Category Archives: Gadgets & Toys

Magic Trackpad: Quick Review

Posted on by

Took Apple long enough to freaking ship it, but it got here today, after having ordered it the second I found out about it Tuesday morning. A couple of points.

This thing is useless without the update. Extremely insensitive until you install it, so just do it. Just do it now.

Also, be sure to use BetterTouchTool. I had it for my MacBook Pro, and I intend to do some serious multitouch gesture programming.

Click, being the lower two feet on the bottom of the pad, is not so good. Feels a bit dull for my taste. Will be doing a lot more tapping, except for when I do a click and drag.

Wouldn’t the three finger dragging be much much more useful if you could grab the window anywhere, instead of just the top bar? Yet again, Zooom wins.

I haven’t had a MacBook Pro with the Inertial scrolling update, so I never got to test this extensively, but I love this thing. It’s like having an iOS device again, but without the nice screen underneath. Hmm… I’m sure someone’s gonna hack this one together…

And it sits almost flush with the Apple Wireless Keyboard. The Magic Trackpad is just a hair bit taller so it sticks out on the bottom a bit more.

I can finally ditch the trackball, at least for a while. Using the trackball so much had started to cramp up my thumb in a different angle, so this is a welcomed change.

$75 well spent.

Now if I can somehow reduce the angle on these things… I like the Wired keyboard more for this same reason. Time to drill a hole in the desk?

OCZ Agility SSD vs Stock 5400 RPM Hard Drive

Posted on by

Probably the first of many posts on my recent SSD upgrade, but here are some hard numbers for now.

Using Xbench, first, the 5400 RPM stock drive that came with my 17″ MacBook Pro.

Results 25.96

    System Info

        Xbench Version      1.3
        System Version      10.6.2 (10C540)
        Physical RAM        4096 MB
        Model       MacBookPro5,2
        Drive Type      FUJITSU MHZ2320BH FFS G1
    Disk Test   25.96

        Sequential  29.52

            Uncached Write  31.66   19.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  34.00   19.24 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   24.57   7.19 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   29.57   14.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random  23.17

            Uncached Write  9.73    1.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  38.94   12.46 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   41.98   0.30 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   49.22   9.13 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Compared to the new OCZ Agility SSD drive.

Results 225.00

    System Info

        Xbench Version      1.3
        System Version      10.6.2 (10C540)
        Physical RAM        4096 MB
        Model       MacBookPro5,2
        Drive Type      OCZ-AGILITY
    Disk Test   225.00

        Sequential  218.78

            Uncached Write  288.14  176.91 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  250.35  141.65 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   121.72  35.62 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   384.23  193.11 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random  231.58

            Uncached Write  74.76   7.91 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write  421.12  134.82 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read   2764.59 19.59 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read   862.34  160.01 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Freaking A. An order of magnitude difference. I can feel it, too.

It’s nice to see how the drive performs over the max write speed of 135 MB/s. Probably will go down as I start using the drive more. All in all, a nice investment.

Note On Kindle Upgrades

Posted on by

Kindle Software Update Version 2.3

We roll wireless software updates out in batches to groups of users to make sure everything goes smoothly. If your Kindle has not yet received the most recent software update, rest assured that you’ll receive it wirelessly in the next few weeks.

Not knowing this, I sat around trying to figure out why the heck PDFs were not showing up on my Kindle.

At one point, I did go into settings to find that “Update My Kindle” option to be greyed out. So I assumed it was up to spec, and starting messing around elsewhere.

Turns out, the magic pdf happiness starts with 2.3. And I only had 2.2.

It wasn’t 100% clear, and so this is why I post this here. Go to the update page on your computer, download the update file on your computer, place it on the root folder, and then click on “Update My Kindle”.

It would make sense for the 10.4 MB update to be available without the help of a computer by clicking “Update My Kindle” whenever an update was available, but I wonder if this is disabled because of needing to pay for the 3G bandwidth. It’s a bit annoying, but it’s not like there are point releases happening all that frequently.

