Flyingtroll.com

November 12, 2008

MobileMe: Review

After my repeated love of all things Apple in recent posts, you’d think this is going to be another gushing review. You’d think wrong. I am incredibly underwhelmed by MobileMe, so underwhelmed in fact that I repeatedly forget that I’m a subscriber. On a whim (one that I now regret), I signed up for a MobileMe account at the beginning of the summer.

I guess that works out in Apple’s favor; they get my money for the year, and I don’t place any load on the servers. I keep hearing rumors that there are updates and improvements coming but you just don’t see them. I think the biggest problem is that Apple just doesn’t get how to be an Internet company (you could say the same way that Microsoft just doesn’t get it).

I’ve never had a problem with calendar and contact synching, unlike other folks. I’ve never had it blow up and kill everything, or multiply my appointments in some bizarre fashion. The web-based calendar is okay, but it feels a little too much like somebody said “hey, let’s try to copy iCal EXACTLY”.

There is nothing compelling about the MobileMe web-based email client, in fact, I find it slow and a PITA to use most of the time. Maybe I’m spoiled by Gmail on this one, but just provide the functions I need, and get out of the way. There isn’t even an iPhone version of it — it just redirects you to a brochureware page.

I’ve never bothered with the photo sharing stuff; probably mostly because I’m happy with Flickr, and I can reuse my photos from Flickr elsewhere (like on this site, for example). Frankly the 20GB/200GB transfer limit is a little restrictive if you want to use it for any kind of serious file sharing.

This is one purchase that I wouldn’t bother with (still). I was kind of holding off on posting about it to see if things would improve, but I just don’t think that MobileMe is a priority for Apple. I think they should either get serious about it, open-source it, or sell it as a piece of software that people can install themselves on their own servers.

By J Lane | Posted in Reviews, Technology, Web | Comments (1) |

November 6, 2008

Product Review: TuneBuds Mobile

I’m copping out on blog posts a bit these days, and just posting a bunch of reviews. Hope y’all don’t mind — most of my writing it going into finishing off my Master’s degree, but I made a promise to myself to try to update my blog a little more often.

I am a huge hater of the iPod earbuds (but who actually likes them?) It boggles my mind that Apple hasn’t just started, at least, shipping their in-ear headphones as standard with all iPods. Sure, they probably cost a little more to produce but it’s like adding 1% real beef to that gravy train that they’re riding.

I’ve got a range of different sets of headphones. I own a pair of Apple in-ear headphones, and they’re actually pretty good. I’ve also got some big, comfy Acoustic Research headphones that I use when I’m at home. I like the convenience of the in-line clicker/mic on the iPhone headset though, so I can’t use either pair with my iPhone.

I was debating picking up a nice set of Sennheisers or some V-Moda Vibes for the iPhone, but I really didn’t want to wait on shipping. I was in Victoria last week and decided to swing by the local FutureShop to see what they had in stock. The selection was pretty dismal, but they did have a set of Griffin Technology TuneBuds Mobile in stock. For a whopping $34.99, I figured that even if these are 10% better than the stock headset, I’d be ahead.

Now that I’ve been playing with them for a week, I can say that they’re way beyond 10% better. I’m actually quite impressed with them on a number of levels. For starters, the construction feels really solid. The cables are sheathed in nylon braiding, so they feel more like a thin rope than an electrical cable. This not only makes them feel sturdy, but also makes them somewhat tangle resistant.

They’re quite comfortable; like the Apple in-ear headphones (and a lot of in-ear headphones for that matter), they come with three different sizes of earpieces. Turns out the medium ones fit me just fine. These earpieces also give you pretty good noise isolation; I couldn’t hear my wife standing in the office door (4 feet away) telling me that lunch was ready the other day. This can actually be a bit disorienting when you’re talking on the phone, though, as it’s actually hard to hear your side of the conversation. The person you’re talking to is loud and clear, but you’re definitely muffled. That’s hardly a negative of this particular set of headphones though — I imagine that any in-ear headset would offer similar results.

The inline clicker and mic work just fine; as well as the stock Apple set at least. I’ve had several conversations and not had any trouble being heard. The sound quality of the headphones is definitely an improvement over the ear buds. If I had to compare them, they’re probably on par with the Apple in-ear headphones that I’ve got (so not the greatest quality, but not bad for casual listening either).

So, honestly, at $35 you really can’t go wrong with these. If you’re a real audiophile, and expect top-quality sound you’re probably better off paying a bit more and going for some Sennheisers, but for everyday users, these are great.

