Trapper Kindle

Regular readers know I love my Kindles, but here’s a possible improvement from lunchbreath: The Trapper Kindle.

Trapper Kindle

Take One Tablet to Feel Better?

Gizmodo's vision of an Apple Tablet

Since the summer of 2008 my mobile computing experience has improved tremendously thanks to my netbook, iPhone, and Kindles.  My netbook was a tiny lightweight marvel on my recent trip to Oregon, and I used it to daily process and post photographs, blog entries, and short video clips.  But I don’t like to use it for reading or web browsing at a restaurant or even at home, preferring something more the size of my Kindle.

My Kindle seems ideal for reading novels and long internet articles I’ve saved with Instapaper.  Its larger non-backlit screen is far easier on my aging eyes than the iPhone.  But as a web browser the Kindle is an abomination.  Throughout my long trip to Oregon, I never used the Kindle, instead using the iPhone when out on the town or trail and switching to the netbook in the hotel rooms.  But I would have enjoyed having something the size of the Kindle with the iPhone’s browsing prowess and computing power when out on the town and also here back at home around the house.

I’ve hacked my Apple TV to attempt to get decent couch surfing, but that flopped.  The hacks make the Apple TV hesitate and stutter and I have not found a nicely-sized radio frequency keyboard with trackpad or trackball.  I have a Gyration unit, but grabbing its gyroscopic mouse to navigate and also trying to balance its accompanying keyboard is a pain.  Since the only real use I’ve made of the Apple TV hack has been to watch Leo Laporte’s streaming video webcasts on the Apple TV, and Apple has improved its Remote application on the iPhone to provide improved control of the Apple TV, I’m tempted to dump the hack to improve the unit’s performance.

So I’m excited by the prospect of an Apple Tablet, which is probably coming in 2010.  If it is the size of the Kindle but has the multi-touch interface of the iPhone and can run iPhone applications, I’m sold.  Obviously it will have WiFi, but the unknown is the cellular connection.  Will it have a WiFi-only version, like an iPod Touch, and also a subsidized 3G version like the iPhone?  If so, I might opt for the WiFi-only option.  I envision using it most around the house for couch surfing and sometimes at a WiFi-enabled restaurant.  It would be far more convenient to have a 3G cellular connection for it, but I’m not willing to fork over another $70/month to AT&T or some other carrier for that.

I’ve written before of the similar CrunchPad unit, but as its rumored cost rises to that of a netbook and with its singular focus on web browsing at the expense of the power of iPhone-style computing applications, I’m leaning toward paying what will no doubt be a high premium for an Apple Tablet’s greater power and flexibility.

Oregon Trails 2009 Tools and Ratings

In this final post about Oregon Trails 2009, I rate my accommodations and describe the tools I used to plan and execute this successful adventure.  See my earlier 10 blog posts for daily descriptions of my journey about northwest Oregon.

Hotels and Motels

Here is my personal rating of the hotels and motels I used on this trip, with true daily cost, from best to worst:

1. Fireside Motel in Yachats ($124.20; gorgeous location)
2. Microtel in Seaside ($97.12; continental breakfast, convenient, and quite pleasant)
3. Quality Inn in Bend ($120.99; continental breakfast, hot tub in the bathroom)
4. Best Western Agate Beach Inn in Newport ($163.09; nice beach location, but hotel beginning to show some wear)
5. Motel 6 in Lincoln City ($76.24; convenient and clean)
6. North Portland Motel 6 ($67.49; lousy location, but nice room)
7. Downtown Portland Motel 6 ($67.49; convenient location, decent room)
8. Motel 6 at The Dalles ($68.66; shabby and a bit nasty)

All of the establishments provided free wi-fi, showing that even the budget motels have caught up with modern times.  Note that my ratings don’t take into account in-room entertainment, since only once on the entire trip did I turn on a television.  (Those who know me won’t be surprised at that.)

Planning the Trip

This trip was fairly easy to plan, since I’d been on a long loop through western Oregon in 2006 guided by the AAA TourBook and Oregon: An Explorer’s Guide by Mark Highberger.  I consulted the latter a couple of times on this trip, but truly essential to this hiking-focused trip was the excellent Hiking the Oregon Coast by Lizann Dunegan.

Google searches turned up various sites to fill in details on some hikes, particularly the Eagle Creek hike along the Columbia River.  I used Tripit.com to share my trip itinerary, including hotel and airplane info, with friends and family and for easy access from my iPhone.  I also took along printouts of my reservations since technology can fail.  I booked the plane tickets, car rental, and hotel rooms online ahead of time, sometimes using AAA’s website and other times going directly to a vendor’s website.

Executing the Trip

Restaurants

While on the road Yelp.com was a godsend for restaurant recommendations, and easily accessed with my iPhone as needed.  Only one place I picked through Yelp didn’t meet expectations, while others were unexpectedly great, sometimes exceeding anything I’ve found back in Oklahoma.

