Zagg keyboard for the iPad2

I finally got my Zagg keyboard for my iPad 2 and am very pleased with it. From a pros perspective, it connected with no trouble at all and types very well. I have another blue tooth keyboard for my droid X and while it works well, the set up was a little painful. I like the fit over my iPad, as it completely covers the device much like a turtle shell, so while in the case / keyboard, it is completely protected. From a con perspective, I wish the device could nest in the case face up when you are not using the keyboard, and the rise of the case means adjusting your hand position a bit to avoid having it rub the sides of your hands while you type. The keys are also a bit smaller than a normal keyboard, again, requiring a slight adjustment to typing style. On balance, I think it is a great device, making the iPad even more useful. I have only had it a couple of days now so the real test will be a couple of months from now when we see how much use it has gotten. At this point, the keyboard case has replaced my original iPad smart cover as the default cover and I am typing this review using the keyboard.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The Journey to Captain Chuck a Mucks

While on vacation in Virginia with my bride, we were driving down around Newport News and decided on a crab shack for dinner. As luck would have it, the one we selected as at the tip of the coast, without clear markings to get there and we ended up on one of the longest bridges I have been on. (one of, not the longest, but loooong)

For those of you who know me – you know this is not a thing I seek out. So, here we are on this bridge to…. no idea where.

We look it up and it turns out we are headed for a somewhat famous place called the Isle of Wight. Now, I learned a bit of Ham trivia here. It turns out that there is a pretty selective process to get a ham called Smithfield Ham, and this is the only place to garner that distinction.

The ham history goes back to the 1700’s and if you are ever in the area, look it up and have some Red Eye Gravy while you are there. That’s a good story in itself. So – back to the original mission, finding dinner.

We are now on this island and looking for some dinner so we hit up the GPS and see what is around. We settled on Captain Chuck a Mucks, sight unseen and made our way there. The journey on the island was interesting and for a bit there it felt a little like a scene from a deliverance knock off or something. Tiny little towns, abandoned homes, twisting into the backwoods of this island.

After twisting around the island for a while, we ended up pulling into an almost empty parking lot and a river dive kind of first impression.

We got in and found we were just a bit early as they were in the process of opening for dinner, but the staff was great – friendly and making us at home from the get go. We got our menus and went with the seafood – kill your diet kind of dinner, but hey, it was vacation.

We took a few snapshots outside as well while there and were pleasantly surprised by the general location and atmosphere. It is worth making it over there if you are ever in the area, and they get fresh fish and serve customers right from the attached dock. We also learned about the fire that shut the place down for some time due to a boat incident that the waitress shared with us along with a photo album. Very Chummy!

The dinner at Captain Chuck a Mucks was unexpected and unplanned, but a good time – sometimes serendipity is the best way to experience things.

 

Links:

• Captain Chuck a Mucks
• PDF Map of historic Smithfield
• The Smithfield Ham site – all about the meat

iPad and Kindle revisited

I posted about the Kindle vs. iPad discussion some time ago, and am now in a position to revisit that post with experience with both devices. One of the points I made at that time, was the dual use of my iPod touch and Kindle, using the iPod touch as a reference while reading something on the Kindle. This still holds true, but the real question I had was if I had both (iPad), which would I prefer to read on.

From a library management perspective, and from a rich user interface perspective, my iPad blows away my Kindle. When I want to read stories to my little kids from an eBook – no question, it’s the iPad. We have fun with the pictures and even interactive nature of some of the kids books. For graphics rich content, or for illustrated material, again, the iPad is the clear and compelling winner.

The Kindle shines in its core competency. If I want to sit down and read a book, I pick up my Kindle. If I want a bed time read that will allow me to wind down, it is paper or it is the Kindle.

I do have the Kindle app on my iPad so I can read the same library there, but I also have the Google books, Overdrive for the library books, and the Nook app among others. Short summary – both devices excel, though for different purposes. Both can comfortably co-exist and compliment each others functionality. The Kindle is hands down the superior device for reading books, while the iPad is the clear winner for interactive content.

Links:

• Kindle Device
• iPad Device

It's been a while

I let a whole bunch of other projects get in the way of the blogging for quite a while now, as is clearly evident from the dearth of posts here. Over the last several months, I have used my droid heavily and the shine has come off the romance. :) It started shortly after the Froyo update, when the device went from rock solid to flaky. A complete reset seemed to stabilize it a bit, but it has never really been the same, even when brought back to factory defaults.

