Category Archives: Review

Jersey Giant Subs

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We had lunch at Jersey Giant Subs today. The shop is on the end of a strip mall across from the Meijers on Westnedge. The restaurant was clean and orderly and set-up like I expected it to be. The staff, an amicable fellow behind the counter was exceptionally friendly and did a great job introducing us to the menu.

The menu is styled as one expects, a sub shop. It appears as some of the items have been revised, for example, yellow peppers are now free, I think they used to be more. The food is prepared freshly carved and prepared using top-quality bread. The food, the most important part of a restaurant was done very well. There were some surprises, mostly the Italian dressing isn’t combined directly but rather left to combine on the sandwich itself. It’s not bad, just different.

The only real negative mark is the price point. A lunch for two for $18. The competitive price should have been closer to $14-$15. Otherwise it was very well done and next time we’ll get one single large sandwich and split it. Then the prices will drop to be in line for what they ought to be for lunch. It’s not a fault with this shop, but rather with our inexperience with it.

DC Comics – Comixology App

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Several months ago DC and Comixology rolled out a day-and-date program for their comic books. I was, initially at least, really excited for the development and I was ready to leave paper-based comic books in the past. The Comixology app was upgraded and I was ready to rock and roll with the new system. I had my Comixology app all up-to-date, called DC Comics running on my iPad.

The app was pretty to see at first, and as I used it I quickly found my initial pleasure quickly evaporating before my eyes. The first hit was the frequent app jettisoning. In the iOS Operating System when an application does something unplanned, illegal, or encounters some other fault on the platform it will crash, pushing the user back to the app selection interface. This fault is called a jettison, and I learned that fact from another iOS app that was chock-full of these jettisons. Beyond the functional failures of the app lie all the design issues with the user experience that I have a problem with.

I spent a long time comparing the old way I used to get comics to what the Comixology app would suggest is the new way. In the old way, with paper comics I would head out on Wednesday afternoon to the local comicbook store where my pull list was on-file there, after walking in the staff would greet me and get my pre-compiled list of comic books. I would then be able to sort through my pile, but it was almost always just a silly formality and so I would walk up with my pile of comics and the checkout would mostly just be the staff pressing a button, all my books on my list getting tallied up and then a total. I’d pay, then take my comics to lunch with Scott and we’d read and eat and talk about what DC or Marvel were up to. All in all, it worked out very well.

For the past few years, ever since I bought my first iPod Touch I considered how awesome it would be to have a device much bigger than the touch but nearly as thin, and I called it the iPod Touch XL. On this device I could read my comics on the display. Years rolled on by and Apple had introduced the iPad. I was in line that April morning when they had it for sale and I bought my iPad without any hesitation. I finally had the device that I wanted all along.

Zoom forward to a few weeks ago, after Comixology released “DC Comics” updated app, featuring the new art for DC’s “New 52” program. I was so happy, at least at first, and I moved forward. I didn’t renew my club card at my local comic book shop, and I stopped buying paper comics there. I was moving to the digital world. I opened up the DC app, and after several jettisons later I had connected my Comixology store username to the app and connected my Apple ID to the app as well. Apple takes a 30% cut of all in-app sales and the sales themselves are mediated through the App Store. So I browsed through the DC Comics app and started to pick out a host of Issue #1’s for titles I knew I would likely enjoy. I knew I wanted “New Guardians” along with Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Superman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superboy, Batman and Robin, Detective Comics, Justice League and Justice League International. I also noticed that DC was going to publish a new series based on the Red Lantern component of the Green Lantern universe and that was another thing that attracted my eye. So I started to buy comics in-app. It was certainly a smooth process, tap on the comic image that I wanted, then tap to purchase, enter in my Apple ID and the app would begin to download the comic book I wanted. Using the Comixology app to actually read the comics was never a problem for me. I quite enjoy the frame-by-frame lead-through embedded in the comic books that I download, but right after that I started noticing issues.

The problems were annoying and frustrating. The apps instability was the first thing I noticed. While paging through a Superman comic book the app would jettison. This was merely an inconvenience because I could restart the app and pick up where I left off. But then I started to notice some real problems. I would read my comics while on the treadmill at the gym, and I’d use the gym’s free wifi. As I stood there walking away on the treadmill I tapped in vain on the “DC Comics” Comixology app looking for “New Guardians #1” because I knew from earlier in that day that DC had released it, because I saw it on the shelf at the local comic book store. While I stopped buying, Scott did not, so every Wednesday I can see what books should be in the “DC Comics” app around 2pm later that day. It took me half and hour to find the “New Guardians #1” issue. The way that the app is organized, you have your comics and you have “The Store”. This is a structure that I’m comfortable with, however the way it’s designed, it doesn’t live up to even it’s own structure. For each comic book that I wanted to read, I plowed manually through the app and set alarms, as the “set alert” button was on each titles purchase screen. This button does nothing.

So my frustration comes from what I think the app should do and what the app fails to do. As I described to Scott earlier tonight, Comixology went miles to produce a shiny app that looks great. All I want is for them to give me just 5 more inches, they’ve gone miles, why not just a little touch more? I started to compare the app to the local comic book store. At the store I had a pull-list, a pile of comics were waiting for me to pick up, all I had to do was plunk down payment and that would be that. The app doesn’t tell me when a new edition of one of my comics is available, as that “set alert” button DOES NOTHING. So when I start the DC Comics app I have to slog through the store trying to find the issues I want, and trying to keep in mind what issues I own and what issues are unbought and whether or not I still want to read that particular comic book. Now along with this irritating app comes at the same time several comics from DC where the quality has gone down the toilet. I tried a lot of comics and found that I didn’t like many of them, Batwoman and Batgirl were both irritating, spending more time being stupid than being the female version of Batman. I also really don’t like the new Robin, which is Batman’s apparent son Damien Wayne. Yeah I understand the story, but I don’t like the character. So I got angry. Angry at the app because I couldn’t easily get the comics I wanted, angry that the “Alert” button was meaningless and angry at DC for selling me crap.

