That said I have had my issues with the device.  In this post I want to focus on two:  the initial syncing to iTunes for Windows users, and the on-screen keyboard.

I had some initial problems getting it synced with my Windows 7 machine, which i initially attributed to my own unique configuration, but have since heard many others have had similar problems.  Specifically iTunes 9.1 won’t “see” the iPad (and in my case stopped seeing the iphone as well.) The solution was simple if time consuming–completely delete out the installation of iTunes and all things Apple.

I will say though that, by not being able to connect to the computer at first, i found the iPad to be a real joy to use as a stand alone device.  I was able to get applications quite easily, and watch streaming video.  If it weren’t for my insane desire to actually listen to and watch my already purchased media I would have had no desire to connect.

That does beg the question though–why must we actually continue to connect our devices with the computers through cables? This device is the epitome of mobility allowing full connectivity through wifi and soon through 3G cell networks.  Cant Apple find a way to sync the ipad to the computers wirelessly?  (HINT:  Microsoft already does that with the ZUNE)

Now the next criticism is the keyboard.  First let me say that I generally enjoy typing on the screen keyboard.  I am using it now in fact.  But some of the key placements are a bit awkward considering the fact that I am starting to use it like a “normal” keyboard.  I expect keys to be in certain places, and when they require two or three extra keystrokes to use (yes apostrophe i am talking to you!) i find it to to be a hindrance.  But what is worse given that I am not a professional typist, is the lack of arrow keys.  When i type (er, mistype) i want to be able to go back and edit the word without trying to place the cursor with my fingertip.  Perhaps others are more dextrous than I, but I have a heck of a time getting it “exactly” right, forcing me to make more corrections than i had intended, and again hindering the work flow.

In your reading of this you may have come across another annoying “feature.” For some reason the smart typing system insists on a lower case I more often than not.  Others have noticed this as well, and my brother even brought it up in conversation.   A seemingly trivial annoyance, but one that requires an inordinate amount of proof-reading when they could have just left things alone.

Admittedly I could go and purchase either the keyboard Dock or the Bluetooth keyboard but honestly, I think that defeats the purpose of the highly portable and lightweight device.

So there you have it.  A couple of my “nits” that I am going to pick about the iPad.

Now–back to watching Castle on the ABC app!

It is priced at $50, which is a bit pricey to start, and became an unacceptable price for me when I started using the case at home.

The one thing–the ONE thing it doesn’t do is actually make the connection to the dock connector when placed in the “easel style dock” sold by Apple.  The silicon is thin enough that the iPad will settle comfortably and securely onto the dock but will not actually settle in far enough to make a connection.

That for me is a deal breaker.  It’s going BACK to Best Buy!

That said, if you didn’t get the Apple Dock and/or if you don’t mind $50 as a price, then by all means get it.  But remember, the Apple portfolio case is $10 cheaper.

I have found that, on days when I am checking emails with greater frequency, listening to music and podcasts, and tweeting, my battery lasts about 6 hours.  The Mophie has come in quite handy.  If you want to actually USE your phone, then this is a must-have device.

The Mophie makes most buttons and connectors on the iPhone readily accessible. I can insert headsets, and press the power buttonsand the volume rocker quite easily.  On the other hand the “ringer/vibrate” switch is a little more difficult to operate (at least for me, since I don’t have fingernails to speak of…)  The other drawback is the connector (see below for more information on that).

They designers gave some serious thought to the use as both a phone and music player designing audio channels that direct your voice to the microphone and also channel the music out through the device with no limitations on volume or sound quality.

