These pictures are from November when I first got the Jawbone UP, back then there was so much keenness to try this little bracelet.
I didn’t mind that I had to go all the way to Mount Vernon to get mine because the at&t store in Bellingham was sold out of the UP that morning.
The UP is basically a cool little wristband step-counter and sleep tracker that syncs with the Jawbone iPhone app and displays data in a user-friendly graph .

According to Jawbone,

UP™ by Jawbone® is the combination of a wristband and iPhone® app that tracks your activity and sleep and inspires you to move more, sleep better and eat smarter.

As a self-proclaimed lover of ‘shiny new things,’ I took to the UP quickly and loved how unobtrusive and easy it was to use.
I’ve never been focused on tracking my fitness activity before; sure, I turn on my running app when I go running, but I’ve never tried to figure out overall how much I move in a day.
The band has three activity settings, regular, active and sleep. Active is for when you’re exercising.
I keep mine in regular mode most of the time except for when I’m sleeping. I thought I walked a lot, but wearing the UP put it in perspective.
I could do better, in fact I’ve made a few changes since I started wearing the band; I take the stairs, I try to take little walks during the day, I generally try to move more, and that’s what the UP aims to do.
I love the little buzzes (reminders) that remind me if I haven’t moved in two hours.
The sleep tracker is fairly helpful, it tracks sleep cycle, and shows light and deep sleep.
It has a built-in alarm clock that gently rouses you from sleep…
I find using the meal tracker a little cumbersome, same for finding friends who have the UP so I don’t use these features.

The UP isn’t without issues, I’m on my second device – the first had battery issues, couldn’t sustain a charge past a day, and then one day it died.
The replacement works perfectly so far, but I’m not sure how long that would last.
In fact the UP has been bogged down with so much hardware issues that Jawbone has a ‘No questions asked guarantee’ refund
Still, I love my UP, it’s helped me make some little lifestyle changes, I try to walk more, I’m horrified at how poorly I sleep and trying to work on it.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

 
I was a little disappointed when Santa didn’t bring me a Kindle for Christmas
I almost got the Kobo at Chapters last October but in my analysis the cons outweighed the pros.
As an avid reader and lover of shiny new gadgets, I envisioned an e-book reader in my imminent future, yet just going out and buying one seemed frivolous to me.

These days I don’t read as much as I used to; one of my goals for 2011 is to read more – one good book a month at least.
While trying to achieve this, I came to the sad realization that I don’t have any time leftover in my schedule for reading.
And even sadder is not being able to account for my time productively.

I was home from work one day last week, taking refuge from annoying allergies.
I didn’t go online or catch up on my soaps, I read a book instead, two actually… and it felt wonderful.
Reminiscent of those days when I’d lose myself in a good book and nothing else around me mattered.
I have a list, collected on Goodreads, of books I’ve been meaning to read; I started the list last year and I’ve just begun the first book on the list.

I’m hopeful; the kindle is an incentive to read more, the change in medium, the ease and a portable library – perhaps I will read more.
I was hesitant initially; I’d miss the smell and feel of the pages in traditional books.
I couldn’t bear not having a reason to go into the bookstore, I love bookstores!

And after all that, the Kindle still doesn’t guarantee that I’d read more, when the newness passes and I’m still not making time to read…

I’m currently reading One Day… it’s been on my list for a while, and now I’m racing to finish it before the movie comes out.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

I had an Apple laptop at the turn of the (21st) century, a cute blueberry clamshell iBook – I spent a lot of time on it corresponding with a Tuareg man, I was certain he was my destiny.
I also started my first blog (a weird word back then), and discovered an amazing community of diarists.
I loved that little iBook even when it got buggy and crashed sometimes, and my biggest frustrations were software incompatibility issues and browser/website glitches.
In time I got a Dell laptop and somehow, and I’m not sure exactly when this happened – I became an Apple Hater!

