Rocket's Great Escape

We crate our dogs when we leave the house and can't take them with us. Lately, Rocket, our blue Weimaraner  has been meeting us at the front door when we come back home.
We couldn't figure out how he kept managing to get out. We thought at first that perhaps we just didn't close the latches all the way on the crate door or perhaps he was pushing out with enough strength to bend the door and pop the two metal bolts out that hold the door shut.
I tried to force the door open but even with a lot of force I couldn't even get it to open. And even if we double-checked to make sure that the door was properly shut and fastened, he still managed to get out.
We were real curious as to how he magically was able to escape. One night we were to go to dinner at a friend's house and couldn't take the dogs. We decided to set up a camera to record Rocket's escape.
This is what we saw:

U-Verse and Me

Some might remember that almost a year ago I wrote a post about receiving an email from AT&T informing me that they were reserving the right to at anytime drop my current DSL internet service and switch me over to their U-Verse service. I also complained about the vast amounts of U-Verse related junk mail I receive every week.
We'll I finally succumbed.
Thankfully this was on my own terms for my own reasons and not directly the result of mountains of unwanted solicitations. For the past few months I've been tempted to switch over to the U-Verse internet service for far faster download speeds. Currently, I'm at the top of the DSL that AT&T offers in my area. It tops out at 6Mb/s... if I'm lucky. For the most part I probably average around 4Mb/s. Which is fine for the most part.
Problem is that I've begun doing a lot more video and music streaming than I used to using Amazon's Instant Video and Cloud Player as well as a host of other streaming media like YouTube and Pandora. I also have a whole host of internet connected devices from desktops, TV's, Kindles, Chromebook, notebooks, desktops, blu-ray players, smartphones, tablets and more... all tapping into the same bandwidth. Granted I'm not using all these devices simultaneously but I am using a lot of them at the same time. Uploading videos on a desktop to YouTube, streaming Pandora, checking my Google+ stream on my phone, writing this blog post with the Chromebook.
So I started to think about the future and how much more of what I do will be cloud based. Then I got to looking at my current bill. Currently I pay over $100 for my DSL connection and phone line combined. I rarely have need or even use my phone which is at least half of the bill. I keep it for emergencies, billing/banks, and an alternative in the event my cell phone isn't functioning. Nobody but telemarketers, family and some official business bothers to call my land line. But that being said, I don't want to give it up, just wished it didn't cost so much for what use I get out of it. If I'm keeping a phone line then I also needed caller ID as I screen calls to root out the telemarketers.
I decided that it would be wise to combine both internet and phone using AT&T's U-Verse internet and voice. I'm tripling my internet download speed, still getting phone with caller ID and cutting my monthly bill nearly in half to boot.
After all these years I've finally succumbed to U-Verse and I was able to do it on my own terms for my own reasons.
The installation is scheduled for next month, so it remains to be seen if this was a good decision or not.

Kindle Fire unboxing video and overview writeup

If you've read my other blog posts on Amazon's Kindle line of e-readers it should be no surprise that I'm a big fan.
The Kindle Fire is Amazon's very affordable entry into the tablet market, primarily as Amazon content consumption device. A brilliant bit of marketing if you ask me. Content purchased from Amazon such as Kindle e-books, digital music in Amazon's cloud music player, instant video and apps from their own app store, is all available on the device.
Their WhispherSync technology keeps all your devices and content in sync. So if you are in the middle of watching an episode of Breaking Bad on the Kindle Fire while on a business trip and then arrive home, you can turn on your Amazon enable TV and pick up right from where you left off. Same with e-books, perhaps you are reading Chuck Palahniuk's "Damned" on your regular Kindle while out at the beach and you get home you can pick up where you left off on the Fire.
A review, more pictures and unboxing video after the break.

Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" Blu-ray release

Terrence Malick's new film "The Tree of Life" is set to be released on  Blu-ray tomorrow (October 11, 2011). Terrence Malik is probably best known for the Oscar nominated, The Thin Red Line. His seemingly stream of consciousness film set in World War II. I sat back and watched it some months ago after realizing I'd never seen the whole thing from start to finish.
The majority of the film is dominated by an "in your head" monologue from the characters as they try to come to grips with what they are seeing and experiencing in war. Not so much Saving Private Ryan action war film as it is a philosophical exploration of man and humanity in general. The story seemed very non-linear and I realized at one point that the purpose of the film is a vehicle to deliver the message in the monologue while still maintaining a stunning visual appeal.
I'm expecting that Tree of Life is no different.
Meredith had the pleasure of working a few days on the film during the filming in Austin and around Texas. She could see that he had a real vision for what the film should be and that the physical medium of film and the reality of actors and locations were somewhat holding him back. Things often seemed sporadic and not connected during the filming. Something that is not uncommon when shooting a film as scenes are shot out of order to accommodate locations and actor's schedules. She admired his quest for perfection. She described to me one day of filming in which they had shot most of the day on a neighborhood street before Terrence moved the entire production one street over to shoot it again. It's no wonder that it took so many years for this film to be completed and released.
Terrence is a real visionary and creative genius. I'm expecting that The Tree of Life will be similar in style to The Thin Read Line and have real attention to detail and visuals, but deal more with the emotional struggles of family life and growing up. I'm sure that it will be anything but a literal and linear telling of a family story.
I'm looking forward to it.

Here is the trailer for The Tree of Life:

Coming soon... My Kindle Fire

Well, I pre-ordered a Kindle Fire the day they were announced. It won't be released until November.
I'm excited about it. I have owned the 2nd gen and 3rd gen Kindles and have really grown to love them over the years. So much easier than carting around a stack of books whenever I travel.

Meredith just bought an iPad. It's nice. I've messed around with it a little. They've spent some time making things look pretty cool and aesthetically pleasing. Lots of little animations and graphical things. It looks sharp. But it was also crazy expensive.

A lot of people are thinking that the Kindle Fire will be a direct competitor or a "iPad killer." But I don't think so. I don't think they really have much intention of trying to dethrone the King of Tablets. Though with a $200 price tag and Android installed, these things are going to be popular.
I think it is all about having all of your Amazon content in one place and being able to enjoy it on one little device. So I already have a bunch of Kindle ebooks. I already have some Amazon Cloud player music that I stream on my desktop and phone. I already have movies and TV shows that I've bought on Amazon Instant Video that I play on my Sony TV. I'm also an Amazon Prime member, so I have access to a huge library of free streaming movies and TV shows. I already have a few Amazon App Store apps I bought for my phone. So I'm expecting that the Kindle Fire can collect all this content in one place and I can enjoy it from just about anywhere courtesy of "The Cloud". I like the concept a lot.
That way the next time I decide to do a Battlestar Galactica marathon on the big TV in the living room and get the evil eye from Meredith, I can just switch to watching it on the Kindle Fire and move to a different room.

Once I get mine in my little grubby hands and have a chance to play with it a little, I'll do a little write up about my impressions.
In the meantime, here's a video that Engadget did of a Kindle Fire demo done by an Amazon rep.

Google+ My first impressions

Almost a week ago I was invited by Google to participate in the limited "field trial" of Google+.

Google+ invite I received

 I assume my involvement over the last few years as a YouTube Community Forum "Top Contributor" made be a good candidate for the field trial.
I graciously accepted my invitation and within a few clicks I was in.
The first thing I noticed was the toolbar across the top of Google property pages (Google, Gmail, etc..) now has a "+Erik" button the left side and a "share" entry box on the right side.

Typing text into the "share" entry box, I can quickly make a post to my Google+ page. Any notifications I've received from Google+ show up in the box just to the left of it. Click it and you can read the notification and respond. Pretty handy since this shows up on other Google properties like Gmail.
Clicking the +Erik tab on the left brings me to my Google+ page.

Google+ Stream

Which if you've used Facebook, looks a lot like the news feed. New posts and comments pop up automatically in the stream. Which with posts with heavy comment traffic can make it a little challenging to read as the page keeps moving a bit to include new comments coming in. You can "mute" a post by clicking it's little arrow in the corner. This hides the post in the stream and prevents you from getting notifications if you've commented on the post and people keep posting after you. Which is fine, but if you are just trying to read the thing without it continually moving doesn't help. I can see once this really starts going and your circles grow larger that this can be problematic...seems as though there should be a pause button or a way of collapsing or hiding the comments.

