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Kindle Fire Is Disappointing

Rick — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:43:29 +0000

Lower Your Expectations

Wow, I had low expectations given the $199 price, but the Amazon Kindle Fire still managed to disappoint me.

Pros:

$199

Cons:

Hardware

Backlight bleeding all around the edge of the screen.
Power button is badly placed and I’ve accidentally shut off the Fire several times when holding it.
Super-reflective screen. Much more reflective and finger-print-showing than other tablets. (See picture)
Poor battery life, at least compared to the iPad.
6 GB of usable space so you can’t load this up with movies. I guess Amazon wants this to be more of a streaming device. But you’re left with little space if you need to load this up for travel away from WiFi.
Surprisingly heavy. I suppose this is because I’m used to holding Amazon’s similar sized e-ink tablets. But when you hold the Fire, the weight is the first thing you’ll notice.
No mic, no cameras, no bluetooth, no SD card slot, no gyroscope (for better gaming control).
No hardware Home button or volume buttons. From some pages, it takes a few software button presses to get to the volume controls.

Software

Carousel interface for all your items is a terrible idea, made even worse by the fact that once you launch anything it goes in the Carousel and can not be removed. So you end up with a really long carousel with stuff you don’t want.
Inconsistent UI. For example, when you reach the end of a scroll page, some pages bounce while other pages brighten on the edge.
Slow UI response in many places such as pinch-to-zoom.
Apps crash. On each of three Kindle Fire units we tested, Angry Birds crashed on first launch. It worked after that. The browser had several crashes.
Flash works, but Flash videos are jerky to the point of being unwatchable.
Slow browser. This is especially disappointing given that Amazon promoted the speed of it’s Silk browser.
AppStore allows you to buy apps that don’t work properly on the Kindle Fire.
AppStore search doesn’t work. Searching for “Netflix” resulted in four apps, none of which were the Netflix app. (See picture)
AppStore has very few apps compared to other Android devices with Google Market.
The magazines are just scans of the magazine. These aren’t nice PDFs with embedded fonts. So when you zoom, the text gets fuzzier. The aspect ratio of 16×9 doesn’t fit magazines well. There is empty space at the top and bottom when viewing the full page.
There is one odd thing I haven’t figured out yet. When scrolling a web page, it looks as if the page tilts in the direction you are scrolling. I haven’t been able to capture this on camera. I can’t tell if this is a UI decision or a weird screen drawing or refresh issue.

Alternatives

I’m not just being an Apple fanboy here. While both the iPod Touch are iPad are far superior to the Fire, so are the Samsung Android devices which are faster and have a better UI. And if you want to just read, the e-ink Kindles are great. The Kindle Fire is just not a fully developed product.

Canon S100 versus S95

Rick — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:23:32 +0000

King of Pocket Cameras

Canon’s venerable Powershot S camera line, starting with the S90 two years ago, just got a step better with the new S100.

While not visually much different than last year’s S95, the S100 is probably a bigger jump than the S90 to S95 was.

What’s improved?

More grippy body – grips on the front and back, grippier finish
1080P video instead of 720P (h264 mov files)
better noise reduction with DIGIC 5 image processor
better dynamic range and low light sensitivity
12 megapixel camera
bigger wideangle/zoom range – now 24-120mm equivalent instead of 28-105mm
geotagging – Yay! So I can see where all the photos were taken.

Like the last upgrade, don’t feel compelled to upgrade from an S90 or S95. The picture quality has improved, but only noticeably in low light.

UPDATE: I was surprised to see that Gizmodo couldn’t recommend the camera due to battery issues. They’re either doing something wrong or have a bad camera. While the battery life on the Canon S series has never been great, the S100 isn’t any worse for me than the previous models. It can stay in standby for weeks (I’ve only had it a few weeks) and it can take around 200 shots. I keep the GPS photo tagging on and the GPS logger off.

