The New iPad and Me
When Apple released the first iPad in 2010, I wished I had one but didn't want to jump into it, knowing that the next version will be much better. Indeed, the iPad 2 was more like it with the advanced chipset and increased RAM in a prettier body. For various reasons had to wait with the purchase, then tech rumors made it clear that the 3rd generation model will be much better for my needs with its high resolution display, as mostly I wanted to use it for reading... Still, I spent the past 6 months whining to Leslie about how much I want an iPad whenever we saw one in the store. Now the waiting is over, I ordered one shortly after it was released. It took a while for Apple to ship it here directly from China (while, as it turned out, I could have walked into Best Buy to grab one, unlike last year) but never mind.
I guess I got the ideal setup with a white 64GB Wi-Fi model, housed in a white CaseCrown faux leather case in the style I always imagined for my iPad. It's very pleasant for the touch and even if the device was too warm during average usage (it isn't), I don't feel it at all. I don't need a 4G model, mostly I use it around the house, or if I really have to, I can utilize my phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot. The 64GB storage feels like a bit of a waste right now, but it will come handy in the long run when I travel to Europe and carry movies and TV shows on it, while leaving my laptop home. Also, I don't plan to replace it for several years, unless something happens to it, so it should be somewhat future proof.
I work from my home, so my main goal was increasing productivity by moving all the usual distractions, such as news and blog reading, Twitter etc to this separated device which I don't bring into my office. Normally I leave it in the bedroom or in the living room, so when I sit down in front of the PC, that's dedicated work time. It feels like a good solution so far.
I love reading on the iPad, the screen is amazing, but as I can't really compare it to the previous generations, I just like it on its own. I was afraid that my monitor will look worse afterwards, but it's still lovely, no need to run to buy a new one. :) I use FlipBoard for RSS feeds, the only downside is that I had to set up Google Reader for it, but every desirable feed reader app seems to use that anyway. I bought only a few apps so far, like Garage Band and Solar Walk above the usually free necessities. I'm certainly not going crazy with checking out games and other stuff, meh... Somehow I just don't care much about them right now, but I bought some new Kindle books that I hope to read soon. I might be skeptical but I don't believe in iBook apart from being a nice PDF reader; I won't buy books from Apple. It's not their main profile and primary source of revenue (compared to Amazon) so they can say anytime that this experiment didn't work out, closing shop, nothing to see here... I believe in the future of the Kindle and Amazon can always bring out a better reader app for iOS. Not to mention that Leslie has a Kindle eBook reader and we share books, so it's kind of a no brainer anyway.
Perhaps the only problem I can find with the iPad is that it's bugging me constantly to redesign my website and support high resolution images, so it's definitely on my to-do list. :)
TemperNTC Class Library - Update
Just to let you know, I updated the TemperNTC Class Library article and the class library with a fix to the issue with the external sensor's sometimes unreliable initialization. Now it works splendid everytime you access the device.
 | Source code and tester application in C# for .Net Framework 2.0 |
TemperNTC Class Library
A few days ago I got a package from Hong Kong – my order from USB Fever, a TemperNTC USB thermometer with a remote sensor. I must say they have a very friendly customer service. My postal address in Hungary contains an รก character in the street name which caused an encoding problem in their order confirmation email, so I wrote them about it to make sure it gets printed on the package label properly, or at least they could change it to an a. It was by night here and by the time I woke up, I got a reassuring reply with a photo of the package label, proving it's all fine on their end.
I want to use it for temperature logging and I'm glad I originally planned making my own device handler and logger software because the provided HidTemperNTC software is... quite Chinese, so I'm not terribly disappointed. It's okay for playing around, but absolutely unusable for what it was made for: logging. I won't go into details here, I don't want to bash the developers too much but attention to details and dogfooding should be part of their development process for sure.
It was a bit of a surprise that it has two thermometer sensors, an internal one in the USB device and the remote one at the end of the cable. The product description was a bit misleading I guess and I had a bit of a trouble reading the remote sensor, but at the end I managed it. Just like most of those who tried to do something with it, I use the HidFTDll.dll file's exported functions for the general device handling. While the function reading the internal sensor returns a temperature value in Celsius degrees, the remote sensor is not so easy: it requires a current voltage reading from the remote sensor called NTC and involves some mathematical witchcraft with an NTC lookup table. You don't want to know, just call my GetOuterTemperature() function and remember, ignorance is bliss.
The class library doesn't use more than .Net Framework 2.0 functionality and runs perfectly on
Basically this is all you have to do if you want to make this device work:
TemperNtc temper = new TemperNtc(true);
double inner = temper.GetInnerTemperature();
double outer = temper.GetOuterTemperature();
Update: The issue with the false outer temperature reading has been fixed, now it works reliably everytime you access the device. However, this still stands: if any of the sensors return an invalid value, it will return 1000 Celsius degrees, so you just have to ignore that reading.
