I’ve longed for a decent small keyboard for many spins round the sun now. It seems like a simple thing. Make a keyboard with no number pad with a bunch of keys on it suitable for a Windows computer. Simple! It should be wired with a USB connector because I don’t want to fiddle with batteries or yet another USB wireless dongle. The keys should be decent with good tactile feedback. They should also be full-sized. It should do these things and take up as little space on my desk as possible.

Enter the XGene Multimedia Mini Keyboard. Take a moment to have a look at it.

That’s it. Sitting above my Apple Wireless keyboard. You’ll note that I have different requirements for my PC keyboard compared to my Mac’s, otherwise, I’d just use one of those. So far, keyfeel is pretty solid. It requires a bit of force to type on this thing. I’ve had a couple of keys not register because I wasn’t typing hard enough. They keys themselves get a little tiny when you get out to the edges of the board. The outside right edge is bordered by home/page-up/down/end which means that they’ve shrunk the backspace, backslash and enter keys to accommodate. The same goes for the keys on the left, the tab, caps lock (now a control key) and escape keys are pretty smallish.

Backspace is probably the worst of the bunch because it’s surrounded by a home key, the equal sign, and the decades old and mysterious PrtSc, Scroll Lock and Pause Break keys. Trying to erase a mistake often leads to more mistakes and funny beeps. The backspace key should probably cover the whole top right of the keyboard the way I type.

It doesn’t get much better at the bottom of the keyboard. The space bar is small and shifted just far enough to the left that I often hit the tiny little “alt” key next to it, popping open a menu. Windows key, Context menu key, Ins and Del live next to it, all competing with the arrow keys. Yes, it is a little cramped.

We’ll see how it works for gaming though. The main keys are normal-sized so I’m hoping they won’t hinder my use of the ASDW keys. I’m already considering prying up some of the worst offenders around the edges.

Preliminary review: 3 stars.

The iPad represents a shift towards a kind of computing that is both attractive and terrifying. An experience that is highly tailored with most of the ugly underpinnings hidden away behind a curtain of abstraction. Those same ugly underpinnings that let you do interesting things with your computer if you’re of a technical bent.

That first paragraph (and a bunch since) was typed on my new iPad using the Wordpress app. Typing is something I haven’t had a lot of practice doing yet but so far it isn’t quite as bad as most of the reviews have led me to expect. Well, let me clarify a bit: typing in portrait mode is not awesome. In order to hold the thing, you need your hands. This forces you to type with your thumbs and the iPad is wide enough that this is awkward. Landscape-mode typing is pretty nice if you can lay the iPad flat, say, on your lap. Of course then it’s tilted away from you if you’re at all reclined, so it’s at a bit of a funny angle. You may find you need to contort yourself into variations on the fetal position to find a “comfortable” seating angle. Still, for a first try, I was touch-typing pretty quickly on it with not too many mistakes.

What changed?

I said before that I wasn’t interested in the iPad. I certainly tried to hold out despite being bombarded by ads, friends, parents asking me when I was getting one and deb, enthusiastically suggesting we get them. Yes, dear reader, I am weak. Weak with the need for new gadgetry!

I think the iPad is a new class of gadget. I’ve tried suggesting that my Dell Mini 10 was a suitable competitor for the iPad (look! it’s got a real keyboard!) but honestly, it’s different. I consider the iPad to be more of a big iPod than a full-blown computer. I can sync music and videos to it including my huge backlog of Ted talks. It’s nearly ideal as a couch pad for looking things up on the web or for light reading. I’m looking forward to traveling with it in place of my 1st generation ipod touch. I think I’ll still be using my Kindle for longer bouts of reading however.

Which one?

I got the iPad 64GB with wifi only. I was really tempted by 3G, but without the option to share my existing data plan with it, I was not that interested. Sure, Rogers has a decent plan at $35 / mo for 5GB, but that’s on top of my cell phone plan. I’d even consider paying 10-15 / mo to share my existing data plan between the two devices. I think Rogers missed out there. Also, wifi is going to be more available in more locations over time so eventually, it won’t be that big a loss. And I can use the extra $400 / year or so to, I don’t know… upgrade my phone!

