A Great Way to Start the Day

Good Morning!

Since July, I’ve been waking up at 5am and going for a bike ride. While initially painful to wake up at that time, leaving the house by 5:30 lets me get in a good loop on the road before needing to catch my train to work. Now that it’s turning to fall, the light is taking a bit longer to arrive but when it does, the sunrise is beautiful and makes for a terrific start to the day.

The iPhone returns … iPhone 3G S

>edfa been a really long time since I used an iphone for anything. My original iPhone essentially became a paperweight after about 3 months and the SIM card has rotated through a dozen or more devices since. Even so I felt compelled to check it out once again and once I realized that the (subsized) price for the 32GB model was $100 less than the equivalent iPod Touch, I was sold.

It’s hard to not be impressed with what’s changed since the original. The hardware is sleek, lighter and includes some serious power boosts making what was a previously slow unit intensely fast! The iPhone 3G S might be the fastest device I’ve used. The basic navigation is effortless and switching between open apps and the finder and back to re-open an app is very smooth. I’m still in the process of re-familiarizing myself with the flow and while there are some new additions with 3.0, but it’s not exactly hard to figure anything out here. First take, the iPhone has truly advanced in 2.5 generations.

My main issue currently is one that will probably improve with time though never quite be what I’ve grown accustomed to via S60 which is multitasking. The same core apps get that treatment while 3rd party developers have try to work through the (barely live) push notices. I’ve got a few apps installed that allegedly use this (AP News, Umbrella, Tapulous) and have gotten a few from AP… The process is simple enough but the limits of the implementation mean that the information yo get carries no context. You still have to find and launch the AP App, wait for it to refresh and then find the headline if you want to read the full piece. That’s less than ideal … Why we can’t simply get some sort of link that deep links to the app is beyond me. Oh right without multitasking, your app can’t update until it’s open. Similar currently running app limits apply across the board. You can’t stream music from last.fm or pandora and do anything else – background notices have nothing to offer streaming media.

The first generation battery was quite weak by my standards. Today I found I had burned over 50% of the battery in a few hours of use. Looks like moderate usage will yield a full day, but I’d be nervous having a really heavy day of usage without access to some extra juice. Standard smartphone …

I’ll have some more thoughts soon enough … for now though I am very pleased with this upgrade regardless of the background process limits. The iPhone is clearly a well polished, easy to use and very powerful device. Strong subsidized pricing make it an easy choice …

Why Nikon is dead to me and my next camera will be from Canon

Dear Nikon –

Thanks for absolutely destroying all photographic evidence of the birth of my son. Your failure to actually save any images shot (close to 100) has ruined any opportunity for a permanent record of this wonderful occasion. There are no do-overs, no next times. This was it and while it certainly looked like most of my pictures were terrific when captured and quickly reviewed on-screen, The D70s appears to have corrupted the CompactFlash card and there are NO PICTURES. The most basic function failed.

Thanks for nothing.

Jonathan

It’s not every day you see a Zebra

On Coker Farm

Some friends of ours invited us on a picnic to a local friend’s farm in Bedford today and we were quite surprised to find a zebra there! Even more surprising was that the Zebra came close enough to pet … not very soft and to be honest not very easy going either. Unlike the horse’s we also got to see Zelda the Zebra was considerably less unsettled. Not dangerous, but cautious. Still very cool …

MetroNorth Bloggers

David Parmet just launched MetroNorth Bloggers which is a aggregator for the wait for it … MetroNorth Bloggers. If you are familiar with MetroNorth, you’d know that this is the primary commuter path for those of us living to the North of teh city in Connecticut and Westchester County.

The site looks like it will be a very cool way to see what’s being said in our local market and I’ve subscribed immediately. It’s great to track the conversations happening close to home. I hope this will actually encourage more discussion and even lead to some meetups as well. Thanks David!

Standing on the Beach

Today is our last full day on vacation and it’s been fantastic! The weather has been clear and warm and the kids have really enjoyed the beach, pool, boating and of course the playgrounds around Hobe Sound, FL.