I can live with a little flakiness in a device, but when I rely on it as my primary means of navigation and entertainment when traveling, a random reboot in the middle of driving to the airport in a strange city is not really as funny as it might sound. Flakiness aside, I am also dealing with a hardware issue - the home button has decided to work... sometimes. Again - not the end of the world, but tedious none the less. I need to make time to get it into the Verizon store to see what the warranty (if any) will do for me.

You might think with these issues, I am no longer happy with the device - not the case. I am occasionally thrilled with it and amazed by it, and alternately ready to throw it out the window, but then, is that so unlike some relationships we might have with some family or friend? For now, I will keep using it and waiting on the contract to expire, or possibly repair my wife's broken screen on her old droid. Till then -

Liquor Kwicker

Yep, you read that right, it's Liquor Kwicker. I have a site in Ohio I have to visit for work and I fly through the Cincinnati airport to get there. That means a hotel in the Kentucky side of town occasionally. I have traveled all over the country and never seen as high a concentration of liquor and tobacco stores as I see in Kentucky. So, they like to drink and smoke, but a DRIVE THROUGH liquor store takes that cake. It's like a McDonalds only for booze and tobacco. Sometimes it's tough to pull together enough booze in the house to really drive drunk, but by swinging by Liquor Kwicker, (Whats with the spelling?) you can make it over that sobriety hump and really tie on on!

Via Packets

I really enjoy my Starbucks VIA ready brew coffee and now they have gone and made it even better! For those of you who don't know, I spend a lot of time traveling for work and don't always have access to good coffee - enter stage left... VIA packets from Starbucks. They are little packets of micro ground coffee that taste as good as a brewed cup and better than most. I just saw that they now have iced coffee, just in time for summer.

The gulf coast of Florida

 

 

 

I took these when I was in St. Petersburg, FL which is right about where I would like to be right now come to think of it... well, that or Jamaica.

Across the Danube

 

I have a bunch of versions of this photo - I'm not sure which I like the best but I thought it a very impressive building!

Google Maps Live Traffic - Love it.

What's there to add to that one - the live traffic is a great feature when looking at a route, but today I just noticed what may be my next favorite feature - predictive traffic based on past patterns. I will be interested to see how accurate this is but I will be testing it tomorrow morning on I78 and 287 heading into Jersey. You can adjust the day and use a slider to adjust the time, and the route updates automatically.

Check it out at Google maps.

heading up the mountain

I took these as I started up the mountain across the Danube, so you will see shots looking back across as I go higher. More to follow though...

 

 

 

 

More from Budapest

 

 

 

 

Lunch time in Budapest

 

While wandering around down down, I ran across this little hole in the wall cafe that looked fun. I got some lunch from a woman who spoke basically no English and me with no Hungarian. I ended up pantomiming to get what she was eating which turned out to be essentially raw bacon, onion and tomato on a baguette.It was pretty good!

Budapest - Walking around photos

 

While in Budapest, I took a bunch of photos, some of which I just ran across again and will post.

A cathedral in Budapest

 

2 words - Media Monkey

I recently blew away my music and movie collection and restored from backup, but I realized in the process I was missing some of the content that was newer than my archive, but still on my iPod touch. When I tried to browse it as a folder like I could my old iPod, it was not available so I went looking for an easy / free solution to get content off my iPod. Enter Media Monkey, which I had used in the past and really like. I remembered using it to update my collection in the past and it did not dissapoint. I installed the free version and was able to view my iPod with no problems and export the files I needed. It's always nice when things work! Now can someone please tell me when Apple will bring iTunes up to the same level as the third party packages?

Carlson Wagonlit.... What Happened?

I posted previously about my thoughts on our travel agency - they have been good for years. What happened? I know that we are "currently experiencing a higher then normal call volume" due to integration travel. (At least I hope they have that excuse) But seriously - I called the agency and got connected to someone I have never worked with. The call took a VERY long time. Over the course of the call, we were booking train reservations and I asked repeatedly to make sure we were booking to the correct train station (Grand Central vs Penn)as my timing to get to my meetings is close. She reassured me, repeating Grand Central multiple times. I asked if I could provide my pin so she got the right Jim King - nope, pulled up the wrong one, lost more time. Got my reservations late that night and surprise, wrong train station. Got to my destination, walked past the counter to pick up my car and no car! She forgot to add my gold status, and they had no reservation for me. I got a Mazda tin can and drove the next hour with my knees keeping my ears warm. (not entirely bad since it was REALLY cold out so having warm ears was good) Really Carlson - Quality is not something that can afford to suffer when booking travel! Little mistakes can make a big difference when timing is tight.