Happy iPhone 4S Day

Rick — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 16:54:30 +0000

Because the 4S was available for preorder, the line at the Clarendon, Virginia store is about 10% of what it was for the iPhone 4 launch.

New Kindle 4 with Broken Screen

Rick — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:21:28 +0000

Time for a break? One of these Kindles decided that it was. Don’t drop your Kindle.

Keynotes – Amazon and Apple

Rick — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:34:23 +0000

It’s been an exciting week of product announcements from Amazon and Apple. Decide who does a better Steve Jobs impersonation.

Amazon Kindle Press Conference – September 28, 2011, New York, NY

Apple Special Event – October 4, 2011, Cupertino, CA

2011 Mac Mini Hard Drive Upgrade Video

Rick — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:27:46 +0000

We just upgraded a 2011 Apple Mac Mini to have an SSD, a second hard drive, and new RAM.

Video

.
Also available on YouTube in High Definition or Standard Definition.

IMPORTANT NOTE: at 2 minutes in, you should pop the fan cable up, not forward toward us, to remove it. Some people recommend using a plastic spatula to pop it up. (Thanks to Jon in the comments for pointing out this error)

Parts List

OCZ 120 GB Vertex 3 SATA III 6.0 Gb-s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive VTX3-25SAT3-120G
Western Digital 1TB Blue WD10JPVT 5400RPM, 8 MB cache, 2.5 inch, 9.5MM height hard drive
Corsair 8 GB DDR3 Laptop Memory Kit CMSO8GX3M2A1333C9
Apple Mac Mini Model MC816LL/A 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive
Cable: Apple Part 922-9560, also called “Apple Mac Mini Server (Mid 2010) Bottom Hard Drive Server Flex Cable” or “Hard Drive Flex Cable Bottom”. We used part number 1009005 at welovemacs.com. This is sold as a kit from ifixit.com.

Alternate Parts List

The OCZ Vertex 3 is the fastest consumer SSD at the moment. Other SSD’s that you might consider include:

Highest reliability SSD: Intel 510 Series 120 GB
Best value high capacity SSD: Lexar Media Crucial 512 GB m4

The Western Digital Blue drive mentioned above is high capacity and quiet. For a faster spinning hard drive consider:

Western Digital 750TB Black WD7500BPKT 7200RPM, 16 MB cache, 2.5 inch, 9.5MM height hard drive

The dedicated graphics in the mid-tier Mac Mini make it worth it for me. But for the cheapest Mini, consider:

Apple Mac Mini MC815LL/A 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor, integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000, 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive

UPDATE: My video shows adding two 9.5MM height drives. I just upgraded another Mac Mini with a 9.5MM SSD and a 12.5MM standard hard drive. As with my first upgrade, the hard drive goes in the bottom slot (the side closest to the top of the case when upright). This does fit. But first you need to slide the logic board out slightly. Be sure to remove the IR port adapter before sliding out the logic board. The OWC video shows how to do this. I used a cut up coat hanger to insert into the logic board holes and slide it out.

First Boot

Starting with a blank hard drive is easy on the 2011 Mac Mini. Hold down Command-R to boot into Lion Recovery which allows you to format the drives and download Lion over the Internet.

TRIM Support in Lion

For optimal SSD performance, enable TRIM support within OS X Lion. Grant Pannell describes the terminal commands to enable TRIM.

Photos of Upgrade

Opened

Fan Removal

WiFi Connection

Empty Drive Bay

Original Hard Drive

Drive Bay Side View 1

Drive Bay Side View 2

New Hard Drive & Cable

New Hard Drive Insertion

New SSD

New SSD & Drive Cables Attached

New RAM

Attach Fan

Panasonic DMC-TS3 Waterproof GPS Camera

Rick — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 01:13:35 +0000

Panasonic DMC-TS3

It’s summer. And if you’re like me, you want to get out and take pictures. But wait. Are you forgetting something? Yes, you forgot about your crushing fear of dementia which will inevitably make you forget where the photos were taken. Well, there’s a solution for that.