Accessories

The iPad only comes with a couple of accessories in the box. A USB-Dock cable and a wall-wart style power adapter. The usual minimal pamphlets and Apple stickers are also included. I was a little surprised at the included power-adapter. It looks like an older-style MacBook adapter with the detachable two-prong plug. I’d have expected something a little less chunky, maybe like a slightly bigger version of the iPhone power adapter. The USB cable seems to have been updated a bit with a squarer piece on the USB end. The actual dock-connection seems to keep getting smaller though which makes it hard to grab onto to remove it from the iPod… pad.

The first things I bought for it were the Apple iPad dock (sans-keyboard) and a sleeve for carrying it around.

The sleeve was from Kensington and claimed to be “for the iPad”. Whoever designed it, had probably heard there was an iPad coming, took a stab at the dimensions and sent it off to manufacturing. It’s terrible. There’s enough room inside of it to probably store two iPads and a bunch of other stuff along the edges. I should have checked with it in store on some of the demo units they had out. I’ll replace it with something classy from Sena when they’re available.

The Dock is a dock. Not much to say there except that: a) it’s substantial in weight, which it should be because the iPad itself is fairly hefty and, b) it’s hard to actually dock the thing in it. The iPad uses the same old dock connector that all iPods have used since the beginning. It’s practically an industry standard! The problem is, the iPad is much bigger, and lining up that little slot with the dock’s edge connector is tricky, requiring lots of leaning over and scrutinizing-with-your-tongue-sticking-out-concentration to get the connection right. It’s more fiddly than it should be. Also, it works for portrait mode, but not landscape. I’d like a landscape dock for movies or pictures. As it is, it works well enough for standing the thing up on my desk.

Apps

If you’re excited about playing all your iPhone or iPod games on your iPad, or you have a slew of apps, don’t get too excited. They kind of suck. Sure, you can load them and even double their size, but with the exception of a few of the games I’ve tried, it’s not great. Orbital works and doesn’t look too bad from the chunkier pixels. Some apps I’ve tried are also acceptable, but I would have thought Apple of all companies would have made a better effort to make them look better. Proper font sizing and the nicer on screen keyboard for starters.

After syncing all my stuff, the first thing I did was delete most of the non-iPad apps.

The built in apps have all been updated for the new screen size. Some with some cute interface flourishes that would be grossly extravagant on a regular computer. iCal and Contacts have book-like wrappings around the edges. Mail and Safari are about what you’d expect and Mail works quite well. Safari is a bit frustrating with it’s simplicity, but the bookmark syncing with MobileMe is nice.

A few of my favorite apps that have been updated to work with the iPad include Instapaper, Kindle, and Stanza. There’s a separate version of Good Reader which I also recommend.

Wordpress

While taking a sweep through and finding which apps were iPad-ready, I loaded up and was pleasantly surprised that it worked with my new fat iPod. This post started at that moment and I’ve been continuing to use it to write and edit it. It works well, though you don’t get a rich text editor like you do in the online app. No big.

Colloquy

Another happy accident was learning that colloquy was already universal. It looks great and seems to work pretty well though I haven’t figured out how to get notifications to work.

Air Video

This is a gem of an app recommended by Mr B. If you have a collection of videos in various formats (avi in xvid/divx, mkv, maybe others), you install a server on your Mac or PC and feed it your videos directory. Then with the app on your iphone or iPad, connect to your server and play video converted on the fly. You can also queue up conversions to save on CPU cycles. Very cool and works well on the videos I’ve tried.