Now back to saving trees, one “book” at a time.

Apple Magic Mouse: Quick Review

Posted on by
Mighty Mouse

Note: I don’t own the mouse. Anymore. You can see where this is going.

A couple of quick thoughts on the Apple Magic Mouse.

For a pro-trackball user like myself (both meanings of the prefix “pro” ;-) ), I’m still waiting on Apple to create a multitouch trackpad as a separate USB or Bluetooth device. And no, we’re not going to talk about some rumored device servicing this need. We’ll get to that when it happens. Or not.

Looks? Looks great, and matches the aluminum/glass aesthetic that Apple has applied across multiple product lines. But are you seriously going to be looking at your mouse while using it? Maybe. Okay, I’ll give you that. Moving on.

Left and primary click. Feels satisfying, crisp. Nothing really new here.

Right click? Also seems to work as it should. From what I remember, the older Mighty Mouse required the left finger to be down for a right click to register. Thank goodness that got fixed.

<EDIT>

I remembered completely the opposite. From Wikipedia:

Although the Mighty Mouse can sense both right and left clicks it is not possible to press both sensors simultaneously. The user must learn to lift the left finger off the sensor surface before attempting a right-mouse click.[9]

From Marco.org:

It still has the inconvenient behavior of Apple’s recent mice that requires you to lift your left finger off of the mouse in order to right-click. This hasn’t been a huge problem for me, although I have accidentally sent a left-click event when I intended a right-click a few times.

I didn’t have this problem and it might be because I didn’t really play with the right click all that much. And off of this thought, one could write about having physical buttons to push being a good thing, but that’s another post.

Scrolling is smooth, and behaves much like the iPhone. Scrolling down with momentum feels amazing. Scrolling up is not as enjoyable. I always feel like I’m moving my finger in an unnatural way.

I feel the same way with the two-finger horizontal swipe and the horizontal scrolling. These motions would feel natural if I let go of the mouse, and use the vertically positioned mouse as I would use a trackpad. But the mouse tends to slide around a bit too much. I had to peg the mouse down with my thumb and ring/pinky fingers, but where do I grip the thing? The slim profile and the large click surface leaves only a small area to hold the mouse.

</EDIT>

One very specific annoyance I had was with dragging and dropping across large distances. Click, hold, then adjust by lifting the mouse. First time I had to do this, I had to contort my hand to stay clicking, all the while cup the mouse into the air.

Sidenote: Trackball users don’t have to deal with this. Huzzah.

Maybe it’s just not having enough time with it… Maybe it’s because I haven’t used a mouse as my main pointing device in a long while… But I didn’t feel like I clicked with this Apple product.

Rating: 2/4. I’ll use it if I have to. And maybe this will turn into a 3/4. Oh, and if someone can hack this mouse to work horizontally and respond to multiple clicks and make me doughnuts in the morning? Totally a 4/4.

Bonus: Apple Trackpad Vs Apple Magic Mouse

I’m not sure what to think about this, but there are some differences between the trackpads of the MacBook Pros and the Apple Magic Mouse. Some actions are just completely not replicated on the Magic Mouse, and some actions are requiring less fingers. I’ll let you chew on that, as will I.

Postscript

I really need to stop writing puns without actually writing them. I must have some evil process running in the background inserting them willy-nilly. Seriously, I completely overlooked that “clicked” business until my final read-through. Yeah, I even italicized it and didn’t even know what I had done.

Notes About The iPod Shuffle During Lunch

Posted on by
  • So when I first saw it on apple.com, I was amazed. Sweet, so we have touch/gesture controls now? NOPE. Instead, in-line controls.
  • The larger in-line controls… I wonder how much heavier they are.
  • And if you think that I would replace my headphones for those earbuds… you’re crazy. I’m sure a third-party solution is going to come, but I’m probably not going to like it.
  • The song info/playlist creation seems like it’s just enough: I love the simplicity of the iPod Shuffle. I’ll have to play with one to make up my mind.
  • $79, eh? Up from $49? I think I’m going to keep my used 1st Gen that a friend gifted to me, thanks. Sorry, economy, I already helped out with my Kindle.

