Ranting Kenya

 In my previous posts regarding Safari on Windows, I was a little underwhelmed. There was no real super feature that made me want to switch. To be honest, I’m too connected to Firefox and all my extensions to leave it on a regular basis anyway. However, I fired up the new update to Safari today. Version 3.0.4. I just wanted to see a couple pages without any cached version available. And I wanted to check my yahoo mail, which for some reason the new version crashes Firefox at my work when you exit it. Anyway, to my amazement, Safari 3 is fast. WAY fast. I was loading fresh pages faster than Firefox was from the cache. I tried different types of pages too. This blog, my portfolio site, digg, Bioware‘s website. All loaded so much faster. Not even comparable. It even seems to load pictures faster once they start downloading. On a side note, I had another look at the MacBook Pros the other day. These ones were running Leopard and were brand new. The public hadn’t spoiled them yet. There wasn’t even fingerprints on the screens. Anyway, man, those machines are nice.

I finally got my hands on the iPod Touch at Best Buy the other day. It was a rather impressive device. I didn’t have any headphones, so I didn’t check out sound quality or anything like that.

My first impressions were that the screen was impressive. I have seen posts showing the superior screen of the iPhone, and I could see the iPod Touch’s screen limitation, but it was nevertheless a good looking screen.

The text entry was difficult for me on the narrow screen. The first time I tried to enter a url, everything that was typed from my left thumb was one letter off. I continued typing trying to “trust it” but it was way wrong. The wide keyboard was way easier. I did get better however in a few minutes. Not good, but better.

Scrolling through lists and using coverflow was surprisingly awesome. I was skeptical before, but it’s quite efficient.

But seriously, how awesome is the web browsing on that device. I personally have a Motorola Q. I’ve used Microsoft Deepfish, and the regular IE. Safari on the iPod Touch blows it out of the water so completely, I can’t even compare them. Some of the sites I visited loaded very quickly, others less so. I think the WiFi was a little sketchy in the Best Buy so I’m not convinced that the slowness was necessarily the iPod.

If I had any gripes about it, it would be that moving from some of the applications back to the home screen was sluggish at times, also switching from landscape to portrait or vice versa wasn’t as snappy as I would’ve liked.

All in all, when the iPhone comes to a carrier in Canada that is good (i.e. NOT Rogers), I will seriously consider it based on the iPod Touch. The web browsing alone is enough to sell me. The integration that I’ll be missing (potentially) with my computer and Windows Mobile 5/6 is the lesser evil when compared with the impressive web browsing.

Jack Kapica wrote in the Globe and Mail an article concerning data rates in Canada and the iPhone.

Here’s my comments on the article and the situation.

Rogers, this is directed at you, and I’m not one of your customers. Cut your data rates. Get the iPhone ASAP. Apple is making a 3G iPhone right now, if it’s not done already. They’re not stupid. They won’t let their new baby, their new industry changing device languish on your GSM network. Get it now while you still can. Nobody is going to be interested in a GSM iPhone if another version is available.

Also, consider that this is the first revision of the iPhone. Your customers of your data plans are largely business clients. Do you really think Apple isn’t going to improve the business functionality of this device? It already has Microsoft Exchange Server compatibility, which if you remember, competes with Blackberry’s push email service.

When the 3G iPhone comes, and remember that it will, do you really think that both Bell and Telus are going to pass on this device? They’re going to see your weakness, your high data rates, and they’re going to cut theirs and leave you high and dry. I’m not in marketing, but I can already see the promotion: New iPhone with new low data rate, and a first in Canada. Compare that to your counter-campaign: Same Blackberry, and we’ll lower our rates too because we don’t care about you, but Bell and Telus are forcing our hand. Seriously, your rates are anti-consumer, and because of that Telus and Bell have made a killing too. Up until now, there’s been no real reason to change the rates since you’re all sleeping on hundred dollar bills, but the iPhone is the reason. It is the change that the entire Canadian wireless industry needs, and it will come to pass, with or without you. Most people aren’t willing to unlock and have firmware updates mess things up. They need a real solution, the one only you can give.

Seriously, Apple has given you the greatest gift you could ever ask for. The un-disputed hottest electronic device in years, hotter than the iPod, and you are the only one who can really bring it to Canada (for now).

Only, you’re saying, “No thanks.”

Well, it seems that the iPhone may come to Canada sooner than anyone previously thought, according to the Ottawa Citizen.

