Category Archives: Review
The iPad and Education
Since the iPad was first announced there has been a lot of talk about its uses for education. Specifically, the focus has been on college and university students. I would like to take a look at younger grades, elementary and middle school students. Students in these grades have not yet developed the way they take in data or their own study habits. These students would be more open to learning with new technologies and get a greater benefit. A student that grew up learning with technology will be more prepared in the future, rather than just giving them technology in college at the latter end of their academic career.
The 4 Blackberry Apps I Use Everyday
I’ve had the Blackberry Storm since it first came out. It was my second Blackberry (had the Curve prior) and I wasn’t a big fan of the touch screen. The phone has grown on me though, and I’m starting to find myself doing more on my phone than on my actual laptop. Here is a highlight of some of the apps that make that possible. These apps are all gears towards generic day to day/social media tasks on the phone.
As an added bonus, these are also all free application.
Facebook – A little ashamed to admit it, but I do use this app on a daily basis. Facebook really has developed quite the application though. I never have to go to the actual website. Everything can now be down just through my phone, any app that can do that is great in my book.
UberTwitter – Simply the most complete twitter application out there for Blackberry, or any other mobile phone that I’ve seen. The program is still in Beta, but it is already a very complete program. I have yet to run into any problems.
Viigo – This app really does more that it has to. If you want, you can do almost any internet related thing on it. What I really like though is the weather, sports, and travel sections. The entire app is easy to use and customize, add in some clear navigation and all the features really don’t seem to get over-crowded. You can customize each menu and get only the information you want. You aren’t bombarded by useless information. This app seems to be able to do multiple things better than most apps do one thing, very impressive.
Pandora – Who needs an iPod? Give me a Blackberry and Pandora any day. I use Pandora pretty much everywhere now. I’ve stopped buying/downloading music for the most part. The free account lets you listen to 40 hours of music for free, if you go over they either shut you down or you can pay $0.99 for the rest of the month (very reasonable). And I use it at work, home, and when traveling, anywhere there’s a connection.
My Weekend With the Kindle 2
This past weekend I was given a Kindle 2 to test. For anyone that doesn’t know, the Kindle is Amazon’s e-book reader that has been getting a lot of attention lately for attempting to change the way we read books. When I first received the Kindle, I had to register it. If you already have an Amazon account this couldn’t be easier. After a couple clicks and putting in my Username and password, the Kindle was synced with my account and ready to go. I was able to do it all through the Kindle itself, I never had to go to my computer.
I received the Kindle, fully charged, on Thursday after work and did not have to charge it until Monday morning when I returned to work. Downloading books (reading one in its entirety), browsing wikipedia, and having 3G on the entire time, I didn’t run out of battery (it probably could have made it through the rest of the day if I really wanted to push its limit). One strange thing was even when the Kindle was “off” it still drained a little power. Sliding the off button on the Kindle will generate the screen to go to a picture of a famous author with a message telling you to slide the power switch to turn the Kindle on. The screen never completely went blank. Not a big deal for a device that lasts days on a single charge, but if you want to conserve battery in a pinch it doesn’t help that there is no real way to turn it off completely. *UPDATE* In the comments Paul mentioned that the screen does not require power to display an image, only to change the image. So the screen is not what drains power when the device is switched off.
An added power saving feature, is if the device is not used for an extended period, it will power off automatically. I haven’t found a setting to turn this on or off or to change the time it waits.
The device would also restart on random occasions. I couldn’t find a good explaination for this other than a software glitch. It only happened twice in the 4 days I used the device for testing.
Hardware
The Kindle has a very solid feel. It seems a bit dense, and makes it feel heavier when you’re holding it than it actually is. It feels heavier than your average book at first, but I got used to the weight pretty quickly.
The screen is amazing for reading. Very clear and natural looking. You forget you’re on an electronic device sometimes. Page turning is a little slow due to the fact the entire screen has to refresh. Its nothing really annoying though and you get used to it pretty fast. The screen stays static though. Whenever you move the curser or change the page, the screen needs to refresh. This was really only a problem when browsing the Internet and sometimes on the Home Menu. When reading an actual book though it wasn’t a factor.
Pictures were surprisingly clear. The 16 shades of grey were able to get a good amount of detail into the images. They were slow to load for the most part though, since it seemed to push the screen to its limit when they were displayed. On my Kindle there was a light grey bar of discoloration that would show up on the images. It wasn’t very distracting but went to show that the Kindle wasn’t made for images. Its a text only device. Don’t think you’re going to store a photo collection on there any time soon. Any books with illustrations or diagrams run into the same problem.
The five-way controller was easy to use to navigate the Kindle menus. I would have liked there to be a way to navigate with your left hand, since I am left handed, but you can’t have everything. The Kindle has about 1.5gb of free space available for storing files. This is more than enough if you are just doing books, when you start getting into pictures and music, its not much. I wouldn’t plan on being able to use the kindle as and mp3 player even though it has this feature, the space is just to limited and there is no expansion card slot.
Software
Amazon says any book in under 60 seconds, in my experience the books took much less time. 10-20 seconds tops. I downloaded a couple books from the Kindle Store. I could see myself really using the store to find new books. It was very easy to navigate and offered some good suggestions of books I wouldn’t have found on my own. A drawback, I was surprised to find, is not all the books are formateed correctly. I downloaded the book Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O’Neill. This book appeared in a very different font than everything else on the Kindle. The pages looked like scans directly from the book itself. Some of the words were unreadable and overall made for an unenjoyable reading experience. This was the only book I found that had this problem. I downloaded several other books from the Kindle Store and they all displayed correctly.