I stopped buying comics in paper at the local comic book store. I have also not returned to the DC Comics app. I have comics that I bought that are unread in that app and I don’t really care one way or another. Perhaps on some quiet snowy day I’ll slog through the damn thing and polish what I bought off. Mostly I’m dissapointed and sad. I don’t think what I had in mind is too difficult to pull off in iOS and the fact that Comixology so deeply overhauled their entire comic book app on iOS, and left such functionality out really boggles my mind.

So what would I want to see? Scott asked this of me after I was done railing against the Comixology app. I don’t want paper comic books, I want virtual ones on my iPad. I know that for sure. What I want is to open up the DC Comics app on any given Wednesday around 3pm or so and be presented with a list of all the comic books that I am following, all listed nicely with a checkbox next to each that is by default on, and a nice big friendly button marked “Purchase Comics”. I tap the button, enter in my Apple ID password and the app automatically downloads all the comics I want to read. I’d also want the app to link these purchases serially so when I’m done reading Green Lantern, the next one up, say Detective Comics is the next, ready to read with a tap of a button. I want to be able to start the DC Comics app, start with one comic book and then tap my way through my entire comics purchase serially. So what is it that I’m after?

  • I’d like to be able to define a pull-list in the DC Comics app.
  • I’d like the “Alert Me” button removed, or better yet, HAVE IT DO SOMETHING and throw notifications through Notification Center “DC Comics – Superman #3 is now available.”
  • I’d like it more, if after I start the app, that it presents me with a list of comics that I haven’t bought yet, but own their predecessors with a clear way to “turn them on” or “turn them off” and buy them in one single transaction.
  • I’d like to see “My Comics” extended with links into “The Store” so that when I tap on “Adventure Comics” that the app has enough wits to show me all the issues of that title that I haven’t bought. I want to continue reading the stories, and this is the most convenient way to my mind on how to arrange that.

What I don’t want to do is slog my ass through “The Store” searching in vain in the “Day and Date Release” comics list which never really has the comics I’m looking for. Instead I have to either search on the title explicitly or I have to search for the “New 52” story arc section and rifle through that section. It’s really quite an unpleasant experience to be swiping through lists of comics you don’t care about only to discover that the comic book you really really wanted, in this case, “New Guardians #1” was released two weeks ago and you never knew because it wasn’t in the “Day and Date” release list. You sizzle when you go to “The Store” and verify that “Alert Me” is indeed on, and then you get even more angry when you realize that the stupid thing doesn’t do anything at all. It doesn’t alert anyone. It doesn’t fire off Notifications, it doesn’t do anything but toggle on and toggle off.

But I’m not an iOS Developer and I don’t work for Comixology. I’m just one lonely angry customer with a list of ideas and I don’t think my tiny angry voice amounts to very much in the great analysis when it’s all tallied up. Comixology will continue to sell comic books with their Jettison-a-palooza app with all it’s do nothing options and intentionally labyrinthine store that forces you to swipe past comic books you will never ever buy because you have absolutely zero interest. I will never buy Batwing. I don’t care for Bats in Africa. Moving on…

And that’s what drives me the most crazy. It’s like this great app was only half-designed. That there are entire sections that feel like it should be in there. Functionality that when you discover it’s absence you crinkle up your eyes and wonder “What the hell were they thinking?” To go so far, to create such a slick app and then leave the most consumer-friendly (and most comic-book-store analogue) features totally absent boggles the mind. The lack of all of these features seems terribly absurd, and of course begs the thought that if it’s so half-baked, perhaps it’s designed to fail. Designed to piss people off so much, to irritate them so thuroughly that they’d rather slog their behinds back to their local comic book store and set up those pull lists again and go back to hauling dead trees around.

So I don’t use the app. I complained on Twitter, mostly as an explanation of why I’m leaving comic books for good. I am no longer really a customer, I used to be, I so much want to be, but I don’t want to go to my local comic book shop anymore, and I don’t want to use DC Comics anymore because it’s so unhelpful. I’ve got money and I might have interest and what really grinds my gears is that I’m fine with 90% of the app beyond the parts I really don’t like. The things that irritate me upset me enough to sour the entire experience. I’m so angry at wasting time hunting and pecking for comic books that I have blown out time I could have spent ACTUALLY READING THEM with trying to navigate through a store I don’t really like. And the biggest rub of all? What I ask out of Comixology and the DC Comics app in particular doesn’t strike me as being a monumentally difficult thing to arrange. The app knows I have a Comixology account, it knows I have an Apple ID. I have to assume there is room in iCloud for apps to store arrays of data. Why not enable the customer to create pull-lists and then adjust the app so it’s as helpful as Alfred? Batman would never put up with this crap. 🙂

So this entire blog post is half me railing against technology that has failed me and a response to someone on Twitter who wants to know why I’m leaving comic books. I could put up with junky content from DC in hopes that it gets better, but I really can’t put up with that app. That’s really what it comes down to. Such a shame. What would change my tune?

Alfred. He would change my tune. Alfred in DC Comics app. That’s really all there is to it.

Nook Tablet Review

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Nook Tablet Review

Unboxing

The box for the Nook Tablet strongly resembles the boxing for all the other Nook devices. Two compartments, the top compartment for the device and a bottom compartment for the charging/data cable and the charging block. The device still uses microUSB as a connector type, which is just like home if you already have a nook or a more-recent release Blackberry. The Nook Tablet is couched in high-density shipping foam.

