I saw the new (CNN) Steve Jobs movie last night with my wife & daughter. It was a fairly concise overview of ways that Apple affected my life from the mid-1970s to the present.
Apple (Jobs) turned up in places where I didn't really notice it up until the early 1980s, but the movie reminded me that Steve and I were influenced by early HP desktop computers and by Xerox desktop computing metaphors. We both were hooked on technology at an early age, and sent on lifelong career paths. And I sense that we both were profoundly affected by our children...
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Some baseball memories
... this from the web, with some personal footnotes… "Baseball Almanac is pleased to present the box score to the 1946 Midsummer Classic which was played on July 9, 1946 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts
"I don't think I've ever seen a more festive occasion. Guys who hadn't seen one another in years were crossing back and forth before the game to shake hands and visit. It was great."- Frank McCormick. "
1946 All-Star Game
National League 0 vs American League 12
July 9, 1946 Fenway Park
Hitting & Fielding Notes
Name Pos AB R H RBI
Red Schoendienst 2b 2 0 0 0
c-Frankie Gustine ph-2b 1 0 0 0
Stan Musial lf 2 0 0 0
d-Del Ennis ph-lf 2 0 0 0
Johnny Hopp cf 2 0 1 0
e-Peanuts Lowrey ph-cf 2 0 1 0
Dixie Walker rf 3 0 0 0
Enos Slaughter rf 1 0 0 0
Whitey Kurowski 3b 3 0 0 0
i-Emil Verban ph 1 0 0 0
Johnny Mize 1b 1 0 0 0
b-Frank McCormick ph-1b 1 0 0 0
g-Phil Cavarretta ph-1b 1 0 0 0
Walker Cooper c 1 0 1 0
Phil Masi c 2 0 0 0
Marty Marion ss 3 0 0 0
Claude Passeau p 1 0 0 0
Kirby Higbe p 1 0 0 0
Ewell Blackwell p 0 0 0 0
h-Ray Lamanno ph 1 0 0 0
Rip Sewell p 0 0 0 0
Totals 31 0 3 0
Name Pos AB R H RBI
Dom DiMaggio cf 2 0 1 0
Stan Spence cf 0 1 0 0
Sam Chapman cf 2 0 0 1
Johnny Pesky ss 2 0 0 0
Vern Stephens ss 3 1 2 2
Ted Williams lf 4 4 4 5
Charlie Keller rf 4 2 1 2
Bobby Doerr 2b 2 0 0 0
Joe Gordon 2b 2 0 1 2
Mickey Vernon 1b 2 0 0 0
Rudy York 1b 2 0 1 0
Ken Keltner 3b 0 0 0 0
Snuffy Stirnweiss 3b 3 1 1 0
Frankie Hayes c 1 0 0 0
Buddy Rosar c 2 1 1 0
Hal Wagner c 1 0 0 0
Bob Feller p 0 0 0 0
a-Luke Appling ph 1 0 0 0
Hal Newhouser p 1 1 1 0
f-Bill Dickey ph 1 0 0 0
Jack Kramer p 1 1 1 0
Totals 36 12 14 12
a: Grounded out for Feller in 3rd inning.
b: Flied out for Mize in 4th inning.
c: Struck out for Schoendienst in 6th inning.
d: Struck out for Musial in 6th inning.
e: Singled for Hopp in 6th inning.
f: Struck out for Newhouser in 6th inning.
g: Struck out for McCormick in 7th inning.
h: Grounded out for Blackwell in 8th inning.
i: Fouled out for Kurowski in 9th inning.
Double Plays: Marion-Mize, Schoendienst-Marion-Mize.
Doubles: Stephens, Gordon.
Error: Pesky.
Home Runs: Williams 2, Keller.
Left on Base: N.L. 5, A.L. 4.
