zfighter

adventures in photography, tennis, technology, fitness and martial arts

Goodbye Ipod Touch (a review)

July 1, 2009 No comments »

I have had an ipod touch for just about 90 days now. Tomorrow I will be off to Costco to take advantage of their awesome return policy. My refunded cash will go towards the purchase of an iPhone 3GS (which due to supply shortages has yet to ship). Since this will be my last night with this glorious device I thought it fitting that this review be composed and published on it.

As I have previously mentioned on this blog, I have been a Sprint SERO subscriber. My 2 year contract recently ended which opened up the possibility of getting a new phone. My HTC Mogul isn’t cutting it anymore, not even with a Windows Mobile 6.5 rom on it and since January I was nearly certain that I would be getting a Pre. My original intention was to use my cheap SERO plan for my “phone” purposes and my iPod for everything else.

Unfortunately Sprint requires that you subscribe to their more expensive phone plans if you want to get a Pre. That requirement alone made me question whether it was worth it for me to stay with Sprint. Aside from Sprint’s customer service I have been happy. Especially considering I pay around $32/month for it. The day before my contract ended I got a friendly call from a support representative of which I was only able to understand roughly 25% of what he had to say. I think he was asking me if I was happy and if there was anything he could do for me, but all I heard was that I didn’t think I could stand to put up with your customer service any longer.

The Pre itself is a marvelous device – both the device’s hardware design and operating system is nearly everything I wanted in a mobile device. The decision to not get a Pre came down to apps. In particular I looked at Evernote, which had just come out on the Pre and the updated version for the iphone’s 3.0 OS. The Pre’s version showed promise but the 3.0 version was by far the superior app. I have no doubt that with time Pre developers will produce amazing applications for it but from a user perspective I don’t want to wait.

Additionally I didn’t see the Pre completely replacing everything that I use the touch for. Yes the browser is fast, but the experience isn’t quite as well done as what Apple has produced.

So what do I like about the ipod touch? For me it has been the ultimate internet appliance. Combining all my internet needs inside a thin, light device. When my computer is down or I feel like lounging on the patio, at a friend’s place, or at a cafe the touch suits all my needs.

Recently I moved my main computer to another room where it would no longer have a wired connection. I wanted to avoid using a pci wireless card because I have experienced system instability while using them under high loads in the past (like bittorrent). So instead I bought a 2nd router and used my touch to configure it to support Wireless Distribution System. This mode had the effect of extending my wireless network to this new router. Now I could plug my computer directly into the 2nd router and use the connection of the first. Since my computer didn’t have a wireless connection I would not have been able to configure this 2nd router without my ipod touch.

What do I do on my touch on a daily basis?

keep up with the news using Google Reader
check my email
keep up to date by having my calender automagically synced with my google calender
wake up with the great default clock application as well as use the timer for cooking and workouts
listen to audio books and podcasts (Pre doesn’t save positions in audiobooks)
buy and read books through Kindle (not supported on the Pre)
read twitter (with Tweetie)
browse Reddit using iReddit
browse flickr
take and read notes using Evernote
find new restaurants using Yelp
track my runs using Nike+
track my pushup and situp programs using dedicated apps
control VLC and iTunes
chat with gtalk, aim and Facebook using BeeJive 3.0
keep up with my facebook contacts using the dedicated app (really Palm you couldn’t have had one at launch?)
manage my blog with a dedicated wordpress app (just found out I could do this today!)
track my bank account using Mint

The majority of the things I use my touch for on a regular basis are either not supported on the Pre or would not have offered as good of an experience. So in the end I would have still needed to carry around two devices.

Without a doubt the touch is a gateway drug to the iphone. You can’t appreciate all that the touch has to offer and not want to be able to do everything and more with phone and gps functionality like the iphone can. I look forward to not needing WiFi access everywhere and being able to use location aware services.

So long my beloved ipod touch. You have served me well. You will be dearly missed during the time that I return you and when I finally get my iphone.

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Posted in technology

The Nikon D90

September 10, 2008 1 comment »

Since getting a D40 back in March a lot has happened. I have really grown to love photography and look forward to every trip and hike as an excuse to take more pictures. I have gobbled up several books on the subject and have since invested in a new lens and flash. I seldom go anywhere now without a camera.

I realized within a month of getting the D40 that I was going to out grow it fast. It’s a great camera that takes amazing exposures and easily recommend it over point and shoot cameras that cost more – but there are several limitations that I won’t cover here. Since I was happy with Nikon in general I knew I would want to stay with their line of cameras. So my options were to upgrade to the D80 or splurge on a D300. The D80 has long been at the end of its product cycle – so while I could get it affordably I knew it wouldn’t be the upgrade that I really wanted. The D300 is considered one of the best cameras to come out in the past year and is without a doubt my ideal upgrade. But the cost was prohibitive. I enjoy photography but I am not willing to spend upwards of $2k on a camera at this point.

