's of limited use to me.

Music and video playback are pretty much the same as before. The complaints I had with playing music still apply. Video playback is still quite good. There's still no copy-and-paste, the interface between different apps is still inconsistent (different colors, backgrounds, different button coloring conventions, many apps don't support landscape, some are configured within the app, others through Settings), and the former smooth scrolling through long lists is now choppy. And I really really miss the "back" button found on browsers and many cell phone interfaces, especially when you get into the App Store. For example, after you download an app you have to click on several buttons to get back to where you were. On a positive note, the scientific mode of the calculator works, and in scientific mode its accuracy is much higher than available before!

Overall I'm kind of disappointed. The Exchange synchronization isn't working at all like it is supposed to, to the point of being next to worthless to me, and most of the offerings in the App Store are lucky to be classified as "mediocre at best." And since I'm using an iPod Touch instead of an iPhone I had to pay for the upgrade. Yes, I'd do it again, but I was hoping for more for my money.

At least I'll have a device to fully test any iPhone applications I choose to write, if I ever do. Though I'm kind of doubting that will ever happen because Xcode (Apple's tool for developing applications) is so primitive in comparison to the development tools I'm using on Windows it would be like taking a step back in time 15 years. And as great as my life was 15 years ago, I'd rather not have to repeat it.

I still think Apple hates me.

The Arrogance of Science

I don't know why this has really caught my attention the last little while, but it is beginning to get under my nerves.  What I'm talking about is the arrogance of some in the scientific community, especially those in publicly visible positions with loud voices.

I read an article the other day about evolution, intelligent design, and creationism.  The author of the article attempted to take a neutral stand through most of the article, but the then at the end basically proclaimed anyone who believed anything other than evolution, as currently accepted by science, to be an imbecile.  The following discussion (if it can be called that) in the site's forums was quite heated, with supporters of all theories vocalizing their beliefs vigorously, with maternal insults being more the norm than the exception. 

Another topic that keeps coming up is global warming.  It's pretty trendy right now.  Those voicing their opinions about the subject tend to be very loud and in-your-face, proclaiming that anyone who doesn't share their beliefs is just plain wrong.

I'm not here to get into a debate of evolution vs creationism or to debate the existence of global warming, or its potential effects, but rather to call to attention the arrogance of those making these claims.

In both cases, the people making claims (claims going either direction, though those supporting the more scientifically accepted beliefs tend to be much more common) are unbelievably arrogant. 

The problem here is that we can't really be completely sure of anything in the scientific realm.  None of us was around to witness the creation of the Earth; science is going off of evidence and theories, so to state evolution as absolute fact is kind of a feeble argument.  We don't know with 100% certainty whether global warming is real, let alone whether it is manmade or not, because we can't really even begin to understand how the planet's climate works.  The trouble is that in both cases we just don't have enough knowledge to make a definitive call one way or the other, so assumptions have to be made, and when assumptions are made things can go very wrong.  Yet many, many "scientists" claim to be able to state absolute fact. 

If we have learned anything from history, it is that science is constantly changing.  The scientific principles held as fact at any point in time are later disproved by some new principle that comes along in the future.  People in the 15th century knew that the Earth was flat, yet this was proven wrong later on.  Scientists in the past believed that objects in motion tended to slow down "because they got tired," yet that was proven to be false as well.  The Sun once revolved around the Earth too.  So how can we, even with our "advanced technologies" now, proclaim anything to be scientific fact?  Weren't the technologies of the time considered "advanced" as well?  And won't science 50 years in the future look upon things differently than they do now?  Even scientific principles from 20 years ago are being disproved or rescinded all of the time (anyone remember Global Cooling?).  Isn't it a little arrogant for those making these claims to say that they know these things with certainty?  We just don't have all of the information that it takes to make decisions, and we can't ever assume that we do.

Everyone is free to make any claim they wish, but it ought to be done with a caveat: "as far as we know," or "as the evidence suggests," and those making them ought to be willing to at least hear out their ideological opponents, consider their arguments, and even consider that there might be answers other than those on the table.   People have the right to view others as morons if they wish, but for new policies and laws to be put into place based solely on one side of an argument, where the opposing argument is dismissed without being entertained, is just asinine. 

Starting a Technology Podcast

My friend Brian Westfall and I have technology discussions pretty regularly. We talk about computers, game console games, home theater, among other things. And we talk a lot. Sometimes the discussions actually get pretty deep too.

So recently we decided that we were going to turn some of our conversations into podcasts that others can download and listen to. The result is called "Tech Squawk."

We hurried to record the first episode before Christmas, hoping that some of the stuff we recorded might be of value to someone. It's just a few days before Christmas now, but maybe somebody will find out podcast interesting.

The official web site for the podcast is http://techsquawkpodcast.podshow.com/. For anyone using an RSS aggregator, the feed address is http://www.podshow.com/feeds/techsquawkpodcast.xml.

Like I mentioned, the first episode was rushed, just to get something out there in time for the holidays. Which also means it wasn't edited down to a more concise size. So plan on taking up about 90 minutes if you want to listen to the whole thing.

We'll get to our normal weekly schedule after the first of the year. And future episodes will be much shorter. Hopefully less than 30 minutes, because longer podcasts just get a little dull.

Enjoy! And thanks in advance for any feedback!