Me

Snow Leopard cometh

/ hsoi

Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” is due tomorrow, August 28, 2009.

Macworld has a series of articles discussing the new OS version.

As a Mac software developer I have to keep up with such things. Frankly, the Snow Leopard update isn’t all that sexy for end users. You’ll see there’s no massive nor major feature list upgrade, which is a change. Every upgrade of Mac OS X so far has been a big step forward, so this is the first small step. Frankly what that points to is a maturing of the OS, and I think that’s welcome. We don’t have to be chasing the latest thing all the time and plunking down a lot of money to do so. Well, at least end-users don’t have to be… what Snow Leopard really brings about are a lot of under-the-hood changes that affect us developers far more.

Still, I have people asking me if they should upgrade. That’s up to you. Some people like to have the latest stuff, so if you like being on the cutting edge, then by all means be there at midnight when it goes on sale. One big feature for end-users is built-in support for Microsoft Exchange. If you have to work in an Exchange-based environment, you may find this quite welcome.

I must admit that I’m still a bit of a hold-out from converting fully to Apple’s own software. I still use Microsoft Entourage for my email because frankly it’s been the best Mac email client for a number of years. I have moved my calendaring to iCal (tho ToDo’s remain in Entourage because iCal’s doesn’t cut it), and with the purchase of the iPhone I have to use the Mac’s Address Book a lot more (thankfully Entourage can sync between its address book and Address Book.app). But with the massive amount of email, folder organization, rules, automation, and other such things it’s just tough for me to make the transition… probably take me a day or two just to try to get it all set up, and when I’ve attempted it in the past I discover Mail.app just isn’t quite there. But now with the Exchange support built-in, there may be more feature parity and it may work out. So I’ll probably reevaluate it at some point. The reality is, you do get further on the Mac working with Apple’s technologies because things like Address Book, iCal, Mail, etc. are all well-integrated into the system. They mesh with your iPhone better. Plus since developers can have access to such things (e.g. the Address Book API’s) the greater user experience can be enhanced if you’re taking advantage of what Apple provides. While some people don’t like this “monopoly-style” approach to things, it’s actually what makes the Mac such a great end-to-end experience. Instead of lots of disparate parts that don’t really hook together well causing the end-user a lot of frustration in accomplishing simple tasks, you’ve got parts that integrate well together from the hardware level through the OS lower layers to the higher layers to the end applications, and with everything hooking together, things can “just work.” User experience is so important and that’s what really differentiates Mac from other platforms.

So we’ll see. For me the key is being able to get my work done in a day with minimal-to-no hassle. So far so good, so it’s tough to want to change unless I can see improvement in that area.

But being a developer, I have been using Snow Leopard for a while and find that it’s just another upgrade. Being a “minor” upgrade for users, the impacts to me as a developer mean that I’ll still be supporting Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” for some time. Believe it or not, users are still using Tiger a fair amount. I can’t say why, but one possible reason is Tiger is the last version of the OS to include “Classic” support. If people are still relying upon Mac software from years gone by that was never rebuilt to be Mac OS X native, they would want to stick with Tiger. Trouble is, it’s going to be harder and harder to maintain that. Snow Leopard itself is Intel-only: PowerPC-based Macs are officially heading off into the sunset. Still, there’s not a whole lot at least in the work I do that would force one of my products to be Snow Leopard-only, and while I’m certainly working on a few Leopard-only things, so long as Tiger users exist and continue to buy software while holding out on that 4+ year old OS well… we’ll keep supporting Tiger users. Of course one potentially limiting factor will be Apple’s developer tools. Snow Leopard’s version of Xcode 3.2 does not install things for targeting 10.4… you have to do a custom install to get them (seems to be SDK 10.4 and gcc 4.0.x); so the writing is on the wall even from Apple: move forward.

Frankly, that makes sense for Apple. You see, at the heart of it all Apple is a hardware company. To make things like Mac OS X, iWork, and other bits of software, that’s really only done to make the hardware functional and useful. Macs, iPods, iPhones — it’s all hardware. The family iMac is a PowerPC G5-based iMac. It’s long in the tooth, no doubt. I’ve been wanting to replace it with a new Intel-based iMac for some time, but I have a rule with hardware purchases. You see, everyone always wants the best and wants to minimize obsolescence. There will always be something bigger, better, faster, cheaper somewhere on down the line, so there’s really nothing you can do about it. So you use what you’ve got as long as you can, push it until you truly cannot wait any more… not just desire wait, but some larger need. Then buy the best you can afford. So now that PowerPC is officially dead to Apple, eventually the family iMac just won’t be able to cut it any more. It should last a bit longer, but push is coming to shove and a new purchase is in the wings. Works well for Apple’s bottom-line, doesn’t it? 🙂

MHI – in progress

/ hsoi

The gun blogger world is all aflutter about Monster Hunter International.