Enter the D90.

The D90 has had an interesting journey. Those who follow DSLRs have known that Nikon was certainly working on this camera. The D80 – while be very popular – was looking long in the tooth compared to recent offerings by Canon. Most notably the lack of LiveView and an old image sensor. This lead people to theorize what would make a worthy successor. The dream was a D80 combined with the award winning features of the D300. Nikon managed to deliver on that dream and more.

The D90 inherits the D300 image sensor. Meaning it’s megapixel count has been bumped to 12 and it’s sensitivity has increased dramatically over the D80 (from 3200 to 6400). It’s LCD has been increased to 3 inches and has gained Live View. In what many consider the biggest surprise the D90 is the first DSLR to include video recording. Though this is probably the feature that I am the least excited about.

A full feature comparison and “preview” can be found here. Chase Jarvis did a fun post and video on the camera. You can find it here.

I had planned on waiting until October or November for the body only release of the D90 – but the combination of an upcoming vacation and a friend’s wedding had made me want to upgrade sooner. I had been saving up in anticipation of the upgrade for a while so I was ready to purchase it whenever it was available. On Monday I found out the local Best Buy had a one and reserved it but I still wasn’t certain as to whether I should make the purchase as I am hesitant about making any big purchase. I shopped around at the local camera stores and no one else had it in stock and luckily for me Best Buy offered no interest financing for 2 years. That sealed the deal for me – happy belated birthday to myself. I may very well be one of the first people in Eugene with a D90.

So how is it?

Its everything I hoped for and more. It is a gigantic upgrade over my D40 while providing all the important features that I needed from the D300. There are some things that I will probably miss (weather proofing, lens focus tuning) but I can live without those for now. Shooting without a flash at PAX on a D40 revealed a lot more noise than I would have liked. In comparison the D90 is able to take great looking pictures at 3200 where the D40 was barely able to get by at 1600. Also I am able to use auto-focus on primes like my 50mm 1.8.

One of the major features I wanted from a D80 was the flash commander mode. This allows you to use flashes off camera and control them from the camera. I plan to get into Strobist like photography in the future.

I plan on selling the kit lens that came with it. While it is apparently a good lens and well reviewed – I don’t need it. I bought a Tamron 17-50 2.8 lens a few months back and have since not had a reason to use any of my other lenses. So if anyone wants a 18-105 VR lens before it is sold in stores, I am willing to part with it unused and with the warranty for $300.

Additionally my D40 is now for sale. I am willing to part with it and the original kit lens for $300. That includes a spare battery. For $150 more I will throw in my 55-200 VR kit lens. The D40 kit still sells for new at $460 at most stores – you can get it used with the 55-200 VR for less than that from me. My flickr account is filled with pictures that I took with this camera.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Consider Me a Convert

August 29, 2008 No comments »

For as long as I have been playing tennis I have always bought the cheapest strings. If it cost more than $10 total to get a racquet strung then I was going to shop elsewhere. Anything more I considered superfluous – really how big a difference is it going make?

The local tennis shop closed recently which has forced me to get my racquets strung at my club. The club has a weird stringing pricing structure that results in the cheapest string being about $3 cheaper than the most expensive string. The first couples of times I opted to use their services I asked for the cheapest more durable stuff they had – it ended up lasting about a month for my two racquets and was barely cheaper then their most expensive stuff.

This time I went with the string that a lot of pros use – Luxilon Big Banger ALU Power 16L. This was the string of choice for Agassi and is still used by the majority of pros on tour. From the first strike I could feel the difference. I had assumed that given the name this string was all about generating power – which isn’t something I care about as I hit with a relatively heavy racquet and am more than capable of generating my own pace. This string actually does the opposite -it’s all about control. The more control you have the freer you are to use your own power.

Towards the end of my last string job’s life I was definitely getting angry with how little control it had. In general the tighter you string your racquets the more control you have. So since these strings were about a month old they didn’t offer much in the way of control. It felt like whenever I connected with the ball I would have to guide and baby it over the net. With the Luxilon the only thing I had to concentrate on was to make sure that I was hitting well balanced shots. If I did that then the ball went where I was aiming. Once I realized that then I was free to hit the ball with as much pace as I could muster.

I have only had one hitting session with these new strings and I haven’t played any matches with them yet – but consider me sold. The world of quality strings has opened to me.

update (9/4/08):
I bumped into the guy who does my strings at the club yesterday and he informed me that they were in fact out of the Luxilon strings that I had requested. So instead he strung my racquets with Gamma Zo at a discount.

Overall I am still very impressed. I find myself hitting the ball with more pace and control than ever before and if anything I am more curious than ever as to what better strings can do.