First Look

The Nook Tablet weighs in at an even 400 grams. My first-generation iPad with Apple slipcover comes in at 865 grams. Already this device has the iPad beaten on mass. The device is wrapped in a matte or brushed aluminum finish and the texture of the case is not slippery but rather grippy. The power button is on the top left corner, the volume buttons are on the top right corner and the microSD slot is cleverly established under the “nook” flap underneath the carabiner-clip part of the case. In the upper right corner, along the top is a standard headphone jack. The rear of the device is wrapped in a dull metalic finish darker than the edging and equally textured. Not slippery, but grippy.

Power On

The power on sequence brings you to the same screen that the Nook Color has, although I can’t recall if the Nook Color had sound effects like this device has upon power up and unlocking. The first thing I noticed in the Library was a video called “New Years Eve” after playing it I noticed that the video was bright and the sound good, except when I turned the display the video was paused and the screen rotated. I had to manually restart playback. Not a showstopper, but worthy to note. The included Spiderman Graphic Novel showed off the Nook Tablet’s color and excellent resolution and the display responded to both my pinch-open and pinch-close finger gestures. The glass surface has some friction to it, nothing upsetting, but worth noting. Through the library feature at least, comic books on the Nook Tablet have the same convenience as reading them on the iPad using Comic Zeal, there isn’t any guided panel-by-panel view that you’d expect with a Comixology app.

Networking

Accessing Wifi is not a problem, at least with plain-jane WEP. Once connected to the network the device can be used to browse the web, and the browser is very fast and actually more responsive than the iPad. The only issue I ran into was a run-away inertial bug in the flick gesture for websites. If you flick too forcefully the Nook Tablet web browser will advance the page faster than you can read and faster than you want. You have to have a very gentle way of gesturing for the built-in web app.

Apps

App downloading is quick and tidy. The update command to check for updated apps is plainly visible on the App Screen. The device comes with a series of standard apps which include:

  • Angry Birds (lead-in to download)
  • Chess
  • Contacts
  • Crossword
  • Email
  • Grooveshark
  • Hulu Plus
  • Music Player
  • My Media
  • Netflix
  • NOOK Friends
  • Pandora
  • Showtime (lead-in)
  • Solitaire (lead-in)
  • Sudoku

The App Store access is easy to find and the app store itself has many apps that I recognize from the Apple App Store, so I didn’t feel like a stranger in a strange land. One notable absence which I did notice was that there was no Comixology app for the Nook Tablet. I suppose it will take just a little bit of time for this app to make it to the Nook App Store.

NetFlix

NetFlix loaded very quickly and I was able to browse my instant queue immediately. Starting a movie was problem free. The display is very bright and the colors are gorgeous. While I watched the movie I decided to test the device with my Apple iPhone earbuds. These have play controls in-line with the wire and I attempted to control volume and playback using them and the Nook ignored this attempt at control. I would hazard that the Nook Tablet cannot understand in-line headphone wire controls. Listening to the movie had only one mild issue and that is as you hold the device in the landscape orientation you can accidentally occlude the devices primary speakers. While these are acceptable for general purpose use, when you have your hand covering the grille to these speakers the sound is muted and muddy. Keeping your hands clear is obviously the answer, but it makes holding the device a little tricky.

Reading

Reading on this device is similar to reading on the iPad. The weight savings alone make it more pleasant to use than the iPad for long-duration reading, and the spoiled-rotten brightness of the display makes reading in any indoor environment very pleasant. The font selection for reading contains:

  • Century Schoolbook
  • Dutch
  • Georgia
  • Ascender Sans
  • Trebuchet MS
  • Gill Sans

Looking up a word brings up the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition with the usual high quality dictionary detail you come to expect. There are two other controls along the bottom in the Lookup Feature, a icon for Google Searching and an icon for Wikipedia Searching.

Accessing new books via the Nook store is a given. However accessing new books via Project Gutenberg is something that I’ve found to be hit-or-miss on these devices. Accessing the web on the Nook Tablet is easy enough, browsing to Project Gutenberg is likewise not an issue. I downloaded Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” as an ePub with images. The file downloaded to the Nook Tablet just fine and the Nook Tablet had no qualms displaying this freshly downloaded ePub, including it’s images. The only thing that I have a qualm about is that the downloaded Books only appear in My Files, under “My Downloads” and can’t be integrated with the primary device library. Because of this limitation you cannot add your downloaded ePub file to a Nook Shelf or browse it in the Nook Library, you have to go out of your way to find what you just downloaded.

Directly importing ePub files to the Nook Tablet however does provide a way to “have your cake and eat it too”. You have to use your computer to download an ePub book and then plug the Nook Tablet into the computer. You can then move whatever ePub files you wish to the Books folder and they will appear in your Library. With this, you can view the book in your Library and add it to Nook Shelves without a problem. One oddity I did uncover was trying to open the new ePub file the first time lead to an error from the Nook Tablet that it could not open the book. Subsequent loads of the book did not display this error. I am unsure whether this was a glitch or a bug. Subsequent loading of ePub material shows this to be a one-off glitch and therefore shouldn’t appear again, I hope.

