Category: technology

I had considered 12GB of RAM a silly luxury. I certainly never thought I’d use anywhere close to that. Imagine my surprise when I looked at my RAM usage and saw I was pretty much maxed out. I was using almost all of it! What is going on? Looking more closely, I see that I had less than 100MB of free memory, a Gig of “wired” memory, a little under 2GB of active memory, and a whopping 9GB of inactive memory.

 

What’s inactive memory? The computer loads up whatever program you are running into memory. It turns out that it keeps it in memory after you quit the program too. Why? It cuts down on the time it takes to launch the program if it’s already in memory. Programs are pretty much instantly available when I launch them again. Of course, if you launch something else, it will re-allocate that inactive memory to the new task.

 

The really cool thing about this is that I had wondered if I should get a solid state drive instead of, or in addition to, a regular hard drive. Solid state drives don’t move, and they are much faster than regular hard drives. They are much more expensive too. Since I am not a power user by any stretch of the imagination, the biggest bonus to having a SSD would be really fast launch times. So I ended up getting the effect I was looking for with an SSD for a lot less money by having a silly amount of RAM in my machine. That extra $100 I spent on RAM is looking better and better…

Love it. I bought the 27″ iMac and i put an extra 8 gigs of RAM in there.  Oh, and I also put in a 2 TB hard drive. Isn’t that a lot? Well, right now I have 3/4 of a TB (approximately 750GB) and of course I keep adding more. There aren’t any 1.5TB drives available, so 2 it was. What about the RAM? I’m hardly a power user and my Macbook with 2 GB of RAM was still doing OK. Well, OK is a relative term… Right now, I am re-encoding some videos, watching live HD TV, have my chat windows open, the internet, and there isn’t a hiccup, it isn’t even flinching. I am also using about 8GB of RAM. I could do some of these things at the same time, but I would have to choose between the live TV and the encoding. Now, no problem.  Check it out.

 

The encoding program is behind my browser window. While it’s encoding, it isn’t much fun to watch. Watching the Yankees/Red Sox game instead. This is the total opposite of how I use my iPad. I tend to get absorbed in one thing at a time on my iPad, I’m doing 4 things at the same time on my iMac. Would I do the same thing on my iPad if it had the power? Probably not. My usage on the iMac is a function of both the power and the real estate. The iPad screen is just too small to inspire lots of multitasking.

This is an mazing TV.  I can play a full 1080 stream and have plenty of real estate left over. In addition, the video is sharp, there aren’t all those jaggies like I was seeing on my poor Macbook. Even when blown up to full size it looks pretty good. If I sit just a little ways from it I can’t tell the difference.

 

So while the computer is a hit, my current ergonomic situation is not. I need a bigger desk. The one I’m using now would be fine if I could sit at the middle of it. This one has several drawers on the right, so I have to sit to the left. I really need to be in the center of this guy. Plus, I need a real chair. This one is all sorts of bad.

 

Bottom line, it’s a fantastic upgrade. This, along with my iPad, has me set up both at home and on the go.We’ll see what kind of stuff I might start doing now that I have the horsepower.

Google announced the first commercially available computers with their Chrome OS on them. Just to refresh your memory, the idea behind Chrome OS is that the computer would have little more than an internet browser on it. Everything would be done “in the cloud.” That means all of your information would be up on a server on the internet. Many people already do this for their email and pictures. Almost every blog is done that way. More and more are also doing it for their documents and collaborative work as well. Of course, up till now, the cloud was pretty much only used for storage, now you can actually use programs through the internet to do all your stuff.

And that’s the whole idea behind Chrome OS. The computer is just a terminal, all the programs you want to use and all the data is up in the cloud. That means that you don’t really need much of a computer, all of the heavy lifting will be done by the host computers. It also means that the security will be done by the host computers, the storage, and the backups as well. What this means is that with a rather inexpensive machine, you can do quite a bit. I think this could be huge for businesses and schools. Google has announced monthly plans for computers that include both software and hardware upgrades. It isn’t clear to me if this is a lease or just a rental, but in any case, it could revolutionize how people buy and use computers.

So what’s the downside? The biggie is that this OS will require a constant connection to the internet. On top of that, the performance of your machine will be determined by the quality of that connection. If real high speed wireless internet was widely available, this could work real well. As it is now, I wonder how many connectivity issues there will be.

The other possible issue is that right now you can’t really do much high power computing this way. That’s a bit of an unfair criticism since this isn’t aimed at the web design, video editing, application development crowd. On the other hand, it would be a shame for people to feel limited by their computer. It’s nice to have more power and capability than you think you need immediately. Who knows, maybe we will get to a point where there are really powerful programs available on the web, but right now there really isn’t.

