This site has been deprecated. You will be able to find all my posts at the new address: chadkohalyk.com/blog. Rather than linking to an article here, please link to it there for the integrity of the internets. I am still aggregating my posts here via a Link so that you may Like them if you like. Thank you! — Chad Kohalyk

Family complete #achievementunlocked

This is where it all started. Above is my completed family of four, standing in front of the college dorm where I met my wife in 1999. As we only have a couple days left in Japan, we decided to take a photo. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and it was pouring down, so we weren’t exactly able to pose a bunch and take lots of shots. In fact, we only took one. The result is less than perfect, but it is a pretty good representation of family life: haphazard, slap-dash, but smiling the whole time.

In two days the four of us will be boarding three planes and landing in Canada’s Okanagan Valley next Tuesday. My wife and first daughter have been in Japan for six months. I have been here for three months. My second daughter has been with us for two and a half. Needless to say, it has been eventful. Soon new chapter will begin.

Over the past twelve years my wife and I have moved back and forth between Canada and Japan on average once every two years. As we have now completed our family, this next chapter of our lives will be focused on building a foundation. That means trying to stay in the same place, building a community, creating a healthy and loving environment for our kids to grow up in. So, for the next while, it is goodbye to Japan.

I still have a few months left on my paternity leave, and am looking forward to getting a few things done after returning to Canada. For example:

  • continuing Lining Things Up
  • building some more Rails apps
  • rethinking my wardrobe
  • improving my career
  • getting a vasectomy (・・；)

Helping my wife and daughters re-integrate themselves into a Canadian lifestyle tops the list though. Also, getting healthy. I gained about 10 kilos during this pregnancy and am going to try and lose it by dieting, running and training. I got a Wi-Fi Body Scale for Xmas, and a Nike Fuel Band is in my future. My wife wants to do yoga together, which I am all for.

As always, there is lots to do. But my view on life is different than it was in the past. My new keywords are “long view” and “life-editing”. I know I can’t do everything I want to on a whim. But I am perfectly satisfied with that. Enjoying my time with my family is the cake. Everything else is icing.

My current podcasts

I often talk about all the podcasts I listen to. I thought I would share them for those that are interested.

You can click on the image to enbiggen it. The app I use is Pocket Casts by Shifty Jelly. You can download my OPML file from here.

I grouped all the shows as follows: 5by5 shows; other tech shows; media and geek shows (I still hold out hope for a return); philosophy; “ahem”; football. Within those groups they are somewhat organized by priority. I don’t listen to every single show every week, but the ones at the beginning of each group are a guaranteed listen. I endorse them whole-heartedly.

Altogether I listen to an average of 15-20 hours a week plus or minus what audiobooks I am listening to at the time.

Now that you know what kinds of shows I like, if you have any suggestions let me know!

Magic Mouse ★★★★☆

I waited on purchasing the Magic Mouse knowing that the device’s multitouch technology could recognize up to three fingers. New gestures were bound to be released. One could imagine two and three-finger clicks, not to mention pinches and taps of all sorts! The paltry two buttons the device currently ships with is a poor offering.

Sure enough, within a few days a developer released MiddleClick. This app runs silently on your menubar, watching for a three-finger tap (not a click), which it translates into a third click. Excellent excuse to go down to the Apple Store the next day and pick up the mouse.

An even more sparse desktopAn even more sparse desktop

Still, I should like to maintain my hunch that Apple will release a number of gestures in the future. Better yet, they should release a framework that would allow us to customize our own gestures.

My corded Mighty Mouse had long worn out its welcome. Flaky right click response and the inability to track on my hardwood desk had me disappointed the day my iMac arrived. Funny enough, the trackball never gave me any problems (I know the paper trick). I was seriously considering one of Logitech’s new line of Darkfield Laser mice. However, having been frustrated with Logitech’s flaky mouse drivers in the past, I waited for an alternative. I was happy to see that the Magic Mouse’s laser tracking worked well on reflective surfaces.