Navigation

Trixie the GPS for navigation was of course instrumental to helping me go solo on this trip. I never consulted a paper map, and only in Bend did one recent road change cause consternation.  I’m grateful that GPS units now have large touchscreens – they are much easier to use than my old Garmin Quest unit was.

My dayhike attire: Tilley hat, small backpack, cargo shorts, trekking pole, hiking boots and socks.

Day Hikes

I don’t hike for more than seven hours at a stretch, so I use a tiny backpack that can hold three water bottles, trail snacks, hand cleanser, and my personal technology devices.  I prefer cargo shorts since they provide easy access to the camera, iPod, and BluePack powerpack.  Next time I might pack light cargo pants as well, since I missed those extra pockets when wearing jeans.  I forgot to pack a first aid kit, although I never needed one.

This was the first trip I used Swiss Gear Lighted Hiking Pole, 2 Pack trekking poles, Columbia Sportswear Men’s Coretek WP Hiking Boots, and Thorlo Men’s Coolmax Lt Hiker Crew Socks.  Given that I took three hikes of over 10 miles, sometimes on treacherous terrain, I was very glad to have all three this time out.  Trekking poles that collapse are important to me, since I don’t use them all of the time.  But they greatly improve your stability on rough terrain, allow you to use your arms to help propel you up a steep trail and cushion your knees when descending.  The hiking shoes helped my feet hurt less on long hikes, although I was still grateful for my ibuprofen tablets on the trail when the aches set in.  The light hiking socks seemed to help somewhat, but I don’t think they were cost effective given that I refuse to wear a pair longer than one day at a time and don’t like wasting time with a laundromat on a trip.  And of course I wore my Tilley hat throughout the hikes.

Netbook and iPhone

For photo and video editing and uploading and blog posts I travelled with my ASUS Eee PC 1000H.  I loved its small size and found it quite adequate.  I uploaded all photos and video to my Flickr account, with a different set for each day, and then linked to those photos and the set’s slideshow in my WordPress blog posts.  My Facebook account imports my WordPress blog posts and Brightkite and Audioboo post to my Facebook profiles.  My FriendFeed and Twitter accounts draw in turn from my Facebook posts.

Tracking with Brightkite and Audioboo

I used my iPhone on the road to get information and post updates to Brightkite so loved ones could track my location through the day since it was a solo trip.  Brightkite posts your position with a map and lets you include a brief note or photo if you like.  The iPhone app crashed sometimes and was balky on the slow Edge network in most of Oregon – it still needs improvement, but it worked well enough.  I used the Audioboo app a few time to post audio updates, but didn’t find it all that compelling.

Photography

This trip was all about photos, and I am still using my old Canon Powershot SD300 4MP Digital Elph Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (don’t buy it – that model is WAY out of date!) supplemented occasionally by my iPhone 3G.  The PowerShot also takes adequate movie clips for my purposes.  The old 4.0 megapixel camera has plenty of resolution since I’m mainly posting to the web and my living room Apple TV, and I greatly value its tiny size and ease of use over a big digital SLR.  A larger camera with a big lens would allow for better zoom, depth-of-field effects, much better flash photography and would reduce low-light photography problems.  But I don’t want to hassle with a big camera, particularly on day hikes, and I don’t really want to fiddle around with camera settings too much.  I’d rather find something great to shoot, work out how best to compose the shot, git ‘er done and move on.

Learning While Travelling

On the trail, in the car, and on the plane I kept myself entertained with my Apple iPod nano 8 GB Black (2nd Generation).  I pre-loaded it with a variety of lectures from The Teaching Company and podcasts, liking to learn as I hike.  I also threw in some relaxing songs for the trail.

GPS on the Trail

I tried using the GPS MotionX app on the iPhone on the trail, but it had trouble getting a consistent GPS signal and couldn’t download a map without cell service.  So I really only made good use of it on a couple of the hikes.  If you really want to hike with GPS, you need a more sensitive dedicated hiking unit.

Battery Life Issues

While the old iPod Nano had plenty of battery life, the iPhone is a power hog, especially when you are surfing the web and using its GPS unit.  The very convenient solution was my Dexim BluePack S3 for iPhone/iPod, which was easy to charge up in the hotel room and could recharge the iPhone multiple times in a day if needed, as well as charge the iPod.  It has cabling so you can charge the BluePack and also charge your other devices while only using one wall jack, a big plus in hotel rooms.  The only drawback is there is no easy way to strap the BluePack onto the iPhone while charging it on the trail, so I just slipped them into a pocket side-by-side, sometimes linking them together with a rubber band.  If you carry an iPhone on the road, the Dexim unit is highly recommended.

What I Did Not Use

I didn’t have time to read much except during the plane flight.  So I shouldn’t have bothered bringing my Kindle – the Kindle app on the iPhone would have sufficed.  I also shouldn’t have bothered packing a car charger for the iPhone, since charging the Dexim BluePack each night meant I had plenty of power available during the day.  I also had no use for my iPod/iPhone cassette adapter, since the rental car had an audio input jack.

