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. :)
Breaking The Silence
I haven't posted anything for a while, mainly because I still feel a bit uncomfortable writing about personal, non-technical stuff. Silly me! Anyway, for those handful of people who might care, during the past few months I moved to the USA after quite some legal and logistical trouble. Once I was here with all my possessions I could take on the plane, we finally tied the knot with Leslie; the US government was pushing us with strict deadlines so we went for a rather minimal wedding in short 3 weeks. It was still too big for us (due to family intervention it has gotten out of hands quickly); I know people always claim that it was their most amazing day ever, but for us the word traumatic describes the event more accurately. It was on a Friday (11/11/11, just to make it easy to remember), then we made it a long weekend and went to our usual vacation spot – Washington DC. It was nice, but I must say you better avoid the International Spy Museum, it was awful, expensive, boring (during the initial elevator ride and profile room you'd think it will be great fun) and I guess it tells all that the most entertaining moment was when in a really busy room I accidentally kicked up a toddler. Right then I felt awful but now it's a fond memory of ours. On the other hand, go and check out Mount Vernon, George Washington's remote mansion and farm, chances are you'll find it a really pretty place, even if you're not a history buff.
We must have caught the flu in DC because we got sick by the time we arrived home and it took a while to get through that. We bought lots of IKEA furniture and reorganized the house, I built a new workstation from components I brought from Hungary and ordered the rest from Amazon even before I arrived here. Got a new telly (47" LCD, yay), lots of video games, enjoyed Christmas with our first actual tree (we just took it down last weekend) and I've been quite busy with work. All this didn't leave too much space for hobby projects, but before moving I wrote an FTP server that's been running ever since without major hiccups, so I might release it sometime.
Enjoy the winter!
I Do
Like A Boss
20 years ago Michael Schumacher made his Formula 1 debut at the Spa circuit, when Eddie Jordan gave him a seat for one race to replace a driver who got in trouble before the race weekend. It was a start of a quite successful career resulting in winning the world championship seven times. Today he had to start from the last place, due to a tiny technical difficulty he had during the qualification: one of his tires simply fell off on his first lap. Well, such things won't stop him, he finished at 5th. My hero... :-)
Happy anniversary Michael!
Update: I may have trust issues, but I was right. This video was originally on Youtube but after a couple of days it got removed by the Formula One Management. I had a gut feeling it's going to happen, so even before writing this little post I saved the video, so I won't run into that I have to delete this article as it makes no much sense without the action footage. Yet another reason why I don't trust the cloud... Anyway, here it is using the QuickTime plugin, get it if you don't have it, and if you're part of the anti-QuickTime movement, you can download the video and watch it however you want.
Daily WTF - Milk
As I don't have a car, I usually organize my grocery shopping around distance vs. weight, bringing heavier items from a smaller store called CBA which is closer to my place, even though their prices are always higher. I pretty much always buy soft drinks and milk there, just like today. On weekends they close by noon so it was a pressing issue, I got there around 11:30 and as I know the optimal route in the store, I went for the milk first. Here we mostly have milk coming in sealed cartons, valid for months, so usually there is no reason to look for expiration dates. I noticed that they got my favourite kind Milli 1.5% which is becoming a rare catch these days, I really don't know why; usually I have to fall back to Parmalat or something else. I was happy to see my favourite so I put 5 cartons into the bottom of my basket, covered it with Coke, frozen pizza and two strawberry yoghurt Milka chocolates (yumm!) and went to the cashier.
They have 3 lines, two were open but I went to the usual one where they accept cards. The lady who is there most of the time knows me already after so much shopping and when she got to the bottom of the basket where the milks were, she seemingly froze. I didn't know what's wrong, it's 5 cartons, can't be so hard to count and not like she has to do the math herself... She started whispering to me, cautiously glancing around, asking if it was on this tag price, 269 HUF which is about $1.35. I had no idea what she means, it's on the price tag, and that's the usual price of this milk... She still looked puzzled and told me that she doesn't understand, this one was priced down to 140 HUF (about $0.70) all week, she knows it because she bought some earlier as it expires tomorrow. But I haven't heard it from her... I looked at it closely, she was right, expires on February 13th. WTF?! We agreed on that I quickly take the milk back where it was and bring something else, so I did and returned with 4 cartons of a different kind that expires sometime in May. She was worried whether I told anyone, I assured her I was moving silently like a ninja, she's safe from prosecution. Kudos to her!
I still can't wrap my mind around this. I ran into unfortunate stuff in their store in the past like buying margarine which is supposed to be fine for months but expired in a few days; it probably was the same scam and then I learned not to buy margarine there, that's not a heavy item anyway. But milk? Really? And what bastard tries to realize extra profit on expiring milk this way, pricing it up from the earlier discount for the last one or two days? Sure, people probably won't notice, who expects that to happen, I sure didn't, but after such an episode how can they expect me to trust them with anything that can possibly expire? What's left for me to buy there regularly, coke and toilet paper?