Yes, I was an Apple hater.
It wasn’t the deep seething hate that consumes you; this was mild contempt with a dash of general indifference.
Like most ‘haters’ I thought Apple products were overpriced hypes with closed architecture.
It may have begun with the launch of the iPod, and the mass fixation that followed; everyone wanted one and proclaimed it an innovation.
My iriver MP3 player had all the features of the iPod plus a built-in FM tuner, yet no one raved about it.
Then the iPhone happened… I’ve ranted about the iPhone before so I won’t get into that.
I got the HTC Prophet (Windows mobile 5.0) a year before the iPhone debuted.
I loved my prophet! Probably because of all the time I spent on it – I joined XDA Developers and tweaked the heck out of that phone; it was as if I’d built my perfect phone.
The iPhone did not tempt me, as far as I was concerned my phone was superior to the iPhone.

Over the next several years I felt smug for not falling for the Apple hype, my laptops were Windows, (there was the Linux running Eee PC I used briefly), and my phone and mp3 players weren’t Apple.
With two pivotal incidents last year, I went from Apple-hater to owning several Apple products.
The first, was the announcement of the iPad, it was the first of Apple product that I felt was worth a little hype (not a whole lot though!), then I took one look at it and I had to have it – I envisioned many scenarios where it’ll come in handy.

The second incident came from dissatisfaction with my phone; I got the Google G1 phone (HTC Dream) in the summer of 2009.
It was exciting, new OS, open-source and all.
My issue with that phone was that there were no updates available for my hardware beyond version 1.5 (Cupcake), which basically rendered my phone obsolete three months after I’d gotten it.
Of course, I could have found cooked ROM and customized the phone to my specifications, but that wasn’t why I got the phone; I wanted a phone that I’d loved as is.
It no longer makes sense to me to pay money for a phone and spend ridiculous amounts of time tinkering with it (doing potentially illegal stuff), I’m not a developer, I just want a phone that works.

I could no longer deny the appeal of the iPhone, maybe I’m just getting old but I liked that it’s easy to use and works relatively well.
So I got the iPhone 4 in May of last year.

This Christmas I got a new MacBook Air to replace my aging Windows laptop, it’s going to be my primary computer – and this officially makes me a Mac user, I’m no longer a PC (except for work).

In the end there wasn’t a long drawn out decision to switch, and so far I love the simplicity and ease of use of my MacBook Air.
Maybe we’re still in the honeymoon phase…
I still don’t like iTunes, and I miss Live Writer – I haven’t found a worthy Mac version yet.

So I’m not quite the MacHead, it took me a decade to come around and i’m quite enjoying this switch.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

This is the iBook G3, a blast from 1999

Not to be mistaken with iBooks, the e-book reader that debuted with the iPad.

Nostalgia is a weird thing really; these colourful clamshell machines were quite revolutionary when they came out.
There are some out there that still believe this little machine changed the game; It was the start of the fun and bubbly consumer laptop

Here’s the 1999 introduction video from Macworld 1999.
It’s kind of cute watching that video over a decade later; the crowd went wild at the mention of the handle.
And the specs… wow, technology has come a long way, and costs much much less.

Ten years from now, today’s shiny new gadgets are going to be vintage!
I still can’t get over the fact that it was considered lower priced at $1,599.00

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

So I went from being a non-Apple person to visiting two different Apple stores in two days while in New York.

I bought the iPad from the famed cubed store on Fifth Avenue; which is open 24 hours a day.

Upon activation I realized that the device was seriously limiting in content and Apps when logged in through my iTunes Canada account.

I couldn’t even download iBooks which is a free and major part of the whole iPad experience.

The iPad is currently only available (and supported) in the US; it doesn’t come to Canada (and the rest of the world) until late May.

While Apple isn’t discouraging folks in other countries from purchasing them (like it did initially with the iPhone) access to iPad Apps and content is limited to the US only.

A way around this is to open a US iTunes account (while in the US) using iTunes gift cards.

This isn’t exactly a secret; people do this all the time in order to get access to awesome US content.

During our time at the Apple store,  there were two guys from the UK, another guy from Canada and a couple from Germany all buying iPads, some were buying two each.

While in Chelsea the next day we skipped over to the Apple store to get our gift cards.

And since our hotel was unfortunately having some bizarre Wi-Fi issues, we set up our US iTunes account too.

Some Danish guy at the store bought a $1000.00 worth of gift cards, this is because you can’t buy US iTunes gift cards outside of the US.

Well, you could on Ebay and other questionable sources, but that’s another thing altogether.