That brings me to Google+'s most powerful and strongest feature, "Circles".

So what is a "circle"? Circles are ways of controlling how you share and see information from people you know or are following. This is an awesome way to share information with a limited group of people or see posts from only a select few. You can create many different circles and add people to them. People can be in more than one circle. Clicking the Circle icon at the top of the Google+ page brings you to a list of people you have in your current circles, as well as options to see who has added you to their circles and inviting more people.

 

By  dragging you mouse over the thumbnails you can see a quick pop up with a link to their Google+ page and whether they exist in any of your circles. If they are in one or more of your circles the circles they are in will glow.

Mousing over the circles will highlight the people contained with in it. A very cool and quick way of identifying who is in what circle.

The circle interface is all drag and drop. Dragging a person into a circle adds them to that circle, dragging them out removes them from the circle. An amazing interface for managing your friends and interests.

There are default circles for Family, Friends, Acquaintances and Following. 

You can easily create new circles by dragging people into the new circle on the far left hand side.

So you can create circles for your co-workers, for people who have a similar interest to you (music, film, books, tech, etc...), or any number of reasons. I need to spend more time on my circles, further defining sub-sets and interests. But I can already see that "circles" is the most powerful feature of Google+

Now, how do circles come into play. In the simplest terms it is a way of controlling the information you are receiving and the information you are sharing.

When you click in the share, you can choose which circles you want to share the information with. So if you find an article on the web that is only of real interest to a smaller group of people (family, your close friends, co-workers, fellow hobbyists, etc..) you can select only those circles in which to share that information with.

On the flip side, circles can also filter your stream to only showing posts from people within that circle.

On the left hand side of the stream is a list of "circles" ( denoted by the circle beside them) both the default built in "circles" and any "circles" you have created.

A handy quick way to show only posts from your family or co-workers or just the people you are "following".

One thing that sorely seems to be missing is the ability to show posts from multiple circles or exclude particular circles,  say if you want to see posts from your friends and family but not the 100 social media celebrities you are following. Hopefully they will add this feature soon.

The Incoming link will show you posts from people who have added you to a circle, but you haven't added them to one of your own. Pretty beneficial to celebrities who have hoards of stranger following them, as your unfiltered stream can get pretty cluttered real quick.

Your profile page can also be filtered using circles. So say if you want only people in your circles to see where you live, where you are employed, whether you are single or not, you can specify just your circles or just specific circles. As an added bonus, you can choose to view your channel as another person. A little reassurance that you are only disclosing the information you want to the people you want to. A nice touch for the paranoid and tin-hat types.

 

One feature I haven't had an opportunity to play with is "Hangouts".

A hangout is a video chat room. Looks a bit like this.

 

You can invite circles of friends to "hangout". The interface shows the videos from each person participating and I'm assuming attempts to intelligently feature in the larger window who every may be speaking at that time. There is also a traditional text chat as well. I've also heard that the chat can also use Google translate to translate from one language to another on the fly.
Google+ is also closely tied with Picasa, Google's photo app. Clicking the photo button at the top, will show you photos from others in your circles. There are options here to upload more photos, see images uploaded from your phone and see your Picasa albums. From here you can share photos with your circles.

Google+ also has an interest aggregatorc called Sparks. You can search for an interest, say "Video Editing" and it will create a "Spark" for you listed on your stream. Clicking it will scrape up web site articles and blog posts from around the net pertaining to that subject.

The sad part is that it doesn't seem to be as integrated into the rest of Google+. You'd think that it would also have the ability to search public posts and posts from your circles. Something similar to #hashtagging in Twitter. So kind of a shame there. I hope in the future they will incorporate some sort of functionality like that into Sparks.
Of course there is a portable mobile version of Google+. No need to be out of touch with your Google+ pals while you are away from your desk.
I have an EVO 4G running Android. Downloading the app was one of the first things I did.

The interface is simple. It's not as full featured as the desktop app. Seems more difficult to filter your stream and manage your circles. But the basics are here along with a few features that aren't available in the desktop app.
The main screen allows you access to your stream, your photos, your profile, circles, notifications and a mobile only chat feature called Huddle.