Drilling down…

I was completely stoked when I saw the shuffle this morning. It looked like it was about half the size… and screw buttons, there was none (minus the 3-way toggle switch). Then I poked around a bit… what? More in-line controls on the earbuds? Freaking.

In my opinion, not showing the in-line controls in the same image as the Shuffle borders on false advertising.

I would have bought it immediately… if the UI was on the Shuffle itself. If I could slide my finger across the Shuffle. If I squeeze the Shuffle. If I could… shake the Shuffle.

Sorry, Apple

This fanboy isn’t all that amazed. Even VoiceOver, because it just seems like this should have happened when I bought my iPhone. I said it, from day one, that when there was an incoming call while I was listening to music, it should tell me who was calling.

Whatever, it’s not like I can change any of this. End rant.

Hacking The Kindle: Kindle Books Store – Free Books?

Posted on by

If you’re keeping up with my Tweets, you know I made my first impulse purchase on the Kindle yesterday night. The fact that Kindle makes buying books so ridiculously simple forces me to make the comparison to buying songs from iTunes (except, I don’t buy songs from iTunes… I’ll talk about this in another post).

This isn’t like those other “hacks” that people keep talking about getting your own eBooks on the Kindle, but to download from the Kindle Store; free, copyrighted material.

Disclaimer: This is all for educational purposes only. I’m NOT responsible for what you do with your Kindle with this knowledge. And I can only hope that Amazon figures this out faster than the rest of the Kindle freaks like me. If you know someone who can fix this bug inside Amazon, please let them know.

The hack

Steps are as follows:

  • Buy the book
  • Lie and say you’ve accidentally purchased the book
  • Turn off the wireless just after the book has been downloaded

I don’t know, but you probably should wait on the screen that has the accidental purchase link until the book has finished downloading… I didn’t really think about this, but my download is fast enough on the awesome 3G network anyway. (Go Kindle GO!)

A couple of seconds after I turned on the wireless, the books did disappear. To get around this, simply make a copy of the file on your computer.

As a sidenote, while I was messing around with moving .azw and .mbp files the book that was downloaded seems to be about twice as big as the sample… I wonder why this is the case. I can only think that there’s some compression going on.

I had to see if there was some kind of remote killswitch on the DRM, and turns out… there isn’t. After the original downloaded copy was erased by Amazon, Amazon was satisfied it seems. I turned on my wireless again and as I expected, I was able to use my Kindle on wireless while reading my “free” book.

Dear Amazon,

Fix it. I don’t even know who to talk to, but I’ll try to forward the link to this post to some people I see on Twitter.

Kindle 2 Official Leather Cover Review

Posted on by

Being the first adopter of anything, in this case, a physical product, you run the risk of not only having to deal with the gadget itself, but with any other issues that related accessories might bring.

I can think of numerous examples of this. I remember when I got the 1st generation iPod nano, and I dropped it not one day from when I opened the packaging. There was no cover/case at the time, and so I used the plastic packaging that came with it.

More recently, just before the Kindle, it was the MacBook Pro. I had a Brenthaven Metro bag (which, to this day, I love and cherish… the sucker is built like a womb for the earlier MacBook Pros), and when I switched up to the late 2008 unibody one, it wouldn’t fit. Actually, nothing would fit it snugly at the Apple Store, except for the not-so pretty 15″ Incase sleeve/bag.

Now, with the first Kindle, I hear there was a cover included, which sucked: the Kindle would fall out of the cover constantly (and I bet the fact that you couldn’t pick up the Kindle without turning the page didn’t help with it either). Here, it’s an additional $29.99. Is it worth it?