Line Score
All-Star Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
National League 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0
American League 2 0 0 1 3 0 2 4 x 12 14 1
Pitching Notes
Name IP H R ER BB SO
Claude Passeau 3.0 2 2 2 2 0
Kirby Higbe 1.1 5 4 4 1 2
Ewell Blackwell 2.2 3 2 2 1 1
Rip Sewell 1 4 4 4 0 0
Name IP H R ER BB SO
Bob Feller 3.0 2 0 0 0 3
Hal Newhouser 3.0 1 0 0 0 4
Jack Kramer 3.0 0 0 0 1 3
Losing Pitcher: Passeau.
Wild Pitch: Blackwell.
Winning Pitcher: Feller.
Game Notes
Attendance: 34,906.
Length of Game: 2:19.
Umpires A.L.: 1B: Bill Summers, 3B: Eddie Rommel.
Umpires N.L.: HP: Dusty Boggess, 2B: Larry Goetz.
Game / Box Links: 1946 All-Star Game | 1946 Play-by-Play
Navigation: Previous Box Score | Next Box Score
Rip Sewell, creator and master of the ephus pitch said, "Before the game Ted (Williams) said to me, 'Hey Rip, you wouldn't throw that damn crazy pitch in a game like this.' Sure, I'm gonna throw it to you, so look out."
During the eighth inning Ted Williams came to the plate with Rip Sewell on the mound. Sewell described what happened to the media after the game, "He shook his head from side to side, telling me not to throw it. I nodded to him - you're gonna get it, buddy. So I wound up like I was going to throw a fastball and here comes the blooper. He swung from Port Arthur and just fouled it on the tip of his bat. He stepped back in, staring out at me, and I nodded to him again - you're gonna get another one. I threw him another one, but it was outside and he let it go. Now he was looking for it. Well, I threw him a fastball and he didn't like that. Surprised him. Now I had him one ball, two strikes. I wound up and threw him another blooper, on an arc about twenty-five feet high. It was a good one. Dropped right down the chute for a strike. He took a couple of steps up on it - which was the right way to attack that pitch, incidentally - and he hit it right out of there. And I mean he HIT it!"
Rip Sewell yelled at Ted Williams when he was rounding the bases, "The only reason you hit it is because I told you it was coming!""
--------------
I attended this game with my father. We sat on the right field side, about half way down the foul line ane about half up in the stands. It was a perfect vantage point to see Ted's home run ball hugging the line and going all the way.
We went to four World Series games (Braves and Red Sox) and a variety of regular season games. I saw Pete Gray - the one-armed outfielder for the Browns, and I saw Babe Ruth - close to his death - circling Fenway Park in an open car. (was this the all star game? I doubt it only because I remember sitting in the right field stands for the All Star game, but I saw the Babe from seats on the left field side...)
Soon after I started working at Sylvania - probably in 1955 or 1956 - I was randomly chosen to present our employees gift to the Jimmy Fund. I handed the check to Ted Williams and shook his hand on the field at Fenway Park! There are pictures somewhere...
The radio always was on during home games for Jim Britt's play-by-play. The pre-game show featured Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding of "Bob and Ray" fame. Road games were broadcast by "telegraphic recreation" by Don Gillis, who tried to create the excitement of a live broadcast by reading descriptions of plays from the printouts. (I met Don later at one of Bob Copeland's parties.)
I played baseball for a short time around my eighth & ninth grade years, but I lacked the vision and the arm for serious play. The family certainly didn't have excess money but somehow I had a glove and a couple of bats... and I can remember being seriously upset when my father couldn't attend a game. There's a team picture.
Eventually I switched to horseshoe pitching, which defined my sports activity during most of high school. Yearbook pictures provide verification!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Kodak r.i.p.
Kodak probably was one of the first brands that i recognized, along with a few foods and automobile makers. Despite inroads by the red box (Agfa) and the Green box (Fuji) and a few others like Ansco and Konica, the Yellow box dominated more than fifty years of my dabbling with photography. It held on to my loyalty even when film started to go away - my first digital cameras were Kodak branded.
