Archive for the ‘Review’ Category

The Apple iPad

Posted on January 28th, 2010 by Mel in Computers, Review | No Comments »

It’s been all over the news yesterday evening: first the “follow our live blog” offers, then the articles more or less in favour of Apple’s newest product: the iPad. The name is probably the biggest surprise since most sources went for iTablet or iSlate. I quite like iPad (which a friend of mine quickly dubbed iPADD – which may be the intended inside joke). The name, that is. The product? I’m not certain. I’m not an Apple fangeek though I appreciate their success in designing sleek, quite stylish computers and gadgets and I do own an old generation iPod shuffle – because it was the smallest device out there that I could find, though certainly not the least expensive and I still don’t like that I’m forced to use iTunes to load music onto it.

But I’m not here to rant about Apple right now. I want to talk about the iPad. I followed the Engadget Live Blog yesterday evening and I think noone was surprised anymore that the newest Apple product was a tablet.

The specs aren’t something that makes me go “waoh, so cool” either:

  • 9.7″ LED-backlit IPS display with a resolution of 1024*768 px. IPS means in-plane switching which, according to Apple means that it has a 178° viewing angle and the screen is therefore easily readable in almost any position you hold it. Oh, and it’s glossy, of course.
  • usable in portrait or landscape mode
  • multi-touch screen
  • it weighs roughly 680 g and is about 1.27 mm thin
  • up to ten hours battery life
  • built-in 802.11n Wifi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
  • 3G on some models
  • 1 Ghz A4 chip that was apparently built especially for the iPad
  • 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB disk space
  • speakers and microphone

The screen is a bit surprising given the 4:3 ratio which is very outdated if you have a look at current computer and notebook screens. But Apple probably put some thought into that. The rest of the specs are, as I said above, not spectacular but rather something that I’d expect on any tablet that wants a share of the market. The iPad does not have an integrated webcam which some people think is a bad idea. Personally, I don’t use webcams so I wouldn’t miss it.

During Steve Jobs’ presentation, he and others demonstrated web browsing, watching videos, some games, a movie, iWork (an office software), an image editor and iBooks (an ebook software) with comments about how awesome everything is and how the iPad just makes things all so very easy. iPhone apps can be used on the iPad as well and new apps can be developed now especially for the iPad – all available, of course, through iTunes. Oh, what I forgot to mention: there’s an onscreen keyboard very much like the one you can see on an iPhone only bigger.

Now, the question I’ve been asking myself for a while now, not only concerning the iPad but other tablets as well is: what’s the point?

From my personal perspective, there’s no reason at all to buy a tablet. When I surf or write or chat, I need a keyboard that is usable and not simply an onscreen keyboard that takes away screen real estate. Sure, for a short mail that is probably all that’s needed, but I doubt you can work for hours with just the iPad. Yes, Jean Luc Picard uses PADDs for the day-to-day ship life, but he used them mostly to read reports. To input data, it seems to be normal to use a stylus. Now, we’re not in Star Trek, and there may well be people who like to sit on their sofas and idly browse while watching TV for for whom such a tablet may be a lot more practical than having to balance a netbook or notebook on their laps, but if it’s for more than just watching movies, browsing and viewing images, I still doubt the practicability. Even for ebooks, I wouldn’t use it. That’s what dedicated ebook readers are there for which use an e-ink display that is matte and is made especially for reading continuously for hours without strain for the eyes.

Still, this is an Apple product and until now, the company has succeeded amazingly in creating hype and need around products that are certainly sleek and stylish but don’t necessarily offer more than others and that for a price that is generally a lot higher. But the iPad is different in that regard. Pricing, that is. It’s “cheap” for an Apple product with the basic unit (16 GB storage, no 3G) at $499 and even the most expensive unit (64 GB storage, with 3G) with $829 still well below the usual $1000+ prices one can generally see with Apple products. Of course, these are US prices. In Europe, they will probably just exchange the $ with a € sign and be done with it. And while the iPad comes out in the US in 60 and 90 days for models without and with 3G respectively, a release date for Europe is not planned before the summer, apparently to cut a similar data plan deal with European phone companies as they have done with AT&T in the US, i.e. $14.99 for up to 250 MB data and $29.99 for an unlimited plan. Prices are per month without a minimum contract period which is very interesting.