In a Nutshell

Yeah, It’s absolutely essential. That screen has absolutely no protection whatsoever. With the iPhone, you have whatever magical substance between the LCD and the world around it (which is why I was okay with not having a case for it… until I dropped it, but there’s a story there… moving on). With this cover, I feel much secure in knowing that the top and bottom of the Kindle is safe and sound.

So here comes the pics. In the same way as the Kindle was packaged, you have to tear open the box using the neat tab marked “Once upon a time…”

IMG_0030

IMG_0031

For the Kindle 2 redesign, they made sure to incorporate notches to the unit itself, so that it would work perfectly with the cover.

IMG_0032

I loved the instruction insert. Very clear. You first insert the Kindle into the lower curved hook, rotate it to be parallel to the cover, then use the top latch (which retracts to its original position) locks the Kindle in place.

IMG_0035

The trouble I had was with the lack of any attachment on the right side of the Kindle. The hooks in the binding of the cover are strong, but fairly thin. This picture above shows how far the back cover will open up, if left hanging. I fear for the notches on the Kindle 2 might get ruined if held like this for a while. Of course, this hopefully never happens, as you will always be holding the whole case firmly… but it’s not a big deal.

Minus this single downside, everything else is amazing. The leather cover and the soft inside feels wonderful. The fact that the front cover can be folded behind the back cover like a magazine is great. The added thickness and traction actually makes the whole Kindle reading experience a bit better (although, I do like to take it out of the cover now and then, and feel how amazingly light it actually is). The cover also makes it very easy to just close up the “book” and go.

If I’ve somehow convinced you to buy the cover, here’s the link: Amazon Kindle 2 Leather Cover

I still have a couple more Kindle reviews left in me: one general one about the Kindle itself, and at least another about how Kindle is going to change my reading habits. Stay tuned for those.

Kindle 2 Review: The Unboxing

Posted on by

I was delightfully surprised by the unboxing process. I definitely felt like it added to the whole experience.

I have lots of pics from my awesome iPhone camera (sorry, I don’t own any others… photogs, please don’t hurt me). Thanks to Flickr for footing the bandwidth.

IMG_0024

Just as I gave on UPS delivering this thing on time before the end of my lunch break (I kid you not, I was reaching for the doorknob as I was leaving my apartment), I heard the knock on my door.

A few unboxing pictures had made it earlier today, however, I didn’t see any pictures peeling open the box, so I was excited to tear it open.

IMG_0019

Inside were two more boxes, one for the Kindle and the first party case I bought.

IMG_0020

In my hurry to open the box, I was annoyed at how difficult it would be to open the box. The flaps were glued shut. Then I took a deep breath, calmed myself down a bit, and looked for another way in. Then, I realized that there was a nice tab opening on the side, with the words “Once upon a time…” written on it. Definitely a nice touch.

IMG_0021

Inside, I saw a lovely black embossing of letters feeing into the plastic compartment that held the Kindle.

IMG_0023

Again, with the same tab action. After that, you see the innards. Basically, it comes with the Kindle itself, a quick start guide and a USB cable with an adaptor.

IMG_0025

That’s the shot of the stuff behind the Kindle.

IMG_0026

But wait, here’s the moment where I was in awe of the whole unboxing experience.

IMG_0027

It looks like it’s a protective plastic sticker with an even quicker start guide printed on it. I removed the sticker… and the guide was still there! Oh, you lovely e-ink! Even as I use it right now, I can’t believe I’m not using a lot of (if not, at all) power to have the characters stay on screen (minus the wireless, of course).

IMG_0028

Happy little loading screen later, I’m in business.

More on this, as I find time to blog. And here’s an affiliate link, just in case I’ve somehow made you buy the thing. Kindle 2: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation)

More to come, with time and use.

iPhone this, 3G that.

Posted on by

Everyone’s talking about it. I might as well contribute a little bit.

I sold my iPhone.

I realized something: I don’t need a revolutionary Internet communication device. Not when I have the Air. More on this later.

The iPhone was a splurge even when I got it. I had to get on the bandwagon, being the Apple ahemfanboyahem I am. And at the time, I made this move only after the $200 reduction in price.