Twitteriffic

Normally on the iPhone I like using Twittelator pro. The version for the iPad looks a little crazy in the UI department so I thought I’d try something different. On the recommendation from several friends, I thought I’d give Twitteriffic a shot. So far I’m liking it. It’s simple, offers a nice set of features and has some unobtrusive ads. I guess there’s a pro version for money but so far I’m happy with the lite version. Also, Twitter in safari is decent, but I wish I could default to the full web version rather than getting dumped into the mobile version all the time. It’s the main reason for wanting an app at all. How about a pref @twitter?

AIM

The lack of iPad support in Beejive was a little annoying and made worse by a $10 grab for a new HD version. That left me without a nice-looking IM app. There is a version of AIM for the iPad however which is quite slick, despite a confusing and probably useless Lifestream section that hooks up your AIM contacts twitter, flickr, delicious and whatever other streams they choose to associate with their account. For AIM messages though, it’s great and has an interesting interface.

There is already a ton of apps available for the iPad and I only skimmed the surface of them here. As I find others I like I’ll be sure to drop some reviews. I’ll follow up soon with a review of some games.

Unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t really pay attention to technology, and if you are, you probably aren’t going to be reading this, you’re aware that Amazon has an electronic book reading device called the Kindle. If you happen to be living north of the 49th parallel (give-or-take) and within a particular band of longitude, you will also be aware that this device is now available in Canada. We got ours last week.

For this review, I’m not going to post any pictures. I’m giving the word full reign in honor of what the Kindle is supposed to stand for. It’s a “Book Reading Device” on which, the printed word is supposed to be conveyed to the reader. As an electronic device, there are a few logistical hurdles that must be overcome. Amazon have provided a couple of means of doing that as well as what must be a bunch of resources to actually convert these books into an easily-digestible format for you to enjoy.

The first of these delivery mechanisms is wireless. This is no mere wifi, but a 3G cellular radio that should operate just about everywhere in the western world. Amazon has gone to some mysterious lengths to forge deals with the owners of these airwaves so you can buy and download books wherever you happen to be. This is a powerful concept and fairly unique. As far as I know, they are the only company to have forged these blood-pacts with otherwise unapproachable broadcast entities to create something they’ve called “Whispernet”. You don’t even get to know which wireless provider you’re piggybacking on. It just connects when you activate the wireless function on the device.

I’ve purchased a few books through Amazon now and it’s a seamless mechanism. You can browse online on kindle.com from your computer or on the Kindle itself. When you buy a book on your computer, you can select a “send to this device” option and the book magically appears in your list the next time you connect to Whispernet on your Kindle. Magical.

The other, more pedestrian means of getting content onto your Kindle is via good ol’ USB cable. Or USB cable to proprietary Amazon pluglet. Why they chose to create yet another incompatible device connector I cannot fathom. If the white cable is any indication, it’s because they wanted to be somewhat “Apple-ey”. They certainly nailed the packaging and unpacking experience, though it certainly has a distinctive “Amazon feel” to it with the pull-tabs on the cardboard boxes. In any case, USB transfer is pretty straightforward. Just dump your mobi-formatted (and now, as of version 2.3 of the Kindle OS, PDFs!) eBooks into the Documents directory on the Kindle and they’ll show up in your list.

But you may not like what you see there. And now I have to get to the dark part of this review. Not all ebooks are made equal. If you’re downloading books from various sources online and they deliver them as a mobi book it may not be formatted optimally for the Kindle and may look funny, have poor metadata or no table of contents. Worse, if you’re unlucky enough to get something in an HTML, RTF, or plain-text document, you’ll have to convert it to mobi format yourself. There are several tools to help you do this, Calibre being the one I’ve used most so far, but it is a fiddly process, often with several iterations of conversion and checking, usually with mediocre results. If the book you’re trying to get into your Kindle is available on the Kindle store, you might want to save yourself the possible bad experience of messing around with document converters and buy the thing on their site. It’ll look good and be optimally-formatted. [ed. Gutenberg books are good]

Which brings me to the important part of this review. What is it like to read a book on this thing? After a week of carrying the Kindle around with me and reading my first purchased book (the mediocre, The Professional by Robert B. Parker) I can say that it is a very pleasant experience. The Kindle feels nice to hold, even in the leather book-like cover available as an optional extra. It has a heft to it that is somewhat more than a paperback, but it feels more comfortable than reading a hard-cover. Text is very legible on the reflective screen and you have the option of several font sizes to choose from.