joys of travel and tsa

So this is my first flight in the new year with new security measures in effect, flying out of philly. Seems largely unchanged... Ummm except the "random" pat down after the security scan - so complete I asked if the screener had plans to buy me dinner when they were done. Clearly I thought that more humorous than the tsa drone. This was followed up with another "random" search of my bag along with an explosives scan. Seem I made it back on some list somewhere! I also forgot about my large aluminum water bottle until I was in line, resulting in some fast drinking :). The fun begins anew for another year of travel. Flying, grabbing a car, dropping e rental at the train station to take a train to NYC for another meeting then back home to do it again next week.

Travel plans

So I am sorting out my meeting schedule now, but it is looking like Monday - Friday on the road this week. Not my ideal scenario, but I am spread across 2 IS groups and 3 client groups so until that is sorted out, I am guessing this sort of thing will be happening. Time to call the travel agent and update plans again. I will be spending most of my week in Connecticut, which is not as convenient or entertaining as New York, but it will give me some time to look around possibly. Anyone have suggestions for things not to miss in New London / Groton Connecticut, keeping in mind that I will be in meetings all day and only have part of the evening free (after dark) so no suggestions for the sweeping panoramas or anything ;).

Creating eBooks

Having an eBook reader is half the fun - to get the full value, you need to be able to create your own eBooks and convert existing content to the correct format. I have spent a bit of time trolling the net to locate the best / simplest way to accomplish this. My main focus was bringing my travel info with me when on the road as well as presentations and pdf docs to review. I have settled on Mobi Pocket Creator though the Reader is a bit more simple to use.

The software allows easy creation of eBooks in multiple format and will even send the book directly to your reader for you with it's integration feature. Converting moderately complex Power Point seems to be messy though converting to pdf first does help a bit. Basically, the device I use most is the Kindle 2 and it is great for text / book format but not so great for presentations. Minor inconvenience since the screen size is small anyway. The trade off between the large size DX and the smaller Kindle 2 or Sony eBook reader we have is mainly screen size and when traveling, form factor is important. It's easier ti pack and use the smaller size, especially on airplanes or trains.

One unexpected bonus for the Mobi set was the database books you can create. Out of the box it is set up with a wine catalog and restaurant guide which is pretty cool since I do travel and enjoy both. I plan to play around with this feature and possibly make a couple of reference guides for future use.

Net-Net conversion is easy and quick with this setup though Amazon offers both a free and a pay service to convert docs with the main difference being the pay version delivers the docs over the whispernet service (very convenient for others to send docs) and the pay version requires a cable based connection and emailing documents to Amazon for conversion. If I am going that route, the Mobi suite is more convenient and offers greater control.

Gadget lifestyle

While traveling this summer, I had a funny realization - my life (especially on the road) has been taken over by electronics. I was in Europe at an airport - I think it was in Budapest on my way out of Hungary, but it may have been Germany - too many airports on that trip. I passed my backpack into the scanner and they kept running back and forth. It turns out, I had it packed too densely with electronics to scan properly. Who knew?

I have learned to rely on a few key gadgets and some new ones as well. Topping the revised new list are my kindle eBook reader and my Zune music player for entertainment, my HP Tablet PC for keeping up with all things internet and such, the Nikon D-90 for capturing a photo record of the fun and my Garmin GPS to help me find my way. My Blackberry Tour keeps me in touch and connected to the internet both on the device and with Tether mode.
Of course, for power, you need the whole assortment - the international travel adapter kit, the power supplies for the notebooks. I usually have 2 there. The charger for the camera and cables to charge the Zune, Phone and Kindle along with a universal plug, an extension cord since hotel plugs are not always convenient. For mobile power, I have an inverter with a plug that adapts to fit the car or plane.

All this gadgetry makes life a little more fun, but takes up space. I typically keep this collection and a little more in my backpack when traveling and have had to learn to pack creatively to make it fit without jamming up the xray machines. The key is modular and layers like a cake or lasagna. mmmmm speaking of food - there needs to be a few goodies in there as well. I am particularly fond of the Starbucks Via packets for a quick pick me up.