Reading with Kids

The Nook Tablet has a portion of the library devoted just to kids books. I explored this feature, along with the “Play Along” mode and the “Record Along” mode for the sample book, which is a Winnie the Pooh story. While the “Play Along” feature was pleasant enough, a cross between a childs book and an audiobook with cute little animations peppered in, the “Record Along” feature is really quite something. A parent can record the entire book in their own voice and their child can play it back whenever they like, and read along with their parents voice. There is a certain power in your parents voice, especially for kids and people who never let their inner child fade away. After I recorded a page or two of the Winnie the Pooh story I thought about how this would work in a home with actual children. The Nook Tablet would either have to be the childs device or a home device. I imagine this feature would have the most poignant effect if a parent recorded the book, and then when the parent is on a work trip or otherwise unavailable the child can open the story and hear their parents recorded voice read-along with them. This is the extreme of niche features but the way it’s arranged and the way the interface is constructed to facilitate such a thing is absolutely breathtaking. If you are a parent who has a young child just starting to read, the Nook Tablet, for this one feature, is worth every penny that you’ll spend on it. I am impressed, and that takes a lot.

Opinion

The Nook Tablet is a very compelling device and at the price point of $249 dollars, when compared to the iPad at $499 it does pose a certain competition to the Apple device. There are some really outstanding features which already make the Nook Tablet a great device:

  • Reading is easy, not as easy as a Nook Simple Touch, but more pleasant than an iPad, mostly due to the weight and size.
  • Access to both the built-in Dictionary, Google, and Wikipedia deserves an standing ovation.
  • Ability to import your own ePub files, and I presume if you insert a large microSD card, putting your books that you already own on the Nook Tablet is a non-issue.
  • Access on-the-fly to Project Gutenberg is a delight to see. There is a certain freedom in not being tied to the Barnes & Noble Bookstore with this device and you cannot quibble with free books.
  • The audio is clear, and the sound effects for both turning on and off the device replicate very well the sound a dusty tome would make if you opened it and closed it quickly. It’s these little touches that you appreciate as you reflect on your experience.
  • The “Record Along” feature is absolutely outstanding. Parents with young children just starting to read really should look at this device for this feature.

Some of the problems with the Nook Tablet:

  • Immature App Store – Comixology has an app for Android, but it is not in the Barnes & Noble App Store yet. Barnes & Noble should pour resources into their App Store and corral developers to bring more meat to the party.
  • Speaker Placement – The speakers placed where they are makes watching a Netflix movie on the device a little bit irritating as you really can’t hold the device like you really want to without occluding the speakers and either muting or muddying the sound.
  • Headphone Insensitivity – Headphones with in-line controls should be respected and honored. People are going to attach these accessories to this device and expect it to work, and so far, it won’t. I don’t know if it’s a firmware adjustment or if the device lacks the controller to process such an accessory. The Nook Tablet also does not stop playback when the headphones are plugged in or removed. If the headphones are accidentally removed during playback, at least with the NetFlix app, the speakers resume playing sound.
  • Font Problems – My favorite font is not present. Helvetica Neue. It is present on the Nook Simple Touch but not on the Nook Tablet. I hope this is an oversight by the developers at Barnes & Noble Booksellers and that an upgraded firmware update to the Nook Tablet will eventually fix the issue. The Nook Tablet has a similar set of fonts to iBooks on iOS. This should be on B&N’s list of things to fix soon.
  • No satellite charging – The Nook Tablet refuses to charge when plugged into a USB port. I am unsure as to why, since the device was plugged into a MacBook and I know for a fact that this particular computer supports low-current USB and high-current USB, enough to charge an iPad – so why can’t it charge a Nook Tablet?
  • Gesture bugs – There are a few places where gestures with your fingers produce unwanted results. Specifically browsing the web, if you flick-gesture too strongly you end up in a warp-speed scroll to the end of the document. On really long documents this can become annoying quickly. While not really a design fault, it will require some experience to master, especially if you have grown used to flick-gesture-with-inertia that Apple has mastered in their iOS run devices.

All in all, the Nook Tablet is well worth the $249.00 pricetag. The device is solid and constructed well and I think it will withstand the kind of use that kids can throw at it. I couldn’t test this demo unit to destruction however I can’t imagine that something this solidly built can be harmed easily. If you are in the market for a tablet, but don’t have the cash on hand for an iPad, this is the next natural option. This device will get better with time, with firmware updates and the later refinements that come with customer feedback to the developers. This device will truly shine when the Nook App Store bulks up. Right now, I would advise anyone looking for a tablet, or parents looking for a device like this to buy it as quickly as you can.

Nook vs. Kindle vs. iPad

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I’ve been watching a lot of the press surrounding the brewing three-party war between Apple, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and Amazon over the tablet space for the past few months. I was one of the first people to be in line two Aprils ago when the first generation iPad was released by Apple. I bought it without hesitation, knowing that it was exactly what I had wanted and dreamed of all this time – a much larger version of my beloved iPod Touch. As I’ve had some opportunity to use different devices I’ve discovered that at least for me, each device that I own serves a particular purpose. Here’s a handy list of the device and what I use it for:

  • 24” iMac – General computing, work and writing.
  • 13” MacBook Laptop – General computing, work and writing.
  • First-Generation iPad – Convenience browsing, game playing, reading comic books, cookbooks
  • iPhone 4 carried by Verizon – Telephone and 3G data access with the HotSpot feature. I use it for mobile data access, taking pictures, scanning prices and comparing retailers and writing down notes and ideas for my writing. Sometimes inspiration strikes when you least expect it. Also enables me to play Foursquare, as well as many other location-aware games and activities that my family has come to enjoy.
  • iPod Nano 6th Generation – Contains my entire music library and is the device I use when I want to play music. Also has a very useful pedometer that I use to track my steps and calories burned while I work.
  • Nook SImple Touch – Contains a giant book library and is the device I use when I want to read.

