Thursday, August 26, 2010

Thoughts on iPad

Apple iPad.In a surprising for pretty much everyone, including myself, turn of events I’ve arrived to a decision that I want an iPad.

My 30th birthday is coming up in less than a week and I kept getting questions about what I would like to get for it. And over the past weekend it kind of dawned on me. I wouldn’t buy one myself as I don’t really have a need for it, but getting it as a present changes everything. I asked my parents and my sister what my budget range is and it turns out that it’s exactly what I would need to get an iPad.

This is where the easy part ends and the “agony” begins. I have a lot of questions that I’m trying to answer and I have a lot of things to weight. The biggest question is this — do I get one now and get instant gratification or do I try really hard to be patient and wait for a 2nd generation? Below are my thoughts on the topic. Continue Reading
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , , , ,
Time: 18:41   Comments: 3 Comments   Post a Comment  
1
2
3

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Sunday, June 27, 2010

iPhone 4

iPhone 4.Apple has decided to surprise us all with an early delivery of iPhone. A lot of people got their pre-orders delivered on the 22nd instead of 24th and I think the majority got their pre-orders delivered on 23rd. Maruk and I were among the latter group.

A box from FedEx.I was fearing from the start that even if I get mine on 24th the activation tools would be plagued by the huge lines in all the stores and I wouldn’t be able to get it going on the same day. And that was in addition to the fact that I would be in the office on Thursday (24th) and would probably miss FedEx. Wednesdays I work from home office.

iPhone 4 box.Last year I got FedEx delivery at 10am. Also FedEx tried to make a delivery to us a day before and that was at 3pm. So when by 4pm there was no sign of them and my tracking page started showing delivery exception saying that shipper requested to delay the delivery until a future date I was starting to get really upset. But luckily I was wrong and FedEx guy simply ignored the exception. I had my iPhone ten minutes to 5.

Back of the new iPhone.The activation went through in 3 or so minutes. I had the phone up and running, fully synced at 5:15. The screen is amazing. To really see how great it is one should put an older iPhone next to it. Then the difference become very dramatic. I was actually surprised how I never noticed all the blur on the old phone before.

iPhone getting activated.The phone feels good in hand although it is more of a finger print magnet than the older ones — maybe because I used to use white iPhones. I’m waiting for Vaja to come out with a case1 — I’ll get one as soon as they become available. FaceTime works great — you just make a call. No software to install, nothing to configure. Although this is a feature I don’t see myself using very often if at all.

iPhone 3GS vs iPhone 4.I’m very happy with camera upgrades. If before I was considering of maybe getting a point and shoot for the situation when I don’t want to lug my dSLR along now there is no need. And I do always have the phone with me. 5 mega-pixel photos, 720p video and a flash — what more could I need?

Overall I’m very happy with my purchase. Although it’s subjective, I strongly believe that iPhone is still the reigning king of smartphones.

  1. I can replicate the widely publicized antenna issues in certain situations as well. It doesn’t really seem to affect me much as I don’t generally hold the phone that way, but in case I happen to — the case will help. []
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , , , ,
Time: 14:33   Comments: 3 Comments   Post a Comment  
1
2
3

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Monday, June 21, 2010

iOS 4

iPhone home screen in iOS 4.Folders in iOS 4.Apple has released iOS 4 at 1pm EST today and I’ve had it on my phone 15 minutes after. This year I decided not to install developer GM version1, but just be patient and get it via iTunes as everyone else. Upgrade was absolutely painless.

After having it on my phone for several hours I can say that some things are certainly nice. I have yet to see how useful the “multitasking” is going to be and I do have to update my app to stay in the background if user wishes it to — not an automatic thing that I thought it would be.

Folders are nice. Although it will take me quite some time before I sort out all the app mess that I’ve accumulated over the past 2 years. I also like the ability to have home screen backgrounds — that’s how shallow I really am. o.O

However not being to double tap the home button to pull up a phone application is going to be missed. What I really need now is my iPhone 4 itself. Only 3 more days left. teeth

  1. It turned out to be the same thing as the final release, just like last year. []
In: Life In General   Tags: , , , ,
Time: 16:32   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Order Went Through

Apple OrderWell, after about 7 million tries my order finally went through. You can guess the rest, right? Now there is just 9 or so days of waiting and then more agony with activation. Somehow we’re eligible for upgrade on both lines, but we’re going for 1 phone only at this time.
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , ,
Time: 19:10   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Friday, May 28, 2010

Sacramento & Silicon Valley

California Capitol Building in Sacramento.On Friday, April 30th, we started the final leg of our journey. However we had to make some adjustments to our plans because of the snow. To get to our planned destination of Lake Tahoe we had to cross Sierra Nevada mountain range. And since it was snowing heavily in the past days all roads including interstates had a tire chain requirement in effect, and we had none.