Kodak was the focus of two important events in my professional life. During the early 1970s, when several technologies were competing for what became the VCR market, Kodak proposed the "Super-8 Videoplayer." A project was created in which Kodak's Apparatus Division (Rochester) would develop the electromechanical "film transport" and the New Product Engineering organization at GTE Sylvania (Seneca Falls) would develop two custom electronic tubes and electronic circuits tqo be used in a sophisticated "flying spot scanner." Our group was responsible for the electronics.
About ten "VP-1" emerged from a pilot manufacturing run. They worked... sort of... They appeared in a few ads, and were described in technical symposia. The rapid evolution of videotape quickly left film and competing video discs and magnetic wire reorders in the dust. We were left to consider the next big challenge, which was the rapid loss of CRT-based TV set business to Japan.
Kodak re-entered my life about ten years later when I joined Tektronix Laboratories in a business development position. At the time Tek and Kodak shared interest in display and printing technologies but did not directly compete. The two company's research labs favored sharing information. I was designated to be the Tektronix contact person, matching up with a respected representative from Kodak Labs. The result was numerous visits back and forth, creating solid personal & professional relationships but difficulty in quantifying tangible results. The program ended as Tek slipped into oblivion a few years ahead of Kodak.
Today, Jan 19, 2012 , the official news emerged: Kodak is entering bankruptcy. We can hope that it re-merges as a proud company, leading in its chosen businesses, for another hundred years. We can hope that it does not join two other formerly-proud brands, RCA and Sylvania, whose new owners used the labels at this year's CES to differentiate their low-end lines of seemingly generic products.
Kodak was the focus of two important events in my professional life. During the early 1970s, when several technologies were competing for what became the VCR market, Kodak proposed the "Super-8 Videoplayer." A project was created in which Kodak's Apparatus Division (Rochester) would develop the electromechanical "film transport" and the New Product Engineering organization at GTE Sylvania (Seneca Falls) would develop two custom electronic tubes and electronic circuits tqo be used in a sophisticated "flying spot scanner." Our group was responsible for the electronics.
About ten "VP-1" emerged from a pilot manufacturing run. They worked... sort of... They appeared in a few ads, and were described in technical symposia. The rapid evolution of videotape quickly left film and competing video discs and magnetic wire reorders in the dust. We were left to consider the next big challenge, which was the rapid loss of CRT-based TV set business to Japan.
Kodak re-entered my life about ten years later when I joined Tektronix Laboratories in a business development position. At the time Tek and Kodak shared interest in display and printing technologies but did not directly compete. The two company's research labs favored sharing information. I was designated to be the Tektronix contact person, matching up with a respected representative from Kodak Labs. The result was numerous visits back and forth, creating solid personal & professional relationships but difficulty in quantifying tangible results. The program ended as Tek slipped into oblivion a few years ahead of Kodak.
Today, Jan 19, 2012 , the official news emerged: Kodak is entering bankruptcy. We can hope that it re-merges as a proud company, leading in its chosen businesses, for another hundred years. We can hope that it does not join two other formerly-proud brands, RCA and Sylvania, whose new owners used the labels at this year's CES to differentiate their low-end lines of seemingly generic products.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
After the iPad
As I sit here at McDonalds, drinking 75 cent coffee while checking mail on my iPad (conveniently nesting in the steering wheel) using McD's free wifi, I'm reminded of one of my first thoughts about the iPad. "You think this is neat? Just wait for the "Pro" version."
An updated "Air" could be it: a ubiquitous mini-laptop that runs real software applications when needed but can instantly morph into a go-anywhere entertainment and social networking tool... all in an iPad (or MacBook Air) lookalike product... for an appropriate price.
The hard things have been done already: Thin, light, long battery life, bright display (LCD now but changing to OLED could improve both image quality and battery life) fast, optical disk sharing, optional external conventional keyboard and mouse or stylus, and high volume production.
Emphasis on the operating system makes sense. The next big thing will have to start out with a dual-mode user interface with both traditional keyboard/mouse and touch capabilities.
An updated "Air" could be it: a ubiquitous mini-laptop that runs real software applications when needed but can instantly morph into a go-anywhere entertainment and social networking tool... all in an iPad (or MacBook Air) lookalike product... for an appropriate price.