I have to be very clear here, I am an Apple fanboy. If Apple makes it, I’ll use it. Over the years all the Apple devices have worked exceptionally well and over time they have gotten better. I still love using my iPad and my iPhone. There are four devices that I simply cannot go without whenever I travel, my iPad, my iPhone, my iPod, and my Nook. The iMac is a work-only machine and I leave it at work all the time. My MacBook I use from time to time, but I actually prefer to work on my iPad to my MacBook unless I’m writing something very long. The iPod Nano fits in my pocket so easily, or clips to my shirt so well that carrying it everywhere I go is a non-issue. My phone keeps me in touch, mostly over SMS and iMessage, and secondarily by the voice service itself. The majority of this post isn’t about these other items that I find indispensable, but rather about the tablets.

I can speak for the iPad and the Nook Simple Touch. I was absolutely sold over the iPad, especially when it comes to reading comic books. As for reading “regular” books, the glossy display and backlit nature of the iPad does start to wear down the eyes plus the native book app in the iPad, which is iBooks, doesn’t support the font I like the most, which is Helvetica Neue. I was a little dubious about the Nook Simple Touch at first, but the device won me over with it’s eInk display and it’s expandability via a microSD card port on the upper right corner of the device. The Nook Simple Touch has a lot of really compelling features going for it which made it’s purchase a sure thing. Here’s a list of what I like about my Nook Simple Touch:

  • Size – It’s perfectly sized. It feels a lot like a paperback book, this size really is a sweet-spot for me because this device can fit in my front and rear pants pockets when I want to carry it without having it in my hands and it can be easily stowed anyplace a book can go.
  • Weight – It’s surprisingly lightweight. Even with the microSD card, which only adds maybe a gram or two to it’s total weight, the whole package is very light.
  • Textured and Contoured Back – The rear of the Nook Simple Touch is contoured to fit my hands and rubberized so that I can keep a nice grip on it without having to strain.
  • Interface – Ever since the 1.1.0 Nook Firmware upgrade the device has been surprisingly quick on display updates and the touch sensitivity has also been tuned and I notice it. You can either use the side navigation buttons or a tap or swipe on the display to advance pages. It has a built in dictionary and wifi, with some social features but so far I haven’t explored those enough to report on them.
  • Compatibility – The Nook Simple Touch (as well as the iPad) both can open and display ePub format books. There is a special place in my heart for the ePub format. it’s open, it’s well understood, and there are tools like Calibre which I can use to convert PDF or DOC or MOBI format (actually there are a huge number of formats that Calibre understands) and convert them all to ePub. I bought a 4GB microSD card and was able to store thousands of free eBooks on my Nook without even a second glance. I know the books will work, I know they are configurable, it’s perfect for me.

So now I’m witnessing this war brewing between Apple, B&N and Amazon. I’ve never really used a Kindle, but I assume it’s most like the Nook devices. The latest device to be released, and is shipping now is the Amazon Fire. I’ve heard a lot of people going on about how the Fire may be Amazon’s answer to Barnes & Nobles Nook Tablet and may compete with the iPad. Out of curiosity I went to Amazon’s site where they describe the new Kindle Fire and as I was reading along several alarm bells went off in my head all at the same time. Here’s a list of issues I have with the Kindle Fire, even before laying my hands on it:

  • Eight hours of battery life – Even my iPad can beat this rating. I will hand it to the Kindle Fire that they were able to squeeze such a battery lifetime out of a device that was smaller than the iPad, but when you are watching video I will bet real money that end users never see these eight hours of battery life, let alone their hedged-bet of seven and a half for video playback.
  • Incompatible with ePub format! – This one took my breath away! Any device should at least be compatible with the ePub format, but Amazon has elected to support their own format called AZW instead. There are other formats supported, but ePub is not on that list and my library is configured to support ePub and I prefer it that way.
  • Prime Membership – If you want the most bang for your Kindle Fire buck, you’ll have to spring for an $80 a year Prime Membership. This could be useful if you do a lot of Amazon.com purchases but I don’t. It’s a little creepy that Amazon sells you a device and then charges you over and over again to use it fully. Feels more like a cash-grab and/or a gyp to me.

I don’t really believe the Kindle Fire will pose much of a risk to the iPad and iPad 2 class devices. I haven’t gotten a chance to hold either of the more relevant competitors devices in my hands to give it a right and thorough review. Based on just the description from the manufacturers alone, and even considering the Nook Tablet costs $50 more than the Amazon offering I can say just from the start that the B&N device is the one to get. Better battery life, better storage, better hardware, ePub format, that’s the one that I would get if I didn’t already have an iPad.

Keep your eyes peeled on this blog. I doubt I’ll ever get my hands on a Kindle Fire, but I’m pretty sure I’ll eventually be able to review the Nook Tablet.

Buddhify

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First Look at Buddhify

I read on, I think, LifeHacker about a new app called Buddhify and since the price was right, about $2.99 I decided to buy it and give it a go. I’ve meditated in the past, here and there in little bursts and have had a surprisingly easy way of letting go. I have to admit that I haven’t done it in a very long time and like any machine that goes too long on one path, eventually I feel all hot and dry. It’s not the pleasant meaning of hot, but a more parched and wearing-down kind of hot. So this morning I was listening to A Way With Words podcast mostly because it was in my Podcaster playlist. I paused the program and after finishing a portion of my regular morning tasks here at work I decided to open up Buddhify and give it a whirl.