Selecting stream, you get your Google+ screen showing all the posts in your stream.

The unfortunate part here is that this is posts from all of your circles. Unlike the easy circle links on the side of the stream in the desktop app, in order to show only posts from certain circles you have to do a number of additional clicks through pages to choose a circle and then show the posts from that circle. You have to go back to the main page, click circles, click a specific circle and then click the Posts button.

I kept looking for a drop down or menu option in the main page stream to select a specific circle to show. Hopefully another area they will address to make it as easy as the desktop app.
From the circles page you can also also manage the circles to a certain extent.
Adding someone new to a circle is easy enough, click the little +people icon in the top right corner and click on the person you want, then click the "add to circle" button choose a circle.
It's a bit of a cumbersome process to move people around or out of circles as it requires a lot of clicks. Click the circle, click the person, click the circle, click what circle you want them to be in.
Seems to be another opportunity for improvement.
By flicking the stream screen from left to right, it shows a "Nearby" tab. This uses your location as determined by your GPS or wireless to show you checkins from other Google+ members close to you.

A neat feature to see if your pal is at a pub just down the street from where you are. The downside, is that checkins don't seem to terribly accurate with your position...often putting you a street over from where you should be. Probably due to the accuracy of the GPS...quite possibly that Google Places doesn't seem to have as many locations in the database as FourSquare or other apps, so instead of positioning you at a bar, restaurant, grocery store, it just uses the coordinates. Hopefully that will also get better with time and more use by the general populous. I think it has a lot of potential and something beyond what FourSquare offers.
The profile button allows you to see your profile as well as just your past posts and your photos. Not really much to see here.

The photos button has links to show photos from your circles, photos of you (photos you have been tagged in) and access to your Picasa albums.

There seems to be some constraints as apparently you can only share photos from your phone and not from an existing album. Little bit of a bummer if you are on the road and what to share that one photo from your Picasa album shown. Seems like something that should be an option.
Huddle is a mobile only chat or instant message app. I haven't really played with it much since I'm shy and anti-social (probably the reason I haven't done much with Hangout on the desktop app either).

I'm sure once more of my closer friends join in on Google+ this will be a great feature. I could see the potential for collaborative discussions while being bored in a meeting with several of your Google+ friends.
Well, that's Google+ in a nutshell. Overall, I think it has a lot of potential. Incorporating cool features from other social network sites as well as including their own innovative spin. There are still a few rough spots that need to be polished out. Google has already made some changes as to the way things are shared (previously one could re-share something publicly that they had received as a member of a limited circle). Within a couple of days, there were better rules in place for re-sharing content. So they are taking the opportunity of having a bunch of social media's heavy hitters beat on their app to fine tune and add features that matter and benefit everyone.
I hope that they will incorporate more features like themes (the immense bright white expanse is a little fatiguing on your eyes) to change the colors. The ability to pin your popular circles, adding and excluding them from the stream, being able to pin certain posts to the top of the stream...the list goes on.
If they keep it up, keep listening to their users and keep incorporating features that people want and can use easily, Google+ may just become the Facebook killer everyone keeps talking about. Until then there is still a lot of work to be done.
+Erik Pontius

The Tarantula Hawk

I had the day off last Friday and thought it would be a good day to hang out with my parents for a few hours as I hadn't seen them in a while.
Dad showed me around the yard a bit where they were trying to nurse their yard back to life from an unfortunate gardening mishap. I noticed that there were a lot of these little round dug up areas in the flower beds and other bare spots around the yard. Dad said they thought perhaps some critter like an Armadillo or squirrel had been digging around but they weren't sure.
We had breakfast our on their back deck looking out over a valley and nature preserve and I noticed a puddle of sticky sap on the deck that Dad had covered with a paper towel to prevent us from walking through it. It was dripping out of a branch somewhere far up into this towering oak tree covering their deck. Dad wasn't sure where it might be coming from specifically so they could patch it up to prevent the sap from dripping out.
After breakfast and a trip to the vet (another story) I left and went home. A few hours later Mom calls me all excited that they had discovered what had been digging the holes in the yard. "An armadillo" I suggested... no, Mom says. It was a Tarantula Hawk Wasp. She said Dad had been looking up into the tree trying to pin point where the sap was coming from and saw a huge wasp buzzing around an area of the tree oozing some sap. He watched this wasp as it flew around the side of the house and starts to attack a tarantula.
They Googled it up to try to figure out what this huge wasp was that was bold enough to attack a tarantula and came across the Tarantula Hawk Wasp.
In an almost horror movie fashion. They attack tarantulas and paralyze them with a huge 1/3 in stinger. Once immobilized they drag them to these little burrows they dig, planting their egg on the spiders body. Then they bury them. When the egg hatches it burrows itself into the still living tarantula and begins to eat their juicy innards and leave the vital bits 'til last.