The hard things have been done already: Thin, light, long battery life, bright display (LCD now but changing to OLED could improve both image quality and battery life) fast, optical disk sharing, optional external conventional keyboard and mouse or stylus, and high volume production.
Emphasis on the operating system makes sense. The next big thing will have to start out with a dual-mode user interface with both traditional keyboard/mouse and touch capabilities.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Home Movies & Slide Shows
My big project - converting home movies from film and tape to computer files - has introduced an unexpected problem: now it is too easy to find and view these relics from our past. Instead of feeling anticipation and awe, common reactions from the audience seem to be "I don't want people to see me like that," or "it makes me too sad" to see departed people and pets.
I've always taken pictures by some kind of instinct to capture an event or a person or a scene that I like. The choice of subjects has always reflected my mood at the time. Sometimes I feel a duty to be a recorder, sometimes I am caught up in color and composition, sometimes I just record something that makes me feel good, or something that strikes me as being special or significant. And, thanks to my evolving interest in family history, I may consider the possible value of an image to some future family researcher.
I also have always subscribed to the notion that the photographer is an artist who makes the decisions about what and how to take pictures, and also "owns" the resulting images. Thus I can - if I wish - produce shows for family consumption that show things as I choose to show them. Also I can - if I wish - obtain permission from individuals in these pictures for display outside of the family.
(Note that none of these comments relate to commercial usage of images.)
Electronic imaging and the internet have changed the game. Individuals who are photographic subjects now have concerns about unintended wide distribution of their images to unknown audiences. There is a new line to be drawn between legitimate privacy concerns and paranoia about the unknown dangers posed by Facebook, YouTube and a myriad of other social-networking internet services.
It seems as if both the photographer and photographee need to update their expectations.
On one hand, the photographer must respect a subject's trust by appropriate management of images. This means that images that were taken in anticipation of sharing only with a limited (family) audience should not be released to networks without appropriate provisions for privacy & security.
The subject must trust the photographer and respect his/her decisions. In general I, as the photographer, reserve the rights to my images including the decision whether to retain or destroy them.
I've always taken pictures by some kind of instinct to capture an event or a person or a scene that I like. The choice of subjects has always reflected my mood at the time. Sometimes I feel a duty to be a recorder, sometimes I am caught up in color and composition, sometimes I just record something that makes me feel good, or something that strikes me as being special or significant. And, thanks to my evolving interest in family history, I may consider the possible value of an image to some future family researcher.
I also have always subscribed to the notion that the photographer is an artist who makes the decisions about what and how to take pictures, and also "owns" the resulting images. Thus I can - if I wish - produce shows for family consumption that show things as I choose to show them. Also I can - if I wish - obtain permission from individuals in these pictures for display outside of the family.
(Note that none of these comments relate to commercial usage of images.)
Electronic imaging and the internet have changed the game. Individuals who are photographic subjects now have concerns about unintended wide distribution of their images to unknown audiences. There is a new line to be drawn between legitimate privacy concerns and paranoia about the unknown dangers posed by Facebook, YouTube and a myriad of other social-networking internet services.
It seems as if both the photographer and photographee need to update their expectations.
On one hand, the photographer must respect a subject's trust by appropriate management of images. This means that images that were taken in anticipation of sharing only with a limited (family) audience should not be released to networks without appropriate provisions for privacy & security.
The subject must trust the photographer and respect his/her decisions. In general I, as the photographer, reserve the rights to my images including the decision whether to retain or destroy them.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
Welcome, iPad, but Mac, don’t go away just yet…
The Mac has influenced my life for more than 25 years. I’m a “Mac person,” how would a first generation iPad fit in?
Ordering an iPad was a gut decision. The only logical aspect was deciding to forego 3G, since most of my computer use outside the home is in places that provide wifi internet access, and I can tether my laptop to my phone to reach the internet in emergencies. And 32GB seemed more than adequate considering that I don’t expect to need much room for video or music.