What? Did you think I was some crazy Machead? Heh, I don’t think I would have spent $600 on the iPhone. I even bought a refurbished 8GB one for $350, and even though about going down to the 4GB model for $250.

So I sold it this week for $280. I was happy to have an extra $280 to save. Until… the next one?

Maybe, maybe not.

There are a couple reasons for and against the next generation of the iPhone. But 3G doesn’t matter for me as much as some of the other people. Why?

Since I am surrounded by wireless Internet (finally, at my apartment also) and almost always carry my laptop (the Air is finally a true “lap”top… runs much cooler…), the need for a device to be always “on” is already fulfilled somewhat. Now, that is not to say that the iPhone isn’t ridiculously easy to use. I miss when my iPhone would vibrate to tell me I have an email message: It’s a new level of notification when there’s a tactile response to something that happened online.

3G map from AT&T

This is a map from AT&T’s site. See that blue? That’s where the fun is. See where it isn’t blue? Not so much love. Here’s a clearer version of that map, brought to you by the Wacom tablet.

3G map, modified by yours truly

Sidenote: I hope to use this tablet more in the future.

If not 3G, then what else? Bring on the Muzak.

Of course, I loved the fact that the iPhone represented one less thing to worry about.

Before iPhone:

  • Keys
  • Wallet
  • iPod
  • Phone

After iPhone:

  • Keys
  • Money Clip (I upgraded in this department as well: Less bloatware… in my pants.)
  • iPhone

The fact that the number of things in my pockets went from a dizzying four to a much more manageable three is huge.

The problem started happening when I realized the iPhone earbuds are pretty much trash. I’m was on my fourth or fifth, and just gave up to buy a much sturdier, bass-friendly clip-ons.

IF the new iPhone has a non-recessed jack like everyone’s raving about, then I’ll be much more inclined to get one. I’m okay with taking out the phone out of my pocket to take the call. I do it anyway because…

Sidenote: Audible iPhone Notifications

Someone write this program: Make the iPhone “tell” me audibly who is calling. That way, I don’t need to take the thing out of my pocket to see who it is.

I guess you could just pick up the call, but I tend to just start in mid-conversation with people I know. (If you know me, you know what I’m talking about.)

This doesn’t have to just stop with calls. Do it for songs, too. Artists, titles… And also, make it so that you can talk to the iPhone: have some kind of voice command to skip to next album or previous song.

I think I’m getting too far ahead of myself. Or maybe someone brilliant is working on it.

Camera. CAMERA.

Camera is soooo important for me. I don’t have a digital camera, nor will I get a point-and-shoot one. I stopped wearing a watch (to tell the time, to set an alarm) because the cellphone made it irrelevant. I stopped carrying a music playing device because the cellphone made it irrelevant. And so, seeing this pattern unfold, I have decided to take a firm stand on this.

It’s only time until America catches up with the rest of the developed world and create some hot cameras for their phones. the iPhone camera wasn’t too bad. But the kicker was that, even better than certain point-and-clicks, it had online capability out of the box. I could post to flickr by email (or if you’re l33t and have it hacked, through some apps) immediately after I shoot the picture.

The lick-able user interface

I really don’t feel like I have to argue the fact that no cellphone UI comes close to the iPhone UI.

I’ve used Nokia Ericsson (some free brick phone), Motorola (v505), and Samsung (d807) phones. All trash in terms of UI (although, I like sliders, so the d807 still has a place in my heart).

By this alone, I should be re-buying the phone. I love good UI almost too much. I also hate bad UI completely too much.

So… Will you get it on the 9th?

The rumor around the blogosphere has it getting released on the 9th. Probably on stage. I’ll probably have to take off work to sit there on Apple’s site to grab it if I decide to get it.

But really, I’ll just do it like last time. I’ll go to the nearest Apple store that has it in stock, mess with it, and then buy it… sigh I guess it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it.

Start your “Josh Kim iPhone purchase date” pool now.