Traveling with Tech

This past Friday I flew from Winnipeg to Toronto in order to visit friends and family who I haven't seen in quite some time. I'm a big fan of travelling,especially on airplanes. I love watching the city disappear below you as the plane takes off, and seeing the view from above the clouds. But what I don't like about travelling is having to deal with luggage, and airport security.

I usually fly at least twice a year, but in the past it has been more, so I've gotten accostomed to having to deal with airports. Some people feel the need to bring all the immeneties with them when they travel, but this requires a lot of luggage, and that just doesn't work for me. I learned very quickly that packing intelligently and travelling light is much more benifitial. I unless I absolutely need to bring more, I usually only travel with one carry-on bag, usually a backpack. After selectively packing the clothing I'll need, the real packing begins. I usually spend a couple hours deliberating about which gadgets I will tote around. I have no doubt about bringing my iPhone, multiple sets of headphones (Apple earbuds, and a pair of Panasonic sound isolating in-ear buds, that are better for blocking out the sound of noise airplanes). My Nintendo DS was also a no-brainer, as it doesn't take up much room, and can provide many hours of entertainment on long drives, and plane rides. I also chose to bring my iPod Touch. Although I have my iPhone, I decided that I would like to load up the old 8GB Touch with a whole season of X-Men the Animated Series to keep me occupied on the plane if I didn't feel like reading (which turned out to be the case). Speaking of reading, I also always carry a book. This week it's A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (recommended by @forthesun and mutual bookstore friend Nicole).  My big internal debate was whether I should bring the larger, yet more functional Compaq Presario, or my tiny ultra-portable Asus Eee PC. After much deliberation, and a query to the folks on Twitter, I decided that portability wins. Besides, much of what I would need to do, I would be able to do on my iPhone (ie: check email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, and Hijinks Ensue).  The only advantage of bringing the Compaq, would have been to finish mixing the podcast that empty_space, trevorpercy and I recorded, but that would have been a  struggle on the aging hardware anyways.

What podcast you ask? Oh you didn't? Too bad, I'm telling you whether you like it or not.

Look forward to a podcast, tentitavely titled The New Geek on the Block Beta Podcast. It will hopefully be a regular discussion about technology from the persepective of a panel of people living in Canada. It will be posted once I get home and can actually start using a real computer again. 

I'm typing this in MS Notepad, on and HP machine running Windows XP, which can go eat a bag of dicks, seriously, this reminds me why I hate using Windows. I usually have a very specific workflow for writing and posting to my blog. It usually starts with an idea jotted down in Xpad, links are collected using Safari and Delicious, screenshots are captured using Skitch, and then all comes together using the fabulous Squarespace. But this normal workflow can't happen using Windows. I can still use Delicious, and Chrome is a decent enough substitue for Safari, but Notepad is absolutely ATTROCIOUS, and everything seems to take a least twice as long (I really take Quicksilver for granted when I'm not on my own computer).

Time to end this because I'm rambling.

Moral of the story: Pack Light, Travel Smart, iPhones are a gift from God (if God's name was spelled S T E V E  J O B S), Listen to the podcast, and Ontario is overrated (What do you mean I can't buy beer at 2am? Why NOT?)

Resolutions

I've never made a habit of making New Year's resolutions. The idea that a certain period of time should include a list of promises your are most likely to break seems kind of foolish to me. I'd much rather just make resolutions to myself at random points in time and try to keep them as best as I can. But on that note I've thought about a few resolutions I'd actually like to keep.

• Take more photographs (I want to start taking more photographs of the beautiful/not-so-beautiful things I see around the city, and make a point of improving my photography skills).
• Read more on a regular basis (you'd think this would be easy for someone who works in a bookstore but it's really not).
• Keep my apartment tidier (my kitchen is almost always a mess).
• Eat less dairy, and move closer to a vegan diet (I've been trying to do this for a while, but I fall victim to the deliciousness of cheese far to often).
• Save more money and get in control of my finances (this is something all of us could probably benefit from, especially in these troubled times... Drink)
• Write something everyday (even if it's something that never gets published/uploaded) and improve the quality of my writing (See Stephen King's On Writing, it is a big inspiration for this resolution, as is Merlin Mann, and his guest appearances on CBC's Spark).
• Spend more time doing what I love (I was going to say get a better job, but I think spending more time doing what I love is more realistic and achievable, with any luck what I love will turn into a career opportunity).

Do you have any resolutions, or personal (achievable) goals that you are striving towards? Let me know.

The Best Thing About Apple (isn't Apple Inc.)

 Apple Inc. is a company that sells "cool", they spend millions of dollars creating advertisements that promote a certain image. Most people will agree that iPods are cooler than Zunes, iPhone is cooler than Blackberry, & iMacs are cooler than Dells, and even the famous "Switch" ads lead you to believe than Justin Long is cooler than John Hodgman (but we all know that's not really true, as Hodgman is actually a mac guy, and also hilarious). But I digress.

My actual point is that Apple spends a lot of time and money promoting how cool their products are, but in the long run have dropped the ball on the coolest thing about Mac computers (and now iPhones), and that is the community.

The biggest thing I've noticed since switching to a Mac several years ago, is that OS X is surrounded by an incredibly talented and creative community of developers making a ton of really great software. For anyone who just got their first Mac, anybody who's had one for a while but hasn't really taken advantage of the community, I recommend checking out Apple's list of software downloads on their site. Here you will find an immense list of freeware, shareware, demos, and paid software in every category you could possibly want.