I didn’t get it (it being everyone getting so gah-gah about the release).

I guess I still don’t get it, but I guess if you know who Larry Correia is (and before this I admit I didn’t), then I guess that’s part of the fun. Plus, books like this just aren’t my thing. I’m a geek… I tend to prefer non-fiction. Subjects like in MHI aren’t totally out of the realm of things I’d enjoy, but I just really had no compelling reason to read the book.

Nevertheless, TXGunGeek loves the book and and lent me a copy.

Now I see James Rummel wrote a review of it, probably one that the gun-blog-fanboys will be all up in arms over, so to speak.

I’m only on chapter 5 or 6 (don’t remember, book is in the bedroom), or whatever chapter after Owen shows up at MHI and asks what happened on December 15, 1995 or however it all goes. I didn’t intend to start reading the book yet because there’s other things in my queue that should come first… but man, Atlas Shrugged continues to be unappealing to me. 😉

So far I’ll say the book feels fun. There’s no question Correia knows his guns and this is quite filled with gun geek stuff. The story seems to flow well enough and the reading is fine, but I’ll have to agree with James that even in the few chapters I’ve read Owen does come off like an amazing uber-hero without much of a flaw (other than maybe not telling his Dad the whole truth). I must admit, when they were reading off Owen’s history and said “black belt in two martial arts” I found myself asking “OK, which ones?”. 🙂  Still, I don’t like to get too tied up into things… suspend disbelief a bit and just enjoy the fun.

I’ll see how things come out whenever I finish the book.

Updated: Tweaked a few things in the above text, and look… Larry Correia responded to James’ review.

I will say. As I read this, I can’t help but think the book would be a lot of fun if it was made into a movie. Sure I like seeing character development, I like seeing more deeply fleshed out and realistic characters (even Superman had problems). But I also know that sometimes just mindless fun is good too. Sometimes movies without much of anything except a loose story for an excuse to provide lots of on-screen action is good stuff. Frankly, MHI (so far of what I’ve read) could really lend to that.

More thoughts on snub ammo

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I was headed to Cabela’s last night to get some hunting stuff and realized that I should probably look for some ammo for the snub. I must admit, I’m still not settled on what ammo to use for self-defense. I’ve got this pull towards wanting to use the Gold Dot 135 grain +P’s, because I like Gold Dot and know they make solid stuff, plus there’s something about carrying and handling unjacketed lead that bugs me (probably the health-aspect of it all) so I’d like to carry some sort of jacketed ammo. Yet, as I look at ballistics data on a lot of your JHP rounds for .38’s (as shot out of snubs, regardless if the load is specifically designed for short barrels or not), they tend to get the expansion but not always the penetration. I think that’s perhaps one thing that bugs me about Hornady Critical Defense is that part of its design is to not penetrate more than 12″. If 12″ is considered the FBI minimum, to not go more than 12″ by design feels faulty to me. I can only guess why Hornady made such a decision (risks of overpenetration, since primary consumers are civilians?). But, all this data is partially subjective.

The thing is, expansion is certainly desirable, but if you don’t get it deep enough to hit vitals then expansion doesn’t matter. You want both depth and width, but given a choice between the two I’d say depth comes out as slightly more important because vitals are buried down deep and you need to ensure you get to them. Given that, while I don’t want to carry LSWCHP’s I think that’s really the only way to go for a .38 snub. The main reason? They get the penetration, and some expansion. Granted they may not expand as much as a JHP round, but they get the penetration and seem fairly reliable at doing so… then some expansion as a bonus.

I just look at data such as brassfetcher’s, and while it may be a single point of reference it’s still useful info. Look at this (but note the barrel lengths). Even consider this:

2-inch .38 snubs
There seems to be no JHP bullet cartridge that is capable of providing a reasonable balance of adequate penetration and reliable expansion. A bullet that expands will not penetrate deeply enough, whereas a bullet that does not expand will probably overpenetrate.

As a result, we feel the best cartridge for .38 snubbies is the 148 grain wadcutter target load. (MacPherson, Duncan: Bullet Penetration, Ballistic Publications, El Segundo, California, 1994. p. 247, Figure 10-2 Cylinder Bullet Penetration Depth.) The sharp-edged shoulder of the full wadcutter design provides the best penetration and wounding efficiency for this gun/cartridge combination.