That said, the Mophie does have its drawbacks, specifically the connector.  The Mophie does not use the standard iPhone/iPod docking connector but rather uses a micro-USB connector (the same one used in the Amazon Kindle DX and Kindle 2).  The Mophie comes with a USB cable, so that you can easily plug the Mophie (and iPhone) into your computer, and your computer will recognize the iPhone and connect through to your iTunes application and any other applications you use with your iPhone.  The only real difficulty comes when you want to use other devices with your iPhone specifically designed with the Dock connector.  My simple solution–take the phone out of the Mophie.  That is what I do any time I want to listen to podcasts through my car soundsystem.  ¹

Pros:

• Doubles the battery life of the iPhone
• Protects the iPhone from accidental drops and tumbles
• 4 LEDs on the back indicate charge levels (with test button)
• No real significant weight/balance change
• Available in several colors

Cons:

• The connector is not the “standard” pass through for the iPhone Dock
• If you wish to use your iPhone with a “standard” device you must remove the phone from the Mophie
• Does increase the weight a bit
• Doubles the thickness of the phone

I have enjoyed the Mophie and the additional protection and power that it provides.  I only have to switch to battery from the Mophie occasionally, but when it was nice to know that I had that extra reserve ready to go when I needed it.

One final note:  my sister-in-law saw mine, liked it, and bought one for herself in red.  I asked her what she thinks and she too loves the extended battery life that she is experiencing.

I have mentioned many of these as my “picks of the week” over at our Real Tech for Real People podcast, so go visit the site, and listen to the weekly podcast to not only find out what we pick, but why!  My partners, Tony Pittman and Josh Finklestein always have great choices as well, and our guests do too!

My first pick today is one my eldest daughter gave me for Christmas.  I wanted an adapter that would let me use SD memory cards in my cameras that use “Compact Flash” cards.  The predominant reason is the increasing scarcity of CF cards and the lower price point and near ubiquity of the SD cards.  She found for me the SD-CF II : SD to CF Type II Adapter (Supports SDHC) by Semco.

This card is relatively inexpensive, and that is perhaps its biggest draw. For only $15 you can have a quick and easy way to make use of the readily available SD cards.   I have put it through its paces in the past few months and here is what I have found:

Pros:

• Inexpensive.  Yup, it’s downright cheap.
• Has worked in every camera I have used it in, which is my Sony Digital Alpha 100, my Canon Digital Rebel, and my Canon Digital Rebel Xt
• Has worked in every card reader I have used on my computers

Cons:

• Slow.  It’s not PAINFULLY slow, but it is not as fast as the SD memory I put in it, and frankly isn’t as fast as my existing CF cards (middle-of-the-road speed, for value)

So there you have it.  If you want to be able to capture every day pictures then this card is more than capable and opens up opportunities for you to take advantage of sales on SD cards that might not be available for CF Cards.  On the other hand if you have to shoot fast, and want very quick write speeds to “keep up with the action” at events like football or swimming, then you will want a dedicated higher end CF Card.

All in all, a solid value, and I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

I decided you might be interested in a review of the device as well.

Based on the use from my friend and colleague, the choice of the Kodak was an overwhelming success.  Starting with the bottom line from a very personal assessment, his daughter, who has used both the Flip cameras and now the zi8, has asked to take his camera when she goes places.  Her opinion is that it is superior.

Now, on to the features.

My friend liked that it has a flip-out USB connector, and that it can charge both with a charger and through the computer via the USB connector.  He also liked the HD resolution (1080p) and the quality of the audio.  The built in audio isn’t “the best” but it was “good enough” for most personal use.  As I mentioned before, he then combined it with the Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder combining outstanding video with high quality stereo audio.

Other features that were “cool” included the image stabilization built in, and the face tracking, although the face tracking feature wasn’t tested very heavily (yet.)

Now the device isn’t without flaws.  The zoom on the camera is digital, and the quality falls off rather quickly.  In addition the memory that comes with the camera is paltry at best.  His recommendation? Get the SD card with it at the time of purchase.  Get a large enough SD card, and you can record up to 10 hours of video.

The low light image quality was “okay” and sufficient for family videos.