A mobile phone unlocking company called PureMobile will be offering the iPhone to Canadians in an unlocked version. They evidently announced a partnership with the 17 year old New Jersey kid who had received a lot of press the last few days for unlocking his iPhone.

Here are a couple screenshots of PureMobile’s website.

Has anybody been following the Google phone at all? Or the Google Linux distro? Well, apparently the Linux distro is dead.

Ok, fine. That’s a little upsetting but they can always change their minds. But maybe that rumour won’t go away because perhaps they’re developing a Linux mobile OS for their phone. Linux as a mobile phone OS gets a lot of attention lately.

Anyway, Gizmodo posted some more info on the Google phone. Seriously, it looks sick. I’ll buy it, that simple. You know it’ll have WiFi, GPS for Google maps, and all sorts of other great features that make the iPhone look like an expensive piece of “aluminum and glass”. Anyway, check out Gizmodo’s post.

Interesting study considering most of the blu-ray players out there are in PS3s, and most of those people didn’t even realize that it was a blu-ray player. I believe HD-DVD is the superior format, though most people don’t know the facts.

PARAMOUNT AND DREAMWORKS ANIMATION EACH DECLARE EXCLUSIVE SUPPORT FOR HD DVD… The companies each said that the decision to distribute exclusively in the HD DVD format resulted from an extensive evaluation of current market offerings, which confirmed the clear benefits of HD DVD, particularly its market-ready technology and lower manufacturing costs.

Bye Bye Blu-ray: Paramount and DreamWorks Animation Go Exclusively HD DVD – Gizmodo

Tags: HD

An excellent read from Andy Rutledge:

Few things are as compelling or as fruitful as a rivalry. Any landscape, no matter how vibrant or contentious, is merely tepid without the conspicuous presence of two, and only two, powerful and clearly defined antagonists.

Design View / Andy Rutledge – Versus

Thinking about all the decisions I’ve tried to make over the years (movies at the movie store, type of beer to drink, what kind of sub to buy, what movie to go see, where to walk the dog etc…) this totally makes sense. I have literally spent hours in stores trying to pick between like 5 possible items. Even deciding what to eat for dinner with my girlfriend is frequently a difficult decision.

Thinking now about my work, as much as I’d love to only present two possible designs for a website, I feel that a only two different designs might not represent the best options. I look at web design sometimes more like problem solving. What is the best way to display this information? What is the best method of navigation for this content? There is frequently more than two solutions. In fact, if I haven’t even thought about a thrid option, I probably haven’t thought long and hard enough. How can you reduce possibly hundreds of ideas into only two sets of choices for a client?
Maybe I should just try harder.

Today I had a brilliant idea for a Web 2.0 site. I wanted to create a site where you could post a list of item you want, links to info sites about them etc. Of course add all the usual Web 2 functionality and integration.

I did a quick search on the net and found nothing that lived up to what I had envisioned. So I continued along my regular day.

Later, I see a list on somebody’s website to something called wishlistr. Just by the name I knew I had found the site I wanted to use/create/make millions with.

Now that I’ve seen the site, used it a bit, let me say that I cannot surpass this website in its execution even conceptually. Beautiful interface, perfect simplicity, browser integration, blog integration, the works. It even has gift suggestions. Check it out.

My Q has been having a problem since last weekend. Virtually everytime I picked it up after not using it for a few minutes, I frequently found it turned off.

I consulted some message boards and even the Motorola website to try to figure out the problem. Most posts I found suggested taking the smartphone back to retailer (within 14 days of purchase) and getting a new one.

Well I’ve had mine for months now, so that was out of the question.

Around the same time, I noticed my battery performance had suddenly been cut nearly in half (and about 1/4 of it’s initial performance months ago). Lithium ion batteries only have so many charge cycles and then they basically lose all performance.

Since my Q came with a second battery, I decided before I totally freak out about warranties etc. I’d charge up the other unused battery and see if it was a battery performance issue.

Well today was my first day with the new battery, and so far (fingers crossed) the problem seems to be solved. Maybe all those other Moto Q users (and likely other smartphones) who are having this same issue can save themselves some time and the hassle of a loaner phone by trying this out too.

So I turned on my TV tonight because my Xbox 360 broke, that’s another story, and turned to channel 301 (that being the beginning of my HD channels). But it was not HD. It wasn’t even close. So of course I assumed that Shaw was screwing everything up, that’s how these things usually go for me.

But NO! They had moved all the HD channels 100 channels lower, and added 8 more! I now have 21 HD channels including HDNet and a few channels from out east. That way I can watch Conan at a reasonable hour.