Categories
Uncategorized

Old Boots/New Boots

My bummin’ slummin’ friends have all got new boots… Ok, maybe not, but I got a new pair of boots.

I couldn’t find my old winter boots last week (I haven’t worn them since last year) and was convinced Dana threw them out. She threatened to do so last year, because honestly, they suck. I’m pretty sure I got them from the trash, and they might be 30 years old by now. (She didn’t actually get rid of them, she just hid them so I’d be forced to buy new ones, which is what you have to do when dealing with me.)

Anyway, I went to look for boots. Now, keep in mind, I have not been winter boot shopping since my Mom took me some time in the 1970s, so I had no idea what to expect. When I was a kid, boots were huge, unwieldy monsters you strapped onto your feet which made it difficult to walk, but kept your feet warm. No so today…

I asked the guy at the store where the big winter boots were, the ones with a 1/2 inch of black insulated liners. He said that unless I was going ice fishing all day long, I didn’t need those, and besides, almost no one makes or sells those anymore.

Old Boots/New Boots

On the left, the “curbside specials” I’ve been using for, oh, I dunno, possibly 20 years… And on the right, a pair of North Face Chilkats. These things are amazing. They are so light and comfortable, it just seems wrong. I’m too used to barely being able to walk, let alone run with boots on. They were less than $70 on sale, and I figure they should last at least 10 years, so I’m all set for now with boots. (Unless there is some amazing new breakthrough in boot technology I just have to have, like, you know, if Apple, Inc. starts making iBoots or something.)

Categories
Uncategorized

DIY Snowboarding

Sunday morning, around 7 AM… I couldn’t sleep, so I got up, suited up, and went out snowboarding.

Snowboard in Snow

The local ski/snowboard hill doesn’t even open until 10AM, so I just found a local sledding hill (which was empty at 7:30 on a Sunday morning.) Now, I’m still pretty much a beginner, so a small-to-medium sized sledding hill is all I need to keep me busy for a while.

I think I lasted under an hour. Going down the hill is no problem, that’s the easy part… The hard part is hiking back up the hill. It also started snowing pretty heavily, so the stupid eyeglasses were getting foggy and snow-covered.

Still, it was a lot of fun, and I’ve scoped out about 3 or 4 other hills in the area to try out. Luckily, we’ve got a good amount of snow now, and it should stick around until March if we’re lucky. Yay snowboarding!

Categories
Uncategorized

iPod Review – One Year Later

I’ve had an iPod for just over a year now, so I thought I would make a few notes on it. I know the iPod is a beloved product, and the music player in some people’s minds, but it, like any other product (by Apple or otherwise) could use some improvements…

I have the 5th generation 30GB iPod with video. It was given to me by the lovely Dana. Before the iPod I was using a Rio 500, and an iRiver IPF-180T.

I had one annoying issue with syncing my iPod, but other than that, it’s been pretty much problem-free.

Now, in comparison, the Rio 500 still beats the iPod for bookmarking. The Rio has a button that will set a bookmark in any MP3 file. No so with the iPod. It does not support bookmarking of any audio file. This is annoying, especially as it was a feature I used daily, and had to give up on when I moved to the iPod.

The iPod does remember what is playing when you turn it off and continues from there (of course my cassette player did this in 1975 as well) but this fails when you plug your iPod into your computer! So if I’m half way through a podcast, and then want to charge or sync my iPod, it forgets where I was after ejecting, and I’m back at the home screen, and damned if I can remember what I was listening to. Sucks…

The iPod interface is simple, but I know at least one other person who has one that occasionally will not turn off, and has said “Couldn’t they just put a damn ON/OFF button on it?” Sometimes mine won’t turn off, so I just put it in my bag and hope it turns off automatically after a few minutes.

The iPod interface also requires you to look, or at least be able to feel around and guess where to push. Other players (with actual buttons) allow you to memorize where the buttons are and what they do. I could operate my Rio while driving and never take my eyes off the road. This seems to be a big concern with the iPhone as well, it will require visual attention to be able to use it.

The Rio kicks the iPod to the curb in regards to bookmarking, but that’s about it. As for the iRiver, the one I have is a cheap, low-end model, and the interface is horrible. The advantages it has is that it can record using a built-in microphone (I wish mine had an audio input though) and has an FM tuner. You can also combine these and record live from the radio. I guess it also plays WMA files, but I don’t have any of those. I mainly use it as a cheap, portable recording device, even though the quality is fairly poor in noisy situations. (I did use it to record myself snoring once.)

In summary, I do love the iPod, but it’s not the ultimate player. It could use some improvements. I’m not sure Apple will ever improve it to my satisfaction, but I thought it was worth critiquing.

(This post just talks about the iPod as an audio player. I plan to follow-up with it’s use as a video player as well.)




Categories
Uncategorized

Nokia Makes Phones I Like

I’ve got a Nokia 7610. I like it. I use Cingular, and so far, I don’t hate them.

My phone runs the Symbian OS. It’s a Series 60 device. There are a whole lot of applications I can install on it. A whole bunch of applications.

I’ve installed a bunch of applications on my Nokia phone. I still manage to make and receive calls just fine, and I’m 99% sure I’ve never disrupted the Cingular network in any noticeable way. If an application I’ve installed misbehaves I usually just delete it. There is at least one app I use that doesn’t quit, and I use another utility to force it to quit. (Hmmm, my Mac does something similar with applications that get stuck.) There is one game I installed that froze my phone so bad, I had to remove the battery to reset it, Luckily, removing the battery was very easy, and I don’t use that application anymore. Besides those two bad app(les) they other two dozen applications I’ve installed work just fine.

Just fine…. Just like almost all the other phones out there that people have installed applications on.

I didn’t just randomly pick this phone, I got a Nokia phone so I could take photos, shoot video, record audio, and transfer the things I created to my computer under my control. I can create my own ringtones at no cost. I can sync the calendar with my desktop calendar (though I do need iCal in the loop to make it happen.) I can sync my contacts with my desktop contacts. Damn, it’s pretty good. Things work. I like my phone and how it works.

Nokia is a big believer in open source. I like open source. I like to use my phone (which is really a mobile computer) for all sorts of things Nokia and Cingular probably don’t care about. Have you seen the Nokia 770 or N800? Those are cool devices, very open to new applications and new ideas. All of the Nseries devices look interesting.

Remember, we still have choices, and we vote for those choices with our dollars and our words.




Categories
Uncategorized

Stumbling Wifi

After the Web414 meeting last week I ran MacStumbler on the drive home to see what I could find. I was surprised by how many networks it saw while driving 65mph on I-94…

Here’s a few open wifi networks I found along the way:

  • ProHealthCareGuest
  • Enters
  • michaelswireless
  • PFH
  • binc-public
  • stone creek coffee

There were also a some ‘linksys’ and ‘belkin’ and a whole bunch named orange, orange12, orange13, orange14, etc…

These were closed, but I found the names amusing or interesting:

  • Dream Kitchens
  • klotka
  • TowerSpecial
  • oconomowoc
  • trec
  • Midwest Law
  • Nomad
  • EyesOff
  • Kronos Wireless
  • J&J Awesome Wireless
  • Pruscha for Mayor

The last two tie for my favorite, ‘J&J Awesome Wireless’ and ‘Pruscha for Mayor’ – I mean, one is awesome and the other is an advertisement for a mayoral candidate!