However the situation worked out to our advantage. I was worried that we scheduled to little time for San Francisco and Silicon Valley area, yet we had to so many places to see and so many people to meet. So we canceled our hotel at Stateline, Nevada and booked on at downtown Cupertino instead.

Sacramento


Alena, Daniel, Clare, Oksana, Boris.We left Yosemite and took course towards Sacramento. It was a bit of a hook, but we had important plans for Sacramento. As we mentioned earlier we found a part of our long lost family. A lot of them still live in California and one of my Dad’s second cousins, Clare, lives in Sacramento. Also we like to visit state capitals as we can and visiting capitol buildings, and that’s what we did.

Dome of the Capitol.We meet with Clare in the old historic part of the town for lunch and had a good time sharing family stories. It’s so weird that we all “started” from a far town in a Siberia (even though most of us have never been there), had such different paths and ended up meeting in this country.

In front of the governor's office.Afterwards we took a short walk around the old town and have said our good-buys to Clare took off in the direction of capitol. The building itself was pretty impressive and looked no worse than the main one in DC. We were lucky enough to get a great state stamp of the format that we’ve seen at some other capitals. We also had a chance to go by their famous governor’s office, but the governor himself refused to come out and meet us. Oh, well. )

Cupertino & Silicon Valley


Apple Campus. One Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA.After Sacramento our trip took us to Cupertino. The ride was pretty much uneventful and we got to our hotel rather quickly without spending much time in traffic. The hotel turned out to be very nice and cozy. The service was great and as requested we got rooms on the top floor. Cupertino itself was not what I expected. The town was very green (lots of trees) and seemed like a place I could totally live at.

Our and Masha's families.We were meeting our friend from Tashkent here who we haven’t seen for almost 20 years. Now she lives in the area with her husband and 3 daughters. We decided to meet for dinner at a local Outback that was 1 exit away and is located right across from Apple’s campus. During dinner we tried to catchup, but 20 years is a long time. ) And after dinner I ran across the street to see something on the Apple’s campus, but it was too late and too dark.

Apple Campus. Infinite Loop.The objective was the next day was simple. Get to San Francisco, while stopping at all the famous, at least to me, places that Silicon Valley has to offer. And that’s what we did. We started with Apple campus. Drove around Cupertino to make sure that indeed I could liver here, and yes, I still could. )

First Apple.On our way to Google’s campus in Mountain View we stopped by a computer museum where we actually saw the very first Apple computer built on a piece of particle board or something like that. There were a couple of mainframes there and some other things, but I expected more from it.

Google Campus.Google campus is more like Google town. It’s huge, with a lot of buildings. There are volleyball courts and there are bicycles laying all over the campus. Just pick one up and ride to where-ever you need to go. I could totally live here as well. There weren’t many people around, but I imagine on a work week day it’s packed.

In Tesla Motor's show room and head quarters.And finally on our way to San Francisco we drove through Palo Alto, checking in into Facebook HQ and visiting Tesla Motors showroom and HQ. We also drove through the campus of Stanford University, but we didn’t really stop and walk around. Overall Silicon Valley is a large number of small towns that feels more like a single big city.

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

iPad

Rubinary on iPad.This past weekend we ended up on a mall in New Jersey and these days it seems that everyone of those has an Apple store. Remembering that this was an actual release day for an iPad we decided to peek inside. There was a line if you wanted to buy one (2 people), but you could go inside and touch one without standing in one.

iPad.That’s what we did. It’s pretty much what you would expect. Everything is well designed, works well and fast — nothing really surprising to an iPhone user. The fact that the screen is covered in grease is not surprise either. However I’ve noticed that it’s a bit on the heavy side. I would think that my hands would get tired fairly quickly if I were to hold it in subway. But then again, I’m not the strongest type. I’m sure it’s a fun gadget, but I still don’t think it’s for us.
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: ,
Time: 13:04   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Lowepro Fastpack 250 Backpack

Lowepro Fastpack 250.When we travel I end up lugging around a lot of gear. Most of the bulk comes from the fact that I have 2 bags — one for laptop, one for camera and lenses. I wanted to merge them together and the arrival of D700 kind of forced me to. The older SlingShot1 bag that I used for camera gear couldn’t fit D700 with 24-70mm lens attached.

Here is a short list of things that were a must:
  • Notebook compartment for 15 inch MacBook Pro
  • Good sized camera and lens compartment
  • Additional compartment
  • Ability to take out the camera body out of the bag easily without a fear of anything else falling out
  • All of the above in the smallest possible package

Lowepro Fastpack 250 next to Lowepro SlingShot 100 AW.I had good experience with my current bag and I liked the idea of taking the camera out without taking the bag off. Naturally the first thing we looked at was Lowepro SlingShot 350. In my opinion that thing is just hideous and just too huge. After that I read up on a lot of different stuff and in the end we had two main contenders — Tamrac Aero Speed Pack 85 and Lowepro Fastpack 250. I actually realized that when you have so much weight it better be a full backpack as opposed to a sling shot type bag, to distribute the weight better.