My only real complaint is that there isn’t enough space for your thumbs to rest. The keyboard area at the bottom of the Kindle is easy to press buttons on. The 5-way navigation button on the right eats up further real-state your thumb could be coasting on. The large Next page buttons right in the middle of the device are comfortable resting places, but you might accidentally skip ahead. This is a fairly minor complaint though and for the most part, you don’t have to think about it.

Ok, I’ve thought of another complaint. There are nearly 70,000 missing books from the Canadian Kindle catalog. I’m not sure why they’re missing. If it’s some publishing agreements the apparently quite powerful Canadian publishing houses have or if it’s a matter of language. Looking up Iain M. Banks’ Matter I see it’s not available in Canada. I wonder if it’s because the Canadian edition used the UK text and it was “translated” for U.S. readers? In any case, I am confident it will get here and in the mean-time, there are plenty of other books to choose from. I’m currently reading the last of the “back-catalog” of Culture novels, The Algebraist.

If you’re looking for stuff to read, check out dria’s post about Project Gutenberg. I plan on signing up for at least a few books this year.

Not wanting to fry another graphics card, I decided a new case was in order. I really liked the case I had, a Lian-Li PC-V1200 — now replaced by the PC-V1100? Hard to tell because like all “high-end” products, their website is particularly awesome. Anyway, I remembered seeing another case that had a drilled front and back similar to the PowerMac/MacPro design.

Shopping around online, I found a PC-V600 case listed at NCIX.com in BC. For whatever reason, I had it in my head that this was an OK company to deal with online, and put in my order for a black V600. That was on a Sunday night. Monday rolled around and I checked the status page a few times. I believe it was on Tuesday night that the status was finally updated with a credit card validation error, asking me to call them. I had given them a different phone number than what the bank had, no biggie. The customer service guy assured me that the order would be processed the next day.

The day came and went, my order was shown as “verified” and payment was processed.

Days passed…

A week later and still no shipment. I used their online support form to write a “hurry up and ship my case or I’m walkin’” message. I watched the clock, waiting for 9:30am PDT to roll around then commenced a campaign of phone calls to their support staff which I eventually got a hold of. It went something like this:

<me> “Hi, where’s my case?”

<NCIX> “That case isn’t in stock. It’s back-ordered.”

<me> “That’s not what your ‘online availability’ says on your web catalog.”

<NCIX> “That doesn’t always get updated.”

<me> “Kind of useless then, isn’t it?”

<NCIX> “meh!”

<me> “Thanks for telling me!”

<NCIX> “. . .”

<me> (speaking slowly and loudly now despite the other’s excellent grasp of English) “DO. YOU. HAVE. ANY. IN. SILVER. ?”

<NCIX> “I don’t have a SKU for that.”

<me> “DO. YOU. NOT. HAVE. A. COMPUTER. IN. FRONT OF YOU??!!”

<NCIX> “It’s in a different system.” (I can hear him filing his nails or something, possibly chewing gum at the same time. I imagine him making a wanking gesture to his customer service pals and mouthing, “I’ll be able to go for a smoke in five”)

<me> “LET ME LOOK IT UP FOR YOU”

I proceeded to look up the SKU for the “Customer” “Service” “Rep” on HIS OWN WEBSITE and relayed it to him over the phone. He told me they had one. I asked him to prove it to me by shipping it. He said it would take a day or so for them to process the order change and it would be shipped shortly after that. That would be excellent, I gagged, and hung up as a droplet of hot oil begin seeping out of my forehead just like Zorg when he was talking to the sphere of infinite evil in The Fifth Element.

I waited.