So I guess the idea is to load up, fortunately for me I’m down in the States at least once a month.

The set up itself was easy and quick; then I downloaded a few more Apps, bought some books and just hung out at the store.

For a while I considered what it’ll be like to use the iPad exclusively, like this guy who is using it wholly for a month.

A lot of people consider it more of a consumption device rather than for production.

Which is true in a sense unless more production Apps become available, imagine having a full-feature Lightroom on the iPad.

I do almost everything on the iPad these days, emails, read blogs, books, videos, etc.

The only times I use my laptop is to edit pictures or write longer blog posts.

You know I didn’t know that Apple really had a ‘Genius Bar’?

I’d like to work in a place where my job title includes ‘genius’ even if I’m not necessarily a genius.

That way I can tell people at dinner parties that I’m a ‘genius.’

Everyone at the Apple store looks so happy, maybe it’s something in the hardware.

Did I mention how amazing the battery life is?

I can go two to three days of constant use before I get a low battery warning.

The battery life alone could count as magical and revolutionary.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

I think it was Leo Laporte who said (during the iPad’s launch) that the real test of the iPad would be whether we’re still using it a month later, or reverted back to our netbooks or whatever device it’s meant to replace.

Two weeks on I’m still actively using my iPad, and I’m reaching for it more than I thought I would.

Oddly enough, I never intended to get the iPad…

I’m not fan of Apple by any means, I don’t have an iPhone, and I’ve never owned an iPod.

I toyed with an iBook G1 (remember those?) during the turn of the century and passed it on to Paul, who is a real fanboy.

Yet, I got the iPad on the day it came out.

I blame it on unusual circumstances – happenstance perhaps. It was an unusual day.

I’d spent the day traversing the city; I had breakfast in Soho, spent an unreasonably long time trying on clothes at Topshop and Madewell.

My sister and I joined the masses at Union Square Park, went to Macy’s to see the Flower Show and MoMA to explore.

We were on our way to Central Park when we came upon the Apple Store.

It was chaotic, people, news crews with vans, tall antennas and equipment everywhere!

I think we just wanted to stand still for a moment, because my sister agreed when I jokingly suggested we stand in line.

The line moved quickly, and the respite was nice.

Soon we found ourselves descending the glass spiral stairs into the store, inside was depressingly crowded.

I was peering over about a dozen people to try and catch a glimpse of the iPad.

My sister wanted to leave immediately, she said it was madness.

“This place is utterly nuts!” she said in her faux British accent mimicking my aunt Y.

I laughed and insisted that we at least touch it before we leave.

We stand around for a while, we’re almost about to give up and leave…

I make eye contact, smile and make a sad face at one of the blue-shirted employees; he smiles and makes a sad face back.

Moments later, he comes by and guides us towards a device that’s just sitting there, alone… crowd-free. “Enjoy!” he says.

Now, there’s something about the iPad that makes you really want one once you start playing with it.

It’s sleek, beautiful, feature packed yet so uncomplicated.

A few minutes browsing the web, iBooks, Apps, pictures, turning it at all sorts of angles;

I saw potential, beautiful potential – it was a different kind of computer and I wanted it!

I looked at my sister half-ashamed and I said forlornly, “I want one!”

She looked like she was about to cry, “Me too!”

My mind began racing… should I, can I? There’s minor panic, this isn’t budgeted!

I think about my ‘splurge fund’ – I was going to get a classic Burberry trench in Bicester on my next vacation to the UK.

I could skip a few meals, cut back on whatever…

“Yes, yes…” my sister chimes in “you could starve, and then you’d be known as the ‘skinny black girl with the iPad!”

I’m determined; I walk up to one of the blue-shirted employees and tell them I want one of those ‘magical revolutionary’ machines.

He walks me to the counter and we grab two 32GB iPads, it was a fast and satisfying transaction.

The first blue-shirted employee finds us, and we high five each other.

The End… for now

In my next iPad post I’ll discuss using the iPad in Canada or any place where it hasn’t officially launched, my thoughts on the lack of Flash, multitasking (for now), and a camera, Wifi vs 3G, blogging on the iPad and the curse of the early adopter.

I’ll also answer this pertinent question… has it replaced my netbook?