Now I’ve spent my first month of life with the iPad. What’s it been used for? Has it enhanced my life enough to justify the cost? Has it replaced my trusty MacBook?
I think I’ve given it a pretty good workout.
Over the past thirty days I’ve written a couple of short articles and lots of email, surfed the web and emailed links to family and friends, live-chatted with Apple tech support, ordered parts for my lawnmower, watched some movie trailers and TED Talks, opened a Netflix account, read my daily Apple news fix at macintouch.com, followed the daily news on a variety of websites, read parts of a book from my Kindle account, downloaded and read electronic editions of US News, loaded music and blogs via iTunes, checked in on FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn, downloaded and installed a couple dozen apps, transferred files via Drop Box and iDisk, printed a few documents while on my home network, looked at pictures in MobileMe Gallery and Picasa, made wifi connections at restaurants, coffee shops, airports, bars, an auto repair shop and the press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And on occasion, I’ve used MobileMe’s “Find My iPhone” to see if Linda (my wife) was in the area.
Right now the iPad is resting, sitting happily behind me, pretending to be a radio, playing jazz from New Orleans via WWOZ, as it was when I came in from the car. (It sounds pretty good and is loud enough… I know it could be better if I just plugged in some speakers, and I knew that I could be listening on my desktop Mac, but that’s not the point of this story.)
It’s too easy to compare the iPad to a Mac, and there to find problems. But the iPad brings something quite different. It is “available” when its big brother computers aren’t. It doesn’t add weight or complexity to travel. It can live with papers in a briefcase or in the glove compartment. It sits comfortably on my lap or on the steering wheel or on the seat-back tray in an airplane. The concept of using the “best available screen” is making more sense every day.
I only had a few days of iPad experience before heading off to Las Vegas for an annual convention, and once I arrived I needed to do some troubleshooting. That was when I discovered that access to the iPad Guide was only a link - not a durable copy stored in the iPad, and therefore not much help for troubleshooting connection problems. A very helpful Apple support person tried to email the PDF to me - I'd know later if it worked (it didn’t). Eventually I discovered “GoodReader,” an app/document reader for PDFs, which can retrieve downloaded documents from email or the web and hold them for later viewing without an internet connection.
The built-in note pad turned out to be useful for taking quick notes, although I quickly discovered the pitfalls of typing on the on-screen keyboard. The Pages app, while more powerful, didn’t seem to flow easily for my ad-hoc writing. Eventually I emailed my notes to my desktop Mac where I could use familiar editing tools.
Here are some other early impressions:
The UI and Managing Files
Managing files is pretty simple as long as you think "sync" (via iTunes) instead of copy, move, download, etc. Mail and the Safari browser provide a button to send links via email. Otherwise, some file transfer actions are possible using tools like Air Sharing and Drop Box, and iDisk/MobileMe and iWork. It looks like this will be a very active area for new apps and peripheral products, like the newly announced Air Stash, a wifi connected SD card reader.
Safari has become the new Finder. Most files now live in the cloud, hiding behind aliases/short cuts disguised as web pages. No more working one’s way up and down and sideways through nested folders.
The iPad isn’t a Mac… at least not until the MacOS morphs into a touch-driven user interface. Say goodbye to the desktop metaphor. Click and drag has become tap and hope. And it’s amazing how easy the transition has been.
The Keyboard
The on-screen keyboard requires a light and accurate touch which should favor my "hunt & peck" style, but I’m not as accurate (yet) as I hope to become. Typing errors don’t just mean unwanted characters but also can invoke unwanted commands or double keystrokes. Someone who has lived with the iPhone will probably find these to be familiar yet manageable issues.
Making text corrections is awkward. There are no arrow keys. The main keyboard also lacks numbers, most punctuation marks and “Undo.” (These items are reachable by first tapping the “123” key to bring up a new keyboard).
Cut-copy-paste use the same interesting (strange?) tool that first came to the iPhone. It has a mind of it's own. After a few weeks it still defies most of my efforts to use it.