I received a shipping notification a few days later. A week after that, my case arrived. Ordered June 22nd. Arrived July 11th, 20 business days later. Had I not asked them why I had no case, I would likely still be waiting for a back-ordered black case and taking the side panel off my PC to enjoy an exciting game of Never Winter Nights 2. I will not be ordering anything from them again.

In any case (har), the new box is very nice, a little loud with all the fans spinning, but it keeps my chips nice and cool. Also, it looks bitchin’.

THE END

I have never used the white plastic earbuds that came with my iPods and usually throw them out. They are garbage. I don’t care if they “sound better than other earbuds” as some have said, they cost 10¢ to make and if you’re going to listen to those, you might as well admit to yourself that you have no taste and don’t deserve your shiny new iPod.

For the past 10 years or so I’ve been using a pair of Koss Portapro ‘phones. These headphones are a workhorse for listening. They look like crap but they sound great. A friend once asked me what was with the “ghetto ‘phones”. So I let him try them out. And he said, “Oh”. They really sound good, but don’t just take my word for it. There are a ton of reviews out there extolling their virtuous sound. The review on goodcans.com in particular is worth reading to give you an idea of just how good these are and how much people like them. I love them. But unfortunately, they’re not perfect for mobile listening. For one thing, they’re an open design so sound does leak out of them fairly prodigiously. That can be annoying to those nearby. They also allow background noise IN. Which makes them unsuitable for listening in loud environments. Like airports. And airplanes.

After ten years of frequent use, the foam pads on mine were shot, the plastic speaker sections of the phones peeking through and scraping against my ears. Fed up, I started researching replacement headphones and came to the conclusion that there were no replacements. Nothing could match the sound quality, portability and durability I’d come to apprecaite, despite the flaws of the open system. My experience with Sennheiser has never been good, and I have yet to listen to a pair of those that doesn’t sound muted and imprecise. All Sennheisers I’ve used (dating back to the late ’80s when I used to sell Sennheisers at an audio shop) have had efficiency problems and seem to require a ton of effort to get any sound out of them. So I went to a store in Ottawa that sold Koss (Bleeker Audio on Merivale) and asked them if they had any Portapros. The sales guy informed me that they were out of them so I then asked what I should have asked first: if they had any replacement foam pads for the ear-pieces. That’s when he told me about the lifetime warranty on the Koss headphones.

A lifetime warranty. If there is something wrong with your headphones, they will replace them. An idea so shocking and against what I have learned to expect from companies that it just kind of stopped me dead in my tracks.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to the foam pads, but if you look on Koss’ website, you can find replacement pads for them for 5 bucks. Which doesn’t work in Canada. So, I phoned their 1-800 number and talked to a nice lady in Milwaukee who shipped me a replacement set of earpads which arrived about a week later. It was a great customer service experience and it has made me appreciate these venerable phones even more. I *heart* them.

I made one fatal mistake with the replacement foams though. They Portapros have a pair of pads on the temples as well that fit just above your ears. When I got the replacements, I figured I’d replace those too, even though they appeared to be glued to the plastic. I ripped these off and a bunch of the backing from the originals remained stuck to the plastic, preventing the new temple foam pieces from sticking properly. Fortunately, the replacements came with two pairs of each type of foam so I have a backup set. I should be able to remove the gluey foamy stuff from the plastic with a bit of lighter fluid which hopefully won’t melt the plastic.

If it does, it might require another phone call to Milwaukee.

Like the marketing copy says, it has surprisingly big stereo sound in a fairly small package. It comes with a rechargeable lithium ion battery making it a true portable. In case you don’t feel like listening to your iPod for some reason, it also has a built-in FM tuner and retractable antenna.

I tried the IM600 with my 5G iPod (video) and my iPod touch and it works great with both of those. I had an earlier iPod I plugged in that did not work. I was hoping to just leave the older 4G model docked all the time but it was not meant to be. The dock format changed from iPod generations 4G to 5G to accommodate video output and there is a composite video jack on the back of the Altec Lansing in case you wanted to plug it into a television which had a broken speaker or something. I can’t really figure out why I’d do that, but whatever! It’s there. Just in case. No S-Video output though, if we’re going to be picky.