So, given all this data and the fact that the brand “Apple” is on the product, I was expecting that everybody would be rushing to pre-order the iPad. I was therefore a bit surprised by a poll done on jkOnTheRun, a mobile tech blog. The question was “Are you planning to purchase the iPad?” and I would have estimated at least 50% to 60% saying yes. But the final results of the poll with 2,000 participants were as follows:

  • 42% voted “no”
  • 31% voted “maybe”
  • 27% voted “yes”

That’s not even close to my estimation, but after reading some comments, I come to understand that quite a few people are disappointed by the lack of webcam, no handwriting recognition, no USB connectivity, no multi-tasking, no flash… Seems Apple may not have wooed the fangeek crowd as they used to do.

We’ll see how the sales turn out. As one commenter pointed out, the entry level iPad may well be a great Christmas gift this year. Not for me, though. My next gadget will be an ebook reader. :)

Tags: , , ,

First hand SEO experience

Posted on January 25th, 2010 by Mel in Misc, Review | No Comments »

I’m so proud! I wrote a blog post over at my friend Gizmo’s stupidities blog (don’t be fooled by the title, it’s not only stupid stuff :)) about the MSI e-reader that was presented at the CES 2010. With this entry, I managed to land on the first place in a Google search!

Of course, that wouldn’t have been possible without Gizmo’s great SEO, but I wrote the copy so it’s not all just because of the background settings. :)

Alas, I just had to realise that the entry is now on the fourth place only… Oh well. SEO and search results aren’t an exact science anyway. Still feels good though, to (have) be(en) at the top. :)

Tags: , , ,

Review – Fastpencil.com

Posted on December 30th, 2009 by Mel in Review | 1 Comment »

I like to write. I’m certainly not a grand author or writer who does it for a living, but during the past few years, I’ve realised that sometimes, after a “dry spell”, I have the urge to write. It can be anything, really, most often linked to a role-playing game though not necessarily a text that I would actually use for it. But when I have the urge to write, I can only put it off for so long before I do need to sit down and do something about it. That’s why I started an in-game blog a couple of years ago: I felt the need to elaborate on things about my character that I could not show in any then existing in-character way. Plus, I didn’t think a personal blog would be all that interesting, neither for me nor for the Internet in general. (As you can see, I kinda changed my mind about that ;)).

Now, the game I’m currently playing on is in a bit of a decline (it’s very cyclic) and we’re currently considering rebooting the game universe which of course includes making new characters. We’re sticklers for good character creation and require a detailed biography for any character which means at least 40 lines of 80 characters each (yes, the width of a standard terminal window) which really isn’t all that much.

Anyway. I had the basic outline for my new character and felt inspired, but didn’t want to use EditPad Pro nor Google Docs, two solution I generally use for writing purposes. At that time, I was using my little Eee PC on which I had installed Jolicloud which comes with a whole library full of online apps. So I went through the apps, trying to find something which suited my tastes and needs. My choice fell on FastPencil.

This is normally a solution for writing and publishing books but also comes with a community and which allows you to collaborate with others who can co-write with you or merely review what you have written. I don’t have any plans to write a book just now, but even for a casual writer, FastPencil appealed to me. It has a relatively easy to use interface, very Web2.0-y and it’s relatively hands-on as well. I say “relatively” because they could make a few changes in the usability department. Oh, I could probably have made my life easier if I had read the help pages, but I don’t do that unless I have no other choice. For me, a website (or software) that requires me to read help pages before I can use it is not something I will return to.

Sign up is easy and once you have activated your account and logged in, you come to your personal dashboard. It already shows the usual Web2.0 collaboration stuff and allows you to send messages to Twitter and Facebook. It also allows you to create a new book, later called “project”.

Generally, this is what you start with. When you click on the button “Start new book”, you are taken to a page that offers twelve templates for your project, ranging from “Chapter Book” over “Memoirs”, “Photo Book” and “Children’s Book” to “Poetry” and “Cookbook”, thus allowing anyone to find a suitable template for their needs. Once you have chosen a template to start from, you are prompted for a title and whether to it’s a private or public project.