I do think that these computers will fill the requirements of most people these days. You can check your email, get on facebook, create documents, surf the web, do your taxes, etc. If done well, and we need to see the reviews, this could be a great general purpose portable computer. It could even be something that I could recommend. Hell, if I decided I wanted another laptop this could be really tempting. There are two things that would make me hesitate though. I’ve already mentioned the connectivity issue, the other is the iPad. I think there’s going to be a lot of overlap between these two devices. True, the iPad does need a computer right now, but that could change. Things are changing quickly, it’s an exciting time to be into tech!

I’ve enjoyed reading on my iPad so much that I’ve actually subscribed to a couple of magazines. Back in the day, I enjoyed getting various magazines. At one point or another I’ve had subscriptions to American Cinematographer, Camera and Darkroom, Darkroom Techniques, Tricycle, Road and Track, and even a mysterious subscription to Playboy. I say mysterious because I never signed up for it and it continued for years. Keep in mind, it only started to show up at my MOM’S HOUSE after I moved out. It actually took some doing to cancel it. To this day I have no idea how that happened or why.

Anyway, for most things, magazines can’t compete anymore. The internet is where I go to get all of my info. Free, up to the minute information and news is hard to compete against. Where some magazines do compete is in analysis. I have subscribed to both The Economist and Reason Magazine.

Reason Magazine is a libertarian news and analysis source. They love to skewer folks from both major parties and suggest alternatives that sound… well, very reasonable to me. They have really good contributors and are a pleasure to read. The mag i so cheap, a buck and change for each digital version, that it was a no brainer for me. Curiously, they don’t have their own magazine app, but instead use both Kindle and Barnes and Noble to handle their digital subscriptions. Amazon would let me buy it on the Kindle app for some reason, but the Nook app did. The layout is sparse, with minimal pictures. That’s fine by me, this is a magazine you really do get for the articles…

I’ve wanted to subscribe to the Economist forever. While I certainly don’t always agree with them, the writing is of high quality and is pretty in depth. On top of that, they cover parts of the world I don’t usually hear about like eastern Europe, south Asia, and Australia. The thing that put me off was the price. As a weekly magazine, it got expensive fast. Their app for the iPad is really nice, not super cluttered or busy like a lot of other magazine apps. The problem is that the digital subscription is the same price as the print edition. I understand that there is a cost to having a quality magazine made. Deep down, it just doesn’t seem right that you should pay the same for a virtual object that you do for an actual one. I’m the last person to question supply and demand, they should charge what they can, but their choice is what prevented me from being a subscriber. Well, one day I got an offer from Groupon for essentially half price on an Economist subscription and I jumped at it. Here’s the weird thing, print subscribers get free access to the digital version. So, I was able to spend half the money and get both the digital and print editions. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to simply offer me the digital only version at that price? It was still over 50 bucks for a year but that’s a far cry from over $100. So I’ve got a year, I’m hoping that they’ll come to their senses before the year is up and offer discounted digital subscriptions.

 

The New Yorker is now offering subscriptions on the iPad for less than the print edition. I’ve never read an issue of that, doubt I will, but I’m glad they’re doing it. Everyone has been waiting for the publishers to do this, it really does make a ton of sense from a consumer’s perspective. The only thing I can imagine causing publishers to have to charge more or the same for digital versions is high fixed costs involving their printing end of things. We’ll see how things shake out in the future. If there are printing costs driving magazine’s prices, I think we’ll see those come down over time as contracts are renegotiated or dropped altogether.

I ordered my new computer the other day, I’ve been told it will be here on the 12th. I’m getting a 27″ iMac, the one with the 2.7Ghz quad core processor and a 2TB hard drive. I’m also upping my RAM up to 12GB. This machine is overkill in a lot of ways, but what the hell. I haven’t had a new computer in 5 years, it’s about time!

My 13″ macbook from 2006 has served me well, it’s still going. When my mother bought her 24″ iMac, I thought it was a bit much, until I started using it… I had been doing a big negative scanning job on my notebook and I thought everything was going fine, then I tried her machine… Wow. Yes, it was more powerful, but the display made a huge difference. Being able to see the image, the tool palettes, and even some chat windows all at once made a huge difference in my workflow. It was actually fun to do, it was a chore before.

This is going to be my TV too. I’m halfway thinking about getting rid of my cable and just going with iTunes, Netflix, and Amazon for my TV show fixes. In any case, I’ll be watching everything on my computer. It will be possible to have a 1080 stream and still have room for a chat window. A subscription to MLBTV isn’t all that much….

 

This will be the end of my computer buying binge, at least for a little while. I’m hoping all of my current things will last several years. What’s next on my bigger purchases list? I’ve got my eye on some new speakers (as always). If I do that, it won’t be till next year at the earliest. I’m going to try to save a little money the rest of this year, and of course buy some more small frivolous things…

As I use the iPad more and more, I find myself using the internet less and lass and using apps instead. In other words, instead of going to Google Reader to read my RS feeds or to Facebook to keep up with stuff, I am using the programs Reeder and Facely to access those things. The apps seem more natural and better integrated than the web experience.