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

For months now, I’ve been looking for the perfect bag for my ‘gear’.

I was looking for an alternative to the typical camera bag, a stylish alternative, if you would.

I find that the typical camera bag is either bulky, ugly or screams “rob me; I have thousands of dollars worth of equipment in here”. Most of these camera bags are geared towards professional photographers, and most of the ones for consumer use are a weird triangular shape or looks like a bucket.

I’m going on vacation on Saturday and I’m bringing with me; my camera (with lens attached) and two other smaller lenses.

I don’t want to carry two bags; I want a bag/case that fits inside my (large) hand bag.

Like I said, I spent months looking for the perfect bag. It became a bit of an obsession, I looked and looked desperately. I’d sneak away in the afternoons browsing shops. I looked in seedy places. I couldn’t tell anyone because even I knew I was being ridiculous.

I googled “alternative to camera bags” and ‘met’ thousands of people like me. Most of the alternatives suggested were messenger bags.

I learnt about luxury camera bags like the Billingham and the Brady Bags.

I considered getting a cosmetic bag, I actually got a cosmetic bag, I hated it but my camera and lenses fit.

About a week ago I went to camera shop at Aberdeen Centre and saw the Lowepro Terraclime 100.

It wasn’t love at first sight; it’s still a messenger bag – what had me looking was the padded wrap it comes with.

It’s also eco-conscious, made of recycled PET bottles, a portion of sales of each bag goes to Polar Bear International.

It’s spacious enough for my camera, an extra 50mm lens and my wallet.

I don’t mind carrying my stuff in it if I’m going somewhere specifically to take pictures. It comes in green, black and plum, I chose green.

I like it so far after several days of light use; I guess we’ll see how it performs on vacation. I’ve used the wrap more often than the actual bag.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

He knew he was going to get one even back when it was just a rumour, he was over the moon the day it was officially announced.

He didn’t mind that his current phone was just under a year old.

That’s the kind of fanboy he is – recently when I was excited about my new 50mm camera lens, he looked on with mild interest and said wryly “Yeah well, I guess I could be that excited too… if you slapped an Apple logo on it ”

He claims Apple changed his life, there’s a long story (I’ll spare you the details) about his final year in high school in a small farming town in northern California.

He ordered it the minute it became available.

The wait seemed the longest; he checked the mailbox daily, which soon became an obsession after a week.

He called several times, left notes for the mail man and generally sulked. It eventually arrived and we were all grateful.

It arrived unceremoniously one day, a small black box in a large brown one – carrying hopes of ease and efficiency.

He opened it,

It looked exactly the same as the one he had before,

but to him, this was so much more – this is going to make his life so much easier than the last one.

Makes and receives all right out of the box.

Paired it with his Bang & Olufsen EarSet 2

Then it was time to transfer all data from the old phone to the new shiny one.

Dude has over a million songs and apps so it took a while.

Good thing it has 32gb of space.

While waiting for the files to transfer, I deliberated slapping the logo (over the Rogers logo) on my phone – but decided I don’t hate the Rogers logo that much!

And this is his “I’m quite pleased with myself” pose.

All set up and ready to go! And that was the last we saw of him.

If you see him, he’s not hard to miss; he’s the guy with his face buried in his iphone – tell him his family said hello.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

I’m probably one of a very few loyal Windows Mobile fans, which is why I never jumped on the iPhone bandwagon. It frustrates me when my iPhone wielding friends try to show me for the umpteenth time with childlike wonder some feature on their phone that Windows Mobile has had since like 2005.

Marketing genius and fan loyalty aside, another difference between the iPhone and Windows Mobile is that the iPhone does what it’s supposed to do relatively well, where as that isn’t always the case with WinMo devices.

I got my first pocket pc in 2006, it was the HTC prophet branded as the Imate Jamin, a cute feature packed device that ran Windows Mobile 5. I loved it but it wasn’t without its issues… in fact it had a lot of issues. You couldn’t use it satisfactorily right out of the box, it was buggy, slow, kept freezing or resetting itself and some of the applications it shipped with just didn’t work. I discovered XDA Developers and within a few weeks I had a totally different phone, but it wasn’t without work.

