a million monkeys typing

On a recent trip to Iqaluit (Nunavut), I basically used my Android based #Xoom tablet and a Logitech BlueTooth keyboard for 4 days straight. Only time I broke out the MacBook Pro was for a mindmapping session with a client, and that was because I hadn’t tested the excellent MindJet app with a VGA projector yet, so I didn’t want to take a risk. Used Docs2Go for word processing and spreadsheets, native email/Skype clients, MindJet (for brainstorming), camera/video capture apps, MoboPlayer (for movies, since the TV available didn’t have connection), and many of the Adobe apps for design, creative and annotation.

Sitting down with my MBP, Ubuntu and Windows laptops now at home, I realize that I haven’t used them in nearly two months. LOT of security updates to keep me busy today.

I’ve heard of people trying to “live on a tablet” for a few days as a test of their technical mojo and to explore the current state of mobile software, but it seems that I’ve been doing this without even trying. Very impressive. I wonder where we’ll be this time next year?

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Andoid, Apple, Mobility

Tagged android, mobile

Upgraded both my iPhone and my iPad2 to iOS5 yesterday, and my MacBook Pro to Lion. Aside from the infuriating reverse-direction scrolling in Lion (push up to go down and vice-versa — I’m too hardwired), I have to admit that I like the whole experience. I’m assuming that I’ll have to await more iOS apps’ use of the notification system –the only thing appearing there so far with mine is Apple Mail– but it’s a far cry better than the pop-up alerts from before. (Tap tap tap tap –what was that? Oh, dammit — tap tap tap….)

Not fond of the app switching yet in iOS5, although it’s still better than iOS4: use all the fingers of your hand to swipe the app “off” one side or the other. It reminds me of a poor man’s webOS card system, the biggest differences being that you don’t actually flip between all the cards in a nice visual manner, and there’s no stacking of related/conjoined cards in a deck (e.g., the PDF viewer that you called up from the email app). Better than Android Gingerbread’s standard icon-based view, but nowhere near as nice as Honeycomb’s thumbnail views. Plus, I can’t seem to do much in the background yet, like how in Android I can download torrents, suck down podcast files, run installs, and put almost any app in the background and it still carries on, pushing out a notification when its job is done.

Still wrapping my head around the tacky faux-leather-with-stitching interface of some of the apps. Really, Apple? You don’t think that’s a wee bit tacky? Like, 6 years ago, tacky?

I haven’t played with the magazine/press shelf or the iBooks yet, since I already use platform-agnostic Zinio and Amazon for that. I don’t want to be tied into only one hardware platform.

iCloud has a streamlined web interface of mail that’s nice and clean, very Apple-like and an improvement over the last time I used Apple dotMac Mail some 3 years ago. The calendar and contacts web apps look very much like the iPad versions, and I must admit that I don’t have Pages, Keynote or Numbers on my iPad yet, so the documents online sync is rather useless for me at the moment. (Again, I like the platform-agnostic Google Apps that allows other programs, such as Docs to Go, to synchronize with it.)

One inevitable conclusion: you really have to want to invest in this ecosystem if you want to make the most of it. Unless you’re running a Mac full time on the desktop (me, I use Linux 80% of the time), have purchased and used mostly iWork (which isn’t available outside a Mac), and only use iOS devices (me, I use Android phones and tablets most of the time, with an occasional foray into my iPhone, iPad2 or HP webOS TouchPad), you’re not going to get the full benefit of this holy Apple Trinity of iOS5, Lion and iCloud.

More thoughts later as I dive in.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Apple, Mobility

I have to wonder if Hemingway kept notebooks, and if he did, were they filled with such prattle as written by novice writers? Did he burn the early ones? Did he edit, tear, burn the bits that made him sound like a writer unsure of his footing, or like a mere mortal listening to the sound of his own voice and seemingly unaffected by either work or idea? Or did he commit his thoughts to single sheets, to be scrutinized the next day under the gaze of a single malt and then either threaded into a new draft or balled up to be consigned to the dank basket at his feet?

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Writing

Tagged writing

Setting up a new Tumblr blog at the same time I’m working behind the scenes updating this personal blog (douglasjohnston.net) and seeing what needs to be done with DIYPlanner. Created new subdomain off douglasjohnston.net for Tumblr. Created new feeds using FeedBurner for both blog and Tumblr. Connected one or the other or both to Twitter. Connected one or the other or both to Twitter. Set up Google Analytics to tie into the mix, which seems to be connected under Google to Feedburner. del.icio.us feeds integrated into both, I think, now. Flickr and YouTube were somewhere in all those settings, as was Amazon.

So does this mean that if I post something, it’ll appear everywhere, and then circle back to appear in the original place, and then over and over, in a vicious cycle?

I feel vaguely like a novice plumber who has somehow connected the toilet to the shower and is now afraid to flush.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Blogging, Marketing, Personal, Social Media