I'm sure their is a similar service for Windows, but in the ten or however many years I used a PC, I never once found a directory of software quite like this. (Sorry Linux, I'm not even acknowledging you here, go back to growing your neck beard, we'll talk later).

The introduction of such a vast pool of software, and a great community to back it up has turned me from a typical PC user, to a OS X power user. I now thrive on discovering new apps, testing them out, and comparing them to others of their kind.

But even though Apple does host the directory of downloads on their site, they haven't ever broadcast it to the world. I've never seen an Apple ad that promotes the vast availability of applications available for Macs, nor have I heard Apple sing the praise of their community. But never-the-less the community trudges on, we don't mind, we're used to it.

Despite the success of the "Switch" ads, Apple could have done a better job convincing people that moving to a Mac does not mean they will be making sacrifices. They may have to give up some of the software they've grown accustom to using, but they are sure to find something that will fill the gap, and probably with greater ease, and a better user experience.

Here are some other great sites that promote the Mac Community and everything it has to offer.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Macbreak Weekly Podcast

Daring Fireball

Best Mac Software

Free Mac Downloads

Macworld Predictions

I've never really been in the habit of making predictions about what Apple may or may not release, there are plenty of sites that do this (some with credibility and others notsomuch). Also I have absolutely ZERO inside information or secret sources, I just follow the company very closely. For some reason though, I'm really excited about Macworld Expo, which is weird because like Steve Jobs, I'm not actually attending. 

As I've previously reported, the rumor mills are going crazy with speculation of Jobs' health, as well as some other odd rumors, like the iPhone Nano (which I think is a terrible idea, and don't know why anyone would be excited about this rumor). So with that being said, here is my list of rumors I actually think may come true.

• 9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple may be developing a home media server using Time Capsule like hardware. They claim the device would tie into Apple's Mobile Me service. It would allow you to store all your video, photos, and iTunes library, and be able to access them from anywhere with an Internet connection via the Mobile Me interface. As someone who purchased a 500GB Time Capsule early on, when I was in need of a new wireless router, I often wish the device had more functionality. I would love to see this device come to be. Hopefully Apple would also be able to add similar functionality to existing Time Capsule devices via a firmware upgrade. This would definitely make Mobile Me a more appealing service.

• Another rumor courtesy of 9 to 5 Mac is that the iWork suite of business applications (which includes Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) will be moving to the cloud. The services will likely be similar to what Google has done with Google Docs, and it's other online applications. I don't really have too much to say on this topic seen as I don't actually use iWork, but if these applications also tied in with Mobile Me I might start, because I've already paid for my Mobile Me subscription (in order to get push services on my iPhone) so any further functionality that gets added to Mobile Me would be very much appreciated.

• All the big Apple related sites (ie. TUAW, 9 to 5 Mac, and Gizmodo) are reporting that Macworld Expo will bring a much needed update to the aging Mac Mini. They say that it will be made to aesthetically match the new iMacs by using a combination of aluminum (or aluminium if you're Jonathan Ive) and black plastic. It's rumored to come with either an SATA optical drive, or an additional SATA hard drive, and also that it will be marketed as "the Greenest Mac Ever".  Personally I'd like to see a convergence of the Mac Mini and the Apple TV. It seems like many Mac Mini owners are using them as media computers, and with new applications such as Boxee, Apple should be getting more competitive in this market. If Apple really wanted to sell this device they would ramp up the iTunes video store by increasing their library, adding support for on-demand video such as Hulu.com, and getting rid of heinous DRM.

• And then in less exciting news I think we'll see updated iMacs, with Intel core i7 processors, and updated Nvidia graphics cards, as well as more info on Snow Leopard, and possibly an iPhone announcement (nothing big, but possibly a firmware update enabling copy & paste (What? A man can dream can't he?).

Sources: TUAW, Gizmodo, Engadget, & 9 to 5 Mac.

Have any predictions that I didn't mention? I'd love to hear them (unless it's about the iPhone Nano, that's just retarded).

Update on Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 4:50PM by greg2point0

I forgot to acknowledge the rumors of a new Mighty Mouse design (speculative). I like the idea of a new touchpad mouse that supports multitouch gestures like the trackpads on the new aluminum MacBooks. I might be one of the few people who actually really like the Mighty Mouse over anything Logitech or Microsoft has made. I'm a big fan of the trackball instead of a scroll wheel, but have to admit it tends to get gunked up and stops working quite frequently. A multitouch mouse would prove to be even more functional than the trackball and wouldn't have the same "gunk" problems.  I don't know that Apple is actually planning on doing this (recent patents would suggest that they have at least contemplated it) but it's certainly something I'd like to see.

Stop Talking About Steve Jobs

Rumors of Steve Jobs declining health have overtaken the tech world today. These rumors are nothing new, we've been hearing them ever since WWDC when Steve took the stage looking slightly thinner than usual, but for some reason the rumors have really hit the accelerator today. 

I'm actually pretty disgusted by all this. 

Normally I'm a big fan of Gizmodo, but their coverage of Steve's health today is making me uneasy. Despite their claim that news of Steve's health concerns comes from a solid source, I don't think they should be running with the story like they are. Even if Jobs is deathly ill, so what? Show the man a little respect and stop speculating about his health. If Jobs is stepping down from Apple then we will know next week when Phil Schiller gives the Macworld keynote. Until then, PLEASE STOP.