The spelling corrector also has a mind of its own, illustrated by fighting with me that "Macintouch" should really be "Macintosh" and making other unilateral decisions that require effort to correct.
Printing
Printing was a mystery at first since there weren’t any print commands. Checking the App Store led me to DocPrinter for sending text or spreadsheet files over my local network for printing via a (free) client running on a desktop Mac. It works well and seems less convoluted than syncing via iTunes to access a Mac application for printing. Some day I’d like a more general capability for printing to a network-connected printer.
Wifi Network Access
Wifi connections to local networks have generally worked automatically without problems, and performance seems roughly equivalent to my white MacBook.
The ‘Vegas Convention Center provided the biggest wifi challenge, and also showed me the importance of carrying copies of critical documents, such as the iPad Guide, rather than depending upon a potentially-unusable link.
Service in the pressroom was no problem, with UID & password provided and a very strong signal, but out on the show floor things got ugly. I counted over thirty networks in a single spot in one exhibit hall. Renewing the DHCP lease or “forgetting” a wifi network - both options in the settings menu - didn’t help. I wasn’t alone. Lacking data to the contrary, I expect that the iPad was no worse than many other types of hardware, as many people - including exhibitors - were complaining about WiFi access.
When the wifi connection drops it’s not clear what action to take. … go to the settings app and take control? Or just be patient? A status indicator to indicate what the Pad is doing would be helpful.
The Case
I like the Apple case more and more, despite negatives raised by some early reviewers. It is durable, easy to hold and should help protect against spills. The flap makes an effective side sun shield, as I discovered on my mid-afternoon flight from Las Vegas. Back home, I found that the case supports the iPad in “steering wheel mode” (while parked, of course) and provides a very comfortable hands-free viewing position while using McDonald's wifi, drinking coffee, etc.
Pictures
The iPad provides tools for viewing images from local or online libraries, and for loading image files from a usb-connected card reader or camera. Images that appear on screen can be saved to the built-in “Photos” app by a press & hold action. I think that its greatest role - apart from running slide shows - may be an easy partnership with a digital camera, making it possible to examine and compare images right away, while there still is an opportunity for more shots. I haven’t yet tried to test this notion.
Summary
I’m convinced that the most impressive feature of the iPad so far has been its unobtrusiveness - light, thin, rugged, versatile - which meant that it could almost always be nearby and available.
The touch interface worked especially well for me for email and web browsing. Time will tell whether I can develop adequate typing skills for the on-screen keyboard. I hope so, because accessories such as an auxiliary keyboard can diminish the iPad’s go-anywhere versatility.
Some jobs are over its head. When the time came to prepare this article, I threw in the towel. I emailed all the rough material from the iPad to myself, so that I could consolidate and edit on a bigger screen with more powerful tools. Sadly I am reminded again how much I depend upon MORE (a 20-year old application - now in the public domain - that requires Classic mode or an old PPC Mac for work like this... What a marvelous iPad app that could be!)
The iPad gives me a third option for portable computing. My smartphone (Treo 700p) will go everywhere. The iPad will go whenever I have room. My laptop will go wherever I need its power for software capabilities that don't exist for the iPad, or when I need added connectivity by tethering the Treo.
Saving the best for last, my big win came at the auto repair shop, where I found an online discount coupon that was worth $50 when I showed the iPad to the cashier for validation. How neat is that?
© Joe Hallett 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Memorial Day 2010 - Norwell
I've been out of touch with Norwell, despite living there from 1940 to the early 1950s. I've always wondered about the circumstances under which my parents would have moved away from Braintree, just as WW2 was heating up.
The narrative at http://tinyurl.com/34hwamx explains a lot.
Norwell was "out there." We had a problematic well. Our phone number was "Hanover 176."
Names like Breezy Bend and Dead Man's Curve, Church Hill (fire company), Civil Defense and the Etrusco all have personal significance to me.
The trigger for this little adventure into the past was remembering the way that the volunteer firemen's graves in the Church Hill Cemetery, including my father's, are decorated on Memorial Day.
My mother sold the old house in 1957-58.
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