By J Lane | Posted in Reviews, Technology | Comments (0) |

November 4, 2008

MacBook Pro 15″ (late 2008) Review

Sorry for the rapid fire pair of reviews folks, but I’ve got a touch of insomnia (I promise this is the last of the night though).

There’s been a pile of reviews published by news sites, but you may (like me) wonder what the deal is with the new MacBook and MacBook Pro. I can’t give you seriously in depth info, but I can give you my experiences.

Up front, I’m a bit of an Apple fanboy. This is going to be a positive review; so if you’re not interested in hearing anything except for how Windows 7 is going to be so cool, don’t bother reading on. If, however, you’re considering getting a new Mac laptop, I may have some useful information for you.

I’ve been going steady with the Mac since the G3 processor. I breathed a sigh of relief when they announced the Intel transition, because I was really getting sick of the performance in my G4 PowerBook at that time. That’s all ancient history now though, and my last machine was a Black MacBook 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo. It was a good machine, I had it for just over a year. It did what I needed it to do work-wise, but forget about playing certain games on it. My biggest complaint, however, was that the 13″ screen just wasn’t cutting it for me.

I had heard the rumours about laptop updates coming, so I decided to hang in there and wait. Glad I did. The new 15″ MacBook Pro is hands down the best computer I’ve ever owned.

Performance-wise, this thing blows the MacBook out of the water. It’s a 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, but it does have a much faster bus, and dedicated graphics hardware. It’s also got 4 GB of RAM, whereas my MacBook was only rocking 2 GB. For me, the biggest performance increase has been in VMWare Fusion — suspend and resume operations are near instant now, and when I’m doing development, I just leave Windows running in another Space (virtual desktop).

The added screen real-estate is nice, and the multitouch trackpad is actually pretty cool once you get the hang of it. I forgot how much I missed the illuminated keyboard (in my previous job, my work machine was a 17″ MacBook Pro).

I’ve seen it reported, although not widely, but you can use the headset with an iPhone with the new MacBook Pro (and I’d assume MacBook). The microphone is recognized, and the single-button controlled works the same way as on an iPhone for controlling iTunes. It’s actually pretty handy.

All that aside the machine is extremely solid, and just looks and feels great. I actually haven’t had the chance to play with a MacBook Air yet, but I’d imagine that the case is similar in design, just a little bit larger for the MacBook Pro.

That’s about all I have to say. If you have any questions, please post them. I’ll answer anything/everything that I can.

By J Lane | Posted in Reviews, Technology | Comments (2) |

My Book World Edition 2 Review

Well, I think I’ve tested this drive for as long as it will let me. Unfortunately, today, it looks like the network interface died on it, leaving me unable to access the (about 700 GB worth of) data. I’m not necessarily bitter about that, I mean hardware fails on occasion, I’m more choked at the fact that there is no plan B in the event that this should happen.

I found this drive at Costco for around $500. That’s really not that bad for 2 terabytes worth of network-attached storage. I had been thinking about finding something I could use to back up my wife’s iMac (500 GB), and my notebook (200 GB). I did a brief look around to confirm that this would work with a Mac (it does) and bought one.

The literature claims that it has a gigabit ethernet connection. To be honest, I never bothered to check. I hooked it up to my 802.11n network, and the performance was fine for what I needed it for. I eventually moved our combined iTunes library over to it once I had been running it for a few weeks.

To review up to this point: price — not bad. Speed — okay. Capacity — great. Reliability — so far so good.

Lately, our network has been acting kind of whacky. I thought it was my ISP, but now I’m not so sure that I was blaming the right party. Things would slow down randomly, network connections would drop altogether. No amount of resetting cable modems, routers, WAPs or computers seemed to help. The problems were definitely intermittent. Today, my laptop kept dropping off the network every 5 minutes for about 30 seconds. I reset the WAP, and noticed that the My Book was not showing up anymore. I reset it. I swapped network cables. I tried different ports. I plugged it directly into my notebook, into the iMac. No dice.

My money is on it being the network interface because I can hear the drives spin up normally, but neither of the lights are illuminating on the NIC. Unfortunately, I don’t have a spare machine with eSATA drive bays that I can just swap the drives into. I do, however, have a Drobo on order from NCIX now, so hopefully that will let me recover some data before returning the drive to Costco.

I can’t say that after this experience that I’d recommend the My Book World Edition 2 to anyone. It’s irritating beyond all belief knowing that my data is probably okay, just locked up behind a non-functioning network interface. Western Digital really should have put a USB port on the thing, for emergency-recovery sake (note that there is a USB port on it, but it’s only for plugging in additional USB drives. Connecting the MBWE to a computer via USB does nothing).