 

I have also found myself getting sucked into whatever I am doing on the iPad more than I did on the computer. The iPad does an amazing job of isolating the current task and eliminating distractions. I’ve already mentioned how much nicer it is to read on the iPad, RSS feeds and email are a pleasure. Now I find myself doing other things like listening to music in a much more intensive way.

 

OK, I know that I tend to listen more intently than most anyway, but this is taking it to another level. When I use the iPod app on the iPad, my music will stream wirelessly from my computer to the iPad. I have headphones on (currently using a pair of VModa crossfade LPs), the album artwork for the song I’m listening to pops up, and with a tap, I get the lyrics as well. Listening to the music while reading the lyrics is a very different experience, the more obscure or opaque the lyrics the more clarity is gained. Even with straightforward lyrics (Red Football by SInead O’Connor for example), there is more impact. Yes, this can be done looking at the web while itunes is playing on the computer, but the way it is presented on the iPad is totally different. There are no banner ads, google ads, or various other distractions, just the album artwork and the lyrics.

The same goes for all of the other apps as well. The Economist magazine, Omaha Steaks, the games, etc, are all a more focused experience on the ipad. I think this is great, it is a way of working that I haven’t really done since college. Of course back then I tended to single task on the computer because there wasn’t anything else to do. Or to see, come to think of it… it was all command line interface back then.

I’m still using my computer. There are times I want to have everything going on at the same time. Plus, I’m still looking for a good blogging program. I am looking forward to a new computer sooner than later. Part of it is for using it as a computer of course (Can’t wait to do the real work on my website on a real screen) but part of it is for the iPad as well. The streaming capabilities will be much better on the new computer… Plus, I’ll be able to use the iPad as an input device as well. As cool as the Magic trackpad is, I gotta think the iPad is going to take multi gestures to the next level.

There’ll be more apps and thoughts about the iPad from me soon…

As much as I loved playing Atari games at home, I was only ever good at two of them, Warlords and Yar’s Revenge. I pretty much sucked at all the other action games. I never did well at any of the arcade games even though I spent a fortune (to an 11 year old) there. Games like Defender really intimidated me. I enjoyed watching people play that, but I only ever attempted it a couple of times. Still, it was a good time at the arcade.

I went to the arcade that was within walking distance of my house all the time. There was a guy there that I saw all the time, he was a real whiz on all the tough games, even on the pinball games. He always seemed to wear a Black Sabbath t-shirt all the time, it was my first awareness of that group. He disappeared for a while and when he came back, he was in a uniform. He had gotten shipped off to some military school and got shaped up. No more arcade for him!

The two biggest and best arcades I ever went into were both on vacations. The first was in the bottom of the Contemporary Hotel in Disney world. Keep in mind that this was before Epcot was built. I don’t actually remember much about that trip, but I sure do remember that arcade! It was huge, I thought i had died and gone to heaven. They had the latest games, but they also had all the classics like Space Invaders, Star Castle, and Lunar Lander. They even had some mechanical arcade games that predated the electronic ones. The other one was on the boardwalk in Cape May NJ. I didn’t care a whit about the beach (still don’t) but I wanted to live in that arcade. They had all those pseudo gambling games there that gave you tokens instead of money and also skeeball. Those were a real novelty to me and I ate it up.

When we moved away from the suburbs, my arcade days were over. Every once in a great while I would wander into a game room in a mall, but they were never proper arcades and they left me cold. Plus, none of the games there really resonated with me. Dragon Slayer was all the rage, but it’s animated sequences off of a laser disk left me cold. I missed the vector graphics of the old Atari games…

Years later, while I was in college, I came across an original stand up Missile Command game in Cortland NY. I got all misty eyed even though that was a game that came out before I got into the arcades. I had played it on the Atari home system and it was cool to see the original. Fast forward another couple of years and I was in Vancouver with my brother and father. I found an original tabletop, 4 player Warlords arcade game.

 

I was dumbstruck. That was the one game I owned on the Atari console at home. And when I say “owned” I mean it was the one game I dominated in. I could play anyone and beat them. It was my one taste of video game mastery. I had no idea that the arcade version had ever existed. I wanted it so badly. I had visions of being the guy that could beat anyone else in an arcade, including the dude in the Black Sabbath t-shirt. Alas, it wasn’t to be. I sadly left it in Vancouver and despaired of ever seeing it again.

Imagine my surprise when I loaded it on my iPad. I may never stop smiling. Total nostalgia overload….