I have been using the mouse for more than 24 hours and it has worked brilliantly for me so far. Great input response, and great tracking response. Being accustomed to the Mighty Mouse and iPhone, I quickly adjusted to the Magic Mouse. The gestures are easily mastered and it scrolls like butter.

Complaints are often raised about the lack of ergonomic design in Apple’s mice. Yet it must be realized that Apple does not make mice that should be gripped. Apple’s mice are operated by gently pushing them around with your fingertips. With the Magic Mouse’s surface being a multitouch device, this concept is even more pronounced.

Which brings me to a design quibble. If you look at the vertical profile of the mouse (see A below) you will see the sides of the mouse swooping inwards, underneath the mouse. This is conducive of gripping, which makes operating the mouse more difficult than necessary. If you simply push the mouse around with your fingertips you only have contact with the very edge of the plastic surface. I would rather see a sweeping out of the sides of the mouse (as per in B below) to increase the surface area used for pushing, to balance the surface area used for gestures.

Click for larger version

All in all, I think it is a good mouse, with some intriguing potential. Though not for everyone, I would especially recommend it to those still suffering with the old Mighty Mouse.

Kindle in Japan: Any questions?

The International Kindle, released last week, finally came into my eager hands last night. This is my first eReader. The reason I purchased it is — ironically enough — my love for paper books. I love to annotate, but I would rather not deface my books. For me there is just something wrong with marking up books. Furthermore, I move often. Over the past dozen years I have moved house ten times — mostly international moves too. This time next year I could be in Tokyo, San Francisco or London. Who knows. The result is I have hundreds of pounds of paper books stored in caches all over the place; at my parents house, at friends houses, and here in Japan. The Kindle solves these problems (annotations, space) — how well, it is too early to say.

There are a number of issues related to the network and purchasing in Japan that I was worried about. Many of you may have similar qualms so let’s see if we can’t put some of them to rest.

As soon as I got the Kindle up and running I:

  • bought a book from the device
  • bought a book on my iMac and transferred it to the Kindle
  • downloaded and transferred a book from Project Gutenberg
  • converted an ePub book to Mobi with Calibre and transferred it
  • downloaded a sample chapter from the Kindle store
  • downloaded a trial subscription to a magazine
  • converted and transferred a magazine Calibre

I can happily report that all these operations worked like a charm. I have yet to try MP3s or audiobooks. I have an iPhone, ‘nuff said.

There are only a few caveats I would warn you about. First of all, although there is no download fee for purchasing books over WhisperNet, books sold in the “Asia Pacific” Kindle store are $2 more than their American counterparts. What annoys me is that if look at a list of books on Amazon, they are listed at $9.99, but when you click through to an individual product page, the price becomes $11.99 all of a sudden. Amazon obviously have some work left to do on their database.

Second, “Newspapers and magazines delivered outside the U.S. will not include photos and other images.” This renders any periodical that uses graphs useless. Furthermore, the pricing scheme for newspapers and magazines overseas is way out of proportion to domestic pricing. Thank the gods for Calibre.

Third, blog subscriptions are not available overseas. Earlier I assumed this meant no access to the web at all. However, web access — including Google and Wikipedia — is perfectly available in Japan. Too bad navigating to the browser is so kludgy: to access the browser you have to make a Google search. That brings me to my impressions about the device itself.

When I first opened the box (see unboxing pics here) I was impressed with the packaging. Very slick. The Kindle is very light, and the build quality is sufficient for a plastic device. It disappointed me to see that the brushed aluminum back is actually just plastic. The power adapter is nice and small, smaller even than the iPod adapters released earlier this year.