For the character biography I wanted to write, I chose “Memoirs”, the most suited template. It comes preloaded with a number of chapters that help you outline the high points of your story, but you can at any time delete, rename or create chapters and subsections. Opening your project brings you to this page which gives you a general overview, but does not show anything of the content. To get closer to being able to begin writing, you have to click on either “Chapter Outline”, the second yellow button from the top, or the “Chapters” link in the “Progress” box. You can also click on the “Go to Chapter” link at the top right, a button which took me a little while to discover.

Any of the three brings you to an overview of the existing chapters. In case of the “Memoirs” template, these are the following:

  • Family
    • The World When I Was Born
    • Brotherhood
    • Sisterhood
  • Education
    • My Favorite Teacher
    • Big Events
    • Graduation
  • On My Own
    • Love of My Life
    • Kids, Work and Pets
    • Finding Meaning
  • Reflection

Of course, these chapters are merely an idea and many may find them inadequate, but one can easily add more chapters or rename them which I have done for my own project. I have kept “The World When I Was Born” because that allows to lay out a general overview of the universe a fictional character is born into.

To finally begin writing, one more click is needed: on the title of the chapter you want to edit. This brings you finally to the place where you can begin doing what you are here to do: writing. The interface is very basic which is quite good, allowing you to focus on writing, not needing to fiddle with page layout, typesetting or anything. On the left hand side of the main text box, you find buttons for basic style changes, for bold or italic font, underlining and lists. There is also a built-in spell checker, you can view the created HTML of the text and include images in your text.

Something that would be most useful here is the possibility to align your text differently. Per default, it is aligned left, but there is no way to center it or align it to the right. Even though you can edit the HTML, whatever you change only remains valid as long as you remain on that page. Once you have left it and return to it, changes in the HTML are not taken over which is quite annoying. What’s the purpose of being able to see the HTML code if you cannot make any changes to it?.

It would also be practical to be able to change the font size if not the font, at least for editing purposes. I generally prefer smaller font sizes, though I do have to say that after a bit of getting used to, the font used for the book content is pleasant to look at.

The spell checker is a nice feature. By clicking on it, all words unknown to an US English dictionary are underlined by familiar red wavy lines. Then, by clicking on an underlined word, one is prompted a list of words that may be more correct than the one you used, just like it would work in Word. A simple click on the spell checker link disables it again, making the wavy lines disappear.

In the right menu bar, you find the important “Save” button, though there is also an auto-save feature. Still, before you navigate away from a page, make sure to save your work. You never know.

The “Revisions” feature allows you to see a list of all versions of your text, much as you can find in Google Docs or Wiki entries. “Collaborators” brings you away from the editor page which is a bit impractical because the only easy way back is to use the “back” button of your browser. Unless you want to click yet again five times to return properly to the editing page. “Comments” and “My Notes” open two Lightbox-similar overlays displaying comments and notes to the current page. Comments are public, i.e. collaborators can see and post comments, while the notes are private and can only be seen by the author. I use them to keep track of the official timeline. While it is possible to delete notes, it appears to not be possible to properly delete comments. The corresponding button mentions an “archiving” though it is not clear where a comment is archived to. It is not listed anymore in the list of comments, but the number in brackets behind the “Comments” link keeps showing all comments, even archived one. I first thought it was a simple cache problem, but even using a different browser to display the page did not solve this issue.

The “Reference” link works only if you select a word or expression. It then opens a new tab, looking up the expression on answers.com. “Word Count” does just that: it gives you another Lightboxy overlay displaying word and character count of the current chapter.

“Delete chapter” is a link you should only click if you really do want to delete your chapter. You are prompted to confirm this once, but if you do, it is impossible to go back.

That is about all that’s necessary to know in order to begin using FastPencil for writing. Of course, there is the whole publishing process which is quite nicely done, but I won’t go into detail about that. Mostly because I haven’t gone through it entirely yet. :) I did upload a cover image for the text I’m writing, created to FastPencil’s specifications, but in the preview, it looked all raggedy and not as sharp and cool as offline. Also, if you do not publish a book, you will only ever see a small cutout of your cover image which is a bit of a pity. I’d love a simple Lightbox to show the entire image.

To sum up, I have to say that I will definitely do my writing project with FastPencil. Even though it demands more clicks than I’m normally willing to do in order to get where I want to go, it’s a nice, clean interface that appeals a lot more to me than the bleak white of Google Docs or any normal text editor. Plus, since it’s online, I can access it anywhere and don’t need to save it on my computer (though I certainly will do that once the project is finished – one can never be too careful).