Atari has released an app for the iPad and iPhone that includes 100 games. That got my attention. I loved Atari back in the day, my life revolved around it for a couple years of my life. I got one for Christmas one year and it made my year. I had lots of friends with the system and we would go from house to house playing various ones.

Even then, we knew that the vast majority of Atari games sucked. Their version of Space Invaders had pretty good game play, and there were a handful of other Atari games that were OK. Most of the really good ones were made by other companies like Activision and Imagic. My favorite games that we owned were Warlords and Yar’s Revenge both by Atari, Boxing and Pitfall both by Activision, Riddle of the Sphinx and Trick Shot both by Imagic. The reason we knew that most of Atari’s games sucked was because we also went to the Arcade.

That is where the real magic was. They were dark, had lots of sounds, loud music, and flashing lights. Magic. Atari did well early on in the arcade. Games like Asteroids, Battlezone, Tempest, and Centipede were really popular. As time went on, other companies took the lead in both arcade and console gaming and by 1984 Atari was essentially dead. What a rise and flameout…

I bought the iPad app of course. The ability to have all of these games for $15 was just too good to pass up. The stars are the arcade games. Check these out…

 

Tempest has a really good control system on the iPad. I was a little leery because of the absence of the original wheel, but the virtual scroll wheel on the left does a great job.

 

 

 

Space Duel was an Asteroids-type of game although I’m not sure which came first. I’m partial to Space Duel because of the cool linked ships. It always led to craziness when you played with two people… At first, I thought the control wheel on the left was a bit of a pain in ass to use but then I remembered the original controls were a pain as well.

 

SO the games are great of course, but Atari also packaged some great promotional materials with each game as well. Check out this sweet tabletop version of Asteroids!

 

 

 

All in all, an amazing app for $15. If you’re as nostolgic as I am for those early arcade days, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. I hope Activision releases all of their old Atari games and all the old console makers do the same…

OK, I’ve had a day or so to fool around with my iPad, here are some of the apps that have stood out to me…

 

1) iPod. This is something I didn’t anticipate using since I wasn’t going to put any of my music on the ipad. There’s a new wrinkle though that has made it something I will use quite a bit. That wrinkle is called home sharing. I can stream anything from my main itunes library to my ipad inside the ipad app. Why would I do that? The ipad is a lot more comfortable than my laptop for viewing videos, plus the screen is better too. Now I can watch my stuff at home without having to take up any space on the iPad.

 

2) Reeder. This is a great RSS feed reader. It’s simple, legible, and stable. I was caught off guard by how nice it is to read my copious rss feeds in this app. It’s quick, and easy on the eyes. I like the full page view which removes just about everything except the article I’m reading. It’s hard to explain, but for an infovore like myself, this is going to be one of my most used apps. I tried using Flipboard, but I found it too busy, tooiPeng precious. Reeder does it right. Give me the article and remove all other distractions.

 

3) Email. Once again, this caught me by surprise. Reading email on this device is a real pleasure. There’s something about having the message take up the whole screen that is lovely. All the other mail clients I’ve used look and feel clumsy and busy by comparison.

 

4) iPeng. I have this app for my iPhone as well, it’s something I use quite a bit around the house. It is a remote controller for my squeezebox. I was a bit peeved to find out I had to buy it again for my iPad, and it was 10 bucks no less. Still, I knew I would use it a lot, so I sprung for it. Wow, this is a big improvement over the iPhone version! Sure, it is bigger, but it also has a lot of other refinements. For instance, I have much finer control over the volume on this as compared to the iPhone version. Plus, it is great to see the cover art so big too. If you have a squeezebox, this is well worth it.

 

5) Mobile Me Gallery. I use this app on both my Iphone and iPad so that I don’t have to take up much space on my devices but still be able to see all of my pictures. I’m still using it for that, but wow, pictures look great on this thing. It might even inspire me to go and take some more pictures…

 

6) TED talks. TED is a well known conference with great speakers. This app brings them all together and makes it easy to find the ones you’re looking for.

7) Omaha Steaks. Warning, do not use this app if you are hungry! It has a bunch of recipes, instructional videos, and, oh, they happen to have an order system just in case you want to order any steaks…

There are several games that I have been very impressed with. I’m going to give some of them their own posts and I’ll do some of them here. I want to say that I really didn’t anticipate games being much of an attraction to me but once again, put them on the iPad and they become so much more difficult to resist.

The first game I downloaded was Words with friends. It’s a scrabble like game that I started on the iPhone. Having the much larger screen really makes a difference. The other game is one I tried on a whim, it is called Bust a Marble. It is a classic match colors and things blow up kind of game. I seem to be a sucker for those sorts of things, I’ve played lots and lots of Bejewelled, this is just as addictive.

 

As I come up with more apps that are great, I’ll post about them.