motorcycles, technology, music, business

I typically baby my technology, but after two plus years of intense daily use, my iPhone 3G is beginning to show its age. The top corner by the “silence” rocker and headphone jack had begun to crack a little while ago. It continued to get worse and today I opted to pry it open and glue it rather than wait for it to fall off and be lost.

Of course right as I am opening the glued shut super glue tube into a plastic cup my wife comes into the kitchen and wants to have a serious talk about her feelings. Her timing is always spot on. Because of this I can confidently blame my fingerprint on her. I did succeed at not gluing the rocker, which I was careful not to do.

I do love her though and wouldn’t know what to do without her.

Photos of the process:

As we all know Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, announced a new Apple product today. For better or worse this product is called the iPad. While I don’t like this name, I understand why they chose it. The word tablet is associated with a PC or full computer. That combined with the fact that the iPad is merely an oversized iPod Touch, the iPad makes sense. However, perhaps iSlate would have been better.

Now to the point, Kindle users purchase the Kindle in order to read books and periodicals. This is the only reason they purchase the Kindle, and the Kindle fills this need quite well. The interface is intuitive enough do promote a positive user experience and the eInk is incredible and easy on the eyes.

The iPad is a web device, and millions of people will buy it for that purpose, however ebook reading is a tertiary function of the iPad. While reading from the iPad may be more physically comfortable than a laptop, however it will not be any easier on the eyes.

The price of the iPad is also somewhat inhibiting to ebook customers. The iPad starts at $499 and goes up quickly for 3G connection and increased storage. The kindle on the other hand starts at $259 and goes up to $489. So, either way, the Kindle is cheaper and has a well established ebook store.

It is of my opinion that there are still enough users out there who want an ebook reader that is an ebook reader and that’s it. The iTab will sell and sell a lot, however, it’s primary use will be for more web oriented activities.

I could see myself browsing the web and responding to emails on it while sitting on my couch, however I don’t see myself reading a book from the iPad.

I have a 2002 vintage Powerbook G4 Titanium 1 Ghz. It is still going strong and works well but the battery has a life of about 8 minutes which means it is no longer very mobile. Another thing that keeps this computer from being mobile is that it came with a 60 gig hard drive and when my music is on the internal hard drive I have roughly 3 gigs of available space, which isn’t enough to operate on. That being the case I keep my music on an external hard drive. So, the lack of battery life and the need to be tethered to a drive in order to sync my iPod really limits mobility.
My first thought was to upgrade to a new laptop but the laptop that is more realistically affordable is the new MacBook. I have tested these out in stores and I know several people who have them and while they are neat and new and have some features that I want, the overall performance didn’t seem all that much faster than my current Powerbook. My unscientific tests were done by timing how long applications took to open on both machines and there was a marginal increase in the MacBook.
For those of you not familiar with Apple computers, it would be similar to owning a 2002 Toyota Camry and trading it in for a 2008 Toyota Corolla. While it will be newer and have new features it feels more like a lateral move rather than a straight upgrade.
To make a long story shorter, I decided to upgrade my internal hard drive, replace the battery, and purchase a USB 2 pcimca card bus. In other words, I would give my old Camry a suspension upgrade, and a major tune up.
First I took the back off:

Tip: when using the star wrenches and screws try one size smaller than you think is needed and it may turn out to be a better fit.
I then took out the hard drive and didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want to cause any static charge.
Once I had the drive in I attempted to format the drive:

It took several attempts and I also needed to put my old hard drive in and create a new duplicate back up copy of that disc because the SilverKeeper program that came with my Lacie hard drive bites big donkey nads (that’s bad).
Tip: Don’t ever use SilverKeeper as a back up program. Sure it will copy your data so that you won’t lose it, but it doesn’t restore your data properly even though it states that it does. I suggest using either SmartBackup (shareware) or Personal Backup by Intego which is a company that I happen to like for some of their other software offerings. I used SmartBackup because it allowed me to use it a few times before purchase and it is also cheaper than Personal Backup.
With SmartBackup the transfer of data was smooth and relatively painless.
See, smiles all around:

As an added bonus, the laptop now runs a bit faster. Probably because of the clean OS install and also the hard drive is a faster RPM than the previous drive. I am now mobile, for the most part. I found out that the USB 2 card buses do not generate sufficient voltage to power iPods, so I need to have the card plugged into an AC outlet. That is okay though because the file transfers are significantly faster than before.