Here's a bit of video I found on YouTube.




Made me think of this critter Dad and I came across on the trail on our last Big Bend hiking trip.

RIP DSL?

Something like 8 years ago, I made the plunge and upgraded my dial up service to "high speed". This was my first foray into high speed internet access.
I'd heard a number of bad experiences from friends and co-workers with cable modem service and at the time it required you to also pay for basic cable TV service as well... I couldn't afford both.
That left DSL. After a little delay waiting for DSL service to be available in my fairly new neighborhood, I signed up for DSL service through Southwestern Bell ( now AT&T...again). There were a few hiccups in the beginning due to heat frying out components in SBC's "C.O." boxes. But those were all resolved and the service has been reliable pretty much ever since
Then about 5 years ago, AT&T started to experiment with a new high speed service called U-verse that combined TV, phone and Internet all in to one cable. Just so happened to be that they were testing it in my area. I researched a little on it and was considering trying it out. I was already a Dish Network customer for TV and obligated to a contract, I didn't need the TV part of U-verse. Much to my dismay, I discovered that they didn't offer just internet access by itself. So I ultimately decided against it.
Few years later U-verse was released to a wider public. I started getting, 3 or 4 pieces or more of junk mail a week from AT&T encouraging me to switch over to U-verse. Everything from postcards, catalogs, brochures, letters, sneaky letters with "important information" or mysterious no-name return addresses. And that's in addition to phone calls and emails. All of which point me to distrust the service. Now almost out of principles, I've been avoiding U-verse. They must be pushing their service so hard because it is advantages to them and not necessarily me. Otherwise, why all the sneaky techniques and barrage of collateral material?
So that brings me to today. AT&T just sent me an email regarding updates to their Internet Terms of Service. If you've been reading tech blogs lately or seen Sprint's latest TV ads, you may know that AT&T and other internet service providers are adding provisions to throttle internet access for abnormally high usage. They claim this only affects 1% of their subscribers. Curious for the details, I read through this email to find this: Conversion from DSL to U-verse High Speed Internet
I quickly pull up the referenced Terms of Service on AT&T's site:

Conversion from DSL to U-verse High Speed Internet. When AT&T is able to provision Service to you via our U-verse High Speed Internet at your location, we may, in our discretion, discontinue your DSL service and make available to you AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet at the then applicable rates, terms and conditions, which may differ from your previous DSL Service rates, terms and conditions (including bundle discounts). If you are on a term plan and your price will increase as a result of this conversion, you will not have to pay any applicable ETF if you elect to cancel service. Your new AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet will require different customer premises equipment ("CPE"). When you are selected for conversion, we will provide at least thirty days' notice of the discontinuation of your service via e-mail. Thirty days after such notice, we may at our sole discretion, either disconnect your service or temporarily suspend your service for up to fifteen days before we permanently discontinue service.

In other words, they are reserving the right to forcible switch me over to U-verse, whether I like it or not since U-verse is available in my area. I'm assuming that maintaining the older DSL technology is too costly for them so the are phasing out DSL in favor of a cheaper for them U-verse. And this is their way of saying "we asked you nicely to switch...you didn't so now we're forcing you to."
I don't think any consumer likes to be told what choices to make..or in this case, not being given a real choice at all.
The irony is that I've been considering switching since they now offer just an internet service and offer speeds of up to 24Mb/s (my dsl is capped at 6). Another advantage is that they will allow me to keep my current "sbc" email address. Less hassle for me.
At this point I'm not sure what to do. Wait it out and wait to be forced to switch, which could be inconvenient for me. Switch now so that I have some semblance of control over the situation. Or go a different direction and try a completely different ISP. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of other choices.
Anyone else been through a conversion from DSL to U-verse? Do you currently have U-verse high speed? Got any other suggestions?

