Jan
28
As I alluded to in my last post, I bought a MacBook last week. “But”, I hear you say, “don’t you already HAVE a perfectly good computer?” And of course, the answer is “Yes,” but I had several reasons for getting a new one.
First and foremost, I’m a student, and as such have several hours of class each week. Most of those classes require me to take extensive notes for at least an hour. Since I’ve been using a computer for 15 years (since I was 6, I believe), I’m a fairly fast typist. I also have terrible handwriting, and write (relatively) slowly. So the laptop helps me take better notes faster than when I’m writing.
Jan
27
Via Rail WiFi
Tagged review | via rail | 8 Comments
With my new MacBook in tow, I trekked off to my parents’ house in London this weekend. It was a fine time; I spent some time with my parents, had a good sleep in my bed there, and saw Cloverfield (quick review: It’s awesome). I’m now on the train back to Toronto trying to use Via Rail’s WiFi access (quick review: It sucks). The service is easy enough to sign up for (it takes about 2 minutes and a credit card) and is reasonably cheap ($9 for 24 consecutive hours). Unfortunately, the service itself is very splotchy. It drops the signal every 3 minutes and when it is working, it’s very slow. For example, I was downloading a file at about 0.5kb/s, and while I typed that last sentence, Adium was disconnected. Twice. Sure, it’s probably useful if you’re 45 and on your corporate issue laptop trying to check your email and reading the New York Times, but for anyone trying to read feeds in Google Reader or conducting a chat on MSN, it’s impossible to use.
They mean well, but its execution is flawed. It’s very likely that the main source of the problems is with the satellite uplink that connects the train from to the Internet, but this is the 21st century. Haven’t basic satellite issues been worked out by now? [By the way, 5 minutes later, Adium is just reconnecting]
Were I on a 5 or 6 hour train ride, to Montreal, for example, I would probably buy time on the network, but in its current implementation, the service is much too unreliable to be used for just two hours.
Via Rail, you get an A for effort, but a D for implementation.
Jan
25
iPod Battery
Tagged apple | ipod | iPod Juice | review | 1 Comment
I got my 5G iPod about 2 years ago, and use it extensively. All day at work in the summer, days when I’m waiting on campus for hours on end, etc. However, it really started to annoy me as the battery began to only last a few hours, sometimes less. Sadly, that’s how things go with Lithium Ion batteries; they begin to lose their capacity after about 500 charges.
So I looked around the internet and found iPod Juice, who sell iPod batteries and provide instructions on how to change the battery yourself. I got the kit a few days ago and got around to doing the surgery 2 nights ago, as my battery failed once more. The surgery was a success, it was pretty easy to do and didn’t take that long.
After the surgery and charging the iPod, I took it to school with me yesterday. I ended up not going home between my classes and spent 6 hours on campus listening to my iPod. It worked phenominally and barely broke a sweat. Basically, the iPod Juice battery was easy to install and worked awesomely. Thumbs up from me!