I basically had to start over using cooked (unofficial) ROMs, overclock for speed, play with the registry and a whole host of other hacks and tweaks. This was even before third party applications came in. WinMo doesn’t have a dedicated App store (yet) so sites like Handago and PocketGear were the places to go.

I loved my phone and used it for two and the half years but I never recommended it to anyone because I realize it isn’t for everyone.

I customized it just the way I wanted, which is what I loved about WinMo devices, you’re sure to find whatever modification/alteration you seek on XDA Developers but that takes a lot of time, it’s risky and most people just want their phones to work. I’ve had a few incidences where I almost bricked my phone and those weren’t fun.

I’m probably a bigger fan of the Taiwanese Company HTC than I am WinMo, that’s partly the reason why I stuck with WinMo devices, I think HTC designs are innovative and they’ve always been ahead of the curve.

For my next phone I was going to wait for HTC Rhodium (Touch Pro2), in the interim I used my sister’s old Tytn, my Prophet became painfully slow and unusable after I tried to update to a WinMo 6.1 build.

I’d been thinking about the Android too and the more I read about it the more I wanted to try it. I liked that it’s open source, making it easily customizable and I use Gmail all the time.

Although, WinMo and devices have improved tremendously since the Prophet, I really don’t think much have changed since WinMo 5 and I heard that devices running WinMo 6.1 (like the Touch Pro 2) couldn’t officially upgrade to upcoming 6.5.

For once I wanted a device that worked just like it was supposed to right out of the box. I’d forgotten the joy of not having to feel like I’m reinventing my phone all over again and frankly I’m tired of spending long hours on XDA forums, fun and enlightening as it is.

I got the Android powered HTC Dream when it came to Rogers last month. It’s been a refreshing experience! The only major thing I’ve had to do is unlock it, which was more for me as it can be used on the Fido network which I’m on.

It works seamlessly, I haven’t had to tinker with it much, which kind of made me get the appeal of the iPhone – it’s fun and very easy to use.

I have certain basic requirements for my phone; Bluetooth with A2DP profile, Wifi, a good media player, highly customizable and of course phone and messaging capabilities.

The HTC Dream has these features and works effectively. After a month of relatively heavy use, I’ve downloaded a few apps, I’m still having fun discovering the OS, and the only thing I want to change right now is the Rogers splash screen.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.

Guy sent me a text saying “Congratulations! I see you’ve turned your love of being photographed into a hobby of photography” he’d just seen my photos on Flickr.

Of course he’s being sarcastic, but he’s right about one thing; my newest hobby is photography. It’s not an entirely new hobby but I’ve been taking a lot of pictures lately.

And, I finally got a DSLR camera! A long time ago when I started noticing non-professional DSLRs, I promised myself that my next camera was going to be a digital SLR camera.

Even though I loved taking pictures, I’d never really considered my cameras before. My last camera was a Samsung NV7 OPS; and I got it solely for its looks. I fell in love with it while on vacation in the UK, it didn’t have great reviews so I resisted buying it, but the price dropped and I relented.

I loved it! It took amazing pictures, was a great conversation starter and turned me into a bit of a shutterbug. I loved it so much I put aside my dream of owning a DSLR and happily used my NV7 for two years.

I started researching DSLRs again after I joined a photography forum. I researched, read reviews and walked into camera shops and just talked to the staff. I found out that most of them are professional photographers in their other lives. I had very simple requirements for my first DSLR; I was looking for a budget friendly and good entry level DSLR that takes great pictures.

After much research I finally settled on the Canon EOS Rebel T1i (Canon EOS 500D). I went with Canon because P. has the 450D, we can share lenses and the 500D because it shoots HD videos.

I’ve been going out a lot since I got it; I’ve taken almost two thousand pictures and it hasn’t even been a month yet. I’m walking more, and getting better. I took one of those Intro to DSLR photography classes to familiarise myself with the controls, settings and jargons. I learn something new every time I take a shot as a digital SLR newbie.

I’m still using the kit lens, I’ll hold off getting a second lens for now, I’m researching. This weekend I’m going to rent a couple of lenses from a camera shop that has rentals and take it with me on my trip to Bowen Island.

©2012 the whinery 2.0. All Rights Reserved.