Take that as you wish, as that was printed 11 years ago, but did include the Gold Dot in the testing.

I still don’t think I’m settled on what ammo to use, and I reserved the right to change my mind. But for now, I think I will stick with LSWCHP’s, and presently the Buffalo Bore 20c/20 stuff since that’s what I have. Didn’t see any for sale at Cabela’s (the only place in town I’ve seen Buffalo Bore for sale).

The quest continues….

Didn’t happen… again

/ hsoi / 16 Comments

My second attempt at pistol competition was a bust. The Aggies say if you do something 3 times it becomes tradition… so I hope my next effort is successful. 🙂

While most of the Austin area didn’t get rain yesterday, apparently parts of it did. One of those parts was the Austin Rifle Club. Got there this morning and the match was cancelled. They got dumped on with rain and the new action bays were muddy. Some were also full of standing water. The bays were only recently completed and I’m going to guess this was the first time they were rained upon. So while most of the drainage was good, it wasn’t perfect and this was the first time they got to see that. A lot of ARC members were standing around talking about that and how they’d have to fix the bays to remedy it. So… while perhaps the match didn’t happen, hopefully the rain meant good things for the future.

Before I left I dropped an email to foo.c to see if he wanted to join. He called me back, I missed it (don’t know how…. but the iPhone’s vibrate apparently doesn’t vibrate enough, and for whatever reason I didn’t hear the ring either). Called him from the muddy parking lot and asked if he just wanted to go to the regular bays at ARC to shoot. I swung by his house, picked him up, we came back to ARC and shot for a while.

I got to try out his new Rock Island Armory 1911. It’s not as sweet at his Wilson, but pretty darn close. Certainly makes you wonder if all the money in something like a Wilson is really worth it. Wilson had a slightly better trigger, the RIA wasn’t too bad. He also had this Sig P6 which … gah… if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, so I’ll just stop. 🙂  Fun little beater gun, but wow, that DA/SA action is ugly and the DA pull is junkyard dog ugly.

I shot my Buck Mark a bunch. Gosh that gun is fun to shoot.

Then got some trigger time with my XD-9. The fiber popped out of the front sight. Put it back in but it popped out again and I couldn’t find it. That sucks. I’ll contact Dawson Precision in the morning. I was shooting OK. It’s evident I haven’t been to the range in a while. Dry fire all you want, in fact you should dry fire a lot. But in the end, you gotta get to the range some because you need that recoil to really make things go. Darn this ammo shortage situation… a big reason why I haven’t been to the range and only dry firing. 😦  Still, shot OK.

So, while today wasn’t the day I wanted, it was the day I needed. Happy to have gotten the trigger time. Good to hang out with a friend. I’ll try competition again some other time.

Finally going to try it

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned I’ve wanted to try competition shooting. I figured a good place to start was Steel Challenge type of competition. One time I was ready to go, but it didn’t happen. Now Austin Lone Star Practical Pistol Club has moved to the Austin Rifle Club because of their newly built action shooting bays.

This is the fourth Sunday of the month, which means a steel match.

I’m going to try it.

I’m going to shoot my .22 Buck Mark with iron sights (total stock factory gun). It’s the cheapest thing to shoot and I’ve got far more .22 LR ammo than anything else.

I’m excited at trying out competition for the first time. I’m a little nervous because I have no idea what to expect, and ensuring I have all the right equipment for how they like to do things. But I’m looking forward to giving this a try.

My goal? Just to shoot and have fun, get familiar with the club and people and how everything works. But if Caleb’s Shooting Sports Jargonizer is correct, that really means I want to win. 😉  Actually to win or not doesn’t matter (tho I’d love it). The real desire is to not come in last place, especially because of procedural errors, rules infractions (especially safety issues), or disqualifications. 🙂

I’ll be back….

I guess I was lucky

/ hsoi

Back from our shopping day. I guess the gods were smiling upon us.

First stop was JC Penny’s. They’ve come a long ways and overhauled their image and merchandise. We actually managed to knock out most of our shopping there, racking up a hefty bill. When we got to the car I took a moment to look at the receipt to see how much we didn’t spend (note: not “save” because this isn’t saving, it’s just not spending as much) and I noted that we were charged tax! I knew we’d have tax on a few little things, but I checked the math and we were charged tax on everything! That’s not right. I went back in and pointed it out. Seems they had some problems with a bunch of registers charging tax. They thought the register I checked out on was working, but apparently not. In comes the manager. The only way to fix it was to totally void the transaction and start over. So, on the faulty register she voided it all out, then we had to haul all our stuff to a register in the back of the store at the exchange/returns counter and have everything rung up all over again. Yeah, a pain… but, no big deal.