I hope to get my hands on one myself, sometime in the near future (did you check my Wishlist on the right side of the blog? Anyone want to order me one?)  When I get my hands on one, I promise to put it through its paces testing all the features.  With my love of outdoor photography, and constant video work in swim meets and water polo matches I hope to get lots of opportunities to test.

A couple posts back I noted an email where Amazon announced they are giving web access to the clippings and notes that you make in your Kindle when reading.  And as you will recall, I believe the highlighting/notes feature is the best “game changing” feature of the Kindle so I was anxious to see what they have done.  I have since logged on to the site, and given it a test drive.

I must say I am not all that impressed.

When you first log on you get a listing of the books you have purchased, called a “reading list.”  (See graphic below)

As you can see it lists the books (in this case, sorted by most recently accessed) and even gives you your rating, and the average rating of others.  Interesting, but honestly, I think I already know what I thought, and I checked the ratings of others (if I cared about that) before I purchased the book.

What is potentially the most exciting thing here though is the little pen, and paper, that you see in the bottom right.  The pen indicates that I have “highlighted” some text and the notepaper shows that I have typed in notes about the text.  Hey, that shows promise!  How does that work?

And here is where the real disappointment comes in.  As I have noted before, the Kindle myclippings.txt file actually makes the clippings readily accessible as digital text.  The draw-back (and hence my writing the macro) was that it wasn’t sorted in any useful manner.  It was all entered sequentially, based on when I actually highlighted or wrote the note.  Thus, since I read (and highlight) several books concurrently (work, pleasure, and the like) I have a jumbled mess of texts.  My macro sorted that all out (but as has been pointed out–doesn’t work in anything but MS Windows.  But a new solution is coming! More on this later…)

The Kindle website solves the major problem of sequencing, in that it makes your highlights and notes available by book. In addition, the site shows you a quick summary count of your notes and highlights,  So for instance, in the book “Everything is Miscellaneous” I have:

That is interesting.  I didn’t know I had 41 sections highlighted, nor that I had 9 notes.  But when it comes to actually accessing my notes, the presentation of the text is weak.  They break it down into “screens” or “pages” of information, and my combined 50 highlights and notes are in 10 “screens” or pages.  And as you can see below, the text is presented in a rather simple way:

This is a start, but I find the access to the information to be rather cumbersome, requiring many clicks, and still keeping me from being able to get my hands around the information on the whole.  I personally like the idea of being able to have “documents” that are my notes and highlighting. And while I do like having the notes and highlighting together (that provides context, after all) I would appreciate the ability to get one, or the other.

There are a few simple things that I think could really improve utility of the site:

1. Allow the user to determine how many clippings to show on a screen. This would let us see as much, or as little, of the content as we wish, providing the context we might want to have. NOTE: as of 11 Jun 2009, they have added the option to view all the notes and higlights on one “page.” Consider this one down…
2. Provide an export feature. Having the text sorted by book is helpful, but if I could then get it as another usable file, it would be better.  Let me download the single book’s highlighting as a text file (to let me use/quote the material when writing), or perhaps pdf?
3. Give a formatted citation option.  Speaking as an academic, I want to be able to quote, and reference, the materials I read.  Providing me with a formatted citation (MLA, APA, etc) in the summary section would be quite helpful.  Better yet, include it in the exported file (see #2).

Honestly, I think what Amazon has done is a good start.  They have provided a web-based solution that keeps me from having to connect my Kindle to a computer.  If I am working at another workstation, or heaven forfend I have not brought my kindle or my cable with me, this is a great way to quickly get to my notes.  But there are so many other great things that can be done with this information.

And as a teaser, let me say this–there are some great things still TO COME!

My techie friends at Penn State are starting work on a project to manipulate the Kindle myclippings.txt file that will not only sort the information but provide many different ways of using the data.  And most importantly, they are creating a solution that is “OS agnostic!” Yes–it should ultimately work for any OS.

I hope to have more information from them to share later, and in a dedicated blog post.

Until then–happy reading!