I used the first program which for me was a clairity meditation that concentrated on hearing. The program is lead either with a male voice or a female voice, that is a feature I really do appreciate. Whenever I can have the option, I prefer the male voice, what a surprise. The app is written by and produced by a company in Britain so the accent follows along. I find it easy and comforting, it’s different enough to be novel and keep my attention but not jarring enough to shake me out of my meditation. I chose my first one from the home set, which you can do if you are sitting somewhere with your eyes closed. This is something that I can do relatively easily at work, as long as it doesn’t last too long and people get the wrong idea that somehow I’m napping on the job, which I am not. During the meditation I found it very easy to follow along and about three-quarters of the way through this short program I actually felt my consciousness change. It felt a fair bit like physically falling, but my body hadn’t changed state at all. Really the best way I can relate it in words was that I slipped into a really relaxed and comfortable state. It’s very much like the quietness that overcomes me in the ledge right before and right after sleep comes over me. There is this area, where I can be fully awake and aware and control myself but the “agitated mind” hasn’t woken up yet. I don’t form plans, worry, or dwell on thoughts in this state and I value that feeling. This of course would make everyone who enjoys meditation smile as I am sure they understand perfectly what I am trying to describe.

As I continue using Buddhify, which I wholly intend to do I will keep on writing down my experiences and blogging about them. If you have an iOS device, I really recommend that you plunk down the cash and buy this program. It actually does something you don’t expect and that novelty should be treasured. That you can get it for so little a price is very surprising. So far I’d rate Buddhify a 5 out of 5.

Nook Simple Touch Firmware Update 1.1.0 Review

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Barnes & Nobel Nook Firmware 1.1.0 Update

I just got an email from B&N regarding my nook, that there was a firmware update available for my device. I couldn’t help but download this update immediately and see what it was all about. The download clocks in at 110MB and takes just a few moments to copy to the Nook drive on the device once you plug it in. I was waiting in vain for the display to go to sleep so I hit the sleep button on my nook and it dutifully went to sleep. I pressed it again and the nook software update boot loader appeared. The nook took about three minutes to load the firmware update and once it was complete it went back to sleep using the default “authors” screensaver.

I woke up my device and started to poke around the edges looking for what was updated. Of course I glanced at what B&N1 was pushing:

  1. Breakthrough E Ink® display – best just-like paper reading, even in bright sun
  2. 25% faster than any other eReader ” Best-Text™ Technology for sharper, ultra-crisp fonts
  3. Longer battery life -read for over 2 months on a single charge*
  4. Ongoing enhancements and other performance improvements

As I was playing around with the device it struck me just how fast everything was responding to my touch. In previous firmware iterations I would have to tap several times for the interface to respond to my touch. Now it is much more crisp and fast. Another thing that has markedly improved is the speed with which pages are painted on the eInk display.

From the points above, some of them are new features, some aren’t. #1 is just what the device has already, so the firmware didn’t deliver anything for that. #2 is very subjective, I wasn’t expecting the update to the nook firmware so I didn’t spend any time eyeballing the fonts. On my nook the only font I use is Helvetica Neue, after falling in love with it from my exposure to people who were mad about typography here at work. The speed of the text, which is the other part of #2 was patently obvious. The speedup is very noticeable and very welcome. Point #3 is generally true, my nook simple touch has a kick ass battery life, perhaps the update will lengthen the battery performance but I haven’t been using it long enough to judge that point yet. And of course, there is #4, which apparently hides a whole host of interesting mystery items. I have to imagine that somewhere there is a technical document that details all of these updates that were glossed over in point #4. Perhaps if someone from B&N reads this, they could comment. That would be nice.

In the end I think that B&N should apply this patch to all the nook simple touch devices they have on display in their stores and they have done a really great job addressing things that at first you didn’t think you had a problem with, but once addressed you find you really appreciate. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a review unit of the new nook tablet and then I can write up a review of that. It should be a lot of fun, as I can compare it to the iPad and the original nook color tablet. I’m looking forward to it! 🙂

  1. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Software-Updates-NOOK-Simple-Touch/379003175 ↩

SugarSync Review

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I tried out a new online cloud service called SugarSync this morning. I signed up for their free 5GB account and downloaded their SugarSync Manager for my Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.8 iMac at work.

Everything went smoothly until I installed the SugarSync Manager. It prompted me to share some basic folders, like my Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders. I didn’t want that. I wanted to create a folder off the root of my Macintosh HD Hard Drive called SugarSync and just sync what I put in that folder. After turning all the other options off, I couldn’t find a way to add a specific folder that I wanted to that part of the installation. I clicked “Add More Folders” thinking that might lead me to something, but then the app seized up, beach-ball-of-death, and about 15 minutes later I “Force Quit” the SugarSync Manager program.

I then tried to restart it, and it would not start. I gave it another 5 minutes and tried again, and that time it took. What I saw was a very friendly, very simple sync manager application and I can appreciate it’s simplicity. I went to “Add a Sync Folder” and couldn’t find a way to add a specific folder, it just wasn’t possible as far as I could see. I clicked on Help and then read about how you can right-click on a folder to add it to SugarSync. I did that, and it worked.

Then I went into the SugarSync website and looked at the “Email-To-Sugarsync” feature. Right along this feature it prompts you to read the Terms Of Service. I went through the TOS, mostly standard stuff except for the section about what kind of files you can store on SugarSync. That they reserve the right to cancel the account if they find the files upsetting in some non-defined way. Not that I would send snuff videos to my SugarSync account, but without knowing what the terms in their TOS actually MEAN, well, I might as well just give up now before I actually do anything with the account.

It was a combination of the TOS, the software failures, and a kind of “suffers from simple” approach that did it in for me. Software that is designed for Ma and Pa Kettle can sometimes lack the sophistication that a user like me expects from a service. It’s perfectly acceptable to me to stuff the “Advanced Stuff” behind a button and I don’t mind going a little further to get access to those settings because I know that the majority of people using this software are very new to computers and too many options can turn them off.