You see, here we go again with the InSights ABC’s: Always Be Cool. Smile on my face, taking it easy, no big deal. And it really wasn’t a big deal. Sure it was a bit of an inconvenience, but the manager kept apologizing and I just looked at her and said “Hey, shit happens… no big deal.” and smiled and relaxed. I could have pitched a fit, but what good would that have done? Frankly, I was in a great mood, I had no desire to complain, so ABC was just natural. Just be cool. And what did I get for being cool? Well you see, there was a coupon in their sales flyer: spend $50 and get $10 off, or spend $75 and get $15 off. That should apply to the whole transaction. Well, for whatever reason (I can only assume good customer service, and because I was so understanding and cool about the problem), the manager opted to ring up the whole of my purchase in $75 increments and give me the discount each time. 🙂 Score! That’s not a normal thing and not how things are to be done, plus it’s a lot of little transactions, but hey… Always Be Cool. It pays off.

In the end, I we didn’t spend about $120 due to the lack of sales tax and then the nice manager. That was well worth it… both shopping today and well, being cool. 🙂

Went to a couple more stores.

Let’s just say Burlington Coat Factory aims for a different demographic. The sort of clothing they sell… nothing really there for my kids in terms of style.

Old Navy still has a store. I thought they were closing up and Levi’s was eliminating them for Gap stores or some such. But we went there and were able to round a few things out.

In terms of how much we truly didn’t spend, that’s hard to gauge. The original JCP receipt said we saved a few hundred bucks. My guess is that’s totalling the actual sticker prices vs. the price we paid. There was a lot of sales, 30% off, buy one get one free, buy one get one 50% off, clearance discounts (about 75% off original price). So yeah, I feel we did OK on things. But if I walked into the store during an off day, I’m not sure they’d still be selling any of that stuff for sticker price. So how much we really didn’t spend I don’t know, but the sales are aggressive this weekend and compared to what else I’ve seen I think we fared OK. Frankly in total we spent a little less than we normally do for kid clothes shopping, but I know we came home with more clothes for them and even Wife and I picked up a few things for ourselves. Plus then the flat out non-spending on the sales tax, the bonus discounts and such…all in all I think in the end we did alright.

And to boot? Had to run a little errand when I got home. Walking back past the grocery store I poked my head into the entrance just to try to buy a Coke from the vending machine. The Coke guy was filling up the machine and I asked if I could get one while he was filling it. He handed me a bottle. I asked how much I owed, he said “nothing… it’s cool.” Really? Yup. Wow… that was nice.

Always Be Cool.

Today was a good day. 🙂

Wish me luck

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

Texas has a “sales tax holiday weekend” designed to help with back-to-school shopping.

It’s this coming weekend, Friday through Sunday.

We’ve never bothered with this. The main reason is we don’t want to deal with the crowds and chaos. And unfortunately, we fear people are going to be petty, rude, and ugly because they all want the best deals for themselves. We’ve experienced this during “big shopping weekends” before,  and we just choose not to deal with it. Plus since we homeschool, we don’t always need to be on the same clock and schedule as the rest of the world.

However, we decided to give it a try this time around. The kids need clothes, we know every retailer in Texas will be stocked up and prepared for this event (I even got an email from Waco Harley-Davidson promoting this weekend), and there will be sales and lots of aggressive pricing and discounting and so on as retailers jockey to attract customers. Then the sales tax alleviation on select items. The kids need the clothing they need so buy it now or later, they still need it. If we buy it now, I expect we’ll be able to lower our total bill. By how much I don’t know yet, but I expect any reduction in the overall bill will be welcome. 🙂

Being the planner I am coupled with my desire to get in and get out as fast as possible, we’ve figured out all that the kids need. We know what pants, shoes, socks, skirts, shirts, underwear, and whatever else they may need. We figured out what sizes of everything to get to minimize the slow down that comes with fitting rooms. Plus we figured out quantities. I think that’s a key factor at keeping cost controlled… you know you need 5 shirts, you get 5 shirts instead of saying “gosh at this price, we can get 7 shirts” which then just jacks up the total bill. If last night before you saw the prices 5 shirts was enough, then today after seeing the prices 5 shirts is still enough.