Machete coming to Blu-ray and DVD, Jan 4 2011

Robert Rodriguez's "Machete", which Meredith did the special FX make-up for, will be released on Blu-ray and DVD January 4, 2011.
It's a fun action noir "grindhouse" style film starring a ridiculously cool cast of Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson...and for that wow factor Lindsay Lohan.
So pre-order today!


     Blu-ray              DVD

2010 Emmy Award Nominations

One of Meredith's many make-up friends called her up yesterday. She said "Congratulations!". Meredith said "for what?". To which her friend replied "for your Emmy Nomination!"
Sure enough, she's been nominated for an Emmy for her work on the HBO bio-pic "Temple Grandin".
"Temple Grandin" was shot around Austin over a few months a few summer's ago.
It was a pretty stressful shoot for her. She'd come home crying almost every night as the department head seemed to really ride her hard. But she stuck it out.
So it's nice that she's being rewarded and recognized for her hard work. Hopefully she'll win, but even if she doesn't, it's a great resume builder just to be able to say she's been nominated. I'm pretty proud of her.
She's come a long way from slinging java in a coffee shop and picking up make up jobs for no budget film projects on the weekends.
Though for a true showcase of her creative talents, we'll have to wait for Robert Rodriguez's "Machete" to be released in September.
Now I have to find a tux somewhere...

Grandpa "Tip" Going Home

Very early Friday morning the phone rang. I answered it to find my mother sobbing on the other end. I knew that this couldn't be good.
My Grandfather had just passed away.
My Grandpa "Tip" has been in the nursing home for the past year or two. With Alzheimer's, diabetes, a pacemaker with a battery in need of a charge and a perhaps sprinkling of  undiagnosed Parkinson's this wasn't totally unexpected. You never want to ever let your loved ones go so it is always tough when they do leave.
I think my Grandfather lead a good life. He may of not been a rich,wealthy man, but what he lacked in riches he made up with in heart. Always the friendly guy who made his rounds around the small town of Baudette, MN, going to the gas station just to have conversation and check in on how people were doing. An avid hunter and fisherman. Always willing to lend a hand. The guy everyone knew and loved.
I doubt that life was always easy for him. He was a World War II Navy veteran. Was a recovering alcoholic for many many years, probably long before I was ever born. He'd grown up poor and had an alcoholic for a father.
The good and the bad shape how we are. And in Grandpa's case, I think every thing worked to make him a great Grandfather.
This coming Saturday is his funeral. I'm leaving Austin early on Friday to fly to Bemidji, MN, the closest big airport to Baudette. It's then a 2 hour drive to Baudette. Funerals aren't my favorite thing to attend. I think mostly because so much of the emphasis is on mourning the loss and not enough about celebrating the life that it was.
Hopefully this will be different, as Grandpa Tip had a great life.

My mother sent me a link to this video. Thought it might have been something her Daddy would have said as he went home:

iPad Hype

Good thing that Steve Jobs is not in the business of selling Snake Oil and Moon real estate, or we'd all be buying some. He must have an incredible propaganda machine. Looking at the front page of CNN.com you'd think for sure that the entire CNN staff got their payroll from Cupertino.
Don't get me wrong. While I'm not a Mac fan boy by any means, I do admire Apple's design, ergonomics and simplicity (though the dirty secret about Macs is that they actually have their share of problems too). Though I think the thing I admire the most out of  Apple is their ability to create hoards of raving fans that will buy anything they produce...no matter what it is...sight unseen.
The iPod and iPhone were certainly revolutionary, even though portable music players and smart phones had essentially existed long before either iDevice was a glimmer in Steve Job's eye. So what made it different when Apple produced them? A heck of a lot of spin for one thing... But they did spend a lot of time looking at what other products weren't and baking that into their products. Couple that with the more less proprietary service of iTunes to get your music and apps transferred. It's pure genius and an act that apparently only Steve can get away with.
So that brings me to the iPad. It's no secret that I'm a fan of the Kindle. While I don't think that the iPad is really a Kindle killer (though the iPad does come with an eReader), since it lacks a lot of the real benefits of the Kindle, such as free 3G connectivity, worldwide with the new models, and really, really long battery life. The CNN article on the 12 Things to Know about the iPad had some misinformation and glossed over a lot of the limitations of the iPad. Somethings I noted:

• No mention of battery life.
• You can choose not to sign up with AT&T for service...which puts you at the mercy of wireless hot spots...which while becoming more common in public spaces, still aren't everywhere.
• The neglected to mention that the Kindle reading app is available for the iPad. Still a win/win for Amazon.
• The article made it seem as though the only place you could get content for the kindle was Amazon. The kindle supports unprotected content from Mobipocket books and text files. You can also send documents like Word files and PDFs to your kindle either by copying the files over by standard universal USB port or sending to your Amazon kindle email address where they are then converted and sent to your Kindle wirelessly.
• The Kindle DX supports landscape mode. I'm not sure I've ever read two pages of the same book at the same time. Seems like touting this as an amazing feature of the iPad is a bit of a non-item. Printed books have two pages, otherwise they would be twice as thick and twice as expensive to produce...

Oh yeah...that whole USB thing. Apple seems to have taken a step back in time and decided to do away with a standard universally compatible USB port in favor of their proprietary dock thing... need to snag some power while you are on the go? Now where did I leave that dock thing? Any one have a dock thing I can borrow? Anyone?
But could be that Apple is trying to change the world one standard at a time. Perhaps they have something else cooked up.
I'm more interested in seeing what the PC companies have lined up for slates with some real computing power. One of the biggest negatives so far with the iPad is its inability to multi-task. While I'm sure that some propeller head in Cupertino is already working on that for the 2nd gen iPad, which will be released shortly after all the early adopters have camped out for days in front of the Apple Store to buy the first generation. Nothing like a little double-dipping to squeeze more cash from your droves of ravenous fans. Keep your eye on Ebay in about 6-8 months.
We'll see...I don't think it's going to be a crazy success at least not in its first incarnation, but if it spurns development in creating the paper thin portable computers of the future I'm all for it.

Heavy Rain Update

I finished Heavy Rain about two days after I started playing it. Not a very long game at all. From what I've been seeing around the web, it is intended to be played several times since the outcome of the game can vary slightly depending on what choices you make throughout the game and who lives, who dies. There is a huge list of trophies that you can obtain from doing these elaborate sequences of movements accurately. Such as the "Baby Master" trophy (shown in the video below) in which you gain a trophy for changing a diaper, feeding a bottle and burping a baby.

As I wrote in my previous post, the control system was what really drew me to the game. I wouldn't doubt it if we see similar things in the future in other titles. It really brings you into the game making you feel more connected.
I didn't have any other glitches pop up in about the last half of the game. There were some instances where you would pop out of an animated mini-cut scene only to get stuck where you couldn't move or some things wouldn't render completely. Restarting the game would resolve it. Maybe they'll fix some of these things in an update at some point.
The graphics were a stunning. As you work through the game you unlock some videos a few that deal with the making of the game. They spent a lot of time capturing expression and facial detail.



Overall, Heavy Rain was an enjoyable experience. I'm very tempted to go back through it again to try to get more trophies and see what other paths I can follow.....but I've been a little distracted working on a huge complicated project for work with a very short deadline (which also explains the tardiness of this post).
I picked up God of War III. Actually, I pre-ordered it from Amazon so that I wouldn't have to scramble to try to find a copy locally. Plus I could choose a gift wrap option (my present wrapping skills suck) as this was more a gift for Meredith than it was for me.
God of War III is the 3rd installment of a game that Meredith and I have really enjoyed playing. It's a hack 'n slash dungeon crawler with some amazing animation and a variety of weapons, magic and special moves. Some really cool animated final kills that would put Mortal Kombat to shame.
Figured Meredith would wear the buttons out on the controllers so I bought her a new one in her favorite color.