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Netbooks

Posted on December 3rd, 2009 by Mel in Computers, Multimedia, Review | No Comments »

I’m a geek girl and so I of course have a netbook. One of the first ones available actually: an Asus EeePC 4G Surf. I originally wanted the 4G, but I would’ve needed to wait for it to become available, plus the 4G Surf one came with an English interface and US keyboard layout – two rather important points for me. The small negative point that upgrading the RAM from 512 KB to 1024 KB isn’t possible hasn’t really bothered me since. Sure, it could be a tad faster, but it’s not as if I’m using my Eee all the time. I normally take it with me on vacation to have the possibility to surf without having to find a cybercafe or other (generally expensive) means of connectivity. No, I’m not geek girl (or rather hype-crazy) enough to have an iPhone. :)

I love my little Eee, but keep a more or less interested eye on the general netbook market which is why a friend asked me yesterday to advise him. He wants to buy a netbook and is rather clueless about the market but knew what he wanted: the possibility to watch videos while travelling, therefore good battery life, a webcam for Skype, a French keyboard and the whole thing needed to be light and small and not exceed 400 EUR in price. Linux would’ve been nice, but if possible, it should at least run Windows 7 instead of XP. It also shouldn’t be too small so he would be able to type correctly. I didn’t tell him, but I can type just fine on my 7″ Eee and my fingers aren’t certainly the thinnest. The only thing that disturbs me is the unfortunate placement of the right shift and and up arrow keys. Unless your hands are huge, typing on a 7″ to 9″ netbook isn’t such a difficult task and it’s a prejudice that just because netbooks are small, typing on them is a horrible experience.

Anyway, since the <10″ market is practically dead except mostly for the Asus T91 (a tablet PC) and the Asus Disney Netpal a netbook designed for kids, it wasn’t difficult to adhere to my friend’s “light, but not too small” wish.

Since he wanted a French keyboard and preferred to buy in a “real” shop instead of using the Internet, the choice of shop to go to was quickly decided: the Fnac, a French multimedia store with several shops all over France. Using my friend’s wishlist as guideline, I went through their list of available netbooks and narrowed it down to 16 possible choices ranging from 249 to 399 EUR. In the end, only five of the 16 choices were close to perfect:

  • Asus EeePC 1005HA-M running Windows XP for 279 EUR
  • Asus EeePC 1005HA-M running Windows 7 Starter for 299 EUR
  • Asus EeePC 1005HA-H running Windows 7 Starter for 349 EUR
  • Sony Vaio W running Windows 7 Starter for 399 EUR
  • Samsung N140 running Windows 7 Starter for 399 EUR

The Asus 1005HA-M and the Samsung N140 have the advantage that their screen is non-glare which is something that’s very important to me, though opinions diverge on that subject. The Sony, though having the same screensize as the others, 10.1″, has the rather nice resolution of 1366*768 pixels while the Samsung was the only one of the five having 2 GB of RAM by default. The battery life for all ranged between 8 and 10 and a half hours with the Sony being a bit below that with 7 and a half hours if it has the 6 cell battery instead of the 3 cell one.

Another thing to take into consideration is that even though Windows 7 Starter is new, it’s not great if you want some liberty. According to the Windows Blog, Windows 7 Starter does /not/ offer the following:

  • Aero Glass, meaning you can only use the “Windows Basic” or other opaque themes. It also means you do not get Taskbar Previews or Aero Peek.
  • Personalization features for changing desktop backgrounds, window colors, or sound schemes.
  • The ability to switch between users without having to log off.
  • Multi-monitor support.
  • DVD playback.
  • Windows Media Center for watching recorded TV or other media.
  • Remote Media Streaming for streaming your music, videos, and recorded TV from your home computer.
  • Domain support for business customers.
  • XP Mode for those that want the ability to run older Windows XP programs on Windows 7.

Based on all this, I suggested he take the Asus EeePC 1005HA-M running XP which, according to some reviews, is one of the best netbook models out there at the moment. Plus, it’s the best price/quality ratio and that’s not to beat. :)

The good thing is: he went with my suggestion and will now buy that netbook.

Maybe I should become some personal shopping guide. If you want to buy something but can’t be bothered scouring forums and online reviews, I’d do that for you. Against a small fee, of course. :)

Tags: , , , , ,