A great feature I found, was the ease at which I could access public domain books and download them directly to the Kindle. I opened up the browser to Google, typed in “free kindle books” and was taken to freekindlebooks.org, a site made for viewing on the Kindle browser. I downloaded the classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The book downloaded in a few seconds and appeared right in my home screen, same as a book purchased in the Kindle Store. I download several free and public domain books from freekindlebooks.org and Project Gutenberg. All the books worked perfectly with the Kindle. I never had to attach the Kindle to the computer once to get books onto it. Everything was done through the Kindle browser.
The Internet on the Kindle was very good considering the device. It is not made for heavy internet use, but it is manageable in a pinch. On the train ride home, I was able to browse imdb to settle an argument about a movie. I also was able to get on Gmail to read a couple emails I had. I wouldn’t recommend extended use of the Kindle browser, but its there when you need it.
Miscellaneous Stuff
Some final notes about my experience with the Kindle 2. The signal strength indicator fluctuated a lot. According to the indicator I was going in and out of coverage pretty consistently. However this never effect the actual use of the device. I was always able to get online and download books at the same speed no matter what the signal strength said. This could be just a quirk of the software, but it didn’t seem to have any real effect.
Amazon has been in the news for its text-to-speech functionality on the Kindle. Many book publishers don’t like it. It’s hidden in the Kindle’s experimental menu (along with the browser and mp3 player). I played around with the feature. It does exactly what it says, it reads the book to you over headphones or the Kindle’s speaker. It’s a very metallic sounding voice though, nowhere near like the old Mac voice, but its not enjoyable for extended periods of time. I couldn’t really use it. I found it more annoying than helpful.
There is no clock on the device. Because the screen is static it makes sense that you can’t have an always changing thing like time be displayed constantly. I would have liked to see a keyboard shortcut to quickly display the time when I was reading. While on the train I had to check my phone for the time to make sure I didn’t miss my stop. Would have been convenient if I could look on the Kindle while I was reading. It’s a minor detail that would make the use a bit more enjoyable.
Pros
- battery life (3 days on a single charge)
- clear, easy to read screen
- don’t need to hook up to a computer
Cons
- limited space (1.5gb available)
- text-to-speech isn’t ready
- can’t use on airplane takeoff and landing
Things I’d Like to See
- a way to attach a light for night time reading
- keyboard shortcut for displaying the time
Overall the Kindle 2 is a great device for reading books. I highly recommend the device for anyone that enjoys reading. It makes getting books easy and cheap, and could even save you some money in the long run. Don’t get this device if you think its going to be an all-in-one device for you to carry. It can do multiple things in a pinch, but not reliable or easy enough to use regularly. Its not an mp3 player, not an internet device, and not for viewing pictures. This is an e-book reading with some nice added features to play around with.
If you’ve got any experience or opinions on the Kindle, leave a message in the comments.
Best Buy Blue Label: A Step in the Right Direction
Best Buy has recently released its Blue Label product line, based on their customer forum program that aimed to get actual customer feedback as to what they want in a product (similar to Dell’s Community which resulted in Ubuntu being pre-loaded on many Dell computers). Seems like good enough of an idea. Best Buy partnered with Toshiba and HP to release the first products in the Blue Label line, two laptops. The laptops are designed to meet consumers needs, and both laptops hit the mark pretty well. The main guidelines laid out by consumers is a lightweight and thin design, back lit keyboard, extended service and anti-virus support, and long battery life. These are pretty reasonable requests, nothing extravagant or cutting edge technology, yet there are very few reasonable priced laptops that meet these needs of the consumer.
Both laptops are priced attractively below $1,200, and have impressive specs. Both have Core 2 Duo processor, 4 gb RAM, 320 gb hard drive, all pretty standard for laptops today. The laptops differ on screen size and batter life. The HP has a 13.3″ screen and a rated 4 hour 15 min battery life. The Toshiba has a 14.1″ screen and a rated 5 hour 30 min battery life. Either of these laptops would be prefect for everyday use, and can handle any general computing task you have. These are great laptops for high school and college students. The extended service support also is great for the non-techie people looking for a laptop. Both these laptops are worth a look the next time you are shopping for a computer. I look forward to seeing Best Buy extend their Blue Label line in the future with more great and practicle offerings like these.
Dell Studio Hybrid: A Step in the Right Direction
Yesterday, Dell released the Studio Hybrid, a new small factor, low power desktop PC. The PC offers a eco-friendly design by using 70% less power than the average desktop and offering a version incased in bamboo. Other reasons Dell claim the desktop to be eco-friendly is the packaging is 95% recyclable and the documentation included uses 75% less paper. The hybrid base model starts at a very affordable $499, which could make this very appealing to the average college student or someone looking for a second computer, but that price can quickly rise with features such as Wifi, Blue-Ray drive, monitor, and TV tuner. Prices are still reasonable for a powerful and compact desktop though. The small form factor PC’s are becoming the future of desktop computers. They are not really made to be used as a traditional desktop. By that I mean you wouldn’t set this computer up in a computer room somewhere and just use it occasionally. This is more something for having in your kitchen or you living room as part of a home theater system. The small form and eye-catching design makes the PC more of something to show off and integrate into your normal day to day life. Expect to see many more companies coming out with desktop PCs with small form factors and green designs. The days of the huge tower desktop PC’s are being left to gaming rigs and servers.
Banking For The Web 2.0 Generation
Since being in college I’ve begun to do away with physical mail. I get my bills and monthly statements sent to me via e-mail, it makes my life a lot easier by doing more things online. I signed up to receive all my financial information via e-mail through each of the individual companies (Bank of America, Capitol One, etc…) This system worked alright, but I received an individual e-mail from each company and had to deal with each account on a different website. This didn’t make it very easy to keep track of my overall spending and saving. In comes Mint.com. (more…)