By J Lane | Posted in Reviews, Technology | Comments (0) |

October 21, 2008

Embracing time contraints

I’ve struggled with trying to maintain normal working hours while we’ve lived here. Working out of the home, with a two year old and a four year old means that it’s pretty had to put in a full work day. I think I might be getting the hang of how to work with it instead of constantly stressing and working against it.

I talked some time ago about my threshold of billable hours; I need to put in so much work every month in order to break even. In addition to that, I’ve got a few other things that require some level of attention throughout the month. For those of you familiar with GTD, what I’m talking about here is essentially contexts — but I’ve found that contexts, for me, are more about circumstances than they are about location. Let me explain.

I can break down my waking hours into a few different categories:

Me home, Rae home
Me home, Rae not home, boys awake
Me home, Rae not home, boys sleeping
Me not home, at work

Category 1 means one of two things: either I can work, or I’m taking the day off for a family day. You would think that this one is probably my most productive category, but you’d be wrong. When Rae’s home, I’m still helping out with kids at meal/nap time. Generally on these days, I only get between 3 and 5 hours of work in.

Category 2 used to be my big stressor. Even though the kids were awake and active, I would still try to get work done. I definitely can’t concentrate on anything too involved during this time, and can usually only get menial stuff done. Lately though, I’ve been dedicating this time to chores and getting organized on other things. This morning, the boys and I stacked firewood. The other day, I cleaned up my desk. Normally, I’ll have two periods like this in any given week, and one of them will be devoted entirely to having fun with the kids.

Category 3 is my second most productive time. With Rae not home, I’m not tempted to do other things. The house is quiet, and I can concentrate. This is the same as if Rae is home, but asleep — so in other words, this works for early morning/late night work sessions too. I’ve got all of my equipment and information handy, an Internet connection (usually) and I can just go.

Category 4 is something new I’ve started experimenting with. I’m still working at the Resort part-time throughout the winter months. Because it’s so slow, I go in for two hours in the morning, take four hours off and then close up for two hours. This is proving to be my most productive time, however.

I’ve got everything I need handy, and an Internet connection available. I’ve got a limited amount of time (4 hours) and I’ve got almost complete peace and quiet. Combine that with a change of scenery to get the creative juices flowing, and I can definitely see why some people love co-working so much.

By J Lane | Posted in Business | Comments (0) |

October 20, 2008

Google AdSense and Stuff

I’ve made a foray back into the Adsense mix. I’m only running two ad blocks on the blog, one right below the images at the bottom, and one block next to the comment form. The trick with that block is that it will only show up on new posts, because I shut down comments on posts that are over so many days old.

Are Google Ads going to make me rich? Nope. I am going to try to write a bit more often though, and on a seemingly bizarre range of topic (how did you like my shoe review?), so we’ll see what happens. Either I’ll completely kill off the readership I have, or a few more people will start reading. Either way.

As a general update on things, the summer went really well. We were way too busy, between both Rae and I working part-time, and some big projects for clients. I’ve managed to land a few new clients, so it doesn’t look like the Fall is going to let up much.

The kids are doing really well, I think we’ve all settled into island life. Reilly and Parker both have a good group of friends that they really like hanging out with (Rei’s got a girlfriend!) and all of the activities are starting up again.

Rae and I have a quick trip down to Vegas planned right after my birthday, and it looks like we’re finally going to get things finished up on the exterior/deck (yay!) Aside from that, business as usual. Really hoping that some of our friends will be able to find their way out here for a visit over the winter months, or into the spring.

By J Lane | Posted in Blog News | Comments (0) |

Vibram FiveFingers Review

I’ve waited a while to review these, because I really wanted to get a feel for how they perform under different conditions. The pair pictured here are the FiveFingers Flow — they have a neoprene upper. I’ve currently got a pair of KSOs (keep stuff out) though because I had to send my flows back (more on that in a second). As far as I can tell, the only difference between the KSOs and the Flows is the upper, the KSO is a mesh upper which I actually prefer as it keeps your feet cooler.

