Back in July, Emma had a one week horse camp in Delta. She absolutely loved it, I’m not sure I’ve seen her get as excited or interested in anything quite like this. I’m not sure if or when we will return to the stables, as we haven’t quite yet won the Lotto 6/49.
Check out the determination in Emma’s expression below. When she wants to do something, she can really put her mind to it.
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| From Horse Riding |
This post falls under the category “dumbest thing evah.” Well, the post isn’t that dumb (I don’t think) but what it describes certainly fills this description. I was at the store with the kids, waiting in line at the check out. There were a pair of people ahead of me buying a bunch of stuff, including a new backpack. As is common, everything was getting packed into plastic bags. The kicker was when the backpack was also placed in its own plastic bag. The fact that neither purchaser nor checkout person saw the folly in this was astounding. Why a person needs a BAG to carry a BAG, I’m not sure I’ll ever know or understand. My kids didn’t have any problems seeing the dumbness of it either. I guess it’s no big deal but it really makes me wonder. If these people are average citizens in our community, what hope do we have in sorting out societal and environmental problems if the same people in the community have an apparent lack of ability to think critically, or think at all, in their day to day activities? So yes, it’s no big deal but it also frustrates the hell out of me.
I have been borrowing a new Samsung Focus Windows 7 phone for a couple of weeks and thought I would give some thoughts on the device. Overall I would say that the phone is quite impressive. It has the largest screen on a phone that I’ve used. Combined with its extremely thin body, the Focus is not only visually appealing but it is also comfortable to carry and hold.
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| From Just Stuff |
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| From Just Stuff |
As for the OS, Windows has made great strides from their previous mobile offerings. W7 seems very stable, and it has a nice UI which makes it fast and easy to operate. I liked having the large icons on the home screen, as it is obvious to me that most smartphone users typically use a small number of apps for the majority of time. It was easy to jump to other screens to access all of the installed apps.
Speaking of apps, the Windows offerings seem okay. Most of the usual suspects are present, including facebook, twitter, maps, and whatever else floats your boat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the significance of having the largest selection of apps is one of the greatest marketing charades and red herrings that I’ve ever seen. I continually ask people what apps they use the most, and it almost always turns out to be the various social network apps (which are readily available on ALL OS’s), internet browsing and messaging services. Yet we all download apps that we forget about or never use. For what it’s worth, I like how Windows approaches the handling of apps and how different settings are reached through horizontal scrolling. The interface allows for a nice graphical layout with nice big fonts and a consistent and sensible navigation scheme.
With the Focus, it is becoming apparent to me that maybe the single biggest attraction to a smartphone is a nice big, bright screen. If you get that right, then you then just have to get your marketing right. Speaker and mic quality don’t seem to matter, and the Focus sits somewhere between a Blackberry and iPhone in this regard (iPhone being the worse of the three). Battery life is probably about the same as any other 4″ screen with similar processing power. I really liked how well the OS integrated with Google’s mail, contacts and calendar. It worked extremely well. Another nice bonus is that the phone can also sync up with msn/live accounts and access mesh files along with Skydrive documents.
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| From Just Stuff |
Overall I would say that the Focus is a big winner. The hardware is great, the UI experience is very nice, and the integration with google and Microsoft services are useful. I’m not a mobile device expert, pundit or researcher, but I see no reason why the Windows platform will not eclipse Android offerings for the same reason that the iPhone does: they both offer a comprehensive line-up of devices and services based around established home computing operating systems. Microsoft has a polished and slick mobile OS that works with their existing computer ecosystem. I think Windows 8 will be even more interesting as Microsoft moves forward with embedding mobile affordances into their desktop systems.
I just witnessed one of the most amazing sights ever.
My neighbour was on his deck, scraping and cleaning his soffits. Actually, I’m not entirely sure what he was doing. Whatever it was, he decided to use some protection. He was wearing a paper bag over his head, with holes cut out for his eyes. I have no idea if the bag was protecting his eyes, his lungs, or possibly his brain from evil soffit rays. No matter what it was that he meant to do, it was goddamn funny. Funny as in, “The Onion couldn’t even make this shit up” funny. My friend Paul tried to take a picture, but I think the guy realized that people were laughing and pointing at him, and he ran inside.
Being a responsible neighbour, I ducked under the bush so he wouldn’t see me laughing.
About a month ago I started a new term for my masters program. With a big load of reading required from week 1, I decided it was time to try the Playbook again. My desire to “get out from behind the computer” was very compelling at this time. I was already impressed with the Playbook, but I wasn’t sure of its purpose. Within a week of owning it again though, I clearly saw its usefulness for me.
I’m traveling to a clinic every 2nd day, spending time on public transportation. Having the playbook with me has allowed me to read through a high amount of literature for my masters course, and this has saved me a lot of time. As a mobile device, it’s been great. The small size of the Playbook means that I can actually put it in my jacket pocket. This compares to another person I saw reading from an iPad while on Skytrain. Once he got to his stop, he had to pack the iPad away in a small shoulder bag. I suppose other people may choose to carry an iPad in their hand though. The smart UI of the Playbook continues to impress, and is being validated by Apple’s decision to incorporate RIM’s border swipe into their new IOS5.
I’ve also started to take my Playbook to school and use it to present material on the lcd projector. Its small size and weight make it preferable for carrying to school compared to my laptop computer. The screen resolution continues to impress me (1024×600 vs the iPad2 1024×768), and battery life is very good: it lasts all day and I imagine it easily exceeds 8hrs (I’ve never timed it).
As well, I’ve used the Playbook with Adobe Connect for my masters course. Video, sound and mic work great and didn’t present any problems.
I guess the Playbook still struggles in the App department and I continue to be baffled by people’s fascination with apps. While I have installed more apps recently, I almost always use the same 4 or 6. In talking with other tablet owners it seems that this is very common. I think the Playbook currently fails as being a gaming device or platform because of game app availability, so if gaming is your thing you probably want to look elsewhere. It would be interesting to see what tablet users use their tablet for, in percentage of use. I imagine the breakdown goes something like this, from highest use to lowest: web browsing, gaming, social networking (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogging), eReading, email, other app.
I haven’t had any OS crashes, although I have had to restart the browser a couple of times. Other than that, hardware and software reliability has been excellent for me.
For those thinking about getting a tablet, the Playbook offers an excellent alternative to the iPad 2. Each person would have to weigh the importance of size, screen quality, UI and app availability in their purchasing decision. If I was a mildly demanding computer user wanting to replace a desktop, the iPad 2 may be a very compelling laptop alternative. The Playbook may be more interesting for mobile computing or eBook reading, because of its smaller size and better screen. I think the browsing experience is arguably superior to the iPad due to the inclusion of Flash. The expected Java update will heighten this advantage. In either case, I still think the app availability is completely overstated. Again, other than gaming, I think the Playbook offers a very competitive device.
Last week on CBC’s The National, my tweeted question was the first one that the At Issue presented and answered. Watch and listen to their response here.