Both of these bags meet all of my criteria including the fact that you can take out the camera without exposing any of the lenses. Judging purely by design I would probably give slightly higher marks to Tamrac bag, but everything else went for Fastpack.

Lowepro Fastpack 250 loaded with gear.Fastpack has a lot more pockets and it really comes in handy when you’re carrying trip plans, passports, filters, wires and so on. Another huge plus for me was the flap that goes over the lens compartment. While traveling you can put put all the zippers under it and thus prevent anyone from trying to pull a fast one on you. We tried both of them on at B&H and Fastpack just felt more comfortable and more secure to me. Overall they are both very good bags and it will probably come down to your own preference.

This past weekend I tried walking around with it having several heavy lenses and a camera inside. It felt very good. I was able to take the camera out without taking the bag off and I think I’m going to be pretty happy with it. The real test comes at the end of April, during our California road trip. I’ll have it fully loaded for the plane and will remove non-camera gear for hikes.

Lowepro Fastpack 250. Side view.

  1. Lowepro SlingShot 100 AW. []

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Vaja ivolution Top SP Case

Front cover.Never posted a note about the 2nd Vaja1 case that we ordered — ivolution Top SP. Alena uses this case on her phone.

This is my own personal opinion of the case and since I’ve never extensively used it myself treat it as such.

Rear cover.I think it offers superior phone protection when compared to my case at least with regards to having all corners covered.

The leather itself is soft and very pleasant to the touch, much nicer that the shiny plastic on iPhone itself.

Bottom. The front cover swings down.The screen is protected really well, but as you can see it doesn’t cover the bezels on the sides of the screen itself, which is a good thing — no issues using the screen near the edges.

Originally I thought that it would be hard or impossible to open the case with one hand, but by now I have no issue with that — just takes a little bit of practice.

Screen is fully covered when closed, yet easy to use when open.The phone in the case can not be docked, if that’s your thing.

As you can see the wear shows after about 7 months of use, but Alena keeps it in her purse along with all other stuff. The wear however is purely cosmetic.

Cosmetic wear on the sides. Access to the side buttons.The cost was $85. There are a lot of color choices for the case itself and for the central stripe. This case gets thumbs up from me. A very good, functional and stylish case by Vaja.

  1. I can’t link directly to the case because Vaja uses Flash on their site. []
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , , , , , , ,
Time: 11:28   Comments: 1 Comment   Post a Comment  
1

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Friday, August 14, 2009

Fabulous AT&T

Log of dropped calls. Thanks, AT&T!Yesterday on my way home Alena and I experienced the real quality of AT&T network. It usually does drop a lot of calls, but yesterday was just ridiculous. I literally could not finish a single thought without getting interrupted. Haven’t been quite so frustrated with anything in a long while.

I think Apple should really end this exclusive relationship. I can’t stand the service. At the same time I’m not yet willing to give up the best phone I’ve ever had.
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , , ,
Time: 15:23   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

CheckSpit 1.2

Enter PricesEnter InitialsSplit CheckApple has just approved my first update to CheckSplit. It should be popping up in your App Store Updates tab very soon if you one are of the proud owners of CheckSplit. ) The update carries a number of a small updates and one major new feature:
  • You can now tap on the tax or tip fields to get to the tip & tax adjustment screen.
  • You can now label parties with text initials, in addition to colors. Just tap any colored icon while entering the check and you will be presented with a screen to enter the initials for that person or group. To clear it out simply drag the letters off the icon. These will be saved for future use as well, so you do not have to re-enter them every time.
  • Splash screen while loading.

Please rate CheckSplit in App Store, or update your review if you like it.
In: Software   Tags: , , , ,
Time: 18:28   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Friday, August 7, 2009

Vaja Classic Retro Case

Front side of a case with iPhone inside.It’s been 2 weeks since we have received our custom cases from Vaja. I’ve been using classic Retro Dockable case daily and I’m at a point where I’m ready to write a form of a review for it.

Back of the case.Here is exactly what I ordered — Plain Vitelino leather1, “Passion” body color, “Sabbia” stripe color, kickstand2, ultra clip3. The total came out to $1114. You can also have them engrave the case with some custom text, but I didn’t get that.

I will start by saying that I’m practically in love with it and this is the best case that I have personally used, seen, or touched. If with other cases I was trying to have “as little” case as possible, this one evokes an opposite emotion. I enjoy it’s bold look and feel.

Cover and stitching close up.The craftsmanship is superb with perfect stitching and perfect tight fit. Leather is very pleasant to the touch. Vaja has a multitude of colors available to choose from, although their Flash “case builder” does not give a true representation of actual colors.