With the Kindle I can highlight sections of the text, for later searching or referencing, and I can add my own personal notations to that text.  Think of it as “digital margin writing.”

What makes this remarkable for me is that it has actual made highlighting accessible–even more than with paper books.  Have you ever highlighted text, and perhaps written some thoughts in the margin, only to not be able to find it later?  Or at least not find it without considerable searching?  This set of features actually makes the marking, and retrieval, of text easy, and quick–and with the myclippings.txt file, quoting and citing texts are made simpler.

I thought I would write a little bit about how that works, and share a few screen captures to show just how convenient it can be.

This first graphic is a snapshot (Did I mention you can do screen captures?)  of a page from “The Google Story” where I have highlighted text, and added a note to that text.  Obviously, it places a frame around the text, and that little box with three lines is the identifier that text has been added.

Of course, you want to be able to read the notes, and find them quickly.  No problem, just go check your highlighted text, and you can find a series of pages of just your highlighted text.  And, when you have attached notes, those notes will also be shown.  Graphic two is another screen capture showing the same quote and note, as part of the collection of notes from that book.

But that’s not all!  All highlighted text and notes are saved to a file, clippings.txt!  As an academic, I like the idea that I not only can read, highlight, and write notes, but they are saved in a text file that I can easily use as a “holding file” for inserting quotes in my own articles and presentations.

The above highlights then are simply saved as:

==========
The Google Story (David Vise and Mark Malseed)
- Highlight Loc. 435-38 | Added on Thursday, September 11, 2008, 03:16 PM

The family lived modestly in Prince George’s  County, a suburb just outside Washington DC, and  Sergey attended the public Eleanor Roosevelt High  School, a tough place where brawn mattered more  than brains. One of his classmates recalled that Sergey  was “quite cocky about his intellect,” often attempting  to prove to teachers that they were wrong.
==========
The Google Story (David Vise and Mark Malseed)
- Note Loc. 436 | Added on Thursday, September 11, 2008, 03:17 PM

This is where my wife went to high school

The interface for selecting and highlighting text is quite simple (perhaps even, dare I say it, Intuitive) and appears to be designed with use in mind.  Allow the reader to continue to mark text, comment on the text, and then add the ability to actual access our thoughts.

As they say in the Guiness commercial — “Brilliant!”

Well, I do love the Kindle.  In fact, I have it linked on the right here in the “recommended” widget for people to find, and buy.  I decided perhaps it was time for me to share my thoughts on the Kindle, now that has been out for a year.

I started with the Sony eReader Sony PRS-505 .  I enjoyed the thin design, the simple two button approach, and was quite impressed with the eInk technology.  I was also impressed with the ruggedness of the design (I dropped it twice, and while I caused some damage to the chassis, the electronics, and the screen, held up just fine.)  But something was “lacking.”  So, when given an opportunity to get the Kindle, I stepped up.

So what do I like about the Kindle?

• Wireless delivery.  This is really a “game changer” for me.  I realize Andy Ihnatko mentioned the wireless connectivity, and web-browsing were the game changers, but I think that simply having subscriptions and books delivered through Amazon’s “Whispernet” (i.e., Sprint’s wireless data network) makes the device for me.
• Get “samples” of books delivered for free, direct to the Kindle, to try before I buy.
• Ability to not only convert and read Word and PDF documents, and images to Kindle format (simply by emailing it to your Kindle account) but also the ability to have those documents delivered wirelessly simply by emailing it to yourself.  (yes, it costs 10 cents, but honestly, when I want to take several academic papers with me to read/review, it’s worth the 50 cents!)
• Same eInk technology as the Sony reader.  Yes, it is slow updating, but seriously, can you turn a page MUCH faster and be able to read it? It’s clear, crisp text.  What more do I need?
• Storage.  As with the Sony, I can store books internally, and on memory cards.
• Screen Captures:  save GIF images of the pages you are reading.
• MP3 player built in.  It’s not a “great” player, but you can listen to your favorite tunes while you read, or even listen to an audio book when you tire of reading.
• Oh, and since it has wireless, they included an experimental browser, and other cool “Easter egg” features.