Other connectors on the back of the unit are an auxiliary input jack in the form of a stereo mini plug and a subwoofer output jack for connecting to … a subwoofer! I couldn’t find a link on Altec Lansing’s site for their subwoofer, but they make the BB2001 which you can add to the IM600 to improve the low-end at the expense of portability. The compact design of the IM600 which folds up for travel make it a great portable speaker system you can move around the house or pack up and take with you on the road. The included remote works well and lets you play/pause and skip tunes on the iPod or tune to a radio station. It’ll also control your volume, so turn it up!

Note: The Altec Lansing IM600 is not waterproof, but it may float.

This has sent me on a trip down the Rogers customer service rabbit-hole. Noticing that I’m getting charged twice as much as I’m supposed to be charged for my voice and data that was setup a couple of years ago, I figured I’d try to cut back on that. It’s amazing that Rogers isn’t legally obligated to lower their prices whenever they make a change to their billing options, but can raise prices for features you don’t want when they introduce them.

Rogers’ website is typically useless. Offering no explanation for most of the listed services in the “modify wireless options” pages. Phoning was no help either. After two transfers, I was told that the data and billing people don’t work on Sundays and that I’d have to call back. Excellent.

I’ve been an occasional user of Wacom’s Intuos 2 graphics tablets for a few years. I’ve always liked the idea of the tablet if not willing to commit to it for constant use. Last week, while I was visiting the left coast, I stopped into Fry’s and saw a Wacom Intuos 3 6×8″ tablet in an opened, slightly crumpled box for $30 off. This, I thought, was Just The Thing!

Since then I’ve been using it constantly as my Go-To mouse on my main machine. My troubles with various pointing devices have been well-documented over the years. If I were to describe myself based on how I think I must appear, I would probably call me “mercurial”. I am OK with this self-assessment. Others might not be so charitable.

But! I feel reasonably sure that my complaints were justified. The criticisms you level at a mouse are usually those annoyances you discover after using them for awhile. Take the Apple “Mighty” Mouse for example – its chief annoyances are: no real buttons, the “squeeze” button requires you to shift your whole hand. You can’t click and lift the mouse without a squeeze and some contortions. The ball doesn’t work with Windows… Logitech’s mice are decent but the drivers so flawed in OS X as to render them unusable. Also, after using the MX Revolution for a year plus, I began to find the huge lump quite uncomfortable for extended periods.

Enter the Wacom Intuos 3. The 5 button mouse is comfortable, light and the buttons are all well-placed. The scroll wheel only moves in one-axis, but the feeling is smooth and has a sort of rubbery quality. Most importantly, the positioning of the thing is very precise.

Now a word about using Wacoms as your standard mousing device: They take some getting used to. Not just because the mouse is different feeling, but because the tablet is the actual important device. That means the orientation of the tablet is important. If the angle’s wrong, you’ll find you’re mousing on a diagonal. I keep mine angled slightly so it’s perpendicular to the line of my arm when resting on it. Another point: if you slide off the sensor area as you are wont to do, your mouse stops working. You have to train yourself a little to use these things in an unretarded way. Do it wrong and you’ll look the fool! I’ve got the tracking speed boosted a bit from the default and acceleration turned up as well. This allows me to cover my screens in less space.

Those things aside, the thing works very neatly. The extra modifier buttons on the side of the tablet are more useful when using it as a pen device, though I do find myself using the touchstrips for scrolling from time-to-time. I wish they had a faster setting though. The drivers for the Wacoms have always been one of their strong points and they are no exception on this version. Virtually every function you can imagine can be mapped, remapped or configured. The pen is a device of alien origin sufficiently advanced to be considered magic. I don’t know how it works, and frankly, I don’t wanna know!