Heavy Rain

I picked up Heavy Rain for the Playstation 3 the other day. It's kind of mix between Memento, Seven, The Cell, Minority Report, Zodiac and Thirteenth Floor. The graphics are phenomenal. The developers took a lot of time tweaking the faces of the characters making them look extremely realistic.
The gameplay is more like following a "choose your own adventure" graphic novel. You follow several different characters as each is trying to solve a bit of the mystery. You switch between characters as the story moves from chapter to chapter.
In some cases, two characters may be in the same scene and you may pick up control of one character as the first leaves the scene. Choices and actions you make throughout the game alter the outcome in subtle ways.

Even more fascinating to me than the graphics was the control system. I'd read an article in Wired magazine discussing this revolutionary new context sensitive control system. So when presented with different choices and actions, images of the button action appears. So in contrast to traditional control systems where each button is assigned to a specific action, there are endless possibilities as that same button may do a completely different thing faced with a different obstacle.
When conversing with other characters you have different topics or ways in which to say things (persistent, sympathy, etc...) illustrated by a button symbol and keyword that floats around your head. This allows you to have an influence on how the scene plays out.
Timing is critical, if you neglect to hit a button fast enough (or slow enough) there is a consequence. Sometimes you are also required to press and hold down a series of buttons, sometimes making for an interesting game of finger twister as you attempt to hold down a number of buttons on the controller. 
It also makes use of the accelerometer in the controller, allowing you to steer vehicles, push and slide objects, all by tilting and moving the controller up, down, left , right.
Things aren't all rosy though. Several times there have been glitches in the game that wouldn't allow the character to move until restarted the game. Realtime rendering glitches, like background characters gliding along the ground instead of walking. Even the very opening intro animation had the character floating 8 inches off the bed frame because the mattress didn't render. 
I've just started working through the game and overall, with the exception of the random glitches, has been very immersive and enjoyable. Later I'll post a follow up to this post with some further thoughts as I get farther into the story.
Here's a clip of actual Heavy Rain gameplay.

My Kindle Experience

Never fails that when I'm about to go on a trip I'm nearing the end of one book and end up having to pack at least one other book in my carry on to make sure I don't get stuck in an airport with nothing to read.
By the end of the trip I'm lugging around some dead weight from the book(s) I've finished.
The Amazon Kindle looked like a great solution to this problem. I've been interested in the Kindle since they first came out a few years ago. The first generation seemed a little pricey and a little clunky to me so I resisted buying one (not to mention they were sold out for quite a while as well).
The 2nd generation came out and it was more refined, thinner and all around just looked nice. I kept looking at them and thinking "should I?" I'm very much in love with the tactile feeling that a real book can give you. The smell of the ink on the page, the texture of the paper and so on. Could I give it up for a thin piece of electronics?
When faced with the potential of going on a business trip for a few days back in August I thought it would be the perfect opportunity. I ordered a 2nd gen Kindle which arrived a few days later. I unpacked it and turned it on to read a personalized welcome letter. How thoughtful. I was struck by how light the little thing was. Next I noticed that my natural resting position for my thumb was just about right over the "next page" button. I thumbed through the user's guide and was amazed at the clarity of the text on the page, even in bright sunlight when I'm sitting on the back patio.
I ordered a couple of Kindle "books" next some I paid for and some that Amazon was more less giving away (can you buy something for $0.00?). I'd have to admit that it took me a day or so to really get used to reading on the Kindle. There is a bit of an automatic impulse to turn a page the old fashion way rather than pressing a button. After a while it became second nature.
Furthermore, I'm not sure they even thought of this, but I even noticed that when lying in bed reading that because of the space taken up by the keyboard at the bottom of the unit that it positions the screen right at a comfortable spot in front of you. One of the things that always bugged me about reading in bed was that you had to hold the book up to read the lower part of the page. Might not seem a big deal...but when you are reading something like Robert Jordan's "The Lord of Chaos" weighing in at over 1000 pages in paperback...it takes it toll on you.
I even noticed that with "next page" buttons on both sides of the device you can read on you side quite comfortably, switching hands whenever on gets tired.
Anyway, I've had my Kindle for several months now. I've read a handful of books on it and I'd have to say I'm quite addicted to it now. I love being able to take one device with me that has enough to keep me occupied if I get stuck in a Denver airport in a snowstorm.