In the end, I can’t recommend SugarSync. The only way I could deal with it would be if I filled the account with a 5GB AES-256 encrypted DMG file and just used that. That would protect me from the TOS and give me the freedom to store what I wanted without having to worry about damaging some faceless persons sense of morality. This design of course doesn’t work when you try the whole email-to-service angle, so it’s all just a big pile of wreckage.

iOS Newsstand

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On my way to Grand Rapids with Scott I decided to investigate the new Newsstand feature in iOS 5. I had downloaded three magazines, Comic Heroes, Men’s Fitness, and Mac Format. I opened Newsstand and started to look through the issues I downloaded. I was under the impression that I had at least a free sample.

Boy was I wrong! These “Free” issues were just stub-apps with more prices and a place to subscribe. This fails to reflect the way people usually buy magazines at brick and mortar stores. You can open up a magazine and browse before buying. Can’t do that in iOS!

So it’s a gyp. A bait-and-switch and now it’s tarnished what piddling interest I had in those aforementioned magazines. It’s also tarnished the Newsstand über-app as well. It’s really just a trap. It baits you with free and then thumbs its nose at you with a crass subscription ask or a expensive per-issue price.

It’s simple enough to ignore Newsstand completely now. I had piddling interest in magazines anyways. All the content, really good, fresh, relevant content is on Flipboard or Google Reader, or hell, even Safari! Better yet, those options have a great price tag, free.

iOS 5

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Since October 12th at 1pm when iOS 5 and iCloud were officially released by Apple I’ve been toying around with both products. I have a first generation iPad and a iPhone 4 with Verizon. I was able to grab the update from Apple at work and begin my install.

To set this scene properly, I should also state for the record that I have on all my machines, both at home and at work, Mac OSX Snow Leopard. I have resisted Mac OSX Lion because of it’s radical change in interface, some security concerns, and a general sense that if Snow Leopard isn’t broken, and Lion doesn’t bring anything new to the party, why fix what isn’t broken?

So once the download of iOS 5 for both my iPhone and my iPad were complete I started to upgrade my iPhone. The entire process worked well, however here at work we all use multiple Apple ID’s to manage apps and ownership of devices. Apple has changed the policy, so it’s just one Apple ID now, which at first filled us with trepidation. Turns out it’s not as bad as it could have been, and for that we feel like we have dodged a bullet. The install for my iPhone worked acceptably well and I was back up and working about an hour later. The update for my iPad was a bloody mess. The iOS 5 updater hosed my iPad, emptied it all out of all the data and even hosed all of my backups! It wasn’t the end of my world since I’ve been slowly moving all of my data to other cloud services such as Box.net and Dropbox. There wasn’t any loss, really, only a loss of my time and general inconvenience. I was able to get all my devices up and running shortly afterwards to my satisfaction.

Then I started to experience iCloud and ran into some problems. Apple rushed all of these products out without having their most-installed OS ready for it. This boggles my mind. I can accept that Snow Leopard doesn’t have an iCloud app yet and that Lion does, but what I don’t get is how iCloud is under-represented on the web and for common services we all know are running in iCloud. Things like web access to every aspect of iCloud, it should be a drive, it should have a place to access the Photo Stream. There is access for mail and calendar and so on, but it’s only fifty percent of what iCloud stores. Then there is no reference to IMAP addresses for the mail, no CalDAV addresses for the Calendar, and no CardDAV addresses for Address Book. These are of course all workarounds to enable Snow Leopard users to access iCloud. What bothers me most is that Apple doesn’t care about Snow Leopard users anymore. I turned on Photo Stream and noticed that there really wasn’t any way for me to get the Photos I put there, out of there anymore using any of the technology I already have. So I turned the feature off. As it goes, I was initially very enthusiastic about iCloud, but as I saw what it was all about and how Apple treats it, it’s just so much inter-device glue infrastructure and frankly, between my iPad and my iPhone, the glue is worth a short smile and a shrug. So this entire “cymbals and fanfare” around iCloud turned out to be a teeny-tiny firecracker that once it ignited, sounded more pitiful than exciting.

What did I really get out of iOS 5? The new notification center is marvelous. It is way past time for this. Online backup to iCloud is certainly good, but I may never really need it, and since I’m poisoned by my last experience with “Apple iOS Backups” in regards to my iPad, you can excuse me if I don’t stand up and cheer. iMessage is just BBM on the iPhone, so Apple beat RIM to the punch. It’s okay, it works, but it doesn’t fill me with fuzzy feelings. Behind all these weak good vibes from iOS 5 stands my biggest beef with Apple. They took Siri away! A week before iOS 5 was released I downloaded the free Siri app for my iPhone 4. It worked acceptably well. Then Apple pulled a huge whammy, Siri was no longer available for my iPhone 4 and I would have to get an iPhone 4S to use Siri. But it worked well on my iPhone 4! Why not include Siri on the iPhone 4 iOS 5 update? Why Apple? I feel cheated. Cheated by the company that I root and rah-rah for and this is a rather jagged little pill to swallow. I don’t see how the Apple A4 chip can’t cope with Siri’s information and how the A5 chip can. I feel like it’s a gyp, a cash grab from Apple. A way for them to shaft all of us iPhone 4 owners. After I celebrated the iPhone 4 on Verizon, now I’m actively looking forward to upgrading my device and that rankles! It’s a dick move Apple, and you know it.

So, iOS 5 and iCloud. Lion. All said it feels like Apple is slipping into a funk. It’s very reminiscent of the funk they were in when they dismissed Steve Jobs, and then when he returned, the funk dissipated. Now that he’s dead, the funk has returned. It may have been that Apple was really great only because of Steve Jobs and now that he’s gone, Apple is going to tumble, aimless and full of dicks trying to all grab at the company rudder and making a general mess of things. I can’t really feel a lot of gee-whiz-rah-rah about iOS 5 or iCloud.