First off, the FiveFingers are some of the most unique looking shoes I’ve ever owned. The most accurate description that I’ve come up with is that they’re like gloves for your feet; each toe fits in it’s own pocket. I find that to be extremely comfortable, it is (as they claim in their marketing materials) almost like going barefoot. The sole is very similar to a climbing shoe, I’ve found them to perform really well on wet rock. I get dozens of comments a day about their appearance, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

I primarily use my FiveFingers when I’m working (sea kayaking), or if I’m hiking on the island. Most trails on the island are soft dirt, rock and organic matter (Pacific Northwest climate). They wouldn’t be suitable for extended hiking trips - there’s virtually no cushioning in the sole, so if you step on a particularly sharp rock, you will feel it. They also aren’t really a suitable street-shoe either. During the summer, walking on pavement is hot. The sole provides little insulation from radiant heat from the pavement. I had my Flows throughout most of the summer months, and my feet would sweat (and stink) a great deal. As I mentioned previously, the KSOs have a mesh upper, but I haven’t really been able to determine if that makes a huge difference in temperature control/smell — the weather has cooled off considerably since I’ve had my KSOs.

Vibram seems to be a pretty cool company in terms of customer support. As I mentioned, I had to send my Flows back. The stitching on the upper tore, and the glue holding the sole to the upper started to give-way. I contacted Vibram by e-mail, they had me send them back the Flows and then they mailed me a pair of KSOs (as well as a cheque to cover my shipping costs). You can’t get much better than that, I was without my shoes for 3 weeks or so, but aside from that, no big deal.

I’d recommend the FiveFingers line if you’re looking for a nice lightweight paddling shoe, a shoe for exploring rocky coastlines, or for light hiking. They’re not bad as a cycling shoe, but again, provide little protection to your feet. Bottom line is that if you like walking around barefoot outside, you’ll probably like the way these feel.

By J Lane | Posted in Home, Reviews | Comments (0) |

October 18, 2008

Economic downturn schmeconomic downturn

Yes, we’re in an economic downturn (still too early to call it a recession, aparently). Some folks would be crying for freelancers to run for the hills, and for small companies to simply fold up operations and go home. Me, I think the exact opposite is true.

In times of economic trouble, large companies start downsizing. That creates ample opportunity for small organizations and freelancers to fill in where, previously full time staff may have been involved. Similarly, if you’re creating a startup that caters to businesses, as long as you’re providing value, you’ll do fine.

Let’s take a look at a product like Freshbooks: they provide a service at a very reasonable monthly rate. Whereas previously, other businesses would have had to invest in accounting software with a high up-front cost, with Freshbooks, they can lower their risk by going month to month (likewise for my personal favorite in that arena, Blinksale).

There may be less investment capital floating around out there, but the flip side to that is, as a tech startup, there’s never been a less expensive time to do it. Honestly, grab yourself a some VM hosting for $20 a month, and start coding.

Freelancers, the only advice I’ve got for you is to not put all of your eggs in one basket. Get a range of clients and/or activities bringing in revenue. If one dries up, you’ll still be okay. One of the nicest things I’ve discovered with freelancing is that you have complete flexibility over your time. You can but in a few additional billable hours if you need a little extra padding. Likewise you can cut back if you need to focus your efforts elsewhere.

Don’t let fear paralyze you. The easiest way to weather a storm is to have the flexibility to move around. Take advantage.

By J Lane | Posted in Business | Comments (2) |

October 17, 2008

The new home of “me”

I put up a pretty basic page over at the new, official Jonathan Lane web site (I know, I suck). I kept it completely basic for now, and it will probably stay that way for the next while.

I’ve struggled for a while to try to stay up there in the Google rankings for people looking for me, and this blog just isn’t the way to do it. That, and Flyingtroll.com just hasn’t felt right for a while. I need to refocus it on something new, and at the very least, get active in writing here again.

Chances are that Flyingtroll.com in it’s current state will disappear in the next little while and be replaced by something simpler. I’m going to keep it as my personal blog, but I need to tone it down a bit. There are so many great things that I can write about and post, but I’ve just fallen out of the habit of doing so. Being able to blog from my phone now, there’s really no excuse for that.

I’ve actually been working on some new stuff for most of my “key” web sites over the past while. Mailmanagr is overdue now for it’s version 2 release (it’s coming, really. I promise). And Industry Interactive is going to see some changes soon too.

By J Lane | Posted in Blog News | Comments (0) |

September 16, 2008

INDUSTRYimages.com

After a few sleepless nights (alright, not really) I’m happy to announce that INDUSTRYimages.com has a new design. I was happy to do the front-end and back-end stuff, with the design being provided in-house.

For the most part, the pages validate XHTML 1.0 Strict — hey, it’s good to practice what you preach.

By J Lane | Posted in Business | Comments (0) |