But what is the BIGGEST selling point for me?

• Highlighting and notating text! With the Kindle I can highlight sections of the text, for later searching or referencing, and I can add my own personal notations to that text.  Think of it as “digital margin writing.”  This feature appeals to the academic in me, since it allows me to not only read, but “mark” my text, add my thoughts and running commentary, and the Kindle even saves it to text, so I can easily import the source information directly into my own articles and presentations!

So there you have it, my quick summary of what *I* love about the Kindle.

The premise of the book is that life is “random” or at least in large partt driven by likelihoods and probabilities.  Those of you that actually know me, know that I appreciate the random nature of life, and that I believe no outcome is “certain.”  Even knowing that, intellectually, I find myself reflecting on the various lessons in this book, particularly after my recent automobile accident.  In that accident, I started second guessing my decisions.  What if I had gone to Home Depot first?  What if I had decided to go back to the main road to get between stores?  What if I had waited a few seconds before leaving Lowe’s?  What if I hadn’t asked for help, and had left Lowe’s 2 minutes earlier?

The timing of receiving the book (and reading it) helped my put all this in perspective.  All those decision points, and actions arising from those points, are what quatum physicists would call “alternative realities” (and some would tell you they all occured, in parallel universes!)  But there is little one can do to control the outcome.

According to this book (at least, up to my current point in reading it) we see patterns in most things, after the fact.  We play an elaborate game of connect the dots, to make “sense” out of what happened.  We ignore the role of chance, the importance of sheer “randomness” in the events.  The author writes:

Past events will always look less random than they  were (it is called the hindsight bias). I would listen to  someone’s discussion of his own past realizing that  much of what he was saying was just backfit  explanations concocted ex post by his deluded mind.

I realize that, in some way, (perhaps some warped way) I am taking solice in the fact that the accident was just a statistical probability that for some reason, on Thursday, decided to “realize” itself on the side of my car. BAM!

Now, that said, the book also plays a role in explaining the importance of “managing” randomness.  In the book, the author discusses a man, Nero who, as a trader in Chicago, learned early on to play the “game” of moderation.  Nero (being a statistician by education) understood the role of probability even in the market, and understood even better the impact of the “statistically rare event” or what the author calls “The Black Swan.” (He then later writes a longer book on this topic “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable — This one is on my shelf and will be next in my reading queue).

According to Taleb, Nero chose to limit his gains by not seeking the high rewards, because those carry with them the greatest risk, in the event of the “statistically unlikely” black swan. In my accident, Honda helped moderate the risks by providing side curtain and seat-embedded airbags.  We were t-boned, but my wife (sitting on the side that got hit) doesn’t have a single scratch and given the extent of the damage to the door, we believe the airbags protected her.

These are the sorts of things that we teach our students in decision analysis.  Assess the probable outcomes, and the likelihood of the event.  Understand the possible gains and losses.  Then make your decisions based not on the certainty of your ability (flawed) but on your knowledge of the impact of randomness.

This book arrives at just the right time to console me, to remind me that sometimes “stuff happens” and it’s just random.  Accept it, acknowledge it, and plan as best you can.  It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it to all.  But it leaves me with this question:  If it’s arrival was truly at “just the right time” –

Was it’s arrival… Random?

You can get a quick look at my other apps downloaded, including my son’s favorite, PhoneSabre.

I would like to take a second and point out just how “Cool” Jott is.  On the iPhone (top left app) it turns your voice into typed text for notes or a todo list.  But it is “so much more.”  Once you create a free account on their site, you can call their phone number, and when you leave your short voice messages it converts them to text, and emails and text messages your note to whatever number/person you have put on the system.  It sends text only in the txt message but the email actually includes your voice recording.

Way Cool