Jason Fox

I think the geeks have it wrong.  The iPad is a revolutionary device and a game changing one at that.  I believe that the iPad is to computing what the Nintendo Wii is to video gaming.  While it may not have the most amazing graphics, the most powerful CPU (though it just might), the most storage or even all of the features that we want such as multitasking, it does not matter.  I repeat, it does not matter, just as it did not matter for the Wii.

The Nintendo Wii is really just a GameCube in different packaging just like the iPad is just an iPod Touch in bigger packaging.   The “magic” of the Wii is not it’s amazing technical specifications like say the Sony Playation 3.  No, the real magic of the Wii is in its ability to change the way that the game is played; literally and figuratively.

The Wii is appealing because anyone can play the games, old, young, veteran video gamers or newcomers and have fun playing them.  The Wii removes the requirement of being a video gamer to play video games.  There’s no need to master impossible sequences of key presses just to be able to challenge your friend to a game of tennis.  Instead you just pick up the controller and play; it requires no instruction and therefore lowers the barriers to video gaming.  The iPad does the same thing for computing.

The iPad is the first “computer” that I would consider buying my mom (actually the Litl Webook was the first, however, it is now surely doomed).  The trick of the iPad is that it removes the “computer-y” things from the computer.  This one aspect of the iPad is the key thing that absolutely makes it a revolutionary device irrespective of it’s technical specifications or naive feature set.  The iPad allows anyone young, old, tech savvy or not to be able to intuitively use a computer for the first time in history.  This to me is why the iPad is a game changer and is one reason why the iPad will not be a flop.

The iPad is a harbinger of things to come in computing, specifically in human-computer interaction models and I, for one, welcome it.

Streaming audio with Apple’s Airport express is seamless and simple.  You plug in the Airport Express into the wall, plug in the audio cables (NOT INCLUDED) to your stereo and off you go.  However, if you want to watch movies on your computer and enjoy the same wireless audio you get with iTunes, things get a bit more complicated.

First off, Apple’s Airtunes protocol apparently has a built in 2-ish second delay before it starts playing the audio you’ve summoned up.  That’s not a problem if you’re listening to music, but, if your audio is paired with some video the result is unsycnhronized viewing.  More importantly, though, is the fact that iTunes only let’s you stream music to the Airport Express.  What about that pirated copy of Paranormal Activity you just downloaded from bit torrent?  Fear not, there is a solution.

First you need to get a nice little app called Airfoil.  Airfoil allows you to stream ANY audio from any application to your Airport Express.  Wow, perfect!  Well, hold on a second, let’s return to that little issue with Apple’s Airtunes protocol before you plop down your $25 for a license (you were going to BUY a license, weren’t you?).

The problem again is that any audio you play over the air with your Airport Express will be delayed about 2 seconds.  This means that your audio will lag behind your video.  Booooo… Ok, so, let’s just delay the video a bit so that the audio has time to catch up!  Simple solution, right?  Yes and no.

Desynchronization of audio and video will work in video players like VLC.  VLC makes desynchronization of audio and vidoe really, really simple.  In fact, you can change the sychronization settings on the fly by pressing the “f” and “g” keys.  I found a post that explains it all.  (Note that his instructions are for an older version of VLC.  However, the instructions are the same except that in the new one you select the “All” radio button in the bottom left hand corner of the preferences pane instead of the “Advanced” checkbox to access VLC’s full array of settings.  Also I found -2100 to be a better delay for me.)

Unfortunately there is no solution that I know of for synchronizing internet video like Hulu.com with the delayed audio of the Airport Express.  That’s a bit of a let down as Hulu.com is really the only way I watch “television” these days (It’s not exactly television if I watch it on my computer, now is it? I’m really “watching computer”.  Oh what will we do when the mediums we’re used to are no more?  How will we know what to call things anymore? Will a newspaper still be called a newspaper if we read it on Apple tablet or will it be a newstablet?)  If anyone knows of a solution please let me know.