And going with the fact we aren’t on the same clock as the rest of the world, the plan is to go at the time we feel will have the smallest crowds: first thing Friday morning. Most people will have to be working, most people aren’t morning people. So if we can be on the road at 8 AM and done by lunch, awesome.

The geek in me is also wondering if the iPhone will come into play. If I’ll be able to comparison shop, look up prices, product reviews, or any other sort of on-the-spot information gathering.

Finally, I suspect there will probably be a man with a gun wandering through all these crowds, through all these retail establishments, being around lots of children…. and I’ll betcha nothing will come of it. 😉

So, onwards we go. Hopefully tomorrow won’t suck. 🙂

The pain of training

/ hsoi

I admit it. I’m human.

That means in my core I seek pleasure and avoid pain. It’s just how living things behave. However, as humans we have this ability to think and reframe things. We may undertake “small pain” if we know it will help us avoid “large pain” and there is some pleasure-seeking in such behavior. For example, giving a small child a spanking because they ran out into the street, that’s a small pain to help them learn to avoid the bigger pain of getting hit by a car. Letting your child turn in a term paper late and getting a failing grade is a small pain compared to the bigger pain of perhaps losing their job because they never learned how to work under deadlines. One advantage of studying a martial art that spars is you learn what it’s like to get hit and how to deal with it, a small pain compared to the first time getting hit being when someone is attacking you bent on taking your life. We can learn how to take small pain if we know it leads us towards a better end.

That said, the small pain is still pain, and at least speaking for myself, I still don’t like it. 🙂

I was reading this quip from John Farnam about training. It helped me reframe my mindset.

Good training is ever scary, demanding, and makes you feel inadequate and stupid. When you finish and ‘feel good about it,’ you probably weren’t pushing yourself hard enough. Learning takes place when you fail, not when you succeed!

I disagree that learning can’t take place when you succeed, but the overall point remains valid.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt inadequate and stupid during training. I didn’t shoot well enough, I got my butt handed to me, I got choked out, I totally botched this, I feel embarrassed about that. People learn who I am and due to my résumé/credentials think that I should be some badass, but then I get out there and while afterwards others may tell me I did great I still feel like I suck.

Next month I’ll be participating in a weekend-long seminar. It promises to be very intensive both in terms of shooting skills and hand-to-hand skills. I admit, I’ve been a bit anxious about the class because I know the teachers are demanding yet some of the best in the business. I know my skills will be pushed to the limit. I want to do well in the class, but I think my measure of doing well was “succeeding” at things: that I would shoot in the top 10% of the class, that my empty-hand skills would always lead me to victory in all the drills. After reading the quip, I have reassessed my measure of success: how much I learn. Even if I wind up at the bottom of the heap, that tells me what I need to do to improve. Deep down I know this, but being human, I guess there’s some need to satisfy ego, some need to save face and not look like a total doofus out there. I just have to make a bigger effort to be, as Bruce Lee said, “be a doll made of wood.”

Thus, any training worthy of the name is going to be both frustrating and ‘dangerous,’ no matter what safety procedures are in place. But, failing to train is even more dangerous, and the consequences ever appalling and irrevocable. Ask any commander who has lost a battle!

That’s the more important thing. To get out and train. To push myself beyond my limits. Allow myself to be humbled and embarrassed, so long as it means I’m learning something about myself. The only external opinions I should care about are those of the instructor, but then only so far as it takes to allow me to continue to learn. As a human, it’s tough to allow yourself to go through these small pains. I just have to keep reminding myself that the small pain will help me alleviate the bigger pain. 🙂

The quest for simple beer

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I love a good beer.

My first exposure to beer was Dad drinking Budweiser. “Dad, can I try a sip?” “Sure.” “Bleck, eww, that’s gross!!” But yet somehow that sowed the seed. When it comes to beer, wine, or liquor, my preference is beer. Used to be a heavier drinker (college and all that), but now I really don’t care to get drunk. I just enjoy a good beer now and again, like any beverage (find me a good lemonade and I’m really happy). I try to pair my beer with the meal I’m eating, and many times I don’t finish the beer because it’s not that important to me… we don’t always finish the glass of water or soda or tea with our meals, so why should there be any pressure to finish the beer? It’s just a beverage, the alcohol just happens to be there (tho I of course mind it because it will affect you). I’m not a drinker, I just like the taste of good beer.