Open case with a phone inside.Functionality-wise it has its pluses and minuses. I feel that the phone is well protected, yet the switches, the speakers, microphone and dock connector are easily accessible. Camera is unobstructed. The screen cover is held down with magnets, but it can easily be flipped open with a thumb, so one hand operation is still possible.

Kick stand.The kickstand on the back allows the phone to be placed on the table with a screen facing you either in vertical or horizontal position, even though it does add some bulk to the case.

I’m still not 100% sold on the belt clip idea, even though I find the implementation great. I used to always wear a phone on a belt clip before the Treo. And I got used to carrying my iPhone in the pocket. The size of the phone doesn’t seem to place itself on the belt. Otherwise the connection between the case and the belt clip is very secure, yet it is possible to unlock and remove the phone with just one hand.

Empty case.Inside, the case has a small plastic protector covering the area around the speaker (all sensors work without any issues), but the the area for the screen itself is just an opening, which is great — there is no reason to have additional screen protectors when there is a leather cover on top of it.

Case flipped open.This brings me to a couple of problems. When placed in the case the screen ends up being recessed and not flush with the case face. As a result some actions that have anything to do with touching the edge of the screen became harder than they used to be. A good example of this would be moving icons from one screen to another. Although soon you learn that you can drag your finger over the edge of the case itself, but still, not as easy as without the case.

Top with, with connector, speaker and microphone on the bottom.Also since the home button is covered it’s not as easy to click and you don’t really get any tactile feedback from it. There is something glued to the back of it, but it doesn’t seem to be big enough. It’s a minor issue as well.

In conclusion I want to say that this is a great case and if I had a choice, I would order it again without any hesitation. You get what you pay for and it certainly is true in this case. Get it?

Update: There is a very thorough video review available by a guy named Omar C.

  1. $6 option. []
  2. Kickstand is a $20 option. []
  3. Belt clip mount, $5 option. []
  4. You can find coupons online to get a decent discount. []
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Time: 17:24   Comments: 3 Comments   Post a Comment  
1
2
3

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

First Week Sales

CheckSplit for iPhone. First week sales.For those who are interested — here are the results of sales for the first week. I’ve included the first day in the chart, but it should be noted that the app was released somewhere late in the evening.

Overall it’s a pretty interesting experiment. While the app was showing up in new released, the sales very relatively strong. As the app moved off the first screen the “volume” went down. It’s also interesting to note that all other countries combined have got nothing on U.S. market alone.

Beside that I’ve been contacted by some buyers saying that they really like the simplicity and streamlined interface. There also have been some good feature suggestions that I’m going to try to implement.
In: Software   Tags: , , , ,
Time: 14:47   Comments: No Comments   Post a Comment  

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

CheckSplit — iPhone App

CheckSplit in the AppStore.After a long time of not moving ahead with this project I was persuaded by those around me to publish an app that I wrote and we were successfully using for months now.

So I added the final polishes to the application, created a mini-site for it with all the information about it, with the help of my wife put together a good screencast that demos the application and its functionality. And then it was uploaded to Apple for a review.

I’m happy to say that CheckSplit was approved by Apple and is up in the AppStore as of yesterday. I would appreciate any feedback and reviews.
In: Software   Tags: , , , , ,
Time: 10:06   Comments: 7 Comments   Post a Comment  
1
2
3
4
5
6
7

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin

Friday, June 26, 2009

iPhone 3G S

Well, it didn’t take much time or effort to switch to the new phone. Simply plugged it into the computer and iTunes gave me an option to restore from my previous back up1.

iPhone 3G S box is slightly smaller than the previous one.The phone looks exactly the same as the old one with the exception of lettering on the back being done in chrome instead of gray color. The screen is supposed to collect less finger prints and maybe it does, but it still does collect them.

Opening the box.The differences inside are more interesting. Obviously the biggest new feature is the compass. I have no idea how I lived before without it. It’s hard to imagine. But now those sorry days are far behind me. O.o

Photo 1Photo 2On a more serious note — I really like the photo camera improvement. The photos above where taken with the phone in the same position. The phone now auto-exposes depending on your selection of focus point, which is done by simply touching the screen. Video is a nice feature, but I don’t see myself using that much as I never did before on my other phones.

Getting ready to sync.Speed increase is much more noticeable than I expected it to be. iLounge has a good video demonstrating it.

Now I just need to find a good case for this thing, so Shublik doesn’t “upgrade” it.

  1. I synced my old phone right before the start. []
In: Gadgets & Gear   Tags: , , ,
Time: 16:01   Comments: 1 Comment   Post a Comment  
1

Leave a comment

O.o teeth mrgreen neutral -) roll twisted evil crycry cry oops razz mad lol cool -? shock eek sad smile grin