In conclusion, a combination of Apple’s Airport Express, Airfoil and VLC allow you to cut the cords and enjoy audio on your stereo wirelessly, however, it’s not without faults and frustrations and some big exceptions (read: no Hulu.com). Oh, I should mention that Airfoil does ship with its own video player that handles the audio desyncrhonization for you.  I however was unable to get it to play several of my videos.

Just got my two Iomega Prestiege 1TB hard drives from Amazon ($104/each) to support my new backup strategy (more on that later).  First impressions: PROS: Very quiet, very solid feeling construction, CONS: Activity light placement forces you to put it to the left of you, the color is not at all like the picture; the drive is more of a gun metal, putty grey than a shiny silver aluminum like the MacBook Pro.  Oh well, all I ask is that it will last longer than my Western Digital MyBook.

These are sooooo cool!  My wonderful girlfriend got me one of these for Christmas this year.  They are called Mikro Men and according to their website, “are a brand of miniature fold out metal sculptures created by Sam Buxton.” And I love them!

Mikro Men come in a sleek looking, black, fold-out cardboard package kept closed with a magnet.  The Mikro man is shipped flat and is stamped out of a single thin piece of stainless steel.  You use your fingers to bend the metal at the “fold lines” or a pair of tweezers for the smaller pieces like the trash can in the Office Man above (this is the one I have).  After a few fun minutes you have a totally awesome piece of art for your desk.  My Mikro Man lives on my desk on the base of my Apple Cinema display.

I received my pair of DOTS gloves just the other day.  The gloves are special because they enable you to operate touch screen devices, such as the iPhone, without removing your gloves.  They accomplish this by attaching button-like, metal “dots” to the index and thumb finger on each glove as you can kind of see in the picture.  DOTS come in two models: wool ($20) and knit ($15) in sizes medium and large.  I opted for the wool model in size “medium” (more like a small in reality).  So far I’m not 100% sold on them.

Over the past few days I’ve worn them while walking around frigid, windy downtown Albany, under my mittens while snowboarding, and in my car.  I’ve found that gloves, while made from wool, are not very warm.  You will especially suffer on windy days as the wind seems to pass right through them.  I’ve also found the “dots” in the fingers to be kind of annoying when trying to operate anything besides the iPhone such as the buttons on the dash or steering wheel in my car.

The other downside to these gloves is that they are slippery, really, really slippery.  Anything with a smooth surface, like that pricey touch screen device you bought these for, will slide right out of your hands with surprising ease.  The same goes for car key fobs, credit cards, thermoses, you name it; if it’s smooth you are going to drop it.  If you have a case for your iPhone you’ll probably be fine but if you opt to go all-naturale as I do you better hold on tight!  I think the DOTS guys could fix this problem by adding some grippy rubber strips to the palms and fingers.  Perhaps we’ll see this in DOTS 2.0.

On the plus side they work as advertised.  However, it can take a little getting used to and accuracy can be a problem as the “dot” sometimes becomes a moving target as your glove shifts around your fingers.  Once you find that sweet spot, though, you’ll be whizzing around your device with great precision.  Surprisingly, I found that the gloves especially excel with typing.  I found myself wishing I had retractable dots on my fingers as I often times fat finger the keys while typing on the iPhone.  The dot gives you a great precise “tip” (they are actually rounded) to tap with almost like a stylus, that is, when you can line the glove up right with your finger.

Overall, I’m not impressed.  The wool is also starting to unravel a bit and it’s only been a few days.  :-/  The NorthFace makes a similar glove, though, I think I like their approach better.  They opted to sew silver into the finger tips of the gloves to allow for conductivity.  The NorthFace model also has a rubbery grip on the palm and fingers.  I think I might try them out.  The two downsides are the price 2x what I paid for the DOTS and the graphics they added to brand the gloves as “hi-tech.”  Lame, IMHO.