One thing that also just occurred to me, and is another bit of evidence of Apple’s dick moves is the lack of four-finger gesture control on the first generation iPad. There was a hack to turn this feature on and it worked, now it doesn’t and the hack is gone as well. Not being able to have this neat feature on my first generation iPad stings. It feels a lot like the whole case with Siri. It worked before, and now it doesn’t. What a dick move, Apple.

So, should you upgrade to iOS 5 and use iCloud? Sure. Why not? It’s free. You get what you pay for.

Using the Nook Simple Touch

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Last week I was pretty much 50-50 on whether or not I should get another device, in this particular case, a Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch e-ink Reader. I was hemming and hawing because I already enjoy my iPad so much, I didn’t know if the Nook would be just something to have to have it versus something I’d really use. Thanks to Scott, I got a chance to sit down and really look at a Nook before I had to buy one for myself. Even the test period didn’t really help much, it did shift me 60-40, in favor of the Nook, but I was still quite firmly sitting on that fence.

Later on that week I decided that I was going to get the Nook after all, and to hop off the fence. I did post a question to my blog and social networking groups, but only one or two people commented so that avenue wasn’t as useful as I had hoped. Thanks a a lot people! 😉 So I went to Scott’s store and Scott and I went through the dance, I asked to buy, he gave me his corporate-mandated pitch, and because I’m cheeky, I decided to add a B&N Membership to the entire thing, which did get me $10 off the Nook. Truth to be told, getting the membership (a renewal after it lapsed so long ago) was partly to boost Scott’s membership-card levels and partly for a treat that B&N now has in their cafe, a Key Lime Tart that is probably very bad for me, but tastes oh-so-good. Now I can get a discount on my guilty pleasure and from time to time get a Starbucks drink from people who I trust and who I know LISTEN. So, I got my Nook and we hit the road, heading somewhere in Scott’s new Juke. I sat there pawing at the new device and wanting to set it up. I wondered just how much of a charge might be on the device and if I could indeed set it up while in the car on a road trip. I turned the Personal Hotspot on my iPhone on and started my new Nook. It came with a 69% full battery. More than enough to get it up and running! So I had my Nook set up but no books on it. That came later. By the time I was really starting to explore the Nook we had reached our destination and it was time to put the gadget away.

The Nook is much like the iPad, in so far that Apple and Barnes & Noble both produce a semi-open/semi-locked device. Both devices can accept ePub file formatted e-Books. I copied all the ePub’s that I had over to my Nook and was very self-satisfied that none of them had a problem loading. The Nook doesn’t really have a way to get eBooks onto the device without buying them and pumping them through B&N’s infrastructure, but you can plug the device in and copy over your own ePub files, as many as you like. The Nook does have a little cheekiness to itself as it is. It’s billed as having a respectable storage amount, but you only get 250MB of user-accessible storage. This is kind of a gyp, but the Nook does provide a handy port for MicroSD on the side. After a while I noticed that my eBook collection would be bigger than the standard storage that came with the Nook itself and I (later on) got a 4GB MicroSD card from OfficeMax for just $17. Quite a deal. I set it all up and pushed my big library of ePub books over to the new Nook. It worked like a charm.

As I was browsing through Barnes & Noble’s store I saw a book that caught my eye. It was a Penguin Classic (those “classics” books with the plain covers and cheap prices) and it was Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. The book was very old, published in 1922. I scanned Project Gutenberg, which is a repository for public domain books and everything they have comes in ePub format. I found this book in PG, so I could skip buying it from B&N. No point in wasting money. I downloaded it on my laptop, copied it to my Nook, and I’ve been reading it as the first book on my Nook. I just finished it today and the experience was quite nice. Reading on the Nook is fast, the Nook ST is light as a feather and I really love it’s textured back. You can either tap/swipe the screen or use the dual edge button controls to advance the pages. The display is matte, it’s eInk, so it’s very easy on the eyes, and the fonts and sizes are of course configurable, which I really appreciate. The Nook doesn’t repaint the screen after each page, but only after 5 or 6 of them. This leaves little bits of eInk debris behind, but frankly I didn’t even notice it. The one thing I was bummed about was that I couldn’t find the dictionary feature on the test Nook. Turns out I didn’t read the manual, but once I accidentally tapped-and-held on a word I saw the way of it and that really worked for me. As I said, reading on the Nook is quite pleasurable and reading fast is easier than having to futz around with a physical book. It’s lighter than my iPad and doesn’t have the battery burn that the iPad does.

The Nook is not all rainbows and butterflies however. This past weekend I took my Nook to South Haven’s Beach for some light reading while everyone played around in Lake Michigan. In order to keep my device clean and safe I put it in a ziplock quart-size baggie. This worked well until I got out in to the bright sunshine. As the plastic would touch the screen the Nook would register it as an actual touch, since the Nooks system uses Infrared sensors to register touches on the display surface. I discovered I could avoid all of that by pulling the baggie tight against the Nook device, and that worked acceptably well. Beyond this little oddity, which really isn’t a problem, just something to watch out for and cope with, I am VERY HAPPY with my Nook Simple Touch. For the pricetag, only $139 bucks, you really can’t go wrong! The Nook does need some add-ons, but they aren’t too expensive. The little Nook light is nice to have, as well as that MicroSD card. Add it up and you still come up to about $150-160 bucks. Not bad for being able to haul around 1400 books in my pocket, on demand, able to read anytime and anyplace I like.

The only unanswered question is how will airlines consider the Nook? Even when it’s “Off” it displays an image. Do airlines regard the Nook as a device that needs to be turned off, or a book that doesn’t matter because you can’t turn it off? That’s something that I’ll have to find out once I fly again.