This post concludes my 2009 Oregon Trails.  In addition to the photos from this trip, Flickr has photos from my 2006 trip to Oregon and my trips to Seattle and Victoria, BC in 2005 and 2008.

Oregon Trail Updates

Oregon Trip 2009

For my trip to Oregon this July I hope to use my iPhone to post online photos and audio from the trail for my friends and family.  The last time I was in Oregon I sent regular emails to them and regularly downloaded photos from my digital camera to a laptop for editing and posting online.  This time I’d like to postpone the photo manipulations until after I return and instead just send brief updates using my iPhone.

One tool I’ll be trying out is audioBoo, which lets me record some audio, attach a geotagged snapshot, and upload it to my FriendFeed, Twitter, and Facebook accounts.

However, the snapshot from Audioboo is rather small and it doesn’t allow for check-ins and longer written notes, so I’ll also try using Brightkite.

You should be able to see the various updates on my MEADOR.ORG blog’s left-side column in the “Granger’s FriendFeed” listing.  Of course, you can also just go directly to my FriendFeed.

Jonesing for a better TV…

Bigger, thinner, and pricier

The Harris Poll had some interesting HDTV statistics yesterday:

• Almost a year-and-a-half after Blu-Ray won the format war, 11% of US adults own HD-DVD players but only 7% own Blu-Ray players

I own both, although my HD-DVD player is gathering dust in the spare room – I only have a handful of HD-DVDs, none of which I need to watch, and I didn’t want to squeeze another player into the stack of devices cluttering my entertainment system.  I have no plans to purchase Blu-Ray discs, but instead pay a surcharge to rent them, whenever possible, from Netflix.  But the Harris Poll data is confusing, since they also report 9% of US adults own a Sony Playstation 3 (PS3).  Well, those are Blu-Ray players, so why would they say only 7% of adults own a Blu-Ray player?  Perhaps many PS3 owners don’t realize they can play Blu-Ray discs?

• Ownership of televisions that were 36 inches or larger increased from 35% to 42% of US adults this past year
• Ownership of HDTVs increased from 35% to 47% of US adults this past year

My HDTV is only 30″ and is an older flatscreen 16:9 CRT.  So it is deep and heavy, but it also is bright, has fairly accurate colors, and a very wide viewing angle.  I usually sit eight feet from the screen, so standard-definition video sources don’t look grainy and I can tug the couch up closer if I want to see a Blu-Ray, downloaded, or over-the-air HD show with greater perceived resolution.  (My screen tops out at 800 lines, which is fine for its size, although if you move up to 42″ and beyond the full 1080 is preferred.)

I’d certainly like a bigger screen, but I’m still leery of plasmas, especially with Pioneer exiting that market, although some well-regarded Panasonic units have reportedly greatly reduced their lifetime-loss-of-brightness and burn-in problems.  And LCD televisions still suffer from some motion blur as well as color quality and brightness dropoff at large viewing angles.  Without some quality up-conversion, I’m also afraid the things I watch in standard-definition would look lousy on a huge screen.

I’d be more fond of the instant gratification from streaming HD video were it not for the frequent buffering delays, lack of bonus features, and sparse selection compared to discs from Netflix. Some new HDTVs incorporate Netflix streaming, which I can already get through my Tivo HD along with Amazon’s video-on-demand.  And I can also rent videos on my Apple TV, although that has been less satisfying with limited content and some annoying playback delays.  I used to hook my Averatec laptop to the television to watch Amazon Unbox video, but even with my smaller Asus Eee PC that remains a bothersome kludge.  To get the computer image on the TV I have to plop the netbook by the TV, plug in the audio cable and two cables for the video dongle that converts VGA to component video, then plug in the computer to the wall since I will be overclocking it continuously, then tweak the screen settings on the PC and the receiver and the video dongle, all for an image that suffers from blooming and color distortions.  Good grief!  So I’m truly thankful Amazon’s service is on the Tivo now.

Another thing I’d like to do is surf the web on my TV from the couch.  To avoid the above hassle with the netbook, I’ve hacked my Apple TV with the aTV Flash so that I can now surf the net through it, but plugging in my wireless keyboard and mouse causes the overburdened Apple TV to stutter a bit and the CRT image is still rather lacking.  So I find that I’d rather just put the netbook in my lap and use it.

But eventually I will make the jump to a larger HDTV, perhaps 42″ to 46″, with 1080p resolution, good standard-definiton upconversion, and multiple HDMI inputs as well as VGA.  For couch surfing I’d hook that new TV directly to a small dedicated computer with a wireless keyboard and trackpad.  But today a good Samsung LCD TV and Mac mini to achieve the results I seek would cost me about $2,000.  Ouch!  I’ll stick with my CRT and netbook for now.