It’s the Panasonic DMC-TS3, my favorite adventure camera with built-in geotagging (the ability to add location metadata to the photo). This allows you to see where the photo was taken from iPhoto, Flickr, and other photo tools.

The DMC-TS3 isn’t a battery hog like other GPS cameras. But it does checks its position periodically so that it doesn’t take too long to find its new location.

(Panasonic DMC-TS3 with the Lowepro Rezo 30 case.)

Here’s a map of geotagged photos from within iPhoto of my bike trip along the Great Allegheny.

Other Geotagging Solutions

There are unfortunately very few cameras with GPS tagging built-in. Cell phone cameras such as the iPhone will geotag photos automatically. You can use any camera with the neat iPhone app GeoLogTag but this requires several extra steps to add the location information later. I’d love to have geotagging built into a larger sensor compact camera like the Canon S95.

Waterproof

While the Panasonic DMC-TS3 won’t produce the same low-light shots a S95, it has the additional advantage of being waterproof. It takes amazing underwater photos and videos.

Being waterproof, it’s also great for skiing or any outdoor sports where rain or sweat would attack a normal camera.

The only thing I wish the DMC-TS3 kept from the DMC-TS2 is the rubberized case which made me feel better about bouncing it off rocks. It’s not a huge deal. I’ve put a little bit of black electrical tape on the camera to make it more grippy in wet situations (see photo).

iKlear Cleaning Kit

Rick — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:38:02 +0000

When clients give me computers that have lots of dirt and smudge on the screen, I grab iKlear to clean it. I saw a few years ago that it’s what Apple uses to clean laptops, especially the white MacBook prone to discoloration.

Now I also use iKlear to clean phones, tablets, and TVs. Do not to use Windex or other cleansers not specifically designed for monitors. They can permanently damage the screen. If you don’t want to spend the money, at least get a microfiber cloth and just use a small amount of plain water.

Bogus Domain Name Expiration Notices

Rick — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 07:53:22 +0000

As a owner of several websites, I regularly get misleading domain expiration notices from companies that are not my domain registrar.

Sometimes the notices are about domains that really are expiring soon. Today, I got a notice of expiration notice from a place called domainregisstra.com from verranhaddad@sellstones.com. While the email never stated the expiration of the domain, it implied one by stating a ”due date” of May 13, 2011. The email text stated:

Attn :

This solicitation is to inform you that it’s time to send in your registration for [mywebsite.com]. DRS is a submission service and search engine ranking provider.

Failure to complete your search engine registration by May 13, 2011 may result in the cancellation of this offer (making it difficult for your customers to locate you using search engines on the web).

Your registration includes search engine submission for [mywebsite.com] for 1 year. You are under no obligation to pay the amount stated above unless you accept this offer by May 13, 2011. This notice is not an invoice. It is a courtesy reminder to register [mywebsite.com] for search engine listing so that your customers can locate you on the web.

So I looked up my domain at whois.com and found out the real expiration date of April 20, 2015.

The main scam here is that this looks like a renewal notice from my registar. But it’s from a company that wants to move me to a different registrar. If I was going to renew my domain, I’d just go to my real registar.

The price quoted from this email is $75 per year. That’s a scam considering that places like hover.com and godaddy offer domain registrations for $5 to $15 per year. The only claimed extra value is a “search engine submission”, which is really a worthless service. If your site is brand new and no search engine knows about it you can submit it to Google and submit it to Bing for free.

Download Flash Videos

Rick — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:04:11 +0000

If you want to download Flash videos, such as from YouTube, there are many options. My favorite way is to use the Firefox plug-in called Download Flash and Video. It actually can download anything that’s Flash including Flash games.

Install it like any Firefox Add-on by going to Tools – Add-ons – Get Add-ons. Once installed you will see a down arrow at the the bottom right hand of Firefox. It turns blue when there is content on the current page that you can download. It’s simple.

After downloading a video, you can use Handbrake to change the video to another format you might need.