I recall back in college (or maybe it was high school?) when Sam Adams came out, and drinking it was the first foray into “hoity-toity” beer (no more “Beast” here!). From there, you try other “fancy” things, eventually discovering Guinness and then life is never the same. I certainly love going to brew pubs, micro brewerys, discovering odd beers, adoring all things Belgian styled, preference for ales. I know what it is to be a beer snob. I can appreciate that these days beer lovers have more choices than ever before.

But that’s also part of the problem.

Yesterday I went to Spec’s. What a fantastic place to go as the selection is unmatched. But at the same time, it’s also overwhelming. You can spend hours there just looking at all that’s available, trying to figure out what you’d like to try, talking with the employees to get their opinions, maybe taste tests, maybe you can take home a pack of various singles to try them out. It’s actually quite the adventure.

On the same token, it also demonstrates that things are getting kinda silly. Everyone is on a quest to make some serious sort of beer. There’s gazillions of IPA’s out there, wheat beers, fruit beers, heck… I just discovered a “barley wine style ale” (very strong, very bitter, but good). Then trying to go for some sort of special line that’s even more special than their normal special beers, hand-crafted in small batches, blah blah blah. There’s just so much available, but it’s all trying to be more complex than the next guy, more trendy than the other micro-brewery.

What happened to simple beer?

I’m not talking Beast (piss-water is still piss-water). I’d still like the beer to taste good and have some meaning in the mouth. But can we put away the beer snobbery and try to make something simple? On a hot Texas afternoon, I just don’t find IPA’s to be refreshing… they can be very delicious, but it’s not just something I want to knock back when I’m hot and tired, or just standing around the BBQ pit with my buds while the brisket smokes. I’ve actually found myself drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon lately because it’s simple and refreshing, but still has some decent taste to it.

Maybe it’s the engineer in me that appreciates true simplicity. That to make something complex just to be complex, well, almost anyone can do that…. it’s easy to keep adding things. But to take things away, to strip down until you get to the true essence of something, to have the self-control to do so… there’s a greater beauty and challenge in that, I think.

So to my readers… can you suggest a good, simple beer?

First week iPhone impressions

/ hsoi

I just returned from a business trip to Chicago. I must admit that this trip was the event that pushed me over the edge to finally buy an iPhone. A combination of needing a dedicated mobile phone for staying in touch with Wife, for work folk to get/stay in contact, and all of the data support. In fact, I knew I wanted the iPhone more for data functionality than phone. I was correct in that area.

I love wireless computing. I love the 802.11 network in my house and how I can sit on the couch or out on the back patio and ‘pute. The one bummer has been that while technically it is wireless I am still ultimately tethered to a general location by the range of the wireless base station. I can’t do things on the road. Having the iPhone and Internet access via AT&T’s 3G network puts the world at my fingertips almost anywhere I am. There is great power and convenience in that. For example, I started writing this post while riding on the hotel shuttle bus to O’Hare airport. Or how after typing that I had to save a draft and then I continued writing the post from inside the O’Hare terminal while I wait for my plane to board. And now, I am back home and finishing the blog post on my MacBook Pro.

I find one huge advantage is being able to keep up. I can check and send email, read my RSS feeds, or just browse the web for news and information. Certainly being able to blog from “anywhere” is useful as well towards ensuring at least one blog post every day. Being able to keep up with communications and not having to “return to the desktop” to catch up and be in touch is a huge boon. Normally after a trip like this, due to the forced offline time of travel, I’d come back Monday morning to a huge slew of email and things to have to slog through and catch up on. No longer. I can just chug right along and not miss a beat.

One problem however is “ostrich syndrome”; that’s where you are so heads down focused on the device that you become oblivious to the world around you. Some people take it a step further, walking around while they do this. It comes with the territory to some extent, but I have to train myself against it. I don’t want to be oblivious to my surroundings. This is something that has to be worked on, to find a balance between being focused on your work but also focused on your surroundings.

Another problem is battery life. It’s amazing how quickly it goes down. There are things you can do to help reduce power consumption, so I’ve done what I can there. Apple posts some useful tips.

I have gotten used to typing. I don’t think I’ll be as good a typist as I can at a real keyboard. There’s no tactile feedback from the keystrokes, it’s using your thumbs and not all 10 of your fingers, but I was impressed how well I could get around. While I may not want to compose essays on the iPhone, certainly I don’t have much problem dealing with emails or even writing a short blog posting. 🙂

But again, the biggest thing I like is being able to have access anywhere. I can just pull out the phone, fire up Safari, and look something up. Or pull out Maps and figure out where to go, from where I presently am. There’s an amazing amount of power and convenience to this, and I’m fortunate to have it.