This is my first experience with eInk, so I have nothing to compare the Kindle to, but I find the screen impeccably readable. The font is legible and pictures render well in 16 shades of greyscale. It being a plastic device, the buttons are very clicky. Hopefully they will be worked in over time, but as someone who is used to a keyboard and multitouch, these buttons are too much work. (￣ω￣;)

Navigation is achieved by a clickable 4-way control nub, a MENU button and a BACK button. This of course means an endless array of nested menus resulting in a kludgy interface to say the least. Navigating is a pain. Maybe that is why the Sony Reader has so many of those ugly soft buttons on it. Many of the nav problems of the Kindle could be solved with a touch screen. Yes, I am spoiled by my iPhone.

Even worse is the lack of any visual mapping as to where you are in the system. There are no breadcrumbs to let the user know where they are in the system. It is like navigating UNIX: the user has to have the entire file system mapped out in his head. Mind you, this is more of a problem with magazines and newspapers than with books.

The Home screen could also be better. The Home screen displays all of your content in one massive list. The only categorization is:

  • Personal Docs
  • Subscriptions
  • Books

If you fill your Kindle with the 1500 books as advertised, finding anything will be a chore. The “search my items” menu does not even act as a filter. A user generated categorization system like Genres or Authors on a iPod would be useful. At least have a “Latest Reads” smart list like Stanza on the iPhone so I can quickly find the books, newspapers, docs and magazines that I am currently reading.

The filesystem is also so simplistic as to be a mess. There is just a “documents” folder that you drag and drop all your content into. Reminds me of the MP3 players from the late 1990s. This is obviously not an elegant solution when one has 1500 books. Once again, Apple has spoiled me. Thankfully, the Kindle can see files inside of folders so content can be organized to some degree within the filesystem. This however does not solve the problem of the information overload on the Home screen.

The Clippings file, a single plaintext file where all one’s annotations are saved, also seems problematic. If I make 100 notes for every 300 page book and have 1500 books, I can see this file getting pretty difficult to manage. This file should be a database or an XML file. We’ll have to wait and see if it works out in actual use.

Having only had the device for a mere 18 hours, these first impressions are simply that: first impressions. Furthermore, since I have no other eReader to compare the Kindle to, reader beware. You should read Steve Nagata’s review, he has a Sony Reader to compare to. He also makes some important points about pricing that people in Japan should be aware of.

Overall, while not blown away by the device, I am satisfied with my purchase and look forward spending many hours with it. In closing, I would like to explain why I jumped on the Kindle bandwagon so fast, despite the fact that there are a number of slick looking eBook readers coming out within the next few months. My thinking is that even if the Kindle experience is not that great, someone will make a great eReader in the near future that is compatible with Amazon digital content. Amazon is not in the hardware business but in the “bits” business. The Kindle is just a long term play to jumpstart the digital books industry. I think that someday they will cede the actual physical bookreader market to other makers. Amazon will simply become the digital content provider that all the devices are connected too. Think if Apple opened up iTunes to any and all digital music players. Thus I am not too worried about lock-in with Amazon’s DRM.

I have made the title of this post a question to enable comments on this Tumblr post. If you have any questions or comments please do so below, or @ me on Twitter.

My photographic arms: Sony DSC-V3, iPhone, Sanyo Xacti DMX-HD800. I always have my Xacti in my bag. It takes 9MP stills and 720p video. I tend to use the V3 with a wide-angle lens on outings. My iPhone never leaves my side. After hanging around with Roy, and other truly serious camera friends, I am sincerely contemplating a DSLR. I will be dangerously tempted by the next Canon or Nikon DLSR that comes out with internal GPS. Video would be another seductive feature.
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My photographic arms: Sony DSC-V3, iPhone, Sanyo Xacti DMX-HD800.

I always have my Xacti in my bag. It takes 9MP stills and 720p video. I tend to use the V3 with a wide-angle lens on outings. My iPhone never leaves my side.

After hanging around with Roy, and other truly serious camera friends, I am sincerely contemplating a DSLR. I will be dangerously tempted by the next Canon or Nikon DLSR that comes out with internal GPS. Video would be another seductive feature.