Now that it's done, I can work on my temperature logger application that probably I will make available for anybody, when it's ready. Have fun with the class library!
| Source code and tester application in C# for .Net Framework 2.0 |
New Phone In The House
A couple of weeks ago, after a long debate, I got myself a new phone: an LG Optimus 7. I don't really need a smart phone, but being a fan of Microsoft technologies, I didn't want to wait any longer to jump on the Windows Phone 7 bandwagon. I'm really impressed so far and whatever I don't like in the system is most probably going to get fixed or improved in the Mango update coming this fall. I plan to write about the system a bit more elaborately, but I want to make this post a tribute to my previously used phones.
It won't be a long list. Since I never had too much money to waste, I have always tried to buy things I really need and would use happily for years to come. This is the 4th phone I had in over 11 years and given that it's only two weeks old, I think I've got a rather impressive track record here. I have friends who changed their phones several times a year; if we haven't seen each other for a while, they always showed up with a different phone. Sometimes even in a different car. Let me show you my lineup...
I bought my first phone, the Nokia 3210 in 2000, along with a Vodafone prepaid SIM card. I think this model was a new development then, internal antennas seemed to be a big thing. I had no idea, never even used a mobile phone before but I liked its overall design. It was certainly more modern than what some of my colleagues had around that time, not to mention how badly beaten up those were. Yep, they worked in marketing and sales positions with company issued phones, programmers didn't get one. Not that I cared, I could afford it so I went for it and used it happily for nearly 4 years. It had very low resolution monochrome display, no internal memory to speak of and it was somewhat bulky, but still slimmer than most of the devices in that period. I still have it and it works prefectly, apart from a badly aged battery.
The Nokia 6610 came to me as a birthday gift from my friends in December 2003. I didn't plan to replace my 3210 but it was really sweet from them (and it had to be really expensive!) so I was glad to have it. It was one of the first phones that featured color display, a 128x128 pixels, 4096 colors one that journalists praised on. It was nice indeed, I uploaded a cute Jodie Foster picture as background and it was there until I replaced the whole phone. It didn't go bad, although in its last year I decided to replace its keyboard and shell because it was a bit worn, the paint came off here and there and some buttons didn't register well anymore. Otherwise it was working fine.
Then it happened... In January 2008 I literally fell in love with the Sony Ericsson K610i. I wanted it real bad, just for its looks, I still think it's the prettiest ordinary phone ever made; the finest example of sleek industrial design, like the sexy androids from Asimov novels. A thing of beauty; check it out for yourself from multiple angles. The screen is gorgeous and its capabilities easily put it into the class of smart phones, but these days we think of those as large multi touch screens and software platforms with application stores, so I classify it as an ordinary candybar phone. Honestly I still don't expect more from a phone and I still love it to bits, so it took me a while to convince myself to get a new one.
I can take care of my things so well that natural degradation doesn't really control my purchasing habits. However, during the years I got an iPod mini 6GB (2005) and a Mitac Mio P550 Windows Mobile 5.0 based PDA (2006), both good as new and they all have properties that are missing from the K610i. It can play music just as good as the iPod, but doing so really compromises battery life, plus I hate to use a headphone jack converter with it. The PDA has GPS navigation and can be programmed using the .Net Framework, but it's not always with me so its usability is limited. The K610i had a camera (a front facing one too, in fact) but the image quality is a joke. Almost all mobile cameras are a joke though so I don't hold it against the phone. As I don't take my Canon DSLR with me everywhere, it would come handy to have an OK compact camera built into the phone that I can use, should I spot a burning zombie.
So here we are, I took an attempt to merge my devices into a single one and I think I've chosen well. I was thinking of an HTC Trophy 7 originally for its looks, but the LG Optimus 7 was much cheaper with 16GB storage memory instead of 8GB. Then it turned out that even though the HTC looks a bit better, I love the LG's three hardware buttons, and its camera (or at least its internal settings) is like a thousand times better. Somebody at HTC must have called SharpenMore() in a loop and nobody seems to ever test what comes off the conveyor belt there.
The Optimus 7 is a good phone, I like using it on a daily basis. I kept the K610i as a secondary phone, I put the old Vodafone SIM card into it, that I had to abandon a couple of months ago. For some reason I lost the ability to send text messages to the USA, they seem to go out, Vodafone charges for them, but they never arrive. I waited many months for a fix. They have no idea what's wrong, it must be anything but them. I went to one of their shops to get a SIM card replacement; I instantly became quite popular there with my SIM from the year 2000, after 11 years of usage... Unfortunately the new card didn't fix the issue either, so after yet another useless round with their support center I gave up and bought a SIM from T-Mobile. Magically, that works.
